M+ Halls of Atonement, does the timer need a nerf?

[Argorwal]

This post is emblematic of what you guys don't understand about lower level groups. Kiting in HOA is very hard if your dps don't interrupt or cc, or if the fire mage is pressing combust on the pull because he likes to see how high he can make the burst go but then complains cause the tank doesn't have aggro while uninterrupted casters sit there 20 feet away from the rest of the trash.

The coordination requirements for middle/low level m+ have increased massively over the past two expansions, and casual groups who just run a dungeon or three a week are really struggling with it.

The answer is most likely, yes, pull bigger, but also coordinate your interrupts, everyone in the group needs to know the important trash abilities, people need to time burst for big pulls, people need to be smarter about aggro while the tank is gathering mobs, press their cc buttons (which many don't even have on their bars), etc.

And what's most challenging about this is, say you only run 3 m+ a week on an off raid night. That means you see hoa once every three weeks. It's hard for everyone to build up the basic knowledge and all the tricks necessary to have a good run when you're not playing it as frequently or seriously as the groups who farmed it early and often and learned everything about it in December.

I don’t view this as a bad thing.

In PvP and raids everyone needs to understand mechanics and be able to perform their task, why should mythic+ be any different when it’s providing end game gear?

If you take pugs into just heroic CN and they don’t know any mechanics the raid will wipe hard.

[Uniqed]

Missed the original post, but i would not mind if the timer was increased to 32 mins, maybe even 33 mins.

I have had several wipe free runs in the +14-17 range where the route and pulls where okey and the DPS decent that all came down to the last seconds whether we would time it or not. Something that feels kind of weird when several of the other dungeons allows 1-2 full wipes and still lets you time it comfortable. Had a +15 SoA run with something like 23 deaths that was chaos from the beginning, but still had several minutes to spare after killing the last boss.

[Argorwal]

The issue with m+ is that there's limited opportunity to learn unless you're in a coordinated group that spends a lot of time prepping/reviewing gameplay. In m+, it's not uncommon for people to completely misunderstand the reason for a wipe and because it's always "gogogo" they never learn. It's a serious issue right now that's specific to that type of gameplay.

And guides don't fill the gap. The guide for HOA on wowhead doesn't even mention that caster mobs that come right before each shard of halkias. If you watch a detailed video, most vids will say those adds need to be interrupted so that the tank doesn't get his health chunked, but the guide doesn't even mention them so more casual players just don't pick up on that. For example, watch this vid around 3:40 and it tells you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhjXb1ZU3x8

But it takes A LOT of research to figure out that "wicked bolt" is the important cast to control there (and that you're most likely dependent on the rest of your group to handle it because tank is interrupting collect sins).

Just because mythic+ is logistically easy to PuG due to only needing 5 people and it being short doesn’t mean it needs to be brainless as well.

It reward up to 226 gear, it should take some form of learning/understanding/practice and favor coordinated groups in my opinion.

And it still is by far the easiest and most accessible source of 226 vault gear.

[Relapses]

Blizzard: *removes 10M Heroic*

Players: WTF Blizzard?! Please make more accessible difficult small group content

Blizzard: *invents M+*

Players: Yeah no that's way too hard for a PuG

Blizzard: Routinely nerfs M+

Players: Still too hard, bro

Blizzard: ???

Players: Look, can I just get a button that gives me free 226 loot every week?

[Stormwolf64]

Words of the wise: The game is never wrong, the problem is always with you. Or so the fanbois on such a forum will always tell you, until a patch hits that counteracts the acid the fanboys has been spewing towards legitimate criticism.

[chiddie]

On a side note, is there a website or something that gives an “expected” average dps for every M+ level?

I failed something like 5-6 DoS 11-12 in a row in the past 2-3 days but despite often being blamed for my healing, I highly suspect that dps was simply too low (apart from the last run that we could have timed if we wouldn’t have wiped twice at the Manastorms for “reasons”).

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Today timed a 14 mists.
220 heal
170 heal
198 balance
224 hunter
224 dh tank

So we timed it with just 1.5 dps xD

Uhm to topic.
You should pull always at least 4 mobs in halls of atonement.
Also at the first and 3rd boss your healer can go full dps.
Should be 4k dps from healer at first boss with CDs and pride.
Tank should not need any heal at that boss.

At echelon decurse the marked player and jump or teleport away once the boss jumps on you to get 0 dmg. Helps healer to do more dps.

You can bloodlust at the last miniboss to not have to clear the room. Might save a minute

In fortified weeks bosses are rarely an issue, thanks to pride they just melt regardless healer’s dps.

You usually fail because mobs take just forever to die.

[Tinary]

On a side note, is there a website or something that gives an “expected” average dps for every M+ level?

