Back in February I wrote a post about trying out Mythic Plus in retail for the first time. And I had a pretty good time! So we did more in the weeks that followed... but the moment additional affixes were introduced, things got messy quickly. I'm not sure we timed anything past a +10, and the main reason we finished those at all was our friend's brother, who was an experienced retail player and did a lot of carrying. Basically, both me (the healer) and the other two dps would die all the time, and he'd be the one to combat res me and/or just finish killing the boss by himself.
I found it quite stressful. I can't exactly claim that I wasn't having any fun, but it was kind of draining all the same. It's hard enough trying to learn how to get the most out of your healing abilities while also dealing with boss and trash mechanics, but then the dps who are also noobs take lots of avoidable damage and you can't keep up, and also there's an affix that requires you to stack up, immediately followed by another one that requires you to spread out, and it's all just too much.
I remember one week in particular where I was just absolutely spent after our usual afternoon of dungeoning. Looking at the season one affix rotation, I think it must have been bursting (trash mobs explode and deal damage on death) and grievous (once you take damage, you take damage forever until you either die or get healed to full). I think it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how that turned every single trash pull into absolute mayhem. I just kept muttering about how grievous used to be enough for an entire boss back in Burning Crusade (that crab thing in Slave Pens) and now it was just one of multiple trash mechanics. I took little comfort in finding out later that apparently a lot of healers (including much more experienced ones) also hated that affix combo.
After that, we ended up taking a break from running mythics for a few weeks for unrelated reasons, but I was honestly just relieved. I finished the season with this record, if that means anything to any of you:
In the first M+ we stepped into, Legacy of Tyr, we wiped on the first boss due to dps standing in fire. One of them actually commented: "Wait, that actually hurts?" We finished the dungeon fine after that, but up next was +2 Vortex Pinnacle, and that was another shitshow. The husband and I had been reasonably confident that we'd know what to do in there since we ran that dungeon many times back in Cataclysm, but as it turns out Blizzard added a completely new mechanic to the second boss that kept utterly obliterating us. I think we wiped three or four times before I gave up and googled a guide which finally told us how to deal with that new mechanic. We did finish the dungeon after that, but the timer had long expired.
Despite that rough start, I've actually appreciated this change of pace with nobody there to carry us, because it means that we have to learn from our mistakes together instead of just being carried to higher and higher keys even as we keep messing up. We're currently successfully timing +6s and looking at taking the step up into +7, which brings in an additional affix.
We did actually try Brackenhide Hollow on +7 already, but that was another disaster with a failed timer. The afflicted affix gave me another thing to watch out for as a healer (because apparently healers don't have enough to do?) but our biggest problem was that we wiped three or four times on the first boss fight. The damage was just insane and I couldn't keep up. After the husband started to lose it and threatened to just call it without even finishing the run, we suddenly sailed through the encounter with barely anyone taking any damage on the next attempt. At least that answered my silent question about whether we'd just been wiping due to my inadequacy as a healer.
The husband and I had a good talk after that, and I said to him that I could see from that run why I often see people say that it's actually the low-level keys that make people the most toxic - "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" as the saying goes, and at that level you've probably done the dungeon quite a few times on normal and heroic, leading you to think that you know what's going on, but in reality you've barely touched the complexities of Mythic Plus and are probably messing up left and right.
I remain conflicted about the whole thing. On the one hand, it can be fun. I feel I've gotten better at playing evoker (even if I'm far from great) because I'm forced to make better use of all my abilities and when it all comes together it feels great. I remember managing to heal us through a massively scuffed trash pull in Freehold and feeling very proud of myself. Learning how to deal with all the different mechanics and how to execute them correctly as a team is satisfying.
It's just... there's so much going on, and with the added time pressure I just find it overwhelming a lot of the time. At least with Burning Crusade heroics, you could start by learning slowly and then increase your pace as you got better. Mythic Plus just slaps you down with a whole new pile of mechanics the moment you think you've gotten the hang of anything.
