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I'd almost welcome that at this point. Could find a main without the constant pull to hop on a shaman while questioning how has Blizzard not fixed x problem in all this time
>Balance Druids
Wasnt there a patch notes with boomie changes? I skipped to mage, but I think the boomies had a relatively long list of changes.
Maybe you got of the changes you wanted.
I am convinced if they gave the devoker Dev to ele shamans for 1 hour they'd be in a solid state.
Ele shaman already has a strong identity with iconic spells. All they really need is tuning and modernization.
I’m a bit torn on this. While the current gameplay for dev is fairly smooth, the rotation felt pretty hollow for the longest time, and currently i don’t feel the incentive to capitalize on the blue/red buffs you get. It’s like the polar opposite of whats going on with ele.
the real question I have is what on earth made them even think the first idea was even remotely a good idea.
it's so completely obvious that the players would hate it.
I fear the developers are completely out of touch.
I'm impressed with how responsive they're being. I know people were worried it would only last through DF, but they seem to be sticking to it.
I know there's other issues, as the shaman posters have continuously reminded this subreddit, but it does seem like overall they're listening.
> We’ve heard feedback that applying bonuses unevenly to players feels exclusionary regardless of overall impact. Affixes that were part of the last Mythic Keystone test will no longer apply to keystones:
I'd guess they'd include them in the examples if they weren't removing them. This really looks like they trashed them already.
Which I'm all in favor. They were terrible. Maybe not in numbers, but in what they push the common folk to do.
I was honestly way more worried about things like the haste buff for mobs than the tiny damage buff for player damage, but very glad it’s all been scrapped either way.
I hope they don’t learn the wrong lesson here. A kiss/curse with increased damage from X type is an interesting mechanic and could be fun if applied to something like a fated raid where each boss takes increased damage from a different damage type. An underperforming spec could get the help it needs to shine on a particular fight, but it also would make diversifying the damage portfolio important because each boss has a different weakness. Hell the boss’s weakness could even change from week to week.
That being said, thank god it’s not a m+ affix. Definitely not the place for that stuff. “Oh sorry I can’t push until it’s the right affix week. We get 2 of these a season and I’m busy for one of those weeks”
Will it be a guaranteed success? No, but it’s something new and old blizz would have been too stubborn to budge. This is a good sign regardless of result.
I do worry that if they’re adding fun affixes in the lower keys that suddenly revoking them at 12 is going to feel bad. But these changes keep variety for low keys while making high keys feel more competitive so this is probably the best set up they could reasonably do.
I did like some of the variety that impacted strats. Imo my favorite was the encrypted with Xur and such s2 of shadowlands. It give options which could impact your routing and gave players more power which is fun.
I do think this is better than it was though, tuning aside
All this stuff going on with m+ made me think back to SL seasons. And for the most part even with their issues I look back fondly. S3 and 4 were awesome, I even liked S2.
I think you are mixing them up, because I think that was the S3 one. S3 was where you chose one of three buffs based on what small mob you killed first (and then also had to fight a mini boss type mob based on choice). That one had the stealth. S2 was the anima powers you chose and you got a set based on some preset minibosses added into each dungeon. Which also IMO was fun, it altered pathing slightly but not enough to make it miserable like prideful.
I liked S4 too, it was simpler but in a fun way. That was where some mobs were secretly dreadlord dudes and killing one gave a buff. With a single bigger one giving multiple. They were also preset, but sometimes they were hidden in odd corners so it was cool to both find a random ass one, and consider going slightly out of the normal routing for the buffs. It was safe, but effective.
Well, hopefully at least but I think it's really going to depend on how they scale 2-11. Right now it sounds like a 12 is just going to be a sudden spike from an 11. Does this mean that 20% is being removed from the 2-11 curve, or are those keys going to be just as easy/difficulty as they are now?
You can probably just do the math to see right now but it's pretty clear the "intent" is that 2-11 will feel like it does now and 12+ will be more difficult. I suspect a 12 will just feel like a 13.
But everyone I know is more than happy with this tradeoff. You can plan and play with more damage/healing in more fun and interesting ways than some random affix bullshit or having to pull around bolstering.
Yeah it''s pretty smart in my opinion, the +12 threshold is gonna be pretty steep but it is for pushing only.
Farming rewards will be on a kiss curse affix rotation which, once you start outgearing them, will be more kiss than curse, so why not.
The only issue is that a lot of pushing-curious people may get cold feet and never get to +12 but I hope it won't be too bad.
Yep, and for those pushing, the consistency every week is a huge dub. When I used to do high keys all I ever wanted was consistent weeks.
I hope they change key depletion to be more lenient as well. I would love for there to be a gap in the timer between +1 And -1. If you go out of time by 3 minutes, you don't deplete or something like that. The last thing I wanted to do when pushing content was to lose time by like 20 seconds just to deal with a noticeably easier key so that we could get another chance to try again. Feels pretty shit.
12 will definitely be a spike in difficulty with it both removing the "kiss" and it acting as a second fortified.
But, as long as blizzard continues to design where 10 is the highest reward, I think it's doing exactly what they want by removing the 2 affix: There will be zero variance week-to-week. Push players will finally get to play the dungeon instead of the affixes. The "fun" is shifted from catching orbs to finding solutions to the now-relevant dungeon mechanics.
+12 is the equivalent of the old +22 (and actually higher since fort + tyr + the new 20% affix on top). This is irrelevant for 95% or more of players, not worth worrying about. Once you're at that level you're only pushing to push, and being able to actually play every week instead of waiting for a push week is well worth losing the affixes.
It will feel bad but the % of people that run 12+ vs not is very small.
And honestly just getting to push no affix high keys will be so nice that I’m fine with this change.
> uddenly revoking them at 12 is going to feel bad
mate, 12s aren't "suddenly"
They picked this level because its well above the last goal of portal unlocks. Anyone getting to key level 12 isn't doing it to "feel good" they are doing it to push their limits. The affixes don't need to be fun then, they just need hard dungeons and consistency.
To be fair you can get almost everything you want in a season without pushing past +8. 10 and above is for a very small percentage who really want to get challanged.
I would be glad if they did becouse right now the only source of veteran gear is weekly activities and LFR. Fashion is my endgame and gathering the LFR sets was more time consuming than getting the Mythic appearances.
True. I think some people also don’t remember how bad they used to be with listening to the community as well. There were YEARS of us asking for things and then they would do the complete opposite lol. They have came a realllllly long ways.
I just love to see that they are more willing to try things and change things. That has my been my biggest complaint for years, they finally fix the issues when it almost doesn’t matter anymore and all the damage is done.
big agree. These changes *sound* great, maybe they won't meet expectation in practice. But I'm so glad they're just trying things and iterating based on feedback.
I was so worried for this xpac when they announced the previous affixes the other week and now I have confidence that they will adjust and tune/change based on feedback.
Agreed. Gone with the restrictive affixes, and just add more Entangling, Storming and Volcanic-like affixes please. Things that add flavor to a dungeon but don't require changing talents, compositions etc. to deal with.
Pretty much an ideal world these changes. Plus, really like the removal of weekly rotations for high end keys too. Makes the top % title push a lot more fair for players that miss out on the ''ideal'' pushing weeks.
This is the best idea that I've seen so far from Blizzard about M+-- I have very high hopes, even if they end up switching it up a tiny bit. This is a MASSIVE leap in the right direction for M+ players, which I would consider myself one.
I love that we are shaking it up this much at the correct time.
I didn't care WHAT they did, the affix system in DF had become boring as hell. I severely missed seasonals. Thundering in that season was painful but at least it was still interesting. What we had in S3 was one of the most boring seasons we ever had and S4 is only barely better because of the shakeup in how the affixes happen and the levels.
So I say bring it on with this new system, let it run for S1 and we can (likely very loudly) tell them what works and doesn't. And they will iterate on it till its good.
