Jdotb Q&A #15In your opinion, what are the most egregious issues post-8.1 that Blizzard still needs to address in M+?8.1 introduced a ton of changes to M+ dungeons, some questionable but most good, and we covered many of those in last week’s Q&A. Now that we’ve had a week to play around in M+ with the updates and get a sense of how the dungeons feel, let’s take a look at the issues that still need to be addressed in M+.

Affixes

Aside from moving which levels the affixes appear on keys (Fortified and Tyrannical sliding to +2) and the addition of the seasonal affix, BFA did a wholesale copy of Legion’s affix system. This has proven problematic because of the changes we’ve seen to the game after 8.0; Legion affixes were designed for a world where tanks were ultra independent, where gear swapping was a thing, and where trash was much less ferocious. Recognizing that some Legion affixes were now overtuned, Blizzard has made several tweaks since the launch of BFA to try to recalibrate those affixes so they felt more appropriate in this new status quo. Most of those changes have helped, but there are still some notable issues with certain affixes.

Grievous - Even after the nerf to Grievous, this affix is still problem on Tyrannical weeks. Boss fights in BFA were clearly tuned independent of affixes, and some bosses that are otherwise very balanced (and fun) from a healing perspective become a nightmare when Grievous is introduced. Typically Grievous itself won’t be directly responsible for someone’s death, but it will put such a strain on the healer’s mana that it becomes inevitable that the healer will run out of mana. There is no counterplay to Grievous on most boss fights; unlike trash where you can often crowd control and interrupt to prevent damage, bosses usually have unavoidable damage. And you can’t drop combat nearly as quickly on long boss fights (which can easily take five minutes on high Tyrannical keys) as you can on trash pulls. Grievous still needs work and, in my opinion, probably a full rework because affixes that generate additional unavoidable damage can never be balanced correctly in an infinitely scaling environment.

Quaking - Quaking and Grievous are a problem for similar reasons -- both affixes deal damage above and beyond what you would normally expect from a key. And like Grievous, Quaking is an issue on boss fights because many boss fights were not designed to accommodate random 20% health drops. Like Grievous, Quaking can never be truly fixed in its current implementation because it isn’t possible to balance an encounter where some weeks you take no extra damage from affixes and some weeks you do. No affix should have unavoidable damage.

Explosive - Perhaps the most RNG affix in the game currently, Explosive is maybe the most rage-inducing affix in the game because it’s so unpredictable. You could do the same pull 100 times in a row and alternate between total cakewalk and absolute meltdown simply based on how many orbs pop out at once. And the reason Explosive is so difficult to deal with is simple: Explosive orbs must be killed with single target spells because area of effect spells will not damage Explosive orbs. The logic behind this decision is understandable, as allowing orbs to be hit by AoE would make them an afterthought while you’re blowing up trash. But the consequence of making orbs only affected by single target spells is that (as you might have guessed by their name) single target spells don’t scale with more targets. You’ll do the same damage to one orb that you do to ten orbs that you do to 100 orbs. That means there is essentially a hard cap on how fast you can handle orb spawns; if two pop out, you’re still good; if three pop out, you need some help; and if five pop out, your group simply doesn’t have enough global cooldowns to do enough single target damage to kill all the orbs before one of them explodes. So while the RNG of Explosive is frustrating, it’s the potentially unlimited spawn rate of Explosives that makes the affix so dangerous. Either the affix needs some kind of governor on how frequently it can pop orbs out, or players need to be given the ability to target multiple orbs at once.

Teeming - The history of Teeming has been an interesting one because the affix has bounced between being a joke and being terrifying. When Teeming was first unveiled in Legion, it was one of the more benign affixes because trash wasn’t nearly as big of a deal in Legion as it is now, and the mobs that Blizzard chose to add to each dungeon tended towards the tamer side. Somewhere in the middle of Legion, Blizzard realized that Teeming wasn’t threatening enough, and it redid its Teeming selection. Suddenly the added Teeming mobs were frequently the scariest mobs in the dungeon, and Teeming made you rethink a lot of the pulls. Fast forward to BFA, and I think Blizzard approached Teeming with the late-Legion mindset of adding really nasty mobs to each dungeon to make sure the affix wasn’t toothless. The problem is that BFA didn’t need any help making trash more deadly -- BFA trash already mangles the tank. So what was once one of the speed bump affixes in early Legion became a showstopper in BFA, and Blizzard was forced to redo some of the Teeming packs. I think there’s still a feeling that Teeming (at least when paired with Fortified) makes some dungeons too difficult, especially if you don’t have a rogue in your group for Shroud skips. Because of the nature of this affix, and how it is very specific to each dungeon, it will likely require the most fine tuning of any affix.

