Jdotb Q&A #19 - Updated Top 3 Mythic+ Spec Rankings, Minigames in Dungeons

Live Posted 2018/07/24 at 7:49 PM by Squishei

[spell=90099] live video from jdotb on www.twitch.tvMethod Jdotb Q&A #19How do you feel about minigames or other gimmicks in dungeons? I can see from a design perspective that they add interest and depth to the player experience, but wouldn't it make sense to allow them to be optionally skipped (like repeat cinematics) for speed running?

As the question alludes to, minigames in a dungeon are fun once or twice as a novelty and then mostly boring and repetitive after that. I can't think of a single time in a dungeon where there was a minigame that I enjoyed doing, and the best that you can hope for in those cases is that the minigame is at least unobtrusive and harmless. It's much worse when the minigames are potentially lethal or time-consuming.

But this issue is magnified immensely in the context of the esport-ification of M+. A minigame that might be annoying while doing casual dungeons with your friends can quickly become a way to throw a match that might be worth thousands of dollars. To give a relevant BFA example, there is a room in Temple of Sethraliss where players have to weave through a rotating field of lightning orbs that will deal significant damage and return you to the front of the room if touched. For players with high latency (e.g., the European and Australian players that are forced to play on NA servers for beta right now), it's not uncommon at all to get hit by “phantom” orbs that aren't anywhere close to you on your screen. WoW is not a platformer, and while I appreciate that the dungeon designers want to add flair, this is not the way to do it.

I routinely get asked on stream if it seems like the new dungeons have been designed with M+ in mind, as there has been some talk from the devs in recent months that indicates that dungeons are more esports-friendly in BFA now that M+ is an established thing and not the brand new game mode it was in Legion. The answer, so far as I can tell, is “absolutely not”. And I don't mean that as a critique or a slight. The majority of WoW players will never attempt to speedrun these dungeons, so building the dungeons with speedrunning in mind doesn't make sense. I'm sure the dungeon designers are tasked with making memorable, visually-appealing content that the average (i.e., casual) player will enjoy. And BFA is a success in that sense. Most of the dungeons have a strong theme and look good.

When I see minigames, though, it becomes obvious to me that M+ is a secondary concern in dungeon design process, and players shouldn't assume that the BFA mechanics have been vetted rigorously in that context. I'm counting on an expansion with continual tweaks to the dungeons as it becomes apparent that certain bosses are too hard or easy or certain timers are too lenient or strict. And that's probably the most that we as a minority of the playerbase can ask for from content that we share with the general public.

Please please PLEASE ditch the minigames, though. No one wants those.

Do you think we will ever see a time when players choose to master multiple specs for a certain class? For example, there were past expansions when Druid players would carry around a Feral and a Boomkin set and play ranged or melee as needed.

The issue with playing a different spec (as opposed to a different class) is that most classes have specs that are entirely different roles. As a druid, for instance, any spec you choose will have no overlap with other specs -- you can be a healer, a melee, a ranged or a tank. Every spec in the game is going to require learning some new things, but roles can at times be even more difficult to learn.

I think most players will agree that learning a new role has a much steeper learning curve than learning a new spec within the same role. If you play a healer, regardless of which healer, your knowledge of a boss encounter will be skewed towards the mechanics that are important to a healer. Unless you're a naturally curious player that wants to learn a boss fight from all angles, there will probably be things happening in the fight that you aren't paying attention to because you aren't responsible for them. This isn't an issue if you swap from one healer to another, but it can become a big deal if you try to swap from a healer to a tank, or from a ranged DPS to a melee DPS.

One of the biggest challenges I faced in Legion was learning how to DPS on my Resto druid. The best way to contribute meaningful damage as Resto was to take the Feral Affinity talent which gave you access to several Feral abilities. But this also meant that you had to be in melee range to deal damage, and until you've actually been in melee range you can't appreciate how wild and terrifying it can be. I'd spent half the expansion standing at range being blissfully ignorant of how safe it was, and my first couple weeks with Feral Affinity were a blooper reel of me getting mashed by cleaves that I didn't know existed until I got hit by them. It was like learning the dungeons all over again. And I know my MDI teammate Mitt had a similar experience when he switched to Windwalker for the tournament after mostly playing Boomkin on live.

