Breaking Down My Mythic Plus Planning For Season 2 of Dragonflight

I’m going to write a really long post documenting the patch prep I have done for 10.1 in Dragonflight and the plans I have for pushing keys, the ways in which I’ve decided to pursue a much-more aggressive set of goals, and also randomly shoehorn in screenshots and short bios of all my characters at 70….all fifteen of them.

In my season 2 prep posts to date, I’ve discussed 3 big goals I have for my Mythic Plus play – two Keystone Hero characters (2,500 M+ rating), three additional Keystone Master characters beyond that (2,000 rating), and to play my alts more regularly, now that all of them have a reasonable level of current gear and can spin up to Season 2 ready very quickly.

So with that in mind, I have prepared for the season in a few fun (and weird) ways. Firstly, I spent a good chunk of time the other night distributing consumables to all my characters, which resulted in an inventory that looked like….this:

So all of these consumables, why? Well, I wanted to prestock for all….fifteen characters to be played through M+. Yes, all of them.

Now, my plan isn’t to play them all at once, mind you, but instead to attempt to focus on 3-5 at once, meeting big goals and crossing things off. So I needed to make a plan, a structure to help me find the way to best optimize my time in-game for me. I run a lot of keys, and left to my own devices, I would just run a crazy number of keys on a single character. My goal for this upcoming season is to spread my key runs more evenly, using a goal-focus to limit the number I do on any one character and instead spread them out over more characters. So I concocted a planning sheet that looks something like this…

So what are the goals? Weekly, I’ve broken down my goals into two categories – rating-based and gear-based. In order to keep all my characters progressing throughout the season (and to avoid the mad-dash of catchup like I did this season), I’m going to try to take the 30-40 keys I might run in an average week and spread them better across my characters. To that end, I won’t play all 15 every week, but the goal is to focus on my top 2, then the rest of my top 5, and then slowly trickle time investment down the stack (the only time trickle down works!).

Under rating goals, the idea is to focus energy and effort onto two main points – running a number of dungeons per week and then focusing back specifically on increasing rating by setting new bests per dungeon. The quantity is simple – my KSH characters need to run 8 per week for the Vault, and then need to focus in on getting to new best keys in each dungeon. My goal is to get both characters in this category to 8 runs a week for the Vault, and to get new high keys in each of the 8 dungeons in Season 2. If I can meet both goals in 8 total runs, that would be ideal – but I suspect for the first two weeks, that will be harder to do and so my raid main will take focus. For the KSM characters, the goal is to get to 4 dungeons a week for two Vault slots and to set at least a couple of new high keys in that space. For the early weeks of the season, I’ll probably remain locked in on only doing 4 dungeons per KSM character and not trying to maximize per-dungeon keys too much. A lot will depend on how much time I have around my other obligations, and a part of setting goals for early on in the season is to maximize gear gains early on so that I don’t have to spin up each character in succession as early-season goals cross the finish line.

After these I have loot goals, which focus on the Vault (and tie in with the rating goals) and the new upgrade system for Season 2. The basic gist of it is simple enough – run enough keys to get good vault slots, run enough content in general for the Flightstone currency used in upgrades, and try to reach the weekly cap on all 4 Shadowflame Crest types. For my KSH main, I won’t need Whelpling crests, because those max out at a lower item level than even my lowest piece of gear, but for all my other characters, I’ll be shooting for 10 of those too. Likewise, however, it only makes sense to focus on my KSH characters early on for the Aspect’s crests, as these come from 16+ keys and Mythic raid, and it will be some time before my non-KSH characters can even so much as sniff a key that high, but over the long-tail of the season, the goal is to be able to get most of my characters close to it.

Before we talk more about why I’m doing this (because I do have reasons besides a crippling WoW addiction!), let’s introduce the characters I have now in sequence, especially for the cases where I have multiples of a class (Monk and Priest).

Kaylrizen

My current raid main, I rolled Monk on my DF boost because I wanted to play Night Elf still in raids, and Monk because it offered my raid team the Mystic Touch debuff for Physical damage while allowing me to tank, DPS, or heal and pinch hit for all roles. Over the tier, this character has been my most played and I’ve settled on her being just the Agility side of the Monk roles, so tank in raids and typically DPS outside of them. She’s already a 418 item level, so early season goal here is to push, push, and push some more. I plan to flex more in Mythic Plus to tanking as needed to expedite the process of getting to KSH, and this is the character on which my hopes for a month-long KSH push rest!

