Hello healers! As we are now about 1 month into season 3, I wanted to take the time to review the current state of the dungeon and the specs. I am not very interested in rankings, especially when it comes to specs, but more in the trends of gameplay, what's tough and easy in dungeons, etc. Hopefully you will find it interesting, please do not hesitate to join our discord to share your opinions.

Dungeons

Atal'Dazar

First in our list, Atal'Dazar has seen a list of buffs to make it more in line difficulty wise with the others. First, changes to the count force teams to explore the left wing or kill the middle pack. This is mostly welcome as the middle pack in particular was slightly reworked to feel like a fair challenge (Frenzied Charge is avoidable, Wild Thrash is more predictable).

The other big change was in making Yazma's Wracking Pain into unavoidable damage. This adds a healing on the move challenge which is more or less of a problem, depending on how well your group handles spiders. Does it make it a bit of a PUG wall? Probably? I have to be honest here for a second, I rarely full PUG, but please let me know in our discord if you feel it has become unfair!

The overall result is that the timer is still incredibly lenient, and AD is still among the easiest dungeons to do. Outside of the potential difficulty of Tyranical Yazma.

Black Rook Hold

Black Rook Hold has proven to be pretty simple, and some well adjusted mechanics (Sic Bats! is now longer an instant death sentence) have helped making it one of the easiest dungeons this season. So far, Smashspite has not reached full 1-shot levels, and some fair usage of defensives helps with the second phase of Kur'talos Ravencrest, the last boss, although it is a big tyrannical healing check.

One area of hardships is the trash between the first and second boss. The spiders can become a hot mess very fast, but players seem to have adapted quickly (TL:DR; let the tank pull aggro on the little spiders). The next rooms and their Knife Dance and Arrow Barrage can be really tough in uncoordinated groups, but the timer is so lenient that it has yet to prove very impactful. Expect the week 7 (December 26th) to be really spicy here as the combination of Fortified and Raging will not be fun.

Darkheart Thicket

Darkheart Thicket is in the middle of the pack so far. It would actually be pretty okay if some mobs were not absolutely degenerate. The biggest offenders are the cats and the bats imo. The cats and their Grievous Rip require absolute coordination of the CC to simply lock them down and burst them to death. The damage is simply very very high, and the grievous mechanic does not help. About the bats, well the disease dispel is simply mandatory. The fear adds and blood elementals right before and after the second boss also feel pretty bad, as the interrupt/stops requirements definitely restrict the composition or the pulls even more.

In the end the dungeon is not too hard, but the design feels outdated, with pass fail mechanics that are outplayed by the composition rather than the player ability. Maybe I am biased as I have mostly played disc priest so far?

DOTI: Galakrond's fall

This dungeon is interesting as it features some of the hardest healing challenges, expecially in the blight room (Fortified Risen Dragons and Tyranical Blight of Galakrond are maybe the biggest healing checks in the game right now), with a timer that is incredibly lenient. It is possible to time this dungeon with 25 deaths, even a wipe, in really high keys. At the same time, it is entirely possible to end up completely heal-checked here.

The result is mixed feelings for me, I like the healing challenges, even though Bligh of Galakrond may seem a bit RNG (Corrosion on the healer in P2 makes the fight one big notch harder), but it does feel weird to time a key playing poorly. What do you all think?

DOTI: Murozond's Rise

Murozond's Rise is unique this season in that the timer is very tight. Some changes to Tyr's health pool and the timer (+1 min) happened and we will have to see the impacts this week. The bosses are on the harder side, but have been tuned to be doable. There is less space for mistakes than in other dungeons for sure.

So far, I do not have bad feelings towards this dungeon, although it has been a few times now that I miss the timer after a correct run, which is an auto +2 in most other dungeons.

The Everbloom

I cannot speak about The Everbloom without mentioning the absurdity of the flowers triggering on-death affixes. This makes Bursting, Spiteful feel so much more impactful for very little reason, and I'd like to remind everybody that next week is Fortified, Entangling, Bolstering. I will let you picture the upcoming disaster if the flowers trigger Bolstering.

For the rest, the dungeon is actually pretty enjoyable, although the bosses get really hard in Tyrannical weeks. There was some tuning, but I don't expect the situation to be much better soon. In the current situation, I would recommend approaching this dungeon with a group in voice comms still.

Throne of the Tides

I like it. There are definitely some very tough challenges, but nothing that seem completely unfair. You will need some help (immunities, self-heal, spell reflect) on the crushing depths, The dogs require some good control from everybody, the last gauntlet cannot be zug-zug, but everything seems doable with some thinking ahead.

