Have dungeons become much harder (non end-game content)?

[zenga]

Hey,

I leveled a team exclusively through dungeons back when I left them at lvl 78 in 2016. Now I've picked the team up exactly as I left them: disc/3x bm hunter/warrior tank.

I was surprised the damage my warrior tank / team in general is taking compared to 2016 (decked out in full heirlooms). Even had to change the disc to holy because the direct heals were too weak. Bosses who used to be trivial feel like a challenge now. Eventhough I put more effort into tweaking my dps macros.

I haven't done any leveling / lower level dungeons in the past 4 years besides the active expansion content.

So is it just my imagination or are lower level dungeons harder than they used to be? I mean, back in the day if you had heirlooms you could pretty much do whatever the f*** you wanted.

[MiRai]

Dungeons definitely became more difficult after level scaling was implemented, back in patch 7.2.5 (or somewhere around there). Now, while simply leveling, there are many bosses, and sometimes even trash packs, that will actually pose a challenge, to a multiboxer. Unfortunately, it seems to have come at the cost of everything being a damage sponge—including outside world mobs—and some fights can become quite boring, or even tedious, as it now takes exponentially longer to kill a boss, or even a basic trash pack—all for seemingly no good reason.

However, since it was first introduced, Blizzard seems to have adjusted the numbers a bit, but maybe the stat/item level squish they recently did with the launch of Battle For Azeroth, inadvertently helped alleviate that perception. In my opinion, it's not nearly as bad as it was when it was first put into place, but it's still rough in more than just a few areas. Some areas feel tougher, all around, especially if you're new or, in your case, rusty, but other areas can feel like they were lazily scaled, and have not been looked at in ages *cough*cataclysm*cough*.

Now, to be fair, I can't say that I mind it all that much, and I do prefer that leveling through dungeons will actually teach a new multiboxer basic mechanics and technique as they progress, rather than donning heirlooms and simply one-shotting almost everything until current-tier content, where it would then become a rude awakening the moment they stepped foot into a max-level heroic (now Mythic). Although, I find that you can still deck yourself out in heirlooms and enchants, and that helps immensely while leveling through dungeons. Blizzard has also consolidated certain dungeon expansions into entire level brackets ( 70-80 (TBC & Wrath) / 80-90 (Cataclysm & MoP)), so you generally have a good amount of them to pick from.

I think what feels pretty bad, though, is the amount of time it takes to level. It's been a creeping issue for several expansions now, as max level has continued to increase, but they're trying to fix that in the next expansion, Shadowlands, with a level squish back down to 60, where they've publicly stated that they expect leveling to be 50-70% faster than it is now. I'd like to believe that most of the tedium felt while leveling, today and for the past few expansions, was masked by the fact that we could—along with the added 300% RaF experience bonus that has since been removed—just one-shot almost everything during the journey. After they changed that, a bigger issue of needing over one hundred exhausting levels to participate in meaningful content reared its ugly head, which, again, is why I assume they are, at least in part, doing this level squish.

After BFA's, largely, lackluster early delivery of gated content outside of the most highly-skilled areas (raiding), painstakingly locked behind layers of random luck completely out of the hands of the player, they, unsurprisingly, lost a large chunk of their subscribers, and so they've been playing catch-up ever since and throwing band-aids over gushing wounds, hoping to weather the storm until Shadowlands, while the art and cinematics teams keep the ship afloat. Unfortunately, if Blizzard continues to strike out every other expansion (Cata, WoD, BFA), this is, in my opinion, going to kill this game quicker than anything else. It's not a simple task to keep people playing the game, and it's even more difficult to bring them back after they've left, but it's incredibly easy to lose them. So, they need to stop screwing around with these intricate or overly complicated per-expansion systems that come with a heavy development cost and a high risk of failure (looking at you, Azerite gear), and get back to the roots of an MMORPG. I realize I speak as if I have the answer, but I'm certainly not the only one who feels this way, and I think if they're going to dump time and effort into any particular system, then allow it to transition across the borders of an expansion, and don't leave it behind to die.

A bit of a tangent there at the end, but it is what is, and I still thoroughly enjoy the multiboxing playstyle, as well as the theorycrafting and design elements behind all of it. I'm really hoping to get my teams together at 120 so I can begin to jump into some Mythics myself, shortly after the release of the next season, and I'm currently planning for just that. However, here's to hoping that they loosen the reins a bit with the release of Shadowlands, and that overall gameplay becomes quicker paced and a bit more fun—even if that second metric does happen to be measured subjectively. However, if they don't, then, at that point, Classic TBC will be right around the corner.

[Tin]

I did a video when they changed level scaling in Patch 7.3.5 - The Mana-Tombs boss fight

First time - 4 hunters lv. 62 - Instance Quest open - range 64-66 - Full run 11 min.
Patch 7.3.5 - 4 hunters lv. 66 - range 65-67 - Full run 29 min.

