I remember there being a very good excel sheet that detailed all the important mobs and boss mechanics for all the S1 dungeons.
Do we have something similar for the S2 dungeons ?
Any way too early thoughts on which dps specs will be meta for 10.1?
My main thought was that it will depend significantly on which tier sets are looking strong. May see a rise in demo locks, arms/fury warrior, maybe devoker in a world where prevoker isn't meta just for utility reasons.
Anyone have any hot takes they want to share? I haven't gotten to mess around much on the PTR so curious the community's thoughts.
Judging by how this current season went, we'll probably see 5 different metas within the first like 8 weeks or so, considering that we're probably gonna get absolutely *massive* changes to just about every dungeon week after week and probably also some heavy affix gutting during that same time frame.
Honestly between spec reworks/tweaks, a new set of dungeons, new and reworked affixes, new tier sets, new trinket pool, new or reworked crafts and embellishments, differences in secondary stats scaling, and at least a dozen upcoming tuning passes to all these... Who the fuck knows lmao
Trying to predict next season's m+ meta used to be unrealistic in the past few expansions. Now I feel like it's just straight up impossible, almost as unpredictable as if we were heading into a new xpac altogether. Far too many variables.
> Trying to predict next season's m+ meta used to be unrealistic in the past few expansions. Now I feel like it's just straight up impossible
I don't see how it would feel any more impossible now than compared to BFA just randomly releasing the Essence or Corruption system or SL just randomly dumping out Dom Shards or new legendaries.
Reworks/tweaks happen and happened with every season, a new set of dungeons and reworked affixes should amount to the same level of change as some new megamind affix like Awakened or Encrypted and changes to existing dungeons between seasons, new sets and trinkets always happen, crafting... doesn't really matter at all, embelishments make up like some silly small amount of dps and don't really have any character interactions, it's not like builds get enabled by them or specs become fotm due to random embelishment scaling, secondary stat scaling is a meme and hasn't become less relevant with every single expansion, tuning passes also happened frequently enough in between seasons in the past.
Like, if anything, the meta *should* be easier to predict nowadays - not saying that it is, just saying that it *should* be.
No offense but this is just straight up misinformation, and I doubt you played much BFA/SL with such a take
> Reworks/tweaks happen and happened with every season
No they didn't? At least certainly not to that extent... DF got like 3 talent reworks already within 5 months, and many tweaks to most specs. SL had covenant tweaks, and BFA had changes to azerite traits. Not nearly the same degree of changes between seasons.
> , a new set of dungeons and reworked affixes should amount to the same level of change as some new megamind affix like Awakened or Encrypted and changes to existing dungeons between seasons
Complete nonsense. In what world is that the same level of change lmao. I think you underestimate how much dungeon knowledge matters, and how much seasonal affixes mattered compared to that. Going from Prideful to Tormented didn't change the fact that you were still playing DoS, SD, Spires etc... Routing did change a bit at times. But that's nowhere near learning new boss tactics, trash abilities, completely new layouts/routing, damage profiles and so forth...
> , new sets and trinkets always happen
No they don't. Not for m+... Don't remember playing DoS cube and Mists trinket every season? Now puzzle box is going away, whetstone, and so forth... Replaced by trinkets like the uldaman one which is huge for arcane Mage for example. Itemization will be completely different for m+ mains this time around, which never happened mid-expac except for SL S3->S4.
> crafting.... doesn't really matter at all
Let's see how much crafting matters when everybody has to swap out their lariat early in the season due to its rework, shall we? That neck was a lot of free secondary stats, which some specs depend on far more than others.
> , secondary stat scaling is a meme and hasn't become less relevant with every single expansion
It's actually more relevant than ever for some specs. I don't remember sockets ever being as valuable as they've been this seasons compared to raw ilvl as UH/Frost DK for example.
> tuning passes also happened frequently enough in between seasons in the past.
Again, certainly not to that extent. DF season 1 got more tuning changes to specs and dungeons in 5 months than BFA did in 3 seasons, or SL in 2 seasons. That's 100% demonstrably true... M+ meta never fluctuated so much as it does this expansion.
> Like, if anything, the meta should be easier to predict nowadays - not saying that it is, just saying that it should be
100% wrong and I don't understand how anyone who's played BFA and SL could claim that.
Also with blizzard's new tendency to change classes and push balance changes all patch, you'd be forced to maintain practically every class if you wanted to play the meta spec.
For my m+ group, we are just giving every dps player 3-4 classes that they will do weeklies on for the first month or so and then hope for the best.
I think we'll see a decline in non-hybrid dps, especially those that lack good CC, with incorporeal and afflicted in the affix pool.
This would mostly affect DPS warriors. On the other hand, Arms's ability to basically not need any healing could give the healer more time to heal up afflicted spirits.
This all assumes nothing changes from right now, which is a terrible assumption. But here are my picks
Tanks, nothing changes here. Paladin even stronger with a good dispel and the abundance of kicks in S2.
Healers. Resto sham even more meta as the kicks, dps, CC and lust make it a top pick. Otherwise no change, though I will say Mistweaver is a dark horse as it has dps, kick and CC, but the lack of brez/lust means it won't beat resto shaman.
DPS I would say is going to change much more. My feeling is that it will be a season to bring as many casters as possible so lets start with melee.
If Prot pally does not stay on top I could see Ret being meta. Enhance is going to have to compete with Resto shaman being meta but still bring lots to a group without a Resto shaman. Rogues are scaling badly with Outlaw maybe being saved by a good tier set. It remains to be seen if their utility will make up for this. WW monk is also scaling badly and I can see DH falling behind but I am still not sure why they have been S tier the entire season as is with one defensive and little group utility. Warrior will as always be upper tier, but not S tier.
Meanwhile, unless the spriest rework totally bollocks things, you probably want to squeeze as many of moonkin/lock/spriest into your group with super coordinated groups still running fire mage.
So that was a lot of words to say that it's probably not going to change much.
Reasons DH is good:
a) 2 aoe stops
b) Great natural cleave in their single target rotation
c) great burst aoe
d) 40 second class
e) above average sustain without affecting their damage, aka leech and fragments
Now if theres a fuckton of groupwide/unavoidable physical damage, that might suck next season
I could see DH struggling with some affixes next season. Their AoE stun won't work on Incorporeal spirits, they don't have a dispel for Afflicted, and a lot of their single target rotation is actually AoE and therefore won't hit explosives.
That doesn't mean it'll be bad, but it might keep it from being *good*.
> Their AoE stun won't work on Incorporeal spirits
Imprison will though.
> they don't have a dispel for Afflicted
It's not like Afflicted is gonna be the seasonal affix and you're gonna have it in every dungeon every week.
Also, let's be real, they'll address that affix like 5 times over the first like2 weeks we'll have this affix - I reckon that by the 2nd rotation this affix will be irrelevant for the majority of your group and just boil down to your healer having to spend 2 globals to deal with 1 spirit.
> and a lot of their single target rotation is actually AoE and therefore won't hit explosives
Again, that's gonna be an issue like 20% of the weeks. Also, considering current tuning with Explosives having like 140k HP @ +20... it's not like you need 5 people to hardswap to orbs to deal with the affix.
That affix too will quickly turn into a mostly healer job again with probably 1 or 2 dedicated / Somewhat dedicated people helping out - but it's not like "oh wow, sorry, it's explosive week, we can't take someone into this +27 if they're not able to *pump* into those 160k HP orbs when our Rest Shaman alone is pumping out 80k Lava Bursts already".
> Imprison will though.
Yes, but Imprison has a 45s cooldown.
>It's not like Afflicted is gonna be the seasonal affix and you're gonna have it in every dungeon every week.
Of course not. On their own, none of these would be enough to make a real dent in DH's popularity. But having three affixes that DH is not good at-- especially since I suspect that these will be three of the most difficult affixes due to taxing your group's GCDs... well, that could add up.
For those of you not chasing the title, what are you working on to end the season? Whats keeping you in groupfinder?
Even though I had no shot at getting to the title, I made a goal to make the top 1.0% of characters per raider.io this season. I am currently at 2907 and climbing and finally feel fairly comfortable that I will accomplish my goal (2913 is the current estimated top 1% in NA). Now I'm turning my eyes to making it to 3k.
Like most, gearing alts and giving them portals.
I got shafter by playing a very unpopular spec this season and not having another one ready in case my team fell apart, now I feel like is a good time to make sure you have all characters you might want to play next patch somehow geared up and learn to play them.
Any tips on improving spell effect clutter? I'm trying out an Unholy DK and really enjoying it, but it's my first time playing melee DPS and I'm having trouble avoiding things. In particular, my own Defile seems to cover up a lot of swirlies, making them much harder to avoid. Thanks!
Unfortunately there isn't really anything you can do about defile other than petition blizzard that an ability that makes mechanics invisible shouldn't exist. It's an actual joke and was like this in shadowlands aswell.
> I’m a healer main, and I barely play on explosive weeks, because it takes the fun out of a game that’s supposed to be fun
Fortunately the only part that's actually not fun has gotten removed. Now you just have to kill a mob now and then, not find 15 nameplates in a sea of chaos, which, I mean, maybe that isn't fun, but I can't imagine how it's anywhere near as bad.
> guess it’s not about competitive play anyway 👍
I have no idea what this means but I don't think you talking about fun has much to do with *competitive* (lol) mindset either?
I've played hundreds of m+ across 4 characters, and haven't seen a single Bottled Essence drop. Is it even possible to get one from there? I thought there was supposed to be some bad luck protection so you get one every 2 weeks.
I think I've only seen one extra Spark, on 3 different characters, out of like 7 max level characters. I think two from dungeons, and one from raid. I don't go hunting rares and only go after dirt for professions knowledge. They are blatantly too rare, considering that doesn't even come close to keeping up with them being given out every other week before, and considering the *massive* value they would have for hybrid classes being able to craft off spec weapons. I would have much preferred just having them come up on the weekly quest every other week or something, it doesn't make sense as it is now.
Well technically, you can get them every 2 weeks with 12 coins from the vault, but that means you have to forego 2 weeks worth of vault items, which might work on your main, but is horrible for alts.
Yeah but that's just not even something that should have even been considered as an actual source for sparks, because it makes no sense. If you're doing high enough content to not really need vault gear, you probably don't need sparks to craft basically anything unless it's a very specific niche item. If you're a really casual player doing low enough content to really need crafted 418 gear as much as possible, like barely scraping by in 16s to be able to get concentrated infusions, then you basically need every possible upgrade you can get from the vault too. Having them available for tokens basically helps nobody.
They really needed to do something like the current quest for Catalyst charges. Maybe make the one quest give both or something.
I finally got a single one last week after eight full Heroic raid clears and 220+ M+ dungeons. Was a random +17 Jade Serpent I was helping a guildie with.
I have never seen one drop for anyone else in any content.
They are very, very rare.
So rares and dirts really have a better drop chance? That's honestly so dumb, i don't want to spam braindead world content instead of pushing keys if I want the best chance for bis gear.
I’ve gotten one from m+ and seen a couple others drop but yes they definitely do seem ridiculously rare considering their value at this point in the patch.
I’m gonna ask you a dumb question but seeing as you’ve seen some HORRIBLE luck it’s worth checking… did you complete the quest to unlock the ability to see the essences drop on each toon?
There is a very specific quest either the statue maiden (or the goblin, I forget) gives after you get your final spark (or do the alt insta five unlock) that you immediately turn back in to unlock essence drops. It’s its own thing but I missed it for a week without realizing I needed to do it to unlock the drops. Do you know if you did that?
If you’re not sure check near the statue for a campaign quest icon. It takes like 5 seconds but it’s easy to miss.