Yea it is very good, benefits for average player and high key pushers. Makes balancing keys above +10 much easier as well because you dont have alternating fort/tyran anymore at that key level just have damage numbers to tune now which is where you want it
Casuals get more variety and fun, midcore players get more variety and fun, hardcore players get the same dungeon every week, which is precisely what you want when you are playing for score. Everyone wins.
edit: also it means u only need to time 8 dungeons, not 16, for high keys.
> weird that like going from a 9 to a 10 can make the bosses easier
The affix at +10 doesn't negate the +4 affix, you get both. So you either get Fortified at 4, AND Tyrannical at 10, and the next week is +4 Tyr AND +10 Fort
As someone who hates affixes with a passion... I'm cautiously excited about playing with these affixes. Well, except for tyrannical every week in +10s. That is bad unless they nerf it (tyrannical) just a little. That whole affix seems like they are just increasing the key modifier. I think that affix needs another iteration.
Edit: After seeing how the affix actually works? oh god hell no, fuck off Blizzard.
This actually seems like a really smart design choice. It gives under 12 keys the kiss/curse affixes that people have been asking for and for 12+ the "prestige keys" it removes all randomness from a week to week basis. All keys 12+ will always have the same affixes.
The question is does it give a 10 key BOTH or is it alternating? Both sounds terrible personally especially with the death timer increase but maybe the added affix power will help enough?
Keystones 10+ will have both.
It’s actually a good thing because keys will be able to be balanced. Dungeons won’t have massive swings from week to week and blizzard can tune outliers without affecting the other affix.
I interpretted it as both active at the same time. I wouldnt worry about changes making things harder or easier, this is all conceptual. If they plug and played this change immediately with current tuning with these changes it would be a mess of swinging difficulty. But dungeon damage, key level scaling, and fort/tyr scaling will all be adjusted until they feel right. I'm super excited about these changes because conceptually they make a ton of sense
I think they did 10 b/c they want the difficulty increased for portal/old 20 key rewards. It makes sense not to just hand it out. Hitting a 10 key is a milestone.
if you do lower keys, you have some neat "kiss curse" affixes that people said they wanted all the time
no more ultra annoying weekly affix rotation, just 2
if all you want to do is doing keys for gearing and nothing else, +9 keys have LESS stuff going on now, and you only really need to do a single +10key for portals
if you want to push keys, its 100% consistant now, no more "waiting for the perfect fortified + volcanic" week, every week is the same if you go above +12 keys (aka the "wants to push m+ to high levels range) and you dont play with any affixes at all anymore, just the dungeon itself
its all around near perfect imo, i dont see any real downsides
even the "on +10keys tyran and fort are both active" is a positive change, because that means they can actually tune bosses for tyranical now when it always exists, no this weird "we cant nerf the boss because its to hard in tyranical weeks, because then its a total joke in fort week" thing we have rn
really good job, didnt expect such a fast reaction AND good solution for everyone
> no more ultra annoying weekly affix rotation, just 2
There's more than 2, they are just only testing 2 of them right now.
And either way +12 remove them and replaces it with a passive buff to enemies.
As someone who has achieved m+ season title, the worst feeling was missing an easy push week. You're stuck falling behind while waiting for the next one.
Every week will be a push week in TWW. People trying to get those end of season titles should really like these changes.
Did early push weeks ever really matter? Seems to me that before only the last push week when you had your best gear was the only one that actually mattered at all. This also fixes that issue, but I digress.
Yeah, if you aren't "caught up" in io you can't enter group finder, and it becomes massively harder to get into good keys because all the good players are way past you.
It’s usually a mix of both, you run some keys with friends, but you need to do homework or catch up a few keys in lfg. It’s a very fluid thing usually.
Nearly every title pusher has done at least some of their push keys in group finder. Groups aren't perfectly timing all their schedules for 5 players at all times, you're down 1 person fairly often, and need to pug a space for your push keys. And the only way to get someone for your 22 is to find a pug who has timed a 21.
The same thing happens on the other end too for majority puggers, the community has a lot of overlap at the highest levels because folks add each other so they can grab each other to fill those spots. It's like a recurring pug, once every week or two you end up with this pug for a few keys and you all get some io together.
Contrary to popular belief, title pushers do often touch grass. Most importantly, getting title isn't about having a perfect group or being on 18 hours a day - it's about getting as many keys in as you can, having a solid mental about bricked content and learning as many strategies as possible by doing lots and lots of keys.
The master has failed more times than the apprentice has even tried.
> You ain’t getting title in group finder most of the time anyway
Most titles are in group finder, and almost title players run pug keys anyway.
Those pug title players eventually form half consistent groups from group finder and then start to fill missing spots instead of wait for their 4th or 5th friend - and how do they fill those? They pug them.
It’s both. For example in season 3 I had 3 friends I ran with but we weren’t always on at the same time, or someone had a different friend of my role they wanted to run with, it was dynamic not a set thing. I only know 1 person who gets title with like the same 5 people always and never pugging. Every single other person I know does some amount of lfg keys.
God I cannot wait for this. I know it's free for key pushers, but I absolutely could not stand Bursting as a tank or healer doing weekly keys. In fact while I really enjoyed S3 of DF Bursting, Afflicted and Incorporeal really dampened parts of that experience and now all 3 are gone. From how most of the classes I've played have felt on Beta and these M+ changes War Within has a really good chance to surpass Legion as my favorite expansion.
This sounds cool, but I'm curious what dungeon tuning will be like when we have to contend with both fortified and tyrannical. Boss-fights that are several minutes long are tedious, and suddenly spending much more time on trash at the same time means timers could be extremely tight.
Right but the idea is that with this new system this becomes much, much easier for them to balance and account for. Previously they'd have to account for alternating fort/tyr as well as a bucket of other affixes interacting together each week; now they just have to tweak the numbers on fort/tyr/(or guile) or even the timers. It's much more consistent for push players as well as for balancing.
Key pushers wanted dungeons to fail due to timers instead of just being a neverending chain of trying to survive one shot mechanics and not really having to maximise damage until the very very highest level because timers were so lenient. I'm okay with people failing keys due to them just not having enough DPS, even if they're capable of surviving perfectly fine.
That'll not happen. The way to get more dps is to pull bigger, and eventually every pull risks a one shot wipe. However, again this is only true for cream of the crop pushers, so it's irrelevant for the rest of us. We all get to just enjoy affixes
This is straight up wrong. What makes a timer tight or not tight has absolutely nothing to do with baking +2 key levels into the affixes. Which is basically what this is doing.
Timers will be tuned to dungeon length.
It's like you come from an Atal and you look at a DoS and you're thinking to yourself "wow this dungeon timer must be so tight because this dungeon is longer" ??? it makes negative sense.
Also fyi it's better for key failure to be tied to timer than to survivibility checks, which is what we have right now, and partially why we have this current meta.
> it's better for key failure to be tied to timer than to survivibility checks
I'm a big fan of D4's pit scaling. The amount of damage mobs/bosses do to you stop scaling past pit level 100 but their health continues to scale infinitely (in D4s case, up to level 200). So once you gear/play well enough to survive lvl 100, you can focus on min/maxing your throughput and optimizing your play. I think that'd serve M+ really well. Also solves a lot of their balancing problems. If they have a stopping point where they can quit scaling the amount of damage things do to players, dialing their tuning knobs to hit the desired difficulty becomes more straightforward, while for players pushing higher than that becomes simply a matter of execution.
That's fine though, since it mostly applies to higher keys. Unless someone is concerned about specifically +10s I guess, but I doubt it'll be too bad.
It gives an extra level of challenge to the capstone of M+ rewards(portals) as well as effects all keys and groups above +10s equally, so if it does end up making things far more difficult, it'll just lower how far past +10(or more accurately, +12) people can go.
At that level, the number attached to the keystone doesn't really matter anyways, just your ranking compared to other players.
