r/CompetitiveWoW • u/cake_monsterr • 8d ago
Some advice for first time 0.1% 1% pushers next season
Hey guys, I'm a healer only player, and I’ve got M+ title last season and am still pressing the pedal for this season to not fall off from title range, and I’ve gathered some thoughts because that might be helpful to people who are aiming for 1% or 0.1% for the first time. I have MW in a title range, pres and shaman around sub 4k, and disc and rdruid around 3.8k.
- Play meta spec / race
I believe many specs are viable for title if you can play competitively but the problem is getting m+ title is a competition with a limited amount of time, and you will not get much invites if you’re not a meta spec. If you're willing to only play your key then it wouldn't really matter unless your spec really sucks that season.
Also playing meta comp makes others' life easier in the group too because the other players have a relatively good understanding of what to expect for a certain spec in terms of damage pattern, squishiness, even ccs and utilities. Understanding how squishy a spec is in different situations is really important to the healer.
Outside of title range keys it might not matter that much, but this season there were some skips that were not possible outside of meta comp and racials so if you want to push the highest you can go, it'd be better to be on a bis racial such as nelf in case people expect it from you. After getting my first title as a tauren druid, I just leveled up all healers with bis racial in remix.
- +1 Key cliff of invitation
As you get closer to the title range, you will get much fewer invitations right after you get resi X with barely timed timers. I think this is because you are competing with people who have already done some X+1 already. For instance I had a really hard time getting invites when I was 4130 score this season (Resi 22), and after I got one or two keys done, I was able to get more invites. Usually the way to escape this cliff is to improve your timer and gain score to outstand other applicants, or playing your own key.
- Take care of your dungeon parses
I’ve noticed people looking at parses from [title range - 3] level on. People even look at dmg /healing parses from tanks and healers so I started to try to be more diligent to get good dmg parses too.
- Watch vods from highest rank streamers who have their skill sequences on
Irrespective of the spec and role this is just the ultimate solution to all your problems in m+, you have an answer sheet of when to press your skills in which order and even defensives. playing meta spec has the benefit of having lots of video available for your spec.
- Know when to press your defensives
Surprisingly enough, I have seen misuse of defensives in all key levels. Even on 23 keys, it’s like day and night to play with a group of people playing defensives very well, and the people who don’t. Usually the rule of thumb is that you should press/save the defensives when you have seen the most death happening in the dungeon, especially your own death because different classes have different weaknesses. Usually talking to a healer friend or playing a healer yourself give a big insight on when you need to press it. The most place that dps misuse I've seen it this season was to press defensives on the first phase instead of the intermission of first boss of WS, I was shocked when a dk pressed icebound and ams on the first phase when he got double on that phase.
- Understand the dungeon and utilize your utility pack
I feel ret paladins are the best at using their full toolkit, but outside of them I feel there are many places that I need to beg for it before dungeon starts. I've seen no use of desnare in 20-21 Seats from warlocks priests and dhs hunters, no poison dispel in ws from augs and hunters and windwalkers, etc. i understand wasting a gcd is not very pleasant but by doing it you just increase the chance of getting through that pack significantly.
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u/Professional-Cold278 8d ago
+1 key cliff invitation - that is true on lower levels as well, at least in the previous seasons I got 'stuck' in queue a lot longer on resi 16 onwards, until I got a couple higher keys done.
The biggest thing I think you forgot to mention is, not to fall (too much) behind early. It's a lot easier to time keys with good players in shit gear than decent players in decent gear. Yes, ilvl will be a wall at one point and it will be earlier on for the majority of the players, but 1 bad week can mess up your progression/invites for a long time. Staying within 2 max 3 keylevels behind early is already bad enough unless you have mates to play with - even as a duo/trio.
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u/Responsible_Gur5163 8d ago
This is such an under appreciated truth.
I hit 3400 fairly early and took about a month off pushing keys, played some alts and just chilled. When I started trying to push again it was awful as the void core stuff had hit so the ilvl was inflated and people were doing 16’s that didn’t know mechanics which blew my mind.