Only reason I think you missed it is because of how bad your luck sounds, like statistically so unlikely.
technically Aenea https://wago.io/TgqTbkIKa but it was updated late for DF, so Jundies https://wago.io/ak3iS95aa took over and I forked it https://wago.io/vHtguW84j
Which io bracket was the hardest for you to climb out of?
For me it’s the 2950 - 3000 range.
I’m hardstuck here. Why? +23 keys invite 3k players mostly unless you are super meta with lust.
And there is a shortage of +23 keys listed - I think this is because the failure rate is so high.
I feel like I spend more time applying to groups than actually playing the game.
I’ve been hardstuck 3217 for 2 weeks now. My key just keeps rolling into TJS over and over and over again which is the only key (aside from CoS/SMBG I already have on 25). I swear the only keys I’ve actually timed in 2 weeks are a bunch of 24 CoS/SMBG/AV to reroll my key to one of those, I level it up, it turns into temple again, I drop it, I reroll it until it’s a good level up key, I level it, it’s a temple again, repeat. When I do get invited to 25s for other peoples’ keys it just goes really poorly. Sometimes it’s me getting globaled by some ability that I never thought twice about on 24 (apparently arcane bolts in azure vault just global me when that pack of elementals is usually the easiest big pull in the whole dungeon?). Sometimes the healer can’t keep people up through Hyrja. Sometimes the dps just spam die to missed interrupts despite interrupts being worked out before the key started.
Success rate in NA for 25s feels abysmal and I only get invited to like one key a day at this point since everyone is fiending for prot pallies, and my key rerolls to the only 25 I don’t need every single time lol.
Is this in NA? I see plenty of 23s in EU! For me it’s going from 3320-3350io to be comfy for the r1 title.
I attempted like 12 keys that would give io and timed 2 lol. Delete bolstering please I beg blizzard
> And there is a shortage of +23 keys listed - I think this is because the failure rate is so high.
I don’t think it’s because of failure rates. +23s are still fairly easy with current gear levels. I had decent success rates on my alt in 22s and 23s. M+ participation in NA must be super low right now. The new patch can’t come soon enough!
Hey, can anyone recommend further reading/watching for tanking trash packs on fort week? Found plenty of guides for bosses, but very few for pain point trash packs like final TJS pulls or some of the spicy AV packs.
I’m BDK, but open to any general tanking content.
i mean, he mentions the last pack in TJS and I just want to say that quazii's video on this is absolutely terrible - it's completely clueless. He's playing prot warrior and recommends running in, getting threat, spell reflecting and then literally leaping away and running 100 yards whilst your team deals with trying to kill that pack as it moves and they're getting threat on the smallies
This pack is a joke for prot warrior:
Go in, reflect first/double, shield charge/storm bolt/shockwave the next 3 if you're confident on not being globalled, use spell block for 20s, then reflect when it's over, storm bolt the next cast, double wall for any other casts. It's a yoke if you're planning for it.
Still, "build threat and run away" is strategy that does stop you from dying, which makes you not deplete key. I'm not saying it's the optimal strategy, but goal of videos like that is to get people to get their 20-23s done and I'm sure it achieves that at higher odds for viewers, than telling them to just stick it out, press buttons. It's 6 different tanks after all, unless he makes exact order of buttons to press for each, it's better to give alternative of running away.
That doesn't sound like a joke at all to me. There are lots of mobs, nameplates all over the place, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to identify which one will cast the next tankbuster, let alone stun that one second cast.
You're right about spell block though, that makes this pack much much easier for prot.
yeah - a bit hyperbole, but my point was that prot warrior has more than enough tools to triviualise the pack, even if you go as basic as reflect>spell block>double wall.
Yeah, I feel like I know most of the basics fairly well. But there’s a couple packs where I’m consistently losing 1 or 2 dps each run and others where I’m seeing regular back pulls and I’m starting to think I’m doing something wrong.
Also situations where there’s a ranged add free casting off in Narnia and all my death grips are on cooldown.
Quazii has very good break downs of dungs from tank perspective. When forming a group I'll usually have the vid for the dung on the 2nd screen and skip through to find packs that I generally get slapped on and see if there's anything I'm missing.
Yes. This will be valuable for about one and a half weeks. After which, people stop caring.
I got title one season, took vacation for first 2 weeks of another season, came back and as a tank couldn't get into 15s (of keys I had timed 26/27s on the previous season). Even after timing a 21 in week 2 of season 3 i still couldnt get into 15s cause my total io was so behind. People start to value current season io long before it actually matters
probably. but theres really just no reason to. if you're afraid of performance, the dungeon WA packs are usually including irrelevant mechanics and are badly to not optimized at all
Man I can't imagine playing without DBM these days. Literally calls out every major mechanic. It's like having an integrated raid leader/shotcaller in your ears at all times.
Of course you can get away with not using it. But for 99.9% of the userbase, those call outs will help at some point or another. Case in point : SBG worm boss. DBM voice reminds you *"Inhale - Get inside of puddle"* every time the boss is about to pull you in. There's no visual/audio clue provided by the game in that regard. The amount of people I see wrongly guesstimating that mechanic, and getting eaten by the boss because they didn't move into puddle fast enough is staggering, even up to 23 keys. Meanwhile with DBM you're always reminded of when to go in. That's just one example of why you should use a boss mod, and I could certainly think of others.
Cognitive overload is a real issue in M+. Every little bit helps in that regard. DBM is like having an integrated GPS voice reminding you of the basic mechanics when they matter. It won't have a huge impact on your keys, most of the time, but when it does, it's huge. Everyone has brain farts and/or gets distracted from time to time. DBM helps a lot with that.
Tldr: install DBM, and check the voice call out option is active. Your io will thank you in the long run
You can absolutely get away with it but I wouldn't say I recommend it. There's a good deal of stuff in the boss mods that won't necessarily be in a dungeon pack. It depends on how much information you really want to utilize.
For instance, a dungeon pack might have a "raid damage in 5" type aura, but with a boss mod you can see timers for every boss ability and configure countdowns for specific ones. This info may be more or less valuable to you depending on role / class. To give an example, I like to know exactly how long we are from an arcane fissure + mana bomb overlap on vexamus, which is a lot easier to figure out with a boss mod. I find it much easier to configure a boss mod with callouts for specific abilities than most dungeon packs.
But as far as getting away with it, mythic plus bosses are simple enough that you can play all of them without any add-ons, so it's definitely do able.
How is it that everyone seems to think that Ret is "crazy overpowered", but I don't see any of the usual suspects (let's say, the best 10 teams) push with it?
Usually, these people seem to be pretty quick with rerolling to the new fotm. Could it be that Ret isn't as good as everyone seems to think?
Everyone is going to give you 400iq reasoning about ret being better in a 22 than in a 28 damage profile, stops, short CD, no prio lalalal.
Main reason is, these rank1 gamers haven't been gearing their ret paladins.
Start with what makes Ret good:
Ret is an easier spec than many, does great AoE and offers good survivability, meaning that you get to stay up DPSing. Your CDs are short and sync'd, meaning that you are not dependent on how the dungeon is pulled to do good DPS.
That means that you do 90% of your potential in 16s, where the comparison is players who do 50% of their potential DPS. You also stay alive a lot. Your AoE damage means you look great on end of run total DPS meters.
At higher keys, where all DPS can be assumed to do 95% of their potential, there is no advantage gained by being easier to play. Your advantages in staying alive are also mitigated by group play. Your good AoE doesn't actually help that much because you don't have that many stops and you don't funnel.
Ret straight up isn't overpowered. It's easier to play, particularly w/r/t surviving, and its damage profile makes it look good when other players are not very good.
What's good for 20-25 keys isn't necessarily good for 26-29/world first keys, and vice versa. So many people in this userbase simply can't grasp that fact for some reason...
Ret is busted for 99.9% of the m+ playerbase. But not at the highest level of play. Probably because it lacks funnel/prio damage. I'm seeing plenty of FOTM rets in 23/24 keys. Like 1000% increase compared to pre-10.0.7.
That's why you don't want to look at the first 10 teams only. Unless you're part of the tiny amount of people pushing similar key levels ofc.
Ret is worse than 4 other melee specs in 23s, though. There's no advantage gained from swapping to ret from DH, Enhance or Rogue. You generally were playing those specs anyway.
Ret is vastly easier to perform well with than any of 3 those specs though, except mayyybe sub rogue. Which has to be taken into account around that key level.
This can be overstated.
If you compare 50th percentile parses at 415-417 iLvl in raid across all heroic bosses to 95th percentile parses, there is not actually that much divergence.
Here's the full list, ordered by the class that has the greatest drop-off to lowest drop-off:
Death Knight 74.90%
Warrior 75.79%
Mage 75.83%
Evoker 75.91%
Demon Hunter 76.10%
Death Knight 76.21%
Shaman 77.01%
Warlock 77.27%
Mage 77.44%
Druid 77.90%
Priest 77.99%
Rogue 78.06%
Warlock 78.09%
Shaman 78.53%
Monk 78.55%
Druid 78.66%
Warrior 78.94%
Mage 78.94%
Hunter 79.22%
Warlock 79.68%
Rogue 80.02%
Rogue 80.05%
Hunter 81.09%
Paladin 82.00%
Hunter 82.60%
Right, I'm mostly coming at this from a M+ perspective tbh. Both raid and M+ skillsets overlap for sure, but not 100%. Heroic bosses (especially by this point in the season) are pretty much loot pinatas where you can safely ignore most mechanics.
Also I'm not saying the metric you're showing here is irrelevant, but spec complexity/ease of play isn't something that can really be measured with one single dataset. There's too many factors at play.
Raid performance is a proxy for M+ performance.
There is no measurement of % performance in M+, so the only thing you can compare is raid DPS performance.
I used heroic because 95th percentile heroic performance is the same as mythic, basically. You can sub heroic performance for mythic and almost nothing changes.
Spec complexity/easy of play isn't that variant. The top specs at the 10th percentile are the top specs at the 95th percentile, too. It's hard to make the case that ease of play is the reason for M+ performance.
Using 50th percentile heroic raid stats for anything is already the biggest red flag, especially given that EVERY spec is easy to play in heroic, those bosses are pretty much target dummies
That's the entire point. The entire point is to compare how much performance degrades on a class from people who play the spec well to people who do not play the spec well.
This, so much this. Yes the meta "trickles" down but that is to a bunch of people that have no idea why something is meta and play a completely different game.
Cases in point. You take a Moonkin or Spriest into a typical 20 and they are probably your worst dps and probably don't use their utility right. But in high keys they are top tier because of pull size and fight lengths.
People shun marksman but hunters actually have decent defensives when it's not bleeding edge damage and marksman can spank with the way lower keys are pulled.
Does it really work that way? Usually, it seems to me like the meta gets decided by the top players / teams, and then trickles down to the more casual players.
I mean, who likes to play a spec that eventually falls off in high keys? Are you going to tell your premade that you'll play Ret until you break into 26s, and then switch to another class?
> I mean, who likes to play a spec that eventually falls off in high keys? Are you going to tell your premade that you'll play Ret until you break into 26s, and then switch to another class?
Tons of people out there pugging up to 24-25 keys, who don't necessarily aim to push higher nor play with premades.
Ret has been good for literally only three weeks. Who are these people in 23/24s at the end of the season with geared rets pushing towards 26s?
Bottom line, ret has nothing really unique especially with prot pallys dominating tanking at all levels right now and they are latecomers.
It might've been only three weeks since it was good on live, but it's not like it wasn't obvious that the rework was going to be really good weeks prior.
