Proposal: Keystone Determination – A New System to Support Class Diversity in Mythic+
TL;DR:
Mythic+ suffers from increasing spec neglect and undertuning each season. Players get chain declined for playing underrepresented specs. Keystone Determination buff introduces a weekly stacking % buff for the least-used specs, encouraging diversity without nerfing top performers.
Why Keystone Determination hits the mark:
What I’m proposing is not just about balance — it’s about systemic accountability:
- No spec gets left behind for months waiting on “full reworks or flat buffs”
- Players see some action within one or two weeks, not one or two major patches without letting specs Thanos snapped into oblivion.
Problem
- As a season progresses, player power and expertise grows (gear, knowledge, strategy).
- The gap between “meta” specs and everyone else eventually becomes enormous.
- Many specs (tanks, healers, and many DPS) are oftentimes excluded from higher keys or competitive LFG environments.
- Casual and alt players are hard-stuck in lower range keys, unable to break through the “meta wall.”
- The company is lacking substantial amount of playtesters and dedicated class-design teams and feedback is often ignored.
Solution: Keystone Determination
A passive buff for underplayed specs in Mythic+.
How It Works:
-
Each week, Blizzard pulls data from:
- Internal M+ completion stats
- Third-party platforms like Raider_io and Warcraft Logs
-
Specs with the lowest representation receive 1 stack of Keystone Determination buff.
What qualifies as “Lowest Representation”?
| Role | Qualification Criteria for Buff |
|---|---|
| Tank | Any tank not in the top 2 by volume, or below 16.6% representation (6 tank specs total) |
| Healer | Any healer spec under 14.2% representation (7 total) |
| DPS | Any DPS spec under 3.84% representation (26 total) |
- Each stack grants:
- +1% damage dealt
- +1% total health
- +1% healing done/received, shield/absorb
- +1% to all secondary stats
- Buff stacks weekly until the spec rises to mid-pack. Then, it decays by 1 stack per week until gone.
There’s no upper cap – a heavily ignored spec could reach +7%, +10% buff, etc. This keeps experimentation alive and creates weekly variety at all key levels.
Buff Is Spec-Specific, Not Class-Wide
Example:
- Discipline Priest may not get the buff due to high representation.
- But Holy Priest and Shadow Priest can receive different stack counts.
Buff is Shown Publicly in LFG
- When players apply to Mythic+ in LFG, their current Keystone Determination stacks are shown, like:
“Feral Druid – Keystone Determination x4”
- This helps leaders understand their value, even if not meta.
Bonus Event Suggestion: Alt Ascension
Couple of times per season, introduce:
Alt Ascension Week – all specs with Keystone Determination get their buffs doubled.
Perfect for alt-friendly pushes and off-meta fun. Encourages rerolling, experimentation, easier score grind and faster LFG for underused specs.
Benefits
- Promotes spec diversity at all key levels without nerfing anyone.
- Nerfs are never fun, but stacking buffs are very cool.
- Creates a healthy seasonal meta that’s constantly shifting.
- Gives players a reason to try other specs and challenge the current hierarchy. People will try off-meta specs just to see how far they can go with the buffs.
- Fast relief: Specs that are severely underplayed get immediate help — players feel stronger within a week.
- Self-correcting: If a spec becomes overrepresented, buffs drop off automatically — no overnerfing required.
- Alt-friendly: Gives struggling alts a path into viable content without full reworks.
Criticism: But Why Not Just Nerf Meta?
Because it hurts players who enjoy their current spec. Keystone Determination is:
- Positive reinforcement instead of punishment.
- Dynamic and responsive to real data.
- Adds depth and freshness to Mythic+.
More Criticism
Buffing numbers is not fixing. It’s an economic band-aid, not surgery. But it does keep specs afloat until proper reworks arrive, because, as we can all see, they don’t arrive in a time-sensitive or reasonable manner.
Devs still need to do the real work — this just buys time without punishing players for playing what we like. But hey, if they keep neglecting some specs, at least they will climb in numbers and maybe will start working somehow somewhat.
Some specs (like Aug Evoker, Holy Priest, Brewmaster Monk, Sub Rogue) have been underperforming or neglected for months — or even entire expansions — with little more than:
- Tiny tooltip fixes
- Flat % number buffs
- “Soon™” promises of talent reworks that never come
Meanwhile, meta specs keep getting polished and adjusted almost weekly because they’re high-visibility and used in high-end content like MDI or RWF.
Examples from War Within Season 2 (for context):
- At ilvl ~665 (top-end mythic gear currently caps at 684), most players are trying to push mid-level keys.
