The eighth week of Mythic+ this season is over, and Nightstalker314 is reviewing the weekly data from Raider.IO. The Mists of Pandaria Timewalking had a minor impact on the 13.86% decline. A slightly higher value than in the previous week (11.46%). Compared to the total runs in MN S1 at this point, MN S2 is already 28.39% behind. After the first week, this gap was at just 22.61%. The shift towards heroic raiding continues. And the addition of the Labyrinth delve also dragged down numbers for the ongoing ninth week. So let’s look at the details.
Weekly Total Run Performance Compared To Other Seasons
The regional values did not spread as much around the global average of -13.86% this time. The US (-15.07%), the EU (-13.99%), and CN (-13.68%) showed a similar trend. KR (-9.90%) and TW (-9.50%), as the smaller Asian regional servers are usually more sustained. The regional weekly share for the Asian servers has also gone up continuously since the start of the season. From 38.28% for CN, 2.24% for KR, and 1.17% for TW to 47.82%, 3.07%, and 1.43%, respectively.
MN S2 continues to fall behind the previous seasons. The dominance of heroic raiding, which only went up in the same comparison, might hold far into the end of the season. Unlocked crests and item upgrades to 340 next week, as well as the recent massive nerfs to the worst dungeons, might soften the drop-off for a while. But the WoW Forever release will also draw a lot of attention. It doesn’t cost anything extra compared to the paid Beta access.
Total Runs Across All Dungeons
The spread across all dungeons increased a bit compared to last week. The gap between the most and least favorite dungeon increased from 4.72 to 5.26 percentage points. The order did not move, and Blinding Vale might remain the least favorite dungeon. The massive nerfs in week 9 have elevated the lower half to much healthier success rates so far. But despite massive shakeups in popularity overall, Blinding Vale is still dead last.
For week 8, the Ascendant affix had some major impact since 37.41% of all runs were within the range of the rotating affix key levels. Murder Row (93.61%) remained on top. Kings’ Rest (92.46%), Temple (91.67%), and Voidscar Arena (91.38%) followed with a small gap. Den of Nalorakk (90.29%) barely moved, and Blinding Vale (89.21%), Ruby Life Pools (89.09%), and Altar of Fangs (89.07%) shifted positions. The gap from top to bottom, 4.54 points, has already shrunk to about 2.5 for week 9 by now.
Split Across All Key Levels
86.79% of all keys were done at key level 10 or higher. While improving on week 7 (85.89%), this was still quite behind the value in MN S1 week 8 with 90.25%. Absolute runs (-61.54%) and relative share, from 32.96% to 22.46%, for +10 keys are still massively behind the MN S1 values. One major factor in week 8 was also the introduction of item upgrades during MN S1. It’s hard to say how big the impact will be in MN S2 during week 10. In relative distribution, the shift away from +10s to farming heroic raids tore a massive hole in this season’s key level pattern.
And overall, we are quite behind last season’s pace. Total numbers for week 8 in MN S2 are 43.56% behind compared to MN S1. And only at the top 2 key levels are the totals slightly ahead. Within the season, the trend for high-level keys is still positive. Almost every key level above 12 was growing in relative share. And total numbers kept climbing for +18 and above.
The overall success rate dropped from 91.31% by 0.36 points down to 90.95%. From +5 to +11, we saw drop-offs between -0.90 and -1.95 points. +12 and +13 saw the biggest improvements with +1.13 and +1.22 points. By now, +12 (94.74%) has almost caught up to +10 (95.02%). But this is also due to +10 falling a bit behind last season’s ridiculous 97.11% because the vault farmers are no longer that active on this level.
Conclusion and Week 9 Forecast
Even if nerfs to the harder dungeons make Keystone Myth and a higher rating ceiling possible, the players will only slowly pivot away from heroic raiding, since you can coin the final 2 bosses for several weeks while M+ loot just isn’t worth it. Towards the end of the season, activity might increase for the high-end keys since 3,600 is quite rough for Keystone Myth. And the new 5% reward should keep ambitious players busy. The devs should really commit to addressing this massive shift in their 12.2 plans. M+ core players are not happy with 12.1.
As of this writing, 120 hours after the US reset, the hourly numbers for all major regions are clearly behind the previous week. A longer maintenance downtime and the run on the Labyrinth delve and its first week title tanked early numbers. By now, the EU (-17.71%), CN (-18.90%), and the US (-21.06%) are quite behind. But this trend has been improving day by day. So the final values might not be as drastic. Something that we will examine in next week’s breakdown.