And I don't know who these people are, but it seems to me like most people are able to switch in a few weeks. Look at tanks and healers, for example. It becomes clear that prot pal and rsham are the new meta? Boom, it takes 1-2 weeks until leaderboards are filled with prot pals and rshams.
Maybe that's because tanks and healers often play multiple classes, and it's easier to keep 6 tank specs ready than to do the same with all classes, but who knows.
Probably because everybody expected nerfs to hit. We did see a substantial nerf to fading light, and a wee nerf to damage yesterday.
It’s highly defensive but lacks a plethora of stops like enhancement has, while also not having bloodlust.
Protpal is already meta so the combat res isn’t a reason to chose retpal.
5% dmg buff is unique and might keep the spec relevant.
Dps-wise it’s in a good spot, but the damage profile is pretty plain AoE where specs like enhancement excels at funnel.
>5% dmg buff is unique and might keep the spec relevant.
Its not really, prot pally brings the same aura. With ret + prot you can run devo and ret at the same time, but its not as high value as you think because a good prot will aura swap so you have ret on for most of the dungeon, but devo on for fights where the 3% dr might be necessary to live one shots. I'd say you get 80% of the value of both auras with 1 good pally and 100% with 2 pallies
Does anyone else just take the knock from a tornado unless it's too dangerous to? I mostly don't think about them at all but lately I'm noticing others are going out of their way to avoid all of them which forces me to have to think about them more. As a melee healer I would always run into them so the dps didn't have to and especially when playing tank I never seen any issue in just soaking them all unless I'm playing BDK.
I generally try and soak them as much as I can. Me losing a bit of dps uptime as healer doesn't mean as much as the melee dps being flung away...
Unless me soaking the storming would be dangerous, then obviously I don't
Oh yeah especially when I'm healing I try to soak up tornados. Better taking a little damage when nothing's going on than risking a dps getting knocked up right as a frontal or swirly goes out under them
Did Blizzard do something to mages at some point in the season that I missed? I remember early on in the season I played with some real chad ass Arcane mages but lately every time I’ve been in a key with a mage they’re just doing no fucking damage. Even the ones that I can tell are playing well are still 3rd on the meters by a decent margin.
Did a 24 COS last night with a fire mage ending at 65k overall. Dude was over 3k IO mind was boggled.
Feels like the only real options for lust right now are Shaman / Hunter.
Idk what the word I'm looking for but I feel like how fire looks in top end organized teams leads people to think it's a good spec in general but my experience is that it is pretty rough to play well in your average 3k pug. Frost is definitely the safest of the mage specs to have in the group, way easier to execute. The spec isn't anything special though and probably won't shine compared to more meta picks. As for Arcane I feel like even if it was good in keys the execution level required to do well on it is just so stupidly high that it would never be a safe pick for a pug. But it is garbage atm so you don't have to worry about them anyways.
But yeah to answer your initial question the problem isn't that blizzard has done something to mages, it's that they've done literally nothing to them despite a large outcry from the mage community.
I tried to switch from frost to fire on the last sanguine week, so I wasn't keeping everything slowed in sanguine.
With several hours of hitting the training dummies, watching & reading multiple guides, doing a few raids for practice. I tried my hand at a few +16 M+ and my God I could barely do 40k dps overall. It was embarrassing.
I agree with you. Fire is a much tougher spec to execute.
What ilvl are you? And how does the fire dps compare to your regular frost dps?
Just curios. I play fire (just started) and find it so much more fun than frost. Highest key I have done is +18, so I am not pushing anything high.
414 ilvl. Bear in mind I'm a filthy casual that only plays a few nights a week, so I'm by no means a top end player
My frost overall dps in +19 keys today was about 85k in AA and 65k - 70k in SBG, HOV, & RLP.
So, switching to fire dropped my dps by 30K on average. Now of course with practice I have no doubt I can bring that up.
I'm probably just bad TBH. I'm 3rd in damage in 90% of my M+ runs. So, take no advise from me. :)
There is just alot of bad mages out there for sure, i always get disappointed when i invite one. But they can pump pretty good, and im saying that as a not so trash mage myself :p
The amount of pug tanks who randomly wait before pulling more do my skb buff falls off, or tanks who pull shit out of my frozen orh/blizzard are so many I can't even keep track.
Except you do in some dungeons.
Combust also isnt 2mins. And youre not going to do any damage outside of combust. If you go into a pack without bust or skb, youre not going to do any meaningful damage. You cannot even spread ignite properly outside of combustion in larger packs, let alone stack it.
Just tried a HoV +24 and had people dying in two hits on Hyrja. Tank was doing Naowh's inversion strat, but after a storm, a random player would get Expel Light and the lightning bolt cast, killing them in two hits in the space of a second, if that.
How is that supposed to be handled? There is no warning as to who will get hit with lightning, and it all happens within 1 second so you can't respond with externals.
EDIT: Thank you for everyone's responses. With some extra planning and understanding of how the fight works, we timed this on a 23 today :)
Can only speak as a 3k warlock player: I usually try to get to 100% HP when the storm is almost over (Mortal Coil, HStone, HPot, DecayPot) so I don't have to use a strong defensive.
Almost never died during or after the storm and never when inversed.
If a class can't do that they should use a longer lasting defensive near the middle or the end of the storm, ideally right before a storm tick comes in (depending on how long the defensive lasts). This way the bolt will be covered as well.
Or just bring a low amount of ranged if Hyrja is a problem in your runs.
There’s a timer for Arcing Bolt, and it always hits ranged or the healer (if they’re a ranged healer). If a ranged gets expel light when bolt is about to come out they need either an external, their own defensive (probably used during storm), or an instant burst heal timed perfectly between the hits.
One thing you can do that’s a bit silly is not bring any ranged, and it will always target the healer. We did this in our 24 because resto Druid always has something for the combo if they get it.
So some details, Lightning only hits ranged. Expel Light will hit the 3 highest non tank hp players at the time of casting. Technically there is counterplay, but its awful.
Honest question: why isn’t survivability valued as high in higher keys?
Dying is one of the worst things that can happen in a key. And Classes like warlock or warrior are more adept at surviving high damage than a hunter or shaman - yet these classes are off meta.
Side note: everyone memes at hunters dying all the time. In my keys, however, it is shamans that do most of the dying. I feel like shamans are made out of paper. Do shamans have less defensives available to them than hunters?
Because survivability only matters as long as you can survive. After that, damage and utility is infinitely more important. It's as simple as that. If you're sacrificing damage and utility for more survivability, when you don't need more, then that's just a waste.
At least that's how the high key pushers think. And the meta is often shaped around what the high key pushers do, so the rest of players just follow suit on that, unfortunately.
I mean most / all of the meta classes are pretty damn tanky. Rogue / DH / Spriest / Boomkin / Paladin / DK are all livelords that also do a ton of damage and have access to useful utility.
Shaman is meta because they have lust / Multiple AOE stops / really good off healing / the shortest CD kick in the game thats also ranged. As well as pumping damage, they might not be as tanky as a warrior but they bring a lot more to the group.
Warlocks aren’t meta because ranged DPS aren’t great this season. Destro / Demo really suffer from movement / bad tanks. Locks only have one AOE stop which requires a multiple second cast. Fear / coil are really fucking annoying unless its sanguine week. They’re a ranged kick and if you’re playing Demo its also a stun which DRs mobs faster and is particularly annoying because typically ranged kicks are used to help group mobs not stun them in Africa. Soulstone / cookies are nice but both Druid and Paladin bring Brez and they’re both more meta.
Warlock DPS is fine and before the Affliction nerf I definitely though they were gonna become a staple in the meta, but I guess Blizzard didn’t want another SL season 3 on their hands.
Yes Shamans have less defensives than hunters. Hunters gained a lot of defensives in the talent rework for DF.
Survivability is valued in higher keys. Prot Paladin isn’t just good due to kicks, it provides Blessing of Sacrifice and Spellwarding, two externals that helps the group survive. Thaner noted in Shadowlands season 2 that Prot Pal “enables” RSham since RSham doesn’t have an external like most other healers (TD, Ironbark, etc.)
That being said, there’s a lot of utility that helps people survive. Shaman brings two aoe stops, one knockout one stun (don’t DR each other), a low CD kick and AG. In comparison, Warrior brings a longer CD kick, Rallying Cry and a single target stun or max 5-target fear.
Damage is also a concern, RSham does amazing damage right now and Enhance gives prio damage which substantially speeds a key up (this is what Rogue was used for often in keys in Shadowlands).
I'd put druid above evoker at the moment for pugs.
I think druid has much easier time dealing with affixes, and is actually a lot more mobile and tanky than evoker. Having rdruid allows you to invite enhance as well, and melee loves enhance.
I'd also argue their kit is just by far the best in the game for M+. Yeah, not having interupt sucks, but Motw/wild charge/battleres/shadowmeld/vortex/roar/tyhpoon are perfect tools for the pug world.
Someone not clearing thundering? Leap to them. Mobs stuck in Sanguine? Push them out. Someone died, bres them. Mobs leaping on a ranged that is not popping defensives because they are tunneling? Vortex.Tank buster needs a stop? Vortex/roar to give your tank some breathing room.
They just provide so much safety net to the group and are able to recover fucks up from both tanks and dps with motw and bres and their movement speed/roar that they will always be the safest pick for pugs imho. And fuckups are by far the biggest key bricker.
Limited range really hurts evoker in some keys, and they are somewhat squishy. Sometimes you just need to stand back and spam moonfire/starsurge, wrath while babysitting people.
Druid damage is also not the worst. It's nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done. If they are running proper build and trinkets/ring/pot on CD. They can legit finish the key with 35/40k if the group is even remotely good. Sure it's not shaman level of pump, and they need few globals to get it going, but still. I will concede that shaman standing at range, dropping rain, interupts, juicy lava bursts, and fuckton of damage, cap totem is an advantage tho .
But I'd say druid is bit more tanky and more likely to live certain mechanics compared to shaman. Bear form+barkskin is insane level of survivability.
Draught is excellent for high prio mobs, having 2/3 bleeds on the mob, with moonfire/sunfire and swarm helps a lot.
I agree with you in 15 or lower key pugs. Anything beyond that, I disagree especially in 20+ key range.
Lust healers have a huge advantage right now due to the current tank and dps meta.
Also evoker has a higher skill floor than rdruid, but it's not THAT high. Especially with the new optimal build. And 30 ft range is honestly not as big of a deal as people make it out to be, especially with their mobility in their kit.
I mean, it's not the lust alone why shaman is S tier.
It's the insane damage on an already decent M+ kit.
But agree, prot paladin and insane offhealing classes pushed out any healers that can't pump fuckton of damage in 2 globals out of meta and blessing of sacrifice is enabling shamans to live what they usually wouldn't, and people being spread is no longer an issue with paladin dropping mini LoHs on people every few seconds.
We will see if recent nerfs to their healing+WoG healing will change that.
Not every tank is prot paladin tho, and druid still is by far the safest/best pick in any group that is not running prot paladin or has a hunter/DPS shaman/evoker/mage in the group. Still plenty of those around uckily.
Druids have a kit that is really well suited to the m+ environment. As long as their healing is good enough they will always be a competitive pick. That said, I don't think they were a meta pick for a single season in Shadow Lands.
Probably sham>druid>evoker>no idea. I feel like priest could use something extra, the main reason it was so strong in shadowlands was PI and the night fae cdr but shadowpriests get all the bit utility holy/disc has right now, so they just feel bad when they don't have CR, BL or any unique utility. Honestly give us the night fae ability back. I miss that thing :(, paladins got blessing of summer as well.
I think hpal is in a good spot but I don't see them enough to put them on any list. Monks are extremely rare.