Syladylin

My original raid main all the way back from 2005, Syladylin has my attention for early in the tier this time because the Priest set is ABSOLUTE fire this time out. I’ve also really been enjoying playing Discipline this expansion – the buff to the healing of Power Word Radiance makes playing one in dungeons feel a lot less bad and gives you some room for things to get weird. I haven’t healed too high in any season of Mythic Plus, so dedicating to this as a second KSH character is going to be a fascinating experiment!

Kaylriene

My prior raid main and the character I’ve spent the most time on since I started this blog (and the blog namesake, of course!), I enjoy Vengeance tanking a lot this expansion, especially because the dungeon game requires a lot of skill to pull off well with how you cycle defensives. This character is my main KSM pusher past the KSH level because I had a lot of fun pushing her to KSM in Season 1 and the mobility/threat toolkit of DH is very well suited for dungeons IMO.

Dragoriene

It’s an Evoker! I’ve enjoyed playing Evoker, particularly Devastation, in Season 1, such that she was my second KSM, and since a couple of my project raiders are on the spec, it helps me in raid leadership to better understand the spec and how it plays, even if dungeon play is not a neat 1:1 mapping onto raiding. Plus, tier set looks cool – do I need more?

Khaelia

My start-of-Shadowlands raid main (as a healer), I’m getting in on the overpowered nature of Prot pally at the moment! It’s been fun to goof around on, and KSM feels like a good level to get to given that the tier set appearance I most like is Heroic.

Anaror

A second protection character, this time as warrior! I’ve been goofing around on prot warrior and helping a friend get more into the Mythic Plus scene by tanking keys on this character, and she’s been great fun given how prot warrior is currently tuned. Season 2 seems to keep them strong enough and I definitely want to play with prot warrior more!

Nullifier

My second Warlock (the original is still stuck at level 50 post-scaling!), I leveled this character for Void Elf heritage armor back in late Legion and I enjoy playing Warlock more as Void Elf for the racial bonuses and the DPS contribution (my old lock is Worgen). I’m playing Demonology because the spec is the one I enjoy the most (maybe Affliction as runner up but it is doo doo in dungeons) and also because the Legion artifact for Demonology is the coolest one with the floating rune skull.

Tortura

DK sets sometimes look awesome, and I like this one a lot! For next tier, while I don’t like the set much at all, I’m excited to try some Blood DK tanking in dungeons to better understand the spec. It is what my co-tank plays and I think understanding the threat and damage profiles will help me to better optimize our raid play and understand how we can manage initial pull threat and play better.

Furryferal

The real funny part if that I have never played this character in Feral, lol. Anyways, the plan for the Druid is to go Restoration and get some good hands-on healing practice with one of the best overall key healers, and to get the cool tree-dragon armor in the Autumnal colorway.

Thundra

The Shaman set in season 2 looks awful. But I like playing Resto, so I’m going to run some lower keys and have the option available to push (and acquire the dungeon mail armor looks).

Vivifier

A second priest? This one was my Lightforged Draenei heritage armor-getter, and now it made sense to me to run him as…Shadow? He’s my most recently leveled character and one I’m looking to test the waters of Shadow on, with a gear set I can properly optimize for Shadow, which is notoriously very dependent on a good mix of secondary stats for gameplay feel, especially Haste.

Randeiel

One of my original stable of alts from all the way back in Wrath of the Lich King, I’ve had a ton of fun across multiple expansions playing Hunter. The Hunter tier set in Season 2 looks like ass, but I want to practice Marksman some more and I enjoy the Lone Wolf playstyle and all the fun that comes with it.

Lilliea

It’s a mage. I enjoy Arcane right now, and while I feel like all the mage specs are kind of overcomplicated messes right now, I want to give it a look and see how far I can push.

Stabbsy

My rogue (who was originally a Gnome, but the name is funnier on a Worgen lol), I plan to push a little bit of low key action as Outlaw on this character. I like the Rogue tier generally, but I have never really vibed well with Rogue gameplay. Outlaw this expansion is the closest I’ve gotten to really enjoying it, and I think if I give it a look in harder content, I could end up convinced to play one more regularly!

Chugmug

My original Monk, who is now my dedicated Mistweaver character due to how different the stat priorities are (Haste actively sucks on both Brewmaster and Windwalker, but it is number 1 on MW!), I leveled her since she was already 60 and already MW at the end of Shadowlands and it made sense to gear up to do some healing. She’s my bottom priority because I’ve played a good amount of Mistweaver this expansion via my main Monk, and because I’ll be getting all the Monk-specific looks via my main, but I want the option!

So Why Do All Of This?

With my characters and specs introduced, why bother with all of this effort?

