This is why Dratnos is the best. Man literally does the highest end content like being one of the top 200 guilds to down the final boss on mythic and does the high end keys of 12s+ and yet he still takes into consideration the casual population who could be having the worst time doing this kind of stuff and actually kind of puts his response from a perspective of both the high end base and low end base. Love you Dratnos and very great video! I always go for KSM but this xpac its just drastically wearing me down to where in the first 17 years i wanna walk away from wow so its super nice to see someone who pushes endgame to the hardest also see some of the negatives to alot of the M+ changes they've done.
Ya most streamers are saying wild out of touch takes like the real grind starts at +12s and other nonsense. Dratnos keeps it as real as his chest is hairy.
@@victorvelasco1693 ong ksm is light work, ksh is a little harder, depending if ur pugging or not, hard to get there as dps cause no1 wants you but, 10s are still hard but if u know ur rota its easy asf
"A lot of work for not a lot of rewards" This is so true. I don't raid and it feels like I have been sitting at 612 for weeks now. I am pretty casual but I was getting myth rewards in past season with same amount of play time.
This is no intent to be mean, but that is a you issues. Reached 614 on my alt not touching myth raid, just keys range 7-9 and crafted items. Took me like 3-4 days
@@rasmushopland5001 I mean, I'm doing 10's too but why be rude? It's a them issue that they can't do 8's w/ 612 I GUESS, but in the last 2 expacs/8 seasons people in that position have been able to outgear this challenge. That's the problem. Less skilled players being able to outgear content is an MMO staple.
Casual Gamer Dad here (KSH, AOTC only). Level Squish for me was turbo-bad. My fellow old and bads are well beyond the point of getting good. We don't have time to practice keys hours a night. Having that 2-11 range to gear and crest up was massive for us to get those reps in. It took us all season to get KSH, but that's fine, we're patient, we know we need the gear to make up for our lack of skill. Seasonal affixes should never have gone away. Having a themed season around the current raid and story arc is a huge W thematically. They should have gotten rid of the other affixes (like they finally did), not the seasonal one. Hopefully this is a positive step for Blizzard. I 100% agree on the "this other school PLUS magic" dispellable thing, you're spitting absolute facts on that one and I hope some intern at blizzard was watching.
the kick/stun change would be ok IF there were fewer things that needs to be stopped. There are so many deadly spells. Some small pulls need like 7 kicks.
Absolutely. Also, at the very least, their logic of "NPC should behave like PCs" should be followed through to the end. If I kick a player, they're locked out of casting for some time. Mobs shouldn't be able to just cast immediately after being klicked.
And the ultimate kick machine, Prot Pally, is in such a bad way that despite needing all the kicks you can get, Prot Pally is one of the lowest used spec
I'd love to see some "lack of coordination" change for interrupts. IE if you try to kick, but there's nothing to kick (say if you're in a pug and someone stunned it or kicked it a fraction of second before you), your interrupt CD goes on a shorter CD (say 5s). If you successfully interrupt a cast, you get the full CD. You still get a CD so you can't just spam kick, but it's much less punishing. This would be a huge help to pugs who can't really coordinate, and would make learning the dungeon a little more forgiving.
Its funny, several specs actually have the opposite of this. I know mages before the 11.0 class tree rework, DKs, and Balance Druid (probably some others as well that i forgot) actually get a lower cooldown kick if they do interrupt a spell. Balance is by far the worst, their kick goes from 1 minute cd to 45 seconds if they interrupt. Your kick getting a 33% longer cooldown because you kicked at the same time as someone else is insane game design.
Honestly, you could make kick spammable until it hits a cast and it would still be fine, because while you're mashing your button, you don't know if you're about to interrupt a real spell or a filler spell. Making it not go on CD if it hits nothing just makes life better on everyone
I’d also add these two comments: 1. Every single class should have an interrupt in an easy, accessible spot in their class tree. Or hell in their default spell book. That some don’t is just a bad design decision. 2. Keys shouldn’t deplete. There are certain breakpoints where the scaling itself is a new learning experience. So just let people learn.
@@RamosAjala this is coming from someone who does high keys every season to push for title and has gotten title several times. At a high enough key if you fill wipe twice keys over anyways. There's no point to force the majority of m plusers to experience high key type punishment in low keys. It just kills interaction and any want to continue in a key with 2 or even 1 wipe
@@RamosAjala context of deaths is important. If you full wipe twice in high keys it's over. If over time you accumulate deaths that would equal a full wipe you still time the key. Difference is obvious that a full wipe resets a pull individual deaths do not. To say there's no point to a timer if you can wipe 10 times and still time keys is true if you were strictly talking about the actual difficult keys like 10's and beyond but you're generalizing all key levels when you say that. Which tbh sounds out of touch and gate keepy to keys in general. Why wouldn't a group of people in low lvl content be allowed to wipe multiple times and still time the key? Truly it doesn't even affect you as a player if you aren't in that lvl of content. If you're well above that lvl of content a full wipe is basically GG anyways so the death affix is redundant.
@@RamosAjalathere’s a difference between 2 wipes and 5 deaths over a whole dungeon to random shit making the timers insanely tight, and making you be over conservative with pulls as a result, making it even less efficient on time. Especially with the 15 kicks you need for a pack of 4 mobs
Yep you either get death penalty or walk backs not both But even with no walk backs it's STILL punishing because a wipe means you start the mobs over. Not that deaths shouldn't be punishing, but it just already naturally is!
The tank durability change has been the most impactful for me this season. I regularly tanked in SL and DF and this season has hit like a freight train. The toxicity of people whenever I mess up one time is also kinda astonishing. It was not this bad in SL or DF
I'd even be okay with just moving myth vault rewards down to +9 keys from the current +10. 9s right now are pretty "dead" but plenty of people still need them for score or need them upgraded to run their own 10s.
Been a healer main since BC. This is the least amount of agency I have ever felt as a healer in keys. I am regularly spamming people at full health bars because if I don't they die, and even then in many cases they die.
This does seem a bit exaggerated or you (at maybe no fault of your own) have really bad groups who stand in things. I’ve timed every 11 , and none of the dungeons have any unavoidable instant one-shot mechanic that just radiates requiring you to “spam” a full health bar. And I play a “C tier”Mistweaver.
challenger's peril is one of the worst ideas blizz has ever had... "oh, people leave keys when there's wipes?? cool! let's make it 3x as bad to make sure they leave more often!!" ...brilliant
The 3x is clearly a number they winged out and said: good enough. If it was +1 sec per mythic lvl from 7 onward, or something similar it would be so much better. In the end I think guile and peril difficulty should be more progressive.
Here is a few things I would like to see. 1.) move Guilded Crest to +7 2.) Remove Challengers Peril that affix can get thrown into a volcano 3) move Fortified to permanent +4 affix and Tyrannical to permanent +10. Xala'tath's Bargin is enough affix variance. Let Tyrannical be just a Portal and up affix. 4.) Revert Tank nerfs Tanking is so much less fun which equals less tanks. 5.) I do think the stop change to interrupting mob cast needs to be reverted as well. 6.) Key Depletion needs looked at its way to punishing to deplete your key because someone rage quits bricking the key. I think this could be a much better version. Give keys 3 charges if a key is unfinished or fails to time you lose a charge and if you lose all 3 charges your next fail depletes. When you time a key the new key is set at 3 charges. That would improve M + alot.
I think a lot of the problems with this season can be alleviated by the removal of challenger’s peril and the kick/stop change. These changes turn the completion of keys that are challenging, for me as a player, from satisfying to relieving, especially in a pug setting.
Really really good video Dratnos! You hit the nail on the head on exactly everything about m+ this season and I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been complaining about all of this in guild chat and Reddit for weeks! Thanks for some validation finally! Buff Holy Priest in m+ and remove challengers peril! And possibly lower myth track to 9. Also bring back the old key levels for next season. There are even folks in +10 keys with 2700 score clowning around.
You're right on the money at 3:30, Dratnos, kudos ! It's not just the key depletion itself, it's the feeling that you cannot possibly afford a single wipe or it's all over that keeps you constantly on edge and really wears people down. I've never seen so many groups fall apart, so many people clearly joining pugs already tilted etc. as in this season, it's crazy out there in the wilds at times !
The two most important changes they NEED to make for the next TWW season are: 1) remove Challenger's peril completely (we don't need a +7 affix, Xal's Bargain is fine on it's own), and 2) change crest and reward levels to their relative Dragonflight equivalent. I think a lot of players will give an "oopsie" pass on the first season of M+ in a new expansion (looking at you Thundering), but that cannot and will not be the case in a second or subsequent season. These changes are what I would consider required for TWW M+ season 2 or we are looking at a collapse of the M+ system - it's just not rewarding enough given how difficult it is.
@@corksterx1 myth vault option should be at 7-8 or else you lose all those weekly minimum players, they tried to artificially extend the season with the 90 crests thing too, it backfired
Moving it to 9 makes a nice rewards structure: hero end of dungeon gear at 7, crests at 8, myth in vault at 9, portal at 10. This way ppl can outgear the 10s in the span of the season
@@FreggeLock but this makes the season feel incredibly grindy and ultimately unrewarding. It just feels terrible imo. It shouldn’t take the ENTIRE season to outgear a 10 - that was never the case before and shouldn’t be now.
