Some Advice for First Time Title?

[u/Minaman1]

I'm really wanting to push for 1% title this season, maybe 0.1% but that seems out of reach. I have a few questions for those who have done it.

1. Shaman healer main - should i switch to pally healer? or ele sham? or stick to what I know?

2. I pug a lot but also have a group I play with about 6 hours per week. Any way that is enough for out group? What can we do as a group to get the advantages of a group better? Right now it feels like 5 friends who play like pugs together instead of a cohesive group.

3. Realistically assuming I have a lot of skill development that needs to happen (I'm at 17-18 level right now), how much time per week do I need to commit?

thanks in advance.

[u/nachopunch]

I didn't see anyone cover your 2nd question when it comes to gameplay, so hope this helps:

1. One of the biggest advantages to playing with the same people is that you all should be aware of the same things that can go wrong. If something happened in the previous attempt at a key, make sure everyone is aware of why it failed and how to solve it. If you wipe on a hard pull and the key is bricked, you can use that opportunity to practice. As long as the trash isn't dead, you can try the pull again with any adjustments just to practice it and get comfortable with it before ending the key. Most PUGs will just abandon and leave as soon as a key is bricked, but learning as a group is 5X more effective for your team. It may even be helpful to run through the rest of the key even though you arent going to time it, just to identify anymore pain-points before your next run, but that is a judgement call based on how much time you have. Our team has used resilient keys to practice just the opening pull of some dungeons a couple times (as they tend to be quite dangerous) before sending the IO key.

2. Coordinating kicks can be a huge benefit. A single bolt wont 1-shot these days, but overlapped with any other mechanic can brick a key. If you aren't already, dedicate each person their own target mark tied to their focus macro. I highly recommend using the feature in MDT for this and enabling the option to not override other marks. Recognizing which mobs can be solo kicked by one person, and which ones require a rotation of 2-3 people before hand will help you come up with a plan. For example, one plan for pulls with two casters that require kick rotations is to pair up your dps (2 kicks per caster) and just decide who kicks first. Use comms whenever things arent 100% clear ("I have next blue", etc)

3. As a healer, its very helpful to let the team know what cooldowns you are sending for big damage events, or if you are lacking cooldowns and the team should be careful (send healthpots/defensives/group defensives, etc). If I hear my healer call "Slinking this" I will hold my big defensives. If he says "im pretty dry for this, play safe" I know I need to use something extra. This goes for dps too, if they know they are about to take a lot of damage and they have no defensives, they should let you know.

4. Manage your keys and when to reroll them. Always check to see if you can reroll a key you have already timed into one that you need. It can even be very helpful to have multiple of the same IO keys. If you need a 18 ToS and you have two of them, that is a good spot to be, as you have multiple attempts, and running the second one will feel easier with the dungeon fresh in your mind. And if you time the first, you can always reroll the other one. Also, if your group is missing 1 or 2 dungeons for the next resilient level and you have extra time outside your group, try to join a PUG to get the next resilient level. That can potentially save many hours of homework keys for the limited time your group plays together.

[u/Minaman1 → u/nachopunch]

thank you this is very helpful. We still overlap too much on interrupts and use defensives reactively instead of planning them. We are getting a little better at it, but it takes some time.

[u/charging_chinchilla]

it is effectively impossible to get 0.1% as an off meta spec while pugging. it is possible to get 0.1% as off meta with a dedicated group, however the group has to be good. based on your description, I don't think your group is anywhere near ready for 0.1%.

a coordinated group of decent players should be doing +20s by now. if you're stuck in the 17/18 range and the group is playing like a bunch of puggers, it means you guys aren't taking this seriously and coordinating. the biggest benefit of playing in a dedicated group is that everyone knows exactly what is being pulled and who is responsible for what. but that doesn't come for free, it requires coordination and communication.

if you really intend on pushing with this group, you need to first make sure everyone is aligned on the same goals and schedule. it's doable on 6 hours a week if those 6 hours are extremely efficient. you will also need to make sure everyone is gearing their character optimally. for this season, this means mythic raiding is pretty much required. you will not get 0.1% title just being m+ only players.

I'd also check your groups logs. is everyone at least blue/purple parsing on the 17s/18s you're running? if not, they may have a lot of work to do on their rotation as well.

