Let's Talk about M+ Boss Mechanics

There are a lot of threads about Tyrannical being required in 9.1 to get KSM and the misconception that Tyrannical is more challenging than Fortified. At the +15 key level, the two affixes are balanced; even with the trash buffing affixes on Tyrannical weeks. It isn’t until high keys where Tyrannical scaling runs into unintended consequences. The game was designed and scaled for +15s and it is. In an infinitely scaling system, it will break no matter what at certain points given the affix. It doesn’t change the fact that for KSM, it is balanced.

Some people hate Tyrannical because it is a “damage sponge”, but I feel most hate it because they don’t understand the boss mechanics. They do okay on fortified because boss damage is more forgiving, but they make the same errors on Tyrannical and die. Many people think they understand mechanics, but they clearly don’t when I group with them.

Here is a list of boss mechanics for M+ that is commonly overlooked:
Edited: Updated some information for season 2.

Hakkar’s Blood Barrier: Using immunities and defensives decreases the shield he gets. Pop your cd right before his ability goes off.

Manastorms: Echo Finger Laser X-treme needs to pass through Millhouse, but you need to move out after the laser to not get stunned. You also don’t want to kill Millhouse before Millificent phases in, or else you won’t have the stun to stop the raining chickens.

Dealer Xy’exa: Lightning stacks and making sure you pass it to the right people, don’t give it to someone who already has a bomb.

Echelon: Adds won’t start casting until they get hit. Stack on tank and wait for them to move in. You can even decurse the person who will get jumped on so they don’t take damage if they move out in time.

HoA in general: You can control multiple Gargoyles at the same time. The trick is to tag both Gargoyles, bring them into range, and button mash your ability.

Lord Chamerlain: The statues shoot off in the direction they are facing once he targets one of them. You can visually see which statue is selected with the beam he shoots at. You can also soak more than 1 beam without taking additional damage by moving into the bosses hit box.

Ingra Maloch: You want to time Lust at 40% HP on the tree. If Ingra is at ~20% or below after burn phase - stay on the boss.

Tred’ova: Acid Expulsion follows your movements during previous ability casts. If you run across the map, the green swirlies will run across the map. Move as little as you need to.

Doctor Ickus: You can cc the purple slime to prevent the dmg reduction debuff.

Margrave Stradama: Only the tank needs to soak the big guy, no one else should be in the frontal marked by a green circle.

Kyrxis the Voracious: Group should be staggering the Living Essences. If the whole group soaks them at the same time, it will likely kill someone. You can also use an immunity on the Juggernaut Rush to prevent group wide damage, but make sure you face the boss away from the group if you are going to immune it.

Executor Tarvold: Many classes have ways to stop Castigate when it is targeted on you. Using immunities or even feign death and shadowmeld.

Grand Proctor Beryllia: When collecting orbs, you want to get 3. Alternatively, you can cycle players using immunities to everyone can get 4. Tanks only really need 1 or 2.

Venturnax: Balls shoot out in a clockwise direction from the swirlie. Tanks can stack 2 swirlies on top of each other before moving her for recharge so there are less points of origin.

Oryphrion: Use 1 minute cds at the start, but save big cds for when boss is Drained and recharging. Boss takes 100% extra damage.

SoA in general: Kyrians can activate the goliaths that will drop big anima orbs. Pick one up quickly because they will despawn. Once gathered, stay stacked on the tank. The buff will deal constant aoe damage around you and being grouped will maximize damage.

Blightbone: Turn the boss away from the group when targeted by Heaving Retch.

Surgeon Sitchflesh: You can easily one phase the boss with double Spear and no lust. Save lust and 3rd spear for last boss. If you can’t one phase the boss, point the 3rd hook back towards the platform. Boss will jump back up right before the 3rd hook goes off and will miss otherwise.

Nalthor the Rimebinder: Saving Lust and a Spear will shorten the boss fight considerably. During Comet Storm, run in a tight circle and you won’t run into anyone else. You can also use Hammers to break down his Icebound Aegis.

Xav the Unfallen: Kill whoever doesn’t have cds up during duels. Winner of the duel gets a buff.

Mordretha: Stand on the edge of the arena and you can see the Ghostly Charge much better.

48 Likes

I agree. Tyrannical fights do introduce some mechanics you otherwise wouldn’t have to deal with on a Fortified week…so players are often not used to them/haven’t seen them before. Most mechanics are pretty easy to deal with, but Tyrannical weeks can be especially difficult when they start overlapping, like in Theatre of Pain or mists for example.

:two_hearts: for the tips

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The most frequent mechanical failures I see are Manastorm, Hakkar, Lord Chamberlain, and Tred’Ova. I’d say in that order.