Whoever made the decision to put Necrotic Wake and Siege of Boralus into the dungeon pool should probably not be allowed to make those types of decisions for future M+ pools, period. It also seems like given the pattern, the permanent rule is that any Cataclysm dungeon is just going to be miserable. Tank durability nerf is they actually followed through with what they said and tuned down the damage to the entire group, instead with everything you mentioned the issues are way worse, the group damage is just as high with ALSO high tank damage, which is unacceptable and untenable.
Personally I enjoyed doing +8 for myth vault in DF. Keys were so chill and i was just "losing" 15 crests by doing so. It was fun, just LOGIN and slay some monsters kinda thing. Now I have to pay attention 24/7, cant try stupid shit or anything cuz 1 wipe = disband. I miss it sm
God these comments annoy the shit out of me. Casuals who want to get the best gear by doing exactly nothing, dont want to put in any effort what so ever
I had a key yesterday that went from an +1 with time to spare to depleted because we wiped on a trash pack and it snapped to the respawn and killed us again. In the course of 30 seconds we lost 2 1/2 minutes from death timers because of a single missed kick and a dot keeping people in combat. The 15 second death timer is so bad, I cant believe they ever allowed that to make it to live.
@2:20 I'd argue that it CANT be possible that an affix can be "really good" while having the ability to brick your key without counter-play like in ara'kara or many other instances. If Devs want keys to be rare and "feel like a lot is on the line" they cant at the same time be responsible for some total BS like that.
What blows my mind in how ridiculously stupid the Crest Situation is; Doing 8+ keys rewards crests you can't actually use to upgrade the reward from those 8+ keys. You have to farm 4-7's to get the Crests that upgrade the loot from 7-10 and beyond keys. If you're doing 8 10+ keys a week to get the full vault, but also because you're still gearing up, you have made 90 Gilded & 6 Runed crests (if all are timed). If you start to hit 8+ Keys now, you looking at a chasm of 630 Gilded Crests to farm before you get to use those crests on the gear you're currently farming. And since you don't ever downgrade Gilded to Runed crests, you have to farm 7's till your entire gear is 619. The WoW UX design team really needs to retake some UX design classes, if the best solution to farming hero track gear is being eternally stuck on 7's.
It does suck but it’s also worth noting (in case other people missed the change like me) that you can talk to the dracthyr next to the upgrade guy and he lets you spend 90 lower tier crests for 15 of the tier above it. Remember their goal was to slow gearing down because they said gearing was quicker than intended in dragonflight. Once people vote with their dollars they will adjust.
Xalatath's Bargain is solid, I enjoy the affix *when it works.* Yesterday I ran Ara-Kara only to find on the third boss the adds can pick up the orbs to (insert surprised pikachu face). Boss got like 5+ stacks of orbs each time and the group wiped repeatedly.
died the boss before that because orbs spawned right at the start of the swarm phase and well, you can only soak in front of the boss, so all of a sudden the dot ticks for 3mio dps. i´d take sanguine over that orb affix if they insist spawning it on bosses.
Man, you really hit the nail on the head on pretty much all of these. I think dungeon pool and curses/poisons really goes hand in hand, though, as one problem just exacerbates the other: I'm playing a Mistweaver Monk and a Disc Priest primarily and over half of this pool I just don't want to do, ever, because stuff is going to suck up my healing and I have no way to deal with it. I guess the solution really is reroll Resto Shaman.
worst m+ season in a long time. tanks weak, dungeons linear, key progression past 10s feel terrible, -15s per death is stupid, routing is meaningless now, changes to interrupts/stops bad, spec diversity unbalanced, m+ rewards less than ever (crests at higher levels - lower end of dungeon gear - vault only 1/6 myth)
@@danielharvey3662 imo blizzard needs to change a few things: Remove CP (15s death penalty) Rework key depletion Buff tanks across the board, but not dragonflight level Bring back the aoe stop meta Crests at 8, myth track at 9, portals at 10 Remove fort + tyrannical, leave the multiplier at +10% from 2 - 10, then 15% hp and 10% dmg from 11 onwards (so we don’t venture into one-shot territory) Buff struggling specs and nerf necessary dispels and decurses (GB heal absorb, ara-Kara poison dispel) Add 2mins to NW and SV
Spot on with all of your takes on the various changes, I really hope Blizzard listens, or at least communicates more about this with us. Is it me or have they gone dark again recently? Also, at 9:00, you say they didn't increase the % scaling between key levels, but, I'm pretty sure that the scaling has increased. I want to say that the % increase in DF was 10, now it looks to be 15? Maybe some further investigation is warranted. As an aside, in any case, lowering the % scaling between keys would solve a lot of people's issue with the system this season, and allow for much higher keys to be pushed in the TGP.
The biggest problem for me is the rewards, I’d say the majority of players do mythic + for rewards, not score. It should be 15 crests for a complete within timer and 10 for non timer. so 1 dungeon = 1 upgrade (the crests are capped weekly anyways so you still control gearing) but improved for ppl that can only run a few keys a week while providing meaningful progression. I also think Myth should be moved down one more spot but that isn’t as big of a deal as the crests to me. 8-10 dungs a week for 4-5 single upgrades feels bad.
@@BryanHinderer what’s stupid is the crest cap being so low every week. If I get 1 myth track upgrade from the vault either I upgrade it or save all my fricking crests for a craft. Having crafts every 2 weeks for 90 crests and 1 item to upgrade each week for 75 crests just doesnt add up. I can either save all my gilded and not upgrade hero track gear which feels bad or be in a constant crest deficit. That is for someone who doesn’t raid mythic and can only get 1 myth piece a week which is also complete rng if it sucks or not. Gearing is much better than a few expansions ago but I would agree maybe it was even better in DF where you could just fill up vault from easier keys which makes gearing alts more fun also disnt need so many crests to feel like im not gonna get full gear until the end of season so I get to enjoy my gear only a few weeks until the grind starts again…
@@marcell_22 agree with everything you said, especially the last part with it being seasonal content now in wow and then placing such a huge focus on alts it would make complete sense if you could be close to fully geared around 6 to 8 weeks rather than right now where it it’s 14 to 16 weeks
@@BryanHinderer yep. also gearing alts should be made easier imo. I don't even really bother focusing on alts since I would need to do so many keys just to farm up hundreds of crests even with the discount on runed that I do have now
It is mind-blowing to me that healer specs do not have a universal dispel with a universal CD. Class/spec fantasy is surely important, but very key functionality such as dispel should be standard between healer specs.
Very good takes imo Dratnos, I agree on basically all points. The balancing up until now especially. Currently basically every spec is very viable and the gap isnt as astronomical as they have been. IE surv using s3 set for the entirely of s4 and being completely griefing. The outlier obviously being resto sham, but I've been pushing 2.6 as MW fairly easily on an alt as someone that didn't play monk since legion. It's really a perception issue more than an issue the average pug will actually have.
As a preservation evoker main that used to main shaman before prevoker launch, It feels really bad that my spec is being gatekept from going higher than 11's because resto shaman utility is just that much better. I have all keys on 11 in time and cannot get accepted to any 12 groups. I spent the whole of last week queuing for 12's and not a single group accepted me because pugs at the high end only care about meta specs and resto shaman just has so much more utility that prevoker. The fixes I would implement as a marginalized healer would be the following: -Give all healer specs choice nodes for all types of dispels OR make the debuffs dispellable by magic as Dratnos said. -Give every healer a baseline kick of 24 seconds, equivalent to the mid range kick cds of mage/hunter. (At the very least as a prevoker it feels terrible that aug and dev have a choice node to reduce kick cd by 20secs while prevoker is stuck with 40 second kick). -Give mistweaver an external (besides cocoon) as literally every other healer has 1 or multiple externals and mistweaver just gets a big shield? xD I won't get into the balancing of throughput or damage for healing specs because that's its own topic but these changes would at least make other healers competitive with rshaman and we'd see a lot more variety as well in the higher keys instead of the current standard of 80% restoshaman 10% disc priest 10% everything else.
you don't have to do high keys to *match* the rewards from delves, but you need to do unreasonably high keys to beat out the rewards from delves. it's extremely easy to throw up your hands and settle for hero track gear with how the system works this season if you aren't mythic raiding (which most people aren't), at which point tier 7/8 delves are mindless, fast and have basically no failure state, whereas even a +3 key might fall apart because of factors outside of your control, let alone a key of appropriate difficulty (7-9).
they need to add some sort of cosmetic reward to M+ somewhere between the portals and the top 0.01% title, like give us a different color variation on our tier similar to the elite pvp gear for getting something like 2700 io.
You are so much better at this game than me, but I’m part of the community that loves the changes from the key level squish. It’s so much better to try new specs or roles out in an untimed environment where I can change talents. I wish they were maybe a tad bit harder in exchange for a tad bit better rewards, but that change has specifically been a lot of fun for me
Once you beat a 12 timed, you should be able to enable Xalatath (and choose which affix she uses!) or not and just have a second score. It's still a game and we should be able to just have fun, even at the highest level.