Volcanic - And now for a change of pace, let’s talk about the most worthless affix in M+ history: Volcanic. When Volcanic was first introduced, it did 50% of a player’s health (instead of 40% now) and it always spawned directly under a player. After some complaints about Volcanic, Blizzard made the graphic easier to see (and thus avoid) and also nerfed the damage a bit and made Volcanic spawn near the player but not necessarily directly under them. These changes completely neutered the affix, and now Volcanic frequently spawns so far from the player that you don’t even have to move to avoid it. It’s easy to forget this affix exists while doing dungeons, and it needs to be beefed up somehow.

Bosses

Golden Serpent - The 8.1 patch did nerf Golden Serpent by reducing its adds’ HP by 75%, but the issue with this fight is that Spit Gold just does way too much damage. As keys start getting around the +20 range, each tick of this DoT can easily chunk a player’s health < 30%, and there are very few reprieves during the fight unless you bring classes with lots of immunities. Spit Gold needs to have its damage reduced considerably as it presents a hard cap on the scaling of the dungeon at the moment.

Council of Tribes - Like Spit Gold, Kula’s Severing Axe just does too much damage. While it isn’t nearly as intense from moment to moment like Spit Gold, the length of the Severing Axe DoT means that defensive cooldowns will wear off before it finishes ticking, and it hurts quite a bit when it isn’t being mitigated. Coupled with the movement requirements imposed by Whirling Axes (plus potentially having to soak Barrel Through for a teammate if Aka’ali has already been downed), this DoT puts too much pressure on a healer right now especially if none of your party can immune or dodge it and you get three or four Axes in a row.

Lord Stormsong - Stormsong got an undocumented update to one of his abilities in 8.1, Mind Rend, which up to that point had targeted the closest player to the boss, meaning you could bait it onto the tank each time. After 8.1, Mind Rend randomly targets members of the group. This change wouldn’t be a huge deal except that Mind Rend’s damage starts moving into one-shot range when you get around +20 keys. Either the targeting mechanic needs to be reverted or the damage needs to be dropped considerably.

Vol’zith - Vol’zith also got an update in 8.1, and his Whispers of Power debuff (which stacks up to 9 times reducing your max health by 10% each stack but increasing damage and healing by 20% per stack) will now only target healers. Previously, it would prioritize healers first but would also cast on DPS and even the tank once the healer was debuffed. This is huge change for the fight because Vol’zith’s health is clearly balanced around the premise that multiple DPS players have the debuff and are doing mega damage. Now that only the healer can get the debuff, the fight can take nearly twice as long to finish as it did before the change. Either the debuff needs to be given back to DPS or the boss health needs to come down proportionately.

Trash

Spectral Berserker - Even after a 25% nerf to Severing Blade, this DoT is still giga scary. There are ways to play around it, but it just deals so much more damage than other abilities of the same nature.

Dazar’ai Colossus - These big boys have a ton of health and deal uninterruptible damage to a party member, but the roughest part about them is that they’re always packed in with other trash, and the colossi heal for 25% any time another mob dies near them so you have to focus them down first or the pull will take forever. Unfortunately, the mobs they come with are no treat either, and leaving those mobs up while killing the colossi invites disaster. It’s unlikely any serious M+ group will ever pull one of these mobs as they currently exist.

Ashvane Spotter - For those not in the know, Spotters have an ability called Sighted Artillery that spawns circles on the ground that will be struck by artillery after a few seconds. Any player or enemy NPC (barring a few lieutenant mobs and bosses) standing in the circle when the artillery hits will be damaged. The strat du jour in Siege now is to drag the last Spotter in the dungeon around using Sighted Artillery to kill large packs of enemies. This strategy is enhanced by certain affixes, such as Bolstering or Raging, which cause the artillery to do even more damage to enemies. And the artillery can hit the tentacles on the final boss of the dungeon, Viq’Goth, meaning you can save substantial time on the fight by using the Spotter to mow down one tentacle while the group focuses on another. I’ve repeatedly directed Blizzard’s attention to this *ahem* creative use of game mechanics, and Blizzard has yet to make any changes, which I can at this point only assume means that the developers think the interaction is fun and engaging. So I don’t expect this to change, but I do think it’s dumb and will put this here for posterity.

