Keys at the breakpoints are significantly more common and chill than others. These are +2 (the lowest), +6 (drops hero gear), +7 (drops gilded crests), and +10 (puts myth gear in your vault). You get all of those rewards whether you time or not, so a group that’s focused on getting gear or crests is less likely to be hardcore about hitting the timer. It may be worth running some +6/+7 in this season, while gear’s easy to get, to pick up some experience.
As long as your group doesn’t break up, the worst thing that can happen is that the keystone is downgraded instead of upgraded. You’ll still get gear, crests, vault, quest completion, the works.
Avoid groups that say e.g. ++10, that means that they want to finish with extra time to spare so their key gets upgraded. Groups that say they want to time in group finder probably mean it. Groups that are for weekly/vault or just say they want completion, don’t care about the timer.
Utility is a lot more important than raw DPS when it comes to your performance. People will forgive a DPS number that’s low if you’re using your interrupts, defensive cooldowns, and buffs. Make sure you keep the healer soulstoned. Depending on the dungeon (and the route the tank chooses) you might be asked to banish something or put a demonic gateway at a particular place; if you’re ever unsure, you can always ask before the dungeon starts.
As a solo player who started M+ big time about this time last season, the biggest thing for me to get a handle on was defensive cooldowns. Keep an eye on your health and try to help your healer out when you can.
Agreed. You have to brick keys to improve them.
I have a guildie who is working on his fourth 3k-rated tank this season, he bricks more keys than anyone I know. But he’s always focused on what happened, what did I do wrong, what could I do better, what could the group do better? and that’s the mindset you need. Continual improvement.