Just admit SD was a fail concept

Gameplay Dungeons, Raids and Scenarios
1

This dungeon is not good. Week after week it places as one of the worst dungeons to run regardless of the affix.
I think some more nerfs are in order so that this dungeon isn’t so feared amongst the mythic+ community.

Maybe buffing the anima lanterns to have a longer duration could help or changing the composition of some of the packs.

Of all the bosses in the game, sanguine depths has the hardest ones. The second boss does way too much damage with castigate and the mob that spawns does way too much damage. The orbs that circle also go way too fast. The fight is just chaotic and a key killer. I’d just reduce the health of the mob that spawns for starters.

Third boss is another doozy. Healing this boss on a high key on grievous week is just a nightmare. Seems like this boss should be a cakewalk but she just does a lot of damage for no real reason.

General Kaal including the gauntlet is what takes this dungeon over the top. If your group makes it this far and doesn’t wipe on the overtuned trash pack after the third boss, you now get to enter the gauntlet. This gauntlet is horrible on any affix. Quaking is the most notable of them all. I don’t think I need to mention how awful the gauntlet is to anyone that has done it. If your group makes it this far, you now get to another difficult boss.

I used to think the general Kaal fight was one of the easier ones but week after week I change my mind on that. Her bleed does a ton of damage, and the AoE is hard to avoid because the hitbox is deceiving. Please fix the hitbox and this fight will become a bit more tolerable. Also if you get quaking at the wrong time, you can just wipe.

Nerf this dungeon to the ground please

6 Likes
2

I know where you’re coming from… some of those mechanics are super tough, especially with certain affixes. I actually like this dungeon though. The first time I did it on Mythic, at the start of the expansion, I think we wiped like 10-15 times on that second boss and it was awesome!

I like mechanics that are challenging, and it feels super good when you overcome it. Now the only time I wipe is when someone makes a mistake, which is rare, but I’ll always remember that first time!

Keep in mind that a lot of the struggles you describe can be mitigated by good play.

For the second boss, make sure your group has a rough plan ahead of time as to where they’re going, and having someone call out that the orbs are coming is really helpful. If you’re ranged, and you move counter-clock-wise around the circle, you only have to move over when you see the first orb go by. It just removes something you have to worry about.

For the third boss, it helps to call out a quadrant of the arena to prefer to get orbs in. This is similar to calling a portal on the last boss of DoS. Just say, “I’ll prefer South orbs!” and then, when the orbs spawn, tend towards that area of the map. If everybody else picks a separate direction (North, East, West), then your odds of screwing each other over are diminished. This even works fine with melee heavy groups… just keep in mind that sometimes orbs don’t spawn in a quadrant, so people have to be ready to adjust. Worst case, one orb and a defensive CD will get you through, and you’ve gotta be pretty unlucky to get screwed twice in a row without a healer having something for you.

For the last boss, again, making sure you spread for the dash is important. Overlapping those bleeds can be really difficult. Communication here is critical, but if you execute correctly it’s actually pretty easy. If your comment about Quaking screwing you over is about having to stack in the shield, that shield actually mitigates quaking damage so you can just stand in it. We typically all stand around the outside of the shield anyway so there’s room for quaking, but we did a test to check and yea, the damage is reduced by the shield. Also, some classes have tricks. For example, a warlock (I know this is a forum alt, just using it as an example) can use both gateway and teleport to get out of a jam if you screw up the red beams and end up in the wrong place. As a Druid (Resto/Balance) I use Wild Charge a lot to either bounce myself away, or bring myself to another player in a better spot.

If I were to make a change, I think the only thing I would consider is maybe a bit of damage reduction on some of the trash packs. The overseers are a bit rough and some of those magic debuffs get a little out of control on groups who are light on interrupts. Still though, I think pretty much everything in SD is quite reasonable if you’ve got a plan, and I don’t think any nerfs are necessary here.

By contrast, a dungeon like DoS had a lot of things that weren’t as easy to mitigate, or make the fight really hard to keep track of. The Ardenweald boss, for example. On paper and isolated, his mechanics are fairly easy… but looking for your trap to jump in while avoiding the beams and also managing your lighting stacks is really, really tough to do. It’s a lot all at once, and if you don’t mitigate it correctly you can take 50% damage from the fall and another 50% damage from a lightning jump a the exact same time. The timings on that fight also made it so maybe you could mitigate one with defensives, but you were likely to get hit again on a second time. Blizzard nerfed this and while it’s still chaotic, it’s much more survivable now :slight_smile:

Anyway, everybody has a different perspective on things and so please understand that I’m not calling you dumb, or terrible or anything. SD can definitely be a pretty rough dungeon sometimes! Please consider the things I wrote though and see if they might change your outlook on the dungeon, after you give them a try.