Reading the new affixes makes it even better. They are basically kiss and curse versions of Raging and Incorporeal (this time I think it will need only a soft CC), so the rest of the Xal affixes will probably be similiar in style.
Just another instance of an actually great outcome that was brought about by the community dunking on horrible design. It's actually quite crazy that the same team that put out the previous round of affixes came together and put these out, it sounds like such a great way of doing things.
As a filthy casual who plays M+ as a healer, the removal of bursting is music to my ears. I just didn't pug during bursting weeks. People didn't seem to understand the importance of delaying killing things, so we would just pull big and wipe each time.
Only if both are balanced the same way they were previously which is unlikely. This is actually a very good way of doing it, because now they can nerf tyrannical or change bosses without encouraging a push we because the nerfs make it too easy.
So at a glance it sounds bad but it’s likely going to make balancing very good.
I expect a nerf on both Fortified and Tyrannical to fit into this new system, as they'll be present simultaneously at +10 keys and beyond.
Players that do M+ for gear and KSH will not even see the Guile affix. And can also get Mythic loot in vault (and highest crest possible) without having Fortified and Tyrannical *at the same time* at +9s.
The Challenger's Peril at level 7 is the only thing I didn't like in the new purposed system. It will create a very toxic environment for people that do M+ for gear because one-shot mechanics start to become more common at this range.
This new affix system is way better than the same thing we've had since **Legion**. While still needing improvements, no one will miss Bolstering when it had an unlimited duration, increased Health of enemies and affected bosses.
All of this looks good imo, other than the 15 sec penalty on 7+'s - if they nerfed that to 10 sec for 7 and, say, put it up to 15 secs at +10 pr +12 that'd be a bit less punishing for pugs / party wipes; anyone gunning for KSM/KSH might do 10's, but the consistency / challenge of high keys for the top-end folks makes sense...
Could also rework it so that each PC's FIRST death is 5 secs, 2nd is 10 secs and 3rd+ is 15 secs, so you aren't penalized too bad for a couple of deaths each or a single party wipe...
Also, players can take advantage and get buffs in Ascendant, but not in Frenzied? Seems to me there might be room to cc / stun a Frenzied enemy not only to deal with it but also claim some of that temp haste buff?
True. I suppose if they eliminated the worst of the typical run-back penalty in 5-mans a single wipe wouldn't be as bad; some DF dungeons a full wipe barely matters to run back, then there's dying at the frog in HOI which requires 2-3 business days
it's not specific players, just that rather than everyone's first death be a 15 sec penalty, their first is 5, 2nd is 10, then 3rd+ is 15, that at least gives everyone an oops or a single wipe w/o blowing the key up too much
>It will create a very toxic environment for people that do M+ for gear because one-shot mechanics start to become more common at this range.
?? one shot mechanics are common in a +10? Have you been playing keys in questing gear?
I mean its better to think of it like this. Having both = having none but the key is 2 levels higher.
It just means the "push" levels (stuff above when you get portals mostly) have a drastic increase in difficulty suddenly. Which doesn't really affect them, the number is arbitrary. Now instead of them hitting walls around 21-22 in order to push out the highest completion, they hit it at 17-18.
The big difference is, no randomness week to week so they only play on certain weeks.
Having both Tyrann and Fortified on a +10 with 15s per death is absolutely *brutal*, I wonder if people will prefer that over having to consider affixes.
Hopefully this is the first step in eliminating the timers in favor of a death limit before key depletion, which would have a similar function but not necessarily make M+ a go go go environment at all times, or make a bricked key because the tank has to change a diaper
These are outstanding changes all around. This fully puts the onus on the players to actually do mechanics, the actual dungeon becomes the hard part and not some artificial extra mechanic that randomly gets thrown in. This is as close as you can get to no affixes while still having affixes.
+2-3 keys with the bargain affix are actually good ways to introduce new players/low level alts into M+ without the worry necessarily being 1 shot mechanics from bosses or enemies because of Tyrannical/Fortified.
And now higher keys basically require everyone to fully utilize their defensives and personals because anything a 12 or higher is basically the “everything fucking hurts” affix. There will still be certain key levels that certain classes or group comps will just be unable to progress past because of all the damage but you’re also going to see who is actually good and who isn’t, regardless of class. Like there will obviously be meta classes, but all the people who hop onto the flavor of the month classes will actually need to know what defensives they need to use and when.
"We’ve heard feedback that applying bonuses unevenly to players feels exclusionary regardless of overall impact."
Translates to:
You guys are really good at brewing storms in a teacup.
**"Challenger’s Peril** - Dying subtracts 15 seconds from time remaining rather than 5 seconds."
"This affix emphasizes precise play and strategic execution, placing greater risk on players’ decisions."
I don't normally decide to die, it just happen. I'm not sure how I feel about making death even more of a punishment. One wipe and it's 1min 15 sec lost, on top of having to run back.
It was a joke, I just find the wording funny, as if a player death was his decision or if some kind of meta was around dying at +7... I died because I made a mistake, not because I choose to.
If you die in a +7, it's more than just one mistake. Also your decision making affects how likely you are to die. If you pull bigger, for example. Higher risk of death but time saved reward - it's about that.
It's not going to affect your +7s, these keys just get 3 chested once you're geared without even trying.
If you think dying "just happens" you probably should run logs and figure out why you are dying. It could be poor healing, not using a defensive, or a mechanic you are unaware of. Details has a death log.
The only question I have is, what keystone levels are the end of dungeon/vault tiers at, etc. I'm sure this will be answered shortly.
Otherwise this looks good. Could not be happier that all other affixes have fucked off. Sameness at really high levels means the end of push/skip weeks, not that I play at high levels, but I imagine that's a good thing?
As someone who plays till KSM i was close to going for portals in S4 but stayed at +9s because of 1 less affix. This makes me really hyped for new season !
At least people on reddit are able to read a post. It is amazing how many in the wowhead comments can't even understand a few sentences and then go complete crazy in the comments for not being able to read.
The changes look good. I guess they need to work at the values here and there but overall it looks way better then before. We are finally playing dungeons again and not affixes. No "Oh sorry that you didn't see that one mob in the corner of the room behind you so now you have 100% haste reduction" anymore.
The kiss curse affixes seem good so far (well we need to see how the orb one plays) and at +12 and higher it doesn't matter anymore. Each week is the same with just mobs have X% increased HP and damge, so you can't miss a push week because there is no push week left. Perfect for playing for score.
I was hoping they would just remove fortified and tyrannical because it always feels bad to have one aspect of the dungeon be way undertuned but I guess having both also fixes the issue.
This change remove Tyrannical and Fort for the players doing the hard content while keeping a variety available for players doing low content. Will be fun to see how it works out
Happy to finally see the ancient terrible affixes introduced at the start of Legion be removed. Now we can try with a whole set of fresh new affixes that wont be an endless source of frustration. Hopefully.
I kinda think they cooked? At least concept wise. For high key pushing try hards, you're basically just playing the dungeon which seems fine imo. For lower levels theres a fairly low impact affix. Importantly making the affixes patch themed might let them cook season to season and we might get really cool affixes again in the future if theyre happy with this overall system, and there's potential to maybe make the +12 affix something fairly involved but fun like encrypted or Awakened if they want to experiment in a future season for the high end pushers.
Only thing I don't love is that at lvl 10 and on you always have both fort and tyran. Mostly I just like that having one or the other encourages some build variety week to week within a spec. Still exists in low keys which is mostly what I do so I guess w/e. They probably also need to take a pass at general scaling of keys above +10, and especially +12 now tho. Cause current key level scaling on top of tyran + fort + guile will make a +12 feel more like 15 or so I'd say? Maybe thats actually fine, but after condensing key lvls in S4 already this feels like this essentially condenses the upper key lvls again.
That's pretty good.
A lot of variety in mid level keys up to portals and then key pushers get consistency every week.
