World of Warcraft’s philosophy towards Mythic+ dungeons has changed immensely over the last year, with dungeons from expansions past returning to the current expansion’s dungeon pool. Maps from as far back as the Cataclysm expansion are being brought into Dragonflight’s Mythic+ rotation, and it’s obvious that Blizzard Entertainment is willing to welcome some of WoW’s older content back into the fold.
But what if we pushed the boundaries of what can and can’t be considered for WoW’s Mythic+ pool even further? What if we started to look at old raids and their viability as current Mythic+ dungeons?
If Blizzard is comfortable enough to bring back dungeons from past expansions into the Mythic+ pool, they might be able to do so with raids, albeit with a bit of scaling down to do. While it’s not feasible for epic, dozen-boss raids to be treated like dungeons, breaking down raids into smaller chunks of themselves could perhaps work in the Mythic+ ecosystem.
Here’s how some of WoW’s raids could become Mythic+ dungeons, as well as some of the strongest potential candidates that might fit the bill.
The art of converting raids to dungeons
Raids are typically designed with anywhere between 10 and 30 players in mind, as they’re able to scale depending on the size of your raid. Mythic+ teams are hard-capped at five players, though, meaning the flexibility of raids would have to be sidelined. Additionally, raids would need to have their enemies’ health and damage scaled down to accommodate for a better five-player experience. Notable exceptions would be raids whose boss fights take place in massive rooms (like most end-bosses), as some encounters are just too large in scale for five players to handle on their own.
If there was ever to be a raid as a Mythic+ dungeon, we’d likely have to settle for only a portion of a raid, as lengthy instances could tend to prove counterintuitive to the timed nature of Mythic+ dungeons. Luckily, WoW already has a system in place that breaks raids down into smaller chunks, and it’s more obvious than you might realize.
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With the release of each raid, the Looking For Raid tool divides the raid into four sections, each of which only has three to four bosses. These LFR “wings” could very easily serve as a template for a dungeon, assuming they fit certain criteria.
Turning an LFR wing into a Mythic+ dungeon could be as simple as taking the pre-existing template for the raid section and scaling it down for five players. While some enemies may need to be added or subtracted in certain portions of the would-be dungeon, converting an already-existing instance into another type of instance could just be a matter of tuning and balancing.
The best candidates
When picking an already-existing chunk out of a raid to serve as a Mythic+ dungeon, you’ll ideally need to check a few boxes. First, its bosses can’t have wide-spanning mechanics that only work in raid-wide environments or large rooms. Second, bosses and trash packs cannot have any unreasonable mechanics that would be impossible to deal with on Tyrannical or Fortified weeks. And finally, the dungeon as a whole needs to fit the typical 30-to-40-minute time frame of a Mythic+ dungeon.
As a bonus, you want something that’s ideally not linear and gives players a chance to draw up their own routes. Being able to pick and choose the order in which you complete a dungeon’s enemies and bosses is part of the broad appeal of some Mythic+ dungeons, so a raid wing that has an unstructured boss order would be a top option.
Hellfire Citadel – Bastion of Shadows
Hellfire Citadel’s midsection could be a strong option as a Mythic+ dungeon, considering the multiple routing options that players could take in between Socrethar and Velhari. Alternatively, the wing could be adjusted to include bosses from the section of the raid’s map called “Grommash’s Torment,” which includes Fel Lord Zakuun and Xhul’Horac, as well as a looping layout of enemy forces that can be completed in any order.
Tomb of Sargeras – The Gates of Hell
The introductory wing of the Tomb of Sargeras features three bosses: Goroth, Harjatan, and Mistress Sassz’ine. Furthermore, a potential Mythic+ version of this instance should have no issue with trash mobs—there’s plenty in-between Harjatan and Misstress Sassz’ine, some of which are even optional depending on your route. To make the instance more Mythic+ friendly, the opening section of the instance could do without the initial wave of trash mobs that spawn, while the Demonic Inquisition could be added as a potential extra boss.
Mogu’shan Vaults – Guardians of Mogu’shan
The first section of Mogu’shan Vaults is relatively linear, although its boss fights could need some slight reworking in order to work in a five-player setting. The first encounter, the Stone Guard, stands out as a clear candidate for change, considering its four-boss structure works well with two tanks, but is an on-paper hassle with just one. Additionally, this instance’s backloaded section of trash mobs could test groups in the final moments of a potential Mythic+ run, similar to how dungeons like the Temple of the Jade Serpent currently do on live servers.
Although it’s ultimately unlikely that raids will ever appear in the Mythic+ rotation—especially considering the bevy of old dungeons that Blizzard has to choose from, it’s still fun to hypothesize about the potential. And with how rapidly the game has been evolving throughout Dragonflight, it’s not entirely impossible for the game to take on another drastic experiment.