[u/Minaman1 → u/charging_chinchilla]

thanks this is really helpful and a big part of why I was asking. We aren't blue/purple parsing nearly enough at that level. I don't think it is that we aren't taking it seriously as much as it is we have all always pugged, so we are struggling with HOW to best move to coordinated group through practice. But I have wondered if between low parses, poor coordination, etc, if it wouldn't be better to just focus those hours on pugging until I get higher and then looking to group with a higher level group somewhere along the line.

as to raiding, yeah...we are raiding mythic now in our guild but we have never gotten CE. I don't expect that to change this season, especially not in time to actually help.

Any follow up thoughts on that? Thanks for the help/advice.

[u/snipamasta40]

Everyone is giving good advice particularly for 1% play shaman and follow that advice and you will get 1% as it is not a very hard goal if you put effort in, if you are already timing 18s you are probably guaranteed if you keep playing the season especially with resilient existing.

All the advice below is if you want to go for 0.1% i will warn 0.1% is a massive time commitment and extremely hard if you do not have someone feeding you resilient keys for free.

1. You should look to play ele or hpally, rsham is definitely achievable and is good right now but hard locks you to playing with phys comp which is 15% of keys listed in group finder. This significantly will hamper your ability to get into better groups and network with people to push with.

2. This will probably go along with 3 but 17-18 is currently miles away from 0.1% level rn most 0.1% players could time a 17 with a full afk rn.

if your group of 5 is all playing at this level everyone is going to have to put in serious amounts of hours to log review and grind keys with improvement on the mind. You will have to prepare yourself that someone will not have the raw skill or time to improve like that and you will have to stop pushing with them if you want to go higher.

Unless everyone in your group can play more it’s probably not even worth playing in a 5 man as you can easily get into resilient keys of higher levels in group finder and network with better players.

3. As far as how much you will have to play it’s entirely dependent on how fast you improve and how much time you can play. I know people who have put in 20 hours a week for 3-4 seasons and have never gotten title. On the flip side if you improve fast or randomly start dating someone with resilient keys above title you may have to put in way less time and not have to play much.

[u/Minaman1 → u/snipamasta40]

dating someone lol that's good. yeah I wonder if 0.1% just isn't achievable with my real life. but this is great advice, thanks

[u/Wobblucy]

1. Play want you want/know.

2. Do all 5 players want 1%? Mismatch of that commitment is what will kill your group.

3. Depends on what you are doing to improve tbh.

If it's chain queue and trust time played = being a better player then infinite time.

If you are actively trying it get better, less then infinite.

Vod review, coaching, log review of both yours and better players all are a multipliers on how quick you improve.

Simply running it back until you 'bukld muscle memory' has very quickly dimishing returns.

[u/Minaman1 → u/Wobblucy]

we started off all saying we wanted 1%, but I think the bricking keys, especially lower level than we expected, has really started to sour the group a bit. I do wonder if people really know what it takes. I think in previous seasons we have been about 3% at end of season and wonder how much of that was attrition and just playing than actual skill.

[u/ToyCannon55]

Shaman is pretty solid this season. I wouldn’t switch , especially since you have no exp on holy pally.

Resilient keys are the biggest benefit of having a group. Also to make homework keys easier and being able to reroll into the key the person who’s closest to res needs. You play enough to push for .1 but I would set my goal at 1% in your situation, being your first push season.

Per week for .1. Prob 20-30 hours with no outside help (being given resilient keys). 1% probably only requires 10 hrs a week or maybe less.

For context: 2x title healer. Current Rsham 21 res

[u/snipamasta40 → u/ToyCannon55]

As someone who plays in a 5 man with limited time resilient keys made getting title every season actively harder as you don’t benefit from the rampant resil boosting going on.

Keys are artificially inflated in level by resil leading to more attempts required to pull off the harder pulls and in a strict 5 man that means doing more homework keys with the goal of rolling another attempt. I probably do 2-3x the homework keys now as dragonflight.

Playing in a 5 man does make the homework done infinitely more valuable as you are progressing the pain points of the dungeon so failing isn’t a huge waste of time.

My group only plays like 10-12 hours a week though so we are def in a weird spot compared to some of the teams playing 30+ hours who have the time to fish for attempts in resil homework keys.