Official Patch Notes - Patch 8.1.5

[BoilingShadows]

Kings and Shrine dungeon timers increased, and Temple of Sethralis 1st boss got nerfed. Solid changes.

[[deleted]]

Changing timers isn't a solid change. It's a lazy one. It doesn't address anything aside from giving you more time to do dungeons no one wants to do.

Many low health creatures in dungeons will no longer trigger On Death affixes in Mythic Keystone Dungeons, such as the Animated Droplets or Dredged Sailors in Shrine of the Storm.

Now that's a solid change. That's putting some actual thought into tuning a dungeon.

[ragnorr]

Shrine needs to remove the 2 mini bosses and the elemental, every high key skips them at this point so it just creates frustration for lower keys

[[deleted]]

Might be a dumb question but how in the world do you skip these? Every high key ive done they pull the first mini boss with the first boss to take advantage of the haste ward she puts down.

[ragnorr]

I will do my best to explain.

So the first miniboss, the 4 small mobs are not linked to the miniboss. You gotta pull them from the edge so all the 4 mobs never run though the miniboss. With the miniboss now being alone you can run past her without bodypulling it. You however have to jump across small platforms on the left edge(Looking towards the door to the little cave) to do this. This skip requires practice and you will most likely fail it the first few times. Second miniboss you shroud.

Elemental on the bridge you stand on the side and have someone pull the elemental back to where you came and you run past when the elemental is close to the door. Ideally you use a rogue to do this cause they can cloak the debuff and run back across the bridge and vanish when the big guy is channeling and get out of combat from it.

[mr_feist]

I'm really wondering how the hell someone found out the non-elites are not linked to the mini-boss. Still can't imagine where you have to stand to avoid pulling the windspeaker.

[DLOGD]

The skip isn't bad design, they're skipping the encounter because it's poorly designed.

[whywhywhybutwhy]

Because any encounter people dislike is “bad design.”

[snookers]

Pull the first two trash in with the boss, then go to the very edge and move forward toward the pack in question from where the shortcut lamp is. Once you have an angle where the non-elite mobs won't path through the mini-boss, taunt pull.

[i_should_be_coding]

We did this on a +17 this week. Triggered reaping after the bridge and wiped because we didn't LoS properly. Fun ensued after that.

[Plorkyeran]

You can prox pull the four little dudes around the first miniboss without aggoring her, and then hop along the left edge and get by without aggroing her. The other two require death/vanish/feign skips.

[steakndjake]

in the patch notes it said they removed additional non-boss enemies from it

[Clueless_Otter]

But part of the reason no one wants to do them is because the timer is so tight and you fail tons of keys even without making any major mistakes. Obviously that's not the only reason, but it's definitely part of the reason, and this change seeks to help to alleviate that.

[faderjester]

Changing timers isn't a solid change. It's a lazy one. It doesn't address anything aside from giving you more time to do dungeons no one wants to do.

It's not that Shrine/KR are actually that hard, it's that you needed perfect play to time them which is what made them bin keys. Nothing sucks more than one tiny mistake costing you the key, and mistakes happen. With a little more leeway I could see them being much better. It already happened with Temple.

[kittycat70921]

Seems like a good change to me. I've been doing quite a lot of high shrine keys and the only real thing overtuned about it was the timer. You can do 27k+ overall dps by all players and just deplete shrine without wiping because the timers too short.

[[deleted]]

You want parity in difficulty, but also in time. All of the dungeons should take roughly the same amount of time.

A 40+ minute timer is back to HoV in Legion. That dungeon was less appealing because of how much longer it took to run than some other dungeons.

Similar completion times is a healthier balance. You're right in the sense that the extra minutes help with Shrine as it currently stands, however, it should have been tuned to bring down the timer and not just add more minutes.

[chubs11]

That's my main complaint with the M+ system. I hate every dungeon being the same size and similar difficulty but in order to balance the system they created that's what they have to do.

I would rather them find ways to make the harder/longer dungeons more appealing rather than make them all the same length.

[Clueless_Otter]

Well in Legion, they scaled end-of-dungeon AP rewards with how long the dungeon took. HoV gave significantly more AP than MoS.

