Hello!
The purpose of this post is to provide feedback for the M+ season. I will break down my general thoughts and then a dungeon-by dungeon breakdown of what works and what doesn’t work.
Who am I to be giving feedback?
Currently, I am a 3k Rsham. I’m also above KSH on: Disc priest, Aug, Destro lock, Guardian druid. I hit 2400 on my rogue but can’t be bothered to time a COT. I feel like this is a balanced assortment as i have seen every aspect of a key.
Mythic+ is the sole aspect of this game I engage with. I do not raid, I do not farm mounts.
I mostly pug. All keys I’ve timed 12+ have been pugs. I mostly make my own keys.
General, unsorted thoughts.
Gearing alts is at an all time peak. Finding a piece of gear and wanting to use it is the primary reason I have the alts that I do. Getting Harbinger of the Runed makes gearing alts MUCH better than last season.
The kiss/curse style of the new affixes is fun and interactive. There’s implementation problems(Such as the collect the orbs on the last boss in Mists), but otherwise the concept is excellent and very fun. Having extra stats makes classes feel good. Aug with CDR is incredibly fun to play.
Delves have rendered keys 1-6 nearly obsolete. This has already been acknowledged in an interview so I won’t…delve too deeply into the topic.(Not sorry.)
Bricking a key from a 7 to a 6 is over an hour of wasted time. Trying to find people to run a 6 is nearly impossible unless it’s peak hours or the weekend, leading to a much more toxic pugging environment for people just getting into the content(Either graduating from delves or normal raids.)
Bricking keys in general is too punishing. . One wipe when a boss is sub 50% is a brick, and a brick takes ~1-1.5 hours to restore. (Assuming the entire party is appropriately geared for the content. No higher ilevels) Tank misses a patty cake= -1 hour in your day.
The 15 second death penalty is heavy handed and has failed. I understand the purpose. last season you could time a very high key with 20 deaths.
This penalty has led to a difficulty spike between 6s and 7s. It’s not a linear transition. Anytime you have pain points, pugs tend to smooth out the pain points by not inviting anyone that actually needs gear. I don’t invite anyone that’s learning to my weekly 10s, the liability is too high. 620, 2400. MINIMUM.
The difficulty spikes this season are between: 6s to 7s(Death timer); 9s to 10s(tyr+fort); and 11s to 12s(loss of affix AND 10%). The biggest one is the jump from 11s to 12s. I would say 12s are twice as difficult as 10s. This non-linear progression of difficulty is
confusing and off putting. The 7 jump can be mitigated by removing the death timer, the 10 jump i think is fine as a ‘final boss’ for the average key runner to aspire to, and the 12 jump can be mitigated by keeping the affix. It’s infinite content, let the scaling weed us out, not intentionally removing a FUN mechanic. #fun detected
As someone that doesn’t raid, having a dud vault is the worst feeling ever. The disparity between hero and myth track loot is too high to ignore like you could last season. Instead of sockets, the currency reward should be able to bump up the track of a fully upgraded piece of loot. Make it cost 12 so for every 2 duds you can upgrade a sacbrood or a skardyn’s.
Changing classes based of of feedback is fine, but completely re-working classes mid season is incredibly lame. See elemental shammies having to re-gear for different stats.
Balance in general has been all over the place. Many efforts to fix Rdruids, they still can’t keep up with the burst.(On average compared to a similarly geared shaman or disc.)
Give warriors a bloodlust. They provide no group utility outside of tanking. There is literally 0 reason to bring a DPS warrior when Ret pally exists. Ret pally does good damage and MASSIVE utility. Fury warrior…does decent damage.
Feedback by dungeon
Ara-Kara- Good dungeon that has a lot of player choice as to what trash to take and which route to go. Second boss should have better indication that the charge targets the furthest person. That charge kills priests without dispersion or a spare pain sup. The mechanic is fine, just the targeting indicatio could be clearer. Last boss shouldn’t be able to throw player corpses outside of the arena. Makes them very hard to brez.
Dawnbreaker- Cool concept in that you choose exactly what trash you want to interact with. Pure freedom of route with the exception of the first few encounters. That being said, mounted dungeon with severe clipping issues on the boats isn’t fun. Even recently I’ve seen tanks clip through the stairs and we have to wait 30 seconds for them to die to the fall. Losing 45 of key time to crappy geometry is infuriating.
Mists-Maze is a ‘mythic plus time waster’. Same as the sped up section in DOTI. High level key runners will addon it, or just make the healer do it.(Me). Adding content just to waste time in keys is lame. I understand that’s an old dungeon, but it was picked this season.
Stonevault- There needs to be proper indication that a mechanic is different from others of the same type. The first boss requires a properly timed dispel, and without pulling out the dungeon journal and reading that, there is no feedback for the healer other than being told by the tank(In colorful, pug friendly language.) A simple /e status message saying something along the lines of ‘the remains of [DOT] are protecting [noob warrior] for a short time!’ would be enough.
Instant cast curses that deal 30% of a target’s health every 2 seconds are too punishing. The curses in Dawnbreaker can be interrupted, and deal less damage. On top of the big aoe smash, it’s a panic healing mess.
This dungeon loves globaling tanks if the melee swings of the mobs sync up(Ie the tank leaps or charges.) Adding a 1 second melee variation on first swing would stagger it enough for a proper reaction. This is unique to here because of the debuff swing.
The choice on where to go first is nice. There should be more choices for the buff.
Siege-Was terrible to do week 1 on a 10, has since been patched. Patched is good.
Necrotic wake- Good work with the patches. The nerf to spear stacking encouraged spears on other places instead of 3 for Stitchflesh, which is better. This would have been terrible if stitch was still a run killer.
Grim Batol- Built to appeal to cataclysm andys. Terrible M+ Dungeon. Need every bit of trash, so there’s no real route variation. Every single mob in this dungeon does something that can wipe you if not handled correctly. Random guys with polearms do more than bosses in terms of tank-busters. If the tank misses 2%, the run to get that 2% takes MINUTES. On top of the already very tight timer, ANY mistakes here compound to a key brick. Requires too many curse dispels leading to strict meta sweating. Loot table has too many items for the same spec, very hard to farm the thing you need(Skardyns.)
COT- Overtuned. A 10 COT feels like an 11 anything else.
There should be better visual indications for the orb dispel on the first boss. If the person you’re dispelling is on the other side of the boss, it’s pretty hard to aim.
Second boss is fine. It’s not intuitive that the ground aoe does damage before it explodes, leading people to stay in longer than required. The indication is for something that WILL deal damage not something that is currently doing damage.
Last boss needs better indication as to where the orbs will go. Currently there’s a small particle effect, it’s not enough for how fast they move.
