Delves: 1 man, 6 alts, the results of best/worst, so far

Community General Discussion
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In my continued pursuit of having fun instead of getting “stuff”, I decided to take several of my alts on a journey to complete this weeks dual q’s being offered for delves; complete 3/3, 5/5 respectively.

For reference:
Alt ilvl range: 580-590, random barebone gear, no enchants
Delve tier levels completed: 7-9
Talents: All copied from Icyveins for delves
Extra potions/buffs: Nothing, but what the class provides for itself
Brann lvl: 30-40
Classes/alts completely weekly q’s, so far: Feral druid, Assa Rogue, Frost Dk, MM Hunter, Aff lock.

Special note the difficulty spike from tier 9-10 is significant, especially, as Tier 7 has a 587 ilvl recommendation (Easy). Tier 8: 600ilvl (Moderate), Tier 9: 610ilvl (Difficult; due to damage spikes/higher HP of mobs)

Worst offender/experience award goes to:

Feral druid
I initially thought Feral was going to be quite good in Delves, having off-healing, strong bleeds/aoe, durable tank form. I thought I’d be able to tackle delves with relative ease. Unfortunately, this turned out not to be the case and I had to bump things down to Tier 8 mostly for an enjoyable experience.

The bloated amount of abilities to juggle, in out of cat/bear form, with heals, CC, is wild and really not worth the effort to be efficient. While damage is strong, you just can’t take damage at all. The heals are like having a priest throw holy water on you while your whole body is on fire, the CC is meh, energy maintenance and waiting for GCD feels frustrating and holding you back and while your bleeds are strong you get chunked by nearly any ability, forcing you into bear where you can hang out with no abilities and do no damage.

This was just an absurd amount of effort compared. I failed for the first time ever, to complete a bountiful delve due to dying beyond the life limit, and that’s because abilities were taking 50% of my HP per hit. Terrible experience

Runner up to being the worst:

Assa Rogue
Rogue is another class that’s very similar to Feral druid. It’s not necessarily bad, but it’s not necessarily great for solo delve content.

Strong bleeds, far better CC tho, but paper thin armor w few defenses/poor self-healing. I think that’s the theme here; high damage, low defenses = delves are going to be more challenging.

While you can sap/blind targets, you’re going to have to pull targets away each other, as it’s extremely easy to hit nearby targets. This leads to you not being able to open up out of stealth though, bursting down one target at a time, and if things get messy, you’re in big trouble.

A master rogue, with keybinds/macros to CC multiple targets and juggle that whole game of control, might enjoy the experience and probably be strong at it, using abilities to cheese mechanics and delves in a niche way, but for the amount of knowledge/skill/effort needed to do that, as well as being nuked down by any mob that can’t be stunned, making your toolkit 50% useless, it’s not an experience I’d recommend.

Decent/strong, but not a greatly fun experience:

Frost DK
In short, you have a nice self-healing button you can press frequently, making it hard to die. Anti-magic shield comes in handy on bosses/ranged casters, strong for delves. Good CC to buy yourself time in critical moments you’re about to die. Strong burst/aoe damage means there’s not a lot of thinking that has to go into it and you do some solid damage.

That being said, there’s a lot of buttons to press, but you don’t really have these huge abilities, so it’s just a steady pace of mowing things down, being able to heal yourself in situations other melees would die in and that’s about all there is to say about it.

Although I haven’t done this weeks weekly Q’s on Fury Warr or DH, I imagine the experience will be largely similar to Frost DK

Creme de la creme:

MM Hunter

This was going to be my top class for completing delves until I played Aff lock. It’s a great class for strong, single-target, burst damage, good CC to isolate targets/escape from sticky situations (although, that requires some skill). Having a pet is also a huge perk, although it takes quite a lot of damage and requires maintenance.

What makes this class fun is activating Trueshot Aura and absolutely decimating mobs in a heartbeat, eliminating a potential threatening situation. It’s a short CD, so there’s a lot of uptime to a really obnoxious amount of burst. You can also feign death to throw off aggro you’ve created to Brann or your pet, which makes containing mobs easy.