Tried my first 12 this week it was a siege of broalus - we depleted by 14 sec and had 3 people die to the shooting thing cause they figured since tank was through and pulled the pack they were safe to go ... thank you challengers peril for that one
I think it’s reasonable to think that affix level changes (ie ditching or changing challengers peril) would take some time to do as Dratnos says but then I think back to whole quickly Blizz changed the whole affix system not once but twice during beta. Sure they probably had the XB stuff in their back pocket but just nuking CP would actually be pretty easy to do.
Where would you put double fort/ tyran on 10’s and up? Personally I think it’s good, makes 10’s feel more consistent, helps with tuning and gives dps more of an incentive to hit damage checks.
This is my first season playing WoW/M+ and honestly having a blast. It's by far the most appealing content in the game for me and the fact people are saying this is a bad season is intriguing. I dont understand why people have an issue with the death penalty? How would it work if there were no punishment for dying?
I think I'm the target audience of the key squish, as I really only did low keys in DF and would have kept doing that in TWW if the squish didn't happen, so hopefully my perspective helps: The change did succeed at one thing: people are actually running m0, something I did occasionally look for in DF and never saw outside of Dawn of the Infinite. Personally, I don't care if I never had to run an m0, but I'm not surprised that game devs wouldn't want to change things up if there was an entire difficulty that just was never used. The failures: The "squish" failed to account for the fact that there are things about M+ that you can only learn by running M+. Heroic dungeons are the same tuning as old m0, but because there are mythic-only mechanics, its actually still easier than old m0. Then you have a LEAP in difficulty going to m0, which is tuned like old m10 but doesn't have a timer so its more like old m8. On top of the lack of timer, because there's no mob count, you're still not learning routing, which is basically the tank's entire job these days. Lastly, m0 is still on a daily lockout, so you can't spam a specific dungeon if there's a boss or mechanic in it that you want practice on at that difficulty. So now we're at new m2, which Blizzard's goal was to be tuned like the old m12. This is the lowest key level where you get to see all of the mythic-only mechanics, have to account for timers and routing, and get to see any of the new affixes. For players who put the time in and could faceroll through old 15s, this isn't a problem, and I definitely understand that there's an element of git gud here. But as someone who really capped out at old 10s, starting to learn at two key levels higher feels ... insane. And I really don't feel like heroic or m0 did anything to prepare me for what happened once I did finally work up the courage to try +2s and +3s. The other thing that confuses me is I don't think they actually solved any of the other goals they set out to do with the changes. From the blog about the change: "Heroic dungeons are barely distinct from Normal dungeons at maximum level, and that distinction mostly only matters during a few days after players first reach max level." This is absolutely still true, and between warbound gear and delves it might even be more pronounced of an issue. "The only truly endgame dungeon mode (M+) currently revolves around a timer. This means that other than new mega-dungeons, there isn't really a place for endgame players who enjoy a more methodical dungeon pacing and gameplay." This is also still true. No one I've interacted with in m0 has been there because its their end game. They've been there because they want to practice for m+ (because as we all know they don't need gear from m0 because of delves). "'Mythic 0' dungeons rapidly lose relevance a few weeks into an expansion, once the M+ season starts, with occasional exceptions for the weekly event quest." I did label this as a success for Blizzard, but even then, I'm not sure how much longer for this season that m0 will stay relevant. Granted, this is because of systems outside of m0 (with 11.0.5 there are so many ways to get the same level of gear with much less time investment), but if anything, that implies that the squish didn't actually address the right internal causes for why m0s lose their relevancy as the season goes on.
5:40 I would like that instead of removing xalatath's bargain at +12 they would make all xalatath's bargain active at +12, with each spawn rotating between them, this would make all weeks equal but would increase variance. Not sure if this would work but at least something I wish they tried
Would love a form of higher-end dungeon content which is not tied to a timer. This could allow for much more player agency with regards to meta specs, meta pulls, meta comps, allow for players to actually learn and practice the content in a low-pressure situation and play at a reasonable level of skill that's fun and non-anxiety inducing. In a game like WoW, the best way to practice encounters and learn class interactions is to simply play the content at your level of skill. The raiding environment allows for players to match up against their skill level to practice boss mechanics through repeated pulls in a non-pressure situation. Each attempt, you can tune your ability to play the encounter and improve your gameplay based upon tech and experimentation afforded by your specific class and spec. Mistakes do happen as players explore the space of each encounter, but ultimately the ability to infinitely retry allows for personal progression at a reasonable pace. If your group is well enough put together, you can even allow some players to play off-meta specs which they find fun, for so long as the bosses eventually die, the goal has been achieved. For M+, the only way to practice a +10 key is to DO a +10 key. And that key has a timer, and with that timer are expectations of success. You might want to play something like Holy Priest or Resto Druid, but come on now, surely you won't troll the group with those low-tier specs? The moment-to-moment gameplay is akin to walking over broken glass, just waiting for those mistakes to start rolling in (and you will make mistakes, because the only way to practice at the skill level of a +10 is to plug a +10 key). Each mistake is a nail in the coffin, where eventually the camel's back is broken and your group simply disbands because you weren't good enough, didn't know the damage intake well enough, couldn't anticipate the mandatory kick rotation fast enough. Then you roll to the next group and key, where you might perform incrementally better, but eventually those failed groups and timers just wears on you.
The kick/stop change is one of those 'cool idea, how about you actually implement it?' changes. It makes sense to avoid a situation like Dragonflight S4 where people were doing keys so high that random shadow bolts would kill players and getting around it by never letting mobs finish a single cast, but it's absolutely disastrous to have a situation where someone throws out an AoE stun on a pack with a mob casting Fuck You Volley, causing one or more of their teammates to miss their kick, then Fuck You Volley goes off even though people were trying their best to stop it. Mobs recasting filler spells is fine. Mobs recasting interrupt-or-die spells when interrupts can be thrown away so easily is not fine.
I'm a little lower on the new affixes. I wonder how much of your impression is prior tiers you would do affixes at your max key level, but now you only encounter affixes on keys much below your max level.
I feel like when Ion was talking about how a deplete would mean less crests because there has to be a drive for everyone to want to time it, I dont understand how they make themselves believe that taking more time in a dungeon is ever something someone who wants crests would prefer. You have the players that want to time it for IO, you have the players that want to complete it for items, and you have the players that want to complete it for crests. ALL players want to get the dungeon done asap and not spend longer then what they need, and thats something everyone has in common.
I came back to WoW a few weeks into DF S3. I had quit in SL S1. I did 2800+ rating in S3 on feral. 2k rating on havoc, too. 2000+rating in S4 on 6 specs. Explicitly pugging everything. I did exactly zero keys in TWW because m+ environment is absolutely miserable for pugging based on the information on the web and from my friends. I have been doing delves on my 8 chars (which will go up during the anniversary event) and having a lot of fun. My chars are sitting between 609-613 ilvl with room to grow slowly every week. I could push 1 char to 620+ just doing delves if I wanted that instead of playing alts. There are 2 ways forward from where we are with m+; nerfing delves significantly or making m+ a lot more pug friendly (doesn't necessarily mean easier) with fair rewards for the time and effort. I hope Blizzard doesn't go for the first option because I would quit again.
Id be interested in you reacting to videos made by BOklahoma - "get Good" and The Comeback Kids - "Mythic + is unplayable and Blizzard is panicking". Since you play and know those who play at a higher tier. It would be good content for the next cast you do. The two i recommended i would say speak for the majority of the playerbase imo. Thanks and keep up the content.
I think blizzard sometimes forgets in their decision making that we just want to have fun. Work towards stuff that makes us have fun, a 15 sec extra death penalty is the opposite off that!
Nailed it with all of these takes. The mythic plus gearing system for solo players has drastically not aligned with previous expansions. And i cant say i agree with the choice. With an alteady time gated gearing method why did they increase the pugging difficulty so drastically?
M0's being much harder was actually a great change because it gives players an opportunity to learn the dungeon mechanics at an actually hard level without the pressure of a timer. The problem is that Delve rewards are insane so anything before a +6 key essentially gives useless rewards to players and nobody wants to do it.
regarding the gear/reward nerf, just so i can get a handle on things: i can get i616 vault slots from doing a couple of level 8 bountiful delves. what key level does that equate to?
I feel like chalenger's peril should only be a thing if you die within 30 seconds of releasing in the world of next tier where we hopefully get the reworked checkpoint system. On the dungeon pool, i think adding the garbo dungeons is them going all in on the idea of all new dungeons every season. Realising that they know they have to use all the possible "bad" dungeons too to make it as long as possible before having to resort to using same dungeons again.
The whole reason for them squishing M+ levels was that Mythic dungeons (0) were becoming obsolete and they wanted to make them relevant again. The fact that there is content above M0 dungeons means they will be obsolete after you're done with them. It's always been that way and it will always be that way. They just changed it and are griefing players and to be honest the rewards are even worse than they used to be. They were obsolete from the season launch because they didn't even give gear as high as delves.
