If you were around and enjoyed World of Warcraft’s season two Mythic+ dungeon changes, then you’ll be happy to know that not much has changed in season three.
Affix changes in season three of WoW Dragonflight
When season two launched in Patch 10.1, Blizzard retired several affixes and added three new affixes. Many WoW players, including myself, assumed that a lot would change in season three (Patch 10.2), but it seems Blizzard is happy with how season two went and is keeping it that way.
The only change affecting affixes is that when the Sanguine affix makes pools appear, the damage will no longer stack when players switch between pools or puddles.
Just like in season two, the Mythic+ affix rotation still looks like this:
- Affixes at level two
- Fortified
- Tyrannical
- Affixes at level seven
- Spiteful
- Raging
- Bursting
- Bolstering
- Sanguine
- Affixes at level 14
- Afflicted
- Incorporeal
- Explosive
- Entangling
- Storming
Dungeon rotations in Patch 10.2 in WoW Dragonflight
Back when season two came out, Blizzard made a lot of changes to the affix system since many players were complaining about the complexities of the mechanics. The changes seem to have made things easier for clearing Mythic+ dungeons, but not too easy. At the end of the day, clearing Mythic+ dungeons was never meant to be an easy feat and further simplifying mechanics could make these dungeons lose their appeal.
We still have new Mythic+ dungeons to look forward to, so it’s not like nothing has changed. According to the patch notes, we can enjoy the following dungeons during season three: Dawn of the Infinite: Galakrond’s Fall, Dawn of the Infinite: Murozond’s Rise, Waycrest Manor, Atal’Dazar, Darkheart Thicket, Black Rook Hold, The Everbloom and Throne of the Tides. As you can see, a lot of favorites from Battle for Azeroth.
How to deal with Dragonflight season three affixes
Your strategy, talent builds, and approach to Mythic+ dungeons should change from one week to another as you face a new set of affixes.
Each week will feature three affixes from the list above, and normally Blizzard loves mixing and matching them to create an interesting dungeon experience. While you should definitely keep in mind affix combinations and plan accordingly, you should understand how can you deal with each affix separately.
- Tyrannical – Whenever it’s Tyrannical week in Dragonflight, you should save your most important cooldowns for dungeon bosses since they will have more health and deal more damage. In addition to that, you want to help out your fellow healers by popping those personal defensive cooldowns in critical situations.
- Fortified – While Tyrannical empowers bosses, the Fortified affix will empower trash mobs. So, on Fortified weeks, you want to use up all your cooldowns on demanding trash packs.
- Afflicted – Afflicted is a Mythic+ affix added in Dragonflight season two that spawns friendly souls during combat. Once they reach the players, those spirits will try to cast Afflicted Cry, a spell that will reduce everyone’s Haste by 100 percent if not healed or dispelled in time. So, you want to either heal them up quickly or dispel one of three debuffs to save the group from a terrible debuff.
- Incorporeal – Also added in Dragonflight season two, Incorporeal beings will attempt to reduce players’ damage and healing by 50 percent. To stop them, you need to interrupt or use hard CC abilities like Polymorph or Hex to keep them at bay.
- Volcanic – Dealing with Volcanic is rather simple since the only thing you need to do is to move away from the spawned Volcanic Plume. Normally, they will spawn under your feet and you just need to move a bit to avoid being knocked up.
- Entangling – To get rid of Entangling in Mythic+ dungeons, you should run out of the green circle on the ground. You can simply walk out, use a mobility spell, or an ability like Blessing of Freedom.
- Storming – Similar to Volcanic, the Storming affix will periodically spawn and deal damage to you and knock you up if you don’t dodge it. So, just move away a couple of inches and you should be good to go.
- Spiteful – Since the Spiteful affix spawns creatures from dead enemy corpses that deal heavy melee damage to a targeted player, you should always look to CC them. Normally, you don’t have to kill them, but if you’re overwhelmed by the number of mobs and your group is not really mobile, you can AoE them down together with other trash mobs.
- Raging – For the Raging affix, you always need to have one class with a “de-rage” ability that should be used on the most dangerous mob of the group. So, during Raging weeks, you should look to have at least one Hunter, Druid, Rogue, or Evoker in your group.
- Bursting – Although Bursting is predominately healer affix, Shadow Priests can bring their Mass Dispel to a run and help their healer by dispelling the party each time the stacks become “unhealable.” Generally, you want to dispel the party whenever you have five stacks or more or if you see a player struggling to stay alive.
- Bolstering – Unfortunately, there’s no quick and easy fix when Bolstering kicks in. The only thing you should do is evenly AoE the trash packs and avoid chain pulling to not bolster the new pack.
- Sanguine – The rule of thumb on the Sanguine weeks is just don’t stand in Sanguine Ichor and interrupt casters. If you’re a tank, you’ll also have to kite trash packs out of the pools as much as you can with your mobility spells and interrupt those stubborn casters standing in Sanguine Ichor.
So, if you’ve gotten used to the new affixes in Season 2, good news, you don’t have to learn anything new. But, if you were hoping for any new difficult mechanics, then I’m sad to say you’ll have to wait until Season 4 when, hopefully, we’ll get some new affixes or at least changes to existing ones. At least Sanguine Ichor no longer stacks.
