M+ Tuning Thoughts

Gameplay Dungeons, Raids and Scenarios
1

It seems Blizzard is done tuning dungeons which doesn’t make sense as a lot of them still need work. Here are my thoughts as a person getting into 20s now. I am sure I will get a lot of comments along the lines of “get gud” but as a person that mostly pugs this is what I see as pain points.

Algathar Academy

  • Severing Slash on Battleaxes could stand to be nerfed considering you need stops for everything else on this trash.
  • Astral Whirlwind should be cast less often so melee can actually do something.
  • Ravager health nerf, these things just wont die.
  • Tree Boss
    • Only pain point is still gathering adds as a tank and surviving poison + barkbreaker. If you don’t have a dispel this seems hard to impossible. Just needs a small damage adjustment.
  • Crawth
    • Health nerf. This fight takes too long. Maybe adjust screech damage so you need to phase the boss more quickly to compensate.
    • Wind phase is obnoxious. Remove the hard-to-see whirlwinds or turn off the wind push.
  • Vexamus
    • Mana Bomb damage needs a nerf. There is a reason groups were LOSing it.
    • Maybe some kind of cooldown between bombs and fissure so they don’t overlap without coordinating a particular # of orbs reaching him.
  • Dragon Boss
    • Breath needs like .5 seconds added to it as it is very hard to dodge right now.
    • Immunity to orbs while being pulled in. It feels random and terrible when you get hit during the suck.

Azure Vaults

  • Breakers need a damage nerf, Slam + Roar is a lot on Fort week.
  • Ice cutter need to be avoidable like HoV or get a fat nerf.
  • Second boss
    • adds need to spawn slower so melee can actually do something.
    • Fixed number of immune phases, probably based on health percentage
  • Fourth Boss
    • Crystal health nerf, very tough for melee groups to down them all
    • Alternatively cluster crystals more so tank doesn’t need to be up on a wall

Court of Stars

  • Just get rid of the RP. I wouldn’t mind losing the detection game either.
  • Mana Saber leaps are another one of those random terrible one-shots that seem to be in a lot of these dungeons.

Halls of Valor

  • Can we just remove the Sentinels? Terrible trash but this season has almost no other skips so people aren’t buying invis pots. It’s not like this dungeon needs more trash or to be longer.
  • Odyn’s Runic Brand still needs more nerfs. I would prefer it if it was just a timer and if you didn’t hit your rune you died.
  • The dungeon as a whole has too many backsteppable frontals. This is no fun to tank properly.

Nokhud Offensive

  • In general this dungeon sucks on Fort. Just way too much random damage. I have been two shot here multiple times within literally 0.4 seconds.
  • Ohunas in Granyth area do far too much focused damage on fort week. The cleave on the big guys is annoying for trash that requires so much movement and should probably just go away. Finally swift stab is ridiculous damage on fort and double swift stab might as well be gg.
  • Tempest trash casts are pretty ridiculous too on fort, including the thunder rhino.
  • Twins boss
    • Gale arrow initial hit needs to do less damage. I realize it is the main healing check in the fight, but it sucks if you are a class without two defensives.
    • Melee uptime on this fight is atrocious. Maybe desync Leap and fear.
  • Last Boss
    • Stormbolt on adds is ridiculous and needs a hefty nerf.
    • Intermission phase push + swirlies is obnoxious especially as a healer because you actually need to heal some legitimate damage ticking damage as well as stormbolts that get through.
    • Swirlies in last phase can also go or need to be far less common.

Ruby Life Pools

  • Drakebreaker mini boss is terrifying and way too long on fort week.
  • Dragon patrols are awful to predict and super pug unfriendly.
  • Last mini-boss is also frightening. Mostly the shield needs a nerf, it scales really badly on fort.
  • Kokia
    • Ground damage needs more nerfs, it shouldn’t tick for ⅓ of your health if you get separated from your group by accident.
  • Third Boss
    • Flame spit should be nerfed the same as the dot and I think it would be in a good spot.
    • Killing the dragon in the first phase seems like an obtuse strategy that penalizes melee if everyone is not between the statues, but I realize this is unlikely to change.
    • Aggro drops again between phases. Can we stop having this be a thing?

Shadowmoon Burial Grounds

  • What is with the random tankbusters like Void Slash on trash?
  • The Sophie’s choice of kicking dominators vs the tank getting absolutely slammed is not that interesting. Maybe we are doing this wrong.
  • Second boss
    • Killing your own add is trivial or impossible based on your class. A lot of demo warlocks struggle with this but the tank and healer ones just fall over.
  • Nerf Bonemaw HP please.

Temple of Jade Serpent

  • Panda dot needs a nerf. This trash is just dumb and you see why it is not played at high keys.
  • Last trash pack before Sha still needs at least one add dropped or a Dark Claw nerf.
  • Third Boss
    • Waves need to be visible earlier. This is very frustrating as a tank or melee especially in the green phase where there are green waves on green streaks.
    • Maybe the second phase tank buster needs a small nerf?
    • The aggro drop into the third phase is annoying.
6 Likes
2

They are the pain point for tanks but isn’t that bad. Just got to respect them.

