Hey all! This is a thread about changes specific to dungeons in Shadowlands to bring all dungeons to equal footing.
What do I mean by that?
Currently, the most fun, most desirable and easiest dungeon is (without a doubt) Necrotic Wake. Getting a Necrotic Wake key at the start of the week feels great! Getting a Theater of Pain or Sanguine Depths key feels bad. Ideally, all dungeons are as fun / cool as this NW, which is difficult to accomplish. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try!
I’m going to list out of couple of changes to several dungeons with the hopes of bringing them to the same level of fun and excitement as Necrotic Wake. I’m going to list the TL;DR up here, then the explainations below:
- Note: The Group listings are based on the MDT addon groups (i.e. G1, G2 etc…)
TL;DR for changes:
Sanguine Depths
- Move the first Venthyr Anima cage from the current location to G6 (the first pack in the long corridor where the first boss is)
- Kryxis the Voracious’s Hungering Drain (the interrupt thing) no longer applies a tick of damage if interrupted within 1 second of cast
- Kryxis the Voracious’s Severing Smash no longer applies an orb to the tank
- Grand Proctor Beryllia’s Fragments of Radiance (the yellow orbs that reduce the red explosion’s damage) now also reduces damage from Endless Torment (the AoE damage after the explosion that everyone takes)
Theater of Pain
- 3 New dungeon-wide bonuses: Boon of Conquest (+5% physical damage done), Boon of Agony (+5% magical damage done) and Boon of Carnage (+5% health).
- Killing Xav the Unfallen grants 2 stacks of Boon of Conquest (+10% physical damage done), 1 stack of Boon of Agony (+5% magical damage done) and 1 stack of Boon of Carnage (+5% health)
- Killing Kul’tharok grants 1 stacks of Boon of Conquest (+5 % physical damage done), 2 stack of Boon of Agony (+10% magical damage done) and 1 stack of Boon of Carnage (+5% health)
- Killing Gorechop grants 1 stacks of Boon of Conquest (+5% physical damage done), 1 stack of Boon of Agony (+5% magical damage done) and 2 stack of Boon of Carnage (+10% health)
Note: total bonus for all bosses killed: +20% physical damage done, +20% magical damage done, + 20% health, order of acquisition depends on group choice and group comp.
De Other Side
- Haunted Urns (Night Fae urns) now also damage enemy mobs for 20% of their maximum health on activation (in addition to the stun)
- If you activate a Haunted Urn during the Phase 2 of the Mueh-zala encounter, it will remove 50% health from all 4 Shattered Visages (allowing you to 1-phase on 23+ keys). Note: there are only 2 Urns that apply to this: the one near the Hakkar wing and the one near the Ardenweald wing
- New Haunted Urn in the Mechagon area, in the room where 4.RF-4.RF is present (the robot dog)
- Hakkar’s adds (the sons of Hakkar) have 50% reduced health and are now tauntable
Mists of Tirna Scithe
- Replace Drust Boughbreaker (the big bois that hit the ground for AoE damage) in Group 8 (with the 4 Drust Spiteclaws) with 2 Drust Spiteclaws (the black swarmer dudes that everyone skips).
- Replace Drust Boughbreaker in Group 9 with a Drust Soulcleaver (tank buster add)
- Reduce the Drust Spiteclaw’s bleed damage by 50% (both the on-application and the bleed)
- Drust Spiteclaw’s Dying breath (the 10% increased damage debuff) no longer applies to players, only to NPCs (including bosses)
- Mistveil Stalker’s bleed upfront damage decreased by 50% (note: the DoT damage is the same, just the upfront damage)
- Mistcaller no longer has a third Guessing game at 10% (only 2 phases, not 3)
- Whenever a Night Fae claims a seed (those respawn points), applies the Mushroom buff to all players (the 10% increased primary stat one)
- In Mythic+, Spinemaw Gorgers pulled into Tred’ova no longer turn into the MoTS Dungeon Achievement mob (where they heal to full). [This is just so that you can pull mobs into the last boss]
Spires of Ascension
- Forsworn Skirmishers no longer jump away
- Increase Orophyrion’s Drained (bonus damage phase where he recharges his energy bar) from 100% additional damage to 200% additional damage)
- Provide 1 additional Spear of Destiny (Kyrian stun spear) on the Seat of the Archon platform (where Devos is)
- Increase damage dealt by Archon’s Spear during the Devos fight by 50%
Halls of Atonement
- Increase High Adjudicator Aleez’s Volley of Power (the interruptable AoE cast) damage by 200% (this is to make the fight slightly harder, since it’s kind of a joke even on +24 tyrannical keys)
- Add 2 extra Loyal Stoneborns on Lord Chamberlain (the last boss)
Plaguefall
- Bring back the 2 Rigged Plagueborers after the 1st boss room! That was such a nice strat for killing the 1st boss!!! (Why did you take it away
)
Detailed Explanations for Suggested Changes:
Sanguine Depths
In my experience, as the keys get higher, the 1st boss ends up becoming the biggest problem by far. On +23s, 80% of my keys break on the 1st boss. This change is meant to bring the Urn buff directly to the boss, rather than wasting it on dungeon mobs that don’t really need that much of a DPS increase. In addition, the third boss is very dangerous in higher keys, especially with her Endless Torment cast that does incredibly high unavoidable damage.