As a practical matter, unless you're playing one of the “pure” DPS classes (mage, warlock, rogue, hunter), swapping to an offspec is likely going to be considerably more work than just playing an alt with the same role. And that's to say nothing of player preference -- if you're playing a healer, it's probably because you like healing. Could you play DPS if required? Probably. But that isn't what you want to play, and only one healing class has the luxury of an offspec with the same role.

Gear is also an issue. You only have so many ways to acquire upgrades, and many of those are weekly lockouts. It doesn't necessarily make sense to try to gear two different specs on one character and thereby divide your chances at getting upgrades. Do you roll for the tank trinket or the DPS trinket this week? The healer mace or the melee fist weapons? Why force yourself to dilute your loot when you could just play two different characters?

So, no, I don't think we'll ever see many players trying to play offspecs at high levels. Usually an offspec is a different role which you may not enjoy playing at all, and even if you do, it just makes a lot more sense to roll a new character for that purpose.

From what you've seen in BFA dungeons, is it better to bring a tank to Mythic+ that has better utility or better dps?

First let's start by identifying the goal that any M+ group should have: finishing the key on time. A lot of people ask me which specs do the most damage, but the real question that everyone should ask is, “Which specs make the dungeon go the fastest?” DPS is one way to make a dungeon go faster, but there are other (sometimes more important) ways to help you time your key. So when examining tank DPS vs. utility, you need to be asking yourself which of these things will help you complete the dungeon more quickly.

It's fairly simple to account for a tank's DPS when considering how fast they make the dungeon go. The current king of tank DPS, Vengeance, can legitimately hang with actual DPS classes on trash packs, and their single target damage isn't bad either. All you have to do is look at the damage meter to see that the Vengeance DH is helping to shred enemies maybe 15-20% faster than a tank of a different spec. So how do the other tank classes compete?

The most obvious way is with straight up mitigation and self-healing. The tradeoff for all its firepower is that Vengeance is a relatively squishy tank. If you start gathering up a lot of mobs, a DH will struggle to stand toe to toe with them and will likely have to resort to kiting. Beefier tanks like Blood DK or Brewmaster monk can afford to spend more time in melee range of the enemies and continue dealing damage and, perhaps more crucially, keep the mobs in one place. Several DPS classes have powerful AoE that is stationary and can't be moved at will to follow a trash pack. If a tank is continuously kiting mobs, something like Rain of Fire might only get a few ticks off before the trash has wandered out of its proximity. So while the tank might be doing good damage, other members of the group may be suffering for the tactics necessary to enable that tank damage.

Another way that tanks can make a dungeon go faster is with their ability to gather trash and group it quickly. Blood DK tanks are notorious for being able to use Gorefiend's Grasp and instantly stack up several packs of mobs that were only loosely collected around the DK. This allows DPS to begin attacking immediately instead of waiting for the mobs to trickle in. Brewmasters and DHs have some similar tools, like Ring of Peace or Sigil of Chains, that can help them cluster mobs up quickly. Conversely, the inability to group mobs quickly is a major reason why Guardian druid and Protection warrior aren't taken seriously in the M+ meta.

The easiest way to fail a key is to die a lot, and some of the tanks have tools to help with that. Blood DK and Guardian druids have battle res, and Protection paladin has Blessing of Protection and Sacrifice, not to mention and Lay on Hands. These can help take pressure off the healer and prevent wipes on difficult boss fights.

Lastly, each dungeon will have different requirements for the tanks. Some dungeons have bosses that manhandle tanks while others are pretty light on tank damage. If you're in one of the dungeons where the tank isn't always in imminent danger, then tank DPS is probably a bigger concern for you. But if you know the boss is liable to chunk the tank at any point, you might not particularly care that the tank is pumping damage.

As you might have guessed, the answer to “DPS or utility?” is that it depends. If a dungeon has easy bosses and trash packs with few casters that are easily groupable, you probably want a tank that can maul everything (note: I use the term “maul” figuratively because you don't actually want the tank that uses Maul to ever be in your dungeon). If you know that a dungeon is going to bring the pain from start to finish, a tank like Protection paladin that can heal the party might become substantially more useful. Unlike in Legion, where the answer was always Blood DK, I expect to see a variety of tank classes competing for world first keys in BFA, and each of them will have dungeons that they excel in.