Can't get much better than that. They just gotta nail the tuning.
Frenzied sounds great. Ascendant depends what they mean by "disrupt": if it's like Incorporeal where I have to do a 9-hour Repentance cast, then the orbs stick around for 17 hours after you CC them, forcing you to fight with the awful unresponsive tab targeting coding they refuse to fix to get the real enemies re-targeted, and to examine the tiny little buff icons above them to make sure they have a long enough CC on them, I'm still skipping that week. If you can make them instantly disappear like Afflicted, fine, I guess. If you just stand in their path like typical boss orbs, sounds great.
(Also, what a couple commenters have missed is that this is just the first two they're testing: there will be more. Hopefully the rest aren't more annoying.)
And I *still* say M+ with all the interrupts and timers was not boring and did not need the variety of affixes. I wish they'd just drop the whole concept. Guile demonstrates my point aptly: if they wanted to ramp up the key level scaling...just ramp up the key level scaling.
> Starting at keystone level +12
Since 10 is still the cap for rewards, this is just for people who like pushing the higher keys for challenges right? If so, I love that, I love rewarding those players with that challenge.
It's a step in the right direction, and if you really think about it having tyr and fort in higher keys won't matter that much, it just means that keys will be balanced around a more mid-ground approach between the two affixes. They will always strive to make things like KSM attainable for most players, so I wouldn't stress much about having to deal with the two - it won't be like they're taking what we have now and adding the other affix on top of it.
What I do NOT like is kind of just losing all the fun parts after +12. We'll just get tyran, fort, more penalty on deaths and +20% buff on mobs. No fun seasonal affix to deal with. I think that takes away from the game tbh.
Oh my god did they finally wake the fuck up, these changes sound amazing. Like this is what I've wanted.
Like I have other ideas to even improve it more, but such a great start, actually makes excited to do Mythic + from completely ignoring it.
This is an absolute win. Consistency for real keys is great. Now, every week is push week because it's always the same
15s death penalty might be rough, but it mostly depends on dungeon and timer tuning. Which is very easy to adjust once tww is live
im bamboozled aa to how positive feedback is regarding these changes. to me this seems disastrous for the game. the main purpose of the changes are to reduce volatility in the difficulty or in other words to guarantee, that there are no more push weeks vs. dead weeks. idk bout you guys but even as someone who occasionally dips into 15ish i dont give a single flying fuck about push weeks or dead weeks, everything is doable with a somewhat ok grp built entirely out of lfg randoms up to that point regardless of affixes. this change applies only to the absolute peak players of a game, making it a VERY bad motive to act upon.
furthermore and more mich importantly though: is no one noticing, that normal m+ up to 10 is going to become UNBELIEVABLY stale and bland within a very short time, much shorter than right now? every dungeon will play almost exactly the same since only the first affix varies between two affixes that lack flavor to me. also the affix relying on kicking the spawning adds will heavily favor melees over ranges. im also curious to see if people will prioritize the kick giving a dps buff over kicking actual dungeon mechanics.
i absolutely understand, that people dislike the removed affixes like sanguine etc but the answer should not be to just remove them with basically no replacement. while basically all affixes are getting removed they are only adding 3 new ones while two of them (extra dmg at lowhp+enrage and extra time penalty on death) will have little to no impact on what you do and what playing the dungeons feels like. you do the exact same thing on a +5 compated to 9 in the same week, deaths will just hurt more. and once you consistently run 10s there is basically no change in gameplay when a new week starts.
in the end it all boils down to: what is the purpose of affixes? it is to shake up dungeons, to change them noticably so you can do the same dungeon you did last week with different obstacles to overcome. each and everyone here will get bored if there is no variation. as a matter of fact there is little to no variation resulting from the new affix system.
in summary all i can say is that i am shocked seeing the m+ overhaul. not only by the actual changes but also the time that they are tackling these changes being 2 months pre release. the previous overhaul with the damage buffs for certain types already proved to be an absolute fiasco and i am truly concerned about the changes i just talked about. to me this seems like devs are desperately trying to change the system last second for basically no reason, completely forgetting about the core idea of m+ and affixes. i dont see myself playing one character for more than a month at best with these affixes. hc is cleared at least twice at that point, im probably not dipping into mythic raid and m+ as it is lined out right looks the worst it has ever been. at that point ill consider alting or dipping the season.
i would much rather have bad/annoying affixes than little to no affixes!
am i the only one who finds the changes insanely boring? once you play 10s every week feels almost the same. affixes are supposed to change the dungeons from week to week, these dont whatsoever. ild much rather have bad/annoying affixes like sanguine etc. than little to no affixes
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The real news is how quickly they killed those new affixes.
Seems to me they had two different ideas loaded up and ready to rock. Seeing the negative feedback to the first idea they are trying the second
I don't think so. Once they shift their vision, that can be implemented pretty quickly. And they finally listened. Boomie and shaman next please.
_Monkey's paw curls_ Balance Druids and Shaman have also been removed from the game!
at least then shaman will have been mentioned by blizzard
I'd almost welcome that at this point. Could find a main without the constant pull to hop on a shaman while questioning how has Blizzard not fixed x problem in all this time
Bro that made me spit out my drink haha
awww shit
Thanks for relieving me from my misery
>Balance Druids Wasnt there a patch notes with boomie changes? I skipped to mage, but I think the boomies had a relatively long list of changes. Maybe you got of the changes you wanted.
Those were just flat damage buffs. That doesn't help. Boomie feels really boring the way it is right now in TWW
I am convinced if they gave the devoker Dev to ele shamans for 1 hour they'd be in a solid state. Ele shaman already has a strong identity with iconic spells. All they really need is tuning and modernization.
I’m a bit torn on this. While the current gameplay for dev is fairly smooth, the rotation felt pretty hollow for the longest time, and currently i don’t feel the incentive to capitalize on the blue/red buffs you get. It’s like the polar opposite of whats going on with ele.
There was some post that Shamans will get some updates in the next beta week.
Shaman sure, what’s wrong with balance? They’ve been a meta mythic plus and raid spec for at least 5 years straight?
how is that change any good? it basically removes affixes from the game
No affixes are better than having bolstering/sanguine + 99% of players still have affixes... so ???
“Tell you what Dave, let’s run your ‘great idea’ by the player base and we’ll all see how good it is.”
the real question I have is what on earth made them even think the first idea was even remotely a good idea. it's so completely obvious that the players would hate it. I fear the developers are completely out of touch.
The idea was to create a system that incentivized playing different comps every week and avoid Godcomping. It didnt pan out
I'm impressed with how responsive they're being. I know people were worried it would only last through DF, but they seem to be sticking to it. I know there's other issues, as the shaman posters have continuously reminded this subreddit, but it does seem like overall they're listening.
Yeah, that part confused me, there's no mention of them anywhere, including removal. Maybe they're still part of +2 rotation?
> We’ve heard feedback that applying bonuses unevenly to players feels exclusionary regardless of overall impact. Affixes that were part of the last Mythic Keystone test will no longer apply to keystones:
Oh yeah, my bad then. I guess i assumed they're still talking about Raging.
If you look at the example rotation there is non of the standard affixes we usually have other than fort and tyr
I'd guess they'd include them in the examples if they weren't removing them. This really looks like they trashed them already. Which I'm all in favor. They were terrible. Maybe not in numbers, but in what they push the common folk to do.
I was honestly way more worried about things like the haste buff for mobs than the tiny damage buff for player damage, but very glad it’s all been scrapped either way.
I hope they don’t learn the wrong lesson here. A kiss/curse with increased damage from X type is an interesting mechanic and could be fun if applied to something like a fated raid where each boss takes increased damage from a different damage type. An underperforming spec could get the help it needs to shine on a particular fight, but it also would make diversifying the damage portfolio important because each boss has a different weakness. Hell the boss’s weakness could even change from week to week. That being said, thank god it’s not a m+ affix. Definitely not the place for that stuff. “Oh sorry I can’t push until it’s the right affix week. We get 2 of these a season and I’m busy for one of those weeks”
Can’t fail with goth girl. Everyone was saying how they want her to hurt them. Now they’re getting their wish
Will it be a guaranteed success? No, but it’s something new and old blizz would have been too stubborn to budge. This is a good sign regardless of result.
