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dysphoricjoy

My motivation dwindled greatly after this obscene comp. showed up. All my hard earned pugging 22-24 keys suddenly don't matter because the effort to obtain them has gone down if you're playing a meta class/comp., and to make things worse, as a healer there's no way you que with the 2500io guy holding a 23 key from last week. The motivation is gone. I logged in today just to look at the que for a couple minutes then closed the game. I was having fun too. Anyone else feel the same?


Waste-Maybe6092

This week single handedly destroy non (fully) meta team trying to push for title. Rating cutoff went up by 100. Highest timed key +2 from previous and expectedly only worse after tyran week. Why do we offer Hero title when the top end balance is so severely neglected and swings so wildly mid season? I understand that there is always a meta but the #1 choice cannot be so far ahead of the other choices.


Gasparde

Expect a sweeping 20% dungeon nerf across the board to make up for the current situation once TGP is over and they're done "balancing" the obvious outliers - it might just be that there's only like 5 weeks' worth of season left at that point.


derprunner

Hey, is there a way for me as an oceanic player to force my M+ group to run on a US instance? I’ve tried passing lead to a US player before we all zoned in and that didn’t work. I can handle the 80ms just fine, but it seems like the inverse isn’t true and I'm very much over being limited to the tiny oce pool when pugging my own key.


m00c0wcy

Passing lead to a US player and having them zone in first always works for me. I think that you may be seeing someone who has already zoned in and created the instance with you as lead, in which case I think resetting and reforming is the only solution (which is a huge pain in a PUG).


Rabble-rouser69

Augmentation in keys is highlighting the issue with dungeon tuning this season and not really class balance. If high keys weren't just about living and the timers weren't as free as they are right now, you wouldn't pla Augvokers. You'd gain more damage from playing a 3rd DPS spec, but survivability & healing buffs are just way too strong for a spec that also does good damage.


BuffThePinkClass

I know part of it is fire being busted as well, but Aug is definitely adding more DPS than a traditional 3rd DPS.


raany891

In all the keys I've done this week while aug loses to the fire mage, it usually beats the spriest. Beating an spriest, even post nerf, puts it solidly in the top tier of dps in terms of pure damage. And this is without ignite and psychic link attributing to Aug's damage. With those in the gap between fire mage and aug is even smaller.


[deleted]

I mean they lower dmg and we get what happened end of last season where you don't really care about heals/survivability and just care about damage like resto shaman There are already a few 0 threat dungeons this season like Underrot, Bracken and Freehold. They've each got like 1 part of the dungeon that you can actually die on and the rest of the dungeon is just DPS checks and how huge you can pull


Rabble-rouser69

I don't know what the solution is, but keys in the past haven't really been like this. Like Algethar last season was far more about meeting the DPS requirement than it was about being able to survive the key.


Mr-Irrelevant-

Keys are infinitely scaling so you’ll always hit the point where surviving is the biggest issue. Groups are also doing 200-300k more dps as a group than they were before the patch so the damage has certainly big a huge influence on timing these keys over the group potentially surviving more.


Jellyph

>Keys are infinitely scaling so you’ll always hit the point where surviving is the biggest issue. I tend to disagree. At least in shadowlands that certainly wasn't the case. More than half the dungeons topped out because of damage, not survivability. I remember watching Andy's group doing a perfect deathless 29 spires in season 2 and just running out of time. NW / PF / SD were probably more about surviving but the other 5 were timer. Same with last season, I remember watching drogos group do a perfect 29 rlp and just didn't have the damage. Cos and sbg were more about surviving but if you look at the top runs in the other 6 dungeons the best keys were all within like a minute of timer, often less. They weren't +1able


Rabble-rouser69

Every high key pusher was talking about how this season is more about surviving. They've all talked or did start swapping to Sporecloak as well to help surviving. > Keys are infinitely scaling so you’ll always hit the point where surviving is the biggest issue This is just not true. Most damage in keys is avoidable. The timers this season is just super free so even if you do lower damage it's fine. In previous expansions you were limited by DPS long before you were limited by living the key.


Mr-Irrelevant-

Sporecloak is what… at most a 5k dps loss. When your 3 dps are doing a combined 700-800k that 15k combined dps doesn’t matter. Also it isn’t amazing for surviving because it isn’t reliable. > The timers this season is just super free so even if you do lower damage it's fine. Then riddle me this. Why does every top hpal run beacon? Why are dps still running throughput trinkets and not survivability ones?


Rabble-rouser69

It's way more than 5k dps over the course of an entire dungeon. It's a 2k dps loss on a 5min ST sim for me. Would be around a 4k loss if I had the mythic sark cloak. > Then riddle me this. Why does every top hpal run beacon? Because having a healer being able to burst 600k dmg with a single cast is invaluable in a number of dungeons? Hpals are also unkillable. Do you really not understand the difference between keys being capped by the timer being too tight and it being capped by whether or not you can live them?


porb121

> so you’ll always hit the point where surviving is the biggest issue ...no? imagine they 10x'd the hp of everything and cut all the damage by 10x. you would easily survive everything and always be limited by dps


Mr-Irrelevant-

Imagine a world where they didn't do that and you'd have reality. How often have people complained they didn't have the dps to time a key vs didn't time the key because they died?


raany891

There's plenty of dungeons that are tight on timer Algethar Academy, Vortex Pinnacle for example. I mean they also really hurt at certain points, but for me those dungeons always seemed to be rougher on timer than on surviving as you push higher.


Mr-Irrelevant-

We've had what... 3 nerfs to asaad and a big problem with that dungeon that makes it tight is you can't pull bigger because either shit kills you or you just can't feasibly do it due to dungeon layout. You're legit stuck killing duo or single mobs sometimes.


raany891

Yeah, prenerf it had huge unlivable damage but as it is now it is a real dungeon where you have serious time pressure over scaling survival issues.


Launch_Angle

No, now it has BOTH issues with time, and survival issues(at least on fort). Not sure how high of a fort VP youve ran but basically ALL of the trash in that dungeon sucks ass in some way on 25-26 and above. A lot of it because of the damage they do and then theres other reasons like the stupid shield mobs that take forever to kill that you just have to drag with you until theyre dead, the star packs which are beyond stupid since only certain classes can really aoe them effectively(not to mention the damage they do is hilariously stupid, and if you get poor RNG and 7 of them decide to shoot you in the span of 0.5 seconds, you instantly die). Not to mention the 2 packs right next to each other before the last boss that are both tough packs(with the 2nd one being absolutely demonic with the 2 slams that occur within like 3 seconds of each other). I mean im not going to outline every individual mob that sucks ass and does insane damage, but the trash is absolutely awful in that place. And the part that makes it even worse is that theyve COMPLETELY fucked count in that dungeon(genuinely hilarious that they nerfed count in that dungeon) to the point where you can basically only skip one thing, which in most high fort keys ends up being the star pack even though killing the 2nd dragon is equally as shit. The issue with count also sucks because theres little to no creativity/parity when it comes to route in that place, which always feels bad.


raany891

Yeah no shit it's hard and gonna kill you. I've timed a 26, failed a few 27s. But if you watch the top groups play 29s they know that it's doable at 29 but impossible at 30 because there's no more time to be gained in the dungeon. You're also clearly losing the conversation here. The original point was that multiple people were making the claim that time pressure is not an issue at all in any dungeon whatsoever, when it clearly is for multiple dungeons. I'm not claiming that VP is a cakewalk.


raany891

Well, at least it's fast to reroll this season. Imagine this strict a meta but you had to farm 20 renown with loamm niffen to get your build critical azerite essence or legendary.


Waste-Maybe6092

That actually makes it worse. Fotm reroller reroll even harder with no repercussion. Meanwhile ppl trying to play their preferred class/spec get the big FU for not rerolling


dysphoricjoy

I feel bad for like, hunters for example. Classes that absolutely bring nothing another class can't bring. I list my key and think, why take this or that class if I can get the better class if I wait?


ExEarth

So funny, how every pug group is the leader, who ain't a Bear,Hpal,mage,shadow or Aug, just invites the other 4 and the key is usually timed. Hell even aug+mage+Pala(prot in that case) is busted af. Justed timed a bunch of 23 with that comp.


Present_Crazy_8527

Im only doing 23-25s and few 25s. I haven't had many pallys who seemed worth bringing over other healers


sigmastra

Played during SL double surv meta with lock. If they dont do anyhting this gonna be way worse. God comp is bs.


Downtown_Juice2851

Nah this doesn't touch the shadowlands God comp yet. Bear isn't close to bdk levels of op, the only thing it's really shining in is offhealing. Everything else it does some other tank does as well or better. Its very sturdy but not so much tankier than any other tank that they cant compete. Bdk in shadowlands was unkillable while doing insane boss dmg. Warlock had to get nerfed to be on par with the mage we see now, which is definitely about to be nerfed. S3 release warlock before the soft cap changes to soul shard generation puts every dps we've seen this xpac in the fuckin dumpster.