July 24th Top 3 by Role in Battle for Azeroth

Healer:

Holy Paladin - Paladin damage got toned down a bit via nerfs to Consecrate and Holy Shock, but damage wasn't what had me putting paladins in the top spot to begin with. The tools that make this class amazing for M+ weren't touched, and I think it's realistic to expect that those tools never WILL be touched, either. I'm still betting on paladins being the top dog for healers throughout BFA.

Discipline Priest - Discipline saw most of its offensive spells get nerfed (Penance, Schism, PW:Solace, Smite) between 5-10%. But this class still does great damage, and it still has several ways to reduce damage taken by the party which will be critical in high keys. Like paladin, the things that make Disc priests exciting are unlikely to get nerfed -- shields are unbeatable when you get to keys where damage scales into one-shot territory, and Disc isn't losing its big shields any time soon.

Mistweaver/Resto Druid - Ok ok, this is a copout. But honestly these two specs are very similar in what they bring to a key: mediocre damage, strong healing throughput, good personal survivability, and poor party survivability. If a dungeon is challenging because of sustained damage, these healers will excel. But if a dungeon starts doing one-shot damage, both of these healers will struggle to keep their party alive. And neither of them will pop off on the damage meter.

Tank:

I'll preface the tank rankings by saying that I legitimately feel like all the tanks are in a good place except Guardian druid and Protection warrior, which are both bad for M+. I don't feel like the other four tank specs are significantly different from each other at this point.

Brewmaster Monk - I think Brewmaster ends up at the top of my rankings due to addition by subtraction. This spec had a lot of good things going for it in Legion, but it was missing one critical thing: self-healing. While other tanks like DH and DK could self-sustain indefinitely, monks were always in constant need of healing. That hasn't changed in BFA for monks, but what HAS changed is that now all the other tanks need healing, too, so this isn't a weakness for monks specifically. The rest of the monk kit is great; Ring of Peace and Transcendence are fantastic for gathering trash; Keg Smash and Breath of Fire let monks DPS from outside of melee range; Stagger keeps monks from getting surprised by damage. This spec feels very well suited for the BFA meta.

Vengeance Demon Hunter - Vengeance got some moderate nerfs to their damage this week, but it wasn't anything that truly affects the class. Mostly DH falls in my rankings simply because of how close I feel all the tanks are, and a small change can have this effect. DH is still a monster on the DPS meters, but the spec does take noticeably more damage than some of its peers, and when it runs out of defensive cooldowns it requires near constant healing. It has good crowd control utility and will excel in dungeons where it has room to kite.

Protection Paladin - Paladins bring to the table something that no other tank can at the moment which is group healing. This was overshadowed in Legion by DKs with their Vampiric Aura, but paladins are capable of putting out some clutch heals on their party members. Add in Blessing of Protection, Blessing of Sacrifice and Lay on Hands and you're looking at a tank that almost doubles as a second healer. Their damage took a hit this week, but their mitigation still seems solid. I think paladin has the highest skill cap of any tank in the game, and I expect the good ones to really shine in heavy damage situations.

DPS:

Any Rogue Spec - Last time I did these rankings, I listed Outlaw as my choice for rogue specs. Since then I have had the privilege of running dungeons with all three rogue specs and now realize that it wasn't just Outlaw -- all three of the specs are amazing. Subtlety is great for erasing Infested mobs; Assassination has top notch single target damage and an AoE slow that can be spammed; Outlaw is still doing great AoE damage. Combine stellar damage with rogue utility and you've got yourself a winner. This class came out of the tuning pass this week mostly unscathed, so it's an easy top choice.

Frost Mage - Frost mage got a few nerfs this week, but the thing that makes it so good for M+ (65% snare from Blizzard) wasn't touched. Frost is still doing great damage with Glacial Spike and Comet Storm, but it almost doesn't matter what kind of damage Frost is doing so long as it has Blizzard.