Yes! It is funny how m0 have never been more useless than what they are this expansion, with a garbage change that was only motivated as a way to make m0 more meaningful. I put the squish as the number one reason why people are upset with m+ this season. They might feel like the death timer is worse but I'm not so sure about that. Also big disclaimer on that take, the squish only make things worse for those doing 2-9. If you are above that it is almost a non change but that is not where the majority of the playerbase is.
I 'm starting to think that the devs didnt coordinate the pace of rewards in each content. No way the designers would have missed such an egregious discrepedency if they checked. Or delves giving champion/hero was a late development change because they were afraid of it being left by player early on.
This season made me quit wow again. I came back for the expansion, leveled 7 characters to max. As soon as it got into the M+ season, my interest slowly dwindled to nothing. They made it unfun. I'm all for challenge, but making the challenge so punishing only makes people less fun to play with.
- Statistically speaking challenger's peril has not had nearly as much impact that people are making it out to have. - kick/stop change from Morgan's own mouth started in Dragonflight. - key squish is from Dragonflight as well.
Statistically speaking, challenger’s peril just feels stupid and actively makes you play less than you otherwise would. It has made people even more hesitant to accept players who don’t already outgear or “out-IO” the content they’re queuing for. Makes people more hesitant to try higher keys. It isn’t fun when there’s 3 separate punishments for failing and a possible reward of only 52g. If things go badly not only did I waste 15-30m, but I also depleted my key, and I also got insulted probably. High keys tuned as they are right now would not be “too easy” if you kept the regular death timer of 5s. They’d still be hard.
No one’s arguing the changes started in DF. There’s just no world in which the 15s death penalty is making the game more fun for anyone. Sweaty pusher and casual M+ players (and people somewhere in the middle of that like me) all hate it lol. The statistical impact is relevant if it’s making the game less fun actively.
The move for getting gilded at 8 than 9 was huge for me because often I will +2 a 7 maybe bricks a 9 get 5 crests and then clear an 8 and im back to a 9 where before I wouldn’t have really gotten as many crests
I would love an untimed +8 equivalent. I don't think it should reward mythic track, but I would like a less stressful dungeon that is still difficult enough to justify giving gilded. Also the dungeon pool may be subjective, but Necrotic Wake is not, its just bad.
Here's my hot take: remove the lockout from normal and heroic raids. They want to make raids a more appealing source of gear, and that would definitely be accomplished. Then you wouldn't have to make it so hard to get gear from keys, because there's no longer the argument that keys are spammable and raids aren't.
I used to get Myth track vaults on like 10+ characters every season in DF and now I can barely get it done on my main. M+ is just not fun any more. Why would I do +9s if I can do delves? That said I think by far the worst change they have ever done to the game is the kick/stops change and having so many mobs chaincasting.
Wishing they would tune less for crazy high AoE damage taken and one-shots, and more toward sufficient DPS output needed to time the key. That would distribute the responsibility much more evenly across the party.
Death timer affix is terrible, lazy and punishing just for the sake of it Debuff dispel being tied to categories such as poison, magic, curse, disease is terrible for classes that cannot cleanse one, healers should BY DEFAULT have omni cleanse or if you really wanna be lazy, do what XIV does and debuff is debuff (I prefer this honestly)
I know Morgan Day mentioned the rules consistency thing as a reason for the kick change, but I really don't think that was the real reason. It was more what George Velev was saying about wanting dungeons to feel different, and I think part of it was wanting to make dungeons more challenging. I look back on Dragonflight and don't really have positive opinions of those dungeons. They all felt like a flavorless mush where all the packs felt very similar
i agree with all of this, and yet, this is the most fun ive ever had in M+. even legion. Even the bottom stuff isnt even that bad if you compare it to old m+, and no, this isnt me defending it.
I think putting Myth track gear into the vault for 8/9s, upping the 10 vault to 2/6 and maybe even dropping 1/x on the next track up for the last two bosses in the raid as well might be a good change. Same thing with Queen Ansurek and Silken court in mythic. No reason those should be dropping at Myth 4/6, those bosses are hard enough and exclusive enough they should be dropping Myth 6/6. It just seems so odd to make item level harder to achieve this season compared to the past few in Dragonflight. They added so many features this expansion to push players to player alts, or trying out new classes due to strong class fantasy additions in hero talents, but the gear system is still hampering it by making it hard to feel like you have time to actually play another character.
Challenging but untimed dungeons are awesome and need to be in the game. Actually, I think DF season 4 did a really good job with that. Somehow they lost the thread going into TWW and mythic 0 feels like piss again.
If only there was something like a throw away season to test these kind of changes so they could've been better If only there was something like a season 4
i think it's fine that delves give higher ilvl gear. The whole point of delves was to have "end game" solo content. 616 is not that high anyway, considering that myth track goes up to 639...
Just a thought about the kick/stun part: could kicks in pve work just like dispells? Where now if you try to dispell/decurse/detox/... a player without a debuff, the spell doesn't go on cd. If they would apply that to interrupts, then it fully fixes the stun into interrupt part. Granted, it takes away a lot of the skill expression; but if anything, m+ isn't lacking skill expression. Again, just in pve, this would be insanely broken in pvp lol
This would be insanely broken in pve too. Especially because most kicks are out of global coolodwn, so ppl would just macro their kick for every single button they press.
Regarding key squish: I dislike the delve rewards the most. I used to do all 20s once and then only +18s (or what was needed for best vault upgrade path) on multiple toons. Now it's pretty much pointless to do keys below +8, because delves are so easy (but boring!). Which results in me doing 2 delves and no keys most weeks, because I just can't be bothered to start doing medium keys to get to know routes and stuff :(
they've completely fucked it all up this season. when you're asking for 615+ ilvl and 2.7k to even get into 8-10 keys something is horrendously wrong. Take curved raids as well... people want 620+ ilvl and GOOD logs for a heroic clear... absolute madness
I do my weeky 10s as a 626ilvl 2.7k io dh, with similar party members, and we keep depleteing, ppl keep dieing on the first pull even. This season is so terrible i honestly starting to give up.... In dragonflight (season4) i pushed 18s, and tried many 19s with 0 success, but it wasnt even closely this stressfull as a +10-12 now. But i dont see raids this bad, i've done hc on the first week with my own pug group with minimal precoordination. It feels a joke how easy to get gear there compared to m+. Even mythic raid where first 4 boss dies in 1 pull for most of the teams.
@@scaresya yeah the first 4 are a walkover. We're clearing them in an hour on our pug runs. Starting to progress ovinax now as clearing just 4 isn't challenging
This is why Dratnos is the best. Man literally does the highest end content like being one of the top 200 guilds to down the final boss on mythic and does the high end keys of 12s+ and yet he still takes into consideration the casual population who could be having the worst time doing this kind of stuff and actually kind of puts his response from a perspective of both the high end base and low end base. Love you Dratnos and very great video! I always go for KSM but this xpac its just drastically wearing me down to where in the first 17 years i wanna walk away from wow so its super nice to see someone who pushes endgame to the hardest also see some of the negatives to alot of the M+ changes they've done.
Ya most streamers are saying wild out of touch takes like the real grind starts at +12s and other nonsense. Dratnos keeps it as real as his chest is hairy.
Bro hitting KSM is so easy thats not being casual, its being mentally challenged
@@victorvelasco1693 L
@@victorvelasco1693 ong ksm is light work, ksh is a little harder, depending if ur pugging or not, hard to get there as dps cause no1 wants you but, 10s are still hard but if u know ur rota its easy asf
@@victorvelasco1693 I'm happy for you dude
"A lot of work for not a lot of rewards" This is so true. I don't raid and it feels like I have been sitting at 612 for weeks now. I am pretty casual but I was getting myth rewards in past season with same amount of play time.
This is no intent to be mean, but that is a you issues.
Reached 614 on my alt not touching myth raid, just keys range 7-9 and crafted items. Took me like 3-4 days
@@rasmushopland5001 I mean, I'm doing 10's too but why be rude? It's a them issue that they can't do 8's w/ 612 I GUESS, but in the last 2 expacs/8 seasons people in that position have been able to outgear this challenge. That's the problem. Less skilled players being able to outgear content is an MMO staple.
@@rasmushopland5001 I reached 614 doing only solo content, the problem is getting past that, you gotta work on that reading compreheension and context
@@asdf198 perfectly said
Yup. Because of stupid delves. Ruined the game.
Casual Gamer Dad here (KSH, AOTC only).
Level Squish for me was turbo-bad. My fellow old and bads are well beyond the point of getting good. We don't have time to practice keys hours a night. Having that 2-11 range to gear and crest up was massive for us to get those reps in. It took us all season to get KSH, but that's fine, we're patient, we know we need the gear to make up for our lack of skill.
Seasonal affixes should never have gone away. Having a themed season around the current raid and story arc is a huge W thematically. They should have gotten rid of the other affixes (like they finally did), not the seasonal one. Hopefully this is a positive step for Blizzard.