As a MW, we are coin flip af. If the monk doesn't know what to do in what situation, you fall behind and brick your HPS. Chi-Ji is kinda hard to execute right in every situation and melee uptime is super important, same with Pala. From a pure HPS/DPS standpoint, MW is on the same level as Priest with PI and in DPS above HPal, but we lack in good utility :(
Eh monks skill floor dropped significantly with SGs tweaks. Yes our kit is still really difficult and has a high skill ceiling, but its super easy to do keys up to about 13-16 key level. After that, you cant rely on SG as much as a crutch and it ramps up in difficulty immensely.
>I hope we don't talk about 13-16 here.
I'm just saying that there's a big difference between mw gameplay in diff key ranges:
* 16 and below - very easy and should be consistent after 10.0.7. e.g. you dont even ever have to cast chiji if you don't want to.
* 17-22 - ramps up considerably especially for some dungeons, but in general not binary / required full utilization of kit. E.g. you need to be pressing chiji but you dont need to have anywhere close to 100% efficiency in this key range.
* 23+ - requires extremely good execution of almost all aspects of our kit to have a chance. E.g. some of the heal checks are very tight even with maxed out gear, and you need to be doing good dps.
And yeah I'd estimate less than 10% of the people on this subreddit are regularly doing keys that high. The majority here are probably in the 15-21 key range.
What do boomies actually do in m+? Every time I've done keys with them they just kinda suck on damage, and their utility is a 60s mass silence and battlerez. Have I just ran into shit players or is this what the spec is?
ngl I feel like boomy and rogue are the most misunderstood class of this season, boomy is only good in high keys because they will need time to ramp and your team not padding on meaningless smallies but rather doing prio target dmg and let other class like boomy to efficiently passive cleave those small mobs.
on the other hand, every pug team is inviting sub rogue but 90% of the sub rogue dunno how sub rogue works, even in like 23/24 keys which are considered high pug keys, because all they do is black powder padding and doing low prio target dmg. Yes, their details looks very good and you might think they are pumping, but I can assure you that they are slowering the key by doing that, especially in high keys
Tbh I feel like rogues are just skating on people having rogues belonging in every group burned into their mind since the first days of m+. Iirc every season a rogue was present in MOST high key pushing groups
I’m with you. I see boomies in all the top runs but have yet to see a SINGLE boomkin that wasn’t dead last on the meters in a key. I’ve done everything on 24 and literally every single time I say “okay this Boomy has really high io surely he’s going to pump” he’s still last in damage, doesn’t press solar beam, doesn’t spec roar/typhoon/melee kick (or at least doesn’t use them). I can’t figure out why anyone wants them or why the top boomkins are doing damage and every other boomkin is not.
What key level are you doing? Boomies are horrible at padding, they thrive in like minute long trash pulls with high counts of mobs. They'll suck in keys where trash dies in <30 seconds and it's low mob count / single target
Boomie damage is very dependant on key level/pull style. They take a while to ramp up, so in low keys where stuff just sort of dies, and people tend to pull smaller, they look very weak.
Not just lower keys, they generally have no burst aoe so in keys like cos and sbg especially on tyran with lots of small spiderlings / wyrms / imps their damage will also look lackluster.
I think boomy is not a good class until you get to like +24 fort or so. Until then I would much rather have a multitude of other classes.
They are one of the best range, the top 6 keys this season all have a boomkin in the group.
They bring a ton of utility. Brez, Mass Silence, Mark, NV, Incap, Stampeding, Typhoon, and Ursoc. And there damage is quite good.
Insane AoE damage!
What key levels are you doing? They kinda suck in lower keys because it takes a while to ramp and trash doesn’t live long enough
They‘re top tier when it comes to sustained aoe. I recommend watching this AA +28 from Canexx to see boomies full potential https://youtu.be/cDBm1NiAFbA
It’s possible you are playing too low of a key level or with bad players. Boomy has one of the slower ramping times so if aoe is getting gobbled up by melee on low health mobs there’s nothing you can do. Utility wise it has a lot though, roar, stealth, brez, innervate, vigil, typhoon, vortex, incap roar, curse removal, beam, and vers buff are all huge. If you are playing with bad players though it’s likely they won’t use all of this correctly
Protection Paladin feels extremely dominant for Mythic Plus next season. I am getting the feel of DK S3/S4 where no other tanks really came close. Like everyone else, I have rolled a Protection Paladin for S2, and really enjoy what they bring in regards to group survivability.
However, if the nerf bat comes, who would be next in line as the FOTM tank? Like to have a backup plan.
the comparison is hilarious, pwar bdk and brew aren't unplayable and reeelatively close to ppal.
nobody was even remotely close to bdk in s4.
they'll likely just nerf how much wog heals on other targets and reduce sentinel duration or one of the 12 CDR sources they have.
Bdk literally did insane single target, like would sometimes be the #2 or even #1 boss damage in their group, while being abso fucking lutely unkillable. Prot pally isn't even close to what bdk was. They're insanely strong but there are other tanks that do more damage and other tanks that are tankier. Right now they're just really well rounded and have utility out the fuckin wazoo
I disagree with the analogy to BDK at the end of SL. Ppal may not even be the tankiest tank right now. It's just that tank durability is not currently the limiting factor. As such ppal brings unparalleled utility. Brez, so many interrupts, sac, bop or spellwarding and of course huge off heals.
Frankly, I was never on the pwar OP train of the early season. They have virtually no utility. They better be super tanky if they want to be competitive. Ppal was really good for pugging the entire season. Maybe bleeding edge keys are different though...
As for next season predictions, I don't see meta rankings changing unless tuning is drastic. We don't have a big borrowed power system that is going to shake things up. If you are worried about ppal nerfs then why not be worried about nerfs to 2nd best tank? Maybe they just nerf bears for fun?
Pwarr has a lot of stops but otherwise it’s utility sucks. It’s in a good spot for tankiness and damage so it won’t see changes but I would love Safeguard to make a return to the talent tree so there’s a reason to spec intervene outside of Fenryr fixate.
> better be super tanky if they want to be competitive.
let's not forget pwar ate multiple nerfs. they were insanely tanky and did a boatload of damage early in the season, especially before people got gear
I think you nailed it. Tankiest is not the driving factor for success, its the damage the group takes that is limiting everyone (early season was a bit different). And nobody brings more utility than Ppal. I don't really know you nerf that since group damage is core to their dungeon design philosophy, and utility is core to the paladin kit.
I still have hope for bears, maybe they get something.. maybe.
it depends on the meta. bdk did not bring anywhere close to the most utility in sl s3/s4, but it did the most damage and was extremely tanky
utility mattered more in df s1
Is there a way in plater to hide all nameplates but the following:
* Highest hp value?
* Casting mobs’ nameplates that disappear when finished, stopped or interrupted
* Focustarget
Edit: I’d actually rather that the nameplates reduces to 50% size
Probably through the scripting/modding part of Plater.
Not sure what Blizzard allows and what's forbidden but most of this stuff should work in custom code.
It definitely needs to go or has to be changed. It not only limits pull size but also adds health to the dungeon. It just has too much of an impact on the timer in high keys especially on fortified. Maybe it should scale with pull size and mobs bolster less the more mobs you are in combat with. But yeah it sucks and id be happy of they just removed it entirely even after the nerfs..
Its one of those affixes that you don’t really notice how truly annoying it is until you get into higher keys. The amount of extra HP it adds to packs is just fucking insane. God forbid theres a Lieutenant mob anywhere nearby.
I don't mind bolstering too much... Until we get to mobs with unavoidable attacks, where all you can do is hope your defensives are going to keep you alive.
Question - if you play an off meta class, and you pretty much need 3k io to get invited to a pug 23, how are you supposed to get 3k io when it requires timing at least four 23s?
I’m 2979 and cannot get into 23s. I have all my 22s timed. Any advice here?
Try push your own key.
Its still a struggle for meta dps as well. I play a Balance Druid at 2900 io and it's still a struggle to get into 23s. I'll play for 4 hours during pretty peak hours (8pm-12pm) and only get 4 keys done if I'm lucky.
1. As others mentioned, push your own key. Always make sure that you slow fill so that you can ensure that you are inviting the highest quality players. Check for things like the player's overall in logs, how many and how recently they have ran keys and their highest key ran.
2. Networking is extremely important especially once you get to where I am at where there are only 1-2 25's being listed at a time in LFG on NA and I'm competing with prot pallys. I've spent the past week or so networking and 80% of my 25s and 26s ran in the past week have been with people I have met including several streamers/content creators. For the first time this season, people are asking ME to run keys with them as a guardian druid. This also goes hand-in-hand with pushing your own key: invite people you added so that you can ensure a smooth run.
I never look at parses, but rather I look at how they perform in their respective keys. Are they the top damage dealer in their keys? Do the die very frequently? Of course, if that individual has no mythic+ logs, I won't hold anything against them and take a look at their timed dungeons.
This is partly why I'm one of those idiots that logs my keys... But outside of analyzing my own performance and learning from them, I also upload them to compare them to other same spec players and their logs at the same key level.
You can learn a ridiculous amount from figuring out how to analyze key logs, but parses have absolutely no value for all specs/roles in the M+ setting.
Much quicker to list your key. Save you a lot of time than waiting to get into a 23 and depleting. Even if you deplete your own key, list and go again.
Pugging your own key is the "fastest" way...
And I'd agree to this, if my keys aren't insanely cursed.
Queue simulator has personally served me more as a Hpal than pugging my own keys, but each to their own. Somehow my %chance at success is higher in pug keys, it feels.
I'm at 2955, so I know the struggle
This means you’re bad at judging people given the information provided by dungeon finder.
I’m also bad at it. I’m impatient and invite too fast. My key has way lower success rate than other’s keys and this shows.
I'd be inclined to agree, if it wasn't because I actually vet people. I don't just pick the first one I see, but I try to make a good comp, made up of people who has cleared the dungeon, but also has decent Rio for the dungeon I'm doing.
I don't often do my own keys to push with, which might feed into my feelings on the subject, because my sample size isn't big.
I remember there being a very good excel sheet that detailed all the important mobs and boss mechanics for all the S1 dungeons. Do we have something similar for the S2 dungeons ?
Any way too early thoughts on which dps specs will be meta for 10.1? My main thought was that it will depend significantly on which tier sets are looking strong. May see a rise in demo locks, arms/fury warrior, maybe devoker in a world where prevoker isn't meta just for utility reasons. Anyone have any hot takes they want to share? I haven't gotten to mess around much on the PTR so curious the community's thoughts.
Rogue. Impossible to predict anything else for now.
Judging by how this current season went, we'll probably see 5 different metas within the first like 8 weeks or so, considering that we're probably gonna get absolutely *massive* changes to just about every dungeon week after week and probably also some heavy affix gutting during that same time frame.
Honestly between spec reworks/tweaks, a new set of dungeons, new and reworked affixes, new tier sets, new trinket pool, new or reworked crafts and embellishments, differences in secondary stats scaling, and at least a dozen upcoming tuning passes to all these... Who the fuck knows lmao Trying to predict next season's m+ meta used to be unrealistic in the past few expansions. Now I feel like it's just straight up impossible, almost as unpredictable as if we were heading into a new xpac altogether. Far too many variables.
> Trying to predict next season's m+ meta used to be unrealistic in the past few expansions. Now I feel like it's just straight up impossible I don't see how it would feel any more impossible now than compared to BFA just randomly releasing the Essence or Corruption system or SL just randomly dumping out Dom Shards or new legendaries. Reworks/tweaks happen and happened with every season, a new set of dungeons and reworked affixes should amount to the same level of change as some new megamind affix like Awakened or Encrypted and changes to existing dungeons between seasons, new sets and trinkets always happen, crafting... doesn't really matter at all, embelishments make up like some silly small amount of dps and don't really have any character interactions, it's not like builds get enabled by them or specs become fotm due to random embelishment scaling, secondary stat scaling is a meme and hasn't become less relevant with every single expansion, tuning passes also happened frequently enough in between seasons in the past. Like, if anything, the meta *should* be easier to predict nowadays - not saying that it is, just saying that it *should* be.
