Battle for Azeroth dungeons crash course for new/returning players

I was not doing much of group activities in game for the past 3-4 expansions and restarting those now caused a lot of frustration. You’re expected to know everything (and not only “mechanics” but all the possible ticks & tricks other classes can do). So I decided it’s worth sharing what I learned and hope others will join.

Go go go
Top level dungeons have a timer that you should beat in order to get a better score and “push” the key. That means that the group should rush though the dungeon, following an optimized route and avoid unnecessary packs. Though this is only valid for mythic+ dungeons you’ll see people trying to do the same in the leveling dungeons. You have two options here: leave if you find this pace disturbing or just bear with it and avoid breaking croud control or engaging extra foes with your abilities.

Croud control places you in a fight
We used to be able to shackle or polymorph a monster and just pass through it. Well, not anymore - it’ll come after you and bring everything it will find on you way. Unless character can come out of fight (vanish for rogues or feign death for hunters) it’s a bad idea to leave a controlled monster behind.

Group invisibility
Rogues can make the whole group invisible and sneak behind a pack of monsters. Try staying close to the rogue doing it and avoid walking directly though enemies. If you are a rogue make sure everyone is covered.

Healers are expected to damage but only in mythic+
Because of mythic+ dungeons timer you as a healer will be expected to contribute as much damage as possible. So you’ll see a discipline priest being a popular choice. Yet it’s a really really bad choice for any other type of dungeon - without the azerite essences & perks it’d be really hard to maintain damage high enough to keep group alive. Go with a more reactive healer spec just to be safe.

RIO score
You’ll probably see this requirement in the looking for group descriptions. In most cases if you don’t know what it is you better avoid groups mentioning this at all costs :grinning: It’s a score from a third party site that is a sum of a score for each best mythic+ dungeon run you made in current season. So if you want to have a high score and join the elite you are expected to complete all the mythic+ dungeons on a high level key. Now you might think this system is a bit of a wall for players and feels strange to rely on a third party service. Don’t start discussions - they fought hard for it and they’ll eat you alive :joy:

Curve
You’ll probably see someone saying things like “link curve”. It references to the achievement “Ahead of the curve” given for completing the current content patch raid before the next content patch release on heroic or higher level of difficulty.

Did I forget something? Please add in the comments! Cheers.

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A good run down and good advice =D

To piggy back abit: there are a number of communities that people can join to do m+ or raids in a chill environment and learn without toxicity etc. Few that come to mind are ‘Scared of Dungeons’, ’ Fail Train’ and ‘Calm Keystones’. All can be found in the communities recruitment section ofthe forums.

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Nice crash course! Tagging :slight_smile:

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Very nice Info Nem!!!

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I am a returning player, last played since WotLK and am taken aback by how people just rush rush rush. I want to create a tank but I have no knowledge of the dungeons, nor have I ever tanked before. Honestly it’s giving me anxiety thinking about people yelling at me because I don’t know x,y or z. This honestly puts me off lvl’ing anything at all

I don’t know what to tell you. Gogogogo is in overdrive everywhere. Some people like it. If you don’t like it, limit your dungeoning and avoid tanking. Or go Classic, though even that may not be free of the scourge.

It’s a Tragedy of the Commons pattern. The people who want to gogogogo can, and will, regardless of the rest of the party. That makes everybody else want to rush so the gogo crowd don’t just run ahead regardless or flame them for not keeping up, not grabbing threat, not healing them. So now everybody feels obliged to gogogo, which puts extra pressure on the tank to gogogogogogogogo even faster, and …

Preach, a popular YouTuber, did a very perceptive vid a while ago on how most people in dungeons now are scared that someone else is going to start in on them.

Ah, found it:

Anyway, while it is an insightful view on the current situation, it doesn’t help you.

But I don’t know what will help you.

The absolute WORST tank I ever knew was a new player, back in Mists. He wasn’t so bad that he ran into walls or anything, like I have seen a couple of times in LFG. He tried to tank. He thought he was tanking. Mostly he was running ahead bodypulling everything until he stopped, or someone pulled a mob away and he ran back with all the mobs in tow, and we all nuked down the bunch, cleaned up any stray casters, killed whaver mobs were on the healer. And then he sprinted off again.

He thought he was a great tank.

I only partied with him a few times. He must have been flamed a LOT in his many other runs. It obviously didn’t bother him. He never mentioned it. It certainly didn’t dent his confidence. :slight_smile:

Which, I figure, is where you are at, because you are framing your current issue as one of confidence. He was blissfully free of anxiety about any of it; you are not.

You can perhaps find some way to build your confidence, perhaps by finding a group of friends to play with - which is a lot harder than it should be - or by working on your own sense of confidence.

When I first wanted to try tanking, I made an alt, a Druid. I stopped his XP at 19 (I think), did RFC and WC there as Cat, to get a feel for them at level. Then I switched to Bear and tanked them. The first couple of times were nervous, but after a few I got the ryhthm of them. I did many. I saw so many crazy situations happen. None of it mattered, and after a while none of it mattered to me either. I did them until I could do them in my sleep. Then I released my XP, moved on a bit, to SFK, BFD, Stocks. Repeat. Repeat far too much. See lots more weirdness. Again, it all stopped bothering me. Up the XP again, hello Scarlets. And again and again and again.

I did them with and without Looms, which were much more powerful then, so I could be comfortable undergeared or overgeared.

Eventually, I had seen enough that none of it touched me any more.

That is how I developed confidence in tanking at low levels. It was slow, but thorough.

I suppose a more practical equivalent would be to quest to 120, get vastly overgeared for Normals - which won’t take long with current gear levels: I can make a pretty good dent in them solo as a mage; I can blow them away solo with a tank - and then spam Normal dungeons until you know them backwards. Then again as Heroics, adding the couple of non-Normals to your repertoire. That would save you all the time of learning every dungeon en route, with the result of knowing the dungeons that will be in place for the next year, and being confident in your ability to tank them.

M+ is another step up, and here is where routes and skips start to become Something A Tank Is Expected To Know, but you can, again, take that at whatever pace is comfortable to you.

Same thing happened to me. I was doing ok as a tank - but it was far away from having fun. Not leveling though - I had tanking problems only with monk - the rest is covered with heirlooms. I dropped the idea in the end :slight_smile:
But my partner decided he hates not being in charge and forced to follow the pace of the rest and re-rolled as a tank. And soon enough he became if not the best one I ever met - then one of the few. Sure I’m biased, but that’s not only me saying.

From personal experience paladin is the easiest tank out there followed by a warrior. The tank I mentioned switched from warrior to demon hunter in the end, but that’s a matter of personal preference I’d say.

As mentioned in the comment before - communities may be a solution. I personally enjoy our slow paced guild runs :slight_smile:

It may just be me seeing what I want to see but since classic retail got a bit more friendly. I’ve seen people chatting in general and making jokes during lfr wipes.

So if you’re up for a bit of “shame” in the training - go for it :slight_smile: Make a funny macros to answer to whatever offense you get - like “I ignore your reality and substitute it with mine” - and train your mental powers :slight_smile:

It’s also totally fine to skip the dungeons altogether since questing gives much more experience with war mode on. Cheers!

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