Being able to move while fighting, means avoiding a lot of boss aoe with ease while your pet does all the work while you stay clear out of range from any harmful abilities.

This isn’t surprise or unexpected for Hunters and I could imagine BM doing really well as well. Hunter just remains a fun and easy way to learn dungeon/delve mechanics without a lot of pressure and a simple rotation/CC options to learn.

#1 award for best delve experience goes to:

Aff lock

If you ever had a good day IRL, where everything just went according to plan, smoothly and you just felt like everything for a moment in life was, alright…that’s what delves felt like with Aff lock.

Aggro control by the Voidwalker, even while seriously pumping damage into multiple mobs was chefs kiss magnifique. This thing taunted mobs with an aoe taunt like a rapper taunting blondes at a concert, unlike a hunters pet that might taunt one, as well as nearly no maintenance to upkeep Voidwalker HP.

I could’ve written a letter with one of those ink pens you have to dip in the thing, while riding a train through the uncharted territory of the Wild West. The multitasking I could do while running a delve was nice, responding to text messages and what not IRL.

Aff lock is no potato though either, this thing can seriously pump damage out quick and while not as sharp as the dagger MM hunter can produce or as easy to execute, you’re doing a lot more damage to multiple targets at the same time, which means faster clear times. This was also my lowest geared class.

For defenses you have 3 strong shields with the Voidwalker, meaning you don’t really take damage much. You have a Healthstone that can be used regularly and even drain life is decent on multiple targets with soul rot and an enhanced drain. On top of that, you get a Soulstone to resurrect yourself. What else could you possibly want?

Delves just felt right with Aff lock and I’ll be really surprised if there’s a class that’s as enjoyable as completing a delve on an Aff lock.

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Hey another casual delver like me. If it’s not fun, I ain’t touching that.

That’s what I hear constantly. Good thing I tried other specs this expac, because Feral has always been my go-to spec for druids when levelling and doing world stuff. This time I decided to try Balance and oh boy. You’d never guess from the slooooow cast times and general clunkiness how much damage the spec can do. It kills things just as fast (well almost) as my destro lock.

Again, you take way to much damage (I am guessing Blizz wanted us to use Bear Form to heal, but I can’t cast while in bear form and if I wanted to be a bear, I’d play Guardian) but after I ignored all the guides and invested in Haste and Versatility, things smoothed out a bit. You have RANGE (unlike Feral), you have roots and mass roots. The healz are pathetic and should never be used in combat (because the moment you start casting Regrowths, consider yourself dead, even against 1 single mob), you have to spec into Skull Bash if you want an interrupt because Solar Beam is just lol (that means 1GCD shapeshifting, so fast casts are a problem). But overall, if you want to delve as a druid, it’s either Balance or Guardian, though I haven’t tried the latter.

Well, before I deleted my Fury warrior (don’t get me started…) , it’s like this : you mow down mobs 2 packs at a time with CDs, loot, wait a bit for CDs, mow again, loot. Then the boss comes and it takes waay too long to kill compared to any range character because you actually have to dodge stuff. And because Fury single target damage is pathetic. But it’s totally doable and the chance to die is small, because well, it’s a warrior, they are quite sturdy. It’s just annoying.

Can confirm for BM. Misdirect to pet > watch movies on other screen, occasionally press Mend Pet. And that’s what I like about it. It’s a very clunky spec (hopefully it gets fixed with the next patch), with low AoE, but very safe and single-target it’s quite decent. You also have Bloodlust from pet to speed things up with the boss.

Warlocks rule this expac, as far as delving goes. Mine is Destro and the girl just throws hydrogen bombs at mobs in the form of Chaos Bolts, one after the other. Very good defensives, too. And a tanking pet. Have been hearing the same about Demo (and their demon army lol) and I don’t doubt it. It’s surprising, seeing it’s a cloth-wearing class, but it works very very well in delves.