If fight on stairs you can dps freely.

Isn’t that bad you los jumps and just chain pull it around.

Nope this boss is a joke now. If you are struggling then it’s a you issue. I rather they make this boss harder. I’ve killed it on 2 different tanks without dispel. Besides you monk main you always have a dispel.

It is painful reason even in. 22,s I don’t do wind at all except right at end.

Breath is fine. Move the boss away from puddles.

It is avoidable…

It adds skill to tanking so they can force clumping.

Hov is imo the most fun tank dungeon. You can avoid damage but side stepping and kiting. Allows for bigger pulls. Maybe tanking isn’t for you if don’t want to use skill and creativity?

Nk is my favourite dungeon to tank and dps.

Birds are the least worrying trash. Swift stab is nasty you need to cc the casts. Cleave is fine.

It’s punishing not ridiculous while overtuned has huge counter play. Tanks can avoid all the damage by side stepping.

They are telegraphed and simple to see, don’t understand issue here. Most skip last patrol.

Last mini boss is the add shields you counter. If you do you counter the boss. Kokia you screw up the mechanics you are punished. I like this design. If get seperated that’s on you.

Only thing here I agree with is flame spit does too much damage. Rest is non issue.

There is no choice they do the damage anyway. If you interupt early just makes these packs crazy hard. You doing something wrong.

Only way a demo lock struggles is if they have no brain. I see demo locks get out before melee often. Yeah bonemaw iss more bonesnore.

Agreed pandas are painful.
Last pack is very overtuned reason courtyard is the play.
Third boss waves are fine. The tank damage is overtuned. When only couple of tanks can do it at high level. There is an issue. Tbh last boss is worse than that on Tyran.

3

You’re in the 2k io range of keys. None of what you listed is an issue beyond player skill level in that key range. Especially this

How is it an “accident” to go the wrong way? Lol

1 Like
4

The best way to do bird boss is to do 5 in the first phase with coordinated personals / externals. This lets you 2 minute on pull and 2 minute again at the start of fire phase (Usually lust pull for time but can probably hold for fire if you’re running super hot after tree) Then 3/4 in fire and maybe spend 10-15 seconds in wind.

5

You don’t have pain “points” you have pain everything. You are literally nuking everything. Lmao. This is entirely a gid gud situation.

Coming from someone who only pugs.

3 Likes
6

Besides some outlier bosses, I think the dungeon tuning is good overall. Notable exceptions are Thunderhead in RLP (this DoT ticks too fast), Stormspeakers in NO (Surge needs a nerf to cast time or something), and Stormforged Sentinel (way too anti-melee/too much HP + a shield, and virtually unpullable with other trash). You could argue the trash around Balakar Khan is ridiculous, but Blizzard just lets us skip it, so nobody routes it.

As for bosses, I think an acceptable difficulty is somewhere around The Raging Tempest, and he could probably use a slight tweak for his orb buffs to be more sustainable, since he’s a big damage sponge in high Tyrannical keys.

-Azureblade: Something needs to change. Either several things in small amounts, or a larger nerf to one aspect; melee, casters, and especially Evokers, struggle bad here. The intermissions are brutal for the latter two, but melee suffers being inefficient in phase 1 without a DK. This boss craps out adds constantly, and the orbs are very rapid in Phase 2 and force a tremendous amount of movement. Furthermore, when the illusions die they also splatter a bunch of AoE all over the floor, forcing even more movement. She doesn’t spend enough time in P1 to justify the frequency of adds, and she forces too much movement on top of a LOT of group damage during the intermission. I’d like to see adds buffed, and orb frequency (and maybe slightly the group damage) reduced to better reflect the boss’s fair interactivity.

-Umbrelskul: A rework to the crystal spawn mechanism. Bad RNG is an automatic wipe in high keys if they’re spread too far. I’m not sure if this got stealth-changed, since my last couple keys in here have had amazing RNG. If the crystals are too far apart there’s no chance to cleave them all down, and you can’t wait forever on the orbs to pile up holding c/ds for them. Even then, holding cooldowns won’t work if they’re too far apart anyway.

-Kyrakka: If any boss in RLP should get nerfed it’s this one. Flame Spit is unbelievably mega, WTFBBQ overtuned. This whole mechanic needs to be adjusted, since the DoT will kill you in seconds, and you also only get 3 to try to drop this in an appropriate spot. There is no time, and we must use a gimmick strategy to try and kill Kyrakka as fast as possible. As long as the tank and healer are up when she dies the fight is won, and that’s kind of sad that Erkheart really doesn’t matter, but she is virtually 2 bosses in one in terms of power. This fight just feels unfair as melee. Please dear god nerf this or rework it to be more reasonable across the board.