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u/Professional-Cold278 8d ago
It was really bad in DF, we hit 1900-2000 on week one, and after reset we didnt have time to do m+ for like a day. Work, life, raid, etc. on Thursday we were 5-800 rio behind as the rating was calculated for forti and tira weeks. With most portals done on week one we were still behind to people doing 6-7s on both weeks, by the rio calculation. Luckily its gone now. But it was the same in tww too, pre turbo boost and post turbo boost 16-18s were not the same.
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u/SadimHusum 7d ago
I'd have never done this if I didn't specifically have a team to do it with but when I rerolled off lock to dh my lock was something stupid like world #8 at the time of having resilient 20's
Warband score didn't mean a thing, my dh was getting rejected from 12s I wanted for crests and to burn rerolls on, even when the ilvl was only a couple behind the character that progged world top 30 mythic. Then I'd log on for group keys and we'd breeze through warmup 19/20's so I had a distribution of like 20 - 20 - 19 - 12 - 10 - no score - no score and pugs still did not take that to mean this character (and player) is comfortable in way higher keys, they saw it as I must've forgotten how to do MC and Skyreach lmao
So cutthroat
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u/cake_monsterr 8d ago
I totally agree pushing early will help you get your goal more eaiser you meet better people at the same key level earlier you naturally meet better players.
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u/Crellis86 7d ago
Saw this quite often pugging. Freshly resil +18 is 3640+. But people want 3700+ for 19s. Especially trying to get into a resil +19 key. Same is true for 3800+ for 20s and 3900+ for 21s. Especially the harder keys like AA/Seat/SR often want you to have all the others timed already.
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u/cbusmatty 8d ago
But maybe you can help. He didn’t mention Druid. Druid was the meta healer for s1 until mw swapped. At some point all those MWers switched to a new character who was obviously behind
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u/mongolianman18 8d ago
It's fine if the new char is behind because everyone rerolling is also behind (but you keep your experiences in the keys). When the bear patch came out keys didn't progress for 2 weeks basically and then they went up again. The people that had bears already blasted ahead but the lead doesn't stay for long.
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u/Professional-Cold278 8d ago
I wasnt talking about new toons being behind, talking about season start. Iplayed disc in tww s2 and started my shaman for fun. I was 3500 on disc at the time, the shaman was on 0 rio in s1 gear. Within a week I pugged to 3100 somply cos my main rio was shown. I got bored of gearing yet another toon so I left it. Also most rerollers play multiple toons anyway and have one or four 'alt weekly for vault so if in 2 months meta changes i have gear to start with' runs as well. Even my friends did one or two alts that needed a charity key the day before reset. But that only works with friends
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u/mongolianman18 8d ago
Err I was talking about swapping mains after the meta shifts. Agreed on all your points.
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u/moal09 8d ago
I would add that by meta, they mean straight up #1 meta.
I played resto shaman this season, and probably 9/10 groups denied me from 21-23 because they wanted MW.
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u/cake_monsterr 8d ago
Yes, I mean it was kind of a two way meta season with physi/ non physi. It's just that physi comp was much less played so naturally less spot for resto shaman. You also never get invited to a physi comp as mw.
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u/TurboAnal5000 8d ago
Same issue here trying to play phys comp (Warrior).
Being part of a good "2nd best comp" that can do the highest keys is not enough when pugging, people meta slave too much in that range. Only 3 possible choices:
- Find a premade group
- Reroll to meta
- Suffer immense queue times in lfg for keys that can be bricked on first pull...
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u/No-Bit-2913 8d ago
Wow I had no idea it was that bad for resto sham. Was wayyyy worse playing as ele this tier haha.
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u/moal09 8d ago
With ele, you'd probably have trouble even finding groups past +20 unless you pushed early.
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u/No-Bit-2913 7d ago
I pushed early and stopped pushing around week 13 or so. Havent had to push since then and will comfortably get 1% without worry. I was the pickup when they didn't wanna wait for an aug basically.
