Welcome to the second week of Season Three! For this week and next week, we will not have Beguiling routes - this is partly due to strategies still being developed for the affix, but is mostly because Mythic Dungeon Tools does not support the affix yet, nor is it likely to until the Race for World First is over. If you’re interested in some discussion and strategies for the new affix, check out this Wowhead article!

Instead, we’ll be using this time to provide a baseline for dungeon routes based on whether Tyrannical (this week) or Fortified (next week) are active. Note that if you’re doing keys with Beguiling active, you’ll need to remove some pulls from these routes since Emissaries do give Enemy Forces! If you’re doing keys level 9 or lower, however, these routes should work for you as-is - though you will want to make modifications based on the other affixes that are active:

• A number of affixes don’t change that much as far as route planning goes: those are Raging, Necrotic, Skittish, and Volcanic.
• If Teeming is active, you may need to add pulls to the dungeon, and the existing pulls may become prohibitively dangerous depending on which mobs are added to them. With Tyrannical, you usually can’t afford to slow down much on trash though, so pulling big is mandatory.
• If Bolstering is active, you’ll need to be very careful when pulling enemies that have different health totals from each other. If you can’t do damage proportionally based on their hit points, consider CC’ing some enemies and killing the others far away from them. Also consider changing which packs you pull to favor those with even health totals.
• If Sanguine is active, there’s some benefit to doing the same sorts of pulls you’d do during a Bolstering week. You also need to watch out for where you fight enemies - try to avoid confined spaces and areas where bosses spawn, and instead pull back to wide-open areas you’ve already cleared.
• If Bursting or Explosive is active, you need to be very careful with large pulls.
• If Quaking or Grievous is active, boss fights will be brutally hard on these Tyrannical weeks. Make sure you have your Bloodlust and all cooldowns ready for them, and consider shifting your talents, traits, and essences to target the hardest bosses of the dungeon.

Atal'Dazar [back to top]

Tyrannical Atal’Dazar is no longer the cakewalk it used to be, since Priestess Alun’za and Vol’kaal both received significant buffs. Generally you’ll want to use two of your three Bloodlusts on Vol’kaal and Yazma - the other can be used on Rezan or the trash on the left side right at the start of the dungeon.

Read more on Atal’Dazar Dungeon Abilities.

Freehold [back to top]

This is a good dungeon to run on Tyrannical weeks - especially if Captain Eudora is the friendly captain of the week - she’s the hardest hitting of that second boss fight. In higher keys, both she and Skycap’n Kragg can put a lot of pressure on your healer to top the entire group at all times - and they can even get into 1-shot range as the keys reach the bleeding edge.

You’ll generally want to lust Kragg, the Council O’ Captains, and then Harlan Sweete - though you can adjust the order you fight the latter bosses if you’d rather lust Trothak. This example Route is created for a week when the Blacktooth are the crew you’ll join, as we believe will be the case this week.

Read more on Freehold Dungeon Abilities.

Kings' Rest [back to top]

This is historically a very challenging Tyrannical dungeon - though The Golden Serpent has had its brutal Spit Gold ability nerfed, so it’s a little more doable now than it was previously! We’d still advise lusting that first boss, as well as Mchimba, Kula the Butcher, and then King Dazar if/when it comes up.

Read more on Kings’ Rest Dungeon Abilities.

Shrine of the Storm [back to top]

This is another dungeon where it’s possible to just lust all of the bosses, though Aqu’sirr is usually easy enough that you could instead opt to lust a very early trash pull, a trash pull after that first boss, and then all the remaining bosses. You can save a lot of time in this dungeon by pulling trash on to the second boss once Galecaller Faye is dead, and by killing the trash in Vol’zith’s room while it’s channeling and you’re waiting for cooldowns to recover.

Read more on Shrine of the Storm Dungeon Abilities.

Siege of Boralus [back to top]

Our Siege of Boralus example route is based off the Horde pathing and will require some modification if you’re Alliance.

Be aware that Ashvane Spotters no longer kill tentacles during the Viq’goth encounter, so don’t try to use that strategy to shave off a few minutes! We’d plan to lust the first boss, the second boss when she comes down from the boat, and Viq’goth.

Read more on Siege of Boralus Dungeon Abilities.

Temple of Sethraliss [back to top]

The Temple of Sethraliss is a very scary Tyrannical dungeon. The first boss and the third boss are very high damage and aren’t trivial mechanically, and the other bosses are long marathon fights that can also easily go wrong. Lusting the first and third bosses is mandatory, lusting the final boss is usually natural, so the only question mark is if you get a second lust that won’t interfere with lusting Galvazzt. Make the determination about whether lust will be back for that third boss as your Sated debuff is falling off and only lust if it will be.

Our Example route for Temple calls for a shroud or death skip - the alternative is to just pull everything and go ~20% over the required Enemy Forces count.

Read more on Temple of Sethraliss Dungeon Abilities.

The MOTHERLODE!! [back to top]

Tyrannical is far friendlier than Fortified is here - though if either Sanguine or Bolstering is active you’ll still find this dungeon to be among the tougher ones. Our example route this week will show a path that is easy to execute and doesn’t require any skips - if you use this, you should probably only lust bosses. If you’re interested in using a route more similar to the ones used in high-end keys, you’d instead want to lust trash pulls near the start of the dungeon and get all your Enemy Forces there, then use skips to avoid the trash between the bosses later in the dungeon.

Read more on The MOTHERLODE!! Dungeon Abilities.

The Underrot [back to top]

Even after the Season 3 nerfs to Elder Leaxa, we’d still advise a lust on this boss. The most important boss to lust is Cragmaw - if you’re still sated after you’ve cleared its room, we’d advise continuing to clear more trash deeper into the dungeon until you can lust, then returning to Cragmaw and killing it. This leaves the final lust for the Unbound Abomination.

Read more on The Underrot Dungeon Abilities.

Tol Dagor [back to top]

Tyrannical Tol Dagor is not for the faint of heart, and it will be a lot slower than it was during the degenerate cannon days which somehow lasted the entirety of Season 2. Lusts on The Sand Queen and Overseer Korgus are important, especially on Tyrannical, which leaves a natural lust on Jes Howlis, though it’s possible that as strategies continue to evolve post-cannon-nerf, we may see the metagame shift to lusting some sort of massive trash pull in the middle of the prison.

Read more on Tol Dagor Dungeon Abilities.

Waycrest Manor [back to top]

Our example Waycrest route is designed for the Top Left door being open - adjust accordingly based on which door is open for you. The bosses you can easily Bloodlust will depend on the open door - with Top Left, we’d lust Heartsbane Triad, Soulbound Goliath, and Lord and Lady Waycrest. This combination of lusts is harder to facilitate with a right-hand door being open - you may have to instead lust Raal or trash in the Hunting Lodge.

Read more on Waycrest Manor Dungeon Abilities.