I think this is important for that elemental shaman, or that feral druid, or frost mage or any spec that fails to meet the threshold for meta pushing.
You can be the best at your spec, and not reach title level due to balancing.
Another issue we have is power creep, and balance changes that take place the late season to content or classes, which are essential for raid but impact EoS title M+ placements very late in the season.
Having to grind keys week after week to stay ahead for months leads to attrition, burnout and odd toxicity dynamics.
People become bitter if they miss the last month of pushing because of IRL conflicts.
And if they don’t push the whole season they won’t get into those last month groups.
Here’s the complete solution to this issue:
IO can be accumulated just like it is today, over several months.
BUT each month the top .1 percent are reward titles for S2 for what that current month’s brackets closed at.
I.E.Hero Title Season 2 (May).
After the month of May their IO wouldn’t reset and they could keep earning it and then get title in June, or July if they chose. That way those who want that big 3.5k io or even 4k IO can still climb into it, but skilled gamers who pushed .1% in month 1, 2 or 3 could still get title and not hit an unreasonable wall.
Keys change radically from month 1-2 to month 5. In some ways, hitting 3k IO in month 1 had more technicality to it than 3.5k IO month 5, due to power caps (gear score, turbo boost) at that time.
Difficulty is determined by skill, gear score, vs content difficulty. And if gear score continues to creep the M+ ceiling continues to creep. Creating an endless grinding situation, leading to a type of elitism for those who have the time to do it, and those who are skilled gamers without the time.
Could someone set aside 1 month to push keys to get title? Yes! 100%. Could they set aside 7 months? No sadly, thats mainly for streamers and those who are luckily between jobs, or getting paid to play this game.
Thoughts? Come on blizzard. Let’s fix these problems.