M+ seasonal affix change

Gameplay Dungeons, Raids and Scenarios
1

I really would love if the season affix was swapped with tyrannical/fort. Having the season’s affix available from the get go feels like it would be a more natural spot for it, and it’s a shame that only those doing 10’s+ get to experience the uniqueness of the season.

I understand that having tyrannical/fort was a big hurdle for many players going from a 9 key to a 10 key in Legion, but that can eventually be out geared, especially with how the game throws gear at us now with the WQ cache scaling and Darkshore warfront stuff.

I get that depending on the affix, it may require more coordination out the gate, but shouldn’t the point of a seasonal affix be something impactful but temporary for EVERYONE?

I would be curious to hear your thoughts on if you agree, or disagree, and why?

2 Likes
2

There isn’t a single branch of content with this as a design decision. 2-9 is average mythic plus, 10+ is for the more advanced players and I think reaping would wall the intended audience for 2s and 3s.

3

I am not so sure i feel like I would enjoy reaping at a +2-9 over tyrannical or fort. This seasonal affix would be much less of a restraint on groups by a lot. Also people that dont get to do a +10 or higher never get to even experience the affix.

1 Like
4

Reaping is both easier and more fun than fortified/tyrannical tho.

I tend to agree with the OP that it’s a shame that people running lower M+ never get to see the more interesting seasonal affixes.

5 Likes
5

It is not easier than a small hp/damage modifier. Managing 10-20 mobs with a must dispel dot, must interrupt cast and the ability to 1 shot tanks has a much higher skill requirement than base mob mechanics with a little spit on it.

It is, no disagreement from me there. I hardly notice Tyrannical and Fortified outside bosses dragging on Tyrannical weeks.

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6

While I get what you’re saying, I think tyrannical/fort is and should still be intended as a larger step up. Tyrannical/fort set the bar in Legion as the clear break point for the average m+ players to the more advanced ones (until they out geared it).

I would have hated dealing with infested on every key in S1, but again, it’s just what the seasonal affix was. Because it wasn’t a permanent affix, I would have been okay with it in the end. Reaping, is just an aoe fest for the most part, but it’s fun.

Another consideration is that the affix would also scale. Most players would have out geared it so highly that the skill needed to handle the infested adds on low keys (in terms of coordinating CC etc.) wouldn’t have been necessary. You likely could have nuked them down quicker than they could have spread. The same holds true for reaping. At low keys, most people could ignore the grave bolt casts and just aoe blast everything. As the key gets higher, so does the demand for managing their abilities and dodging the circles. It’s a good learning curve for the affix itself and feels like it would be the correct progression for it.

Fort doesn’t impact the reaped adds if I recall (might be wrong) so it wouldn’t exponentially impact the demand of reaping from a 9 key to a 10 key either. This means you would have more time with the seasonal affix to learn in and would make the adaptation for dealing with fort/tyrannical easier since you’ve already been learning what all the trash and boss mechanics are since normal dungeons, so it would just be a matter of execution at that point.

Just my two cents of course.

1 Like
7

This seems like the biggest mystery in wow right now. Reaping adds have 50% of the original mobs hp. So it would make sense that it would be 50% of a fortified trash mob. At the same time, if that 50% hp was then fortified, after coming from a fortified mob, it would be double dipping.

I’m confident that the reaping adds arent fortified, but not as confident that the reaping adds aren’t effected by the original mobs being fortified.

More on topic, we’re talking about players so bad at managing base dungeon mechanics that they think tyr and Fort matter at 2. Shadow smash in a tight hallway is tough to not only see, but also get out of (especially if there are multiple). If I eat one by accident, it’s 70-80% and the dot can stack up to tick me dead right away.

I think the disagreement is based on faith in the low key community. There is an inverse difficulty curve to mythic plus as the higher you go, the more skilled and knowledgeable you team becomes. I’ve wiped in a 4 pug that I joined to test out a talent because I couldn’t carry every mechanic. (tank was making very strange pull decisions, unclear if healer was distracted irl).

As far as affixes go, there is no easier time than hp/damage in the practice levels.

1 Like
8

Maybe not in mechanical terms, but the raw DPS output needed to time keys with fortified/tyrannical is part of the difficulty of the affix.

2 Likes
9

Not timing a 2 carries no penalty outside time lost during the run and 1 item drop. People should be satisfied with their own personal progression, regardless of what that is. For me it’s 12s, for others it’s 21s, others it’s 4s.

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10

I realise you don’t care but the point of the OP was the people who are “satisfied with 4s” don’t ever get to see the most interesting affix. But they do get to see the most boring one.

