Blizzard Talks 11.2 Dungeon Design: Part 1 of Exclusive Wowhead Interview

Posted 2025/06/18 at 1:27 PM by Wowhead

addressed in a recent hotfixSeason 3 Overview

You mentioned that the 11.2 launch week will have Season 3 scaling and rewards for non-bountiful Delves and M0s. Does this mean that Season 3 Champion gear is available before the raid and Mythic+ actually open?

Drew: You'll be able to grab day of the patch, Champion level gear from the sources you listed above. Also, World Bosses will be available. So you'll be able to jump in and have something to do right away.

And what led you to this decision?

Drew: We want you to log in day of the update and have something to do. There's a cool quest that comes out with every update and the storyline to follow through and new progression paths and systems unlocked, but If you're just chomping at the bit to get into upgrading your character and gaining more power, we've discussed it and we don't really want to hold that for a week anymore if we don't have to, or at least parts of it. Mythic+ and Raid obviously are going to sit on a seasonal boundary, but we felt we wanted to experiment with giving you more to do on day one.

How will players actually upgrade the Reshii Wraps, and will it be Warband-wide?

Taylor: Much like a lot of our approach to the War Within on Warbands, we want Reshii Wraps to be Warbound as well, so players progressing on one character will be able to share that progress with others. You will upgrade them, week by week. There is a currency that you'll be able to obtain and that's obtained through a variety of different ways if you're engaging with the game: M+, Raid, Delves among them. There will be a catch-up system for players who miss a week. If you're not right there at release on week one, you'll be able to come back in at a later time to catch up to your friends, and not have to worry about missing a week if you're on vacation or you can't play for a few days.

We've been listening to feedback very carefully from this last season, and that's an important factor for us going forward.

Drew: With Warbands in general, that's kind of our target for a lot of our progression systems in the game and features – how can we get this across your alts, or how can we make your time more valuable in-game?
Mythic+ Feedback and Changes

Threat has been a pretty big issue again with specs being able to pull threat in Mythic+ and Tanks being able to pull off each other by doing their rotation in raid. Threat seems to be a constant issue that is continually bandaided, and when it's not, it is one of the biggest sources of frustration for players in PvE content. Do you have any kind of long-term solution for Threat issues, or do you consider it something that is part of the challenge when designing encounters?

Note that this question was asked before the recent Threat buffs.

Taylor: Fundamentally, we do believe that managing threat is part of the tanking equation. That's gameplay that both players have on the DPS side or the healing side, and also, you have plenty of tools on the tanking side to be able to tackle your threat level and how the monsters are reacting to you. That being said, this is a frustration we've also felt. We know there's a lot of feedback on this point. We're planning in the Ghosts of K'aresh update to take a swing at this. It can be particularly frustrating when you're a few item levels behind your fellow tank in a raid setting, and you feel like you're doing everything – executing your rotation well, and your fellow Tank is just ripping threat from you. What we don't want players to feel is that they're doing everything within their power at a reasonable item level, and the encounter is harder because of their fellow tank ripping threat off of them, so we want you to be able to play with your fellow tank, execute your rotation and feel like there's not an additional hoop to jump through there.

Drew: To add to that as well, I think Taylor's point of it being important that you're not ripping off a tank 30 or 40 seconds into a pull or whatever (whatever number doesn't feel right here), but there is still some gameplay here in having the tank gather some mobs. There are player tools like Misdirect and Tricks that help you do it. It's really about sustained threat is where I think we see the problem is currently in our discussions, but there's some core “let the tank gather mobs” gameplay that we do like.

Coming to Season 2, it seems that dungeons were kind of disarmed, and players seem to have a lot more fun this season. So, how do you feel like Season 2 went, and what lessons will you be carrying forward into Season 3?

Drew: So I'm having a lot of fun myself. I think Season 2 has been awesome, and I think that’s the model, at least that’s the target that we want to keep going forward. The really high-level answer for you is I'd like Season 3 to feel a lot like Season 2.

Some philosophical stuff we did here: we took a look at how often things are casting, how long cast bars are, whether they're interruptible or not, trying to have less bait interrupts. If a creature has a cast bar to put up a DoT, and we want you to dispel it, just put up the DoT and let's not add that quiz there. I think another philosophical shift here in that in that spirit of let's just put less cast bars on screen was the tank buster change. I think that was really healthy. That's something else we're going to keep doing. We're gonna look at Season 1 dungeons that are in the pool for Season 3, and those legacy dungeons and take similar paths. I think another thing that went really well was actually with help from the community. Something that we did differently that wasn't in the season itself, but I think heavily influenced the season, is how we did testing on PTR. We had a much more focused dungeon pool every week, and that helped us get data from you guys on what feels bad or what feels out of band or what feels too easy even, and we were able to concentrate that data. It also allowed us to roll out updates every week with what's changed, so you guys had an idea of where we were going with Mythic+ throughout that dungeon pool, I should say. So we want to keep doing that as well.