I 100% agree on the "this other school PLUS magic" dispellable thing, you're spitting absolute facts on that one and I hope some intern at blizzard was watching.
the kick/stun change would be ok IF there were fewer things that needs to be stopped. There are so many deadly spells. Some small pulls need like 7 kicks.
10000% thats the way
Absolutely. Also, at the very least, their logic of "NPC should behave like PCs" should be followed through to the end. If I kick a player, they're locked out of casting for some time. Mobs shouldn't be able to just cast immediately after being klicked.
Yeah it’s silly because it just means you need MORE stops.
And the ultimate kick machine, Prot Pally, is in such a bad way that despite needing all the kicks you can get, Prot Pally is one of the lowest used spec
@@ojh87 prot pally shield throw thingy only kicks the targeted mob now
I'd love to see some "lack of coordination" change for interrupts. IE if you try to kick, but there's nothing to kick (say if you're in a pug and someone stunned it or kicked it a fraction of second before you), your interrupt CD goes on a shorter CD (say 5s). If you successfully interrupt a cast, you get the full CD. You still get a CD so you can't just spam kick, but it's much less punishing. This would be a huge help to pugs who can't really coordinate, and would make learning the dungeon a little more forgiving.
Its funny, several specs actually have the opposite of this. I know mages before the 11.0 class tree rework, DKs, and Balance Druid (probably some others as well that i forgot) actually get a lower cooldown kick if they do interrupt a spell. Balance is by far the worst, their kick goes from 1 minute cd to 45 seconds if they interrupt. Your kick getting a 33% longer cooldown because you kicked at the same time as someone else is insane game design.
Honestly, you could make kick spammable until it hits a cast and it would still be fine, because while you're mashing your button, you don't know if you're about to interrupt a real spell or a filler spell. Making it not go on CD if it hits nothing just makes life better on everyone
I’d also add these two comments:
1. Every single class should have an interrupt in an easy, accessible spot in their class tree. Or hell in their default spell book. That some don’t is just a bad design decision.
2. Keys shouldn’t deplete. There are certain breakpoints where the scaling itself is a new learning experience. So just let people learn.
Whoever designed challenge’s peril shouldn’t be working on M+ going forward. 1000% out of touch with what people find fun in a video game.
Do a 6, or dont die, its simple
@@RamosAjala this is coming from someone who does high keys every season to push for title and has gotten title several times. At a high enough key if you fill wipe twice keys over anyways. There's no point to force the majority of m plusers to experience high key type punishment in low keys. It just kills interaction and any want to continue in a key with 2 or even 1 wipe
@@joeym3147 there is no point in a timer if you can wipe several times and still time it
@@RamosAjala context of deaths is important. If you full wipe twice in high keys it's over. If over time you accumulate deaths that would equal a full wipe you still time the key. Difference is obvious that a full wipe resets a pull individual deaths do not. To say there's no point to a timer if you can wipe 10 times and still time keys is true if you were strictly talking about the actual difficult keys like 10's and beyond but you're generalizing all key levels when you say that. Which tbh sounds out of touch and gate keepy to keys in general. Why wouldn't a group of people in low lvl content be allowed to wipe multiple times and still time the key? Truly it doesn't even affect you as a player if you aren't in that lvl of content. If you're well above that lvl of content a full wipe is basically GG anyways so the death affix is redundant.
@@RamosAjalathere’s a difference between 2 wipes and 5 deaths over a whole dungeon to random shit making the timers insanely tight, and making you be over conservative with pulls as a result, making it even less efficient on time. Especially with the 15 kicks you need for a pack of 4 mobs
Death timer affix is terrible
It's the worst. If anything, it should be 0 given deaths are already so punishing.
If the run backs weren't so horrendous it wouldn't be so bad but with the long ass run backs it's terrible.
Yep you either get death penalty or walk backs not both
But even with no walk backs it's STILL punishing because a wipe means you start the mobs over.
Not that deaths shouldn't be punishing, but it just already naturally is!
its 1 wipe and the key is done every time. I havent done my keys since launch since its so punishing
Yep even a few deaths is brutal. A full wipe is just over.
The tank durability change has been the most impactful for me this season. I regularly tanked in SL and DF and this season has hit like a freight train. The toxicity of people whenever I mess up one time is also kinda astonishing. It was not this bad in SL or DF
Season 2 of dragonflight was perfect reward wise
+11 for heroic crest
+16 for mythic crest
Mythic vault from +18
I'd even be okay with just moving myth vault rewards down to +9 keys from the current +10. 9s right now are pretty "dead" but plenty of people still need them for score or need them upgraded to run their own 10s.
letting the healer magic dispel work on every curse/poison/dispel is a great idea, still lets it be a bonus for certain dps
Been a healer main since BC. This is the least amount of agency I have ever felt as a healer in keys. I am regularly spamming people at full health bars because if I don't they die, and even then in many cases they die.
I've been a main tank since WOD. This is the most miserable I've ever been doing dungeons. I'd happily do Tol Dagor with Ghuunies over a TWW key
Interesting. I heal and I’m loving the difficulty
This does seem a bit exaggerated or you (at maybe no fault of your own) have really bad groups who stand in things. I’ve timed every 11 , and none of the dungeons have any unavoidable instant one-shot mechanic that just radiates requiring you to “spam” a full health bar. And I play a “C tier”Mistweaver.
@@Ratatoeskrrragreed. I’m having a great time with healers being a critical member of the team!
challenger's peril is one of the worst ideas blizz has ever had... "oh, people leave keys when there's wipes?? cool! let's make it 3x as bad to make sure they leave more often!!" ...brilliant
The 3x is clearly a number they winged out and said: good enough. If it was +1 sec per mythic lvl from 7 onward, or something similar it would be so much better.
In the end I think guile and peril difficulty should be more progressive.
I think the idea behind this affix was that for a grp where everything goes right it has no effect, but that rarely happens so its just a mess
Here is a few things I would like to see.
1.) move Guilded Crest to +7
2.) Remove Challengers Peril that affix can get thrown into a volcano
3) move Fortified to permanent +4 affix and Tyrannical to permanent +10. Xala'tath's Bargin is enough affix variance. Let Tyrannical be just a Portal and up affix.
4.) Revert Tank nerfs Tanking is so much less fun which equals less tanks.
5.) I do think the stop change to interrupting mob cast needs to be reverted as well.
6.) Key Depletion needs looked at its way to punishing to deplete your key because someone rage quits bricking the key.
I think this could be a much better version.
Give keys 3 charges if a key is unfinished or fails to time you lose a charge and if you lose all 3 charges your next fail depletes. When you time a key the new key is set at 3 charges.
That would improve M + alot.
And also the Mythic 1 reward (623) should be at +9 at least. And than I would do Mythic 2 at +10 and Mythic 3 at +12.
I see, Paint3D, a true man of culture.
Blizz, watch this video. Implement these changes. Honestly. It'd fix SO much and it's so easy. Don't be proud. Be smart.
I think a lot of the problems with this season can be alleviated by the removal of challenger’s peril and the kick/stop change. These changes turn the completion of keys that are challenging, for me as a player, from satisfying to relieving, especially in a pug setting.
Really really good video Dratnos! You hit the nail on the head on exactly everything about m+ this season and I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been complaining about all of this in guild chat and Reddit for weeks! Thanks for some validation finally! Buff Holy Priest in m+ and remove challengers peril! And possibly lower myth track to 9. Also bring back the old key levels for next season. There are even folks in +10 keys with 2700 score clowning around.
You're right on the money at 3:30, Dratnos, kudos ! It's not just the key depletion itself, it's the feeling that you cannot possibly afford a single wipe or it's all over that keeps you constantly on edge and really wears people down. I've never seen so many groups fall apart, so many people clearly joining pugs already tilted etc. as in this season, it's crazy out there in the wilds at times !
The two most important changes they NEED to make for the next TWW season are: 1) remove Challenger's peril completely (we don't need a +7 affix, Xal's Bargain is fine on it's own), and 2) change crest and reward levels to their relative Dragonflight equivalent. I think a lot of players will give an "oopsie" pass on the first season of M+ in a new expansion (looking at you Thundering), but that cannot and will not be the case in a second or subsequent season. These changes are what I would consider required for TWW M+ season 2 or we are looking at a collapse of the M+ system - it's just not rewarding enough given how difficult it is.
@@corksterx1 myth vault option should be at 7-8 or else you lose all those weekly minimum players, they tried to artificially extend the season with the 90 crests thing too, it backfired
Moving it to 9 makes a nice rewards structure: hero end of dungeon gear at 7, crests at 8, myth in vault at 9, portal at 10.
This way ppl can outgear the 10s in the span of the season
@@nolabets3130 agreed
@@FreggeLock but this makes the season feel incredibly grindy and ultimately unrewarding. It just feels terrible imo. It shouldn’t take the ENTIRE season to outgear a 10 - that was never the case before and shouldn’t be now.
@@Ratatoeskrrr What about the people ins 7+ who can't do a 8+? They don't get mythtrackgear?
