This article and the Routes within have been updated to account for changes to the game and new strategies that have emerged since the last time these affixes were active.

Welcome to the RaiderIO Weekly Route, the series that provides you with a plan of attack for every dungeon, tailored to the challenges of this week’s affixes.

Let’s start by briefly covering the affixes that are active this week: Tyrannical, Raging, Volcanic and Reaping.

For most dungeons, this is the easiest combination of affixes on the calendar, especially if you have a Druid or a Hunter to dispel Raging from critical enemies. You may still have some trouble with a few dungeons that feature challenging bosses, especially if you’re pushing the bleeding edge of high keys, and there are a few specific instances where you’ll find Volcanic to be a real affix to be played around, but on the whole you’ll spend much less energy this week dealing with the affixes than you would most weeks.

For some tips on handling Raging, check out this guide!







For each dungeon, there are two different Mythic Dungeon Tools (MDT) routes available – a “Basic” route and an “Expert” route. The Basic routes follow a few restrictions: they don’t feature massive pulls, they don’t require special class abilities like Shroud of Concealment to facilitate skipping mobs, and they don’t require the use of death skips. They also don’t require you to leave anything crowd controlled for too long.

The expert routes, by contrast, often call for advanced pulls and skips. Sometimes, these skips require specific classes like Death Knight, Demon Hunter, or Rogue - but often they can be done by many different group compositions, just in slightly different ways. Every skip in these routes features a full explanation if you mouse over the corresponding number.

If you’re a coordinated team, you should start with the Expert routes and remove pulls/skips that you can’t do. If you need help making any such for your team's strengths and weaknesses, ask me when I'm streaming or get in touch with me using any of the contact info in my RaiderIO Profile!

Click on the COPY MDT IMPORT STRING button and you’ll be able to paste that string into the the "Import" window of your Mythic Dungeon Tools addon and get the route for yourself! Each of these routes contains annotations about how to do each pull and which enemies to crowd control, where to Bloodlust, etc. The annotations and drawings make these routes take a few minutes to Share using MDT’s in-game share function, so consider clearing them before sharing with your group-mates!

Atal'Dazar [back to top]

This is a fantastic week for Atal’Dazar - Tyrannical is the easier of the Level 2 affixes by far, and Volcanic is very easy to handle here, with the dungeon’s generally wide open spaces and few zone-denying effects. Raging isn’t trivial, however. One of the most problematic Raging enemies is the Reanimated Honor Guard, which is easily handled with a Soothe if your group has one - otherwise you’ll need to save defensive cooldowns for the Raging window. Trickier to deal with are the Toxic Suarids, which can easily delete unlucky members of your group from the game once they fall below 30% health. We recommend saving some AoE crowd control and burst damage for this dangerous time.

As the metagame has shifted away from Death Knights, our Expert routes no longer plan to take control of an undead enemy and kill it after Yazma to avoid the final Reaping wave, but this strategy is still excellent if you have access to it!

Read more on Atal’Dazar Dungeon Abilities.

Freehold [back to top]

The challenge in Freehold this week is almost entirely in the boss encounters. Captain Eudora is active as an enemy, so the second boss encounter is going to be the most difficult, though Skycap’n Kragg will of course be no joke either! Make sure you have a Bloodlust available for each of these bosses if you’re doing the key at a level high enough for them to be scary to your group - even if that means doing the route a little bit out of order!

The pulls you’re most likely to find tough this week are those that include Cutwater Harpooners - when they Rage, or when they pull you into abilities from their Raging friends, you could find yourself going from 100 to 0 without much of a chance to say anything about it!

Read more on Freehold Dungeon Abilities.

Kings' Rest [back to top]

Kings’ Rest has a few scary Raging enemies - Spectral Berserkers chief among them - if they land a bleed on you while Raging, especially if it refreshes an existing stack of the DoT (which will then make the whole stack become affected by Raging), you’ll probably die if you don’t expend some serious defensives and externals. The trash isn’t the primary threat in this dungeon this week - since it’s Tyrannical, you’re most likely to have trouble with the boss encounters. The First Boss’ Spit Gold is a big hurdle you’ll have to get past right at the start of the dungeon. It’s vital to use as many of your Bloodlusts as possible on Bosses this week to shorten these encounters and kill them before they kill you!

Like in Atal’dazar, our Expert route used to plan for a Death Knight to take control of an undead enemy and kill it after King Dazar to avoid the final Reaping wave. We now no longer assume your group has access to this, but it remains a powerful strategy if you do, and you should rework the Route to use it.