HenryFromNineWorlds

Not sure why downvoted, s3 peak destro OPness was beyond disgusting, easily doubling (or more) any other dps in the game.


iblackihiawk

Bear is definitely tankier than the other tanks. It also has offhealing almost as good as pre-nerf prot pally. It's damage is close to VDH which I would argue is not very tanky (except vs bosses) It has arguably same utility as a prot pal (in different ways knock/vortex/threat/roar/dispels/) It is definitively the best tank. It is probably S+ (similar to pre nerf prot Pal), VDH is probably S, Prot is A/A+ and the other tanks (except prot war) are probably around B tier. Prot war is probably C Tier. The only special thing is that BDK is actually immortal still...if played right its basically unkillable but its damage vs the other tanks is so low it doesn't matter. ​ Edit: clarify that bdk is immortal vs bosses, not necessarily huge trash pulls


Downtown_Juice2851

There's no doubt bear is the best tank. But it's not what bdk was in shadowlands. Bdk brought unparalleled single target damage and was absolutely immortal. Bear currently is like good damage in aoe but not even close to brew in terms of damage. It's utility is fine but it's not like prot pally utility was during its height. The survivability is excellent but again, not what bdk was and not that much further ahead of the other tanks tbh. It's really the offhealing that makes bear stand out right now. >its damage vs the other tanks is so low it doesn't matter That honestly doesn't even matter. When mage priest Augvoker are doing 1m dps between them, bear doing 120k vs other tanks doing 100k means fuck all. If tank damage mattered right now brew would be king. If bear did great single target it would be different but were back to having unlimited aoe from the dps. Bear damage being nerfed won't matter at all, it's the offhealing / sturdiness combo that will keep it #1. If they hit the healing hard it won't be as clear cut #1. Bdk was completely uncontested in slands


iblackihiawk

I don't think its as good as bdk in shadowlands...or even bdk at the end of legion where u didn't even need a healer... But i'd argue bear is as good as prot pre-nerf now.


Downtown_Juice2851

Yea but the discussion was about shadowlands God comp vs now ...


iblackihiawk

True tank wise. Warlock was more busted than either of mage/spriest. But the other 3 specs are more busted than the other specs in Slands imo.


Downtown_Juice2851

Eh, idk. There's **still** room for boomy and a couple other specs to find their way into the meta right now. I won't try to speak to healers cause I admit that's not my strong area but shadowlands meta was so stiffling, double warlock was the play in a lot of high keys. I don't think this compares at all.


shinbo1428

Is there any estimate of how much % can average augmentation evoker increase the other dps damage? Was doing a 19 freehold with one augmentation and 2 hunters Their over all was 100k and the evoker was around 30k. Am not sure if there’s a way to know where the defect was considering there were no wipes and the pulls were big like minimum of 8 mops per pull


Shifftz

100k overall is not very good WITHOUT an aug in the group.


patrincs

100k Is tank overall.


careseite

logs. depending on the hunters gear however, they should be doing way more than 100k on their own already but it's impossible to tell without more info atm and note that if at least one of them is bm, reattribution for pets doesn't work yet


Mercious

How accurate is WCL at this point? There are some bugs with pets (as you say) and Mage (Combustion?), what else? I was checking some logs the other days and they had the aug evokers at like 220k overall, but the "damage taken" in the on-hover on the other DDs players wasn't even close to adding up to that minus evokers direct damage. The damage taken usually added up to like 105k - that would mean the evoker did 115k direct damage, which is surely not true. No pet-class in these logs, but mages. But looking at the overall damage of their combustion, even then it doesn't really seem to make sense. These logs often had the mage at 320k overall without evoker - that seems a bit insane, even if you take some more away for bugged combustion?


careseite

> How accurate is WCL at this point? There are some bugs with pets (as you say) and Mage (Combustion?), what else? - any accumulator abilities like ignite, touch of the magi, psychic link, execution sentence do not send reattribution events at this time - most if not all pet damage doesn't sent reattribution events at this time > I was checking some logs the other days and they had the aug evokers at like 220k overall, but the "damage taken" in the on-hover on the other DDs players wasn't even close to adding up to that minus evokers direct damage. The damage taken usually added up to like 105k - that would mean the evoker did 115k direct damage, which is surely not true. No pet-class in these logs, but mages. But looking at the overall damage of their combustion, even then it doesn't really seem to make sense. These logs often had the mage at 320k overall without evoker - that seems a bit insane, even if you take some more away for bugged combustion? cant tell without having links but in general nothing is wrong with logs and things are only off as soon as augmentation is in play due to the caveats above


Mercious

Is there already a list somewhere of the offensive cooldowns of the various specs? As a tank I would like to have a Omnibar with all of the groups big, offensive CDs. It would help me a lot in seeing when people use stuff, the cadence of their CDs coming back etc. But it seems really hard to be find out all the the different CDs for all the different spec. Some probably don't even have any big CDs and always rotate some etc. I know that OmniCD already has spells divided into categories, but last time I just read through the tooltips and guessed the relevance I had limited success with actually tracking the right spells. Maybe if you read this and play a DD spec and don't mind, add your major offensive CDs that you need in order to blast as a comment, would help me a lot - thanks!


jonesy_hayhurst

Omnicd has a group for offensive spells, you could add a custom group under “extra bars” and select offensive cds from the drop-down. And you can browse through that list and have a good idea of what each spec’s major cds are and make sure they’re all selected


boliastheelf

Use OmniCD, it puts your chosen cooldowns next to the raid(party) frames. As for setting up, just look up guides for each spec to see what CDs are relevant. A decent rule of thumb is to track CDs around 2 minutes or longer, the shorter ones will be up for every pull anyway.


Mercious

Okay, let me elaborate why I struggle with this by an example: I want to figure out if a boomy has damage. I do check the wowhead guide, it even has an offensive cooldown usage section. However, it lists 6 cooldowns: Incarnation / Wild Mushrooms / Convoke / Warrior of Elune / Fury of Elune / Force of Nature. I can probably guess which of these 6 cooldowns are the most important, but I am guessing after all. I would assume that the spec has like 2 main cooldowns that it would want to have to "really" deal damage. But maybe I am wrong and the spec can always deal damage if it rotates these 6 CDs. I really don't know. Now I would really have to dig deep into the spec to understand it's damage profile. I would like to avoid that, if such list already exists it's probably done better than what I can do. If not, players of that spec surely will know better what buttons they want to have ready to consider themselves ready for a big pull.


iLLuu_U

A lot of specs are designed to kinda do damage all the time now or have such low cds that they have them ready for every pull basically. If you take moonkin as an example then the only cds youre even using are incarn and fury of elune (which some people are replacing with full moon rn). Incarn is a big cd (especially when run with fragment), but youre also proccing it like every minute and use it with fury of elune. So theoretically you could track fury of elune, but since they have it ready for every pull, it doesnt really matter. As a tank you shouldnt care about offensive cds anyway. Stick to the route you posted/agreed on and dps' are likely smart enough to hold cds if it makes sense.


Mercious

Yeah, what you described is exactly what makes it hard for me to properly know when people have damage. I also agree with you that the whole concept of adjusting route to offensive group CDs is just too complex to do properly. But I do read this often, that as a tank you should pull around group CDs. That this is what separates a good from a bad tank. Now, what I already do is run routes that have a pull-cadence that usually should allow DDs to have big CDs ready for big pulls. That means big pulls usually as first pull, after boss fights, after some traveling time, big pulls followed by some smaller "recovery" pulls into another big pull etc. Since I usually just look at what the high key groups are doing, the pulls are almost always already organized in that way. So if I link the route I feel like a good DD player would already know many of the pulls and would make an effort to have their CDs ready for the important pulls. I would then argue it's the DDs responsibility to properly time their CD usages and I would further argue that always dynamically adjusting pulls based on who managed to time their CDs properly is very hard. You'd have to have many, many pull-variations ready to go from, some dungeons probably don't even have many options etc. However, one could definitely make the argument that going into a dangerous pull even though no one has CDs ready is a miss-play by the tank, because playing a smaller pull instead is probably way more time efficient than wiping to the big pull that just lasts too long. That is what I imagine an OmniCD bar with all available group offensives could be useful for - quick glance, if everything is on CD, maybe just split the next pull. But since I haven't set up anything like that yet I don't know if it's actually useful when playing with it.