I failed something like 5-6 DoS 11-12 in a row in the past 2-3 days but despite often being blamed for my healing, I highly suspect that dps was simply too low

Depends hoq big you pull, you dont have same dps numbers every run cause it all depends on route and how many capped or uncapped dps you have. You can have avg 4.4k dps during 13 timed and you can have 8k avg dps 13 timed by same dps player cause the trash died faster since there was proper cmb mage. Also a healer dictates how fast a group can go just as much as a tank. Healer who doest drink, heal prio targets or prep for pride or unavoidable dmg or makes tank feel like he needs to pull smaller, is also a problem. While i agree that sometimes it is a dps fault and not a healers, it is more often than not just a healer issue.

[Relapses]

Words of the wise: The game is never wrong, the problem is always with you. Or so the fanbois on such a forum will always tell you, until a patch hits that counteracts the acid the fanboys has been spewing towards legitimate criticism.

Yes, because the very specific situation this dude posted about had absolutely nothing to do with problems in his group's dynamics and Blizzard's inability to create a video game that is solely catered to the OP's individual needs.

Jesus fuck, dude.

[kamuimac]

I mean, maybe you’re just being an ass over what “perfect” actually means and you’re so stuck on a single word that you become completely oblivious to the rest of the post and cannot comprehend it.?

I specifically defined what I meant by perfect run.

We had 0 deaths and we pulled quickly with little downtime (may not have mentioned that) we had almost no mistakes (at least nothing important that stood out to me) and we managed to get every prideful in the ideal spot.

If a pitcher in baseball throws the perfect game, it means he struck out every opponent. It doesn’t mean he also threw the fastest balls on every pitch.

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We didn’t fail the timer lol...

That make you mad?

so your dps was low. thats the only logical answer then .

its nothing to be ashamed about in 10-12 bracket since that is where most of playerbase is stuck at with m+ anyway .

[Simca]

For what it's worth, Halls' timer is tighter than many keys. Note that the tightness of a timer is unrelated to the difficulty of the key. Halls is easy, and the timer is relatively tight. In fact, it is the tightest timer of any Mythic+ this expansion, in my experience. Closest other timer is probably Theatre of Pain.

To contrast as an example, the Plaguefall and Necrotic Wake timers are jokes. They could cut 3 minutes off, and it wouldn't have affected any of my timed runs (well, ok, a PF16 recently where we had like 18 deaths was only under by 19 seconds, but that's sort of my point that we could have 18 freaking deaths and still make the timer).

Personally, I think they could throw an extra minute or two on Halls and nobody would be hurt by it, but since the dungeon is still easy, they probably won't. They generally only add time when a dungeon sucks hard AND the timer is tight (see: pre-nerf DOS, pre-nerf NW, etc).

[kamuimac]

Depends hoq big you pull, you dont have same dps numbers every run cause it all depends on route and how many capped or uncapped dps you have. You can have avg 4.4k dps during 13 timed and you can have 8k avg dps 13 timed by same dps player cause the trash died faster since there was proper cmb mage. Also a healer dictates how fast a group can go just as much as a tank. Healer who doest drink, heal prio targets or prep for pride or unavoidable dmg or makes tank feel like he needs to pull smaller, is also a problem. While i agree that sometimes it is a dps fault and not a healers, it is more often than not just a healer issue.

it also depends if group is cheap or not - aka if they use flasks, oils, and pots on cd (bosses + big packs) .

im ultra casual so i only do 10-12 each week and 1 thing i see in common in all of pugs is that nobody uses consumables in this bracket. literaly nobody - maaaaaybe they will use food before pull of key because food is super cheap . but nothing else.

i bet diamonds against nuts that OPs group also didnt use anything.

i would say its very important epecially in dungeons like HoA where most of pugs have potentail to use pots at least 2 times before even engaging first boss. not even taking into account first huge pull with BL just on start of dungeon.

i would compare it to guild raid group doing raids without using consumables - ye there is a point when you dont need it but at initial progress ? thats very often crucial . and so is when people are "progressing" m+

[chiddie]

Depends hoq big you pull, you dont have same dps numbers every run cause it all depends on route and how many capped or uncapped dps you have. You can have avg 4.4k dps during 13 timed and you can have 8k avg dps 13 timed by same dps player cause the trash died faster since there was proper cmb mage. Also a healer dictates how fast a group can go just as much as a tank. Healer who doest drink, heal prio targets or prep for pride or unavoidable dmg or makes tank feel like he needs to pull smaller, is also a problem. While i agree that sometimes it is a dps fault and not a healers, it is more often than not just a healer issue.

4,5k? Lol, if details! numbers are, well, detailed, I always had one dps around 4K and the other 2 around 3-3,5k.

I usually don’t need to drink at all, if I see I need it, I try to do it in dead times.

