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The Weekly Route: Fortified, Bolstering, Skittish, and Beguiling
This week’s affixes are Fortified, Bolstering, Skittish, and Tides-heavy Beguiling.
This week is challenging, as many pulls are difficult because of Bolstering or because of the Emissaries of the Tides that are all over the place this week. There are also a handful of pulls that are especially dangerous due to the combination of these - these are pulls with an Emissary of the Tides where you’d normally use crowd control to avoid a tough Bolstering problem. Luckily, these pulls generally only show up a handful of times in each dungeon. Skittish can be tough for undergeared tanks, overpowered DPS, and/or groups without Misdirection effects, but is otherwise one of the easiest affixes in the game, and in high keys, Fortified is generally easier to deal with this season than Tyrannical. All things considered, this is a pretty good week to push keys.
If you’re interested in a set of routes aimed at very high level players, check out Lashga’s. He’s designs a set of very thorough routes for this week for his own push group, so they’re specially tailored for Alliance players as they feature skips that work well with Shadowmeld. These are quite complicated strategies, though they also have explanations for most of the tricky stuff. If you’re confused by anything in there, stop by his stream and ask him about it! Note that his routes usually go up on Wednesday, around when the European servers reset.
The most painful Bolstering pulls in this dungeon can often be the Toxic Saurid pulls - though be careful not to fall into the trap of leaving the Saurids themselves up for too long in order to avoid bolstering the Skyscreamers - five non-bolstered Saurids leaping around are often far deadlier than one bolstered Skyscreamer. If you’re planning to use any snap spots in this dungeon, watch out for pulling threat off the tank (easy to do with Skittish active) and messing up the whole strategy!
Read more on Atal’Dazar Dungeon Abilities.
Be very careful with Bolstering while fighting packs that include Cutwater Harpooners - one or two stacks on the Harpooners and their whirlwinding or fixating friends can easily lead to deadly combos of abilities on members of your group. There are also a few emissaries in awkward locations this week - be ready for some abilities to get cast that are normally interrupted unless you have a plan to separate the emissaries from the packs.
Read more on Freehold Dungeon Abilities.
Tides week is fairly mild in Kings’ Rest, just be warned that Minions of Zul do bolster, and the set that spawn when the gong is activated will stop patrolling once the reach the Emissary of the Tides pack, so you’ll need to intercept them before then or be ready to deal with them and then reset the pack they’ve bolstered.
Be sure to have cooldowns and ideally bloodlust ready for the Shadow of Zul!
Read more on Kings’ Rest Dungeon Abilities.
There are a few annoying Emissaries in here this week too - be ready to have some Spiritualist casts go through, or have a way to seperate them from the Tides once the cast starts so that you can interrupt it! There’s also an annoying Void-touched Emissary before the bridge to Lord Stormsong. You can death skip past it - otherwise we’d recommend pulling the nearby casters away from it and dealing with them first before cleaning up the tendrils and the Emissary.
Read more on Shrine of the Storm Dungeon Abilities.
Our Siege of Boralus example route is based off the Horde pathing and will require some modification if you’re Alliance.
This is a nightmare week for Siege - be warned! The millions of active Tides Emissaries make it very tough to make favorable pulls with Bolstering active, as the enemies you’d want to Crowd Control to prevent a bolster nightmare are immune thanks to the Emissaries! If you do choose to enter this dungeon this week, pull very deliberately and make sure your DPS players are disciplined with their AoE when there are small enemies in the pull.
Read more on Siege of Boralus Dungeon Abilities.
It’s a great week for Temple - there are a handful of awkward Emissaries but that’s basically always true with Beguiling active. Neither Bolstering nor Skittish should be too problematic here, just be aware that you need to make two or three skips throughout the dungeon to avoid being way over count - our Basic route has some suggestions for which these can be but your composition may make it so that other skips are easier to execute. It’s not all that important what exactly you skip, the most important thing is to avoid getting caught halfway through the dungeon at 100% on the Enemy Forces meter, as that means you’ve wasted so much time!
Read more on Temple of Sethraliss Dungeon Abilities.