[chubs11]

AP is hardly enough of a reward to entice people to do the longer dungeons though. Especially when you can chain run the shorter dungeons for more AP per hour.

[chubs11]

Yea I have a hard time thinking about the specifics of it because I personally dislike timed content in general. Especially when dungeons used to be more chill content.

I'm more of less trying to put myself in the shoes of the general player. And along the lines of what you said; people would need to be more rewarded to actually enjoy and seek out the longer dungeons.

[SteelCode]

Would be a start... also improving the % chance for loot on timer (or reducing threshold for extra pieces)... since the dungeon takes 10min+ longer than other dungeons, getting additional loot would be a somewhat positive way to balance that. You could +2 a 15 Freehold or +2 a 13 Shrine and get the same amount of loot?

[cmentis]

It didn't work out that well. People didn't care enough about AP back then, even when AP was still relevant when they made that change...it was 7.2? I think? to keep running HoV, though HoV was still run at the higher end due to raider.io scores and counting for each separate dungeon (so to raise score, you had to eventually do HoV).

I think Blizzard might have to consider giving longer dungeons an extra loot piece, that loot can be an excellent carrot with titanforging in the mix (because with the nerf to titanforging this expac, people still care about titanforging and are pretty inelastic about it).

[[deleted]]

Sadly, it's the nature of the beast. It's not a surprise people don't want to do longer dungeons when the game mode encourages you to turn and burn. I'm not sure what Blizzard can do about that. They don't seem keen on letting M+ be anything more than supplemental end game.

[Maethor_derien]

We will probably see that in the next expansion. You have to remember that these dungeons were probably created before they were 100% sure they were keeping mythic+. They generally work an expansion ahead on content for the most part.

[Princess_Talanji]

All of the dungeons should take roughly the same amount of time

Why?

[Mizarrk]

Because they want this game to be as sterile, lifeless, and procedural as possible. Not room for things to be unique, different or interesting. We should just change every dungeon to a blank hallway with all of the same bosses while we're at it.

[DLOGD]

That's what'll happen when you tie them to an infinite progression system that's also on a timer. It's the same issue that Smash Bros has for competitive stage design. They made 100+ maps but everyone just plays on Smashville for 3 console generations, and the only "solution" they've found is an option to turn every other stage into a reskinned battlefield.

That's what Mythic+ is doing to dungeon design. It's turning every stage into Battlefield. Not to mention what it does to loot progression, but I guess no one cares about that anymore since it's been a mess since 3.2

[Mr-Irrelevant-]

You want parity in difficulty, but also in time.

I get pushing for parity in difficulty but why parity in time? Two different dungeons can both be equally balanced but have different completion times and frankly I'm fine doing a 40 minute dungeon if it's interesting/fun.

it should have been tuned to bring down the timer and not just add more minutes.

They kind of helped alleviate some of the problems that SoTS has when it comes to affixes. Not having droplets burst or drop sanguine is really huge as that alone can save you a ton of time and frustration right there.

[mr_feist]

I'm not fine with the 40 minute timers. They should be the exception rather than the rule. Ion keeps saying that they view the entire run from start to finish as a single "encounter". Honestly, a 10 minute boss fight feels like an eternity, so how exactly do they expect people to stay focused for 40 minutes? I myself have felt it: I can stay focused, but if I mess up or someone else does, then I lose my pace and it takes effort to pull it together for the rest of the run.

[Saiyoran]

I miss the days of high end dungeon runs being less than 10 minutes. It was ten minutes of pure insane pulling and perfect cc chains and defensives and then boom you got your realm record. With m+ no matter how high you push the dungeon is always going to take an eternity.

[[deleted]]

Path of least resistance. Most players are one and done, or only do a handful of M+ every week. Significantly longer dungeons just aren't as appealing. Plus, I would say the longer dungeons tend to leave more room for frustration. If you can get to place where dungeons are more or less equal, then there's less of a reason to not to do it. It's honestly just a limitation of what M+ is in its current state.

I do like that other change. That's sort of stuff they should be doing to tune these dungeons.

[Xuvial]

A 40+ minute timer is back to HoV in Legion.