-Crawth: This fight is burn or die. Having it drag out to the point of needing both Fire and Wind is absurd. Once both mechanics are going you have to dodge: fire, tornadoes, Crawth’s random frontal, and then Thundering. And then throw in additional BS like Storming. If I was a caster I’d be on suicide watch every time this boss is pulled. I’m melee, and this is ridiculous, still.

That’s my personal list for what should be nerfed. I’m on the fence about Melidrussa, Kokia, Hyrja, Odyn, and The Raging Tempest. They’re probably just on the much harder end of appropriate tuning ranges.

1 Like
7

As I am playing DH (both specs) and rogue (outlaw mainly). I believe the dungeon tuning is good. There’s clearly issues in some parts of the dungeons:
AA: I think it’s fine. However, there’s a bug in Crawth area and need to be fix ASAP.
CoS: I think it’s fine.
HoV: Some of the affixes are leave a bad taste in our mouth. For example, Hyrja on tyrannical + quaking week and it’s one of the few things that quaking should not happen in a boss mechanic. Otherwise, I think it’s fine right now.
RLP: Kyrakka is clearly issues. Flame spit is a bad mechanic and it’s kinda overtuned especially with quaking.
SBG: I think it’s fine.
TJS: Panda minibosses are issues. 3rd boss tank damage is overtuned, there’s a few tanks who can do it. You know there is an issue. The last pack is a biggest issues and kiting is the only way to tank that pack. I think TJS is a dungeon that has a biggest issues of all dungeons right now.
AV: 2nd boss and last boss are still big issues.
NO: 2nd boss area (storm boss) is still big issues when you are pugging without comms.

8

there are no notes of anything being undertuned or underpowered.

this is not a very unbiased review.

9

I really think azure vaults is a major boo boo by blizz so far~ if you are asking ppl to jump off platforms which(i dont believe was ever the intention) to be the meta the its a serious design issue… the timer is way too tight and i see it as blizz not wanting to make the dungeon timer too long… this dungeon is easily as long as De Other Side but you cant mount anywhere.

Either you cut down the amount of mobs and increase % or increase the timer as it is this is the 1 key ppl get and go change it…

2 Likes
10

Just make sure you go in with CDs for that pull on fortified week. Stun the mobs. Kite if you need to. The trash in shadowmoon does not need any nerfs.

I think it’s mostly fine. Could be that it’s coming from a prot paladin perspective though. I don’t have a problem with this staying as is for as long as prot warriors can completely cheese the tank buster on the last boss of Nokhud which is very nasty.

This I agree with. Adds spawn to often.

Lust this pack on fortified week. Plan cooldowns ahead of time for this pull. Mobs can be stunned. Maybe a slight nerf to dark claw damage, but I honestly don’t think it’s needed.

11

I think this is the reason most of my AV keys make time. My failure rate in AV, outside of SBG, is probably among the best of my keys. LOL, I’m more confident going into a pug AV than I am a pug COS.

1 Like
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They already significantly cut down on trash and Boss HP. You also don’t need to jump off anything. I had 3.5 minutes left in a +20 just running straight.

13

I would prefer them just removing this boss and nerfing the timer by 6 - 7 mins to account for it. Or honestly they could even downgrade it to be just a mini-boss…
Nothing of value would be lost and the dungeon would be much much much more fun.

But this should have happened during beta, its unlikely they do it now.
The HP nerf could make it better, but the boss itself is still insanely boring to play. They would literally have to replace it with something else entirely if they want to keep the boss count as there is really nothing redeemable in it.

14

As an altoholic that isn’t doing keys in the 20’s, these are ones I certainly notice at lower levels.

With everything going on in this fight, being a caster is rough.

Yeah, without a DK this is painful on melee. The intermission is super painful on casters.

Yeah the intermission with the constant swirlies during ticking damage and managing adds seems a little overkill, but the fight is otherwise not that hard. I have noticed on this fight, though, that you have more time to get out of the swirlies than you think you do.

I don’t know about Demo locks, but as a healer it goes really fast, but on this hunter, I have to either save offensive CDs or make sure I have Survival of the Fittest available.

This one I very much notice in lower keys as a healer. I’ve been in groups where I had to pop Hero in the second phase in like a +7 just because of this.

15

Azure vaults definitely needs a timer extension. I have had many damn near flawless runs of that dungeon where if it was any other dungeon it would have been 2 chested easy but since its azure vaults it has like 5 minutes left and only one chests.

Also just the no wipe policy theres little room for error in this dungeon and the tank is forced to pull big and risky to make ends meet.

1 Like
16

Same bro COS is actually my least favorite dungeon I literally perfer RLP over COS I just really hate that dungeon.

17

Hold on you can dodge the arcing slash from the tempest trash? :open_mouth:

18

Timer’s pretty on par with AA and RLP.

19

Neither of those dungeons are as big as azure vaults.

1 Like
20

Why does that matter? AV is also significantly less dangerous to the group which allows for the bigger pulls. AA, AV, and RLP are pretty balanced with all the nerfs.