This dungeon is awful this week - Tides Emissaries prevent you from playing around Bolstering, which is already hard enough in the Motherlode - and to top it off, the trash is already dangerous enough without being bolstered at all on Fortified weeks. Here more than anywhere you’ll want to adjust the route to play to the strengths of your specific group, and be aware that you’ll probably need to pull this dungeon more than once before you get the hang of it this week.
Read more on The MOTHERLODE!! Dungeon Abilities.
There are a number of tough Tides Emissaries this week in the Underrot. If you have a Poison dispel, the one near the Diseased Lasher isn’t a big deal - otherwise you’ll need to be ready to dump healing into the afflicted player! The big problem is the Emissary next to the two Defilers - this one you’ll absolutely need to either offtank, chain-CC, or knock away to allow you to kick the deadly casts. It’s also technically possible to not pull the pack, but this requires very careful execution of the following boss fight that we don’t expect most groups to be interested in attempting.
Read more on The Underrot Dungeon Abilities.
It’s a fairly bad week for Tol Dagor - Tides week actually puts a bunch of awkward Voids in the path you’d like to take. Watch out for Bolstering in the cannon area now - we’d recommend looking at the clock when you make it to the ramparts and judging just how aggressively you need to use the cannons in order to beat the timer. If you’re doing well on time, just use each cannon to clear one group rather than attempting to kill multiple, as that can be a recipe for a wipe. Also be sure to clear the Parasites that patrol the first area before engaging the boss, otherwise you risk pulling them mid-fight and bolstering it!
Read more on Tol Dagor Dungeon Abilities.
A disease dispel for the Tides’d up Thornshapers will go a long way this week in Waycrest Manor. Be sure to avoid pulling too many enemies at once if the pull contains smaller enemies, such as Piglets that will quickly die and add Bolstering stacks to the entire pull.
Read more on Waycrest Manor Dungeon Abilities.
Dratnos hosts the The Titanforge WoW Podcast. He’s also an Officer in the guild Poetry Club. He loves playing Prot Paladin, Elemental Shaman, and all three Rogue specs, and creates guides to them along with other content on his YouTube channel. He streams on Twitch, where he likes to review his friends’ logs.
This week is challenging, as many pulls are difficult because of Bolstering or because of the Emissaries of the Tides that are all over the place this week. There are also a handful of pulls that are especially dangerous due to the combination of these - these are pulls with an Emissary of the Tides where you’d normally use crowd control to avoid a tough Bolstering problem. Luckily, these pulls generally only show up a handful of times in each dungeon. Skittish can be tough for undergeared tanks, overpowered DPS, and/or groups without Misdirection effects, but is otherwise one of the easiest affixes in the game, and in high keys, Fortified is generally easier to deal with this season than Tyrannical. All things considered, this is a pretty good week to push keys.
If you’re interested in a set of routes aimed at very high level players, check out Lashga’s. He’s designs a set of very thorough routes for this week for his own push group, so they’re specially tailored for Alliance players as they feature skips that work well with Shadowmeld. These are quite complicated strategies, though they also have explanations for most of the tricky stuff. If you’re confused by anything in there, stop by his stream and ask him about it! Note that his routes usually go up on Wednesday, around when the European servers reset.
The Weekly Routes
Atal'Dazar [back to top]
The most painful Bolstering pulls in this dungeon can often be the Toxic Saurid pulls - though be careful not to fall into the trap of leaving the Saurids themselves up for too long in order to avoid bolstering the Skyscreamers - five non-bolstered Saurids leaping around are often far deadlier than one bolstered Skyscreamer. If you’re planning to use any snap spots in this dungeon, watch out for pulling threat off the tank (easy to do with Skittish active) and messing up the whole strategy!
Read more on Atal’Dazar Dungeon Abilities.
Freehold [back to top]
Be very careful with Bolstering while fighting packs that include Cutwater Harpooners - one or two stacks on the Harpooners and their whirlwinding or fixating friends can easily lead to deadly combos of abilities on members of your group. There are also a few emissaries in awkward locations this week - be ready for some abilities to get cast that are normally interrupted unless you have a plan to separate the emissaries from the packs.
Read more on Freehold Dungeon Abilities.
Kings' Rest [back to top]
Tides week is fairly mild in Kings’ Rest, just be warned that Minions of Zul do bolster, and the set that spawn when the gong is activated will stop patrolling once the reach the Emissary of the Tides pack, so you’ll need to intercept them before then or be ready to deal with them and then reset the pack they’ve bolstered.