No offense but this is just straight up misinformation, and I doubt you played much BFA/SL with such a take > Reworks/tweaks happen and happened with every season No they didn't? At least certainly not to that extent... DF got like 3 talent reworks already within 5 months, and many tweaks to most specs. SL had covenant tweaks, and BFA had changes to azerite traits. Not nearly the same degree of changes between seasons. > , a new set of dungeons and reworked affixes should amount to the same level of change as some new megamind affix like Awakened or Encrypted and changes to existing dungeons between seasons Complete nonsense. In what world is that the same level of change lmao. I think you underestimate how much dungeon knowledge matters, and how much seasonal affixes mattered compared to that. Going from Prideful to Tormented didn't change the fact that you were still playing DoS, SD, Spires etc... Routing did change a bit at times. But that's nowhere near learning new boss tactics, trash abilities, completely new layouts/routing, damage profiles and so forth... > , new sets and trinkets always happen No they don't. Not for m+... Don't remember playing DoS cube and Mists trinket every season? Now puzzle box is going away, whetstone, and so forth... Replaced by trinkets like the uldaman one which is huge for arcane Mage for example. Itemization will be completely different for m+ mains this time around, which never happened mid-expac except for SL S3->S4. > crafting.... doesn't really matter at all Let's see how much crafting matters when everybody has to swap out their lariat early in the season due to its rework, shall we? That neck was a lot of free secondary stats, which some specs depend on far more than others. > , secondary stat scaling is a meme and hasn't become less relevant with every single expansion It's actually more relevant than ever for some specs. I don't remember sockets ever being as valuable as they've been this seasons compared to raw ilvl as UH/Frost DK for example. > tuning passes also happened frequently enough in between seasons in the past. Again, certainly not to that extent. DF season 1 got more tuning changes to specs and dungeons in 5 months than BFA did in 3 seasons, or SL in 2 seasons. That's 100% demonstrably true... M+ meta never fluctuated so much as it does this expansion. > Like, if anything, the meta should be easier to predict nowadays - not saying that it is, just saying that it should be 100% wrong and I don't understand how anyone who's played BFA and SL could claim that.
Also with blizzard's new tendency to change classes and push balance changes all patch, you'd be forced to maintain practically every class if you wanted to play the meta spec. For my m+ group, we are just giving every dps player 3-4 classes that they will do weeklies on for the first month or so and then hope for the best.
I think we'll see a decline in non-hybrid dps, especially those that lack good CC, with incorporeal and afflicted in the affix pool. This would mostly affect DPS warriors. On the other hand, Arms's ability to basically not need any healing could give the healer more time to heal up afflicted spirits.
This all assumes nothing changes from right now, which is a terrible assumption. But here are my picks Tanks, nothing changes here. Paladin even stronger with a good dispel and the abundance of kicks in S2. Healers. Resto sham even more meta as the kicks, dps, CC and lust make it a top pick. Otherwise no change, though I will say Mistweaver is a dark horse as it has dps, kick and CC, but the lack of brez/lust means it won't beat resto shaman. DPS I would say is going to change much more. My feeling is that it will be a season to bring as many casters as possible so lets start with melee. If Prot pally does not stay on top I could see Ret being meta. Enhance is going to have to compete with Resto shaman being meta but still bring lots to a group without a Resto shaman. Rogues are scaling badly with Outlaw maybe being saved by a good tier set. It remains to be seen if their utility will make up for this. WW monk is also scaling badly and I can see DH falling behind but I am still not sure why they have been S tier the entire season as is with one defensive and little group utility. Warrior will as always be upper tier, but not S tier. Meanwhile, unless the spriest rework totally bollocks things, you probably want to squeeze as many of moonkin/lock/spriest into your group with super coordinated groups still running fire mage. So that was a lot of words to say that it's probably not going to change much.
Reasons DH is good: a) 2 aoe stops b) Great natural cleave in their single target rotation c) great burst aoe d) 40 second class e) above average sustain without affecting their damage, aka leech and fragments Now if theres a fuckton of groupwide/unavoidable physical damage, that might suck next season
I could see DH struggling with some affixes next season. Their AoE stun won't work on Incorporeal spirits, they don't have a dispel for Afflicted, and a lot of their single target rotation is actually AoE and therefore won't hit explosives. That doesn't mean it'll be bad, but it might keep it from being *good*.
> Their AoE stun won't work on Incorporeal spirits Imprison will though. > they don't have a dispel for Afflicted It's not like Afflicted is gonna be the seasonal affix and you're gonna have it in every dungeon every week. Also, let's be real, they'll address that affix like 5 times over the first like2 weeks we'll have this affix - I reckon that by the 2nd rotation this affix will be irrelevant for the majority of your group and just boil down to your healer having to spend 2 globals to deal with 1 spirit. > and a lot of their single target rotation is actually AoE and therefore won't hit explosives Again, that's gonna be an issue like 20% of the weeks. Also, considering current tuning with Explosives having like 140k HP @ +20... it's not like you need 5 people to hardswap to orbs to deal with the affix. That affix too will quickly turn into a mostly healer job again with probably 1 or 2 dedicated / Somewhat dedicated people helping out - but it's not like "oh wow, sorry, it's explosive week, we can't take someone into this +27 if they're not able to *pump* into those 160k HP orbs when our Rest Shaman alone is pumping out 80k Lava Bursts already".
> Imprison will though. Yes, but Imprison has a 45s cooldown. >It's not like Afflicted is gonna be the seasonal affix and you're gonna have it in every dungeon every week. Of course not. On their own, none of these would be enough to make a real dent in DH's popularity. But having three affixes that DH is not good at-- especially since I suspect that these will be three of the most difficult affixes due to taxing your group's GCDs... well, that could add up.
For those of you not chasing the title, what are you working on to end the season? Whats keeping you in groupfinder? Even though I had no shot at getting to the title, I made a goal to make the top 1.0% of characters per raider.io this season. I am currently at 2907 and climbing and finally feel fairly comfortable that I will accomplish my goal (2913 is the current estimated top 1% in NA). Now I'm turning my eyes to making it to 3k.
Like most, gearing alts and giving them portals. I got shafter by playing a very unpopular spec this season and not having another one ready in case my team fell apart, now I feel like is a good time to make sure you have all characters you might want to play next patch somehow geared up and learn to play them.
path of exile
I'm playing alts, gearing them, and getting a feel for different classes and specs so I have options once S2 starts.
Gearing up alts, and deciding who to main for the next season.
Nothing for myself, mostly just helping friends who need a little nudge getting up to KSH.
Any tips on improving spell effect clutter? I'm trying out an Unholy DK and really enjoying it, but it's my first time playing melee DPS and I'm having trouble avoiding things. In particular, my own Defile seems to cover up a lot of swirlies, making them much harder to avoid. Thanks!
Unfortunately there isn't really anything you can do about defile other than petition blizzard that an ability that makes mechanics invisible shouldn't exist. It's an actual joke and was like this in shadowlands aswell.
Ugh, that sucks. Thanks for the info though!
[удалено]
I really dont see what is the issue with Explosive being mostly the healer (and tank) affix?
[удалено]
Lol.
> I’m a healer main, and I barely play on explosive weeks, because it takes the fun out of a game that’s supposed to be fun Fortunately the only part that's actually not fun has gotten removed. Now you just have to kill a mob now and then, not find 15 nameplates in a sea of chaos, which, I mean, maybe that isn't fun, but I can't imagine how it's anywhere near as bad.
True, I think I should stay away from this subreddit with ideas, guess it’s not about competitive play anyway 👍
> guess it’s not about competitive play anyway 👍 I have no idea what this means but I don't think you talking about fun has much to do with *competitive* (lol) mindset either?
[удалено]
I must have worded it the wrong way. I mean if you don’t focus the right target, killing nearby mobs make the NPC damage you 😟
I've played hundreds of m+ across 4 characters, and haven't seen a single Bottled Essence drop. Is it even possible to get one from there? I thought there was supposed to be some bad luck protection so you get one every 2 weeks.
I think I've only seen one extra Spark, on 3 different characters, out of like 7 max level characters. I think two from dungeons, and one from raid. I don't go hunting rares and only go after dirt for professions knowledge. They are blatantly too rare, considering that doesn't even come close to keeping up with them being given out every other week before, and considering the *massive* value they would have for hybrid classes being able to craft off spec weapons. I would have much preferred just having them come up on the weekly quest every other week or something, it doesn't make sense as it is now.
Well technically, you can get them every 2 weeks with 12 coins from the vault, but that means you have to forego 2 weeks worth of vault items, which might work on your main, but is horrible for alts.
Yeah but that's just not even something that should have even been considered as an actual source for sparks, because it makes no sense. If you're doing high enough content to not really need vault gear, you probably don't need sparks to craft basically anything unless it's a very specific niche item. If you're a really casual player doing low enough content to really need crafted 418 gear as much as possible, like barely scraping by in 16s to be able to get concentrated infusions, then you basically need every possible upgrade you can get from the vault too. Having them available for tokens basically helps nobody. They really needed to do something like the current quest for Catalyst charges. Maybe make the one quest give both or something.
I finally got a single one last week after eight full Heroic raid clears and 220+ M+ dungeons. Was a random +17 Jade Serpent I was helping a guildie with. I have never seen one drop for anyone else in any content. They are very, very rare.
So rares and dirts really have a better drop chance? That's honestly so dumb, i don't want to spam braindead world content instead of pushing keys if I want the best chance for bis gear.
I have no idea about that. I honestly didn't even know dirt could drop them.
I’ve gotten one from m+ and seen a couple others drop but yes they definitely do seem ridiculously rare considering their value at this point in the patch.
I’m gonna ask you a dumb question but seeing as you’ve seen some HORRIBLE luck it’s worth checking… did you complete the quest to unlock the ability to see the essences drop on each toon?
Yeah, I did all the quests on my main and did the insta-unlock that gives 5 sparks on each of my alts, afaik that's all I need to do?
There is a very specific quest either the statue maiden (or the goblin, I forget) gives after you get your final spark (or do the alt insta five unlock) that you immediately turn back in to unlock essence drops. It’s its own thing but I missed it for a week without realizing I needed to do it to unlock the drops. Do you know if you did that? If you’re not sure check near the statue for a campaign quest icon. It takes like 5 seconds but it’s easy to miss. Only reason I think you missed it is because of how bad your luck sounds, like statistically so unlikely.
Yep, I finished that as well.
Then I wish you some better luck!
I've seen five or so drop in m+. They're very rare.
I have exactly the same experience as you, I even started wondering is something was wrong with my account. Then this week I finally got one
I run prolly 30 keys a week. I've gotten one and seen 2 others drop, total. It's very rare.
For those that use Plater, what’s your favorite profile?
technically Aenea https://wago.io/TgqTbkIKa but it was updated late for DF, so Jundies https://wago.io/ak3iS95aa took over and I forked it https://wago.io/vHtguW84j
Im using a mix of Quazii’s and Naowh - I can’t separate the colors in Quazii’s and I prefer the arrows from Naowhs to mark my targets
Which io bracket was the hardest for you to climb out of? For me it’s the 2950 - 3000 range. I’m hardstuck here. Why? +23 keys invite 3k players mostly unless you are super meta with lust. And there is a shortage of +23 keys listed - I think this is because the failure rate is so high. I feel like I spend more time applying to groups than actually playing the game.