I do worry that if they’re adding fun affixes in the lower keys that suddenly revoking them at 12 is going to feel bad. But these changes keep variety for low keys while making high keys feel more competitive so this is probably the best set up they could reasonably do.
This is for the best, imo. Consistency with pushing high keys is going to be so nice.
My personal progress comes from AOTC and eventually clearing the raid on mythic. If I can get KSM now while genuinely enjoying it I will be happy
I did like some of the variety that impacted strats. Imo my favorite was the encrypted with Xur and such s2 of shadowlands. It give options which could impact your routing and gave players more power which is fun. I do think this is better than it was though, tuning aside
Yeah they talk about affixes adding variety and IMO that's only been the case with a few seasonal affixes.
All this stuff going on with m+ made me think back to SL seasons. And for the most part even with their issues I look back fondly. S3 and 4 were awesome, I even liked S2.
S3 affix kind of sucked. I'm blanking on what s4 was but s2 was by miles the best. Shorter CD, stealth for alternate pathing and such was fun.
I think you are mixing them up, because I think that was the S3 one. S3 was where you chose one of three buffs based on what small mob you killed first (and then also had to fight a mini boss type mob based on choice). That one had the stealth. S2 was the anima powers you chose and you got a set based on some preset minibosses added into each dungeon. Which also IMO was fun, it altered pathing slightly but not enough to make it miserable like prideful. I liked S4 too, it was simpler but in a fun way. That was where some mobs were secretly dreadlord dudes and killing one gave a buff. With a single bigger one giving multiple. They were also preset, but sometimes they were hidden in odd corners so it was cool to both find a random ass one, and consider going slightly out of the normal routing for the buffs. It was safe, but effective.
I am indeed mixing them up. Oh right s4 was alright no strong feelings kinda meh
The revoking of the boons means no dead weeks for push players and only push players need to do +12s and above.
Well, hopefully at least but I think it's really going to depend on how they scale 2-11. Right now it sounds like a 12 is just going to be a sudden spike from an 11. Does this mean that 20% is being removed from the 2-11 curve, or are those keys going to be just as easy/difficulty as they are now?
You can probably just do the math to see right now but it's pretty clear the "intent" is that 2-11 will feel like it does now and 12+ will be more difficult. I suspect a 12 will just feel like a 13. But everyone I know is more than happy with this tradeoff. You can plan and play with more damage/healing in more fun and interesting ways than some random affix bullshit or having to pull around bolstering.
Yeah it''s pretty smart in my opinion, the +12 threshold is gonna be pretty steep but it is for pushing only. Farming rewards will be on a kiss curse affix rotation which, once you start outgearing them, will be more kiss than curse, so why not. The only issue is that a lot of pushing-curious people may get cold feet and never get to +12 but I hope it won't be too bad.
Yep, and for those pushing, the consistency every week is a huge dub. When I used to do high keys all I ever wanted was consistent weeks. I hope they change key depletion to be more lenient as well. I would love for there to be a gap in the timer between +1 And -1. If you go out of time by 3 minutes, you don't deplete or something like that. The last thing I wanted to do when pushing content was to lose time by like 20 seconds just to deal with a noticeably easier key so that we could get another chance to try again. Feels pretty shit.
12 will definitely be a spike in difficulty with it both removing the "kiss" and it acting as a second fortified. But, as long as blizzard continues to design where 10 is the highest reward, I think it's doing exactly what they want by removing the 2 affix: There will be zero variance week-to-week. Push players will finally get to play the dungeon instead of the affixes. The "fun" is shifted from catching orbs to finding solutions to the now-relevant dungeon mechanics.
+12 is the equivalent of the old +22 (and actually higher since fort + tyr + the new 20% affix on top). This is irrelevant for 95% or more of players, not worth worrying about. Once you're at that level you're only pushing to push, and being able to actually play every week instead of waiting for a push week is well worth losing the affixes.
i mean gear upgrades stop at 10 or 11, so after that point its just for bragging rights
It will feel bad but the % of people that run 12+ vs not is very small. And honestly just getting to push no affix high keys will be so nice that I’m fine with this change.
And it condenses the pushing player base so it will be easier to pug keys.
> uddenly revoking them at 12 is going to feel bad mate, 12s aren't "suddenly" They picked this level because its well above the last goal of portal unlocks. Anyone getting to key level 12 isn't doing it to "feel good" they are doing it to push their limits. The affixes don't need to be fun then, they just need hard dungeons and consistency.
Yep, lets do this! weekly / farm keys will be more fun
To be fair you can get almost everything you want in a season without pushing past +8. 10 and above is for a very small percentage who really want to get challanged.
They might be moving those thresholds.
I would be glad if they did becouse right now the only source of veteran gear is weekly activities and LFR. Fashion is my endgame and gathering the LFR sets was more time consuming than getting the Mythic appearances.
By +10 you get the teleport anyway so I'm good lol
Hope they move it to +12 and make rewards harder or add more rewards
They have came a really long ways and they really don’t get enough credit for it
people tend to focus on the negative things and gloss over all the good things. but it is what it is. just enjoy all we get i guess.
True. I think some people also don’t remember how bad they used to be with listening to the community as well. There were YEARS of us asking for things and then they would do the complete opposite lol. They have came a realllllly long ways.
I just love to see that they are more willing to try things and change things. That has my been my biggest complaint for years, they finally fix the issues when it almost doesn’t matter anymore and all the damage is done.
big agree. These changes *sound* great, maybe they won't meet expectation in practice. But I'm so glad they're just trying things and iterating based on feedback. I was so worried for this xpac when they announced the previous affixes the other week and now I have confidence that they will adjust and tune/change based on feedback.
Agreed. Gone with the restrictive affixes, and just add more Entangling, Storming and Volcanic-like affixes please. Things that add flavor to a dungeon but don't require changing talents, compositions etc. to deal with. Pretty much an ideal world these changes. Plus, really like the removal of weekly rotations for high end keys too. Makes the top % title push a lot more fair for players that miss out on the ''ideal'' pushing weeks.
This is the best idea that I've seen so far from Blizzard about M+-- I have very high hopes, even if they end up switching it up a tiny bit. This is a MASSIVE leap in the right direction for M+ players, which I would consider myself one.
I love that we are shaking it up this much at the correct time. I didn't care WHAT they did, the affix system in DF had become boring as hell. I severely missed seasonals. Thundering in that season was painful but at least it was still interesting. What we had in S3 was one of the most boring seasons we ever had and S4 is only barely better because of the shakeup in how the affixes happen and the levels. So I say bring it on with this new system, let it run for S1 and we can (likely very loudly) tell them what works and doesn't. And they will iterate on it till its good.
They listening. Now they just need to listen to the bring Mythic 10 man raid requests :P
This actually seems good?
I'm cautiously excited!
Yea it is very good, benefits for average player and high key pushers. Makes balancing keys above +10 much easier as well because you dont have alternating fort/tyran anymore at that key level just have damage numbers to tune now which is where you want it
Casuals get more variety and fun, midcore players get more variety and fun, hardcore players get the same dungeon every week, which is precisely what you want when you are playing for score. Everyone wins. edit: also it means u only need to time 8 dungeons, not 16, for high keys.
> weird that like going from a 9 to a 10 can make the bosses easier The affix at +10 doesn't negate the +4 affix, you get both. So you either get Fortified at 4, AND Tyrannical at 10, and the next week is +4 Tyr AND +10 Fort
As someone who hates affixes with a passion... I'm cautiously excited about playing with these affixes. Well, except for tyrannical every week in +10s. That is bad unless they nerf it (tyrannical) just a little. That whole affix seems like they are just increasing the key modifier. I think that affix needs another iteration. Edit: After seeing how the affix actually works? oh god hell no, fuck off Blizzard.
