Over the weekend, we downed the first raid boss on Heroic on the third attempt, then the GM chickened out of the rest, opting instead to clear the whole place on Normal… which we did handily. We even did Azshara with a full guild group, earning the guild some achievement, which was nice. Unfortunately, while it's great we can clear normal, it does absolutely jack for bolstering my personal gear. Unless an item drop randomly titanforges, it's pretty much guaranteed to be a serious downgrade.
So what's an up-and-coming arcane mage to do? Why, run mythical dungeons!
I've mostly avoided mythic+ for several reasons. One, the "job interview" trap. Unless you're leading the group itself (something I'm loathe to do), you have to have the experience in order to be invited to groups. Mythics are races against the clock with 5 second time penalties for every death your team takes (plus the time it takes to recover and regroup), and mechanic screw-ups are usually rewarded with insta-kills. As a result, sane people want to make sure you're capable before you're allowed in. I can't fault them for that. Second, you can't queue for them. That's just a lazy factor on my part. Flying to the dungeon, summoning party members. Finally, they're expensive. You're going to be buffing yourself with flasks and food like it's a raid. You HAVE to be operating at peak if you're "pushing keys".
(Apologies if any of the following is repeated in other posts.) A keystone placed in a receptacle by the dungeon entrance turns a dungeon into a mythic plus. A helpfully intimidating UI element shows a stopwatch and the number of deaths your group has accrued. Nothing drops loot until a chest at the end of the dungeon. Beating the dungeon in the time limit replaces your key with a higher level key for a randomly-chosen new dungeon, plus you get bonus loot. Beating the dungeon outside of time replaces your key with another key of the same level for a randomly-chosen dungeon. Bailing on a dungeon = no rewards and the key gets dropped in level. As dungeons get harder, they get "affixes" which makes your life hell in special ways. For example, "bolstering" gives all enemies a stacking +20% health and damage boost when a non-boss critter dies near them. Others do things like give you constant damage when you're wounded less than 90% or have extra mobs, etc. There's a LOT of variety in the pain you can suffer.
So, long story short, one of the guildies says "Hey, anyone interested in running [some dungeon I've been in once 9 months ago]? Mythic 2." He's one of our raiders and I reply "If you'd like a slightly drunk mage with moderate dps, shoot me an invite. If you're sane, grab someone else." In seconds I had an invite and a few minutes later, my intoxicated ass was delving into the Underrot. It went REALLY well and at the end, his key advanced by 2 levels, and I got a nice gear downgrade for my own part. (Like with most other things, harder stuff has higher rewards and this was a pretty low-level mythic. I think I'd need level 7s and higher to have a chance at upgrades.)
But most importantly, this gave me experience and a shot of confidence and began a long, strange trip for me over the weekend. My mythic buddy invited me back again and again and with a rotating cast of other guildies and pugged tanks, we ran another 5 dungeons along the way (sober), ending the game week with a couple of mythic 8s. We didn't meet clock time on the 8s (the "bolstering" makes pushing keys nearly impossible this week), but otherwise they are mostly smooth runs. There's never a time to pause, as one fight almost immediately leads to another. This poses a challenge for arcane, since it means virtually zero time to regain mana outside of combat. I've started treating them as single 30-35 minute fights, frantic and challenging, but fun.
Along the way I experienced at least one totally new (to me) dungeon and often it had been so long since I ran others, I had to read the dungeon journal on the fly to remind myself of basic fight mechanics. For me, it was a relief when we ran the otherwise universally-hated Siege of Boralus, simply because I knew those fights so well. As a nice touch, each dungeon makes me more "invitable" to pugs. "Gearscore" has long since gone by the wayside. Now it is all about your Raider.io score. Feel free to check it out. It's terrifyingly detailed information about how bad you suck and checked by the people who want to be successful.
Otherwise, I somehow I found the time to cap my pvp Conquest rewards, hit 850 unique pets, make another 100k on the AH through cornering the gloom dust market, and utterly failed to get Invincible from the Lich King for the 30th time.
Today, however is Tuesday. A new week of raid lockouts (31st failure incoming!) and for the first time I'll get to loot both a weekly mythic rewards chest and conquest chest that potentially hold upgrades.
No comments:
Post a Comment