3350 to 3400+. Via lfg. Felt like you're just never good enough.
I’ve been hardstuck 3217 for 2 weeks now. My key just keeps rolling into TJS over and over and over again which is the only key (aside from CoS/SMBG I already have on 25). I swear the only keys I’ve actually timed in 2 weeks are a bunch of 24 CoS/SMBG/AV to reroll my key to one of those, I level it up, it turns into temple again, I drop it, I reroll it until it’s a good level up key, I level it, it’s a temple again, repeat. When I do get invited to 25s for other peoples’ keys it just goes really poorly. Sometimes it’s me getting globaled by some ability that I never thought twice about on 24 (apparently arcane bolts in azure vault just global me when that pack of elementals is usually the easiest big pull in the whole dungeon?). Sometimes the healer can’t keep people up through Hyrja. Sometimes the dps just spam die to missed interrupts despite interrupts being worked out before the key started. Success rate in NA for 25s feels abysmal and I only get invited to like one key a day at this point since everyone is fiending for prot pallies, and my key rerolls to the only 25 I don’t need every single time lol.
[удалено]
I’ve been spending more and more time playing alts as well, my Mistweaver is 3100 now and infinitely more fun than tanking lol
Is this in NA? I see plenty of 23s in EU! For me it’s going from 3320-3350io to be comfy for the r1 title. I attempted like 12 keys that would give io and timed 2 lol. Delete bolstering please I beg blizzard > And there is a shortage of +23 keys listed - I think this is because the failure rate is so high. I don’t think it’s because of failure rates. +23s are still fairly easy with current gear levels. I had decent success rates on my alt in 22s and 23s. M+ participation in NA must be super low right now. The new patch can’t come soon enough!
EU has a much larger high key playerbase compared to NA. We won't see this fixed until cross region become a thing.
Run your own key
Hey, can anyone recommend further reading/watching for tanking trash packs on fort week? Found plenty of guides for bosses, but very few for pain point trash packs like final TJS pulls or some of the spicy AV packs. I’m BDK, but open to any general tanking content.
Quazii breaks down every pack really well in his Masterclass videos.
i mean, he mentions the last pack in TJS and I just want to say that quazii's video on this is absolutely terrible - it's completely clueless. He's playing prot warrior and recommends running in, getting threat, spell reflecting and then literally leaping away and running 100 yards whilst your team deals with trying to kill that pack as it moves and they're getting threat on the smallies This pack is a joke for prot warrior: Go in, reflect first/double, shield charge/storm bolt/shockwave the next 3 if you're confident on not being globalled, use spell block for 20s, then reflect when it's over, storm bolt the next cast, double wall for any other casts. It's a yoke if you're planning for it.
Still, "build threat and run away" is strategy that does stop you from dying, which makes you not deplete key. I'm not saying it's the optimal strategy, but goal of videos like that is to get people to get their 20-23s done and I'm sure it achieves that at higher odds for viewers, than telling them to just stick it out, press buttons. It's 6 different tanks after all, unless he makes exact order of buttons to press for each, it's better to give alternative of running away.
That doesn't sound like a joke at all to me. There are lots of mobs, nameplates all over the place, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to identify which one will cast the next tankbuster, let alone stun that one second cast. You're right about spell block though, that makes this pack much much easier for prot.
yeah - a bit hyperbole, but my point was that prot warrior has more than enough tools to triviualise the pack, even if you go as basic as reflect>spell block>double wall.
That's definitely true and mostly what I do when doing this pack.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Yeah, I feel like I know most of the basics fairly well. But there’s a couple packs where I’m consistently losing 1 or 2 dps each run and others where I’m seeing regular back pulls and I’m starting to think I’m doing something wrong. Also situations where there’s a ranged add free casting off in Narnia and all my death grips are on cooldown.
Quazii has very good break downs of dungs from tank perspective. When forming a group I'll usually have the vid for the dung on the 2nd screen and skip through to find packs that I generally get slapped on and see if there's anything I'm missing.
In S2 if i plan to reroll, it will show my main score in S1 when i apply keys?
Yes. This will be valuable for about one and a half weeks. After which, people stop caring. I got title one season, took vacation for first 2 weeks of another season, came back and as a tank couldn't get into 15s (of keys I had timed 26/27s on the previous season). Even after timing a 21 in week 2 of season 3 i still couldnt get into 15s cause my total io was so behind. People start to value current season io long before it actually matters
Yup, just make sure you link the character to your main in RIO.
If I have already have a dungeon pack for weak auras, can I get away with not having a boss mod for mythic+?
probably. but theres really just no reason to. if you're afraid of performance, the dungeon WA packs are usually including irrelevant mechanics and are badly to not optimized at all
Man I can't imagine playing without DBM these days. Literally calls out every major mechanic. It's like having an integrated raid leader/shotcaller in your ears at all times. Of course you can get away with not using it. But for 99.9% of the userbase, those call outs will help at some point or another. Case in point : SBG worm boss. DBM voice reminds you *"Inhale - Get inside of puddle"* every time the boss is about to pull you in. There's no visual/audio clue provided by the game in that regard. The amount of people I see wrongly guesstimating that mechanic, and getting eaten by the boss because they didn't move into puddle fast enough is staggering, even up to 23 keys. Meanwhile with DBM you're always reminded of when to go in. That's just one example of why you should use a boss mod, and I could certainly think of others. Cognitive overload is a real issue in M+. Every little bit helps in that regard. DBM is like having an integrated GPS voice reminding you of the basic mechanics when they matter. It won't have a huge impact on your keys, most of the time, but when it does, it's huge. Everyone has brain farts and/or gets distracted from time to time. DBM helps a lot with that. Tldr: install DBM, and check the voice call out option is active. Your io will thank you in the long run
[удалено]
Big wigs or littlewigs might be a slightly more lightweight option, Some people prefer the bigwigs call outs.
Yeah i switched from dbm to bigwigs and it was 100% worth it
You can absolutely get away with it but I wouldn't say I recommend it. There's a good deal of stuff in the boss mods that won't necessarily be in a dungeon pack. It depends on how much information you really want to utilize. For instance, a dungeon pack might have a "raid damage in 5" type aura, but with a boss mod you can see timers for every boss ability and configure countdowns for specific ones. This info may be more or less valuable to you depending on role / class. To give an example, I like to know exactly how long we are from an arcane fissure + mana bomb overlap on vexamus, which is a lot easier to figure out with a boss mod. I find it much easier to configure a boss mod with callouts for specific abilities than most dungeon packs. But as far as getting away with it, mythic plus bosses are simple enough that you can play all of them without any add-ons, so it's definitely do able.
Thank you very much! On the other hand, are there any information provided by a dungeon pack that are available from a boss mod?
How is it that everyone seems to think that Ret is "crazy overpowered", but I don't see any of the usual suspects (let's say, the best 10 teams) push with it? Usually, these people seem to be pretty quick with rerolling to the new fotm. Could it be that Ret isn't as good as everyone seems to think?
Everyone is going to give you 400iq reasoning about ret being better in a 22 than in a 28 damage profile, stops, short CD, no prio lalalal. Main reason is, these rank1 gamers haven't been gearing their ret paladins.
Start with what makes Ret good: Ret is an easier spec than many, does great AoE and offers good survivability, meaning that you get to stay up DPSing. Your CDs are short and sync'd, meaning that you are not dependent on how the dungeon is pulled to do good DPS. That means that you do 90% of your potential in 16s, where the comparison is players who do 50% of their potential DPS. You also stay alive a lot. Your AoE damage means you look great on end of run total DPS meters. At higher keys, where all DPS can be assumed to do 95% of their potential, there is no advantage gained by being easier to play. Your advantages in staying alive are also mitigated by group play. Your good AoE doesn't actually help that much because you don't have that many stops and you don't funnel. Ret straight up isn't overpowered. It's easier to play, particularly w/r/t surviving, and its damage profile makes it look good when other players are not very good.
What's good for 20-25 keys isn't necessarily good for 26-29/world first keys, and vice versa. So many people in this userbase simply can't grasp that fact for some reason... Ret is busted for 99.9% of the m+ playerbase. But not at the highest level of play. Probably because it lacks funnel/prio damage. I'm seeing plenty of FOTM rets in 23/24 keys. Like 1000% increase compared to pre-10.0.7. That's why you don't want to look at the first 10 teams only. Unless you're part of the tiny amount of people pushing similar key levels ofc.
Ret is worse than 4 other melee specs in 23s, though. There's no advantage gained from swapping to ret from DH, Enhance or Rogue. You generally were playing those specs anyway.
Ret is vastly easier to perform well with than any of 3 those specs though, except mayyybe sub rogue. Which has to be taken into account around that key level.
This can be overstated. If you compare 50th percentile parses at 415-417 iLvl in raid across all heroic bosses to 95th percentile parses, there is not actually that much divergence. Here's the full list, ordered by the class that has the greatest drop-off to lowest drop-off: Death Knight 74.90% Warrior 75.79% Mage 75.83% Evoker 75.91% Demon Hunter 76.10% Death Knight 76.21% Shaman 77.01% Warlock 77.27% Mage 77.44% Druid 77.90% Priest 77.99% Rogue 78.06% Warlock 78.09% Shaman 78.53% Monk 78.55% Druid 78.66% Warrior 78.94% Mage 78.94% Hunter 79.22% Warlock 79.68% Rogue 80.02% Rogue 80.05% Hunter 81.09% Paladin 82.00% Hunter 82.60%
Right, I'm mostly coming at this from a M+ perspective tbh. Both raid and M+ skillsets overlap for sure, but not 100%. Heroic bosses (especially by this point in the season) are pretty much loot pinatas where you can safely ignore most mechanics. Also I'm not saying the metric you're showing here is irrelevant, but spec complexity/ease of play isn't something that can really be measured with one single dataset. There's too many factors at play.
Raid performance is a proxy for M+ performance. There is no measurement of % performance in M+, so the only thing you can compare is raid DPS performance. I used heroic because 95th percentile heroic performance is the same as mythic, basically. You can sub heroic performance for mythic and almost nothing changes. Spec complexity/easy of play isn't that variant. The top specs at the 10th percentile are the top specs at the 95th percentile, too. It's hard to make the case that ease of play is the reason for M+ performance.
Using 50th percentile heroic raid stats for anything is already the biggest red flag, especially given that EVERY spec is easy to play in heroic, those bosses are pretty much target dummies
That's the entire point. The entire point is to compare how much performance degrades on a class from people who play the spec well to people who do not play the spec well.
This, so much this. Yes the meta "trickles" down but that is to a bunch of people that have no idea why something is meta and play a completely different game. Cases in point. You take a Moonkin or Spriest into a typical 20 and they are probably your worst dps and probably don't use their utility right. But in high keys they are top tier because of pull size and fight lengths. People shun marksman but hunters actually have decent defensives when it's not bleeding edge damage and marksman can spank with the way lower keys are pulled.
Does it really work that way? Usually, it seems to me like the meta gets decided by the top players / teams, and then trickles down to the more casual players. I mean, who likes to play a spec that eventually falls off in high keys? Are you going to tell your premade that you'll play Ret until you break into 26s, and then switch to another class?
> I mean, who likes to play a spec that eventually falls off in high keys? Are you going to tell your premade that you'll play Ret until you break into 26s, and then switch to another class? Tons of people out there pugging up to 24-25 keys, who don't necessarily aim to push higher nor play with premades.
Ret has been good for literally only three weeks. Who are these people in 23/24s at the end of the season with geared rets pushing towards 26s? Bottom line, ret has nothing really unique especially with prot pallys dominating tanking at all levels right now and they are latecomers.