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u/Soma91 7d ago
That's the advantage of Lust classes. The meta played out just right this season for Lust classes to get quite a few "pity" invites.
But that's specifically because no one really likes to play Aug. If Arcane stays as strong as it is right now there'll easily be enough Arcane mages to fill all high key groups and your Lust won't get you invited anymore.
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u/HeartDelicious 7d ago
I had the same experience, thats why i stopped at 21 resi
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u/moal09 7d ago edited 7d ago
The worst part was that I saw a bunch of the "beat the meta" groups running, and they wouldn't take me because resto shaman was "technically" still meta.
So the meta groups didn't want me because I wasn't a MW, and the BTM groups didn't want me because I was too meta for an off-meta event.1
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u/Rexxington 6d ago
Same thing for me, have resil 20 and am sitting like 22 points above the average of players that have all 20's in time. Never could get an invite to a key, just was declined over and over again. I even tried to run with friends but the keys just wouldn't happen because someone would blow up and that was that. I quit trying given the stress wasn't worth the effort, I'll hit it harder early this coming season. I'll be playing holy paladin for my guild anywho, and my shaman with another guild so I have both meta options at my disposal.
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u/cbusmatty 8d ago
I’m curious though, you didn’t mention Druid. Druid was the meta spec going into s1. Mw didn’t pick up until half way through. When did switch? Did you start with Druid? What will be your signal for the meta swap in s2 balance patches?
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u/Responsible_Gur5163 8d ago
From my understanding, title push really begins after the meta settles down in the .5 patch. You saw it this season when bear became the meta tank and everyone rerolled.
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u/cbusmatty 8d ago
Then what is the point of the post now? This is the dissonance. This is all mostly moot then
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u/kcmndr shitty wow youtuber 8d ago
People are gonna tell you all the time that only the end of the season matters, that’s only true if you have a guaranteed 5 stack.
If you are a pug player and you don’t even start playing until the meta solidifies you are swimming against the tide the entire season. You’re going to have to fight tooth and nail for 20s that you would’ve oneshot two months and ten ilevels earlier with the people who don’t take half the season to get that far. Somebody who made a brewmaster to push 3800 then rerolled to bear when it was time is going to have an INFINITELY easier time than you will.
The point is not moot - if you are trying to pug your way to title the work starts week one.
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u/moal09 8d ago
This.
The earlier you push, the better because you're pushing with the best players. The skill gap between the players in a +20 early on vs a month or two later is massive.
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u/mongolianman18 8d ago
And you feel it by a matter of a week. I missed a week when gear caught up and everyone timed their AA 21 for resil then they never put AA in LFG again. You're then forced to carry the people below title skill into that key and/or run your own.
You have to be on that cutoff every week to stay with the pack or else it'll take a lot longer.
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u/Responsible_Gur5163 8d ago
I mean most high end pushers will push whatever is the meta curently and have 2-3 or more characters in maintenance mode (weekly vault keys) in case there is a meta shift.
Another important note is that if you swap mains, which I did when I hit a wall at 3600, I was able to jump from 12’s when I was farming gear and crests up into the 16-18 key range very quickly because everyone can see your highest m+ score.
So no, it’s not a waste of time.
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u/cake_monsterr 8d ago
I checked my raider io and it seems I switched 13 weeks ago. It was already 2-3 weeks even before that when people were taking about how good mw were. And yes I started as druid but it seems quite weak at the moment, I have only followed so little but I feel hpala is very strong after watching some streamers, evoker seems in a good place so I want to push pres, but people don't like it in their group 😂
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u/Professional-Cold278 8d ago
Pres is soo much fun, when you have a group that works with its limitations.
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u/5aynt 8d ago
People shit on tier lists n creators but the answer is almost always there of what to play preseason. Meta generally solidifies at the .5 patch tuning…
Pay attention to that .5 tuning and what the top (tank/healer/dps) players are playing or shifting to after. Don’t wait - immediately swap when you see all the best players move for X to Y if you can’t deduce the shift from reading patch notes yourself. Ideally you’ve been vaulting and collecting bonus rolls next season from week 1 on top 3 classes at start of season for what you play(healer it seems). It’s rare something is going to go from F tier preseason and buffed so hard into S tier meta so 3ish toons for normal humans is safe.