Whoever made the decision to put Necrotic Wake and Siege of Boralus into the dungeon pool should probably not be allowed to make those types of decisions for future M+ pools, period. It also seems like given the pattern, the permanent rule is that any Cataclysm dungeon is just going to be miserable. Tank durability nerf is they actually followed through with what they said and tuned down the damage to the entire group, instead with everything you mentioned the issues are way worse, the group damage is just as high with ALSO high tank damage, which is unacceptable and untenable.
Personally I enjoyed doing +8 for myth vault in DF. Keys were so chill and i was just "losing" 15 crests by doing so. It was fun, just LOGIN and slay some monsters kinda thing. Now I have to pay attention 24/7, cant try stupid shit or anything cuz 1 wipe = disband. I miss it sm
God these comments annoy the shit out of me. Casuals who want to get the best gear by doing exactly nothing, dont want to put in any effort what so ever
I had a key yesterday that went from an +1 with time to spare to depleted because we wiped on a trash pack and it snapped to the respawn and killed us again. In the course of 30 seconds we lost 2 1/2 minutes from death timers because of a single missed kick and a dot keeping people in combat. The 15 second death timer is so bad, I cant believe they ever allowed that to make it to live.
servers may be down but Dratnos is up!
His girlfriend under the desk?
Then he is up good
As a spriest player that only has silence, the change to stops making psychic scream not work like a kick has made this season oppressively miserable
"I wish they would do that to all dungeon difficulties, make it as hard as Dawnbreaker". YES. THIS. THANK YOU DRATNOS ❤
@2:20 I'd argue that it CANT be possible that an affix can be "really good" while having the ability to brick your key without counter-play like in ara'kara or many other instances. If Devs want keys to be rare and "feel like a lot is on the line" they cant at the same time be responsible for some total BS like that.
Thanks for letting me know about Pure Kick Dratnos. It helped me save a kitten from a burning tree!
What blows my mind in how ridiculously stupid the Crest Situation is; Doing 8+ keys rewards crests you can't actually use to upgrade the reward from those 8+ keys. You have to farm 4-7's to get the Crests that upgrade the loot from 7-10 and beyond keys. If you're doing 8 10+ keys a week to get the full vault, but also because you're still gearing up, you have made 90 Gilded & 6 Runed crests (if all are timed). If you start to hit 8+ Keys now, you looking at a chasm of 630 Gilded Crests to farm before you get to use those crests on the gear you're currently farming. And since you don't ever downgrade Gilded to Runed crests, you have to farm 7's till your entire gear is 619. The WoW UX design team really needs to retake some UX design classes, if the best solution to farming hero track gear is being eternally stuck on 7's.
It does suck but it’s also worth noting (in case other people missed the change like me) that you can talk to the dracthyr next to the upgrade guy and he lets you spend 90 lower tier crests for 15 of the tier above it.
Remember their goal was to slow gearing down because they said gearing was quicker than intended in dragonflight. Once people vote with their dollars they will adjust.
I think the intent is to help players get the gilded crests and also if you are capped for the gilded you start getting runed crests instead
Xalatath's Bargain is solid, I enjoy the affix *when it works.* Yesterday I ran Ara-Kara only to find on the third boss the adds can pick up the orbs to (insert surprised pikachu face). Boss got like 5+ stacks of orbs each time and the group wiped repeatedly.
died the boss before that because orbs spawned right at the start of the swarm phase and well, you can only soak in front of the boss, so all of a sudden the dot ticks for 3mio dps. i´d take sanguine over that orb affix if they insist spawning it on bosses.
Man, you really hit the nail on the head on pretty much all of these. I think dungeon pool and curses/poisons really goes hand in hand, though, as one problem just exacerbates the other: I'm playing a Mistweaver Monk and a Disc Priest primarily and over half of this pool I just don't want to do, ever, because stuff is going to suck up my healing and I have no way to deal with it.
I guess the solution really is reroll Resto Shaman.
worst m+ season in a long time.
tanks weak, dungeons linear, key progression past 10s feel terrible, -15s per death is stupid, routing is meaningless now, changes to interrupts/stops bad, spec diversity unbalanced, m+ rewards less than ever (crests at higher levels - lower end of dungeon gear - vault only 1/6 myth)
Dungeons were always linear. Even dungeons like freehold or even AD.
No. He’s right. It’s much worse now.
@@danielharvey3662 imo blizzard needs to change a few things:
Remove CP (15s death penalty)
Rework key depletion
Buff tanks across the board, but not dragonflight level
Bring back the aoe stop meta
Crests at 8, myth track at 9, portals at 10
Remove fort + tyrannical, leave the multiplier at +10% from 2 - 10, then 15% hp and 10% dmg from 11 onwards (so we don’t venture into one-shot territory)
Buff struggling specs and nerf necessary dispels and decurses (GB heal absorb, ara-Kara poison dispel)
Add 2mins to NW and SV
Spot on with all of your takes on the various changes, I really hope Blizzard listens, or at least communicates more about this with us. Is it me or have they gone dark again recently? Also, at 9:00, you say they didn't increase the % scaling between key levels, but, I'm pretty sure that the scaling has increased. I want to say that the % increase in DF was 10, now it looks to be 15? Maybe some further investigation is warranted. As an aside, in any case, lowering the % scaling between keys would solve a lot of people's issue with the system this season, and allow for much higher keys to be pushed in the TGP.
The biggest problem for me is the rewards, I’d say the majority of players do mythic + for rewards, not score. It should be 15 crests for a complete within timer and 10 for non timer. so 1 dungeon = 1 upgrade (the crests are capped weekly anyways so you still control gearing) but improved for ppl that can only run a few keys a week while providing meaningful progression. I also think Myth should be moved down one more spot but that isn’t as big of a deal as the crests to me. 8-10 dungs a week for 4-5 single upgrades feels bad.
@@BryanHinderer what’s stupid is the crest cap being so low every week. If I get 1 myth track upgrade from the vault either I upgrade it or save all my fricking crests for a craft. Having crafts every 2 weeks for 90 crests and 1 item to upgrade each week for 75 crests just doesnt add up. I can either save all my gilded and not upgrade hero track gear which feels bad or be in a constant crest deficit. That is for someone who doesn’t raid mythic and can only get 1 myth piece a week which is also complete rng if it sucks or not. Gearing is much better than a few expansions ago but I would agree maybe it was even better in DF where you could just fill up vault from easier keys which makes gearing alts more fun also disnt need so many crests to feel like im not gonna get full gear until the end of season so I get to enjoy my gear only a few weeks until the grind starts again…
@@marcell_22 agree with everything you said, especially the last part with it being seasonal content now in wow and then placing such a huge focus on alts it would make complete sense if you could be close to fully geared around 6 to 8 weeks rather than right now where it it’s 14 to 16 weeks
@@BryanHinderer yep. also gearing alts should be made easier imo. I don't even really bother focusing on alts since I would need to do so many keys just to farm up hundreds of crests even with the discount on runed that I do have now
I dont even play anymore but when I get dratnos and m+ on my recommended I stil watch. You're the man.
At this point I’d rather have Bolstering and even Storming back as an exchange for Challenger’s Peril and Fortified + Tyrannical every week
dartnos may not be playing with us socials, but he definitely cares about us socials. Praise.
It is mind-blowing to me that healer specs do not have a universal dispel with a universal CD. Class/spec fantasy is surely important, but very key functionality such as dispel should be standard between healer specs.
Very good takes imo Dratnos, I agree on basically all points. The balancing up until now especially. Currently basically every spec is very viable and the gap isnt as astronomical as they have been. IE surv using s3 set for the entirely of s4 and being completely griefing. The outlier obviously being resto sham, but I've been pushing 2.6 as MW fairly easily on an alt as someone that didn't play monk since legion. It's really a perception issue more than an issue the average pug will actually have.
17:13 to the dungeon pool stuff: i think they just want to rework most old dungeons anyway so they have a baseline they can use in future rotations
As a preservation evoker main that used to main shaman before prevoker launch, It feels really bad that my spec is being gatekept from going higher than 11's because resto shaman utility is just that much better. I have all keys on 11 in time and cannot get accepted to any 12 groups. I spent the whole of last week queuing for 12's and not a single group accepted me because pugs at the high end only care about meta specs and resto shaman just has so much more utility that prevoker.
The fixes I would implement as a marginalized healer would be the following:
-Give all healer specs choice nodes for all types of dispels OR make the debuffs dispellable by magic as Dratnos said.
-Give every healer a baseline kick of 24 seconds, equivalent to the mid range kick cds of mage/hunter. (At the very least as a prevoker it feels terrible that aug and dev have a choice node to reduce kick cd by 20secs while prevoker is stuck with 40 second kick).
