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The Weekly Route: Fortified, Bursting, Volcanic, and Awakened
This week’s affixes are Fortified, Bursting, Volcanic, and Awakened.
It’s a great week for keys of almost all sizes! If your group is able to blast through dungeons very quickly, or if your healer is less geared than the rest of the group, Bursting can be a speed bump, but since it doesn’t do increased damage in higher level keys, it becomes more and more manageable the higher you push. Volcanic is very favorable compared to the alternatives in its slot, and Fortified tends to be better than Tyrannical for the purposes of the timer in high level keys. Remember that the Awakened minibosses themselves won’t trigger Bursting, but their armies will!
Awakened has turned Atal’Dazar from one of the easiest dungeons to one of the most difficult. Before Awakened, you would almost never pull packs that contained multiple Reanimated Honor Guards, you would rarely fight the middle pack, and you would usually only head down one of the two sides of the dungeon, but the obelisks are placed in such a way that you need to do most of these or set up innovative skips or fight the enemies with the last boss. Even on a week with good affixes like this one, Atal remains challenging this season for this reason.
Read more on Atal’Dazar Dungeon Abilities.
This is a great week for Freehold - Captain Eudora is on our side, and none of the affixes are too punishing here. The Weekly Route doesn’t always fight Awakened enemies with end bosses, but in Freehold we almost always do because of the simplicity of Harlan’s first phase. Feel free to adjust this if you’re not comfortable with it.
Read more on Freehold Dungeon Abilities.
Awakened in Kings’ Rest is pretty fantastic, as it allows you to skip almost any enemies you want - though you will have to do some backtracking as you set up your final portals. Watch out for Bursting in Mchimba’s room, as it can easily cause a wipe if you pull everything at once! Also, be warned that Minions of Zul burst!
Read more on Kings’ Rest Dungeon Abilities.
There are so many possibilities in this dungeon - The Weekly Route plans to pull many enemies near the start of the dungeon in order to skip enemies between the second and third bosses, but you could instead choose to pull more of those and skip more of the beginning. Be careful in this dungeon, as Tidesage Initiates do burst!
Read more on Shrine of the Storm Dungeon Abilities.
Our Siege of Boralus route is based off the Horde pathing and will require some modification if you’re Alliance.
Awakened allows you to choose which part of the dungeon you’d most like to skip in this dungeon - if you’re a super coordinated group you may wish to skip everything that isn’t killable with Ashvane Spotters, and then back-pull once you get a spotter. This strategy can be especially lucrative on Raging or Bolstering weeks, but even without those affixes active, it can save tremendous amounts of time - The Weekly Route has instead opted for a safer strategy involving pulling everything until after the second boss goes down, and then using the final Awakend obelisk to skip much of the remaining trash.
Read more on Siege of Boralus Dungeon Abilities.
If you have a Rogue, you can cut a few more enemies from this route with a shroud and/or sneaking ahead and activating obelisks while your group gets there from an earlier portal, but otherwise this Route is a good balance of efficiency and simplicity that should work with almost any composition.
Read more on Temple of Sethraliss Dungeon Abilities.
This is another dungeon where Awakened lets you pull whatever you want and skip whatever you want. We suggest pulling a bunch of enemies early and using the later two Awakened obelisks to skip those sections of trash entirely, but the options in here are endless.
Read more on The MOTHERLODE!! Dungeon Abilities.
Underrot is worse with this Awakened pattern than the other one, as the fear guy is in the tougher to access obelisk near the end rather than the blob. Our route plans to fight the fear guy with the last boss - it’s not as bad as it sounds, but it is definitely scarier than the blob, so if you’d rather not do this you can use last week’s route instead to see how best to activate that obelisk.
Read more on The Underrot Dungeon Abilities.
Watch out for Volcanic during the boss fights in this dungeon - it can be surprisingly lethal here. Otherwise there’s not too much to keep in mind except to make sure you bring your Awakened bosses to where you need, and be mindful to not pull the enemies behind you that you’ve skipped.
Read more on Tol Dagor Dungeon Abilities.
This is a fantastic Waycrest week - we’d recommend using the Obelisk at the start to get to the left-hand side of the dungeon, even if a right-hand door is open. You can deviate from this if you prefer, but this has the benefit of standardizing your Waycrest runs so that you can learn one path instead of three, at the cost of an annoying 1 minute run through the start of the dungeon two thirds of the time.
Read more on Waycrest Manor Dungeon Abilities.
This dungeon can be very intimidating, and is challenging on Fortified due to the amount and difficulty of trash - just work your way through it slowly and be aware that in different regions, the Hard Mode enemy flies over different bosses to start (it’ll stay over that boss for the whole week!) This week, this route should work for both the EU and the NA regions, but most of the time one of the two regions will not be able to run it.
Read more on Operation: Mechagon Dungeon Abilities.
This is a fantastic dungeon for these affixes - though there’s really not much that changes week to week in terms of pathing. The only option is whether or not to fight the blob with the last boss, which you absolutely should do if you can handle it, as it saves time and avoids fighting the annoying tentacles that spawn at the Obelisk.
Read more on Operation: Mechagon Dungeon Abilities.