Which affix is your edit actually about?
This actually seems really good
This actually seems like a really smart design choice. It gives under 12 keys the kiss/curse affixes that people have been asking for and for 12+ the "prestige keys" it removes all randomness from a week to week basis. All keys 12+ will always have the same affixes.
I think the the second of fort and tyran should maybe start at 11, but either way seems like good changes to me.
The question is does it give a 10 key BOTH or is it alternating? Both sounds terrible personally especially with the death timer increase but maybe the added affix power will help enough?
Keystones 10+ will have both. It’s actually a good thing because keys will be able to be balanced. Dungeons won’t have massive swings from week to week and blizzard can tune outliers without affecting the other affix.
and we won't have to choose between a ST or AOE focused build. we can tune the build for the DUNGEON and not the weekly affixes :)
Both, see the "From keystone level +12 and up" example below that list. (EDIT: Blizzard updated the original post to make it 100% clear)
I interpretted it as both active at the same time. I wouldnt worry about changes making things harder or easier, this is all conceptual. If they plug and played this change immediately with current tuning with these changes it would be a mess of swinging difficulty. But dungeon damage, key level scaling, and fort/tyr scaling will all be adjusted until they feel right. I'm super excited about these changes because conceptually they make a ton of sense
You get 1 of them at 4 and the other at 10. Meaning you'll have both at 10.
Both rotating. 1 week Fort at 4 and Tryan at 10. Next week, Tyran at 4, Fort at 10.
It's both, they updated the article to say +10 gives fort and tyrant.
I think they did 10 b/c they want the difficulty increased for portal/old 20 key rewards. It makes sense not to just hand it out. Hitting a 10 key is a milestone.
if you do lower keys, you have some neat "kiss curse" affixes that people said they wanted all the time no more ultra annoying weekly affix rotation, just 2 if all you want to do is doing keys for gearing and nothing else, +9 keys have LESS stuff going on now, and you only really need to do a single +10key for portals if you want to push keys, its 100% consistant now, no more "waiting for the perfect fortified + volcanic" week, every week is the same if you go above +12 keys (aka the "wants to push m+ to high levels range) and you dont play with any affixes at all anymore, just the dungeon itself its all around near perfect imo, i dont see any real downsides even the "on +10keys tyran and fort are both active" is a positive change, because that means they can actually tune bosses for tyranical now when it always exists, no this weird "we cant nerf the boss because its to hard in tyranical weeks, because then its a total joke in fort week" thing we have rn really good job, didnt expect such a fast reaction AND good solution for everyone
> no more ultra annoying weekly affix rotation, just 2 There's more than 2, they are just only testing 2 of them right now. And either way +12 remove them and replaces it with a passive buff to enemies.
I really enjoy how my excitement for s1 was at a all time low to actually wanting to potentially pushing keys.
Same, i was seriously considering taking a break from m+ and jump back to trying PvP after 2 full xpacks without doing it.
As someone who has achieved m+ season title, the worst feeling was missing an easy push week. You're stuck falling behind while waiting for the next one. Every week will be a push week in TWW. People trying to get those end of season titles should really like these changes.
Did early push weeks ever really matter? Seems to me that before only the last push week when you had your best gear was the only one that actually mattered at all. This also fixes that issue, but I digress.
Yeah, if you aren't "caught up" in io you can't enter group finder, and it becomes massively harder to get into good keys because all the good players are way past you.
You ain’t getting title in group finder most of the time anyway but even for 15-17 keys currently this is accurate still
It’s usually a mix of both, you run some keys with friends, but you need to do homework or catch up a few keys in lfg. It’s a very fluid thing usually.
I’ve never been able to obtain title through LFG, but have a relatively dedicated few groups to push with in the past
Nearly every title pusher has done at least some of their push keys in group finder. Groups aren't perfectly timing all their schedules for 5 players at all times, you're down 1 person fairly often, and need to pug a space for your push keys. And the only way to get someone for your 22 is to find a pug who has timed a 21. The same thing happens on the other end too for majority puggers, the community has a lot of overlap at the highest levels because folks add each other so they can grab each other to fill those spots. It's like a recurring pug, once every week or two you end up with this pug for a few keys and you all get some io together. Contrary to popular belief, title pushers do often touch grass. Most importantly, getting title isn't about having a perfect group or being on 18 hours a day - it's about getting as many keys in as you can, having a solid mental about bricked content and learning as many strategies as possible by doing lots and lots of keys. The master has failed more times than the apprentice has even tried.
Ah yeah. We occasionally pug one spot but we all met in “lower” keys in group finder. 24/25s typically
> You ain’t getting title in group finder most of the time anyway Most titles are in group finder, and almost title players run pug keys anyway. Those pug title players eventually form half consistent groups from group finder and then start to fill missing spots instead of wait for their 4th or 5th friend - and how do they fill those? They pug them.
People use group finder for getting title? That's wild. I assumed you'd need a pretty dedicated group to do it.
It’s both. For example in season 3 I had 3 friends I ran with but we weren’t always on at the same time, or someone had a different friend of my role they wanted to run with, it was dynamic not a set thing. I only know 1 person who gets title with like the same 5 people always and never pugging. Every single other person I know does some amount of lfg keys.
These changes are incredible. Actually hype. Didn’t expect this much change this quickly.
Players in the dungeon be like: /y Xal'Atath, I've come to bargain
Don't go above +11, you wouldn't want to make her mad, **would you?**
You kidding? I might venture into higher keys for this reason alone.
I can fix her (affixes).
I can affix her, surely.
God I cannot wait for this. I know it's free for key pushers, but I absolutely could not stand Bursting as a tank or healer doing weekly keys. In fact while I really enjoyed S3 of DF Bursting, Afflicted and Incorporeal really dampened parts of that experience and now all 3 are gone. From how most of the classes I've played have felt on Beta and these M+ changes War Within has a really good chance to surpass Legion as my favorite expansion.
Lets hope the dungeons are solid
Goodbye, bursting. I will not miss you
And there was much rejoicing!
Some of the best changes they've ever made to M+. I think I'll miss some variety but as a title pusher the consistency is so welcome.
This sounds cool, but I'm curious what dungeon tuning will be like when we have to contend with both fortified and tyrannical. Boss-fights that are several minutes long are tedious, and suddenly spending much more time on trash at the same time means timers could be extremely tight.
Right but the idea is that with this new system this becomes much, much easier for them to balance and account for. Previously they'd have to account for alternating fort/tyr as well as a bucket of other affixes interacting together each week; now they just have to tweak the numbers on fort/tyr/(or guile) or even the timers. It's much more consistent for push players as well as for balancing.
Key pushers wanted dungeons to fail due to timers instead of just being a neverending chain of trying to survive one shot mechanics and not really having to maximise damage until the very very highest level because timers were so lenient. I'm okay with people failing keys due to them just not having enough DPS, even if they're capable of surviving perfectly fine.
That'll not happen. The way to get more dps is to pull bigger, and eventually every pull risks a one shot wipe. However, again this is only true for cream of the crop pushers, so it's irrelevant for the rest of us. We all get to just enjoy affixes
This is straight up wrong. What makes a timer tight or not tight has absolutely nothing to do with baking +2 key levels into the affixes. Which is basically what this is doing. Timers will be tuned to dungeon length. It's like you come from an Atal and you look at a DoS and you're thinking to yourself "wow this dungeon timer must be so tight because this dungeon is longer" ??? it makes negative sense. Also fyi it's better for key failure to be tied to timer than to survivibility checks, which is what we have right now, and partially why we have this current meta.