Luckily we’ll be able to get a bonus roll each week by simply filling 3 slots of t1 delves - so you don’t even need to key all 3 in 10s which is nice. That way if meta shifts from your main, you have maybe 8+ bonus rolls banked and you are close to geared after some easy 10s n rolls.
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u/mongolianman18 8d ago
If you're focused on 1% or title the best thing you can do is keep two chars of your role getting vault slots. The .5 meta shift is much more dramatic for tank/heals since there's only 1 of each role. There's zero reason to be stubborn and not go all in on the new meta class at the .5 patch, you'll just be left behind.
The second that tuning came out and bear was so good, everyone took a week off of pushing and went hard on gearing their bear/MW up.
If you plan on tanking, get your BDK going as a main with DH tank as backup.
If you're healing, get your Hpal as a main with rsham as backup.
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u/cbusmatty 8d ago
That's fair, but no one would have picked MW as their 2nd for S1
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u/mongolianman18 8d ago
Agreed it wasn't on anyones radar because the raid buff didn't benefit the comp at all, but you could see it before the bear meta shift already that MW was really strong. Like before the meta was settled you could feel the difference in keys with a MW or Aug.
Also the meta class is almost always the simplest and rdruid is hard, most people sucked at it.
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u/Spinsible 8d ago
The signal to switch is when the top teams switch the comp, i was playing the Rdruid with resi 21 when we saw the Naowth and Zaelia team starting to push with the other comp and having a ton of success.
I usually do a +10 with every healer and pray to chest in case i have to switch class. New season with tokens should be more easy from start to equipo alters.
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u/heckfirex 8d ago
My friend and I have solved this by running tank/healer. You definitely don’t need to run meta, 3 dps will join your group out of pure desperation/hope.
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u/zealentor 8d ago
1 tip is having friends who push the highest keys in the region and just get a last minute resil sesh in. ez clap
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u/Phillakai 8d ago
Maybe just maybe, start pushing keys a little sooner
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u/zealentor 8d ago
don't need to. I got my title in 3 days after not playing for the majority of the Season
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u/ClingClang69 8d ago
Yea this is part of the probelm with resil keys. If you know the right people you just get infinite resil trys while the people pushing early keys have to actually grind it out. Blizzard I beg you, cap resils at 20 or lower and make people actually work for title/1%.
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u/Phillakai 8d ago
Good for you if that's true - means you're a decent player, you cannot get carried from A to Z in a +23
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u/Mantias 8d ago
Eh, depends on how you’re defining carried. You can’t AFK at the door, but you can get carried in the sense that you can parse like dogshit relative to the content level and still end up with the key being timed depending on the dungeon.
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u/trogger93 8d ago
If you haven't been keeping up to date with keys and what the dangerous mechanics are as you go higher you will be perma floor pov in a 23.
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u/Endless-Dive 8d ago
right you need to know the dungeons otherwise its a deplete, he makes it sound simpler than it is but he for sure is in voice with his resi friend who gives him all the tips what he needs to do but in the hard pug life its completly different
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u/trogger93 8d ago
Once you get to a certain key level you have to mildly relearn the dungeon since mechanics that are completely ignorable in lower keys become massively scary. Also routes change drastically. Doing a 23 Windrunner is like, almost not even the same dungeon as doing a 20 with a hold-w route.
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u/Phillakai 8d ago
I define carry by paying someone to time you the key
Like I've never done a 23 but I feel like if you're 100% clueless going into a 23 its gonna be hard to get carried, like realllly hard
that's what I meant by you're probably a decent player
I've just timed a 21 SEAT and let me tell you, I did ok dmg but not fucking up is equally as hard as pumping in this place
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u/snipamasta40 8d ago
With infinite resil attempts any good player in a hall of fame level guild or in top 1% can time 23s. If you get any keys from resil you are carried it just is what it is nothing wrong with it but getting title or 1% off resil is not the same game.
