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: Fortified, Bursting, Quaking and Reaping.

This week’s affixes are a challenging combination - especially in dungeons with small enemies that you’d normally want to pull all at once, as Bursting will force you to slow down or die! If a Quake occurs at a bad time, such as when you’re trying to handle a few stacks of Bursting, you’re going to need to pop defensives across the group to survive. Both Bursting and Quaking can also cause problems with Reaping waves - you’ll always have stacks of Bursting coming in to each wave, and Quaking can cause problems, especially if the wave you’re fighting has a high concentration of Lost Souls, which can limit the amount of safe space on the ground.

If you’re looking for some information on how exactly Quaking works, and some tools to reduce the impact it has on your run, check out this video:








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]

With Fortified active, the bosses in this dungeon are unlikely to pose any serious challenge to your group. The trash, however, is another story! This week almost every trash pull is enhanced by the affixes into the potentially lethal range. Any pack of Saurids represents a huge amount of damage followed by a 5-stack of Bursting. The pack on the stairs after Vol’kaal will be a Quaking problem, as there’s not much space at the bottom of those stairs - and there’s even less if an Unstable Hex gets cast (assign kicks specifically to that spell!)

Another problem you’ll run into this week is big pulls with Juggernauts in them - if a Quake forces your melee to spread out, you may end up baiting an Assault into multiple members of the group. A good workaround here is to save a stun or something similar for this eventuality.

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 crew you’ll be joining this week are the Cutwater Corsairs - this is great news for a Fortified week, as it removes some of the instance’s most challenging trash enemies, the Harpooners, from the route. Unfortunately it does mean you’ll have to deal with Captain Eudora, but this isn’t too much of a problem since it’s not a Tyrannical week.

Watch out for Quaking during the second half of the Harlan Sweete encounter - our Routes leave the pack just before the boss alive, so you won’t have much room to work with and you’ll often be stacked to minimize the space affected by Cannon Barrage.

Read more on Freehold Dungeon Abilities.

Kings' Rest [back to top]

Quaking in here can be a serious problem during the boss encounters. Even though they’re not Tyrannical, the damage output of abilities like Spit Gold is very high, and can be lethal when combined with the damage of the Quake and the fact that your healer had to stop casting for a moment.

Aka’ali the Conquerer, part of the third boss encounter, is particularly empowered by Quaking - her Debilitating Backhand will triple the damage that Quakes deal to the tank for the duration of the debuff it leaves behind. You’ll also need to be careful to not Quake the whole party while stacking for Barrel Through - be ready to have the targeted player run out further than normal to mitigate this (or have them make a crazy play!)

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]

Bursting is one of the on-death affixes most helped by the 8.1.5 changes to Shrine of the Storm, primarily because Animated Droplets no longer burst. This speeds up the first part of the dungeon significantly - just be warned that Tidesage Initiates continue to Burst!

This strategy was too intricate to include in even our Expert route this week, but it’s worth mentioning since it may save you some time if you’re able to pull it off! Since the Reinforcing Ward that gets put on the ground by Brother Ironhull is a powerful answer to the large amount of Bursting stacks created by the dozens of initiates in the area before the boss, you can shroud to the boss, kill off Galecaller Faye, and then pull trash to Ironhull, using the Ward to neutralize Bursting (stay inside it if a Quake occurs - it won’t hurt too much!)

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.

Bursting is a bit of a pain here, but it’s manageable, and the pulls where Bursting will hit the hardest are among the easiest pulls in the dungeon, and you’re rarely forced into a tight space where Quaking might cleave multiple members of your group - the main place this might happen is when dodging Dread Volley during the Dread Captain Lockwood encounter.

Neither of our Routes this week propose a serious exploitation of the Ashvane Spotter, mostly because we feel this isn’t necessary to time the key at a competitive level this week, but it remains a great strategy that you should employ if your group can handle the increased difficulty it brings.


Read more on Siege of Boralus Dungeon Abilities.

Temple of Sethraliss [back to top]

Bursting is very easy in here, making this one of the best Temple of Sethraliss weeks on the calendar - the only problem is Quaking turning the boss fights into pseudo-Tyrannical encounters. It’s going to be at its worst during the third boss fight, which is the most difficult part of the dungeon, even on Fortified weeks, so make sure to have Bloodlust ready for this fight and be careful not to use any cooldowns on the trash packs leading up to it that won’t be up when you pull the boss.

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]

Fortified weeks are never easy in this dungeon, but this is one of the better ones on the calendar for it, since neither Bolstering nor Sanguine are active. Make sure you’re using Bloodlust on the harder trash pulls in here, as you shouldn’t need it on many bosses without Tyrannical active.

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]

Like with most weeks, the active affixes won’t impact you too badly in this dungeon. If you were to pull any Underrot Ticks, you’d maybe have to worry about Bursting, but they’re all avoidable so both of our Routes skip them entirely. The trash enemies you’ll likely have the most trouble with are the Feral Bloodswarmers - try to avoid pulling more than one of these at a time, and focus your group’s damage on them. Our Expert route is designed to do just this, pulling the room with five Bloodswarmers in exactly five pulls.

Read more on The Underrot Dungeon Abilities.

Tol Dagor [back to top]

Bursting is one of the affixes that you’ll have to worry about even while killing the majority of the Enemy Forces with the Cannons - whoever is piloting the Cannon needs to be aware of their stacks and pause as needed to let the healer catch up. Quaking is also not trivial in here, as the hallways are narrow - be sure to not stack up as Jes Howlis enters his transition, you could get hit with a huge Quake while stunned! At the end of the day, Tol Dagor is still a fantastic dungeon this week, as it’s a Fortified week and you’ll be killing most of the trash with Cannons (if you’re using the Expert route, that is!)

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]

This is another week where you’ll really feel the removal of Maggots from the list of enemies that trigger on-death affixes. Without them Bursting, you’ll be able to pull the corridors near the Banquet Hall much more safely, and you’re unlikely to get the group low enough that a bad Quake will be lethal.

With Fortified active, you can safely Bloodlust trash throughout the majority of the dungeon - although you should still make an effort to have it available for The Heartsbane Triad. Depending on the door that you get, you may also be able to easily lust Lord and Lady Waycrest - do this if possible, as this encounter is also somewhat difficult with Quaking active.

Read more on Waycrest Manor Dungeon Abilities.