Originally Posted by
Mystikal
That will only be the case if you're clearing about 13 keys each week and doing so from week 1 (not going to happen for the vast majority), because of the way the extra choices calculate their item level based on keys cleared. Your first choice is always your highest key cleared (yay!), but after that, it's your 4th highest run and then your 10th highest run. No-one in the first few weeks will be jumping straight up to a +15, because everyone will have to start out with their base keys from M0. In order to be able to start straight at +15 the following week, you must have cleared a +16 in week 1 - again, not going to happen for anyone except the very, very best. So, realistically, to get 3 choices of 226 items the following week, you are looking at 7-8 runs to climb to a +15 key, and then a further 9 clears of +15 to make all the choices 226 ilvl. This is not a very likely scenario for most players.
Even if you decide you're only going to go for 2 choices in your chest, there are the keys that you must successfully clear to raise your key level to +15, and you must then clear a further 3 +15 keys to get the 2nd choice to 226 ilvl. That is still a huge time investment.
Now, since somebody like myself won't have any heroic raiding gear to help me, I will be trying to do all of the above with WQ rewards, essentially, since my odds of getting any loot from the M+ clears themselves are now very small. Yes, I might pick up an item or two from the clears, but it won't be many. Meanwhile, my guildies will be getting loot regularly from their clears of the heroic raid - content I am capable of doing, but not at the same time every week. It has never taken them more than 3 resets to start comfortably clearing heroic, so let's set that as the benchmark. After 3 weeks, they are starting to get more and more gear from heroic raids, which in turn gives them a higher ilvl and more power, and increases their chances of clearing to a higher key and starting from an increased key level next reset. In addition, it hardly matters if they get nothing from the actual clear of the key itself, because they're already in higher level gear. Win-win, for them.
I, on the other hand, have no means of getting the gear required other than running M+ again, and again, and again, and AGAIN... all in the vain hope that I might actually get a drop. Once I have reached the point at which I can comfortably clear +15 keys, that is when my gearing actually STARTS.
I am more than capable of actually doing the content, but skill will only take you so far. At some point, you need the actual raw stats that gear gives you in order to push out the required dps / healing / mitigation that higher keys require. Heroic & mythic raiders, after a few resets, will come in with a massive power advantage and will be clearing those +15s earlier, and also not have to worry about doing more than the actual number of runs required, as the gear that drops from the completed runs will be of little to no use to them. Anyone not fortunate enough to be able to raid will have to spam M+ endlessly to increase their ilvl, and the drop rates have been neutered.
The whole thing is set up so that the gearing up process for raiders is vastly shortened, and vastly increased for M+ runners.
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In your scenario above, for someone like me, who cannot raid with my guild every week, my "off weeks" will be done in 5 minutes. Log on, do my Torghast legendary materials run, then ensure I log on 3 times during the 7 day week to keep up with my Callings, then log off. None of what I have done has increased my character's power nor has it given me any gear. Sounds thrilling.
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They won't though, on both counts. The raiders will be getting gear with far more regularity than the M+ runners since the M+ clears themselves virtually do not reward gear (except for 1 lucky individual), and if they weren't running raids before, giving them a gear drought isn't going to suddenly make them start. It's far more likely that they'll just quit entirely and unsub - not good for Blizzard.