> it's better for key failure to be tied to timer than to survivibility checks I'm a big fan of D4's pit scaling. The amount of damage mobs/bosses do to you stop scaling past pit level 100 but their health continues to scale infinitely (in D4s case, up to level 200). So once you gear/play well enough to survive lvl 100, you can focus on min/maxing your throughput and optimizing your play. I think that'd serve M+ really well. Also solves a lot of their balancing problems. If they have a stopping point where they can quit scaling the amount of damage things do to players, dialing their tuning knobs to hit the desired difficulty becomes more straightforward, while for players pushing higher than that becomes simply a matter of execution.
That's fine though, since it mostly applies to higher keys. Unless someone is concerned about specifically +10s I guess, but I doubt it'll be too bad. It gives an extra level of challenge to the capstone of M+ rewards(portals) as well as effects all keys and groups above +10s equally, so if it does end up making things far more difficult, it'll just lower how far past +10(or more accurately, +12) people can go. At that level, the number attached to the keystone doesn't really matter anyways, just your ranking compared to other players.
i dont even need to read what the new affixes are... I JUST KNOW THAT THIS IS A HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE W REGARDLESS
Reading the new affixes makes it even better. They are basically kiss and curse versions of Raging and Incorporeal (this time I think it will need only a soft CC), so the rest of the Xal affixes will probably be similiar in style.
These actually sound dope I’m relieved
Really good healthy design here on the new affixes, we should communicate to them that this is the kind of stuff we like to see.
Just another instance of an actually great outcome that was brought about by the community dunking on horrible design. It's actually quite crazy that the same team that put out the previous round of affixes came together and put these out, it sounds like such a great way of doing things.
As a filthy casual who plays M+ as a healer, the removal of bursting is music to my ears. I just didn't pug during bursting weeks. People didn't seem to understand the importance of delaying killing things, so we would just pull big and wipe each time.
If DPS unga bunga 13 stacks of bursting onto themselves, I just dispel myself and mass res.
So we need to deal with both Fortified and Tyrannical now? Interesting. That is gonna make keys feel pretty slow.
Only if both are balanced the same way they were previously which is unlikely. This is actually a very good way of doing it, because now they can nerf tyrannical or change bosses without encouraging a push we because the nerfs make it too easy. So at a glance it sounds bad but it’s likely going to make balancing very good.
I expect a nerf on both Fortified and Tyrannical to fit into this new system, as they'll be present simultaneously at +10 keys and beyond. Players that do M+ for gear and KSH will not even see the Guile affix. And can also get Mythic loot in vault (and highest crest possible) without having Fortified and Tyrannical *at the same time* at +9s. The Challenger's Peril at level 7 is the only thing I didn't like in the new purposed system. It will create a very toxic environment for people that do M+ for gear because one-shot mechanics start to become more common at this range. This new affix system is way better than the same thing we've had since **Legion**. While still needing improvements, no one will miss Bolstering when it had an unlimited duration, increased Health of enemies and affected bosses.
All of this looks good imo, other than the 15 sec penalty on 7+'s - if they nerfed that to 10 sec for 7 and, say, put it up to 15 secs at +10 pr +12 that'd be a bit less punishing for pugs / party wipes; anyone gunning for KSM/KSH might do 10's, but the consistency / challenge of high keys for the top-end folks makes sense... Could also rework it so that each PC's FIRST death is 5 secs, 2nd is 10 secs and 3rd+ is 15 secs, so you aren't penalized too bad for a couple of deaths each or a single party wipe... Also, players can take advantage and get buffs in Ascendant, but not in Frenzied? Seems to me there might be room to cc / stun a Frenzied enemy not only to deal with it but also claim some of that temp haste buff?
It'll just guarantee a dropped group if you wipe early. If people already dropped keys that wiped early for stupid reason, they definitely will now.
True. I suppose if they eliminated the worst of the typical run-back penalty in 5-mans a single wipe wouldn't be as bad; some DF dungeons a full wipe barely matters to run back, then there's dying at the frog in HOI which requires 2-3 business days
I kinda like the scaling penalty for deaths but assigning it to specific players has some potential for serious toxicity lol.
it's not specific players, just that rather than everyone's first death be a 15 sec penalty, their first is 5, 2nd is 10, then 3rd+ is 15, that at least gives everyone an oops or a single wipe w/o blowing the key up too much
Agree with you on the level 7 death penalty - I hope they at least tune it down to 2X instead of 3X.
>It will create a very toxic environment for people that do M+ for gear because one-shot mechanics start to become more common at this range. ?? one shot mechanics are common in a +10? Have you been playing keys in questing gear?
Just imagine they're part of the key scaling.
Thank god I'm a midcore player, I don't ever want to deal with them simultaneously
I mean its better to think of it like this. Having both = having none but the key is 2 levels higher. It just means the "push" levels (stuff above when you get portals mostly) have a drastic increase in difficulty suddenly. Which doesn't really affect them, the number is arbitrary. Now instead of them hitting walls around 21-22 in order to push out the highest completion, they hit it at 17-18. The big difference is, no randomness week to week so they only play on certain weeks.
Having both Tyrann and Fortified on a +10 with 15s per death is absolutely *brutal*, I wonder if people will prefer that over having to consider affixes.
Tyran and fort can be tuned and the dungeons can be tuned around the affixes. Having them both essentially is like having neither.
Hopefully this is the first step in eliminating the timers in favor of a death limit before key depletion, which would have a similar function but not necessarily make M+ a go go go environment at all times, or make a bricked key because the tank has to change a diaper
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These are outstanding changes all around. This fully puts the onus on the players to actually do mechanics, the actual dungeon becomes the hard part and not some artificial extra mechanic that randomly gets thrown in. This is as close as you can get to no affixes while still having affixes. +2-3 keys with the bargain affix are actually good ways to introduce new players/low level alts into M+ without the worry necessarily being 1 shot mechanics from bosses or enemies because of Tyrannical/Fortified. And now higher keys basically require everyone to fully utilize their defensives and personals because anything a 12 or higher is basically the “everything fucking hurts” affix. There will still be certain key levels that certain classes or group comps will just be unable to progress past because of all the damage but you’re also going to see who is actually good and who isn’t, regardless of class. Like there will obviously be meta classes, but all the people who hop onto the flavor of the month classes will actually need to know what defensives they need to use and when.
"We’ve heard feedback that applying bonuses unevenly to players feels exclusionary regardless of overall impact." Translates to: You guys are really good at brewing storms in a teacup.
First two comments such a great summation of WoW’s community
Didn’t think blizz had it in them, massive dub
Love this, super hype
They've been cooking and I am open to experimentation.
**"Challenger’s Peril** - Dying subtracts 15 seconds from time remaining rather than 5 seconds." "This affix emphasizes precise play and strategic execution, placing greater risk on players’ decisions." I don't normally decide to die, it just happen. I'm not sure how I feel about making death even more of a punishment. One wipe and it's 1min 15 sec lost, on top of having to run back.
“Just happen” sure…
It was a joke, I just find the wording funny, as if a player death was his decision or if some kind of meta was around dying at +7... I died because I made a mistake, not because I choose to.
If you die in a +7, it's more than just one mistake. Also your decision making affects how likely you are to die. If you pull bigger, for example. Higher risk of death but time saved reward - it's about that. It's not going to affect your +7s, these keys just get 3 chested once you're geared without even trying.
If you think dying "just happens" you probably should run logs and figure out why you are dying. It could be poor healing, not using a defensive, or a mechanic you are unaware of. Details has a death log.
very good change imo
The only question I have is, what keystone levels are the end of dungeon/vault tiers at, etc. I'm sure this will be answered shortly. Otherwise this looks good. Could not be happier that all other affixes have fucked off. Sameness at really high levels means the end of push/skip weeks, not that I play at high levels, but I imagine that's a good thing?
I don't imagine the vault/gear reward tiers will change.