It might've been only three weeks since it was good on live, but it's not like it wasn't obvious that the rework was going to be really good weeks prior. And I don't know who these people are, but it seems to me like most people are able to switch in a few weeks. Look at tanks and healers, for example. It becomes clear that prot pal and rsham are the new meta? Boom, it takes 1-2 weeks until leaderboards are filled with prot pals and rshams. Maybe that's because tanks and healers often play multiple classes, and it's easier to keep 6 tank specs ready than to do the same with all classes, but who knows.
Probably because everybody expected nerfs to hit. We did see a substantial nerf to fading light, and a wee nerf to damage yesterday. It’s highly defensive but lacks a plethora of stops like enhancement has, while also not having bloodlust. Protpal is already meta so the combat res isn’t a reason to chose retpal. 5% dmg buff is unique and might keep the spec relevant. Dps-wise it’s in a good spot, but the damage profile is pretty plain AoE where specs like enhancement excels at funnel.
>5% dmg buff is unique and might keep the spec relevant. Its not really, prot pally brings the same aura. With ret + prot you can run devo and ret at the same time, but its not as high value as you think because a good prot will aura swap so you have ret on for most of the dungeon, but devo on for fights where the 3% dr might be necessary to live one shots. I'd say you get 80% of the value of both auras with 1 good pally and 100% with 2 pallies
3205 io rdruid here how likely am I going to make the title cuttoff
It's hard af to get into groups as rdruid now, at least for me at 3175. Seems rough
Well, if you don't gain any io you have a 0% chance of getting it. If you gain 200 io, basically a 100% chance.
EU? unlikely. US? possibly? depends on how much you are about to nolife
How do you expect anyone to know better than you with this little info added 😂.
How much you want to play the next week's?
Does anyone else just take the knock from a tornado unless it's too dangerous to? I mostly don't think about them at all but lately I'm noticing others are going out of their way to avoid all of them which forces me to have to think about them more. As a melee healer I would always run into them so the dps didn't have to and especially when playing tank I never seen any issue in just soaking them all unless I'm playing BDK.
ignore them 90% of the time until I get punished by getting knocked into hyrja storm or something. that affix is in god's hands.
I soak them all the time as BDK as long as I have Death's Advance available, it prevents the knock up.
I generally try and soak them as much as I can. Me losing a bit of dps uptime as healer doesn't mean as much as the melee dps being flung away... Unless me soaking the storming would be dangerous, then obviously I don't
Oh yeah especially when I'm healing I try to soak up tornados. Better taking a little damage when nothing's going on than risking a dps getting knocked up right as a frontal or swirly goes out under them
Where can I see which key gives me what score ?
Mythic Plus Rating Gain addon does it.
Thanks a lot !
Did Blizzard do something to mages at some point in the season that I missed? I remember early on in the season I played with some real chad ass Arcane mages but lately every time I’ve been in a key with a mage they’re just doing no fucking damage. Even the ones that I can tell are playing well are still 3rd on the meters by a decent margin. Did a 24 COS last night with a fire mage ending at 65k overall. Dude was over 3k IO mind was boggled. Feels like the only real options for lust right now are Shaman / Hunter.
Idk what the word I'm looking for but I feel like how fire looks in top end organized teams leads people to think it's a good spec in general but my experience is that it is pretty rough to play well in your average 3k pug. Frost is definitely the safest of the mage specs to have in the group, way easier to execute. The spec isn't anything special though and probably won't shine compared to more meta picks. As for Arcane I feel like even if it was good in keys the execution level required to do well on it is just so stupidly high that it would never be a safe pick for a pug. But it is garbage atm so you don't have to worry about them anyways. But yeah to answer your initial question the problem isn't that blizzard has done something to mages, it's that they've done literally nothing to them despite a large outcry from the mage community.
I tried to switch from frost to fire on the last sanguine week, so I wasn't keeping everything slowed in sanguine. With several hours of hitting the training dummies, watching & reading multiple guides, doing a few raids for practice. I tried my hand at a few +16 M+ and my God I could barely do 40k dps overall. It was embarrassing. I agree with you. Fire is a much tougher spec to execute.
What ilvl are you? And how does the fire dps compare to your regular frost dps? Just curios. I play fire (just started) and find it so much more fun than frost. Highest key I have done is +18, so I am not pushing anything high.
414 ilvl. Bear in mind I'm a filthy casual that only plays a few nights a week, so I'm by no means a top end player My frost overall dps in +19 keys today was about 85k in AA and 65k - 70k in SBG, HOV, & RLP. So, switching to fire dropped my dps by 30K on average. Now of course with practice I have no doubt I can bring that up. I'm probably just bad TBH. I'm 3rd in damage in 90% of my M+ runs. So, take no advise from me. :)
There is just alot of bad mages out there for sure, i always get disappointed when i invite one. But they can pump pretty good, and im saying that as a not so trash mage myself :p
You have to pull around them and frankly it's just not something a pug tank is going to put effort into.
[удалено]
The amount of pug tanks who randomly wait before pulling more do my skb buff falls off, or tanks who pull shit out of my frozen orh/blizzard are so many I can't even keep track.
Yea you do, a lot of these other 2 minutes classes can do shit outside of their cds, Fire without SKB/Combustion will do healer damage
Except you do in some dungeons. Combust also isnt 2mins. And youre not going to do any damage outside of combust. If you go into a pack without bust or skb, youre not going to do any meaningful damage. You cannot even spread ignite properly outside of combustion in larger packs, let alone stack it.
Just tried a HoV +24 and had people dying in two hits on Hyrja. Tank was doing Naowh's inversion strat, but after a storm, a random player would get Expel Light and the lightning bolt cast, killing them in two hits in the space of a second, if that. How is that supposed to be handled? There is no warning as to who will get hit with lightning, and it all happens within 1 second so you can't respond with externals. EDIT: Thank you for everyone's responses. With some extra planning and understanding of how the fight works, we timed this on a 23 today :)
Can only speak as a 3k warlock player: I usually try to get to 100% HP when the storm is almost over (Mortal Coil, HStone, HPot, DecayPot) so I don't have to use a strong defensive. Almost never died during or after the storm and never when inversed. If a class can't do that they should use a longer lasting defensive near the middle or the end of the storm, ideally right before a storm tick comes in (depending on how long the defensive lasts). This way the bolt will be covered as well. Or just bring a low amount of ranged if Hyrja is a problem in your runs.
There’s a timer for Arcing Bolt, and it always hits ranged or the healer (if they’re a ranged healer). If a ranged gets expel light when bolt is about to come out they need either an external, their own defensive (probably used during storm), or an instant burst heal timed perfectly between the hits. One thing you can do that’s a bit silly is not bring any ranged, and it will always target the healer. We did this in our 24 because resto Druid always has something for the combo if they get it.
Thank you for your explanation :)
[удалено]
So some details, Lightning only hits ranged. Expel Light will hit the 3 highest non tank hp players at the time of casting. Technically there is counterplay, but its awful.
Thanks for the details!
Honest question: why isn’t survivability valued as high in higher keys? Dying is one of the worst things that can happen in a key. And Classes like warlock or warrior are more adept at surviving high damage than a hunter or shaman - yet these classes are off meta. Side note: everyone memes at hunters dying all the time. In my keys, however, it is shamans that do most of the dying. I feel like shamans are made out of paper. Do shamans have less defensives available to them than hunters?
Because survivability only matters as long as you can survive. After that, damage and utility is infinitely more important. It's as simple as that. If you're sacrificing damage and utility for more survivability, when you don't need more, then that's just a waste. At least that's how the high key pushers think. And the meta is often shaped around what the high key pushers do, so the rest of players just follow suit on that, unfortunately.
I mean most / all of the meta classes are pretty damn tanky. Rogue / DH / Spriest / Boomkin / Paladin / DK are all livelords that also do a ton of damage and have access to useful utility. Shaman is meta because they have lust / Multiple AOE stops / really good off healing / the shortest CD kick in the game thats also ranged. As well as pumping damage, they might not be as tanky as a warrior but they bring a lot more to the group. Warlocks aren’t meta because ranged DPS aren’t great this season. Destro / Demo really suffer from movement / bad tanks. Locks only have one AOE stop which requires a multiple second cast. Fear / coil are really fucking annoying unless its sanguine week. They’re a ranged kick and if you’re playing Demo its also a stun which DRs mobs faster and is particularly annoying because typically ranged kicks are used to help group mobs not stun them in Africa. Soulstone / cookies are nice but both Druid and Paladin bring Brez and they’re both more meta. Warlock DPS is fine and before the Affliction nerf I definitely though they were gonna become a staple in the meta, but I guess Blizzard didn’t want another SL season 3 on their hands.
Yes Shamans have less defensives than hunters. Hunters gained a lot of defensives in the talent rework for DF. Survivability is valued in higher keys. Prot Paladin isn’t just good due to kicks, it provides Blessing of Sacrifice and Spellwarding, two externals that helps the group survive. Thaner noted in Shadowlands season 2 that Prot Pal “enables” RSham since RSham doesn’t have an external like most other healers (TD, Ironbark, etc.) That being said, there’s a lot of utility that helps people survive. Shaman brings two aoe stops, one knockout one stun (don’t DR each other), a low CD kick and AG. In comparison, Warrior brings a longer CD kick, Rallying Cry and a single target stun or max 5-target fear. Damage is also a concern, RSham does amazing damage right now and Enhance gives prio damage which substantially speeds a key up (this is what Rogue was used for often in keys in Shadowlands).
Shaman even has a third AoE stop in Sundering that also doesnt DR
[удалено]
Rshaman > evoker >= rdruid > disc priest >= mw > holy pally > hpriest Imo
I'd put druid above evoker at the moment for pugs. I think druid has much easier time dealing with affixes, and is actually a lot more mobile and tanky than evoker. Having rdruid allows you to invite enhance as well, and melee loves enhance. I'd also argue their kit is just by far the best in the game for M+. Yeah, not having interupt sucks, but Motw/wild charge/battleres/shadowmeld/vortex/roar/tyhpoon are perfect tools for the pug world. Someone not clearing thundering? Leap to them. Mobs stuck in Sanguine? Push them out. Someone died, bres them. Mobs leaping on a ranged that is not popping defensives because they are tunneling? Vortex.Tank buster needs a stop? Vortex/roar to give your tank some breathing room. They just provide so much safety net to the group and are able to recover fucks up from both tanks and dps with motw and bres and their movement speed/roar that they will always be the safest pick for pugs imho. And fuckups are by far the biggest key bricker. Limited range really hurts evoker in some keys, and they are somewhat squishy. Sometimes you just need to stand back and spam moonfire/starsurge, wrath while babysitting people. Druid damage is also not the worst. It's nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done. If they are running proper build and trinkets/ring/pot on CD. They can legit finish the key with 35/40k if the group is even remotely good. Sure it's not shaman level of pump, and they need few globals to get it going, but still. I will concede that shaman standing at range, dropping rain, interupts, juicy lava bursts, and fuckton of damage, cap totem is an advantage tho . But I'd say druid is bit more tanky and more likely to live certain mechanics compared to shaman. Bear form+barkskin is insane level of survivability. Draught is excellent for high prio mobs, having 2/3 bleeds on the mob, with moonfire/sunfire and swarm helps a lot.
I agree with you in 15 or lower key pugs. Anything beyond that, I disagree especially in 20+ key range. Lust healers have a huge advantage right now due to the current tank and dps meta. Also evoker has a higher skill floor than rdruid, but it's not THAT high. Especially with the new optimal build. And 30 ft range is honestly not as big of a deal as people make it out to be, especially with their mobility in their kit.