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The issue with tyrannical is three-fold. First is that many bosses get harder the longer they are alive. This is rare with trash packs. Second is that when you wipe the boss heals back to full, whereas dead mobs stay dead on fortified. This means a wipe at low health is usually a ripped key. Third is that cds and pride are often used with bosses, so a wipe there means you’re in trouble on the next pull.

Generally, Tyrannical is just less forgiving of mistakes.

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Same thing happens to trash packs if you wipe on it. Sure the ones you killed stay dead, but it’s the same thing for the ones that were 10%. I get your point though, but boss mechanics should not be getting so royally failed at +15s.

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i think that’s probably it. wow is forgiving of mistakes in like 95% of its content, so it really does feel bad to fail stuff.

i don’t think there’s anything wrong with that for an environment like m+

and the mistakes you’d have to make to fail a tyrannical are…pretty big ones. Wiping on a boss, or Pride, should honestly be GG. That’s the equivalent of losing like a town hall or hero in an RTS game. shouldn’t matter which boss it is, first, second, last…how forgiving should it be to fail that badly? be honest with yourself here

Should be a sticky. I haven’t tried keys higher than +18 but I am indifferent when it comes tyrannical vs fortified as far as doing keys. I don’t take weeks off from pugging my vault. However when I look at how the affix affects players mentally, I think tyrannical weeks is such a morale killer that it just permeates to the whole community. Put feelings aside and ask yourself if you are doing the best you can in tyrannical weeks especially with the tips the OP presented.

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I bet if people weren’t wiping and bricking keys from mechanics, there wouldn’t be so much hate for the lower key levels. I hope people learn from it, cause the patch is coming…eventually.

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I hear you. I’m not perfect when it comes to boss mechanics but I have the luxury of having a cheat death with cauterize so my mistakes aren’t always detrimental to the group. I won’t have it anymore switching specs next season so those same mishaps will be even more magnified and potentially costly meaning I have to improve with boss mechanics on tyrannical weeks.

Speaking of each oh the horrors of putting in 400+ runs this spec and having to grind the knowledge and experience all over again with another spec next season. :scream_cat:

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Tyrannical means = 14-15 and done. Why push on something you know you’re not going to enjoy?
wiggles toes

Bad players will cry whenever a change comes out that doesn’t spoon feed them rewards for being bad.

Good changes to KSM

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Fantastic list!

I didn’t know the force field also benefits Devos!

Or that the adds on Echelon didn’t cast until hit. I always thought it weird that sometimes they would move right to me, but other times they’d start casting out in nowhereland.

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This is not true provided you actually dealt with some of the trash.

If we wipe on say the 3rd boss gauntlet waves and just the big abom is left up, we only have the big abom left once we get back. If we wipe on the boss at 1%, we are back facing a fully healthy boss and down any and all CD’s/pride invested.

Fortified wipes tend to happen fast and at least come with a slightly easier pull on the next go because some of the trash is dead (not to mention you can CC it if it really is problematic). Boss wipes on tyrannical literally cost you the key because most people aren’t timing a 15+ by 4+ minutes which is easily what a tyrannical wipe costs you.

I think what Blizzard should consider is making bosses heal a flat 20% of lost HP and a rapidly healing aura that stops as soon as they are attacked again when a group wipes. This encourages groups to get back and pull ASAP and gives them the hope that they can still make it by giving them still a meaty boss. Granted this kind of setup would be weird or not feasible with certain bosses, but alas.

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I wouldn’t mind bosses having a heal threshold if wiped on.

25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%.

Boss health is reset to one of the above values based on it’s hp when combat ends.

Will at least mean a wipe isn’t guaranteed key ending similar to fortified.

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The real issue is having to time twice as many keys. As if it wasn’t grindy enough. Slowly grinding up 2 ladders is not going to be fun.

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tyrannical bad. boss do much damage. fortified good. can chain cc and healer can heal through me in fire. streamers say tyrannical bad which mean tyrannical bad.

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That’s not true though, OP is mistaken.

This is real though. If you hold DPS, they’ll naturally gather towards the middle before they start targeting players, whereas if you damage them as soon as they spawn they’ll start retaliating right away.

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I admit I’m still partial to my idea but yes something can/should be done to make wiping on a boss less of an immediate fail of the key and a big part of the problem will be gone in 9.1 when pride goes the frick away and is replaced by powers. At least then wiping on a boss doesn’t immediately cost you the power derived from your powers like it does losing pride.

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Help! What is the pattern for how Lord Chamberlain throws the statues at individuals and is there any visual tell?

From what I understand, it goes in the direction that it’s looking, but that doesn’t stop me from getting by it lol. The eyes point in a sort of direction.

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