It’s a great week for keys of almost all sizes! If your group is able to blast through dungeons very quickly, or if your healer is less geared than the rest of the group, Bursting can be a speed bump, but since it doesn’t do increased damage in higher level keys, it becomes more and more manageable the higher you push. Volcanic is very favorable compared to the alternatives in its slot, and Fortified tends to be better than Tyrannical for the purposes of the timer in high level keys. Remember that the Awakened minibosses themselves won’t trigger Bursting, but their armies will!
The Weekly Routes
Atal'Dazar [back to top]
Awakened has turned Atal’Dazar from one of the easiest dungeons to one of the most difficult. Before Awakened, you would almost never pull packs that contained multiple Reanimated Honor Guards, you would rarely fight the middle pack, and you would usually only head down one of the two sides of the dungeon, but the obelisks are placed in such a way that you need to do most of these or set up innovative skips or fight the enemies with the last boss. Even on a week with good affixes like this one, Atal remains challenging this season for this reason.
Read more on Atal’Dazar Dungeon Abilities.
Freehold [back to top]
This is a great week for Freehold - Captain Eudora is on our side, and none of the affixes are too punishing here. The Weekly Route doesn’t always fight Awakened enemies with end bosses, but in Freehold we almost always do because of the simplicity of Harlan’s first phase. Feel free to adjust this if you’re not comfortable with it.
Read more on Freehold Dungeon Abilities.
Kings' Rest [back to top]
Awakened in Kings’ Rest is pretty fantastic, as it allows you to skip almost any enemies you want - though you will have to do some backtracking as you set up your final portals. Watch out for Bursting in Mchimba’s room, as it can easily cause a wipe if you pull everything at once! Also, be warned that Minions of Zul burst!
Read more on Kings’ Rest Dungeon Abilities.
Shrine of the Storm [back to top]
There are so many possibilities in this dungeon - The Weekly Route plans to pull many enemies near the start of the dungeon in order to skip enemies between the second and third bosses, but you could instead choose to pull more of those and skip more of the beginning. Be careful in this dungeon, as Tidesage Initiates do burst!
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.
Awakened allows you to choose which part of the dungeon you’d most like to skip in this dungeon - if you’re a super coordinated group you may wish to skip everything that isn’t killable with Ashvane Spotters, and then back-pull once you get a spotter. This strategy can be especially lucrative on Raging or Bolstering weeks, but even without those affixes active, it can save tremendous amounts of time - The Weekly Route has instead opted for a safer strategy involving pulling everything until after the second boss goes down, and then using the final Awakend obelisk to skip much of the remaining trash.
Read more on Siege of Boralus Dungeon Abilities.
Temple of Sethraliss [back to top]
If you have a Rogue, you can cut a few more enemies from this route with a shroud and/or sneaking ahead and activating obelisks while your group gets there from an earlier portal, but otherwise this Route is a good balance of efficiency and simplicity that should work with almost any composition.
Read more on Temple of Sethraliss Dungeon Abilities.
The MOTHERLODE!! [back to top]
This is another dungeon where Awakened lets you pull whatever you want and skip whatever you want. We suggest pulling a bunch of enemies early and using the later two Awakened obelisks to skip those sections of trash entirely, but the options in here are endless.
Read more on The MOTHERLODE!! Dungeon Abilities.
The Underrot [back to top]
Underrot is worse with this Awakened pattern than the other one, as the fear guy is in the tougher to access obelisk near the end rather than the blob. Our route plans to fight the fear guy with the last boss - it’s not as bad as it sounds, but it is definitely scarier than the blob, so if you’d rather not do this you can use last week’s route instead to see how best to activate that obelisk.
Read more on The Underrot Dungeon Abilities.
Tol Dagor [back to top]
Watch out for Volcanic during the boss fights in this dungeon - it can be surprisingly lethal here. Otherwise there’s not too much to keep in mind except to make sure you bring your Awakened bosses to where you need, and be mindful to not pull the enemies behind you that you’ve skipped.
Read more on Tol Dagor Dungeon Abilities.
Waycrest Manor [back to top]
This is a fantastic Waycrest week - we’d recommend using the Obelisk at the start to get to the left-hand side of the dungeon, even if a right-hand door is open. You can deviate from this if you prefer, but this has the benefit of standardizing your Waycrest runs so that you can learn one path instead of three, at the cost of an annoying 1 minute run through the start of the dungeon two thirds of the time.
Read more on Waycrest Manor Dungeon Abilities.
Mechagon Junkyard [back to top]
This dungeon can be very intimidating, and is challenging on Fortified due to the amount and difficulty of trash - just work your way through it slowly and be aware that in different regions, the Hard Mode enemy flies over different bosses to start (it’ll stay over that boss for the whole week!) This week, this route should work for both the EU and the NA regions, but most of the time one of the two regions will not be able to run it.
Read more on Operation: Mechagon Dungeon Abilities.
Mechagon Workshop [back to top]
This is a fantastic dungeon for these affixes - though there’s really not much that changes week to week in terms of pathing. The only option is whether or not to fight the blob with the last boss, which you absolutely should do if you can handle it, as it saves time and avoids fighting the annoying tentacles that spawn at the Obelisk.
Read more on Operation: Mechagon Dungeon Abilities.
Links
- Find Dratnos on RaiderIO, Twitch, Twitter, or Youtube
- Download the WeakAuras Addon
- Download the Tank Entering Nyalotha Awakened WeakAura
- Download the Mythic Dungeon Tools Addon
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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