Update: Blizzard have announced Mythic+ tuning has gone live with a 10% nerf to ALL enemy damage and HP, as well as changes for 6 dungeons. You can read the details here. We’ll see how this affects the below data next week.
Mythic+ Season 2 has started and like every season it is a rough start. Learning new dungeons and remembering old ones. Climbing the progression ladder and securing good loot from the dungeons as well as for your weekly vault. But which dungeons are the easy ones and which still need more tuning? Does it make sense to even go for +10 this week? Where is the sweet spot for gearing? We take an early look into the data and try to give good advice! As always, all the data is provided by Raider.IO.
Which Dungeons Are Good and Which Ones Suck?
Looking at the standard breakdown for all 8 dungeons we at least see a decent distribution with nothing being a complete favorite and nothing falling behind – like City of Threads in Season 1. All dungeons have timers between 31 and 34 minutes, except for The MOTHERLODE which sits at 39 minutes and isn’t singled out because it takes a lot longer.
The Rookery and Darkflame Cleft are the easiest ones by far for now. Both show above 85% success rate. Surprisingly Darkflame Cleft is the least popular right now, maybe consider paying it a visit for some easier progress. Theater of Pain, Mechagon Workshop, and The MOTHERLODE are quite solid around 76%, just above the average for all dungeons. Cinderbrew Meadery is falling behind by 5% but still acceptable at 71%.
However: Operation: Floodgate and Priory of the Sacred Flame absolutely suck. At 62,4% and 64,8% they both are way worse than anything else so far. The developers should look at their data and implement some major nerfs in the near future.
How Hard Is the Early Key Level Climb?
Next, we’ll be taking a look at the general key level distribution. As expected, most keys are run on the lower levels, and for good reason: Even a +2 dungeon will reward you with the same item level (639) that was BIS in season 1. On the other hand, this means that players are facing quite the uphill battle early into the season and running rather trivial keys is a given until they can step into farming gilded crests and securing good vault loot.
Key level 2 starts with a rough 73% success rate which is quite low and pressured the developers to bring in immediate nerfs for the first 2 key levels. From there we see quite the improvements in the percentage but also due to lower participation in general since most players already see quite a challenge within the first 2 key levels. Doing Mythic+ is rewarding in general since any key level will secure at least 1/6 heroic gear (ilvl 649) in your weekly vault.
Higher Keys
Level 6 is the sweet spot in general. You get 18 runed crests for a timed key (14 for a depleted run), the chest drops 1/6 heroic track (ilvl 649) and also secures 3/6 heroic track (ilvl 655) rewards for the vault. Key level 7 is the first step into gilded crests while also activating the Tyrannical affix for this week. Keep in mind that the dreaded 
Challenger’s Peril has been moved to key level 12, completely irrelevant for most players for now. And due to Tyrannical, the in-time percentage is dropping off a cliff, from 85% down to 60%. Regarding gear rewards, this level is only a slight step up with 2/6 heroic track (ilvl 658) from your vault.
The same drop-off happens again once we step from key level 9 up to key level 10. Adding Fortified to the affix list sends the success rate below 40% by now. At this key level – for the time of the data snapshot – we also see just above 11,000 keys being completed, less than 2% of all runs. But on this key level you also access the highest end-of-run rewards (ilvl 655) as well as the highly sought-after 1/6 myth track rewards from the vault (ilvl 662).
Where Do I Make the Best Progress on the Important Key Levels?
Given these 3 major breakpoints within the key level climb: Which Dungeons are the best and worst on these key levels? We focus on the in time percentages for all 8 dungeons for key level 6, 7 and 10.
The Rookery and Darkflame Cleft are ahead on all 3 breakpoints. Tyrannical at key level 7 makes Theater of Pain a lot more punishing given that the dungeon has 5 bosses instead of just 3 or 4. The Meadery is also dropping quite a lot while The MOTHERLODE is still fine. Once we get to key level 10 the old order has basically been restored. Rookery and Darkflame Cleft are a safe bet for now. Theater of Pain, Workshop, and The Motherlode are somewhat behind and the remaining three need some major improvements to be considered worth your time as long as you don’t care about specific pieces of gear.
In Conclusion
Stay away from Priory and Operation: Floodgate as long as you don’t need any loot from there. Focus on The Rookery and Darkflame Cleft. Any key level is good for your general gear progression no matter how far you’ve come last season. Focus on key level 6 for good run rewards and decent vault options. And if you go for golden crests and myth track rewards from the vault: prepare for pain instead of pleasure.
Next week things will of course be easier. Players will have more set pieces, a higher item level and more experience. Meanwhile, the developers are already adjusting pain points. And we can hope that certain dungeons will see a lot more tuning before the next week. Keep in mind that the item level jump with this season is quite enormous and your DPS as well as survivability will skyrocket over the next few weeks.
Since the first week is always the busiest, we will be taking another look at the data on Sunday. Maybe we will get a few more adjustments, who knows. Until then: Good luck with your keys and loot!