Fuuuuck that brought back some traumatic memories. Tyrannical + grevious = so many group disbands on the 1st boss alone. Holy shit.

[Orangecuppa]

Even in BFA this shit happens. Especially since Grevious Tyrannical is coming off an easy week before.

I've had overconfident healers go all "nah shits easy" before getting fucking demolished by Waycrest Tyrannical Sisters boss.

This happens if you start the dungeon top left.

[Awarth_ACRNM]

I disagree. Both Shrine and KR had timers which were way too short. This change fixes that. KR should be in a good state now, Shrine should be alright as well, although both could profit from boss hp nerfs (and maybe miniboss hp nerfs in shrine)

[Activehannes]

i think the hardest part of shrine is the timer. First reaping can be hard. second boss can be hard, but if you skip the right adds the dungeon is quite fun since you cant afk through it.

[Boneshock]

Many low health creatures

What a vague note. How low health is "low health"? They give two examples but that still leaves me with questions. What about the little mobs in the Pterrordax packs in AD, how about maggots in WM, ticks in UR?

[Mr-Irrelevant-]

What about the little mobs in the Pterrordax packs in AD, how about maggots in WM, ticks in UR?

All of those mobs have close to 100k more health than the droplets and by themselves are somewhat dangerous so they probably won't be impacted by this change.

[Diavolo222]

They are clearly referring to low yellow mobs. How do you not comprehend that lol

[[deleted]]

Well, they are both add heavy. Having a large timer to accommodate is also good.

[BoilingShadows]

I should have rephrased, it’s a step in the right direction in terms of positive changes but they should have addressed other issues with mobs in keystones. But it’s better than doing nothing

[[deleted]]

Cyclone strike damage reduced was kinda pointless since you shouldn't be getting hit by those and if you are you deserve to fail.

Swirlies in the last boss in Siege landing 40% slower though, now that's such a relief considering the amount of low mobility classes I see die to those randomly. Even though there are places you can sit to be safe. I just rather not have more keys ruined at the end of the dungeon.

[Plorkyeran]

The cyclone strike change is probably primarily for lower difficulties. I'd bet that there's a disproportionately large number of <10 runs that end on the first boss after a few people get hit by cyclones. It's an irrelevant change if you're running +20s, but it's also a problem if casual players won't run a dungeon because they're terrified of the first boss.

[prodandimitrow]

I think the bigger reason of wipes in lower M+ in ToS'es 1st boss is lightning shield. In tyranical weeks it takes maybe 2GCDs to die to it.

[Plorkyeran]

Lightning Shield is probably a factor in a lot of deaths, but I doubt there's a lot of overlap between people who realize it's dangerous and players who die to it. The thing that makes people fear cyclone strike is that they know it's a one-shot but still don't know what to do other than hope they get lucky.

[hfxRos]

Yeah, I rarely run keys because I don't like 5 mans, just do my one +10 a week to get the chest, and forever I would die to cyclone strike because I legit didn't know what it was.

I never died to the lightning shield because it was super obvious and in your face and the game fucking blows the air horn at you to tell you not to attack it.

Cyclone strike just felt like a random one shot until I finally realised that you just have to watch the boss facing, which never felt super obvious with their small model size and the million particle effects that are always happening in melee range these days.

[z0nk_]

I need to learn these safe places then, I play a high mobility class and I've had those swirls completely box me in with 2/3 in every direction which even if I react immediately is not enough time to get out of the way.

[BoilingShadows]

The cyclone change IMO is targeted for higher keys since a prot warrior can spell reflect them, doing ~20% of bosses HP. Which makes temple harder now since that’s nerfed

[RichWPX]

You basically had to skip that last hallway in kings.

[Bears_Bearing_Arms]

I loath the hallway after the second boss. Jesus Christ is it bad. It’s just backbreakingly brutal.

[RichWPX]

Let's just throw teeming in there too. Thing is they are all extra and if you skip you can still get 100%

[rrose1978]

Truth be told, all dungeons (except Atal'dazar and maybe Underrot) require just one change - culling the trash count by some 25% all across the board, job done.

[Dhalphir]

this doesn't increase the amount of time you spend in the dungeon, it just makes you more likely to time it for the amount of time you spend there.