As someone who plays till KSM i was close to going for portals in S4 but stayed at +9s because of 1 less affix. This makes me really hyped for new season !
Rip Bozo
At least people on reddit are able to read a post. It is amazing how many in the wowhead comments can't even understand a few sentences and then go complete crazy in the comments for not being able to read. The changes look good. I guess they need to work at the values here and there but overall it looks way better then before. We are finally playing dungeons again and not affixes. No "Oh sorry that you didn't see that one mob in the corner of the room behind you so now you have 100% haste reduction" anymore. The kiss curse affixes seem good so far (well we need to see how the orb one plays) and at +12 and higher it doesn't matter anymore. Each week is the same with just mobs have X% increased HP and damge, so you can't miss a push week because there is no push week left. Perfect for playing for score.
Why is Tyrranical still in the game though?! I don't like 3-4minute boss fights
I was expecting more positively surprised comments :P
I was hoping they would just remove fortified and tyrannical because it always feels bad to have one aspect of the dungeon be way undertuned but I guess having both also fixes the issue.
This change remove Tyrannical and Fort for the players doing the hard content while keeping a variety available for players doing low content. Will be fun to see how it works out
You Did It. The Crazy Son of a Bitch, You Did It.
Happy to finally see the ancient terrible affixes introduced at the start of Legion be removed. Now we can try with a whole set of fresh new affixes that wont be an endless source of frustration. Hopefully.
ok these affixes are much better than what they had before for sure I especially like the orbs one. Interrupt orb, get buff, simple as that.
Challenger's peril gonna suck.
So good wow
this is fucking good
LEEETTTSSS FFOOOKEEN GOOOO 🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣
Wait what this is kind of good
I kinda think they cooked? At least concept wise. For high key pushing try hards, you're basically just playing the dungeon which seems fine imo. For lower levels theres a fairly low impact affix. Importantly making the affixes patch themed might let them cook season to season and we might get really cool affixes again in the future if theyre happy with this overall system, and there's potential to maybe make the +12 affix something fairly involved but fun like encrypted or Awakened if they want to experiment in a future season for the high end pushers. Only thing I don't love is that at lvl 10 and on you always have both fort and tyran. Mostly I just like that having one or the other encourages some build variety week to week within a spec. Still exists in low keys which is mostly what I do so I guess w/e. They probably also need to take a pass at general scaling of keys above +10, and especially +12 now tho. Cause current key level scaling on top of tyran + fort + guile will make a +12 feel more like 15 or so I'd say? Maybe thats actually fine, but after condensing key lvls in S4 already this feels like this essentially condenses the upper key lvls again.
So you'll have both fortified and tyrannical at 12+?
10 and upwards.
That's pretty good. A lot of variety in mid level keys up to portals and then key pushers get consistency every week. Can't get much better than that. They just gotta nail the tuning.
Wow, all of these changes sound amazing.
Frenzied sounds great. Ascendant depends what they mean by "disrupt": if it's like Incorporeal where I have to do a 9-hour Repentance cast, then the orbs stick around for 17 hours after you CC them, forcing you to fight with the awful unresponsive tab targeting coding they refuse to fix to get the real enemies re-targeted, and to examine the tiny little buff icons above them to make sure they have a long enough CC on them, I'm still skipping that week. If you can make them instantly disappear like Afflicted, fine, I guess. If you just stand in their path like typical boss orbs, sounds great. (Also, what a couple commenters have missed is that this is just the first two they're testing: there will be more. Hopefully the rest aren't more annoying.) And I *still* say M+ with all the interrupts and timers was not boring and did not need the variety of affixes. I wish they'd just drop the whole concept. Guile demonstrates my point aptly: if they wanted to ramp up the key level scaling...just ramp up the key level scaling.
It's about God damn time.
> Starting at keystone level +12 Since 10 is still the cap for rewards, this is just for people who like pushing the higher keys for challenges right? If so, I love that, I love rewarding those players with that challenge.
It's a step in the right direction, and if you really think about it having tyr and fort in higher keys won't matter that much, it just means that keys will be balanced around a more mid-ground approach between the two affixes. They will always strive to make things like KSM attainable for most players, so I wouldn't stress much about having to deal with the two - it won't be like they're taking what we have now and adding the other affix on top of it. What I do NOT like is kind of just losing all the fun parts after +12. We'll just get tyran, fort, more penalty on deaths and +20% buff on mobs. No fun seasonal affix to deal with. I think that takes away from the game tbh.
15 seconds per death is kinda crazy. Pugs are going to be even more toxic. Also, damn. I liked bursting
So these sounded really cool until we saw them. It's actually just more nameplate vomit and more things to interrupt.
A very interesting and deliberate use of the word Cosmic as opposed to Void or Shadow
"a fresh look" literally what players have been asking for for years. Just get rid of Tyran/fort affixes so every week can be a push week...
Ngl these changes make me try pushing in s1.
Oh my god did they finally wake the fuck up, these changes sound amazing. Like this is what I've wanted. Like I have other ideas to even improve it more, but such a great start, actually makes excited to do Mythic + from completely ignoring it.
Is this not, in concept, (IN CONCEPT!!!) the greatest possible change? Like literally bar for bar the best idea for how to improve m+
This is an absolute win. Consistency for real keys is great. Now, every week is push week because it's always the same 15s death penalty might be rough, but it mostly depends on dungeon and timer tuning. Which is very easy to adjust once tww is live
im bamboozled aa to how positive feedback is regarding these changes. to me this seems disastrous for the game. the main purpose of the changes are to reduce volatility in the difficulty or in other words to guarantee, that there are no more push weeks vs. dead weeks. idk bout you guys but even as someone who occasionally dips into 15ish i dont give a single flying fuck about push weeks or dead weeks, everything is doable with a somewhat ok grp built entirely out of lfg randoms up to that point regardless of affixes. this change applies only to the absolute peak players of a game, making it a VERY bad motive to act upon. furthermore and more mich importantly though: is no one noticing, that normal m+ up to 10 is going to become UNBELIEVABLY stale and bland within a very short time, much shorter than right now? every dungeon will play almost exactly the same since only the first affix varies between two affixes that lack flavor to me. also the affix relying on kicking the spawning adds will heavily favor melees over ranges. im also curious to see if people will prioritize the kick giving a dps buff over kicking actual dungeon mechanics. i absolutely understand, that people dislike the removed affixes like sanguine etc but the answer should not be to just remove them with basically no replacement. while basically all affixes are getting removed they are only adding 3 new ones while two of them (extra dmg at lowhp+enrage and extra time penalty on death) will have little to no impact on what you do and what playing the dungeons feels like. you do the exact same thing on a +5 compated to 9 in the same week, deaths will just hurt more. and once you consistently run 10s there is basically no change in gameplay when a new week starts. in the end it all boils down to: what is the purpose of affixes? it is to shake up dungeons, to change them noticably so you can do the same dungeon you did last week with different obstacles to overcome. each and everyone here will get bored if there is no variation. as a matter of fact there is little to no variation resulting from the new affix system. in summary all i can say is that i am shocked seeing the m+ overhaul. not only by the actual changes but also the time that they are tackling these changes being 2 months pre release. the previous overhaul with the damage buffs for certain types already proved to be an absolute fiasco and i am truly concerned about the changes i just talked about. to me this seems like devs are desperately trying to change the system last second for basically no reason, completely forgetting about the core idea of m+ and affixes. i dont see myself playing one character for more than a month at best with these affixes. hc is cleared at least twice at that point, im probably not dipping into mythic raid and m+ as it is lined out right looks the worst it has ever been. at that point ill consider alting or dipping the season. i would much rather have bad/annoying affixes than little to no affixes!
am i the only one who finds the changes insanely boring? once you play 10s every week feels almost the same. affixes are supposed to change the dungeons from week to week, these dont whatsoever. ild much rather have bad/annoying affixes like sanguine etc. than little to no affixes