How do you feel the change to stops has gone? Are there any plans to change them back, or are you happy with where they're at now?

Drew: We think the game is in a healthier place overall with the way they work now in the War Within and for most of WoW’s lifespan, there were odd spells that didn't work this way, but for the most part outside of Dragonflight, that's how they worked. That said, I think the changes we made in Season 2, specifically to how often things cast at all and how long cast bars are, put us in a healthier place. You're still seeing keys pushed up into the 20s even after this change, and we do understand that it requires a little more coordination at a high level to execute some of these bigger pulls, but I think that's acceptable. You're at the bleeding edge of the system, and that's OK. The core experience of 1 to 10 or even up to 12, is very doable and very reasonable, even in a pug setting after the change. So in summary, we're happy with it. We think we added some texture to creatures and player abilities, and no changes planned at this moment.

One of the other philosophical changes was Resilient keys. How do you feel like those went and will we see them continue in season 3, and any changes planned for them?

Drew: So no immediate changes planned. We're pretty happy with how this landed. I've heard a lot of players just talk about how it's fun to work on them and it feels like you're climbing over a new tier as you finish a whole row of Resilient Keys. I personally like it myself. So, big fan of how they work. We think they're in the right place in the system, where they're deep into Endgame and more like prestige and not a part of the core rewards loop. So, no plans to change that there, but we like them, we're happy with them.

How do you view players who Need on every item in LFG, just to sell them for Gold? Are there any plans to address this?

Taylor: We're aware that this is a problem. There's been a lot of feedback. It's definitely something we've seen as well while playing the game. We understand that anytime a player is in a difficulty, they go into that difficulty under a certain social contract, and players who are in LFR together or group finder modes often don't come into those modes with a lot of social contracts, so it can be frustrating to see that item drop that you really want and another player make off with it or sell it to the highest bidder. We don't have any plans to announce right now, but it’s something that we're actively taking a look at and we'd like to address in the future.

Are there any changes to address the frustrations of joining LFG groups and dealing with leavers in season 3?

Drew: Yeah, so I don't have all the details. We'll be sharing this as we go live with Ghosts of Ka’resh through PTR, but we're actually introducing a Keystone deserter system. Yeah, so the rough summary, and again there will be more details that come out as we progress through the PTR cycle, is you will need to put up an abandon vote essentially on a dungeon if things aren't working well, and if the group agrees you disband – there's no there's no harm no foul to your rating or anything like that. If you are leaving keys too often in this first iteration, we're not going to penalize you on an account level. You'll just be marked as someone who leaves often, so in Group Finder, you're going to see this player quits. That said, if you're on good behavior and you're finishing Keystones or using the abandoned system appropriately, you'll lose that mark as well. First iteration, we're going to take a bunch of feedback, but we do view this as a problem. We want to build a tool for players to agree that the key is over and punish players that suddenly vanish.

We're going to roll it out carefully and make sure we get feedback along the way. So it'll be iterated on.
Revisiting Tazavesh

I know you mentioned hard mode, is there going to be the Megadungeon on M0, and also hard mode Tazavesh?

Drew: The default for Tazavesh Mythic 0 is Hard Mode. The simple way of putting it is there's 6 M0 dungeons and then 1 megadungeon on Hardmode. It's going to be tuned like a 10. It's gonna be rewarded like a 10, potentially even give you a 10 vault – we'll see on that last detail. We really want to make that mini raid experience with no timer that people have been clamoring for. People really love megadungeons. We want to make it worth your time.

Patch 11.2: Ghosts of K'aresh

Class Updates

Dungeons & Mythic+

Interviews

Delves Updates

S3 Delve Nemises: Ky'veza

New Raid - Manaforge: Omega

WoW's Biggest Boss Ever

Comment by PhazeshiftaDungeon design? What dungeon design? All season 3 is is rehashed content they've already done.Comment by PandaabearDungeon design? What dungeon design? All season 3 is is rehashed content they've already done.Comment by Unfa1rThe change to the gearing system at the start of the season has been due for quite a while, so credit where it's due, good job.
Not a fan of the whole change to stops, cause it makes some given specs a bit too good compared to others, but if there are no 1000 casts that insta delete you from orbit i guess it is not so bad.
A bit bumped that we get Tazavesh for like a 3rd time but it is infinitely better than if they went with Seat.
Overall the vision they are going with looks good, cheers.Comment by furos72Another pointless interview with people who don't ask the obvious questions.

Why are two dungeons from Season 2 returning in Season 3? That means they'll stay the same for 18 months.