-Give mistweaver an external (besides cocoon) as literally every other healer has 1 or multiple externals and mistweaver just gets a big shield? xD
I won't get into the balancing of throughput or damage for healing specs because that's its own topic but these changes would at least make other healers competitive with rshaman and we'd see a lot more variety as well in the higher keys instead of the current standard of 80% restoshaman 10% disc priest 10% everything else.
you don't have to do high keys to *match* the rewards from delves, but you need to do unreasonably high keys to beat out the rewards from delves. it's extremely easy to throw up your hands and settle for hero track gear with how the system works this season if you aren't mythic raiding (which most people aren't), at which point tier 7/8 delves are mindless, fast and have basically no failure state, whereas even a +3 key might fall apart because of factors outside of your control, let alone a key of appropriate difficulty (7-9).
Earned my comment! This is 1000% my take almost exactly.
they need to add some sort of cosmetic reward to M+ somewhere between the portals and the top 0.01% title, like give us a different color variation on our tier similar to the elite pvp gear for getting something like 2700 io.
You are so much better at this game than me, but I’m part of the community that loves the changes from the key level squish. It’s so much better to try new specs or roles out in an untimed environment where I can change talents. I wish they were maybe a tad bit harder in exchange for a tad bit better rewards, but that change has specifically been a lot of fun for me
11.05 MW DPS is a total win. The changes to jade lightning is amazing. So so good..
As a non-shaman healer, it's a horrible season.
Once you beat a 12 timed, you should be able to enable Xalatath (and choose which affix she uses!) or not and just have a second score.
It's still a game and we should be able to just have fun, even at the highest level.
Pretty stupid comment
I miss how easy it was to get alts rolling in the really low keys.
25:28 “Just do some lines” - Dratnos, 2024
i think healers should be able to dispel everything
Tried my first 12 this week it was a siege of broalus - we depleted by 14 sec and had 3 people die to the shooting thing cause they figured since tank was through and pulled the pack they were safe to go ... thank you challengers peril for that one
I think it’s reasonable to think that affix level changes (ie ditching or changing challengers peril) would take some time to do as Dratnos says but then I think back to whole quickly Blizz changed the whole affix system not once but twice during beta. Sure they probably had the XB stuff in their back pocket but just nuking CP would actually be pretty easy to do.
Where would you put double fort/ tyran on 10’s and up? Personally I think it’s good, makes 10’s feel more consistent, helps with tuning and gives dps more of an incentive to hit damage checks.
This is my first season playing WoW/M+ and honestly having a blast. It's by far the most appealing content in the game for me and the fact people are saying this is a bad season is intriguing. I dont understand why people have an issue with the death penalty? How would it work if there were no punishment for dying?
I think I'm the target audience of the key squish, as I really only did low keys in DF and would have kept doing that in TWW if the squish didn't happen, so hopefully my perspective helps:
The change did succeed at one thing: people are actually running m0, something I did occasionally look for in DF and never saw outside of Dawn of the Infinite. Personally, I don't care if I never had to run an m0, but I'm not surprised that game devs wouldn't want to change things up if there was an entire difficulty that just was never used.
The failures: The "squish" failed to account for the fact that there are things about M+ that you can only learn by running M+. Heroic dungeons are the same tuning as old m0, but because there are mythic-only mechanics, its actually still easier than old m0. Then you have a LEAP in difficulty going to m0, which is tuned like old m10 but doesn't have a timer so its more like old m8. On top of the lack of timer, because there's no mob count, you're still not learning routing, which is basically the tank's entire job these days. Lastly, m0 is still on a daily lockout, so you can't spam a specific dungeon if there's a boss or mechanic in it that you want practice on at that difficulty. So now we're at new m2, which Blizzard's goal was to be tuned like the old m12. This is the lowest key level where you get to see all of the mythic-only mechanics, have to account for timers and routing, and get to see any of the new affixes. For players who put the time in and could faceroll through old 15s, this isn't a problem, and I definitely understand that there's an element of git gud here. But as someone who really capped out at old 10s, starting to learn at two key levels higher feels ... insane. And I really don't feel like heroic or m0 did anything to prepare me for what happened once I did finally work up the courage to try +2s and +3s.
The other thing that confuses me is I don't think they actually solved any of the other goals they set out to do with the changes. From the blog about the change: "Heroic dungeons are barely distinct from Normal dungeons at maximum level, and that distinction mostly only matters during a few days after players first reach max level." This is absolutely still true, and between warbound gear and delves it might even be more pronounced of an issue. "The only truly endgame dungeon mode (M+) currently revolves around a timer. This means that other than new mega-dungeons, there isn't really a place for endgame players who enjoy a more methodical dungeon pacing and gameplay." This is also still true. No one I've interacted with in m0 has been there because its their end game. They've been there because they want to practice for m+ (because as we all know they don't need gear from m0 because of delves). "'Mythic 0' dungeons rapidly lose relevance a few weeks into an expansion, once the M+ season starts, with occasional exceptions for the weekly event quest." I did label this as a success for Blizzard, but even then, I'm not sure how much longer for this season that m0 will stay relevant. Granted, this is because of systems outside of m0 (with 11.0.5 there are so many ways to get the same level of gear with much less time investment), but if anything, that implies that the squish didn't actually address the right internal causes for why m0s lose their relevancy as the season goes on.
Really like the proposed cleanse changed of type + magic
5:40 I would like that instead of removing xalatath's bargain at +12 they would make all xalatath's bargain active at +12, with each spawn rotating between them, this would make all weeks equal but would increase variance.
Not sure if this would work but at least something I wish they tried
Would love a form of higher-end dungeon content which is not tied to a timer. This could allow for much more player agency with regards to meta specs, meta pulls, meta comps, allow for players to actually learn and practice the content in a low-pressure situation and play at a reasonable level of skill that's fun and non-anxiety inducing.
In a game like WoW, the best way to practice encounters and learn class interactions is to simply play the content at your level of skill. The raiding environment allows for players to match up against their skill level to practice boss mechanics through repeated pulls in a non-pressure situation. Each attempt, you can tune your ability to play the encounter and improve your gameplay based upon tech and experimentation afforded by your specific class and spec. Mistakes do happen as players explore the space of each encounter, but ultimately the ability to infinitely retry allows for personal progression at a reasonable pace. If your group is well enough put together, you can even allow some players to play off-meta specs which they find fun, for so long as the bosses eventually die, the goal has been achieved.
For M+, the only way to practice a +10 key is to DO a +10 key. And that key has a timer, and with that timer are expectations of success. You might want to play something like Holy Priest or Resto Druid, but come on now, surely you won't troll the group with those low-tier specs?
The moment-to-moment gameplay is akin to walking over broken glass, just waiting for those mistakes to start rolling in (and you will make mistakes, because the only way to practice at the skill level of a +10 is to plug a +10 key). Each mistake is a nail in the coffin, where eventually the camel's back is broken and your group simply disbands because you weren't good enough, didn't know the damage intake well enough, couldn't anticipate the mandatory kick rotation fast enough.
Then you roll to the next group and key, where you might perform incrementally better, but eventually those failed groups and timers just wears on you.
The kick/stop change is one of those 'cool idea, how about you actually implement it?' changes. It makes sense to avoid a situation like Dragonflight S4 where people were doing keys so high that random shadow bolts would kill players and getting around it by never letting mobs finish a single cast, but it's absolutely disastrous to have a situation where someone throws out an AoE stun on a pack with a mob casting Fuck You Volley, causing one or more of their teammates to miss their kick, then Fuck You Volley goes off even though people were trying their best to stop it. Mobs recasting filler spells is fine. Mobs recasting interrupt-or-die spells when interrupts can be thrown away so easily is not fine.
Beautiful tier list dratnos thanks
I think this is a great assessment. I’d maybe move some things around in the bad and really bad but that’s splitting hairs. Dratnos for President.
I'm a little lower on the new affixes. I wonder how much of your impression is prior tiers you would do affixes at your max key level, but now you only encounter affixes on keys much below your max level.
I feel like when Ion was talking about how a deplete would mean less crests because there has to be a drive for everyone to want to time it, I dont understand how they make themselves believe that taking more time in a dungeon is ever something someone who wants crests would prefer.
You have the players that want to time it for IO, you have the players that want to complete it for items, and you have the players that want to complete it for crests. ALL players want to get the dungeon done asap and not spend longer then what they need, and thats something everyone has in common.
Dratnos this is why you're the best, you actually can empathize with the average WoW player
im an average player - i main disc priest - the state of the game is terrible. It feels really bad as a healer in m+ thats my 2 cents
you don't want to put everything into the really bad tier so you talk yourself out of how bad the changes are
I came back to WoW a few weeks into DF S3. I had quit in SL S1.
I did 2800+ rating in S3 on feral. 2k rating on havoc, too. 2000+rating in S4 on 6 specs. Explicitly pugging everything.
I did exactly zero keys in TWW because m+ environment is absolutely miserable for pugging based on the information on the web and from my friends. I have been doing delves on my 8 chars (which will go up during the anniversary event) and having a lot of fun. My chars are sitting between 609-613 ilvl with room to grow slowly every week. I could push 1 char to 620+ just doing delves if I wanted that instead of playing alts.
There are 2 ways forward from where we are with m+; nerfing delves significantly or making m+ a lot more pug friendly (doesn't necessarily mean easier) with fair rewards for the time and effort.
I hope Blizzard doesn't go for the first option because I would quit again.