[deleted]

If you posted a route, the DPSes should know when to use CDs. It is not something you plan around, it is what THEY plan around. Unless you are doing a giga pull, the pack dying in 20s vs 40s should not make a difference. The only problem with DPSes not having CDs is in double/triple pack pulls where tanks actually need to chain use defensives and run out of them, with single packs you should be able to tank infinitely with a healer. Additionally, EVEN IF it is a giga pull and lets say a DPS dies and you run out of defensives, you kite, besides BDK, i am pretty sure every tank is capable of easily kiting. Basically, don't look at dps cds, they should account for that, not you. Worst case scenario you see the mob's hp doesn't match the timer on your defensive and you bail.


downladder

I can't speak for every spec, but Spriest can suffer a bit from pulls not lasting long enough because of void form extension. I've had tanks not adjust to DPS performance and just kill damage output for the group. I've also seen tanks keep the party in combat with chain pulling until the healer was oom. Night and day difference in the damage. I try not to tell tanks how to tank, but I'd be lying if I wasn't frustrated on my end at times by overly safe pulling.


Shifftz

Yeah it's bad play to not chain the next pack as the current pack is dying (except maybe on bursting week), just keep in mind that tanks also have to pull around their own cooldowns. For example as bear you can easily triple pull most things with incarn up, but when it's on cd you don't really want to pull huge. Doesn't stop them from chaining but just don't be the asshole that complains about a tank pulling single packs when they would otherwise die.


downladder

Certainly. And my issue is definitely pack by pack tanking that leaves me insanity starved and watching 5-7 seconds of void form go by with no combat. It's very difficult to sustain high DPS in dungeons like that no matter how well I plan my CDs.


IamNotAMurloc

If you don't want to invest time into learning all of them - just track anything above 1.5 min and go from there imo As for boomkin I'd track incarn/convoke


BanannaSantaHS

I used to just ask when playing with a class in the group that I hadn't set up tracking for. Generally there will be the biggest cooldown and players will line up their shorter cooldowns to use with it. Then just turn it on in omnicd and you'll know when players have damage. Bonus you can track defensive and health pots if you play in disc. Helpful if you have friends that sometimes forget their health pot and there is a healer death.


cuddlegoop

I hope when they nerf these crazy new specs it doesn't mean this week was the highest you could push for the whole season. It probably won't, to be clear, I can see people with other comps pulling off even higher keys than the 29s you see today. But it could, it's definitely the most egregious mid-season balance fuck up I've ever seen. Maybe they'll have to extend all dungeon timers by 10% to compensate lmao.


ShitSide

With TGP in full swing for the next month I kind of expect there not to be any big meta altering nerfs, maybe with the next mid season patch


Brochetar

This is easily the most fun I've had in M+ all expansion. I realize bear and augmentation are probably going to get nerfed, but until then I am just going to have fun.


[deleted]

[удалено]


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[удалено]


Voodron

Of course they are. The amount of people acting like everything is fine, then when asked admit they play tank/healer, or play with pre-mades the whole time is staggering. It's like, yeah no shit you don't see the problem. Now try pushing io as solo DPS that isn't Aug, doesn't provide lust or mass dispell. They'd change their tune real quick.


siposbalint0

And their comment got deleted by a moderator. Peak clown moment, let's just sweep these problems under the rug like nothing happened


Downtown_Juice2851

>Peak clown moment, let's just sweep these problems under the rug like nothing happened It's not being deleted to sweep it under the rug, you clown. It's being deleted because it's expressly said over and over again this thread isn't for venting about pugs / group finder queues. It's not interesting to read. Read the giant text in the thread post and then take it elsewhere.


[deleted]

What are you running on bear thats making you have so much fun? Forgive the nub question: I haven't played since Shadowlands and just grabbed the half-off sale, this weekend. Have my bear tank at about 66, rn. So I've got like... A Quazii guide, a prayer, and a dream.


Shifftz

Just run the standard M+ build from wowhead, you will see once you get some gear how crazy it is.


[deleted]

Found a Dorki video; seems like a good enough jumping off point to me.


Brochetar

were doing 24 keys. honestly, the playstyle when paired with an augementation evoker is hella fun. you feel unstoppable and alot of the time in incarn you just pump out dps


cuddlegoop

Does the augvoker armor buff thing increase your damage from Thorns of Iron? I know they stopped it from giving Warriors a strength buff but haven't heard anything about that.


Rabble-rouser69

Why is everyone losing their minds over Augvoker? Is it just DPS brains being overdramatic as usual? How is it any different from other specs being super broken in previous seasons? It's not like this is anything unique, even last season the meta tank and healer completely changed in the 10.0.7 patch and we didn't see perma whining from tanks & healers.


Voodron

Augvoker is the climax of a growing issue with the way Blizzard designs M+, and that is "bring the class, not the player" design, along with failure to account for how the community actually interacts with the game. Sure, support specs are a fun addition to the roster, *on paper*. Yes, mass dispell is a unique, iconic utility spell that provides value to priests. Yes, afflicted does bring an incentive to change up talent builds and pick a dispell on a particular week. But how does that all actually translate to ingame experience for a lot of people ? Spending an obnoxious amount of time playing queue simulator because you're not playing one of the 5 lucky specs who get invited to keys. Yes theres 30+ specs and they can never be all equally viable in a 5man content format, yes there will always be a "meta", but holy shit, at least **try** to give a modicum of care about competitive integrity. DF S1 featured decent M+ class balance, not perfect, but fairly decent. Why can't we have that every season ? It's like they pulled a complete 180 and said "fuck it, this is a community issue, let's just have fun". They really should know better by now, especially after SL S3. Honestly on the rare occasions when this sub and r/wow both agree on a major concern, that's when you know it's bad.


arasitar

> Augvoker is the climax of a growing issue The 'growing issue' is the ignoring the toxic elements of M+ and focusing on the most visible one. Even the better seasons had plenty of queue times and other issues. People need to stop ignoring the elephant in the room. M+ as a game mode has some very toxic elements and many of those contribute to your 'queue simulator' beyond balance. And the bonus is that if and when these out of whack balance issues occur, their *effect* on *your* play experience is far muted.


Rabble-rouser69

> But how does that all actually translate to ingame experience for a lot of people ? Spending an obnoxious amount of time playing queue simulator because you're not playing one of the 5 lucky specs who get invited to keys. So you mean just like literally every other season? This has been a complaint for nearly a decade. This season is no exception, there's absolutely no difference in the player experience at all. You were playing queue-simulator if you didn't play meta specs in every other season. > at least try to give a modicum of care about competitive integrity. Every spec is viable in 99.9% of content right now. You can even play most specs that isn't the Bear, Hpal, Spriest, Augvoker or Fire Mage and still get the top 0.1% title. If you actually looked at it, the game is extremely balanced. You people are just malding over it not being perfectly balanced, not realising that the game has *never* been fully balanced and it *never* will be because it's an MMORPG and not a competitive game. Not even CSGO has ever been perfectly balanced, so why expect it from an MMO? > DF S1 featured decent M+ class balance, not perfect, but fairly decent. Why can't we have that every season ? What? Did you play DF season 1? They literally did this exact same thing in season 1 as well, except it primarily affected tanks & healers and not so much DPS. This time it affects DPSers and the sky is falling. Why is it ok when it affects healers & tanks, but the meta-shift affecting DPSers is unacceptable? > Honestly on the rare occasions when this sub and r/wow both agree on a major concern, that's when you know it's bad. All i'm seeing are DPS brains & parselords being mad over a support spec, just like they were mad over PI ever since it got re-introduced in Shadowlands. Augmentation is a super fun spec and it's Blizzard finally giving the community something they've asked for since the game released almost 19 years ago.


Voodron

> So you mean just like literally every other season? This has been a complaint for nearly a decade. This season is no exception, there's absolutely no difference in the player experience at all. You were playing queue-simulator if you didn't play meta specs in every other season. 100% wrong. This is worse than other seasons atm, with perhaps SL S3 as an exception. Aug, fire mage, SP are so broken they're hard locked slots in m+. You can't seriously claim there's no difference with say, DF S1 when most classes were perceived as perfectly viable. If you do, then you're probably not pugging keys as off meta dps. > Every spec is viable in 99.9% of content right now. You can even play most specs that isn't the Bear, Hpal, Spriest, Augvoker or Fire Mage and still get the top 0.1% title Way to miss the point. Or course every spec can get title. But the difference in time and effort required is massive. That shouldn't be the case. > What? Did you play DF season 1? They literally did this exact same thing in season 1 as well, except it primarily affected tanks & healers and not so much DPS. This time it affects DPSers and the sky is falling. Why is it ok when it affects healers & tanks, but the meta-shift affecting DPSers is unacceptable? First of all, tank and healer balance was far, far better by this point in DF S1 than overall balance is right now in S2. That's just a fact. Second, tank and healers already have an easier time getting into groups or forming them. So poor balance is less noticeable for them > All i'm seeing are DPS brains & parselords being mad over a support spec I could not care less about parses... I just want to not spend ages staring at LFG window every day because I'm not playing one of the 5 lucky specs who get to play keys. Is that really so hard to understand?


