I’m super new to Mythic+ dungeons (this expansion is the first time I’ve ever stepped foot into even a M0), so I have a lot to learn.
How much of a key jump each week did you go with when you were learning/new?
I handled +4 pretty well, but is there enough of a difference between +4 and +5, or will doing key increments of 2/3 be more appropriate to see a difference in difficulty?
Level 4-6 are not very different from each other. Level 7-9 aren’t so different either. This is because the key difficulty scales exponentially. Each level is 8% harder than the last up to level 10 and 10% harder than the last past level 10. The difference between an 18 and a 20 is going to be felt.
Level 5 (136% of base mythic plus two affixes) is 8% more than level 4 (126% of base mythic plus two affixes) and the difference is not felt as much because we are tuned to be stronger. Level 18 is 429% of base mythic plus four affixes, and level 20 is 519% of base mythic plus four affixes. It is a 10% difference (relative to base mythic) from 4 to 6 but a 90% difference (relative to base mythic) from 18 to 20. You are basically trying to do an 18 and an additional M0 in the same amount of time when you are doing a 20.
Fun extra note: a 28 is a 27 but you have to also do almost exactly an m0 more worth of healing and damage in the same amount of time.
I appreciate a detailed look of difficulty scaling, are those numbers listed somewhere?
Based on that, I think this week I might bump up to +6 for the dungeons I’m not super comfortable with (yet) before going up to an additional affix.
Two things.
My opinion: Don’t worry about anything up to 9. Dip your toes into a ten if you wanna get sweaty. Everything after that you will eventually get a feel for what your level is.
And also… Asking the forums is not gonna help much, You will get folks who swear they can do +16 in 340 gear and it is all easy.
Just keep doing what you do. Go one key level at a time and expect a jump at +10 with the seasonal affix.
That would be fine. Also, remember that you are only 1/5th of the group. The other four members will also make your experience feel harder or easier. A 4 with bad players will be much much harder than a 6 with valor farmers.
imo it’s pretty hard to learn about the dungeons in anything lower than a 10, but you gotta pretty much go thru those low dungeons to get some score / gear for +10s
i started doing like 2s, then 5s, then like 8-10s after some gear upgrades.
Honestly, don’t over think it. I understand your question and why you’re asking it. Rita answered that sufficiently.
On the other hand, make you own keys. Go in and learn with the knowledge that runs do not need to be perfect to be successful or fun. Neither of my runs last night were perfect yet timed and super fun. It’s your key and if something goes wrong 
Probably putting too much thought into it.
Murlok(dot)io will show you the best build choices for your class/spec
Bloodmallet(dot)com will show you which trinkets are best for your class/spec.
Raidbots(dot)com will let you do single target and AoE simulations to see about what your rotation should be.
Mimic those things and just keep playing, you’ll figure things out.
I apologize for the extremely long-winded post. Feel free to skip to the TLDR at the end, but I hope you’ll actually read this. I’ve been a top-30 global player before multiple times, and I’ve played almost every DPS spec.
First, let me explain how key progression ends up going, then I’ll explain where you probably are in the progression. At a certain point everything avoidable is a 1-shot and after that it doesn’t really matter much in terms of learning the mechanics. You either get them right and live, or you don’t and you die. Even the best players occasionally screw up mechanics and brick a key, the difference is they know precisely why they died and how to avoid it in the future. An example of an avoidable mechanic is Quelling Strike in Court of Stars; it’s a small frontal that stuns and does damage. It’s very easy to avoid if you know to look for it, but it will kill you instantly if you don’t.
Beyond that you have the unavoidable stuff. That is either something you can heal through or something you can’t. If you can’t then you cannot complete the key. If you can then you keep going until you can’t. An example in the game right now is Crawth in Algethar; that stacking AoE can do enormous damage and the higher you can push the stacks before dunking the balls the better.
So basically anything that is avoidable at all might as well hit for 1,000,000,000,000,000 damage and it won’t really matter. If it is not avoidable then the group needs to figure out how to deal with it, which determines the limit of the key size. There are specific mechanics such as tank damage which may not be readily apparent to the DPS that follow the same principles, however big tank hits can be dealt with in different ways so they are less of a concern.
Aside from that you run into the timer issue. If you do a key perfectly clean with no deaths and nobody eating avoidable mechanics then you run into the simple math of whether or not your damage is high enough to defeat every boss and kill enough trash within the allotted time. If your damage is insufficient then you need to figure out how to improve it. The easiest way of doing this is simply to pull more, most of the time.
TLDR: So where are you and how do I answer your question? Well, in the 2-16 range (approximately) you aren’t actually playing clean. Most of your learning has to do with figuring out the straightforward mechanics of the dungeons and playing well enough to avoid them. There are some abilities you may not notice until the keystone level gets high enough for you to die to them. That’s perfectly okay and expected, IF and ONLY IF you actually learn from them after a few hits. Above 16s you will need to make sure your throughput is up to snuff.
So how fast should you be able to increase your keys? Simple: As fast as you can learn. The more quickly you learn the more quickly you can do higher keys. For some people they will learn it all in a few runs and be doing 20s 1-2 weeks later. For most people it takes significantly longer, and that’s okay. The great thing about M+ is you can do it at your own pace. Just remember that the unbelievable chaos you see now will eventually turn into understandable mechanics you can play around.
So I’m new also, and Ill do my best to provide some insight. My first keys were after 10.0 patch during SL and I basically got carried.
Starting in DF I wanted to work my way up ‘on my own’ (obviously even in pugs its a team effort).
If you’re new to the game, your role, your class, etc and you’re still learning the basics definitely dont feel bad sticking to things under the +5 range. If those are feeling too easy, start to bump it up.
If you are still learning dungeons and dont have much gear I would stay under 10 for a while. Youll always still be learning, but you dont want to be in a 15 wondering what mechanics a boss does. Do you run to the orb or away from it is a bad question to have pop into your head mid fight.
My best advice, though, is to run keys. Lots of them. Run each dungeon 10 times or more, as much as you can. Always try to run something challenging without putting yourself in as a hard carry.
As a DPS you can see where you stand more easily since every dungeon gives you a comparison that will give you a rough idea. If everyone is doing way more or way less damage than you, something might need adjusting. If youre tanking or healing it gets more weird. I can help more with the healing perspective, personally.
Also, remember your role and understand what you can do. Modern M+ is going to ask you potentially to use a bunch of utility abilities you may never have touched in other content. Interrupts, stops, CC, knocks, etc. Whether you tank, heal, or DPS youll be doing some or all of these things. Or you should be.
Last tips, if you really want to improve, try to find some videos or a twitch streamer doing decent level keys, at least 16+ with you spec. Get an idea for what they are doing. You can also learn a lot from some of the higher end players who play your role, even if they arent playing your spec that second.
You can get weakaura packages and other addons to help, plater configs to help you identify important mobs and casts. There is a lot you could do. Some people will recommend you record yourself, too, and i personally recommend that esp for healers / tanks. Thats all somewhat optional and you can time 15s without those things with practice.
Theres pretty much no learning curve or dps checks until you get to 11+
At that point if you’re failing, there’s a fundamental flaw with how people are playing their character.
You arent going to learn anything until 10’s. If nothing 1 shots you then you will ignore the mechanic which means you arent learning anything. So jump keys if u can until u get to 10+ and from there just go up by 1-2 keys at every dungeon.
Pretty much this
Don’t worry about the difficulty too much. Just keep pushing and see how far you can go.
When you inevitably fail a run, don’t let it get to you. Just learn from it and try again. There will always be a next key. Good luck!