Be sure to have cooldowns and ideally bloodlust ready for the Shadow of Zul!
Read more on Kings’ Rest Dungeon Abilities.
Shrine of the Storm [back to top]
There are a few annoying Emissaries in here this week too - be ready to have some Spiritualist casts go through, or have a way to seperate them from the Tides once the cast starts so that you can interrupt it! There’s also an annoying Void-touched Emissary before the bridge to Lord Stormsong. You can death skip past it - otherwise we’d recommend pulling the nearby casters away from it and dealing with them first before cleaning up the tendrils and the Emissary.
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.
This is a nightmare week for Siege - be warned! The millions of active Tides Emissaries make it very tough to make favorable pulls with Bolstering active, as the enemies you’d want to Crowd Control to prevent a bolster nightmare are immune thanks to the Emissaries! If you do choose to enter this dungeon this week, pull very deliberately and make sure your DPS players are disciplined with their AoE when there are small enemies in the pull.
Read more on Siege of Boralus Dungeon Abilities.
Temple of Sethraliss [back to top]
It’s a great week for Temple - there are a handful of awkward Emissaries but that’s basically always true with Beguiling active. Neither Bolstering nor Skittish should be too problematic here, just be aware that you need to make two or three skips throughout the dungeon to avoid being way over count - our Basic route has some suggestions for which these can be but your composition may make it so that other skips are easier to execute. It’s not all that important what exactly you skip, the most important thing is to avoid getting caught halfway through the dungeon at 100% on the Enemy Forces meter, as that means you’ve wasted so much time!
Read more on Temple of Sethraliss Dungeon Abilities.
The MOTHERLODE!! [back to top]
This dungeon is awful this week - Tides Emissaries prevent you from playing around Bolstering, which is already hard enough in the Motherlode - and to top it off, the trash is already dangerous enough without being bolstered at all on Fortified weeks. Here more than anywhere you’ll want to adjust the route to play to the strengths of your specific group, and be aware that you’ll probably need to pull this dungeon more than once before you get the hang of it this week.
Read more on The MOTHERLODE!! Dungeon Abilities.
The Underrot [back to top]
There are a number of tough Tides Emissaries this week in the Underrot. If you have a Poison dispel, the one near the Diseased Lasher isn’t a big deal - otherwise you’ll need to be ready to dump healing into the afflicted player! The big problem is the Emissary next to the two Defilers - this one you’ll absolutely need to either offtank, chain-CC, or knock away to allow you to kick the deadly casts. It’s also technically possible to not pull the pack, but this requires very careful execution of the following boss fight that we don’t expect most groups to be interested in attempting.
Read more on The Underrot Dungeon Abilities.
Tol Dagor [back to top]
It’s a fairly bad week for Tol Dagor - Tides week actually puts a bunch of awkward Voids in the path you’d like to take. Watch out for Bolstering in the cannon area now - we’d recommend looking at the clock when you make it to the ramparts and judging just how aggressively you need to use the cannons in order to beat the timer. If you’re doing well on time, just use each cannon to clear one group rather than attempting to kill multiple, as that can be a recipe for a wipe. Also be sure to clear the Parasites that patrol the first area before engaging the boss, otherwise you risk pulling them mid-fight and bolstering it!
Read more on Tol Dagor Dungeon Abilities.
Waycrest Manor [back to top]
A disease dispel for the Tides’d up Thornshapers will go a long way this week in Waycrest Manor. Be sure to avoid pulling too many enemies at once if the pull contains smaller enemies, such as Piglets that will quickly die and add Bolstering stacks to the entire pull.
Read more on Waycrest Manor Dungeon Abilities.
Links
- Find Dratnos on RaiderIO, Twitch, Twitter, or Youtube
- Download the WeakAuras Addon
- Download the Mythic Dungeon Tools Addon
About the Author
Dratnos hosts the The Titanforge WoW Podcast. He’s also an Officer in the guild Poetry Club. He loves playing Prot Paladin, Elemental Shaman, and all three Rogue specs, and creates guides to them along with other content on his YouTube channel. He streams on Twitch, where he likes to review his friends’ logs.
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