If not… well… at least we can hopefully agree that those Revendreth dungeons look badass! :smiley:

2 Likes
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I appreciate the feedback but it’s still one of the worst dungeons to run on any given week. There isn’t a single time where you’ll be thinking “this is a good week to run sanguine depths”. This dungeon is always hard no matter what. You can try to sweep the problems with the dungeon under the rug with better play, but it’s still a mess.

The overall design of SD and HoA are ok. Not bad, not great

4

I dunno, to me that’s the appeal I guess. I don’t expect you to share my views on this, I just want you to understand that at least some folks out there do like varried and challenging mechanics :slight_smile:

You aren’t wrong in that SD for most affixes is definitely more challenging, and I’ve certainly emitted my share of groans when an SD key comes up when I’m just looking for a quick run. On the whole though, I appreciate that dungeon and while it’s certainly harder than a lot of other dungeons, I don’t feel it’s unreasonable.

Maybe Blizzard will find some nice middle ground tweaks in the future that will make it a bit easier for some folks, while still preserving the challenge for others :slight_smile:

I super vibe with Revendreth. I’d like to be that covenant but I’m a Druid, so Night Fae it is… /sadface.

5

Sanguine Depths is definitely one of the tougher dungeons, but I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with it. I actually the think the dreaded second boss is one of the most exciting boss encounters in the current crop of dungeons. That said, it has difficult trash, difficult bosses, and most of the dungeon is just a narrow hallway, so it interacts poorly with a ton of different affixes leading to that feeling of “there’s never a good week for SD.”

2 Likes
6

I mean, can’t that be said for all dungeons though regardless?

I wouldn’t lead the difficulty in the mechanics, I would lead the difficulty in what’s happening even when the mechanics are played properly. Even when this is done, the HPS requirement for boss 2 and 4 in SD is higher than most, and on Tyranical you can really feel it.

SD is one of two dungeons to have highest Tyranical completion be under 24.
SD is the only dungeon to have highest completion on Grievous to be under 24.
SD has 1/3rd the completion rate of the second lowest dungeon (DoS) at +20 and above.
SD has the lowest completion rate on any keystone +15 or higher.

It’s the Tol Dagor problem, where because it was a bit harder than every other dungeon and had it’s inherent problems, people would not do the key, so they would be less experienced with it, so when they finally did the key they were far more likely to make mistakes.

And there is an element of realism that we need to add to this too, SD is a longer dungeon which makes people not want to do it to begin with. I claim with this as a critics of DoS as well. If I’m doing a +15 dungeon, why would I do a 40 minute SD and DoS that are two of the hardest and longest dungeons, but are also most likely to be failed? It’s not like in a group of 4-5 premade that I generally run with, that we can’t pick another one from the set we have, and as a tank if I do go into LFG, why would I ever pick that key over someone else’s +14 or 15 Mists or HoA when there’s 50 DPS for 1 Tank?

It’s the same problem as Tol Dagor, I did two keystones for TD the entire season. One on +9 because it was early in the season, and one on +16 because I wanted to get my KSM.

3 Likes
7

Honestly, I think it’s better than ToP. They are both just badly designed in that the toughest parts of the dungeons come later, so if you know you will fail them, you’ve already put 20+ minutes into the key. In SD on Tyrann it’s 2nd and 3rd boss, then having the gauntlet after that. On Fortified the adds/gauntlet can devolve into a nightmare at higher levels. In Theater because of Pride pathing, the platforms come second to last and this is where it unravels, every.single.time something happens that kills the key. You can be blazing through having zero deaths, until the platforms. Theater just flat out is too long, too many bosses and too much trash and minibosses for either Tyrann or Fort weeks. I’ve had smooth runs through both, and the layout/storyline of each is interesting, but the dungeons themselves are too easily frustrating.

2 Likes
8

It’s not the worse. There has always been one of two dungeons that are just more difficult during a tier!

This place has some of the most unique boss fights unlike any others. Specifically the 2nd and especially the last.

I’m sorry you don’t like it…but seems like you would rather they tune it to make it easier for you…not that it’s “bad design”. If anything we need more fights similar to the second one imo.

Too many tank and spanks in dungeons!