No Mana-Tombs or Ethereal Legion Dungeons...Comment by CorpselanceMostly word salad, except for this singular gem:

we took a look at how often things are casting, how long cast bars are, whether they're interruptible or not, trying to have less bait interrupts. If a creature has a cast bar to put up a DoT, and we want you to dispel it, just put up the DoT and let's not add that quiz there.Comment by PlaggyHow can anyone be happy with how Priory turned out? That key is a @#$%ing RNG hell. People just get deleted by random shots, bolts or smites like flies.
You cant be serious saying that some casts can go off or longer castbars are fine, cause you need some ~150 kicks and a huge, uncounted amount of hard stops to time that key even on a +13. And it just doenst change from there. And +13 is not "bleeding edge of the system".

I just dont know why they are so stubborn on this part. Their changes to stops did NOTHING to keep stops at bay but lead to comps with more stops being more successfull, since you cant just bring a few stops and keep the casts under control, but you need to bring 10 stops to prevent the mobs from casting at all until they are dead. Its like he has never done any keys beyond +12 at all.

If i sucessfully kick a mob it should just not be casting at least for like 10 seconds.Comment by dvdv
Why are two dungeons from Season 2 returning in Season 3? That means they'll stay the same for 18 months.
https://www.wowhead.com/news/season-3-mythic-dungeon-rotation-voting-results-376258Comment by Hellboy999Mostly word salad, except for this singular gem:

we took a look at how often things are casting, how long cast bars are, whether they're interruptible or not, trying to have less bait interrupts. If a creature has a cast bar to put up a DoT, and we want you to dispel it, just put up the DoT and let's not add that quiz there.Comment by ZunaThey are “happy” with resilient keys despite the overwhelming majority of players wanting them to be +1 instead? Do they even play the game?Comment by WOWRayonDawnbreaker was a fun experiment, but it didn't work well. Maybe try bringing it back in a couple of expansions when they can work out all the bugs.

Priory is also problematic. For a big wide-open area, the whole zone feels claustrophobic. You have enemy patrols everywhere and you're trying to avoid most of them so you don't have giant pulls and AoE damage that will rip the group apart. You have the Lightspawn enemies, 2 pulled at the same time is stressful as a healer, 3 are an instant death-sentence. They claimed they changed the Lightspawn behavior to avoid targeting the same people at once or in a row, but I've seen Lightspawn constantly pick the same target.Comment by ChaosMonkeyHow can anyone be happy with how Priory turned out? That key is a @#$%ing RNG hell. People just get deleted by random shots, bolts or smites like flies.
You cant be serious saying that some casts can go off or longer castbars are fine, cause you need some ~150 kicks and a huge, uncounted amount of hard stops to time that key even on a +13. And it just doenst change from there. And +13 is not "bleeding edge of the system".

I just dont know why they are so stubborn on this part. Their changes to stops did NOTHING to keep stops at bay but lead to comps with more stops being more successfull, since you cant just bring a few stops and keep the casts under control, but you need to bring 10 stops to prevent the mobs from casting at all until they are dead. Its like he has never done any keys beyond +12 at all.

If i sucessfully kick a mob it should just not be casting at least for like 10 seconds.Comment by ChaosMonkeyAnother pointless interview with people who don't ask the obvious questions.

Why are two dungeons from Season 2 returning in Season 3? That means they'll stay the same for 18 months.

No Mana-Tombs or Ethereal Legion Dungeons...Comment by BrimzDungeon design? What dungeon design? All season 3 is is rehashed content they've already done.Comment by ChaosMonkeyI would like to see the removal of explorer track, not have any mid-season buffs (turbo-boost, borrowed power, etc.), raise the weekly crest cap to 120, remove valorstones (or at least make them not needed for heroic/mythic track), fix Dawnbreaker bugs of flying through the ships and sometimes getting stuck inside them, and make the no weekly affix thing start at 15s.

Having the same exact affixes every single week makes the dungeons get stale very quickly, and season 3 will be even worse as literally 2 of them are the same as this season and 2 are from season 1. And the SL ones are not that old either.Comment by PlaggyIf they bring a 4th season, they will most likely not bring back those keys again, but the 5 that were left out + some recycled ones maybe from WoD. 4th season just nobody cares anywaysComment by WaurgamingChamping at the bit, not chomping.

We shall fix this one internet post at a time.Comment by DaieonAnother pointless interview with people who don't ask the obvious questions.

Why are two dungeons from Season 2 returning in Season 3? That means they'll stay the same for 18 months.

No Mana-Tombs or Ethereal Legion Dungeons...Comment by BravejohnThe frustration of LFG is not the leavers... the frustration is to apply to 100 groups and get declined because you are not 20ilvl higher than the dungeon as a DPS...

of course I am not expecting such questions from those set up interviews..Comment by AdeeleiaThese interviews are just.. cooked. Basically everything is "we're concerned! we're looking at it!" And the questions are just, garbage? Like, give them harder questions that require a better answer than word salads that translate to "eat !@#$."Comment by PlaggyThe frustration of LFG is not the leavers... the frustration is to apply to 100 groups and get declined because you are not 20ilvl higher than the dungeon as a DPS...

of course I am not expecting such questions from those set up interviews..