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The ilvl reccomandations are not right.Its 587 for tier 7…600 for 8 etc etc.

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Yea, Feral for me, at least as a concept, has always been a favorite melee type, especially for world content/leveling. I like the stealth, rips/bleeds/dot mechanic, as well as taking chunky bites out of things.

I’m not crazy about having to morph into different forms to make simple casts, like Rejuvenation, and not having another heal than isn’t Regrowth, especially as they’ve nerfed self-healing so badly this expansion it’s nearly useless on anything other than my Shaman.

I feel like specs should really have their own identity, not necessarily tied into each other and having all these abilities that I need to come out of cat form just to get wrecked, that aren’t even worth casting or be stuck in a boring form with nothing to do, but survive.

I haven’t tried Balance, but I think it feels a lot more fluid to use abilities in that from than cat form.

Ah yea, I was typing all of this off memory, good catch. I made the corrections.

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Nice post, I like your attitude.

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You have a way different idea of what’s fun than I do, my dude. :sweat_smile:

Anyway, I’m sure had you tried BM hunter, it would be number 1. Because; of course it would be. :kissing_heart:

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So far I’ve done delves with 5 classes those being Shaman, Druid, Rogue, Priest and Warrior, always in DPS specs, and my conclusion is that it doesn’t matter what you play, you start DPSing, enemies will drop you down to 20-30% health, you take 2 Brann flasks up to full hp, rinse and repeat until everything is dead.

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It’s not actually super bad. I have done +8 delves with my 563ilvl assa rogue and you just need to be extra careful. I recommend use sap/blind, don’t pull more than 3+ mobs , focus on finishing objectives and getting last boss meanwhile skipping rest of the unnecessary mobs with stealth. Having healing potions/leg/chest/weapon/chant of leeching fang cloak enchant would help you a lot. Having cheat death is another plus. And do not hesitate using your vanish especially at final bosses since Bran can do the tanking for you.

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With all classes i started with ~570 gear for +8 delves.

Priest: Was very slow at the start but manageable. As soon he had better gear it started to make fun. (Shadow)

Hunter: Like expected pretty easy, even Zekvir. (MM)

Shaman: Awful, started as ele and switched to enhancement, was better but still no fun.

Rogue: Was the worst experience, even after i learned that rogues can make Brann into a tank with a talent. Some mobs don’t care about Tricks of the Trade, they hit you no matter what. AND you guys really don’t want brann as a tank in those underwater delves. (Sub)

So while all could do a +8 with bad gear the time investment difference was very huge.
My hunter rarely had to wait between pulls, was fun and fast, while especially
my shaman and rogue had to wait quite often for cds.

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Yes, that’s the case if you’re doing delves tier 7 and below. Once you start going higher than that, especially to tier 9 and you don’t have the gear, you definitely notice the difference between the classes performance.

Yea, I mentioned this in my post, but I also know delves well enough to know that it’s very delve dependent and even boss dependent.

For example, on my feral druid I did an entire delve in bear form using the flamethrower you get for the delve. I just afk’d, including the boss, pressing one button. So, there are certain mechanics you can cheese and get through on certain delves as well.

Some bosses are also very easy to beat as long as you avoid the mechanics, mostly attacking Brann. In other delves, mobs and bosses casts will always attack you, which makes the job 100x harder, because the abilities chunk 80% of your health if your gear is too low, which makes it just an annoying experience. So, even if you stand near a potion, you just get chunked down immediately, even if you’re not the main target.

Also, in terms of rewards, I notice that it didn’t seem worth it taking the extra time pushing through higher delves. The bountiful chests offer a 603 reward no matter what. You can get gear drops otherwise, but it’s not guaranteed and I started to notice that it’s more efficient to complete a delve a 8 tier, rather than do a higher tier level that takes nearly twice the time to complete.

After a few delves it’s possible that you get 4 upgrades and are no longer the same ilvl when you started and Branns lvl is important as well.