Actually, I think that this dungeon is a good showcase of what can be done to present challenges that can be solved with a variety of composition, where smart play is rewarded. Do you all feel differently about it?

Waycrest Manor

In a similar vein, Waycrest feels like a relatively fair challenge. I expect raging to be no fun here, but the experience is overall positive. The timer is again pretty lenient. The tree boss is somewhat weird, as your healing experience is very different depending on the tank. To be honest, you have to reach very high keys for the tank to even have to trigger Burning Brush.

And this has to be said about this dungeon. It does have an incredible aura.

Specs

Let me start with a little disclaimer here. I have played my disc priest mostly, although I have also done quite a few keys on my mistweaver monk and of course, holy priest. These have been my two characters for a couple expansions now, I usually play most healer out of curiosity, but so far just a few keys to ensure I get some gear when I want to dive in later into the season.

Discipline Priest

The loss of the instant Radiance was very tough at first, in particular on the bosses that have AOE patterns that force you to move: Archmage Sol, Dresaron, Smashspite etc. But there are ways to play around it. You can simply use Radiance preemptively, or pre-ramp with Rapture. Pre-ramping wihout Rapture can feel safer, but it does take GCDs that are well used on smite for the CDR it provides.

The main feel bad part of the spec is simply the absence of controls. This is a healer that is very very reliant on the rest of the team to take care of interrupts and stops, which can be frustrating. The other part is of course survivability, which can be really really hard at times.

Holy Paladin

I am by no means a holy paladin expert, so I won't have much to say here except that there is some build variety, which feels pretty new when it comes to holy paladin in keys. Both "melee" and "caster" builds see play so far, which is always good news, we like options!

What does not change is that paladin extraordinary utility is always appreciated in high keys. Personally, I like melee builds better as I appreciate this being the unique trait of monks and paladins, but that's really just me. Let's see what happens!

Holy Priest

The tiers set of Holy Priest is actually is actually pretty interesting, and introduces some in-depth charges management. I like that I can use Sanctify in keys to build free charges of Serenity in AOE bursts timings. Honestly, I did not expect this little mini-game to be so enjoyable. A very pleasant surprise.

I have also always been a defender of Holy Priest damage in keys, it is seriously very good, even more with the recent buffs to Empyreal Blaze.

It also feels a bit more sturdy than Discipline, although it shares the lack of controls. Still, I really encourage trying it, you might be surprised by Holy Priest!

Mistweaver Monk

Mistweaver has been my main in season 1 and 2 of Dragonflight, and I might actually come back to it soon for raid needs. So I am absolutely not surprised that people love it. All it took was for people to finally give it a shot, I was always convinced of it. It was already great before, it just needed a nudge.

Now here we are, Mistweaver is amazing, extremely fun to play, and brings absurd amount of controls. It is however a hard melee. Outside of Sheilun's Gift, you will need to stick to melee, which certain patterns and mechanics do not favor to say the least.

One point to notice is that there is very little build variety in mythic +, especially in the spec tree. But in the mean time, it is really good to see this spec finally get some love.

Preservation Evoker

I have not played it enough to have a in-depth opinion, but it is always a strong m+ healer, and we still see the now standard resonating sphere build shine, in its "offensive" and defensive variants.

Preservation has all it takes to carry your keys, although it will take some practice to master the good combos!

I wanted to share a long but very interesting discussion from the best experts about prevoker:

Restoration Druid

Restoration Druid last minute changes to cat form damage have brought it back pretty much where it was in 10.1.7. In its current state, Resto Druid has very strong healing and damage power in mythic +.

It does lack a bit on the survivability side, and we see most high key pushers trade in Thrash for Improved Barskin. It does compensate with incredible utility as always!

This is a good time to play resto druid in keys, I intend to level up mine soon.

Restoration Shaman

News were very doomy for Restoration Shaman as we approached this season and well.. It is not that bad! Sure the tiers set is not really exploited in keys, as Chain heal is still prominent, but the recent changes have re-balanced its gameplay to actually pressing other buttons, which feels more interesting.

Personally, I feel like Shaman is hard to master, with many approaches to tackle problems, and there is no silver bullet to a given situation. I am very happy that they receive some buffs to their damage as it could feel like a lot of work for mediocre results!

If you liked shaman before, there is no reason not to play it this season, it is doing very good!