- High-end meta specs are clearing 21–23 keys.
- Many specs are chain declined from 10–13 keys — the crucial range for:
- Weekly M+ Vault rewards (10s)
- Keystone Hero mount (12s and 13s)
In this experimental environment:
- Feral Druid might reach +6% Determination
- Meanwhile, meta specs like Balance Druid or Frost Mage get 0%
- Suddenly, group leaders have real reasons to take off-meta picks
“Hey, that Boomkin is strong… but this Feral Druid has +6% and decent IO — let’s give them a shot.”
Concerns & Common Complaints
“But my IO score!”
Some players will say:
“I earned 365 score for timing a +12 Rookery as an Enhancement Shaman before buffs and reached 3k IO score total before Turbo Boost and Dinar System. Now another Enh Shaman comes along 4-5 weeks later with x5 Keystone Determination, does the same key, and gets 365 score too. Are we equal?!”
Should We Care?
In short: No — and here’s why:
- Score is not a solo leaderboard, it’s a record of participation and progression.
- Mythic+ scene has always been time-sensitive:
- Running high keys early in the season is harder, and rewards stronger players.
- Late-season runners benefit from nerfs, bug fixes, and gear inflation. Turbo Boost and Dinar system is a fresh example.
- Mythic Score doesn’t discriminate players. 3k IO at the start of the season and 3k IO at the end have only perceived skill of any given players.
- Keystone Determination is no different — it’s part of the evolving environment.
- Seasonal affixes or class buffs might shift in difficulty mid-season.
The real purpose of score is to show you’re active, competent, and contributing.
If one Enh Shaman did it pre-buffs, and another did it with buffs, they both cleared the content — and deserve the score.
“I don’t want to see Keystone Determination buffs in high keys (14+), it’s unfair, they already get the Vault and Mount!”
Answer:
Let’s be real — high-end players don’t want off-meta specs because they underperform.
Keystone Determination fixes that, week by week, until those specs become viable.
If an off-meta spec becomes so good after 6–8 weeks of buffs that a 5-DK squad clears a +20 Motherlode?
Great! That means the system is working.
And those sweaty players chose to wait for a window of power. That’s no different from:
- Waiting for gear to push higher
- Swapping to a meta spec
- Prepping group strats in advance
At that level, everyone is optimizing. We just made it possible for other specs to be part of the optimization. And if they get too strong?
Buffs will decrease automatically. No panic nerfs.
Should we cater to “no buffs beyond 13+” people?
Not really.
- That attitude assumes only current meta deserves to exist.
- The game is healthier when more specs are viable at all levels.
- You’re not entitled to gatekeep spec choice at +14 just because you don’t like “losing to a Feral/Sub Rogue”
Keystone Determination is about access, not free wins. If someone’s climbing with 5x stacks, they’re still playing well — now they just don’t get auto-declined for not belonging to the elite.
What You Can Do To Help
- Comment with support or constructive criticism
- Suggest tweaks
- Help me publish this topic on US Forums to gain traction
- Tag influencers who might be interested in this
- Help push this forward — devs do notice ideas when they gain traction
Bonus Round - Can we do something about chronic trolls and quitters in Mythic +?
Proposed Fix: “Key Quitter Penalty” Debuff
Here’s a version of my idea that’s fair, not abusable, and respects real-life edge cases:
Key Quitter Debuff
- Triggers if you leave a Mythic+ run before the final boss is killed.
- You get a debuff that lasts 1 hour, in-game (you can’t sit that out offline) and prevents you from joining or starting another Mythic+ run.
- If your group disbands, or more than 50% leave within short reasonable time frame — no penalty is applied (to account for toxic group collapse or real life issues).
- If you’re kicked, no penalty either — you didn’t leave.
- If you disconnect, the game gives you ~10 minutes to reconnect. If you return in time, no penalty. Otherwise, debuff applies.
- Debuff stacks cumulatively, showing how many times you’ve quit this season.
- The stack count resets at the start of each new Mythic+ season.
- The more stacks you have, the longer the cooldown (+1 hour per quit).
Why this works:
- It doesn’t punish random disconnects unfairly.
- It doesn’t screw you for leaving a flaming disaster if whole group is on board.
- It does punish ragequitters who dip the second things don’t go perfect.
- It indirectly protects key owners from wasting time and getting their key downgraded for nothing. Not a guarantee in any way, but hey, at least something.
- The stack count is visible to group leaders when forming groups, to help decide whom to invite or avoid.