M+ and Raider.IO

[Hylo]

half of those druids from china are "orc druid" "human druid" and no armory or gear linked.... seems kinda sus considering the top groups 2 weeks ago were all hunter mage + 1 melee and now its boomie in every single one even tho they didnt get buffed.

China doesn't have armory in the sense we have, so it's impossible to determine the race. What rio has done is:

Alliance -> Human
Horde -> Orc

[Engal]

Eh... But what defines a "higher key"? Because if you go look at 10+ and higher (or even 15% and higher) the distribution is mostly fine. It's only when you're pushing 20+ that "meta" is a serious concern.

Even at the 15+ and higher, most classes/specs are represented. For instance, consider tanks in 15+ and higher. While DH dominates at 39.6%, Prot Warriors make up about 4.4% which is almost 3k unique prot warriors.

Perhaps, instead of "need", it's more that the party leaders "want" certain classes because they are more favored in the "meta". But all players should realize that "meta" is basically an asinine benchmark unless you're doing top-end content defined as 18+ or higher keys.

That's my point though. Most of those pushing +15 key are metaslave, and wont budge because if they fail their precious raider.io rank won't go up so they take meta comp. Excluding " non meta class "

[slime]

I ask for a very very basic thing. In the LFG tool if I could see each person's ilvl or the groups average ilvl - ANYTHING! So that I know something about the group I'm joining. It's nice and all they get to see my ilvl and type something like min ilvl 190 but when I join and I see all sub 27k health pools well hell none of you are probably 190 yourselves.

Pugging mythic +'s is 3 things:
1) Success!
2) Struggle to success where 1 or 2 people literally carry the rest.
3) Just failure.

I wish I could luck into the first one more often. But I bet if I could just see ilvls at least I would fix the curve some.

[ellieg]

I ask for a very very basic thing. In the LFG tool if I could see each person's ilvl or the groups average ilvl - ANYTHING! So that I know something about the group I'm joining. It's nice and all they get to see my ilvl and type something like min ilvl 190 but when I join and I see all sub 27k health pools well hell none of you are probably 190 yourselves.

Pugging mythic +'s is 3 things:
1) Success!
2) Struggle to success where 1 or 2 people literally carry the rest.
3) Just failure.

I wish I could luck into the first one more often. But I bet if I could just see ilvls at least I would fix the curve some.

I agree. I hate that I can't see each person's in the group when queuing. When I go in as tank, I dont want to join a group that has 1 healer and 3 dps already in it without knowing the ilvl, rio, or comp

[Dimsum84]

I actually get a small kick out of pushing my IO up. I'm old enough to remember quarter arcades with Highscore tallies so maybe it comes from there. (Pug about 90% of them)

[Alroxas]

I ask for a very very basic thing. In the LFG tool if I could see each person's ilvl or the groups average ilvl - ANYTHING! So that I know something about the group I'm joining. It's nice and all they get to see my ilvl and type something like min ilvl 190 but when I join and I see all sub 27k health pools well hell none of you are probably 190 yourselves.

I agree. I hate that I can't see each person's in the group when queuing. When I go in as tank, I dont want to join a group that has 1 healer and 3 dps already in it without knowing the ilvl, rio, or comp

I mean it's not hard to see that information once you join a group but BEFORE you start the dungeon. Just look at HP pools or some other tool. Like details/exrt will quickly show the party's ilv. If something looks fishy, then get out fast.

[ellieg]

I mean it's not hard to see that information once you join a group but BEFORE you start the dungeon. Just look at HP pools or some other tool. Like details/exrt will quickly show the party's ilv. If something looks fishy, then get out fast.

This is what I normally do. Juat wld be nice to know before actually interacting with the group

[exochaft]

correction : In order to be successful in higher keys, you need dps people who play meta class and who will be invited all the time.

- Rogue
- Monk DPS
- Mage
- Boomkin
- Hunt
- DK



Any other classes will be left behind or taken if there are no other choice.

You have to be careful when viewing those rankings, as even what you linked is only a couple groups. Over half of those top key runs are the same group listed multiple times, one of the groups taking 7 of the top 20.

