The new dungeon affixes in WoW were well thought out, but unfortunately not well done

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The Mythic+ dungeon community in World of Warcraft is frustrated. If you don’t play in a fixed group, you simply won’t have a good time with the affixes.

The first season of The War Within expansion has been running in World of Warcraft for almost 6 weeks and it has now become clear: the new affixes are both a blessing and a curse. Currently there are these affixes that are relevant:

  • From level 2: Xal’atath’s Trade – A changing effect that must be avoided to prevent enemies from receiving a buff. If you play the trade correctly, the entire group receives a strong buff for 30 seconds.
  • From level 4: Tyrannical or Reinforced – One of the two effects is active every week. Either trash mobs are reinforced or the bosses are.
  • From level 7: Challenger’s treachery – The death of a character deducts 15 seconds from the remaining time of the dungeon.
  • From level 10: Tyrannical or Reinforced – The second, missing affix is ​​activated, so that from level 10 onwards both bosses and trash mobs are significantly stronger.

    • I can’t even blame Blizzard much here. When the affixes were introduced a few months ago, most of the community agreed: This is going to be pretty good and puts the focus primarily on the dungeon and no longer just “playing the affixes” as was the case in previous expansions .

    Back then there were often “dead weeks” in which hardly anyone wanted to play Mythic+ if the affix combination wasn’t good. Now basically every week is just as good, so you can play whenever you want. The affixes only have a minor influence on this, the difficulty is roughly the same every week. In theory it was perfect. But only in theory.

    WoW: The War Within – Powers Within

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    The challenger’s treachery regularly blows up groups

    The biggest problem is the affix, which has no effect at all as long as the dungeon runs perfectly. Challenger’s Trickery can quickly reduce the remaining time to complete a dungeon to 0 if something doesn’t go well.

    The more I think about it, the stranger I find it to punish death in a dungeon by losing time. Because if the group dies, then this fact alone is punishment enough, which is already met with a significant loss of time:

  • The walk back to the scene of the fight can take between 30 and 60 seconds.
  • Depending on when the hero group was wiped out, you lose progress on the boss or the current enemy group, which can mean another 30 seconds to 3 minutes – depending on how far the fight had progressed.

    • The fact that another 15 seconds per character are added to this penalty – i.e. 75 seconds in the worst case – just feels crazy in retrospect. Something I didn’t see coming either.

    At least Xal’atath should be happy about the desperation of the players.

    PUGs despair, players insult each other

    This penalty isn’t as bad for well-established guild groups or dungeon groups that only consist of friends. You (usually) forgive mistakes and the affix contributes to the fact that you have to play more and more perfectionistically.

    But many players in World of Warcraft do not visit dungeons exclusively with their guild or friends, but rather as part of PUGs, i.e. with people they have never seen before. That’s simply the reality of how World of Warcraft is played by the majority.

    A single wipe results in 75 seconds of time lost, in addition to the time lost from the lost battle, which must be replayed. For dungeons that have a time limit of around 30 minutes, a single defeat can cause you to lose 10% of the time limit. This is a pretty draconian punishment and has been fueling toxic behavior in the community for weeks.

    Of course, this is in addition to the fact that many simply turn all affixes into a healer affix.

    Anyone who tries to help only makes things worse

    The problem is compounded by the changes made to the spell and ability interrupt system. In the vast majority of cases, enemy spells are only considered “interrupted” if a “pure” interruption such as a kick or counterspell was used. If you interrupt a spell by stunning or pushing enemies away, they can immediately cast the spell again.

    Anyone who tries in a panic to save their own group by stunning them can ensure that a real interruption comes to nothing and that the mob in question can then cast the devastating spell undisturbed. This can then lead to the death of one or more characters, which in turn activates the time penalty.

    These two effects reinforce each other and create a tense atmosphere, which often ends in insults or even causes group members to leave the dungeon prematurely, because after a single defeat it is often already foreseeable that you will no longer be able to meet the timer anyway.

    I don’t have a perfect solution to the problem. The current affixes are an absolute blessing for organized, well-rehearsed groups, because “perfect” gameplay with agreements in voice chat is rewarded. However, anyone who goes out with other players – and that is a large part of the community – is currently not happy with the affixes and is sometimes punished harshly.

    It seems clear that Blizzard needs to experiment with other affixes for Season 2 of The War Within that don’t punish already punishing incidents (like a death) even more harshly. Because this will be an ordeal for everyone who doesn’t play in a fixed group of five. And there are quite a few of them in World of Warcraft.
    Healers in particular are regularly in despair.

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