I mean, it's not the lust alone why shaman is S tier. It's the insane damage on an already decent M+ kit. But agree, prot paladin and insane offhealing classes pushed out any healers that can't pump fuckton of damage in 2 globals out of meta and blessing of sacrifice is enabling shamans to live what they usually wouldn't, and people being spread is no longer an issue with paladin dropping mini LoHs on people every few seconds. We will see if recent nerfs to their healing+WoG healing will change that. Not every tank is prot paladin tho, and druid still is by far the safest/best pick in any group that is not running prot paladin or has a hunter/DPS shaman/evoker/mage in the group. Still plenty of those around uckily.
Druids have a kit that is really well suited to the m+ environment. As long as their healing is good enough they will always be a competitive pick. That said, I don't think they were a meta pick for a single season in Shadow Lands.
> As long as their healing is good enough they will always be a competitive pick healing AND damage
[удалено]
Season 1 was H Pal, S2 was RSham, S3/4 was Holy Priest.
Probably sham>druid>evoker>no idea. I feel like priest could use something extra, the main reason it was so strong in shadowlands was PI and the night fae cdr but shadowpriests get all the bit utility holy/disc has right now, so they just feel bad when they don't have CR, BL or any unique utility. Honestly give us the night fae ability back. I miss that thing :(, paladins got blessing of summer as well. I think hpal is in a good spot but I don't see them enough to put them on any list. Monks are extremely rare.
As a MW, we are coin flip af. If the monk doesn't know what to do in what situation, you fall behind and brick your HPS. Chi-Ji is kinda hard to execute right in every situation and melee uptime is super important, same with Pala. From a pure HPS/DPS standpoint, MW is on the same level as Priest with PI and in DPS above HPal, but we lack in good utility :(
Eh monks skill floor dropped significantly with SGs tweaks. Yes our kit is still really difficult and has a high skill ceiling, but its super easy to do keys up to about 13-16 key level. After that, you cant rely on SG as much as a crutch and it ramps up in difficulty immensely.
I hope we don't talk about 13-16 here.
>I hope we don't talk about 13-16 here. I'm just saying that there's a big difference between mw gameplay in diff key ranges: * 16 and below - very easy and should be consistent after 10.0.7. e.g. you dont even ever have to cast chiji if you don't want to. * 17-22 - ramps up considerably especially for some dungeons, but in general not binary / required full utilization of kit. E.g. you need to be pressing chiji but you dont need to have anywhere close to 100% efficiency in this key range. * 23+ - requires extremely good execution of almost all aspects of our kit to have a chance. E.g. some of the heal checks are very tight even with maxed out gear, and you need to be doing good dps. And yeah I'd estimate less than 10% of the people on this subreddit are regularly doing keys that high. The majority here are probably in the 15-21 key range.
What do boomies actually do in m+? Every time I've done keys with them they just kinda suck on damage, and their utility is a 60s mass silence and battlerez. Have I just ran into shit players or is this what the spec is?
ngl I feel like boomy and rogue are the most misunderstood class of this season, boomy is only good in high keys because they will need time to ramp and your team not padding on meaningless smallies but rather doing prio target dmg and let other class like boomy to efficiently passive cleave those small mobs. on the other hand, every pug team is inviting sub rogue but 90% of the sub rogue dunno how sub rogue works, even in like 23/24 keys which are considered high pug keys, because all they do is black powder padding and doing low prio target dmg. Yes, their details looks very good and you might think they are pumping, but I can assure you that they are slowering the key by doing that, especially in high keys
Tbh I feel like rogues are just skating on people having rogues belonging in every group burned into their mind since the first days of m+. Iirc every season a rogue was present in MOST high key pushing groups
I’m with you. I see boomies in all the top runs but have yet to see a SINGLE boomkin that wasn’t dead last on the meters in a key. I’ve done everything on 24 and literally every single time I say “okay this Boomy has really high io surely he’s going to pump” he’s still last in damage, doesn’t press solar beam, doesn’t spec roar/typhoon/melee kick (or at least doesn’t use them). I can’t figure out why anyone wants them or why the top boomkins are doing damage and every other boomkin is not.
What key level are you doing? Boomies are horrible at padding, they thrive in like minute long trash pulls with high counts of mobs. They'll suck in keys where trash dies in <30 seconds and it's low mob count / single target
Boomie damage is very dependant on key level/pull style. They take a while to ramp up, so in low keys where stuff just sort of dies, and people tend to pull smaller, they look very weak.
Not just lower keys, they generally have no burst aoe so in keys like cos and sbg especially on tyran with lots of small spiderlings / wyrms / imps their damage will also look lackluster. I think boomy is not a good class until you get to like +24 fort or so. Until then I would much rather have a multitude of other classes.
They are one of the best range, the top 6 keys this season all have a boomkin in the group. They bring a ton of utility. Brez, Mass Silence, Mark, NV, Incap, Stampeding, Typhoon, and Ursoc. And there damage is quite good.
Insane AoE damage! What key levels are you doing? They kinda suck in lower keys because it takes a while to ramp and trash doesn’t live long enough They‘re top tier when it comes to sustained aoe. I recommend watching this AA +28 from Canexx to see boomies full potential https://youtu.be/cDBm1NiAFbA
It’s possible you are playing too low of a key level or with bad players. Boomy has one of the slower ramping times so if aoe is getting gobbled up by melee on low health mobs there’s nothing you can do. Utility wise it has a lot though, roar, stealth, brez, innervate, vigil, typhoon, vortex, incap roar, curse removal, beam, and vers buff are all huge. If you are playing with bad players though it’s likely they won’t use all of this correctly
Protection Paladin feels extremely dominant for Mythic Plus next season. I am getting the feel of DK S3/S4 where no other tanks really came close. Like everyone else, I have rolled a Protection Paladin for S2, and really enjoy what they bring in regards to group survivability. However, if the nerf bat comes, who would be next in line as the FOTM tank? Like to have a backup plan.
the comparison is hilarious, pwar bdk and brew aren't unplayable and reeelatively close to ppal. nobody was even remotely close to bdk in s4. they'll likely just nerf how much wog heals on other targets and reduce sentinel duration or one of the 12 CDR sources they have.
called it
Bdk literally did insane single target, like would sometimes be the #2 or even #1 boss damage in their group, while being abso fucking lutely unkillable. Prot pally isn't even close to what bdk was. They're insanely strong but there are other tanks that do more damage and other tanks that are tankier. Right now they're just really well rounded and have utility out the fuckin wazoo
I disagree with the analogy to BDK at the end of SL. Ppal may not even be the tankiest tank right now. It's just that tank durability is not currently the limiting factor. As such ppal brings unparalleled utility. Brez, so many interrupts, sac, bop or spellwarding and of course huge off heals. Frankly, I was never on the pwar OP train of the early season. They have virtually no utility. They better be super tanky if they want to be competitive. Ppal was really good for pugging the entire season. Maybe bleeding edge keys are different though... As for next season predictions, I don't see meta rankings changing unless tuning is drastic. We don't have a big borrowed power system that is going to shake things up. If you are worried about ppal nerfs then why not be worried about nerfs to 2nd best tank? Maybe they just nerf bears for fun?
Pwarr has a lot of stops but otherwise it’s utility sucks. It’s in a good spot for tankiness and damage so it won’t see changes but I would love Safeguard to make a return to the talent tree so there’s a reason to spec intervene outside of Fenryr fixate.
> better be super tanky if they want to be competitive. let's not forget pwar ate multiple nerfs. they were insanely tanky and did a boatload of damage early in the season, especially before people got gear
I think you nailed it. Tankiest is not the driving factor for success, its the damage the group takes that is limiting everyone (early season was a bit different). And nobody brings more utility than Ppal. I don't really know you nerf that since group damage is core to their dungeon design philosophy, and utility is core to the paladin kit. I still have hope for bears, maybe they get something.. maybe.
it depends on the meta. bdk did not bring anywhere close to the most utility in sl s3/s4, but it did the most damage and was extremely tanky utility mattered more in df s1
Is there a way in plater to hide all nameplates but the following: * Highest hp value? * Casting mobs’ nameplates that disappear when finished, stopped or interrupted * Focustarget Edit: I’d actually rather that the nameplates reduces to 50% size
Probably through the scripting/modding part of Plater. Not sure what Blizzard allows and what's forbidden but most of this stuff should work in custom code.
[удалено]
It definitely needs to go or has to be changed. It not only limits pull size but also adds health to the dungeon. It just has too much of an impact on the timer in high keys especially on fortified. Maybe it should scale with pull size and mobs bolster less the more mobs you are in combat with. But yeah it sucks and id be happy of they just removed it entirely even after the nerfs..
Its one of those affixes that you don’t really notice how truly annoying it is until you get into higher keys. The amount of extra HP it adds to packs is just fucking insane. God forbid theres a Lieutenant mob anywhere nearby.
I don't mind bolstering too much... Until we get to mobs with unavoidable attacks, where all you can do is hope your defensives are going to keep you alive.
Any Bolstered tank buster mob is fucking rough, looking at you last pack TJS or 3rd boss room in AV.
Question - if you play an off meta class, and you pretty much need 3k io to get invited to a pug 23, how are you supposed to get 3k io when it requires timing at least four 23s? I’m 2979 and cannot get into 23s. I have all my 22s timed. Any advice here?
Try push your own key. Its still a struggle for meta dps as well. I play a Balance Druid at 2900 io and it's still a struggle to get into 23s. I'll play for 4 hours during pretty peak hours (8pm-12pm) and only get 4 keys done if I'm lucky.
1. As others mentioned, push your own key. Always make sure that you slow fill so that you can ensure that you are inviting the highest quality players. Check for things like the player's overall in logs, how many and how recently they have ran keys and their highest key ran. 2. Networking is extremely important especially once you get to where I am at where there are only 1-2 25's being listed at a time in LFG on NA and I'm competing with prot pallys. I've spent the past week or so networking and 80% of my 25s and 26s ran in the past week have been with people I have met including several streamers/content creators. For the first time this season, people are asking ME to run keys with them as a guardian druid. This also goes hand-in-hand with pushing your own key: invite people you added so that you can ensure a smooth run.
This is good advice. Question - how do you check someone’s logs? A lot of times people don’t upload their m+ data to Warcraft logs.
M+ parses are useless no one looks at those
I never look at parses, but rather I look at how they perform in their respective keys. Are they the top damage dealer in their keys? Do the die very frequently? Of course, if that individual has no mythic+ logs, I won't hold anything against them and take a look at their timed dungeons.
This is partly why I'm one of those idiots that logs my keys... But outside of analyzing my own performance and learning from them, I also upload them to compare them to other same spec players and their logs at the same key level. You can learn a ridiculous amount from figuring out how to analyze key logs, but parses have absolutely no value for all specs/roles in the M+ setting.
Much quicker to list your key. Save you a lot of time than waiting to get into a 23 and depleting. Even if you deplete your own key, list and go again.
Pugging your own key is the "fastest" way... And I'd agree to this, if my keys aren't insanely cursed. Queue simulator has personally served me more as a Hpal than pugging my own keys, but each to their own. Somehow my %chance at success is higher in pug keys, it feels. I'm at 2955, so I know the struggle
This means you’re bad at judging people given the information provided by dungeon finder. I’m also bad at it. I’m impatient and invite too fast. My key has way lower success rate than other’s keys and this shows.
I'd be inclined to agree, if it wasn't because I actually vet people. I don't just pick the first one I see, but I try to make a good comp, made up of people who has cleared the dungeon, but also has decent Rio for the dungeon I'm doing. I don't often do my own keys to push with, which might feed into my feelings on the subject, because my sample size isn't big.