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It’s definitely the worst in my opinion. Not in the sense that it’s harder or less fun. It’s just the most difficult key to time. Perhaps the timer is too unforgiving.

It’s been my consistently lowest timed key all season. It’s the only thing I don’t have timed above 17. I’ve lost count of how many 18s I’ve attempted and failed, but I know many of them went great, with zero wipes, good damage, and only a handful of deaths.

EDIT:

I now have everything timed at 19+ or above, and still only +17 SD. I think the timer just needs another minute or two. Dungeons should be consistent with how forgiving their timers are. It makes no sense that you can wipe several times in some and can’t have a single wipe in others.

1 Like
10

I really wish there was a dungeon where layers upon layers of red stuff can be on the ground at the same time. Some will kill you and some will not. Good luck figuring that out.

4 Likes
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On my first 10 at SD, when we were going through the hole to get to Grand Proctor, quaking lined up just right and instagibbed the whole group bc we couldn’t spread.

3 Likes
12

Maybe I should be more clear.
“… can be mitigated by a reasonable degree of good play.”

:wink:

The fights in question for SD are ones I generally find reasonable. The mechanics are challenging, but they are ones that most players should be able to overcome. Neither require you to have to focus on too many things at the same time while you play your class and the mechanics don’t contradict each other.

Per my example above, consider the Ardenweald boss in DoS. There’s three core mechanics…

  • There are beams that require you to move out of the path to avoid damage.
  • You need to stand in a trap to get launched into the air to either avoid the boss’s bombs, or the one the boss places on you. Many classes can mitigate this (leap, teleport, cat form/rogue, etc…), but not all classes can do this for every fall.
  • A lightning strike jumps between players, targeting the nearest player to whoever currently has the debuff. It leaves behind a stack of vulnerability that makes successive hits harder. Players can mitigate this by ensuring they stand closest to someone without any debuffs, giving players who do have the debuff time for it to drop off before taking another. Players can also utilize defensive abilities to mitigate incoming damage for cases where they have stacks but have to take the next debuff.

Individually, these are all perfectly reasonable mechanics. The problem is that the last two can often happen at exactly the same time. So you have one mechanic that wants you to run away from people to a trap that dropped at your feet previously, but another mechanic that requires you to position yourself next to someone so they can take the next lightning debuff while avoiding other people’s traps on the floor.

Quite often people lose track of which trap they should go in, or who is supposed to get the debuff next. They’re also often caught out of position, so the debuff jumps to the wrong person at the same time they are launched into the air. If you aren’t able to mitigate the fall, and you take an empowered lightning jump, that can often be your entire hp pool in one shot.

Excellent play can mitigate this, but several mechanics happening at once in a random pattern goes a bit beyond what is reasonable. I suspect this is part of what led Blizzard to nerf the lightning damage a while back, along with some other DoS nerfs.

So yea, all things can be overcome with good play, but there are limits. It’s my personal opinion that SD doesn’t cross any lines. It’s just more challenging than other dungeons… and I think that’s an ok thing.

13

I dunno, SD isn’t too bad. The small corridors make it more challenging. I hate the 3rd boss, but even then, I feel happy when I manage to survive it as a healer.

It’s definitely one of the harder dungeons, and no doubt that’ll make it unpopular for the pug scene… But I’ve never said no to the place, I see it as a challenge.

The only item I can think of, really, is a QoL where the traps/thrusts are a more distinct colour… there’s so much red going on in that dungeon. Give it the Denathrius treatment and make some of them orange or something.

14

SD feels better on Fortified that it does on Tyrannical. The second and third bosses on Tyrannical will quickly overwhelmed a group if the healing and DPS can’t keep up. The mechanics are reasonable enough, but the damage output from the bosses is intense.

15

I think that at least some of the mechanics in SD contradict each other (or sometimes themselves), or at least combine in ways that feel like even handling them correctly is punishing or excessively difficult. Here are some examples:

  • The Venthyr buff lanterns are all placed terribly, where they are difficult to use and expire before you get to anything you’d want the buff for. The first one is too early to have the buff for the boss. The second is… fine, but doesn’t help you get past anything you would particularly want a buff for. The third one is in the same hallway as mobs that drop puddles that block off most of the circle, if not all of it, and again it’s too early to use it for the boss. The fourth is halfway through the gauntlet, and the next pack (which you would want to pull into the circle) is a caster pack that doesn’t want to move into the radius. If you could use these buffs more effectively, like if the third lantern was placed later so you could have the buff for Tarvold and the fourth was on top of the caster pack, they would feel less bad. NW Goliaths, DOS pots, SOA spears, HOA Stoneborn, etc can all be used to power through the hard parts of the dungeon; SD pots don’t lend themselves to it at all.
  • Chamber Sentinels have a cone attack which applies a very heavy bleed DoT (ticking as hard as 4 stacks of the HoA Gargon bleed, and longer in duration). But this is one of the cones where the mob will rotate to face you as it casts; the only way to avoid it is to do goofy stuff like Heroic Leaping out of range mid-cast (while being careful not to face it at pary members). If it’s supposed to be track movement, the DoT should not deal the tank’s entire health bar, or at least should scale with how much you mitigate the initial hit or something. If it’s supposed to be avoidable, the mob shouldn’t track you while casting so that you can just sidestep, and/or the cast should be longer (it’s much faster than NW Gut Slice, PF Festering Belch, Mists Bewildering Pollen, or other avoidable cone attacks).
  • The patrols in Tarvold’s ring each pat the entire length of their side of the corridor, yet the corridor is too small to let them pass. If you get there at the wrong time, it’s hard to avoid a double pull whenever the pat happens to come back into range; there is nowhere you can back up to that is far enough to prevent that, nor can you see around the corner to plan for it. Together with random placement of Chamber Sentinels, Vestiges of Doubt that drop puddles wide enough to block the whole corridor, and Research Scribes who cannot be interrupted to make them move across/out of said puddles, it’s excessively difficult to keep pulls from going haywire, and often feels like simply a matter of luck.
  • Tarvold’s orbs are difficult to keep track of, since they’re out of sight most of the time, and yet they move too fast to easily dodge once you see them - you simply have to watch and remember every time, in a fight where you already have to watch multiple other things. If there were some kind of better indicator of where they are around the ring, or if they just moved slower, this would be less obnoxious.
  • Beryllia does unavoidable party damage via Rite of Supremancy, followed immediately by unavoidable party damage via the DoT it applies, followed immediately with more unavoidable party damage from Endless Torment, stacked with avoidable party damage which, if it hits you, would probably kill you even if the healer weren’t already trying to catch up from three different sources of unavoidable party damage (and you can’t stack up to use group defensives like AMZ, Spirit Link, etc). Why do both of these things apply DoTs on top of nearly one-shotting you? Why does Endless Torment do unavoidable damage at all? At baseline this already requires more HPS than almost any other boss, while also requiring you to move for both mechanics; on Grievous it becomes absurd because the whole party is constantly getting multiple stacks.
  • Quaking straight-up should not happen out of combat. At all. An affix that interrupts you while rezzing or sitting too close to someone while drinking is not a challenge, it’s just rude. Killing the whole party because the dungeon requires you to all stand in one place (eg SD drop to third boss, SoA angels, DOS teleports, etc) is also ridiculous. This is not a problem specific to SD, but it does become worse in SD than most places, due to cramped quarters.

I don’t mind that Beryllia is a healing check and that Tarvold is chaotic and so on. But most mechanics are puzzles that go smoothly when handled well and badly when not; big parts of SD still go badly even if you handle them pretty well.

9 Likes
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This isn’t a barrier or a metric.

Bosses 2 and 3 in SD have MEASUREABLY higher unavoidable damage out to the party than anything in DoS. And the mechanics for DoS do not contradict each other regardless of how many people say they think the Ardenweild boss does. The traps are placed in proximity to where the player is standing, the arc lightning goes to the nearest player on the bounce, you move with them if they get double targeted.

No, because the arc lightning would scale far beyond where it should have, so they adjusted accordingly. It still does a lot of damage, now it no longer deals nearly lethal damage.

So offnote to this, I can not believe the shield does not grant damage reduction to quaking. You can fully bypass it by pulling all the gauntlet and Kaal at the proper times, but the knowledge check for both quaking and the timers on Squall is a bit too cruel.

17

The only real issue I have with SD and affixes, is quaking. Even that is only in a select spot. When you’re grouping up for General Kaal’s squall blast, and quaking is about to hit. That is the only thing I think needs to be changed.

18

So there were some recent hotfixes to sanguine depths, but I don’t think they really hit the nail on the head.

Would’ve rather liked to see nerfs to the second and third bosses more than the trash in the dungeon but I guess we’ll take it…

19

Make the hallways wider!

1 Like
20

what’s wrong with the 3rd boss?

you can do it without a healer at all lol