Tol Dagor Cannons - Ok so these aren’t technically trash, but they do make all the trash near them a joke. Prior to 8.1, the cannons in Tol Dagor did not scale with the level of the key, so while mob health kept increasing the cannons continued to deal the same damage in base mythics that they did in a +20. But 8.1 made cannons scale, and now these puppies shred. Not only do they make quick work of the mobs on the ramparts of Tol Dagor (which have boosted health because they’re intended to be killed with the cannons), but mobs from inside the prison can be dragged outside and blasted down with a handful of shots in probably less than 20 seconds. While I appreciate the effort to make the cannons meaningful, they have become weapons of mass destruction and trivialize anything you can reasonably pull to them. Some compromise is needed.I’ve been seeing people do a lot more island expeditions recently. Did Blizzard do something to make them more fun recently?Hahahahaha. No. They still suck. But what DID happen recently is that Blizzard announced there would be no more weekly reductions on the amount of Azerite Power needed for each neck level like there had been up to this point in the expansion. In anticipation of new Azerite pieces for the next raid tier and the commensurate neck levels needed to unlock traits, many guilds have set goals for their raid roster regarding their Hearts of Azeroth. But guilds set those goals with the expectation that the AP needed to level the neck would continue decreasing, and so long as the AP needed kept decreasing it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle to get up into the 40s.

Now, though, trying to get 40 or 41 or 42 is going to require you to hustle. A lot. World quests are a good source of AP, but there are only so many of them that spawn each day. You can get AP from raids, but again, it’s once per boss per week. And you can farm M+, but the AP/hour is bad when compared to alternatives. So where is a raider, struggling to stay in the good graces of his guild, supposed to turn in these dark times? Islands, of course. The AP/hour from islands is obscene when compared to any of the other repeatable AP sources. So players trying to futureproof their necks are forced to farm islands all day to have a realistic chance at meeting their requirements for the next tier.

This isn’t the first time in the history of WoW that players have been handcuffed to content because the rewards from it are too good to pass up -- in fact, just as recently as Legion players were heavily incentivized to do the fresh new Mythic+ game mode because it gave ridiculously good AP and dropped lots of gear. Which is partly what makes Blizzard’s insistence on running islands so chafing; not everyone loved M+, but virtually everyone liked it more than islands, and at least it dropped gear too. So why not leave M+ as a viable source for AP farming? It’s such an easy bone to throw to the community.

Islands seem like content that was custom built to burn out players: mindless objectives coupled with uninteresting mobs, and easy enough with good gear that you never really have to turn your brain on. The hardcore raiding community is feeding itself into a woodchipper right now to try to stay one step ahead for next tier, and I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of players from the top guilds take extended/indefinite breaks after Battle for Dazar’alor.

At least islands have pets and mounts, I guess.Comments on Week of December 25 AffixesDungeons Most Affected by FortifiedKing’s Rest - The mini bosses following the Golden Serpent (Queen Patlaa, Queen Wasi, King Rahu’ai and King A’akul) are all scary without buffs, so giving them more health and damage makes this room uncomfortable at best. Spectral Berserkers leave a nasty physical DoT on the tank that stacks, and it can quickly get out of control on Fortified weeks. Watch out for Spectral Beastmaster’s Poison Barrage as it can easily wipe a group if it hits multiple party members. Shadow of Zul will deal a lot of damage to the tank, so make sure to have cooldowns ready.

Waycrest Manor - The Heartsbane witches and Bewitched Captains do tremendous damage to the tank, and the Matrons have a lot of health. The confined quarters of the manor don’t leave much room for kiting, either. The Gloom Horrors before the final boss do a lot of damage when they jump, so you will want to be careful about which party member is standing furthest out (which is what determines who gets leapt on).

Motherlode - Be sure to interrupt Hired Assassins as their Toxic Blades / Hail of Flechettes combo can easily wipe a group. Mine Rats target random players with Throw Rock, so be careful not to pull too many and risk bad RNG on who gets targeted. Taskmaster Askari wrecks tanks, so make sure to have cooldowns ready for him. Watch out for Mastermind’s Energy Lash as it hurts quite a bit, and don’t let Feckless Assistants finish their Transfiguration Serum cast or they will turn into Grotesque Experiments which are much more difficult. Be vigilant with Crawler Mines on the way to Mogul as they will do quite a bit of damage if they explode on a player.
Dungeons Most Affected by BolsteringWaycrest Manor - Waycrest has its share of pulls featuring lots of small mobs with a few big ones, such as any of the pulls with Devouring Maggots, Jagged Hounds or Blight Toads. You’ll need to be careful not to burn down all the fodder. Even the pulls with mobs that are closer in health still have mobs that are different enough in health that it will be hard to kill them simultaneously.

