I’ve always avoided keys because I don’t like timed content. Feels like a recurring nightmare about not being able to finish a match test on time. And I know raid boss fights are basically timed due to enrages, but its more like a pop quiz you can retake as many times as you want, and at least I’m not bricking someone’s raid if I mess up.
But I’m slowly accepting the fact that I’m just going to have to do keys at least for gilded crests before cap removal. So next season I plan to take a stab at making keys a daily grind at least until cap removal.
So what’s the best way to learn and progress in keys? Pick one key and spam it until I’m doing 7s? Or do I need to gradually increase rating across each of them more or less equally to get invited to groups? I’ve heard there are key communities I might be able to join? Any in particular that are more welcoming to the likes of me?
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I mean in my experience one or two wipes is about the limit before raid pugs start to fall apart. So that’s kind of not accurate.
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You’re a DPS
Just follow the tank around
That’s just a welcome opportunity to bio while the leads refill
Just try and find a group of people to run with somewhat regularly or semi-regularly and a lot of issues you hear about when it comes to running Mythic+ kind of go away.
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I mean assuming you find a group of roughly four other players looking for a fifth that are pretty equally skilled.
Picking the wrong group just means the problems you experience in some pugs will be consistent in your non-pug group.
Can very easily go from timing more runs than not in pugs to bricking more keys than not with your regular group. It’s just with “friends” so you can laugh it off in discord before going on to another brick. 
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Look around for groups and communities that are up for doing keys in a relaxed setting, failing that though the next best thing is to either try doing Heroic/Follower dungeons to get used to the layout and general “route” and then research the Mythic differences or try M0 if you don’t want to hop right in to 2s (which there isn’t a huge difference between those two though). The best time to also get in is right around the beginning of the season though since there seems to be a lot more lenience and patience when it’s content that hasn’t been done in awhile or is effectively brand new to M+ in some cases.
I would be hitting the training dummies before going into keys. You do whatever content you can for the gear you have, then you make sure you’re not fighting with the tank on the damage meter, if you are you need to fix your spec, build, rotation, stats, trinkets, enchant your gear, etc, etc.
You need to min/max a little, you don’t just go into keys and blast automatically. Your IO will never move up if your damage isn’t where it needs to be.
Healer you make sure you understand cooldowns otherwise you’re gonna have problems.
The main mistake I make healing is holding my CDs. Sometimes I don’t even use Apotheosis if it’s crest farm keys, which is a particularly bad habit this season because the tier set doesn’t turn on unless you use Apotheosis, which I really don’t care for tbh.
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Hold W and follow the tank , hit buttons on your keyboard and do your rotation. Watch guides on each dungeon for the season. Idk its a dungeon the timer is irrelevant its just a dungeon hold W and win esp for the level u will be doing
Just play the game
You’ll need to take a critical look at your user interface. It’s important to be able to see enemy mobs casting, target them and interrupt them quickly. And you need to learn which spells are deadly every season. I have enemy cast bars in the middle of my screen, and they are green when interuptable. A smooth key is smooth because no one was insta killed by two casts on the same frame.
You should also invest in speed on your gear. 10% speed is nice for getting out of ground targeted AoEs.
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There is no such thing as learning keys. If you take that attitude you won’t stay.
My advice. Quazii puts out some great videos before the season starts. They explain every aspect. Watch them. Go in prepared.
Then, obviously start low. Yes, you’re going to make mistakes. Everyone does early. However, you’ll move with the heard.
TLDR. Prepare, start early, stick with it, always be in it to win it.
If failure happens, get better. Preparation is key.
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These two lines don’t operate within the same post.
You’ve essentially said that you don’t learn keys you just come in ready to win. Then said that if you aren’t ready to win you can learn keys.
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I agree with you.
It’s a strange community. Because a key holder doesn’t want to brick. We all want loot.
So you can’t have the atttitude if I am going in to learn. You have to go in prepared.
However, everyone at the beginning is fine tuning, learning along the way. But they aren’t joining someone’s key fresh using it as a testing ground
Fact is that we are all, always, learning in keys.
Each attempt at a level we haven’t timed is a learning experience. So keyholders can “want to time” all they want but when you expect to brick and time anyhow you’re much better off mentally.
So I’d argue that you can’t learn keys but that’s only because we are in a constant state of learning keys.
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Going in fresh is disrespectful in my opinion.
Agreed.
Probably harder to communicate via text.
Hopefully I got my point across.
I reckon it’s the single biggest mistake people make. Go in fresh. Get told off for stuffing a simple mechanic.
Never return
Your head would explode if you knew how many tanks I’ve seen in keys who aren’t even in Delve gear. They show up in Heroic gear.
There’s this meme graphic with the little guys digging in a cave and it’s so true about the tank queue in this game. Every new tank rushes into Heroic as fast as they can, replaces the slots, then immediately starts M+.
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Tanks are without a doubt the worst offenders of this “be ready” rule.
List a +12 and the first three tanks you see are probably going to be ~645 because they are used to being instantly invited and carried.
You can read all of the guides, watch all of the breakdowns, run the dungeons on norm and heroic or even 0, and hit the dummies for hours on end.
But until you’ve actually timed the key AT THAT LEVEL and on that role you are “going in fresh” on every run. So if this is a bad thing or doing it the wrong way then we all need to stop running mythics at all.
What gets people to quit is the idea that they need to be good enough to time all of their keys without actually experiencing them. Because if they fail they see it as hitting a wall when in reality they just have a lot to learn.
The single biggest mistake a person makes when they start keys is thinking they are the main character and that all success and failure falls on them.
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All good.
I don’t have that give up mentality.
I go in prepared. With the opinion of timing it. Flasked etc.
I make mistakes. I try not to make them again.
Take it how you want to. If you go in thinking this is a learning key every time, and it disbands before defeating the first boss every time, what do you learn?
Good luck on your m+ journey. I love M+ I hope you learn to love it too
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Do 2s and 3s and just keep pushing to acclimate. They are very easy and people are chill in them. Observe other players and how they handle mechanics, but a most of it it is common sense if you’ve played WoW enough to know what Blizzard likes to do. Watch some boss guides if you’re really dedicated.
Once you want to push 7 or higher I’d try to do that on a fortified week because tyrannical can brick a key easier than fortified. In my experience pushing up to 6s has been pretty easy; I’ve only tried one 7 that flopped because we wiped on the third boss so the tank rage quit. I may try one more this week now that I have my 8 done, but I’m planning to care more about 7s next week when it switches to fortified.
2s and 3s are so easy it really doesn’t even matter. All I did the first two weeks I started on M+ was just queue for those. You have to be willing to observe what is going on though so you are learning. You could also just do M0s if you really wanted to, but I never even touched em.