Week 16 of this Mythic+ season is behind us, and once again, Nightstalker314 dives into the latest Raider.IO data. The D.I.S.C. belt, unlocked and upgraded through delves, has clearly taken priority early within this week. And it wasn’t just about getting the belt, but also unlocking most of the nine options to customize the bonus. By week’s end, Mythic+ activity returned to normal levels. The week’s affix combo might be the best in the entire rotation. Now let’s look at the details.
Weekly Total Run Performance Compared to Other Seasons
A massive shift toward delves led to a 17.45% week-over-week drop. At this point into each season almost all of the previous 5 seasons were at a similar level. Only DF S1 with its continuous influx of returning players is slightly ahead. And TWW S1 had yet another dungeon week boosting its numbers in week 16. In addition, last week was also impacted by a rather long weekly maintenance from a patch day. The floor for the end of this season might have been reached by now. RaiderIO added another data feature lately to track active characters per week and this metric is also looking quite healthy for TWW S2. A topic that we will be covering in the near future.
Total Runs Across All Dungeons
As usual for this season the dungeon popularity isn’t varying too much from week to week. The order within the midfield is swapping a bit lately. But all of this is happening within the span of a few thousand runs per week. Overall the in time percentage is looking really good with 86.35%. A recent high point only beaten by the ridiculous farm efforts in the first 2 weeks after the Turbo Boost started.
Every dungeon saw improved in-time percentages compared to the previous week. Darkflame Cleft is once again way ahead of the rest with 92.31%. The Rookery was benefiting from the Fortified affix combination with 87.18%. Close behind we see The MOTHERLODE at 86.93%. Priory (85.88%), Operation Floodgate (85.20%) and Cinderbrew Meadery (85.09%) are close together. Theater of Pain saw a major leap up to 84.44% since its 5 bosses were only getting tough at key level 10 and 11. And Mechagon is in last place with 83.53%.
Split Across All Key Levels
With nearly almost 72% of keys being 10 or higher, we see a continuing shift towards the high end keys. This will be slightly disrupted in week 17 since the dungeon event is handing out heroic raid loot for 4 quick M+ runs. But towards the end of the season the split might even move close to 80%. Players will secure portals and maybe the 3,000 rating mount at that point. For week 16 only the last 3 key levels saw increases in total runs.
The Devour + Fortified affix combo might be the easiest combination for low level keys at this point. 85.46% being the lowest in time percentage below key level 11 is a good result. It is yet another reminder that the difference in impact from all affixes is still quite large. Since we have seen 2 full cycles of all affix combinations this season we will take another look at a complete comparison in the near future.
Delve Runs for the New Belt Impact Early M+ Numbers
The drop-off in total run numbers week by week is usually reflected by a regular off-set across the entire week. But with a massive shift towards upgrading your belt in delves the first day saw M+ numbers tank a lot. The graph shows hourly run data from EU and US regions (90%+ of all RaiderIO data) for week 15 and 16. We can see that the first day of the ID fell massively behind the regular pattern. Towards the end numbers caught up quite well and led to a rather decent total drop-off of just 17.45%. For the early hours this value was somewhere around 30-40%.
Conclusion and Early Numbers for Week 17
At this point within the season M+ is losing priority to other gearing and reward features. Filling the vault remains the key motivation. But delves are now a source for the last minor upgrade. In addition Timewalking and other multi-week events like the increased mount drops will serve as variety content.
Week 17 has the last weekly dungeon event of this season. 4 quick runs for a piece of heroic raid gear can bump up the numbers a bit. But Timewalking is also providing this benefit each week. Given that the first day of the ID had no major shift in priority the early hourly numbers are looking a bit better than week 16. As of this writing EU and US are 18-22% ahead. This value might decrease a bit towards the next reset.