Id be interested in you reacting to videos made by BOklahoma - "get Good" and The Comeback Kids - "Mythic + is unplayable and Blizzard is panicking". Since you play and know those who play at a higher tier. It would be good content for the next cast you do. The two i recommended i would say speak for the majority of the playerbase imo. Thanks and keep up the content.
I think blizzard sometimes forgets in their decision making that we just want to have fun. Work towards stuff that makes us have fun, a 15 sec extra death penalty is the opposite off that!
Nailed it with all of these takes. The mythic plus gearing system for solo players has drastically not aligned with previous expansions. And i cant say i agree with the choice. With an alteady time gated gearing method why did they increase the pugging difficulty so drastically?
M0's being much harder was actually a great change because it gives players an opportunity to learn the dungeon mechanics at an actually hard level without the pressure of a timer. The problem is that Delve rewards are insane so anything before a +6 key essentially gives useless rewards to players and nobody wants to do it.
regarding the gear/reward nerf, just so i can get a handle on things: i can get i616 vault slots from doing a couple of level 8 bountiful delves. what key level does that equate to?
I feel like chalenger's peril should only be a thing if you die within 30 seconds of releasing in the world of next tier where we hopefully get the reworked checkpoint system.
On the dungeon pool, i think adding the garbo dungeons is them going all in on the idea of all new dungeons every season. Realising that they know they have to use all the possible "bad" dungeons too to make it as long as possible before having to resort to using same dungeons again.
The whole reason for them squishing M+ levels was that Mythic dungeons (0) were becoming obsolete and they wanted to make them relevant again. The fact that there is content above M0 dungeons means they will be obsolete after you're done with them. It's always been that way and it will always be that way. They just changed it and are griefing players and to be honest the rewards are even worse than they used to be. They were obsolete from the season launch because they didn't even give gear as high as delves.
Yes! It is funny how m0 have never been more useless than what they are this expansion, with a garbage change that was only motivated as a way to make m0 more meaningful.
I put the squish as the number one reason why people are upset with m+ this season. They might feel like the death timer is worse but I'm not so sure about that.
Also big disclaimer on that take, the squish only make things worse for those doing 2-9. If you are above that it is almost a non change but that is not where the majority of the playerbase is.
I 'm starting to think that the devs didnt coordinate the pace of rewards in each content. No way the designers would have missed such an egregious discrepedency if they checked.
Or delves giving champion/hero was a late development change because they were afraid of it being left by player early on.
My issue with m0s is why don’t they give champion gear again?
This season made me quit wow again. I came back for the expansion, leveled 7 characters to max. As soon as it got into the M+ season, my interest slowly dwindled to nothing. They made it unfun. I'm all for challenge, but making the challenge so punishing only makes people less fun to play with.
- Statistically speaking challenger's peril has not had nearly as much impact that people are making it out to have.
- kick/stop change from Morgan's own mouth started in Dragonflight.
- key squish is from Dragonflight as well.
Statistically speaking, challenger’s peril just feels stupid and actively makes you play less than you otherwise would. It has made people even more hesitant to accept players who don’t already outgear or “out-IO” the content they’re queuing for. Makes people more hesitant to try higher keys. It isn’t fun when there’s 3 separate punishments for failing and a possible reward of only 52g.
If things go badly not only did I waste 15-30m, but I also depleted my key, and I also got insulted probably. High keys tuned as they are right now would not be “too easy” if you kept the regular death timer of 5s. They’d still be hard.
No one’s arguing the changes started in DF. There’s just no world in which the 15s death penalty is making the game more fun for anyone. Sweaty pusher and casual M+ players (and people somewhere in the middle of that like me) all hate it lol. The statistical impact is relevant if it’s making the game less fun actively.
The move for getting gilded at 8 than 9 was huge for me because often I will +2 a 7 maybe bricks a 9 get 5 crests and then clear an 8 and im back to a 9 where before I wouldn’t have really gotten as many crests
Combo dispels would be really good! Warlocks would actually bring utility to M+!!!
I would love an untimed +8 equivalent. I don't think it should reward mythic track, but I would like a less stressful dungeon that is still difficult enough to justify giving gilded. Also the dungeon pool may be subjective, but Necrotic Wake is not, its just bad.
Here's my hot take: remove the lockout from normal and heroic raids. They want to make raids a more appealing source of gear, and that would definitely be accomplished. Then you wouldn't have to make it so hard to get gear from keys, because there's no longer the argument that keys are spammable and raids aren't.
this made be go hmmm maybe not removed completely but a lower lockout that wasn't weekly I'd love to play more raid personally.
I used to get Myth track vaults on like 10+ characters every season in DF and now I can barely get it done on my main. M+ is just not fun any more. Why would I do +9s if I can do delves?
That said I think by far the worst change they have ever done to the game is the kick/stops change and having so many mobs chaincasting.
Only W take, except NW but like u said it is a matter of taste.
Wishing they would tune less for crazy high AoE damage taken and one-shots, and more toward sufficient DPS output needed to time the key. That would distribute the responsibility much more evenly across the party.
Death timer affix is terrible, lazy and punishing just for the sake of it
Debuff dispel being tied to categories such as poison, magic, curse, disease is terrible for classes that cannot cleanse one, healers should BY DEFAULT have omni cleanse or if you really wanna be lazy, do what XIV does and debuff is debuff (I prefer this honestly)
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I know Morgan Day mentioned the rules consistency thing as a reason for the kick change, but I really don't think that was the real reason. It was more what George Velev was saying about wanting dungeons to feel different, and I think part of it was wanting to make dungeons more challenging. I look back on Dragonflight and don't really have positive opinions of those dungeons. They all felt like a flavorless mush where all the packs felt very similar
i agree with all of this, and yet, this is the most fun ive ever had in M+. even legion. Even the bottom stuff isnt even that bad if you compare it to old m+, and no, this isnt me defending it.
I'm having fun with this season but I can't argue with this list.
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I think putting Myth track gear into the vault for 8/9s, upping the 10 vault to 2/6 and maybe even dropping 1/x on the next track up for the last two bosses in the raid as well might be a good change. Same thing with Queen Ansurek and Silken court in mythic. No reason those should be dropping at Myth 4/6, those bosses are hard enough and exclusive enough they should be dropping Myth 6/6.
It just seems so odd to make item level harder to achieve this season compared to the past few in Dragonflight. They added so many features this expansion to push players to player alts, or trying out new classes due to strong class fantasy additions in hero talents, but the gear system is still hampering it by making it hard to feel like you have time to actually play another character.
Challenging but untimed dungeons are awesome and need to be in the game. Actually, I think DF season 4 did a really good job with that. Somehow they lost the thread going into TWW and mythic 0 feels like piss again.
If only there was something like a throw away season to test these kind of changes so they could've been better
If only there was something like a season 4
Hi Dratnos, you should make Max tweet about keeping the affixes on the 12+ so blizzard changes it lmao, great vid :D
i think it's fine that delves give higher ilvl gear. The whole point of delves was to have "end game" solo content. 616 is not that high anyway, considering that myth track goes up to 639...
Just a thought about the kick/stun part: could kicks in pve work just like dispells? Where now if you try to dispell/decurse/detox/... a player without a debuff, the spell doesn't go on cd. If they would apply that to interrupts, then it fully fixes the stun into interrupt part. Granted, it takes away a lot of the skill expression; but if anything, m+ isn't lacking skill expression. Again, just in pve, this would be insanely broken in pvp lol
This would be insanely broken in pve too. Especially because most kicks are out of global coolodwn, so ppl would just macro their kick for every single button they press.
Regarding key squish: I dislike the delve rewards the most. I used to do all 20s once and then only +18s (or what was needed for best vault upgrade path) on multiple toons. Now it's pretty much pointless to do keys below +8, because delves are so easy (but boring!). Which results in me doing 2 delves and no keys most weeks, because I just can't be bothered to start doing medium keys to get to know routes and stuff :(
they've completely fucked it all up this season. when you're asking for 615+ ilvl and 2.7k to even get into 8-10 keys something is horrendously wrong. Take curved raids as well... people want 620+ ilvl and GOOD logs for a heroic clear... absolute madness
You won’t get invited to my 8-10 keys with anything lower than 620 AND at least 2300 IO AND have timed said key before. This is the game now.
I do my weeky 10s as a 626ilvl 2.7k io dh, with similar party members, and we keep depleteing, ppl keep dieing on the first pull even. This season is so terrible i honestly starting to give up.... In dragonflight (season4) i pushed 18s, and tried many 19s with 0 success, but it wasnt even closely this stressfull as a +10-12 now. But i dont see raids this bad, i've done hc on the first week with my own pug group with minimal precoordination. It feels a joke how easy to get gear there compared to m+. Even mythic raid where first 4 boss dies in 1 pull for most of the teams.
@@scaresya yeah the first 4 are a walkover. We're clearing them in an hour on our pug runs. Starting to progress ovinax now as clearing just 4 isn't challenging
Dratnos trying to gain favor with fury after his evil take last video, don’t give in boys
Dr. Atnos with more banger takes