Apart from one run where we just disbanded before Hakkar (people kept dying to mechanics or just took 5+ dot ticks ALWAYS and blamed me for dying, I had 4,5hps while usually I’m at 3,5 and people survive easily), in the other runs packs took just forever.

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For what it's worth, Halls' timer is tighter than many keys. Note that the tightness of a timer is unrelated to the difficulty of the key. Halls is easy, and the timer is relatively tight. In fact, it is the tightest timer of any Mythic+ this expansion, in my experience. Closest other timer is probably Theatre of Pain.

To contrast as an example, the Plaguefall and Necrotic Wake timers are jokes. They could cut 3 minutes off, and it wouldn't have affected any of my timed runs (well, ok, a PF16 recently where we had like 18 deaths was only under by 19 seconds, but that's sort of my point that we could have 18 freaking deaths and still make the timer).

Personally, I think they could throw an extra minute or two on Halls and nobody would be hurt by it, but since the dungeon is still easy, they probably won't. They generally only add time when a dungeon sucks hard AND the timer is tight (see: pre-nerf DOS, pre-nerf NW, etc).

Ye, one of the issues is that dungeons do not feel balanced at all, timer wise.

From my experience (casual pugger healer, almost 900 rio, 11-12 bracket, about 65 M+ done till now) there are half of the dungeons with a really tight timer and another half which are just fine.

The problem is not dying, the problem is the time you have to waste to get back to the point you died or wiped. Take ToP platforms for example: you wipe and you have to add another minute besides the 25 seconds penalty to get back to where you were. Or try wiping at Stradama in PF and enjoy having to mount half the instance back instead of spawning at the spider boss above for no apparent reason. Or Devos in SoA where you have to take the angel taxi again if you die, other 30 seconds wasted. There are lot of things like this. Apart from weird layout dungeons like DoS or ToP, bosses should ALWAYS be a checkpoint: if you die after a boss down, you spawn at the boss place (or nearby, such as Stitchflesh crystal position if you wipe at last boss).

ToP, DoS, HoA and SD timers could be a little more forgiving imho.

[Tradu]

For what it's worth, Halls' timer is tighter than many keys. Note that the tightness of a timer is unrelated to the difficulty of the key. Halls is easy, and the timer is relatively tight. In fact, it is the tightest timer of any Mythic+ this expansion, in my experience. Closest other timer is probably Theatre of Pain.

To contrast as an example, the Plaguefall and Necrotic Wake timers are jokes. They could cut 3 minutes off, and it wouldn't have affected any of my timed runs (well, ok, a PF16 recently where we had like 18 deaths was only under by 19 seconds, but that's sort of my point that we could have 18 freaking deaths and still make the timer).

Personally, I think they could throw an extra minute or two on Halls and nobody would be hurt by it, but since the dungeon is still easy, they probably won't. They generally only add time when a dungeon sucks hard AND the timer is tight (see: pre-nerf DOS, pre-nerf NW, etc).

It seems like that's part of their philosophy. Easy dungeons have tighter timers(because there's no other difficulty to be had from the dungeon), hard dungeons have free timers as long as your run is clean. Sanguine Depths timer is a joke as well if you don't wipe. It makes sense, honestly. If the dungeon is easy, you don't get extra leeway on the timer because you shouldn't need it. If the dungeon is hard, you get a bit of extra on the timer to compensate.
Plaguefall and Necrotic Wake are exceptions to some degree, because they're dungeons like Tol Dagor or Junkyard where the dungeon basically kills itself(via Plagueborers, weapons, cannons or bots, respectively), meaning the DPS requirement drops through the floor.

[kamuimac]

4,5k? Lol, if details! numbers are, well, detailed, I always had one dps around 4K and the other 2 around 3-3,5k.

I usually don’t need to drink at all, if I see I need it, I try to do it in dead times.

Apart from one run where we just disbanded before Hakkar (people kept dying to mechanics or just took 5+ dot ticks ALWAYS and blamed me for dying, I had 4,5hps while usually I’m at 3,5 and people survive easily), in the other runs packs took just forever.

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Ye, one of the issues is that dungeons do not feel balanced at all, timer wise.

From my experience (casual pugger healer, almost 900 rio, 11-12 bracket, about 65 M+ done till now) there are half of the dungeons with a really tight timer and another half which are just fine.

The problem is not dying, the problem is the time you have to waste to get back to the point you died or wiped. Take ToP platforms for example: you wipe and you have to add another minute besides the 25 seconds penalty to get back to where you were. Or try wiping at Stradama in PF and enjoy having to mount half the instance back instead of spawning at the spider boss above for no apparent reason. Or Devos in SoA where you have to take the angel taxi again if you die, other 30 seconds wasted. There are lot of things like this. Apart from weird layout dungeons like DoS or ToP, bosses should ALWAYS be a checkpoint: if you die after a boss down, you spawn at the boss place (or nearby, such as Stitchflesh crystal position if you wipe at last boss).