Theater of Pain
This dungeon wanted to do something different: focus more on small skirmishes with high-health, high damage big targets (i.e. the entire Xav wing, some of the Lich wing mobs, etc). There are very few pulls that you can combine in that dungeon (about 5 viable pull combinations to my knowledge).
This makes the timer very tight, and difficult to save time on since you can’t make a huge risky pull. Because you can’t change a lot of the pulls (i.e. the lich wing, you literally cannot combine them because of the seperate platforms, the abomination wing it is very risky to get more than 2 Withering Discharge casters, and the Xav wing is extremely risky to pull multiple big mobs with other trash).
This change aims to provide a speed boost while also provide groups with options: if you have more magic damage (i.e. mage, lock, boomy), go the lich wing for more magic damage and less physical, and vice versa for the Xav wing if you have more physical damage DPS (i.e. war. rogue, hunter). In extremely high keys, the Abomination wing may be needed first just to survive certain mechanics (i.e. the Lich’s DoT, Xav’s undodgeable jump damage done right before he casts Might of Maldraxxus (the 3 hit combo that you have to dodge) that almost one shots you on a +25 Tyrannical).
De Other Side
This dungeon is really long, but I think it’s fair. There are 2 main problems with it (in my mind):
- The urns are useful, but nowhere near as strong as the Kyrian orbs in NW or the Loyal Stoneborns in HoA
- There is a weird lack of urn in the Mechagon wing for some reason (every other wing has one)
- Hakkar can go to hell
These changes provide huge utility to the urns and make them very important to use correctly. They can also provide a bonus on Mueh’zala’s fight, where you can now 1 phase the fight on high Tyrannical keys by sacrificing an urn for it. For Hakkar, his adds are so annoying, and the Corrupted blood that he puts on you makes it impossible to bring the adds to the tank. It’s like if you had a mechanic that says “stand in this spot” and another that said “don’t stand in this spot!” at the same time.
Mists of Tirna Scithe
This is the longest list of changes because I feel like Mists has a huge potential in the first part of the dungeon that is completely lost. The Drust Spiteclaw’s 10% increased damage debuff should be in every strat!!
Sadly, it is not, and any key above +18 completely skips / shrouds / invis pots past these mobs. This is because:
- The bleeds they put are a near one-shot, especially when enraged
- Their debuff also applies to the tank, which suddenly makes him very squishy
- They are too far from the first boss to be used for that fight.
So let’s change that. Let’s make the beginning of Mists actually worth doing once again. Remove the giant Boughbreakers in G8 and G9, just keep the 2 right before the boss (those are enough). Also, nerf their bleed and prevent the tank from getting one shot by their debuffs. That way, those packs would actually be worth pulling. Because of the increased damage to other mobs, you could make giant add pulls! On Tyrannical, you could simply save them for the 1st boss and his gigantic 8 million health pool. Open the possibilities rather than just having us skip the entire beginning!
After that comes the Miststalkers. On high keys (~24+), the upfront damage one-shots you. The only thing you can do is stun them. While there is something you can do about that (stunning them), I don’t think that’s fair since you depend on stunning classes (rogue, war, pally, dh, etc.).
For the 2nd boss of Mists, that boss takes super long for no reason. It is a boring fight that is painfully long, nothing more. The 10% phase does not need to happen. Remove this headache please.
Lastly, the last change just allows you to pull mobs into the 3rd boss of Mists without running the risk of healing the Gorgers because of the stupid meta-achievement thing.
Spires of Ascension
First of all: this is a beautiful dungeon artistically. One of, if not, the most beautiful places that I’ve seen in WoW thus far.
That said, everyone hates the skirmishers. They are incredibly annoying because they jump back whenever you aggro them. That is incredibly annoying, please remove that.
The other annoying part is how long the last part of the dungeon is. Very few mobs with a LOT of health. Speeding that up will make this key more digestible.
The first part is hard of Spires is hard, but fair I think. Get your kicks correctly, dodge the obvious death balls on bosses, and it’s a fun ride.
Devos and Orophyrion though, those 2 need to have some kind of buffer for all that health. Devos alone, on Tyrannical, takes 4-5 minutes on 25+ keys.
Halls of Atonement
The first change here is actually a buff to the 3rd boss because that boss is an actual joke. We let a cast of Volley of Power go off for fun on a +23 Tyrannical, and it brought 3 players to half health. On a +23 Tyrannical with nothing else going on, that should have seriously maimed them.
The last boss of this dungeon, however, is kind of boring. The main thing is dodge the statues and soak the red lines. For the same reason as Devos, this boss needs to be shortened, which you could do by adding Loyal Stoneborns
Plaguefall
The only hard bosses in Plaguefall are the 1st and the 4th boss (because of the disease thing she puts on the group). Why on earth you removed the 2 exploding plagueborers right after the 1st boss, which you could pull into the 1st boss for big damage, I will never know. That is peak fun and M+ dungeon routing.
And if you were hoping we wouldn’t do that, I’ve got bad news for you, because now we just pull the red slime to the 1st boss instead.
Bring that back! That should never have been removed. Let us make cool pulls.