Motherlode - The trash in Motherlode has lots of nasty trash abilities that are already lethal, so whichever mobs are still up at the end of a pull are likely able to kill party members from full health. And Motherlode has lots of big pulls, so Bolstering is going to get stacked up pretty quickly. Be especially careful with Mech Jockey’s Grease Guns and Venture Co. Earthshaper’s Rock Lances.

Shrine of the Storm - The Tidesage Initiates and Dredged Sailors can Bolster another mob very easily, so pay attention when pulling them. Abyssal Eels should be burned down evenly as they have a DoT they put on anyone in melee, and one mega Bolstered eel can shred someone if the DoT is already up. The minibosses each have trash near them that should be dealt with carefully.Dungeons Most Affected by SkittishAs a general note, there really aren’t dungeons that are terrifically affected by Skittish. Every DPS just needs to wait a second or two longer on Skittish weeks before popping cooldowns, and rogues and hunters can be extra helpful this week with frequent Tricks of the Trade and Misdirects.

Shrine of the Storm - There are a lot of big pulls in this dungeons, so just make sure that your tank has all the mobs grouped up before you start hammering away. Tidesage Council will require the tank to kite a bit and has two targets, so watch your threat on this fight as the tank may not have been generating aggro evenly on both bosses.

Siege of Boralus - Another dungeon with lots of small mobs that can be hard to cluster. Siege also has a couple of bosses with adds. Pay attention to threat on Bainbridge as he will periodically summon new adds with a fresh threat table. Give the tank a moment or two to grab the adds on Lockwood when she jumps up to the ship.

Tol Dagor - A popular strategy in Tol Dagor is to round up several of the enemies outside of the prison on the beach where there is plenty of room to kite and the mobs don’t use many abilities. A big pull here can be more difficult to pull off with Skittish as the tank will likely need to stay out of melee range for most of the pull. The trash on the ramparts of the prison, intended to be killed with cannons, can be problematic as the person in the cannon will generate a ton of threat and the tank won’t be able to stand near the mobs without exposing themselves to potential friendly fire from the cannons.Dungeons Most Affected by This Week’s AffixesShrine of the Storm - Shrine has lots of Bolstering opportunities, and Skittish makes it easy for the tank to lose track of some of the mobs in those large pulls. DPS will have to be very conscious of their targets. The mini bosses will be extra scary on Fortified.

Siege of Boralus - There are lots of low HP mobs in Siege for Bolstering to rear its ugly head. Fortified makes several of the trash abilities in this dungeon guaranteed one-shots. The good news is that if you planned on utilizing the Spotter’s Sighted Artillery for yourself, Bolstering will make it very powerful.

Waycrest Manor - Lots of disparate HP values in the packs in Waycrest make it likely that some mob is going to get Bolstered in every pack, and the tight corridors of the Manor can make it easy to accidentally pull extra trash. Fortified will be rough on the tank.Dungeons Least Affected by This Week’s AffixesAtal’Dazar - Most of the mobs in Atal’Dazar have similar HP values, and the only mobs you’re likely to leave heavily Bolstered will be the Skyscreamers which aren’t lethal. The trash will sting a bit, but it will be manageable.

Temple of Sethraliss - The mobs in Temple aren’t all the same HP, but the packs are usually on the smaller side so things won’t ever get out of control. The bosses are the real threat in Temple, so Fortified isn’t too bad.