Affliction Warlock - I can almost hear the M+ community screaming as I write this, but yes, we're staring down the barrel of another season of Affliction warlock. On the bright side, warlock damage got seriously nerfed, but it was so good that the nerfs still leave warlock damage in a good place. But like the two specs above, warlock is here more for its toolkit than its damage. Healthstones, gateways, summons, battle res -- this class is a Swiss army knife. So long as its damage is respectable, it will have a home in top M+ groups. Affliction edges out Destruction now based on the strength of Affliction's formidable single target damage.

Comment by Spanky2kRIP Restoration Shaman, Protection Warrior and Guardian Druid. Although I suspect both of those tanks will get buffs early in BfA due to how bad they're looking for both m+ and raids.Comment by dingledotsDemo and destro still have better survivability so I doubt aff will ever be top tier overall; maybe in dungs where you're not worried about falling over from damage taken and one-shots but anywhere that tanky dps are better - you want demo or at least destro.Comment by MagikMurlokPlease god no not another expansion of affliction. Please let demo be top this expansion, for once.

Also do this same article for raids ^^, it's awesome. (and keep these article updates coming!)Comment by LebotixHe won't do raids. More likely to get a different author to do an article for raids in they do. I don't see it happening till after BFA is actually released either.Comment by Faradizeno no no no no! since mop im waiting for destro shine, 2 weeks ago it seemed like this will be it, but that 20% overall dmg nerf killed it. please no more affliComment by UbermingeWas on the fence about my mage until I read this. I liked frost more than any other mage spec Legion, but my problem was always with the RNG. Had a chance to play frost since 8.0 and I really like the play style more now than I did before.Comment by lovelywazWhy not say "any" warlock spec when the reasons he mentioned are not Affliction only? I've seen destro locks do pretty good damage too on live, unless their damage scales down at 120, only Aff locks shouldn't be highlighted.Comment by Sp33deyMinigames like that in Sethraliss are different and special! Please Blizz, don't remove minigames just because some elitists don't like them.
Especially because this one is only a problem if you have high latency. That's like doing a speedrun of crash bandicoot and bashing the gimmicky groundhog levels, just deal with it.Comment by IkarugameshWoW is not a platformerPlease please PLEASE ditch the minigames, though. No one wants those.Comment by EeshenBlah my favorite healer (Resto Shaman) and favorite tank spec (Protection Warrior) screwed againComment by 1335829Why not say "any" warlock spec when the reasons he mentioned are not Affliction only? I've seen destro locks do pretty good damage too on live, unless their damage scales down at 120, only Aff locks shouldn't be highlighted.Comment by LiluluIt seems like Guardian and Prot Warrior just need some kind of 'get over here!' type ability to get them back in the game.

Prot warriors used to have a banner that would taunt - much like Brewmaster's statue does now. Perhaps Prot Warriors could get an 'Incite' or 'Warriors Challenge' ability that forces aggroed monsters to (literally) charge into melee with the Warrior - the banner being the theme behind it, in effect 'throwing down the gauntlet' it'd fit well enough with Warriors "no magic all might" fantasy.

Guardian druids could do something involving vines or brambles perhaps - a reverse typhoon that pulls enemies in rather than shoving them away? The gimmick being it's a conal aoe like Typhoon.

In either case, the thought exercise here was to come up with 'pull mobs together' skills that aren't a 'gorefiends grasp' or 'sigil of chains'.Comment by Spanky2kPlease god no not another expansion of affliction. Please let demo be top this expansion, for once.

Also do this same article for raids ^^, it's awesome. (and keep these article updates coming!)no no no no no! since mop im waiting for destro shine, 2 weeks ago it seemed like this will be it, but that 20% overall dmg nerf killed it. please no more affliWhy not say "any" warlock spec when the reasons he mentioned are not Affliction only? I've seen destro locks do pretty good damage too on live, unless their damage scales down at 120, only Aff locks shouldn't be highlighted.Comment by LoKHorAlways interesting to read about high end stuff.

In terms of dungeon minigames, if after your first m+ run in that instance they made them optional or very easy, it might solve the "issue" for competitive m+ teams.

Sticking with fire over frost - unless it turns out to be subpar in war mode also. Never going to do high end m+, so mage spec shouldn't matter that much. :)