ToP, DoS, HoA and SD timers could be a little more forgiving imho.

so.... dont wipe ? wipes are meant to be punishing.

also the reason why timers feel of sometimes is because of how many nerfs those dungeons recieved since launch.

this is something which i also see in 11-12 bracket - people refusing to wait even 5 seconds before pull so some cds could come off cd thus making people for example pump much bigger numbers and having much safer pulls.

its especially annoying as tank because they sometimes have to wait for cds to not get obliterated and not wipe the group. and dps ususally dont care about this at all. thats why i stopped tanking after getting to >10+ .

[Tradu]

4,5k? Lol, if details! numbers are, well, detailed, I always had one dps around 4K and the other 2 around 3-3,5k.

I usually don’t need to drink at all, if I see I need it, I try to do it in dead times.

Apart from one run where we just disbanded before Hakkar (people kept dying to mechanics or just took 5+ dot ticks ALWAYS and blamed me for dying, I had 4,5hps while usually I’m at 3,5 and people survive easily), in the other runs packs took just forever.

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Ye, one of the issues is that dungeons do not feel balanced at all, timer wise.

From my experience (casual pugger healer, almost 900 rio, 11-12 bracket, about 65 M+ done till now) there are half of the dungeons with a really tight timer and another half which are just fine.

The problem is not dying, the problem is the time you have to waste to get back to the point you died or wiped. Take ToP platforms for example: you wipe and you have to add another minute besides the 25 seconds penalty to get back to where you were. Or try wiping at Stradama in PF and enjoy having to mount half the instance back instead of spawning at the spider boss above for no apparent reason. Or Devos in SoA where you have to take the angel taxi again if you die, other 30 seconds wasted. There are lot of things like this. Apart from weird layout dungeons like DoS or ToP, bosses should ALWAYS be a checkpoint: if you die after a boss down, you spawn at the boss place (or nearby, such as Stitchflesh crystal position if you wipe at last boss).

ToP, DoS, HoA and SD timers could be a little more forgiving imho.

Very true. The punishment for wiping in SL dungeons is much bigger than in the past. Both because you have to run back further, but also because you might have to do a boss without Pride now.

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so.... dont wipe ? wipes are meant to be punishing.

also the reason why timers feel of sometimes is because of how many nerfs those dungeons recieved since launch.

this is something which i also see in 11-12 bracket - people refusing to wait even 5 seconds before pull so some cds could come off cd thus making people for example pump much bigger numbers and having much safer pulls.

its especially annoying as tank because they sometimes have to wait for cds to not get obliterated and not wipe the group. and dps ususally dont care about this at all. thats why i stopped tanking after getting to >10+ .

Wipes are punishing even with proper checkpoints. 25 seconds + whichever CDs you used on the pull + the time you spent on the pull before wiping is plenty of punishment, if anything the 5 seconds per death is excessive.

[deenman]

Missed the original post, but i would not mind if the timer was increased to 32 mins, maybe even 33 mins.

I have had several wipe free runs in the +14-17 range where the route and pulls where okey and the DPS decent that all came down to the last seconds whether we would time it or not. Something that feels kind of weird when several of the other dungeons allows 1-2 full wipes and still lets you time it comfortable. Had a +15 SoA run with something like 23 deaths that was chaos from the beginning, but still had several minutes to spare after killing the last boss.

its always weird to see these disparities in dungeons,i mean we all know blizzard doesnt test this shit,but why not just change it once its been out and they have the data?why wait so long to adjust

[shise]

How did he get banned? He is right. Lots of toxic people looking for an excuse to screw others, rather than focus on their lifes.

[Tradu]

its always weird to see these disparities in dungeons,i mean we all know blizzard doesnt test this shit,but why not just change it once its been out and they have the data?why wait so long to adjust

They seem to base the timer on the difficulty of the dungeon itself. Easy dungeons have tighter timers because you shouldn't be wiping, harder dungeons have room for a wipe or 2.

[deenman]

They seem to base the timer on the difficulty of the dungeon itself. Easy dungeons have tighter timers because you shouldn't be wiping, harder dungeons have room for a wipe or 2.

thats reasonable,but the margin is clearly off when in one dungeon you barely make it with zero deaths and others you make it with plenty extra time wile dying 30 times

[Tradu]

thats reasonable,but the margin is clearly off when in one dungeon you barely make it with zero deaths and others you make it with plenty extra time wile dying 30 times

Not necessarily. They could just have pulled bigger in DOS while being too careful in HoA. There's plenty of other possible reasons for why they struggled with one timer but not the other.