The first 24 hours of the first week of Midnight S1 have passed, and Nightstalker314 is taking a look at the early data provided by Raider.IO. Compared to the data from the previous expansion, Season 1 of Midnight is performing better than all 3 TWW seasons. The metrics for total runs (+30.8%), active characters (+4%), and the overall success rate (+7.44 percentage points) are beating all previous statistics. The dungeon tuning in general is quite a surprise. A former all-time favorite is actually the worst dungeon. And the rework of the “worst M+ dungeon of all time” is turning out to be one of the best. So let’s look at the details.
The First 24 hours of All TWW Seasons
Comparable metrics for this are quite reliable, as this snapshot was taken before the reset in the Asian region. Data from these servers, especially from the Chinese ones, only became fully accessible late into TWW S2. Total runs and active characters do usually correlate. But it is good to see a great start into a new expansion, especially after TWW S1 was quite rough. The in-time ratio is the biggest improvement.
The big outlier for Midnight Season 1 is the comparatively lower number of active characters so far. But this could be tied to a single factor. Anyone doing Mythic+ right now can feel the ridiculously high success rate. This then leads to doing more runs on a single character to check off KSM and other progress-related goalposts.
It remains to be seen if activity on the Asian servers will reflect this trend. The metrics for the Chinese players were falling off quite hard towards the end of TWW S3. If they rebound to the long-term global share of 45%, MN S1 might set new records.
Total Runs Across All Dungeons
The share across all dungeons is surprisingly close this early into the week. Despite having the worst in-time percentage, Algeth’ar Academy is slightly ahead of Windrunner Spire, which has the best percentage. Both of these dungeons also drop highly sought-after trinkets that populate a lot of BIS lists. Algeth’ar Puzzle Box for DPS specs, the Emerald Coach’s Whistle for several healer specs, and the Heart of the Wind.
Such high success rates are usually the case later in the second or third season of an expansion. Windrunner Spire (96.26%) is the easiest dungeon, slightly ahead of Seat of the Triumvirate (95.60%) and Magisters’ Terrace (95.48%). Seat used to be the worst dungeon of the last two Legion M+ seasons, with a participation rate as low as 2.5%. Pit of Saron (93.71%) and Skyreach (93.41%) are also doing quite well for older returning dungeons. Nexus-Point Xenas (93.09%) is close by, with a slightly larger gap to Maisara Caverns (91.41%).
The Worst Dungeon for now
Algeth’ar Academy (85.52%) is dead last with a major gap of almost 6 percentage points. Looking at the heat map for the early runs, it seems that a lot of players are booking free flights from the big Air Elemental on the single platform towards the second boss. Big pulls before the first boss, Vexamus, and the final boss also lead to a lot of deaths. Perhaps players stick to the optimized pull patterns of DF S4.
Split Across All Key Levels
So far, the season seems way easier than any previous one. 23.77% of all runs were already done at key level 10 and higher. This value was at just 11.30% 24 hours into TWW S3. The success rate of 85.43% for all level 10 runs is also ridiculously high. For comparison, TWW S3 also only stood at 61.52% for key level 10 after 24 hours. The fact that the total number of level 10 runs almost surpassed the entry-level numbers is also unheard of. Towards the end of the week, level 10 keys might make up 30% or more of all completed runs. Seeing multiple timed +15s so early in the first week is also exceptional. Week 1 of TWW S1 only had a few +12s, TWW S2 peaked at +15, and TWW S3 at +17.
The pattern of the key level split curve paints a clear picture. Most players start with a +2, which turns into a +5 in most cases. After that, these teams progress into a +8 and then into a +10. The success rate barely falls under 98% for the first 5 key levels. The introduction of the Fortified affix at level 7 lowers the rate by 5.57 percentage points. After this, the next big drop-off is, as usual, from level 9 to 10, another 4.61 percentage points.
Soon, Asian players join in, and more alts or casual players start on the weekend days. The percentage values for all dungeons should go down by 3 to 5 points. Regardless of that, this week will finish with some incredible metrics.
Conclusion and Forecast
If you have any decent experience with the dungeon roster, go for KSM and 8 +10s in your vault this week! Never has the start of a season or even an entire expansion been as easy as it is right now. Algeth’ar Academy should see a few more adjustments to trash pulls, unless players adopt new pull patterns.
If the Asian WoW players return with the same activity, this week might see way beyond 4 million completed runs. A complete breakdown for this should be possible on Friday or Saturday of the next weekend. But we will also take a second look at the intermediate data this weekend.
