This week’s affixes are Tyrannical, Sanguine, Explosive, and Thundering. This week restricts your options because Sanguine and Explosive make any sort of combined pull into a dangerous endeavor that may not even save time. Since it’s Tyrannical, however, if you’re pushing higher keys you will still need to find ways to combine pulls to save some time. Knock effects are especially valuable this week to help keep mobs out of Sanguine!

Our routes focus on being easy to execute and making good tradeoffs between skipping the worst enemies while not requiring complicated strategies that are likely to fail in less coordinated groups. For instance, we recommend skipping the fire dragon upstairs in Ruby Life Pools, and flying in to the last boss of Nokhud Offensive without pulling any trash, but don’t advocate any shroud or invis pot skips. There are also some annoying patrols that we generally prefer to pull rather than risk coming into the middle of combat later.

Ruby Life Pools [back to top]

All three bosses in this dungeon are very serious threats - for the last boss, you can try to save your cooldowns and bloodlust for the 50% to 0% burn rather than sending everything on pull - if everyone is on the same page, this makes the encounter significantly easier, because each Flamespit in the last phase will hit three players and be very lethal!

This dungeon is not a particularly cooperative Sanguine dungeon either - focus down the casters in each pack or have interrupts ready for when other stuff starts dying to minimize the healing!

Nokhud Offensive [back to top]

We advocate a skip into the last area of this dungeon by flying in from the south and aiming for a channeling mob on a hill to the left of the path. This is very easy and reliable to execute once you know where it is, but you should make sure your group is familiar with it before starting the key! Lust and all cooldowns should be available for the Raging Tempest this week, as even post-nerf this is likely to be tough, though all of the bosses can be lethal if you’re not well prepared for them.

Sanguine is one of the biggest problems in this dungeon as well, as there are many archers and casters that bathe in it if you’re not careful. Death Knights are especially strong against this with their grips, though many classes have useful abilities!

Azure Vault [back to top]

We’re offering a straightforward and hopefully pug friendly route that doesn’t require any complicated skips, but it’s worth noting that if you’re pushing higher keys you can instead get to 100% by pulling (almost) everything up to Azureblade, and then use some class ability of some kind to drop to the lower ring and skip the toad area entirely. The downside of this strat is that it’s harder to get 3 lusts on bosses, though it’s not impossible if you backtrack.

Using Thundering to your advantage on the last boss is a very good idea - while it’s active, you can’t be slowed, so you can get around the move speed reduction and relocate the boss away from any orbs. This dungeon has also recently taken some nerfs and so it’s a good idea to head back in and pick up any score that you might be missing here!

Algeth’ar Academy [back to top]

Starting with a big pull in the plant area is a lot of fun, and this week’s affixes are manageable with this plan - just watch out as Sanguine starts to drop! You will generally want to have lust for Crawth this week, as it’s often the nastiest Tyrannical boss, though your group may disagree, especially if your tank+healer combo handles the bleed damage well!

Halls of Valor [back to top]

Our route includes some enemies like Ebonclaw Worgs that may not be efficient at higher key levels (or may only be efficient if pulled all at once, which requires some form of tech to survive, such as ranged standing on a post). Consider cutting these if you’re confident you don’t need the space for the boss encounter! In general, this dungeon will require you to make a few double pulls in order to beat the timer if the key level is close to your damage - we have recommended a few ways to do this in our route.

Court of Stars [back to top]

In this dungeon, the second boss is often the best place to make sure you have all of your cooldowns and lust for. The first boss tends to not be very challenging in terms of throughput, so you can send your lust on a trash pull earlier to get a better chance at an extra lust in the dungeon!

Starting with a big pull into the docks is a great way to get lust on cooldown, or you can backtrack and take care of these enemies while someone (usually a healer) skips ahead to open the door after the first boss. This strategy is great for higher level keys, but shouldn’t be attempted unless everyone is on the same page!

Especially with the big imp pulls, you’ll want to make sure to prioritize killing Explosives - these will often spawn in waves all at once, since they wait to spawn for when the mobs are no longer hard CC’d, so having someone without cooldowns focusing on this while the people in CDs slam the AOE damage can be a great plan.

Shadowmoon Burial Grounds [back to top]

You’ll need to find an enemy or two off the standard path to get your count to full - our route suggests one patrolling Exhumer that usually pulls anyway for this but you can cut this enemy if you accidentally pull anything else earlier.

The last boss will always target a Ranged DPS player, if you have one, with the Omen of Death. Otherwise, it will target a Ranged Healer (i.e. not a Mistweaver or a Holy Paladin). Use this knowledge to your advantage to bait them in good spots and play in melee if you don’t have to!

Temple of the Jade Serpent [back to top]

The end of this dungeon is NASTY with a tough boss into tough trash pulls into another very tough boss. The second boss is also a huge tank check, and especially if you get there with more than 10 minutes left, consider sending the lust at around 70% on that fight - if you have less than 10 minutes you’ll need to maybe use it on the last boss only!

Sanguine is also a potential pain in most of this dungeon - there are a lot of uncooperative casters that will sit in it if you’re not careful. Use AoE stuns before anything dies and then once stuff dies make sure to keep everything interrupted so you can kite the Sanguine!