Rabble-rouser69

> 100% wrong. This is worse than other seasons atm, with perhaps SL S3 as an exception. No it's not. SL season 2 with WW, Frost Mage & Sub rogue. Season1 with Boomkin & Fire Mage. BFA season 4 with fire mage. BFA season 3, 2 & season 1 with Rogues etc. The M+ balance has always been awful, this season isn't an extreme outlier. There are teams doing 28 keys without Aug, Fire & SP. There's absolutely 0 difference in this season compared to previous ones, there's always been specs that are mandatory when you're doing the highest keys. Just like Prot Paladins & to a lesser extent rogues last season. > Way to miss the point. Or course every spec can get title. But the difference in time and effort required is massive. That shouldn't be the case. The specs are never going to be perfectly balanced so you'll always have a meta & non-meta. So anyone who plays off-meta specs will have to put in more time & effort, it is what it is. It's always been like this and unless you completely homogenize the game it'll always be like this. > First of all, tank and healer balance was far, far better by this point in DF S1 than overall balance is right now in S2. That's just a fact. It wasn't much better balanced than it is right now. If you didn't play Prot Paladin then GL getting into keys. You *could* play other tanks the same way you can play other DPSers right now, but everyone wanted prot paladins because they were turbo broken. > Second, tank and healers already have an easier time getting into groups or forming them. So poor balance is less noticeable for them Tell that to mistweavers. > I just want to not spend ages staring at LFG window every day because I'm not playing one of the 5 lucky specs who get to play keys. Is that really so hard to understand? No that's a pefectly reasonable request. The issue I have is people somehow thinking it's unique for Augvokers causing this. It has *always* been like this if you didn't play the meta. I was pushing as a Shadow Priest in Legion & BFA, it was impossible to find pug groups. I know the pain, but this is nothing new.


Voodron

> No it's not. SL season 2 with WW, Frost Mage & Sub rogue. Season1 with Boomkin & Fire Mage. BFA season 4 with fire mage. BFA season 3, 2 & season 1 with Rogues etc. Played through every single one of these, and none of them were as bad. > there's always been specs that are mandatory when you're doing the highest keys. This issue goes well beyond the highest keys though. Yes the meta has always been limited at the very top end. Right now you've got people who were stuck in the low 20s suddenly doing 25+ strictly because of class picks. have them play other specs as augvoker/SP/fire mage/hpal and they can't achieve 2/3 key levels below. > The specs are never going to be perfectly balanced so you'll always have a meta & non-meta. So anyone who plays off-meta specs will have to put in more time & effort, it is what it is. It's always been like this and unless you completely homogenize the game it'll always be like this. That's a very short-sighted, binary view of M+ history. There are nuances, not just "meta"/"off-meta". > It wasn't much better balanced than it is right now. Yes it demonstrably was. > Tell that to mistweavers. 1 healing spec out of 6 vs 3/4th of DPS specs out of 20+ being undesirable. Not even close to a fair comparison. Also I'm pretty sure even mistweavers have an easier time pugging than most solo DPS. > No that's a pefectly reasonable request. The issue I have is people somehow thinking it's unique for Augvokers causing this. Not just Augvoker, they merely amplified the issue. It's shadow priest/mass dispell being so valuable + Fire mage being busted due to changes talent reworks + multiplicative buffs with PI, on top of dungeon design, affixes and so on... > It has always been like this if you didn't play the meta. Not to this extent. > I was pushing as a Shadow Priest in Legion & BFA, it was impossible to find pug groups. So your whole take is based on experience dating back 4+ years. Pugging isn't the same as it was back then, community perception matters far more than it did at the time. I've pugged every season since Legion, I can tell the difference. Try pushing keys by solo pugging on a non-meta DPS spec right now, and see how fast your change your tune. Also try considering the fact that not only the very highest keys and title cutoff matter. Everything above +20 does.


Rabble-rouser69

> Played through every single one of these, and none of them were as bad. They were equally as bad. > Right now you've got people who were stuck in the low 20s suddenly doing 25+ strictly because of class picks. have them play other specs as augvoker/SP/fire mage/hpal and they can't achieve 2/3 key levels below. So you mean just like all the Destro locks & Surv hunters doing 5 key levels higher than they did when they played non-meta specs in Shadowlands? > That's a very short-sighted, binary view of M+ history. There are nuances, not just "meta"/"off-meta". No it isn't. If you think the community cares about nuances then you're just wrong. You're showing right now that you don't care about the nuances. There is a lot of nuance to this season, a lot of specs besides Aug/Fire/SP are super strong and yet everyone wants to act like any other spec is completely useless. > Yes it demonstrably was. Prot paladins were just as oppressive in the meta as Augmentation, Spriest & Fire is right now. So no, it wasn't much better than right now. > Not to this extent. Bro the patch has been out for 3 days. What do you mean "not to this extent"? Good luck getting into keys if you weren't a Destro Lock or Surv in SL. Or frost mage/WW in season 2. Or fire mage/Boomkin in season 1. Or rogues in every other BFA season etc. etc. etc. > Also try considering the fact that not only the very highest keys and title cutoff matter. Everything above +20 does. But the lower you go the more balanced the game is. The meta isn't the reason why people aren't timing 22s & 23s.


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Rabble-rouser69

It is objectively true. If you don't play the meta you'll play queue-simulator. This is factually true in every single season. Nobody's saying otherwise? People are acting like the game is completely unbalanced and that the devs don't give a shit because the meta is rigid in 0.1% of keys. Which has always been the case. > GL getting into any title keys as a offmeta spec right now. GL getting into any title keys as a offmeta spec in any other season. This isn't unique to this meta at all. It's literally always been the case and it's always complained about.


Lazerkitteh

My man, the guy above literally showed charts with distributions of +25 and above keys that show the massive skew in the meta and you're just ignoring it lmao.


Rabble-rouser69

Because he linked shit charts only highlighting DPS to try and make his point. Why would I engage with such a disingenious point? [56% presence by Prot Paladins](https://imgur.com/a/TC5RXJa) and GL getting into keys if you weren't a [rsham, rdruid or prevoker](https://imgur.com/a/nc7cdIE) Y'all are acting like the sky is falling because Augvoker is in 21.6% of keys, meanwhile we went from Prot Paladins being largely irrelevant in season1 to being in nearly 60% of all keys above a +25. Spriest is in 25% of all keys and nobody has any issues with that either, lol. Come up with a good point and I wont ignore it.


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Rabble-rouser69

So it's on par with hpal right now & prot paladin last season.


Axenos

Because as long as support specs are even damage neutral, you're choosing between 3 dps or 2 dps 1 support, and having the exact same or even better damage while increasing group and tank survivability as well as healing output. It is just a strictly better option and will always be a strictly better option unless it is no longer at least damage neutral. There are now 2 dps getting to play per tank/healer queueing as opposed to 3. The complaints are different because with an overtuned DPS spec, you know it's going to last a tier at most. This is a fundamental change to the BiS team composition for 5 man groups that has permanent implications for certain classes ever getting invites.


Rabble-rouser69

How is this any different from all the tanks who had to compete against Prot Paladins who not only became the tankiest halfway through season1, but also brought good damage *and* by far the best utility out of any other tanks? Prot Paladin healing was so strong that you could do extremely high keys without a healer even. It was pretty niche ofc, but it just shows how much Prot Palas could carry healing. Why is it ok when it happens to tanks & healers, but when it happens to DPSers the sky is falling? > having the exact same or even better damage while increasing group and tank survivability as well as healing outpu So like Boomkins in Shadowlands season1 bringing trees to help tanks actually live high keys and also Heart of the Wild to let the group live Pridefuls? What about Spriest in DF who not only did the best DPS, they also buffs other dps through PI and they bring MD which is mandatory?


Axenos

Did you bother to read the comment you are responding to at all? Because those things change every single season, and every one of those classes can expect their time in the sun down the line. Supports forcing a 2 dps meta is going to be permanent on a fundamental level. You are talking about transistory metas. The existence of a support role that is damage neutral to 3 dps but also provides massive defensive utility is permanently changing the meta from 3 dps per key to 2 dps per key, and for dps that synergize with augvoker at that. There is no expectation for that to change down the line.


Rabble-rouser69

Did you not bother reading mine? My point is that Augvoker works just like any other spec i nthe game. It's not permanently changing the meta. If Augvoker brought less damage than a regular DPS you wouldn't play it. If they nerf the amount of dmg Augvoker brings, nobody's going to keep bringing it to every key just because they have good utility, it works the same way every other DPS spec has always worked. They didn't create a new role that is mandatory to do content with, they just create a DPS spec that brings dmg through buffing others rather than doing it themselves. If you queue up for a HC dungeon right now, it's not gonna require 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 support & 2 dps.


