Once you hit an ilvl of 606 (something that could easily be achieved last week if you played a fair amount and did delves) you’ve effectively outgeared everything but the heroic raid and higher end M+ (not including the mythic raid because that’s not in the cards for 99% of players).
Running the heroic raid atm is a disaster because many people are trying to do it since they can’t get upgrades from normal anymore but very few actually know what they’re doing in terms of the heroic mechanics (or even the normal ones for that matter).
Trying to do M+ is even worse because at 606+ ilvl you only get upgrades from M7+ or higher so there is absolutely no benefit to be gained from doing anything lower but good luck trying to find a group to do M7+ if you don’t have any rating. Rating that you can only get by doing lower end M+ which would be a waste of your time. And on top of that this is objectively one of the worst M+ seasonal lineups we’ve ever had with virtually all of the dungeons being either annoying or overtuned (or a mix of the two).
Basically the entire system has imploded because of the delayed and staggered release of content and the monkey wrench that delves threw into the whole mix by essentially invalidating M0/lower M+ and the normal raid for early gearing. I’ve played through the launch and early days of every single WoW expansion and I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve reached this kind of impediment so early before.
Edit: I am going to briefly summarize the discussion because I am seeing that not many people are reading past the first post.
If looking at the ilvl of rewards awarded by each activity the next logical step from T8 delves is M7+ dungeons and the Heroic raid. However, the gulf in the level of difficulty between them is actually quite vast because the level of the rewards does not correspond to the level of difficulty each activity presents. This is due to three major factors: (1) the existence of delves and the fact that they intentionally provide a higher level of gear than their level of difficulty would lead one to assume; (2) that there are too many levels of M+ which cause a desync between the level of difficulty and the level of rewards; and (3) the devs decision to overdesign raid bosses by adding more and more mechanics as the level of difficulty is raised rather than just increasing their health and damage output, making them too difficult to manage for most players.
People not knowing mechanics isn’t something new. Literally seeing people fail mechanic checks in a +5 that was the 1 mechanic a boss had as low as follower.
How is lower M+ invalidated? It’s Champion gear and upgrades to 619. Start itemizing and shooting for your favorite trinkets and secondary stats. If you get a 597 for something you already have a 619 item in, that doesn’t matter because you can just upgrade it if it’s better itemized, practically for free since you have a higher item level in the slot.
I wouldn’t say doing Lower Keys is a waste of time because you can learn the mechanics in them.
Last night had someone who did not know the mechanics of any of the bosses in Arakara. And first they couldn’t find the entrance to the dungeon which was the sign, they didn’t know the mechanics of the next to last boss, and when the leader was asking if they knew the mechanics of the last boss they were silent. Turns out they died three times to the draw-in mechanic and asked why it was impossible to avoid it after we killed the boss without them. The key was ++ed but the key holder was not very happy that the person could have cost them the key by not saying anything.
If it was a +7 and someone didn’t know any of the mechanics ar all, they are likely going to get a lot of negativity their way.
Yep M+ is terrible. People should not have the ability to view your progress because it causes a bias. I can’t even count the number of times I was called garbage or not invited to basic keys in DF because my IO was 2700 even though I had over 40 +10’s timed in a single week (ALL SOLO PUG). The reason I didn’t push higher is because I just wanted gear/ Vault and didn’t care about IO lol. People will always just assume they know what you do or what your goals are.
But why when I don’t need anything from those dungeons? Just because Blizzard decided to adapt some stupid gate keeping system that was initially created by a third party? What even is “rating” anyway, why isn’t your ilvl enough? Struggling through solo delves as a mage when Brann and the delves themselves were bugged, which is how I got most of my gear, is a far better indicator of skill than a rating you can get by being carried. These are just numbers and there is no nuance behind them until you actually get to know the person they represent. But of course that part of MMOs is dead and has been for years only to be replaced by “oh I see a high number CLICK!” /smh
Once I’ve reached the end of gearing from delves on my main, I’m just going to play alts and do the same. Can’t say I’m really worried about it all that much.
This is 100% what is happening and is a gross system that will continue to be abused just like people que syncing premades in pvp because blizzard refuses to do anything about it.
8/8 veteran and 4/8 champion is literally the same thing, and they’re veteran because they’re tier set pieces or have BiS stats. I have a ton of champion track gear in my bags that’s just waiting for the catalyst. Also both of my trinkets are A tier for my spec. You’re just talking out of your rn.
I was thinking about this at work last night and it is something that should be addressed somehow, maybe a title for clearing 8’s or higher solo, something to indicate you are reasonably versed in your class and abilities.
Right now having cleared even the highest levels of delves means nothing because we can’t tell if you did it solo or if you had a group carry you through them and are terrible at your class.
It cuts both ways, you’re not entitled to anyone’s time. People want to minimize the chance that they’ll waste 20-30 minutes for nothing when a baddie sneaks in and breaks their key.
Instead of being upset at the people maximizing in an imperfect system, you should be upset at blizzard for not tracking, and providing relevant statistics for groups to more easily gate baddies.
rn.