The third week of Mythic+ this season is over, and Nightstalker314 is taking a look at the weekly data from Raider.IO. A drop-off of 5.48% was rather tame, and it seems that by now seasons start with a massive grind and then resort to a slower decline until crest and gear progression are capped out. The weekly success rate also passed 90% faster than ever before. There was still a massive focus on BIS items, and the high-end players are about 50 rating points ahead of the previous season’s pace. So, let’s look at the details.
Weekly Total Run Performance Compared To Other Seasons
The 5.48% global decline was almost matched by the development on the Chinese servers (-5.28%). The US (-2.64%) and KR (-2.41%) saw more sustained activity, while the EU (-7.71%) and TW (-8.71%) were the more negative outliers. The switch from focusing on Timewalking for two rewards in week 2 to just a single extra box from delves was less of a draw away from M+. On the other hand, week 4 so far is not showing an upward tick for the first dungeon event of the season.
Compared to the previous seasons, MN S2 is falling behind overall. The early weeks tend to spread quite far in activity, because dungeon weeks still have a major impact on the gear progression. There is no fixed spot for such a week. Given that patch 12.1.5 with its solo-boss raid will be followed up by the launch of WoW Forever, the surrounding weeks might look like a roller-coaster.
Total Runs Across All Dungeons
The spread across all dungeons, as well as their order, didn’t really move compared to week 2. There is still a major focus on Murder Row and Altar of Fangs for the few BIS items in the current patch cycle. A combination of absurdly strong raid weapons and trinkets and synergizing meta specs like Arms Warrior is really throwing a curveball to gearing through M+ alone. The order of popularity is also starting to match the success rate.
Murder Row (92.95%) remained the perfect combination of easy and popular dungeon. Kings’ Rest (92.63%) and Temple of Sethraliss (91.84%) were doing well as returning dungeons. But their loot tables offer a bit too much Versatility and bland trinkets. Voidscar Arena (91.49%) has been improving and concluded the upper half with a gap to Altar of Fangs (88.98%). As a brand new dungeon, there is still room for gaining experience and overall PUG improvement. Den of Nalorakk (88.41%) was no longer the worst dungeon due to gaining 3.12 percentage points from last week. Blinding Vale (88.08%) and Ruby Life Pools (87.89%) were not far behind. But the gap between both clusters (2.51 points) was bigger than the range within them (1.46 and 1.09).
Split Across All Key Levels
81.95% of all keys were completed at key level 10 or higher. This value was already on track one week ahead of MN S1’s pace. In the last season, we saw an 81.07% split for 10 and higher in week 4. The decrease in the +10 share is also moving more quickly. MN S1 undercut 34.67% in week 7. In absolute numbers, week-by-week, we saw growth for key level 12 and higher. Compared to MN S1, which had higher metrics in general, MN S2 in week 3 was still ahead for Key level 14 and upward. Key level 12, with the highest crest efficiency, was also more dominant this early on. The key ceiling was just as high as in MN S1, week 3. But in week 4, we already saw the first timed +22. Something that wouldn’t happen until week 5 last season.
The overall success rate also developed better than last season. With a week-by-week improvement of 1.88 percentage points to 90.46%, this is the earliest week with an above-90 % average since the key level squish. DF S4 also made it above 90% in week 3, but with just 90.05%. Any other season before also doesn’t match up to this. Farming for your vault was also never easier this early. 94.42% for all +10s was once again ahead of MN S1, which only went above 94% in week 4. The massive leap overall, especially for the harder-tuned dungeons, can be attributed to more and more characters with 4-set bonus. Add to that the BIS bonus rolls within the raid. Any impact of the affix rotation is currently outperformed by general gear improvements.
Conclusion and Week 4 Forecast
This season continues to outperform the previous one in terms of gear and rating progression, but keeps falling behind in absolute numbers. Upcoming patch and game releases (WoW Forever) will continue to draw attention away. At BlizzCon, we got one major positive announcement. A new top 5% rating cut-off for each spec should allow dedicated players to reach their goals outside the meta.
As of this writing, 144 hours after the US reset, the hourly numbers for all major regions are slightly behind. Usually, there is an overall upward trend during a dungeon week. The US is at -8.66%, the EU at -5.79%, and CN at just -1.26%. Maybe BlizzCon viewership put a dent in the weekend activity. We might examine this specifically in next week’s breakdown.