3 Likes
11

If there was a way for them to experience seasonal affixes I’d be all for that. But changing the current system to suit the lowest common denominator would break M+. The affixes would have to be dumbed down to potato level. The infested affix from season1 would have stopped people at lvl 2.

1 Like
12

More on topic, we’re talking about players so bad at managing base dungeon mechanics that they think tyr and Fort matter at 2. Shadow smash in a tight hallway is tough to not only see, but also get out of (especially if there are multiple). If I eat one by accident, it’s 70-80% and the dot can stack up to tick me dead right away.

I think the disagreement is based on faith in the low key community. There is an inverse difficulty curve to mythic plus as the higher you go, the more skilled and knowledgeable you team becomes. I’ve wiped in a 4 pug that I joined to test out a talent because I couldn’t carry every mechanic. (tank was making very strange pull decisions, unclear if healer was distracted irl).

As far as affixes go, there is no easier time than hp/damage in the practice levels.

Yea, I also get what you’re saying here and I too have even wiped repeatedly in a 0 because the group couldn’t handle mechanics, but I still think it would be easier to have reaping at a 2 and tyrannical or fort. It could just be my imagination, but this is how I am thinking about it…

The HP/Damage modifier on a 2 key is 0%, and only 8% at a 3 key.

If we threw reaping into that, the reaped mobs on a 2 key would be half the NORMAL hp value than if you were doing a 0. I imagine this would make the reaped adds about as difficult as normal difficulty dungeon trash. Because of that, they would die pretty dang fast and most mechanics wouldn’t be near as impactful (I’d imagine). Aso, you’d also only have to deal with 5 waves of reaped mobs.

With fort, the mobs already have 20% more hp and deal 30% more damage on a 2 key, making ALL trash pulls much more impactful and demanding on the group. I feel think would up the difficulty immediately from a 2+. The boss fights would be exactly the same as the standard scaling as you increase keys so no impact there obviously.

On tyrannical, the trash difficulty would be the same as if my proposed affix swap were in affect. This means the difficulty of the dungeon on low keys would be more consistent. The boss difficulty would obviously go up because the 40% hp and 15% damage, but I don’t think this really adds anything to the keys at lower levels other than just making it take longer and frustrating those bad players we mentioned. It’s not exciting by any means, so instead of making it a thing, just save that for higher keys where the player skill matters more and slap the season affix here instead. At least that would be more fun (subjective) and it wouldn’t throw the skill demand into such a higher bracket because of the scaling off the affix I mentioned.

Am I wrong to think about it like this?

1 Like
13

The spell cast is 25% of your HP in damage. The smash is max hp reduction. Even if the mobs hit like a wet noodle, those numbers will crush a +2 group who doesn’t obey mechanics more than Tyr/Fort

14

The affixes would have to be dumbed down to potato level. The infested affix from season1 would have stopped people at lvl 2.

See, I am not so sure about that tho because the affix would scale. If at a low key the mob as so little hp it’s largely trivial it wouldn’t impact things. If it scaled with the modifier of the dungeon, it would eventually get harder and harder as you climb up keys to the point where it would start to matter. At this level, the player skill should be higher and the coordination of the group should be needed.

Again, I may just be thinking about it wrong, but it seems like a more steady sense of progression for me in this manner without actually impacting the higher keys negatively. By the time you get to that 10, all the affixes, in their current difficulty iterations, would be the same.

1 Like
15

Are we even playing the same game? Infested wasn’t a very difficult affix at all. It slowed you down somewhat, but so does tyrannical/fortified.

16

Don’t know who you’re quoting, but their either satisfied or they aren’t. My point is that the boring one offers minimal additional challenges, which is what entry level should be. Those of us pushing 10+ are seeking challenges past baseline mythic plus (legion affixes). Considering the absolute disruption that reaping causes, it would be not o ly more entertaining, but also way more difficult.

17

And you’re always the first to point out that tyr/fort require more time to clear dungeons. News flash: it’s not legion. Legion was about getting through dungeons. BFA is about timing them because the timers are tight.

18

The spell cast is 25% of your HP in damage.

Ah, you’re right. I forgot about that. Still, I think even with that, the mob hp would be so low on lower keys it would be a steady progression path for learning the mechanics that it wouldn’t matter much at a 2.

19

Still not seeing your point. Infested is an easier affix than Fort/Tyrannical any way you want to look at it. The time taken to deal with infested mobs is way less than the time taken to burn though 20% more total HP in the dungeon.

20

And the smash is 20% max hp reduction I think. Lasts 1 min. So if the tank stands in a couple of them he can’t pull the boss or a pack without risking dying.