Furthermore, there's always going to be a meta at the extreme. The keys where 95% of the M+ players will be active do not need to follow these metas to be successful. Many people think they need to, but more often than not proper route planning and good gameplay can overcome the perceived meta. It's akin to mythic raiders who think that just copying-and-pasting what WF guilds do means they'll be successful, then the comp choice is just one factor out of many that are required for success... when using the tools/classes/preferences of your raid to craft a custom-tailored strat would work out better in the long run. Meta slavery is self-imposed slavery, usually due to the indivuals not being as good of players as they think they are or incapable of thinking outside of the box.

[Engal]

You have to be careful when viewing those rankings, as even what you linked is only a couple groups. Over half of those top key runs are the same group listed multiple times, one of the groups taking 7 of the top 20.

Furthermore, there's always going to be a meta at the extreme. The keys where 95% of the M+ players will be active do not need to follow these metas to be successful. Many people think they need to, but more often than not proper route planning and good gameplay can overcome the perceived meta. It's akin to mythic raiders who think that just copying-and-pasting what WF guilds do means they'll be successful, then the comp choice is just one factor out of many that are required for success... when using the tools/classes/preferences of your raid to craft a custom-tailored strat would work out better in the long run. Meta slavery is self-imposed slavery, usually due to the indivuals not being as good of players as they think they are or incapable of thinking outside of the box.

Ok, admitting you're right, I went to page 300 ( lol )



And then to page 700




I mean you have to be blind (not talking to you specifically, rest assured ) to see that there is not a " meta problem " and that some classes are dominating the chartboards.

[Alroxas]

Ok, admitting you're right, I went to page 300 ( lol )

And then to page 700

I mean you have to be blind (not talking to you specifically, rest assured ) to see that there is not a " meta problem " and that some classes are dominating the chartboards.

Instead of using the actual leaderboards, it would probably be better to use the very charts that r.io uses at the above the leader boards like these:



and



That makes seeing trends easier. Yes DH does dominate more as you climb higher in keystones but the other remaining tank classes are just as viable. And that's something that players really need to understand. "Meta" is only really a concern when you're at the very top of elite gameplay, for everybody else who isn't pushing +18 or higher keys, then the "meta" is mostly irrelevant. If anything it creates a false bias that just because a player is playing a "in-meta" class/spec they MUST BE better than that other player who isn't playing an "in-meta" class/spec.

[Naturalis]

At first, I thought IO was okay. It was like a way for people to judge skill. I didn't use it because I was grinding low M+ but the concept was okay.

Eventually, I got pretty good gear, was doing some M6s and had to start noticing it because people would be checking. So I studied it, how it worked, etc and it would be pretty frustrating doing a dungeon exclusively for IO and then having failed it when going into dungeons with pugs. Why am I playing WoW to care about a 3rd party's rating?

Now, having grinded past that and into M11s, I can see why IO exists. Doing a dungeon with pugs can be a bit of a toss-up. The only indicator of skill we have is ilvl, which really isn't too good of an indicator, it's more a benchmark for if you can even do this. However, IO Score isn't very good either. People can get carried easily by guilds and I find myself having to check how many dungeons they've done in total to see their experience.

Do I think it's great? No, and it promotes a lot of elitism as well, but is it useful? It's certainly more useful than ilvl.

[Wuusah]

However, IO Score isn't very good either. People can get carried easily by guilds

People should stop making this argument, because it's just a bad one. Just because a boulder could hit my car doesn't mean a seatbelt isn't very good at protecting passengers.

You will never get 100% security with any tool. There will always be people who got carried by a guild or bought a boost or bought a keystone master/CE raider account on ebay. That doesn't make the tool bad, though. We live in a world of chances. If you use rio then your chances of success in that dungeon are significantly higher than if you didn't use rio.

[mistmitpandas]

Greatly dependent of what key level you are doing.

Hardest role on lower keys: healer.
Hardest role on mid-range keys: tank.
Hardest role on higher keys: dps.

This is a joke, right? Correct is:

Hardest role on lower keys: healer.
Hardest role on mid-range keys: healer.
Hardest role on higher keys: healer + tank.

healer is the one carrying every key. healer has to correct every single mistake every dps and tank does. healer gets the blame if keys gets depleted. it is not fun being a healer in m+.