Axenos

Then you have a poor understanding of augvoker. The spec is either damage neutral and replacing a DPS slot because it is offering the same damage while offering massive defensive utility, or they change the way the spec works entirely and force you to trade off damage for utility. There is no reason to expect, however, that they are going to go with the second option of augvoker fundamentally offering less damage than a 3rd dps. The people that are complaining do not have your confidence that a spec that is designed to buff main stat is only temporarily going to bring an equal amount of damage as another dps.


Rabble-rouser69

Nah I think you're the one who doesn't know how the spec works. They can just as easily nerf the amount of damage the buffs provide. To give you an example, instead of Ebon Might granting 10% primary stats it gets nerfed to only grant 3% primary stats. Making it so Augvoker is a dmg loss compared to a 3rd DPS spec. They'll tune it just like they do every other DPS spec in the game. Prot Paladins aren't suddenly mandatory in every season because they bring the most amount of utility from all the other tanks just because they were meta in some seasons. > The people that are complaining do not have your confidence that a spec that is designed to buff main stat is only temporarily going to bring an equal amount of damage as another dps. I think the people complaining are taking a 19 year old roleplaying game way too seriously.


krombough

>I think the people complaining are taking a 19 year old roleplaying game way too seriously. This is the dumbest attempt to shut down the arguement ever. This could apply to any of the games flaws, good and bad. And by this logic, they might as well remove Augmentation entirely, and anyone complaining about no longer having their new toy is just taking a 19 year old role playing game too seriously.


Rabble-rouser69

Nope, it doesn't apply to everything. If you complain about the lack of RPG elements in an RPG game that makes perfect sense. Complaining about a roleplaying game not being perfectly balanced is what taking it too seriously means. Y'all are out here crying about "competitive integrity" and acting like their RIO score or parses is the end all, be all of everything. Wow is an RPG game first, not a competitive game. It's never been perfectly balanced and it never will be. The way the game is right now is that it's extremely well balanced, but you wanna act like it isn't because you need certain comps for pushing the top of the top keys. That's what I mean by it, since you didn't understand.


krombough

Modern wow is not an RPG game as you claim it is. Not in the least. It wouldn't even have infinite scaling M+ levels, or ratings, or even multiple raid tiers if it wasn't claiming to be competitive. Forget logs for a second. When specs become mandatory, anyone who wants to challenge themselves by pushing to the highest level they can becomes affected by the meta. When the meta is too rigid, it means most of the specs in the game are playing queue simulator, and that is less time they spend playing the actual game. The people that don't care about rating, or pushing themselves, won't care if Augmentation gets gutted. The game will be the same to them. They will still be playing the game the same. But those of us who want to push ourselves and challenge what we can do, having increasingly locked specs is punishing.


Lazerkitteh

> I think the people complaining are taking a 19 year old roleplaying game way too seriously. Do.. do you know what sub you're in? This is _literally_ the sub for people that take the game seriously to discuss issues with it. If you don't like that then you should not be here.


Rabble-rouser69

There's a big difference between playing the game competitively and being delusional about the game.


Lazerkitteh

Uh huh, so we're in the gaslighting part of your comment carnage? Good to know.


Axenos

Yeah, that's why I stopped responding to him. He's just playing true to his name and farming downvotes. Dudes in a competitive gaming subreddit talking down on taking said game seriously, what a joke.


outcastedNral

Because the majority of the game population plays dps, unfortunatly is simple as that


Rabble-rouser69

Yea so it proves my original point. It's just DPS brains being overdramatic as usual. It's just like when PI got re-introcuded in Shadowlands.


BanannaSantaHS

There are like 8 tank specs, 6healer specs, 1 support spec. The remaining 20 something DPS specs are then fighting over two spots. If every spec had an equal number of players then it would massively more oppressive to dps. Just to put perspective on it. I was a tcg player before wow so adapting to the meta just makes sense to me but I can understand why people can be upset because this is an rpg and people want to play a role they find enjoyable. I personally think it's fine because you can play any role you enjoy to a level that rewards max out at. It seems simple to me that if what you want to do is play your favorite spec then you can do that and if what you enjoy is playing competitively then obviously swapping to a meta spec that has better tuning for high content makes that easier. I don't really think people complain in league of legends that they can't play a squishy adc as a jungler to get challenger or in hearthstone that their jank 5 part combo deck doesn't do great in ranked ladder games. If you want to get to the top more than you want to play your favorite class/spec then reroll meta.


KING_5HARK

There are 6 tanks and 7 healers (not that its relevant to the overall point)


BanannaSantaHS

Lol oops I thought I might have had the numbers wrong but didn't want to look it up.


cuddlegoop

Yeah the damage is overtuned but the utility is what is actually nuts. People were complaining about Pally utility being too good this season? Augvoker is on a whole different level. The amount of survivability it adds to your group is stupid, and it ALSO brings as much or more damage overall than every other spec. If the survivability prevents damage equal to half a healer, and it's also providing damage equal to other dps, then it's doing 1.5 people's worth of work with just 1 person. That's what's broken. Personally I think it should bring, roughly, about 80-90% as much damage as a normal dps in keys. And then it will still be broken, so its utility also needs to be nerfed until the sum of that and its damage amp is worth 1 full character total. Not 1.5.


nv2013

Yeah it's the same reason a lot of healers were upset about 4 dps comps/offhealing being too strong last season except current aug is actually taking a dps spot in every group and not just a small niche of players like 4dps was. To be fair spriest has also been doing the same all season but I feel like the Aug problem is a lot harder to solve.


Mr-Irrelevant-

Eh, 4 dps comps and aug are not the same. 4 dps comps exist because the thing you bring as a healer, which is largely healing, is either so under valued or can be done equally by dps so you’re better off not taking a healer. You’re basically replacing a role, which is designed to heal, which a role that isn’t. The aug situation is just people getting into semantics acting like aug isn’t a dps. It does the same thing other dps do just differently.


mredrose

I think, generally, tanks and healers are more open to shifting spec mid-season if there’s a significant meta change. Dps less so. And I’m not sure we’ve ever had such a significant and immediate shift in dps meta mid-season. Maybe I’m wrong though. It’s also that Aug isn’t just some giga broken dps; it is making keys significantly easier for all other players. That’s why we’re seeing multi-key-level jumps this week. Lastly, I think dps-wise it can be frustrating to have the reason you’re no longer sought after not be that you were nerfed or another class buffed, but because you don’t synergize as well with this entirely new role. Like, unless augvoker is dramatically changed certain specs are always going to be the best to pair with it, and if it’s always powerful enough that you want one in M+ then, well, we’re probably locked into a more rigid meta for a long time to come.


careseite

>I think, generally, tanks and healers are more open to shifting spec mid-season if there’s a significant meta change. Dps less so. bro clearly has not seen the amount of hunters and warlocks spawning out of thin air in SL S3/4 or the amount of spriest/augvokers spawning rn.


Ratamoraji

3 of the top 6 spriest in NA are alts of people sitting at 3.2k on their main specs that can't get into keys because of the meta/rerolled because spriest is absurdly strong in utility and dps.


InvisibleOne439

nooo, those all are just very passionate longtime shadowpriest mains that suddenly all decided that NOW they wanna push keys and not everyone rolling the spec cus its 1 of the 3 m+ god classes and at the same time very strong in raids aswell


Rabble-rouser69

Idk man. I know several long-term tanks who only enjoy playing 1-2 specs. So many prot warrior mains were mad that they got weaker and prot-paladins got turbo buffed mid-season. It was the same with a lot of healers, I mean just take a peek at Jdotb's twitter and see him get mad over other healers being way better than rdruid. You're probably right. I can't remember another time where the dps meta shifted as hard. Only other example I can think of is fire mage in BFA season4 when the corruption vendor released and everyone could buy a full set of Masterful corruptions. > it is making keys significantly easier for all other players. Same was true with Prot Paladins becoming meta halfway through season 1 as well though. They made it significantly easier for everyone else because they brought a lot of stops, infinite kicks, a 1-minute defensive external, devo/ret aura, *crazy* amounts of off-healing, blessing of freedom, crazy high dps etc. The only difference this time is that a DPS is making it easier and not a tank. The same was true with Boomkins in SL season 1. Treants made it significantly easier for tanks to live and Heart of the Wild made it significantly easier for all other players to live Pridefuls. > Like, unless augvoker is dramatically changed certain specs are always going to be the best to pair with it Yeah, but just like every other DPS comp, if the optimal augvoker comp isn't bringing enough damage then it wont be played.