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Comment by deathlavitzHit the nail on the head with islands.Comment by BlacKcuDWe lowered our neck requirement since we are not a top ranking world guild, but if you want to stay competitive you have to do the treadmill that is islands.Comment by Alucardkidthe only reason i play Island Expedition is mounts that's it. Pet is just like gold for me or at least for others pet collectors as well. But then, they made the chance drop so god damned low. If Island Expedition doesn't even have a single mount, i don't even think it's worth to play it.Comment by FleckerManOutside of the top ~200 guilds I really don't see the need to set a neck level requirement. The system automatically catches you up with a reasonable level of play, grinding now so you have an extra trait or two unlocked a couple of weeks earlier is not going to make a difference to most groups - and the best stuff is the easiest to unlock anyway. It's ridiculous to put your raid team, or yourself, through such a grind to cut a week or save a dozen pulls off turning an 0.5% wipe into a kill. The system is designed specifically to limit how much you CAN grind ahead and players pushing against that barrier are making a mistake. This is the last tier this will happen with anyway, as per the last Q&A - which is a good move, but the system (without people in the mix at least) isn't as bad as people think it is - top ~200 guilds not withstanding.Comment by UbermingeIslands seem like content that was custom built to burn out players: mindless objectives coupled with uninteresting mobs, and easy enough with good gear that you never really have to turn your brain onComment by FnordColaI kind of like the way the spotter works on trash at the moment: it's a good example of a high risk, high reward mechanic that can save a lot of time if used well, but can absolutely bite players in the ass and contribute to wipes if they use it poorly. I agree it's pretty ridiculous that it works on the last boss, though; if it were up to me I'd leave it basically the same on trash (maybe with some sort of nerf in very high keys; I only really know how much damage it does in the +10-15 range) but make all bosses and boss adds immune to it.Comment by sinangelusHit the nail on the head with islands.Comment by serra2I really enjoy the islands. I like that sort of hectic, unstructured content with a chance at cool rewards. I like that I don't have to shackle myself to a primadona tank and $%^&*!@ healer to have fun.Comment by sinangelus The system is designed specifically to limit how much you CAN grind ahead and players pushing against that barrier are making a mistake. I really enjoy the islands. I like that sort of hectic, unstructured content with a chance at cool rewards. I like that I don't have to shackle myself to a primadona tank and $%^&*!@ healer to have fun.Comment by TOMRUSGood talk about M+ affixes and issues, agree with most of the points, but I doubt Blizzard will listen.
They could easily make Teeming less brutal by never pairing with Fortified (that's what they should have done from the beginning imo).
Right now Fortified+Teeming+anything is dead weeks.

Same goes to Island Expedition and AP grind. It's not fun or engaging. Having to grind AP for weeks/months after you looted item to unlock it's full potential is stupid.
It serves nothing but to boost teh played time metrics. That grind gonna backfire just like it did in Legion. Blizzard never learns from past mistakes...

IMO azerite traits should be unlocked by default and AP should only increase your neck ilvl. Then it wouldn't be such an issue.Comment by AgentkillerleeThey are talking about changing the whole process in 8.2 so we'll see.Comment by Baylore34The only thing lacking I find is the drop rate for doubloons. I find even with the ship upgrade thanks to Aleria the amount you get back is weak. I get maybe 1-4 doubloons per 2nd island. With the prices the vendor has the pets and mounts for it would take forever to collect them all.Comment by TOMRUSThe only thing lacking I find is the drop rate for doubloons. I find even with the ship upgrade thanks to Aleria the amount you get back is weak. I get maybe 1-4 doubloons per 2nd island. With the prices the vendor has the pets and mounts for it would take forever to collect them all.Comment by IceWolfDKHeard some blabber claiming that the heart is locked at max level 40 until battle for dazar'alor goes live. Anyone heard of such?Comment by ArithawnHahahahaha. No. They still suck.Islands seem like content that was custom built to burn out players: mindless objectives coupled with uninteresting mobs, and easy enough with good gear that you never really have to turn your brain on. The hardcore raiding community is feeding itself into a woodchipper right now to try to stay one step ahead for next tier, and I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of players from the top guilds take extended/indefinite breaks after Battle for Dazar’alor.Heard some blabber claiming that the heart is locked at max level 40 until battle for dazar'alor goes live. Anyone heard of such?Comment by VibrissI like Island Expeditions. It's akin to a no-pressure dungeon run, where you just mow down mobs and bosses and open chests. The last changes actually did a good job on making them more interesting.

The thing I agree on is AP drops from M+. At the moment the final chest contains the same amount of AP as you would loot from the final boss in heroic dungeon. These chests should contain scaling amount of azerite, with about 1k around +10 mark. Since most dungeons take about as much time as few Island Expeditions anyway, high end players can do something they enjoy and not fall behind.

That said, I don't understand the race to azerite. It's clearly Blizzard's intention to have players unlock traits during the raid tier. Top raiders grasping at every little advantage they can get, and then complaining about burnout.Comment by AshidHeard some blabber claiming that the heart is locked at max level 40 until battle for dazar'alor goes live. Anyone heard of such?https://gyazo.com/02ecdfe62c69990f6b818d61ea0ae820Comment by saxayoneOnly issue I'd add is the Cyclone Strike on the first boss on Temple being a little weird since 8.1 with the tracking of the player but not where he's attacking.Comment by XaleaSo they stopped the AP increase so that people would have to do Islands. I get it now. I'm soo glad I don't do any high end raiding anymore. Complete waste of time, energy, and stress.Comment by lovelywazThe system is designed specifically to limit how much you CAN grind ahead and players pushing against that barrier are making a mistake.exactly that

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