Read more on Kings’ Rest Dungeon Abilities.

Shrine of the Storm [back to top]

Raging Water Blasts are the scariest part of this dungeon - be sure to save interrupts, defensives, and any crowd control effects you can spare for when the Temple Attendants hit 30%. You’ll also want to watch out for the minibosses when they’re Raging - though if you follow our Expert route, you’ll not be pulling any of them!

Both of our Routes plan to skip the final Reaping wave by killing a pack of Abyssal Eels after Vol’zith the Whisperer. Our Expert route also plans to skip the penultimate Reaping wave by triggering it during a death skip.

Read more on Shrine of the Storm Dungeon Abilities.

Siege of Boralus [back to top]

As usual, our Siege of Boralus routes are based off the Horde pathing and will require some modification if you’re Alliance.

The scariest Raging threat in here is the Irontide Raider - luckily this enemy is easily skipped, so both of our Routes plan to do so! While you’re fighting Ashvane Spotters, you may want to intentionally damage them below 30% so that they Rage and kill the rest of their friends more quickly.

On the whole, this is a fantastic week for Siege, as it’s one of the few where there are no affixes that are particularly brutal in here. The main challenge will be the bosses, so save your Bloodlusts for them!

Read more on Siege of Boralus Dungeon Abilities.

Temple of Sethraliss [back to top]

Temple is all about Bosses this week - the First and Third chief among them. Whatever else you do, make sure you have lust available for these encounters, even if it costs you a use over the course of the dungeon. Outside of this, you’ll find Raging Static-charged Dervishes to be the most difficult trash in the dungeon - unless you pull Merektha’s room very big, in which case that can also be a challenge!

Our Expert route plans to skip the final two Reaping waves - the first by triggering it during a death skip, and the second by triggering it as the final boss encounter finishes.

Read more on Temple of Sethraliss Dungeon Abilities.

The MOTHERLODE!! [back to top]

It’s a perfect week for this dungeon, which is a welcome breath of fresh air after a series of very bad weeks for this dungeon. The trash is dangerous when Raging, so we recommend saving defensives and crowd control abilities for when they hit 30% - a well-timed Soothe on a particularly threatening enemy can go a long way to making these pulls less lethal. With lust, these bosses shouldn’t be too challenging, and most of them are fine even without it, so you should feel free to lust big pulls especially near the start of the dungeon.

It’s recently been discovered that the Mechanized Peacekeepers that start out already activated can yield a little bit of extra Enemy Forces. To take advantage of this, tag the Mech Jockey that pops out of them as they die - there’s only a split second before it dies, but it’s doable! Our Routes assume you don’t do this, but if you can, you can kill a few less enemies in the rest of the dungeon.

Read more on The MOTHERLODE!! Dungeon Abilities.

The Underrot [back to top]

One tip that will save you a bit of trouble in this dungeon is to immediately jump into the tunnel to the last boss as the final Reaping wave spawns - they will follow you down there and group themselves up nicely. That final boss encounter is also one of the few in the game where Volcanic becomes a serious issue - each spore that is active will spawn Volcanoes under the group, ramping up the intensity of the experience as the fight progresses.

Read more on The Underrot Dungeon Abilities.

Tol Dagor [back to top]

This is a fantastic dungeon every week if you use the cannons to take out most of the Enemy Forces you need, but this week is actually one of the tougher ones, as Tyrannical is active and many of the boss fights are pretty tight on space, making Volcanic a real affix. Jes Howlis in particular is a fight where you’ll likely take some unavoidable Volcano damage during the intermission stun, and Tyrannical Overseer Korgus will punish you greatly for moving to avoid Volcanoes.

This dungeon is also an exception to our rule for the Basic routes that no specific classes or abilities are required - the route is designed for a group with either a Rogue or a player with items from their profession that can open the doors. If you don’t have access to either of those, the dungeon is extremely linear and you should just pull the enemies that are in your way and avoid any that aren’t!

Read more on Tol Dagor Dungeon Abilities.

Waycrest Manor [back to top]

There are a number of enemies in here that you really need to control when they’re Raging - try not to let many damaging casts go off in this window! Soul Volley and Severing Serpent are two spells that can murder your entire party if a cast goes off while the caster is Raging! Be sure to have Bloodlust ready for The Heartsbane Triad - this is generally the toughest boss in the dungeon! The next best lust is Lord and Lady Waycrest, though it’s sometimes not easy to get both of these lusts, especially if you don’t get the coveted Top Left door at the start.

Read more on Waycrest Manor Dungeon Abilities.