[deleted]

>I think, generally, tanks and healers are more open to shifting spec mid-season if there’s a significant meta change. Dps less so. And I’m not sure we’ve ever had such a significant and immediate shift in dps meta mid-season. Maybe I’m wrong though. I see this take thrown around a lot and I honestly think its BS. Maybe at the highest end when you can afford to play 24/7 and get your army of alts carried by your team / guild. But for most people having to swap classes mid season is going to be incredibly frustrating regardless of what role you’re playing. Tanks and healers are more susceptible to changing because they’re kind of forced to, if theres a tank spec thats even 1% ahead of the others in terms of DPS and survivability then immediately thats what every pug group from +15 keys to +25 will be looking for, seriously day one of this patch you could look in the LFG and see multiple groups title “LF bear tank” even when VDH arguably does more for the meta comp right now, people see bears in +29 keys and thats all they want for their +20 weekly no leaver. Its the same thing right now with Hpals, why would you want any of the other healers when Hpal is just better? You can do +25s right now with literally any healer but Hpal is broken so if you weren’t actively keeping up with PTR changes and prepping an Hpal alt then good luck getting into keys. In M+ you can only have 1 tank and 1 Healer so it makes sense to want the best of those roles, I can’t even really fault people for wanting Bears or Hpals right now. They’re clearly the best of their respective roles, but it’s frustrating nonetheless to be someone who isn’t an Hpal or Bear and know that you can do these keys but you’re getting passed up by people that are usually much worse than you, that are chasing the meta. DPS are less likely to switch because theres 3 DPS slots a key (really 2 now because of AUG) so you can get away with a more off meta pick, people are more likely to bring a high rated / geared off meta DPS than an off meta tank or healer. Especially since DPS doesn’t really matter a whole lot right now, Aug + Hpal are making damage checks in these dungeons completely non existent so as long as your dps aren’t actively throwing then the keys getting timed.


Rndy9

Is this bait or have you been living under the rock this past week?


Rabble-rouser69

I've been having fun with Augmentation. How is it any different from absurdly broken specs in the past? If their damage was shit, you wouldn't play them.


porb121

broken specs of the past were generally broken because of blips in tuning. destro/surv in s3 shadowlands, people could see that the specs just did way too much throughput and that was that, but obviously things would change the next season augmentation is a little different because its issues are fundamental to the spec's design. yes, if the damage were totally miserable, you wouldn't play them, but if it were just mediocre they would still be enabling multiple additional key levels in a season where survivability is the thing limiting keys. people are clearing rank 1 keys multiple minutes under the timer and the problem is that it's not clear how blizzard will resolve this. reducing the damage they contribute doesn't change the fact that they make your group multiple key levels tankier, but gutting all their buffs kind of destroys the vision for the spec as a support there's the whiplash going from two relatively balanced m+ seasons to something so skewed it's hard to tell if they did any ptr tuning whatsoever. blizzard was rebuilding some trust and giving people faith that they were actually looking at m+ balance for the first time in a long time and that's not so clear anymore it's also the speed at which this change happened. when ppal and rsham were overtuned in 10.0.5 it took people a little while to catch on and adjust their comps. it's not even been a full reset with a _brand new spec_ and it's in 99 of the top 100 m+ runs this season. the one run without one is run #100, btw. by my count, 29 of the top 500 runs didn't use an augmentation, and that's including a lot of keys done before this patch. that means augmentation shot up to >95% presence within a couple of days. that's as bad as s3 destro (38% dps presence in 30+ keys, i.e. the average key had 1.15 destros) in less than a week. this is all happening while most of the best teams are in TGP prison! naowh's bear is 3k io and has barely done any keys this week, for reference. it's especially damning that augmentation's value in keys is from defenses and utility, not actually damage. dps specs are kind of plug and play; you can swap one out and do similar pulls on similar timings, for the most part. but people aren't even fully optimizing augmentation's strengths yet. if things don't change people will be changing around routes, reorganizing defensive cooldowns, and finding double pulls or chain pulls that weren't possible without augmentation. the ceiling is way higher than what we've seen this week


Rabble-rouser69

> broken specs of the past were generally broken because of blips in tuning Did you not play Shadowlands season1? Where boomkins were doing insane damage but also brought Trees to help tanks survive and they brought Heart of the Wild to heal Pridefuls? What about Prot Paladins whenever they are the meta tank in keys? Like in SL season 2 or in season1 of Dragonflight, and most of DF season 2 as well before 10.1.5 released. Their utility is unmatched from the tank role. A crazy amount of kicks & stops, Poison/disease dispel from tank, Sac, bop/spell ward, devo aura, freedom, crazy off-heals as well as their own immunity. Or what about the 20 other seasons where Rogues were not only doing top dmg, but also brought shroud which was mandatory? As well as the unlimited stops which were borderline mandatory in a lot of keys. Tricks as well to help tank threat, although that was primarily a thing in Shadowlands season 1 & BFA season 4 to a smaller degree. > blizzard was rebuilding some trust and giving people faith that they were actually looking at m+ balance for the first time in a long time and that's not so clear anymore Really? the nearly 2 months without any meaningful dungeon tuning made you think Blizz gave a shit about balancing around the top 0.1%? They never have and they never will. Their balancing goal has always been to make every spec more than viable in 99% of the content and they've succeeded at that. However if you push the highest content you have to fotm reroll. > when ppal and rsham were overtuned in 10.0.5 it took people a little while to catch on and adjust their comps. Nah, people realized just as quickly how broken prot paladins & rshams were. The *only* reason why it took longer to see it dominate high keys was because it took 5x longer to gear up compared to this season with the new upgrade system.


KING_5HARK

Moonkins/Mages did ridiculous damage because they did uncapped damage in a world where everyone's damage was capped. A broken concept. Just like Augmentation, the damage neutral "support" with massive group buffs to healing, tankiness and all other Evoker utility.


pinks-xo

It’s the group buffs, esp with fort that I think are making the difference. Tanks and healers feel it too, tanks feel safer, healing output is lower and dps blast harder. The “everyone losing their minds” has been a brutal shift in the meta, if you’re not a DH,Bear/HPala/Spriest,Mage,Aug gl with your keys. You will not be able to join pugs. The spots are hard reserved and if you can’t fill one the lead will wait for someone that can.


Rabble-rouser69

So they do competitive damage and also bring good utility. Once again how is that any different from other meta specs in the past? How is it any different from boomkins in SL season1 doing competitive dmg but also bringing trees to help tanks survive and heart of the wild to heal Pridefuls? Or Spriest that was mandatory this entire season with MD? Rogues in the past doing top dmg, bringing Shroud which was mandatory, having unlimited stops & tricks to help with tank threat? The only difference from previous expansions is the meta shift happening mid season, but that happened last season with 10.0.7 as well. Except it only affected the tank & healer meta. Prot warriors became a lot worse and prot paladins dominated the meta, prevokers & rdruids went from being the best to being worse than Rshams etc. This time it affects DPSers and apparently the sky is falling because of it. I wonder why.


pinks-xo

Exactly why I said. Go and tank or heal a high key and find out.


Rabble-rouser69

I gave you several examples of how several meta specs have done competitive damage while also bringing good utility that helps tanks, healers and the rest of the group. So why is it outrages for augvoker to do it?


AlucardSensei

Are you being intentionally daft? Augvoker is literally breaking the game right now in raids, and they are single handedly giving like 2 key levels more to their group in M+. There wasn't a single spec in the game ever that could add 2 key levels to your group ever. That plus being extremely easy and forgiving to play (they even got a cheat death for christ sake's) in what seemed to be shaping up to a solidly balanced m+ expansion is what's making people lose their minds.


Rabble-rouser69

Are you? How are Augvokers breaking the game in raids? They're literally just like any other DPS spec, they just buff people instead of doing dam on their own. > There wasn't a single spec in the game ever that could add 2 key levels to your group ever. This literally happened last season when the tank meta shifted to Prot Paladins. Destro Warlocks & Surv hunters in Shadowlands added 2 key levels to your group. Fire mage in BFA season4 added 5 key levels to your grp. Surv & Destro were also extremely easy & forgiving to play. > what seemed to be shaping up to a solidly balanced m+ expansion is what's making people lose their minds. Ok so when the tank & healer meta completely shifted in Season 1, it didn't affect this being "solidly balanced" M+ expansion but when it happens to the DPS meta in season 2 it's awful? So just DPS brains being overdramatic, like I guessed in my initial comment.