I'd also forgotten how miserable it feels when your job as a healer is to constantly make up for damage dealers' mistakes, even more so when you're not entirely sure what's even going on and aren't confident that it isn't your fault somehow. So we'll keep at it for now, but I'm not sure how long it'll hold my attention - I expect I'll either feel burnt out at some point or we'll all just throw in the towel after getting mad at each other one too many times.
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As someone who's screwed up all three roles in Mythic+ more times than I like to remember ^_^, I really do wish they would put an appropriate debuff on folks when they don't get out of the way of avoidable damage. Sure, give them a couple of seconds to move out of a puddle that dropped underneath them, but if they decide to stand in the fire put a dps-decrease debuff (if dps) on them for a few minutes. That will make them notice the stuff they can and should be avoiding.
ReplyDeleteIt's just too easy to blame the healer for death or not enough heals when the healer is trying to triage, but a debuff says loud and clear it was your own fault. (Note: this isn't a perfect solution because sometimes you want to stand in the bad stuff because it makes an ability work well for you. That would need to be taken into account.)
I'm sorry to read this, Shintar. You did seem to be enjoying yourself, so hitting the wall like this is like multiple hits to the gut.
ReplyDeleteI mean, I wouldn't say that we've hit a wall just yet - just that it's kinda stressful sometimes and I'm not sure how much harder I want to push.
DeleteWhen your husband blows a gasket like that, I'd say you've hit a wall. If it were my wife saying that, I'd definitely put it that way.
DeleteWell, my mister has a reputation for being cranky while gaming. We were definitely approaching dangerous territory there, but in general it's not unusual for him to get mad and yell at people (especially people he knows well and who he thinks should really do better!)
DeleteWhile I do not mind the base principle of Mythic+, that is to say there being a scaling mode for content where you can make it as easy or as difficult as you please within a specific difficulty tier, I do have to say that the notion of continuing into much higher keys than we're already doing unsettles me.
ReplyDeleteThe affixes go a long way in harming my own long-term enjoyment prospects. Unlike with SWTOR, where you can chop-and-change a group-comp to a relatively decent level in a master mode flashpoint (DPS / survivability checks of certain specific bosses notwithstanding), a certain affix will completely screw over certain player-classes before they even start. Hunters and warriors of course offer no alternative cleanses in an Afflicted week, so best of luck to those players for whom those are their main classes and they have to resort to using the in-game custom Group Finder for keys!
(Similarly, my full sympathy goes out to any healer who finds themselves in a group where nobody but them can even select a working cleanse as an option!)
It's (mostly) fine as-is as we can make it work, but I can easily see M+ burnout certainly hitting me in the near future. That said, if / when it gets to a point where it's not enjoyable, we can always scale back if we still need to gather pieces from the vault. Assuming we reach this phase in a place where we're all willing to continue, of course!
I've healed Afflicted weeks with players who modified their specs and those that haven't, and it's night and day. The worst of it was the week before was Incorporeal, and the mage hadn't picked up Decurse for Afflicted and was trying to cc the mobs like it was still Incorporeal. That's the thing about M+, sometimes you have to change your spec for the week, and sometimes you just don't run.
ReplyDeleteStorming this week as a Mistweaver fistweaving means I might have serious uptime issues on big pulls, and my healing can essentially be gone until I can reposition myself and start dpsing again, and Spiteful weeks feel like a roulette wheel in melee. You can mitigate it somewhat, but it really helps if a tank doesn't overpull and the dps don't kill them all at once. Bursting can be scary if dps kill everything fast and aren't willing to burn a defensive.
It really helps to have everyone on the same page when you go in, so voice is very helpful if everyone is able to use the same language, and I know a lot of people hate the idea of it, but researching some mechanics of a dungeon before you go really does make a big difference. If it wasn't for the changing affixes, that might not matter, but knowing the basics of a dungeon is really important because of that added complexity. Last but not least, a death isn't that bad. As long as you don't wipe, 5 seconds from a single death isn't terrible and people should often just release and run back.