Underwater delves are the real skill check, IMO. Not only can you not interact with the Branns potions sometimes, even though you’re literally walking right over them, Brann can take off like a wild bandit, porting throughout the delve, far out of reach. If he aggro’d it would turn into an absolute mess in no time. I had to complete the delve while in combat with several characters because a mob ported under the terrain, so I had to complete it and walk through again, looting the things I couldn’t loot being stuck in combat. I feel like they’re such a bad experience overall, they really need to flesh those out.

Kobolds delves are quite easy to deal with in comparison, not to mention you’re not always chasing an air bubble, what an annoying mechanic.

Tricks of the Trade is a clutch move. I actually forgot about that core ability, but it’s talented now and I always forget about it since it’s not my main and not played much. Brann can be a beast of tank, but it doesn’t seem to in the underwater zones. I was playing a character and I couldn’t even pull aggro off Brann, I think it was the Frost DK.

Tier 9 is definitely a gear/HP check though, because their abilities will make it very frustrating to deal with and it’s going to take forever to kill them, even if you play well, you’ll get one shot easily with one mistake/getting caught on some random terrain thing. It’s doable, but it terms into a time sink. I definitely don’t think it’s worth the extra effort being that bountiful delves only drop 603 equipment and tier 8 is so much more manageable and overall I think it just gets less fun and too much of a chore.

Going forward with my alts, I’ll probably just do tier 8 delves until I get to about ilvl 595 ish, and that’s just for the sake of effeciency.

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My frost mage who at the time was 20 ilvls lower than my feral druid had a much easier time in delves. It’s hilarious and sad. Same goes for that Wakening the Machine weekly quest.

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Yea, that. Feral as a levelling option was everyone’s favourite exactly because it was easy to PvE with - damage, offheals, mobility, stealth. Seems like they only got their Stealth left lol.

There is something else - as a returning player, I noticed Agility no longer gives Dodge % (there is no dodge stat at all), which made a huge chunk of Feral’s survivability. Did they get any kind of compensation for that loss ? Like more armor, extra % damage mitigation, etc ? Cuz without the insane dodge chances they usually ran with (40%+), they are pretty squishy. And obviously that only works with phisical attacks, magic destroys them anyway. Perhaps that’s the issue they are having.

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Feral surely is an odd one in Delves. So weirdly squishy, 1.4m white damage being received; makes no sense whatsoever.

Then I thought, but isn’t this just the gear type?

Nope. WW Monk can absolutely zerg through it like a warm knife running through butter without ever really getting in trouble or close to trouble.

Those kitties gonna need to have some tweaks to their mitigation toolkit, because the current iteration just isn’t it (PvP content ignored in this statement).

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I completed the Machine, and both Delve quests yesterday as well, and I thought it was going to be a little more difficult, but it ended up being quite…chill.

With so much CC at Frost mage’s disposable your biggest worry becomes ranged casts, shields aren’t the greatest, but playing around Branns potions gives you your HP back. At tier 8 I felt like I didn’t even have to use the whole kit. It’s fairly quick and I enjoyed it, not as much as the Aff lock or Hunter, but it’s probably the 3rd in line after them.

My second char I did yesterday was monk as well, weird coincidence with the comments here, but yea, I expected to be a little more fragile, because that’s how it was in DF, in exchange for insane burst.

They’ve toned down the burst damage, fists damage and spinning crane kick, it feels like, but overall it feels less like I need to be flashy, ducking in and out of combat just to stay alive. It felt quite good, similar to Frost DK.

I’ve always liked Monks aoe damage kit, because so many abilities are great for multiple mobs. Karma and Touch of Death are also hilarious to use in PvE, KO’ing a mob every so minutes. It feels a little bit cheese to be honest, but I hope they don’t change it, it’s fun.

And yea, luckily for PvP Feral is having it’s 15 mins, after a long hiatus from being relevant outside of Jungle cleave, but PvP flows a lot different than PvE, especially solo content and without a healer it feels quite paper cup.

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