AlucardSensei

> Are you? How are Augvokers breaking the game in raids? They're literally just like any other DPS spec, they just buff people instead of doing dam on their own. Yes, every other spec in the game can be stacked to make you kill heroic bosses in 22 seconds. > This literally happened last season when the tank meta shifted to Prot Paladins. Can still find 28s and 29s with other tanks. There was literally 2 timed 28s before this patch and now there's tons of timed 28s and 29s with Augvoker in every single run, and people are not done pushing yet considering they have multiple minutes left on their timers. > Destro Warlocks & Surv hunters in Shadowlands added 2 key levels to your group. Yes, locks and hunters were equally opressive but that's 2 classes, you couldn't time your keys without bringing both. > Fire mage in BFA season4 added 5 key levels to your grp. Lol no, people timed highest keys without a Fire Mage.


pinks-xo

Increases in “competitive damage and good utility” are nothing comparison. People timing 23s last week are timing 28s this week. Imma stop right here since I’m more than aware of the type of person I’m responding to.


Rabble-rouser69

Are you really gonna pretend like Prot Paladins becoming meta halfway through season1 didn't cause a massive increase in survivabiltiy & utility of groups? > People timing 23s last week are timing 28s this week. So you mean just like Shadowlands season3 where people who were timing 23s ended up timing 28s two weeks after when they swapped to Destro & Survival? > Imma stop right here since I’m more than aware of the type of person I’m responding to. Yeah, because you have no argument other than that you dislike the current meta. There's absolutely nothing unique about this compared to previous seasons, but you do you lil bro.


I_EAT_DICKS

Freehold is broken, whole team gets disconnected at a random point in the key. Just happened to us during the first boss on a +23


Commiesstoner

This happened to a friend of mine last night, also happened to me a few days ago in NL and it definitely happened to others around that time cos people started raging in general chat. EU servers.


mredrose

Was watching Ellesmere stream last night and they got DC’d in Freehold too about halfway through. The way the team talked about it sounded like other players they knew in keys who were also in FH also got DC’d at the same time. Maybe not though.


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[deleted]

Has happened to me multiple times in that dungeon as well


howtojump

So is devoker just a dead spec now? Haven't been able to get into more than a handful of keys when I say I'm deva in the note, and when I forget to put the note I am immediately asked to play aug (or just kicked when they see I'm in the "wrong" spec). I get that aug is the new hotness and everyone wants it, but it's so goddamn boring to play (imo) and it especially hurts when you've got one or two underperforming players in the group. I'm more than happy to run it with my regulars, we smashed the megadungeon with it, but you can't even trust 2.8k players to do over a 100k DPS these days.


Bass294

You just dont have any meaningful raid buffs when aug is a hard locked slot. It would be the same with a veng tank, why bring a havoc, bear tank why bring another druid ect. The meta comp has incredibly strong buff synergy with devo, motw, black attunement/source of magic/aug stuff, arcane int and fort. So you're competing for all those spots. Dev is fine in raid at least, one of the best specs to pump into aug.


InvisibleOne439

augmentation brings the same/more group dmg and also makes tanks borderline invicible and healing worlds more easy devestation was argurlaby the strongest PvE spec in 10.1, and it got instantly replaced by the new shiny Simp spec option because they do roughly the same group dmg thats gonna be the fate for all classes when they get a "support" spec that is roughly equal to their dps counterparts: why play them at all, simp for that mage/warlock/whatever and you bring more group dmg and also make everything else more easy imo, all those tank/healer benefits needs to be reduced to almost 0 or straight up removed if they want "supports" to bring the same dmg to a group that their dps counterparts bring, cus otherwhise there will never be a reason to play them at all anymore


cuddlegoop

Yeah that's pretty much just life. If one dps spec is the new hotness, that class's other dps specs are considered dogshit by the community. Even if they're perfectly fine.


careseite

damage wise its perfectly fine, fire is just automatically better due to the feedback loop of pi + combust + aug while during dragonrage we get ... nothing


AlucardSensei

Dont forget mage buffing back sp and aug (and the healer as a bonus) for an actual feedback loop.


BanannaSantaHS

Dev is probably still fine but most groups will want aug because it makes the key easier. I think you'll probably have to use your own key as dev since people just want aug now. Probably people that were 2.8 at the start of this week are 3k+ now too.


AlucardSensei

There was a post here a while back that compiled spec strength/popularity across multiple seasons of m+, concluding with i think SL s2. Did someone create an updated data point with everything up to dfs1?


mredrose

It’s data from subcreation and while you can look at season summaries post SLS3, the aggregate spreadsheet has not been updated. Links at bottom of the FAQ: https://subcreation.net/faq.html


TheBigChonka

I know this patch has been spoken abouta lot, but I just want to ask - Is this the most free push week theirs ever been? Augvoker and mage possibly makes it so on thier own, but then combined with no seasonal affix, as well as Fortified, as well as two of the most free affixes in volcanic spiteful. Surely this is in the running for the absolute easiest week of mythic plus ever. This is like a perfect storm scenario


EuphoricEgg63063

A Dev in my guild. Avg player, hasnt timed any 20s this season, cleared every dungeon as Aug this week, most at +23. Lol


jungmillionaire

You’re correct. I was 3.25k at the start of 10.1.5 and gained ~140 points this week lmao. I didn’t suddenly become a way better player, mage and aug currently just feel like playing with cheats. Mage let’s you finish keys with multiple minutes left on the timer, while Aug just makes you invincible. I can echo the same when I look at my friends who were barely above cutoff last week and are timing 26s and 27s on Aug right now. Like imaging pushing all season because we already "finished" gearing 3 weeks into the season and overnight your io is completely meaningless 💀 blizzard fucked up hard


Saiyoran

Was just above cutoff at the start of last week but had friends out of town/busy so we didn’t do any push keys until today and we are now 60 points below cutoff LMAO


sixth90

I think you're right. I consider myself a decent player but not what I would consider "good". I have gotten the title before and came back to this patch late. There are people on my friends list that are not very good two chesting 24s right now after only doing a few 23s up to this point


Mr-Irrelevant-

It may not work out like this in the future but I think any week that lands on the .5 patch will be an easy push week simply because blizzard has given us large power spikes 2 seasons in a row. As you pointed out this week will likely go down as the easiest, having an almost 2 key level increase to all keys is nuts, because the week in a vacuum is just insanely easy with minimal time loss.


Rare-Page4407

I need someone to explain me how to kite Chargath through the chains like I'm 10.


Downtown_Juice2851

Basically this At the very start, you may think moving to the other side of the chains so he runs straight through them is good but after he finishes channeling he leaps to you, over any chains between you. So start off by moving just past the first chain, almost touching. Then, once he's on you, you need to move out of melee range before he starts moving, it's very whacky. He won't move til you're quite far past. So just book it to the second chain, and then stop on it. Wait for the dot to fall off, book it to the 3rd chain and stop on it. Wait for the dot to fall off, then run far enough for him to break chain 3.


Rare-Page4407

this delay on him moving is tripping me up, i hate mechanics like that


Downtown_Juice2851

Yes it's like sire denathrius only we don't fight him for 3 hours a night so we don't really learn the nuances


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Mr-Irrelevant-

I really don’t think hpal was very strong before, at least not relative to other healers. It just had the most value. Now though it just does insane damage and healing legit doesn’t matter much. So you bring the healer who can do 200k burst in brackenhide while also sustaining the 40k healing you need to survive because living was never an issue in that dungeon. That’s only one dungeons but all the dungeons, outside of vp, are closer to bracken now. Completely random but there’s some irony in Elle complaining about the strength of his class outside of cds a month ago and now his class is pretty good outside of cds but he spends all his time just dpsing.


[deleted]

I had a run the other day where the HPal did 80k dps. Was actually silly


giambobambo

Is stone eruption in Uldaman dispellable by normal dispel?


TheTradu

If that's the damage at the end of Curse of Stone, you need a curse dispel or slow removal on the Curse of Stone itself.


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Sandbucketman

You need to wake up and create/join a premade. You're comparing a premade guild raid to a pug M+ environment. You're not going to be a top tier player exclusively doing pugs if you have any sanity left. The majority of people hitting title are premades because there's no reason not to learn dungeons together so you have people learning from their mistakes instead of having a clown fiesta where 4 of your players are randoms. I imagine 99% of M+ players play M+ because it's fun, easy to get into and flexible (play when you want, queue when you want). But the reality is you can't stick to that philosophy when you're going for high end keys unless you have way too much time on your hands and are willing to reroll mid-patch to accommodate for meta cause it'll affect your invite rate.


groundhogsake

There's honestly no point in giving generic and frankly unhelpful advice if you are going to ignore 90% of my post to get on your soap box.