[erifwodahs]

This is a joke, right? Correct is:

Hardest role on lower keys: healer.
Hardest role on mid-range keys: healer.
Hardest role on higher keys: healer + tank.

healer is the one carrying every key. healer has to correct every single mistake every dps and tank does. healer gets the blame if keys gets depleted. it is not fun being a healer in m+.

Every affix is healer affix. I am tank myself. I can see where playing melee is really hard but someone saying that playing range in m+ is harder than tanking and healing is lol. DPS life should not change besides having to cheese something what could one shot you if scaling is out of hand.

[intenz]

This is a joke, right? Correct is:

Hardest role on lower keys: healer.
Hardest role on mid-range keys: healer.
Hardest role on higher keys: healer + tank.

healer is the one carrying every key. healer has to correct every single mistake every dps and tank does. healer gets the blame if keys gets depleted. it is not fun being a healer in m+.

If the group is making "mistakes" they won't get through high keys, regardless of the healer. That is his point. The higher you go the more you are reliant on dps output and control, and healer becomes more of an additional dps. Healers can only really carry groups in low-mid keys.

When pugging I personally care more about the r.io of the dps than the tank or healer, in my experience good dps is the surest way of getting a clean run. I play with a rogue and hunter so tank doesn't even need to be good, can just tell him to kite and threat stays glued to him. Healer shouldn't have to do much except deal with unavoidable damage and deal extra dps.

[mistmitpandas]

Every affix is healer affix. I am tank myself. I can see where playing melee is really hard but someone saying that playing range in m+ is harder than tanking and healing is lol. DPS life should not change besides having to cheese something what could one shot you if scaling is out of hand.

That is always what I hated about the design philosophy of m+. Every design which goes into "making it harder" is to load more stress and blame on the healer. I honestly dont know how it could be made better, but youre 100% correct to say that every affix is healer affix. The difficulty of higher keys and affixes just are off loaded on the healer basically.

One mechanic could be what you said, if dps makes a mistake, he is just 1 shot, not get tons of dmg you have to heal, just 1 shot, no blame on the healer, but these mechanics for example should not be able to hit a healer. That would be fair. If the dps would always die and wipe the group, sort them out.

[Loosecannon]

This is a joke, right? Correct is:

Hardest role on lower keys: healer.
Hardest role on mid-range keys: healer.
Hardest role on higher keys: healer + tank.

healer is the one carrying every key. healer has to correct every single mistake every dps and tank does. healer gets the blame if keys gets depleted. it is not fun being a healer in m+.

I'd say I broadly agree with this, but I'd add a final category which is 'really high' keys, at which point it's basically equal, and requires solid use of play + toolkit from everyone to get through, it's much more about group synergy and using the toolkits of every spec to their maximum. Personally, I've never been 'super' active in that level of M+ play, but I when I was maxing out at the end of Legion/in some of mid-BFA that was certainly the case.

[Zyky]

If io was removed ppl would just check your armory and then decline you instead.

Clearly you're not aware of how IO works. In order for raider.io to rip the data, it has to be public on the armory and as long as it's public on the armory any form of io style tracking can be achieved. So the only way for io to be removed is for the armory to not support a leaderboard, meaning someone couldn't "just check your armory".

[Aurora]

This is a joke, right? Correct is:

Hardest role on lower keys: healer.
Hardest role on mid-range keys: healer.
Hardest role on higher keys: healer + tank.

healer is the one carrying every key. healer has to correct every single mistake every dps and tank does. healer gets the blame if keys gets depleted. it is not fun being a healer in m+.

I'm inclined to agree with the OP, I've been finding healing at 15/16 to be easier than any time previously and the pride mana restoration really allows you to spend mana aggressively. Healing becomes easier when you're surrounded by better players who make fewer mistakes, hit their interrupts, tanks know what they need to kite etc.

At higher keys a lot of mechanics tend to one shot so there isn't even the possibility for the healer to carry. The projectile on the 2nd boss in spires for example, if a dps gets hit on a high key without a defensive then they're dead with nobody to blame but themselves. On a +10 the dps will survive on low health and there's healing pressure to top them up before they get hit again which is much more stressful.

[THEORACLE64]

Nothing more than a modern day Gearscore tbh - trash.