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The Weekly Route: Tyrannical, Bursting, Skittish, and Awakened

This week’s affixes are Tyrannical, Bursting, Skittish, and Awakened.

For coordinated groups, Bursting and Skittish are excellent affixes for pushing, as both can be mitigated without slowing down the keystone all that much. Unfortunately for the very top groups, Tyrannical is quite a bit tougher than Fortified in bleeding edge keys. For keys around level 15-20, it’s a fantastic week to push as long as your healer and tank aren’t undergeared - if they are, either bursting or skittish respectively will be quite punishing. If you’re farming keys that are trivial for your group, this is a week where you may find the affixes to be quite painful, as Bursting is notoriously at its worst in low keys.

The Weekly Routes





Atal'Dazar [back to top]


Bursting in here is mostly a problem when fighting Toxic Saurids, for three reasons: they do heavy damage to the group, softening them up for Bursting deaths; they spread out as they jump, making it more likely that they’ll not die all at exactly the same time; and they have fairly low health, so it’s hard to let Bursting fall off before killing another one. If you can handle those pulls, the rest of the trash shouldn’t be too bad this week and all you’ll have to contend with are the rough obelisk placements and the Tyrannical bosses.

Read more on Atal’Dazar Dungeon Abilities.





Freehold [back to top]


This is a great Freehold week - if you can defeat the First Boss, you can do the whole dungeon, as Eudora is friendly this week. Even on Tyrannical, it’s very possible to fight an Awakened enemy with the last boss at pretty much any key level, so modify the route accordingly if your group is up to the challenge.

Read more on Freehold Dungeon Abilities.






Kings' Rest [back to top]


Bursting and Skittish are largely unimportant in here, aside from the room full of Embalming Fluids, which you should probably take more slowly this week than you normally do. Besides that, it’s really all about the Tyrannical bosses, so consider switching your build to being a little more single-target oriented than usual.

Read more on Kings’ Rest Dungeon Abilities.






Shrine of the Storm [back to top]


Bursting is an affix that may pose you some problems in this dungeon, as Tidesage Initiates do Burst - make sure your healer is ready for each pull because you generally cannot afford to wipe even once in this place, as the graveyard only updates after you kill Lord Stormsong. Be very careful on the last boss, as with Skittish active your healer can very easily pull threat while they have Promises of Power.

Read more on Shrine of the Storm Dungeon Abilities.






Siege of Boralus [back to top]


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

Keeping the boss fights short is the biggest challenge here, as both the second and the fourth can easily take a very long time on Tyrannical. Be sure to use Bloodlust to speed up these bosses, and when you’re fighting the last boss, take a look at the time left. If you don’t have much time, you’ll need to make an aggressive swap to the Gripping Terror on one or more of the platforms. Generally you’ll want to kill Demolishing Terrors on the first platform, then on the second and third platforms you should kill the first Demolishing Terror without tagging the Gripping, as that is what causes the timer to start for the future Demolishing Terror spawns. Once the first Demolishing is down, everyone can hit the Gripping - save cooldowns for this, and ideally Bloodlust on one of the platforms too.

Read more on Siege of Boralus Dungeon Abilities.




Temple of Sethraliss [back to top]


Tyrannical is really the only affix you need to worry about in Temple this week, but it’s no joke, as all four of the bosses scale up seriously in both time and difficulty. Like in Kings’ Rest, a single-target oriented build is often a wise decision in this dungeon on Tyrannical weeks.

Read more on Temple of Sethraliss Dungeon Abilities.




The MOTHERLODE!! [back to top]


It’s a fantastic week for this dungeon, as it’s one of the few dungeons that may be better on Tyrannical than Fortified. Be ready to take heavy magic damage on your tank during the last two bosses - some tanks have developed a strategy that involves hearthing out after Azerokk (set your hearth to the closest inn, The Hozen Throne for Horde), and swapping to a different build for the last three bosses. Protection Warriors, for example, can swap Bolster out for Never Surrender, and put on Bloodsport Azerite. Every tank should at least have the Null Barrier Essence slotted (minor is usually where people put this, though if you’re hearthing out you could put it in the major slot too).

Read more on The MOTHERLODE!! Dungeon Abilities.




The Underrot [back to top]


In every other dungeon, our Route fights the last boss without any Awakened enemies this week, but in the Underrot we are bringing one onto the last boss because it’s a fairly easy boss and because it’s both slow and challenging to access all four Obelisks in this dungeon. If this worries you, you can adjust the route to get to the last Obelisk - just be warned that it’s very easy for things to go wrong in that part of the dungeon, and it’s very hard to pull at a good rate of enemy forces per minute in that area.

Read more on The Underrot Dungeon Abilities.




Tol Dagor [back to top]


The most damaging boss abilities in this dungeon have been nerfed this season, but Tyrannical in here remains the toughest affix, so choose builds that are competitive in single target damage and tanky - offhealers are especially welcome, as they make Overseer Korgus a whole lot less lethal when he randomly decides to cast Explosive Bursts back to back. The Vampiric Speed trait is fantastic in this dungeon, as it provides a tremendous amount of healing on the first boss.

Read more on Tol Dagor Dungeon Abilities.




Waycrest Manor [back to top]


Bosses are again the big challenge this week - many runs will be decided by whether or not you wipe to a boss. Skittish can be a problem while fighting Raal, as it’s tough for many tanks to pick up the adds while also staying next to the boss. If you’re a DPS player and in danger of dying to adds on this fight, you need to run to the tank, and maybe stop doing quite so much damage right as they spawn! To guarantee a good first Bloodlust, we’re continuing to recommend using the first Obelisk to get over to the left side of the dungeon, even if a right-side door is open.

Read more on Waycrest Manor Dungeon Abilities.




Mechagon Junkyard [back to top]


Depending on which region you’re in, the Hard Mode enemy flies above different bosses, so you may need to adapt to avoid fighting under it. If you’re in a region where it’s flying over Gunker, you can use last week’s Route (modify it to remove excess count after removing Teeming) if you prefer. Be sure to pick up those robot buffs to help you beat the tough boss fights in here this week.

Read more on Operation: Mechagon Dungeon Abilities.




Mechagon Workshop [back to top]


There’s little choice in Workshop pathing except whether or not to fight an Awakened enemy with the last boss. The least useful Obelisk is that of The Blob, which is conveniently one of the easiest enemies to fight with bosses. It does save quite a bit of time to do this, but with Tyrannical active you may want to play it safe and avoid making the fight any harder.

Read more on Operation: Mechagon Dungeon Abilities.







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About the Author


Dratnos hosts the The Titanforge WoW Podcast. He’s also an Officer in the World 36th guild poptart corndoG, and a commentator for events such as the MDI and the Race to World First! He streams on Twitch, where he likes to review his friends’ logs.

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