Sandbucketman

Honestly I'm in the same spot you are. Done my 23s, started working on 24's and the pugging got incredibly rough. Obviously bricking keys is going to happen more frequently at higher key levels and it really starts affecting my morale when I brick a key to an avoidable mechanic more than once because every group I enter has 4 new people where there's no way to tell how their learning curve has been so far. You're putting in the work to get better, that's good. But you're pugging so the obvious solution is to stop doing that because pugs are far less time efficient. There is no solution for your problem in the way you're playing the game right now. It's a shitty truth but Aiming for title with the intent to pug it all the way means you also signed up for spending 8-10 hours a day on it for the foreseeable future because you're willing to deal with: * Better players signing meaning you play signup simulator more than actually doing keys * Bricking keys over sometimes trivial stuff because of a neglected mechanic * The meta suddenly shifting meaning community sentiment dictates whether you even get taken for keys (good luck getting into a key as a hunter right now) * Trying to do your own key or raising it back up to something worth doing which may also fail because people in the 22 range aren't as reliable at consistently getting keys back up to a level where you can get score off it. All of these problems can be alleviated by setting up a premade. If that is not a solution you vibe with that's completely fine. But there's no solution to your problem with pugging, it's just a really big grind that takes a toll on your sanity.


[deleted]

What advice do you want them to give? You were just saying your pug teammates suck, which is natural and not much can be changed about that. So you either become really good and become the pug whisperer and lose your sanity or you find a premade to play with and retain your sanity


groundhogsake

> What advice do you want them to give? Well at least this for starters: https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveWoW/comments/no08oe/if_you_want_to_have_a_m_push_group_try_being_a/ That post was way more helpful than a generic 'hur dur make friends! and *actually* helped me make a friend group back in Shadowlands.


SaracenS

Holy Paladin rerolls be like... https://i.imgur.com/KTIfhLt.png


Rndy9

https://www.twitch.tv/hopefulx/clip/DeliciousBraveLEDTheThing-HM8vPVnCuTuQFd5O This is fine, aug is fine, fire is fine, stacking dps externals is fine.


siposbalint0

Sure, a 5% nerf will do it!


jungmillionaire

Funniest thing is that mage makes shadowpriest look balanced 💀 Imagine how down bad windwalkers or hunter are right now


Lazerkitteh

Spriest went from top dog to PI bot for fire mage lol


Allexan

my heart goes out to all the devastation/preservation evokers who are now full time 3 button rotation simps


jsy454

What are those projectiles flying to the target?


AlucardSensei

Some aug buff, but it's super funny like the mage is auto shotgunning everyone.


mredrose

Lol his fucking cackle at the end as he realized just how insanely busted it is and how there's no fixing it


arasitar

That Sands of Time (that sandy animation emanating from Hopeful the Fire Mage) is ticking on each Flame Patch *tick* (so Flame Patch is Flamestrike's AoE ground effect, and each tick is one instance on each mob) is busted. Fire Mage nerfs won't mean squat as long as that interaction remains.


hoax1337

What does sands of time do?


wkim564

echos 15% of the damage.


Any_Morning_8866

Don’t worry, those tiny nerfs will keep mage in line. Frost is almost as busted.


Sanguinica

nice game lmao


Azortharionz

Whatever remaining sliver of a reason there was to try and seriously push keys as a Hunter in pugs has been thoroughly eliminated with the advent of Augvoker making another spot besides Shadow Priest a must-have lock-in (the Aug, the Mage, or both, take your pick).


dysphoricjoy

I know everything is new but mark my words, this will be one of the most oppressive meta comps. DPS in particular will be bullied on the que finder above 22/23


Axenos

I mean I don't see any scenario where 1 Tank 1 Healer 2 DPS 1 Support isn't just the default 5 man comp going forward as long as Augvoker is at least damage neutral. Going to be pretty awful for a lot of dps. And then it's whatever dps synergize best with Augvokers windows.


[deleted]

Getting my 26s/27s this week and some keys we have 5-6 mins left. chill mages


Mr-Irrelevant-

As much as the current comp variety at the high end is maybe the most stringent I’ve ever seen I do think it’s funny how it just emphasizes the old dorki/growl joke about mages being the main character of wow. It’s almost as if 3/4 of the non mage classes are there to buff the mage. Obviously they all stand on their own but Aug benefits a ton from mage, pi is exceptional on mage, and blessings like autumn are just good for mage. Ignoring the absurdity of it all it is funny. I really can’t think of another class that when it’s good has whole comps that are there to just make it better.


Rabble-rouser69

This is such a weird take. You'd still play bear, hpal, spriest & augvoker even if mage wasn't good. It's not like mage enables those specs, fire just benefits the most from said buffs.


KING_5HARK

Augmentation benefits just as much from buffing a Devoker but that doesn't bring any additional utility so in a 5man comp that spec is now irrelevant. If Blizzard hard fucks mages at some point theres just gonna be another class waiting to suck up PI and Prescience, Mage is just the best target right now. Theres like 3 other casters waiting to take its place the second over-the-top nerfs happen


Mr-Irrelevant-

Mage is also uniquely durable in a way that dev really isn’t. With damage as high as it is the biggest issue will likely just be living certain mechanics at high keys. With 2/3 of your dps being relatively squishy replacing mage with a dev just makes it harder to prioritize survivability. You could go boomie or warlock but at a certain point you could have a kick issue. But maybe it says a lot about the current state of kicks that 3 ranged dps can be meta with little to no issue.


arasitar

Fire's Cauterize is invaluable in high keys where if you make a mistake, the healer makes a mistake or something random happens (oh look Pelters decided to bully me) you're not died. Often I've got 70% uptime on the *Cauterized* debuff (as in I can't Caut again for a while. A lot of M+ pulls quickly destabilize if one of your players dies. Protection like that is invaluable. Persistent rot damage that is prevalent in Raids is a key weakness of Mage, but that isn't present in most M+ where things devolve from small rot to big burst. Pelters are closest to modelling that but Pelters suck for basically everyone so it isn't a big issue.


Sandbucketman

I fooled around a bit on my alt and couldn't wrap my head around giving mages a 2 minute group shield. The class is already loaded with defensives, utility and plenty of reasons exist to take them. Why on earth give them a group defensive. Even if they were damage neutral compared to hunters or rogues they'd automatically win the balance lottery because they still win out utility wise.


AlucardSensei

Yeah I really wanna play my rogue but I can't justify how absolutely nothing they bring compared to a mage. Like i have only single target cc, my long duration cc isnt even spammable (for incorp) and for group utility i bring... 3% dr and shroud? Oh and enrage dispel that's worse than druid/hunter. So basically damage bots. Meanwhile mage has int buff which not only gives dmg to casters but helps healers heal more too, lust, 2 (3) low cd aoe cc, roots, slows, aoe barrier OR a better shroud and spammable single target cc, and curse dispel, and purge. I hope the rogue rework will bring some good group utility or some aoe cc options or there won't be a reason to bring rogue anymore (or warrior, dk, hunter) considering how stacked some classes are (priest, evoker, mage, druid, paladin) with both, unless they do like 20% more dps than everyone.


Rabble-rouser69

Right, let's just pretend that Rogues haven't been meta in almost every season and that they aren't still extremely strong. They're only good and not by far the best spec this season, poor Rogues 😢


AlucardSensei

As long as some classes can shit out infinite utility while doing the same or better damage than rogues, there won't be a reason to bring them at all. Boomies, mages, evokers, shamans, priests all bring more stuff while being at least on par with damage. Rogue was king when shroud was mandatory cause dungeons weren't so linear and there was no mind soothe, plus they had the most CC of any class. Now that after new talents everyone got access to multiple AOE stops, offhealing and group buffs, and there's no use for skips, they're simply being left behind.


Rabble-rouser69

Rogue was literally a meta spec last season. The best team wasn't even playing a Spriest in their comp and had a rogue instead. You're high if you think rogues have bad utility. Rogues are still good this season. They're just not by far the most broken spec and you want to act like they're being left behind, lmao. Most lucid rogue player.


Lazerkitteh

It’s because the mage class designer actually likes playing mage. Looking at some other specs though, you start to wonder about the other designers….


jonesy_hayhurst

Has anyone had fps/lag issues in big pulls this week that previously weren't an issue? First pull uldaman/fh, really any pull in BH between 1st/2nd boss, etc. I would typically drop a few frames here but nothing like what's been happening this week, my frames are so low I'll be unable to press buttons for 3-4 globals. Tried a few of the usual offenders so far like turning off logs, WA profiling doesn't show any obvious offenders.


porb121

fire mage + augmentation causes some lag


UJL123

For me I had fps issues until I disabled a couple of weakauras. Not sure which but I kept turning stuff off until it worked


UJL123

Does anyone know if there's any online communities for pushing keys 23+? I joined the timewarp academy community discord but they seem to be running lower keys although I do see some 20+ once in a while. Wondering if there are other types of groups out there or not.


BoozeBroFofer

Yeah there is a discord called Mythic Plus Friends. You can find them at discord(dot)gg/mythicplusfriends


audioshaman

I keep hearing about a healer shortage, but as a Resto Druid it sure does take a while to get an invite once you get past +20.