Firstly, I’ve been enjoying running dungeons a lot this expansion. One of the key things about Dragonflight that I actively love is that raising an army of alts is relatively trivial. Leveling from 60 to 70 is straightforward and fast, and keeping an alt current is just down to gear, which makes it easier and more enjoyable. Shadowlands, BfA, and much of Legion all had this sort of ennui-inducing effect on me at endgame, where keeping up with the layers of systems and chores needed felt overwhelming in a bad way, and it took a long period of patching and fixing before I really got to a good point in each expansion for alt gameplay – and even then, only Legion was the one that really caught me for alts. In Dragonflight, particularly with the renewed focus on non-dungeon, non-raid catchup and upgradeable gear, with more of that in Season 2, it feels fun and rewarding to me to get an alt geared out, kitted out ideally, and then rolling on content I can really sink my teeth into and enjoy – like Mythic Plus.

I also, generally, played a lot of Mythic Plus in Season 1 of Dragonflight, taking 11 characters in across 17 different specs to see things myself. It was really, really fun, and I enjoyed getting to see the different perspectives and playstyles across the board. Pushing to 15 characters representing all classes and 16 specs is going to be a lot of fun and is something I am actively looking forward to (hence, spreadsheets). I love being able to get more transmogs and generally kit my characters out, and it helps me actively with a flexible raid roster if there ends up being a situation where me flexing to a new role or class could benefit my raid as a group, so that I’m not far behind the gear curve of the raid as a whole. My Dragonflight Season 1 recap from Raider.IO unveiled that I played with 1,257 other players, which is…a lot, and perhaps indicative of a problem (you can’t stop me!), but also tells me that I can do more to keep my character roster fleshed out. My DH, my last KSM for Season 1 (unless I really push my warrior in the next week!), hit KSM in just 40 total dungeon runs, and even that was laced with inefficiency and some choices for comfort over a hard push. I think I could wring more enjoyment out of a similar time investment for Season 2 if I better spread the runs across my roster, and given that I no longer have to worry about leveling alts from 60-70 (maybe dusting off some alts for 50-70 and some Allied Race toons for even more leveling!), I can spend a majority of my in-game time zeroed in on dungeons and pursuing gear, rating, and goals!

Lastly, I think it is important to me personally as a raid leader to better understand all of the classes of the game, at least, if not the specs and if not the specific specs that my raiders play. Not everyone likes this idea (I know Max from Liquid is personally not a fan), but for me and how my brain works (a topic I’ve explored personally a lot the last few months and learned some things about), the fixation on knowing by doing is real and it absolutely fits in my happy space for me to hyperfixate on trying something insane like pushing multi-KSH, multi-KSM, and getting all my characters into a well-geared state. For my raiders, my hope is that the understanding that comes from learning their classes and specs better is that I can be a more effective leader, speak to direct improvements they could make and offer more direct and experience-guided coaching than I can today. Sure, I have everything at 70 for now, but I couldn’t say I understand all the depths of how resto Druid works, or the full threat dynamic with myself and my co-tank on his blood DK, and that is the kind of understanding I want to get through experience.

Overall, at this point, my primary time and thought investment into WoW comes from Mythic Plus. While I understand why people often don’t like it, and I know that I am a minority of a minority in terms of time sunk into it, rating, and the like, for me, once the switch flipped on the mode back in Shadowlands, it became the most enjoyable way to play WoW for me. Even with improvements to raid gear coming in Season 2 through upgrades, Mythic Plus just hits different – I can get in, find a group (honestly the hardest part), and then just do my best against an infinite-scaling puzzle where the grind on low keys and from multiple angles helps me skill up for the climb as I go, and that’s pretty neat. I even prefer PUGging in that environment, because it’s just me against the dungeon with a group of strangers, and I have little obligation to them outside of the dungeon which frees me to just hang out, quietly without giving directions or guidance, to just play, and I can run them at any time of the day – I’ve done keys at 11 AM and 3 AM, at 7 PM on a Monday and at 7 AM on a Friday, and it just kind of works. In the biggest way, doing all of this is me securing my own happiness – locking in a plan and idea to ensure I can run dungeons in a way that works towards goals, that keeps my raid main a focus and raid leading and progression in mind but allows me to stretch my legs as a player and challenge myself in a way that is personal and unique, a journey I don’t need to take anyone else on. Of course, learning these things early also will help me bring people along on their own journeys and help with keys if people in my orbit want that, and I enjoy being able to bring the knowledge and practical experience of hundreds of runs to my guildies and friends who are more pressed for time and less able to run as often as I do.

For whatever measured, contemplated answers I can provide on Mythic Plus and WoW in general, it’s as simple as this – I enjoy Mythic Plus, and for whatever reason, it makes me happy to play it and push against my goals, and that feeling is something I want to capture and recapture throughout the season, one character at a time.

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