Pandemonius - lv. 66 HP 65430 - Patch 7.3.5 Lv. 67 HP 278561
Tavarok - lv. 66 HP 81788 - Patch 7.3.5 Lv. 67 HP 348201
Nexus-Prince Shaffar - lv. 66 HP 98145 - Patch 7.3.5 Lv. 67 HP 417841

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1Tw...&index=34&t=0s

[Andreauk]

I have that same team apart from my tank is a Pally.. the pets offtank which helps a lot, and I had no issues levelling them. I managed bc timewalking on them with no issues also. I love Disc so much it's the only healer I will ever use.

[Lyonheart]

I know this is OT, but if your concearn is leveling right now, Koraks Revenge AV evevnt is the best way to level once questing/dungons take you longer than 15-30mins to gain a level. Not sure when the AV event ends.. but it is super fast leveling. Its better for higher levels. You get, at the very least, 1 level per AV even if you lose.. if you knock out some quests and win you can get two levels. Equip your heirlooms and have the anniversary buff. I know you cant effectively multi box them right now.. i was able to do 3 hunters last night due to the 3 person mounts and got them to 120 from 113 in a few hours. ( horde wins 70% of the time it seems.. so if your horde it might be faster )

[zenga]

Thanks for the replies. To avoid confusion: I never really stopped playing the game, I just didn't level any characters besides what was current content since 2016 (i.e. I have every class at 120 on my main account for solo play). I just no longer raid hardcore or do any serious pvp, nor do I carefully study the patch notes like I used to be.

I'm honestly don't care about reaching the level cap with this team: when I started it I just wanted to do each dungeon at the level it was intended for. I did for example all the Burning Crusade Heroic dungeons at lvl 70. Meaning I had to turn off XP gain. So the slower the xp, the better for me, the more I can enjoy this.

@MiRai
Completely agree, and since they are trying to fix what is broken in 8.3 one would expect that they make the essences available to everyone (could be glyphs, a vendor, a simple quest chain). But no, they tmho make it even more annoying to catch up/play an offspec. The days where I had 3-4 mains (Shaman, Lock, Priest, Paladin) and I could easily play the role I wanted to / was necessary have long been gone.

Off-topic: the first day was a bit frustrating to set everything up, but then I went through some of your excellent videos and that was a huge inspiration to setup up my stuff again in my own way. Huge thanks for that.

@Lyonheart
Yeah I did the AV grind on my main account to get the last 5 classes to 120 (think I lost 3 in total btw). But I don't really want to do it on alt accounts because I have zero interest to take them through the AP / essence grind to do end game content. I'm having fun multiboxing leveling through dungeons when none is around to solo play with.

@Tin
Thanks for the videos!

@andreauk
I'm curious how you've setup your disc priest. I've always like the fact that they could contribute damage, but they historically were also able to get the team out of trouble. I feel that is nowadays no longer true, i.e. once you fall behind a shaman can top off the team, but with a disc it's a nearly guaranteed wipe. I have some spare shamans and druids in the up until lvl 100, so I'm considering swapping the priest out, although I must say that holy is an improvement.

[zenga]

I have an additional question:

- the dungeon bracket is now 80-90
- dungeon mobs seem to scale with level

What happens with the scaling if I use a lvl 85 character along with 4 lvl 81 chars: does the dungeon scale to 85 (highest character) or does it scale for each individual character (like the newer zones)?

[Tin]

It scale to each individual character. and You have the opportunity to party sync now.

[zenga]

It scale to each individual character. and You have the opportunity to party sync now.

Thanks a lot for that tip, I wasn't aware that it would work all the way up to 120. This opens a plethora of possible team compositions for me. Not to mention that I got it to work cross realm.

[Andreauk]

I use my Disc Priest by having a dps macro, then using repeater region in isboxer with the clique addon. I heal from tanks window.

Power word shield is set to left click, shadow mend to right. Big cds have their own button. I have set to 1 on keyboard to shield the tank on pull. Aoe heal on it's own button.

This is the gse macro I use:

keypress:

/castsequence [Purge the Wicked]

main dps macro:

/castsequence [nochanneling] [Purge the Wicked] , Penance, Penance
/cast [nochanneling] Schism
/cast [nochanneling] Power Word: Solace
/cast [nochanneling] Lightspawn
/castsequence [nochanneling] Smite, Smite, Smite, Smite
/cast [combat] Fade

The disc Priest can do some really nice dps once you start to get gear. As for damage taken I find it's fine.. just have to spam shadow mend until hp is in safe ranges in an emergency, but if done right the shielding and dps will do a lot.. and much less to do than a regular healer and the dps is a nice bonus. Having a Pally tank is huge.. so many useful cds right there and heals if really stuck.

Talents I use:

Schism, Masochism, power word: Solace,
psychic voice, sins of the many, purge the wicked, Lenience.

I don't have mythic+ experience as a boxer, but I could do Tol Dagor, Motherlode and Waycrest Manor on base mythic np. Felt very strong.