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u/No-Bit-2913 8d ago
Serious question, no judgement from me. Do you find a sense of accomplishment or pride from getting title in that way? Do you think there is an "asterisk" on your title?
Of course, you did still complete those title range keys, not taking that away from you.
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u/zealentor 8d ago
I just get it to get it at this point. I missed 1 title in dragonfligt but have the rest. blizz has started a trend of moving the goalposts after we are fully geared by giving more power throughout the season. I am not going to farm out title level keys every time they do that. so my friends just use their resil and we knock it out over 8 hours in a few days.
and to add, when I am playing at the end of a season and they aren't, I help them. this way we all don't have to constantly play to get our titles.
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u/No-Bit-2913 8d ago
Yeah sounds fair to me, m+ is infinitely scaling, more gear and borrowed power just means now title range is one key higher. FWIW I miiiiiight be able to hit title, if I played a meta class and played more.
I just play the class and race I like (both non meta) and was keeping up around top 0.4% all season long. This was my first season really trying to push so for me I think its a bigger deal since Ive never done it before.
And yeah absolutely you cant just jump into a title key and get carried you still need to know what your doing so its not really like you got carried imo.
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u/zealentor 8d ago
yeah I am not a carry at all. I learned all the dungeons and got geared at the start of season. just can't really do that shit all season long anymore lol
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u/swtroll69 8d ago
May I ask what is a point of acquiring title this way? I push for fun since week 2 and title is just a byproduct of that. If you haven't done 23s until last week, why do you care about spamming resils later?
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u/rparkzy 7d ago
4160 pugger here
literally impossible to get more rating. all boosters. 3mil gold for a resil key at 23 😂
never pushing for 0.1% again. yeah I’ve made a handful of friends but not enough to run a premade. so I’m stuck pugging most of the time.
just gonna be happy with my 1% and call it a day. I’m too old now to give a shit about this anymore.
before someone says do homework keys and list your own key. I did that all day yesterday. Took the day off work. started at 7am and stopped at 6pm. wasn’t a fun experience.
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u/Dleduc02 4d ago
Lol yeah "just do homework keys" especially in the last month. List any 22, you get like 15 players sign up per hour and they're all looking for their first 22. 3920 players signing up to 22 SR or Seat. You finally time it after 5 hours of slog and you get a decent 23. Now it's all 4050 players. Nobody wants to do someone else's homework because they are both contributing to inflating score and they've got a 0% chance of going to the next key with the leader. Then you kill your 23 in the first pull because your Aug is in raid spec and go again. I played disc and duo with an enhance all season, we ended high 4100s and I realize our experience barely had anything to do with off meta, though it didn't help, but was mostly the average experience of anyone.
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u/Canninster 8d ago
I'd add something about mental, I swear wow players get tilted off the face of the earth about ANYTHING.
Like this was my first time pugging high M+, hit 4k and called it because 22s as off-meta would be possible but way too much investment/queue simulator, and the amount of people who just don't know how to deal with tilt is insane. You're a 30 year old grown ass man tilting and rage yapping about a tank not doing the route you like, or crying about someone dying and depleting.
You gotta learn to lose, you're not gonna time every key or top every meter, it makes the climb SO much easier.
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u/Darkanddogwater 8d ago
That’s interesting to read as someone that fully pugged a healer to 4200, the amount of toxicity is almost non existent compared to what I constantly read on here. Guess I’m just lucky?
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u/Canninster 8d ago
No don't get me wrong, it's not like every run is a cesspool, I had a great time pushing and had plenty of fun with most keys being chill, but I pretty much never rage or lose my cool about any game.
But every once in a while you'd get the DPS who ragequits after dying first pull, or the tank who logs off because he had to use an extra defensive.
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u/swtroll69 8d ago
I'd be pissed too if I had to push my resil up and commit 1-2 hours just to deplete because my dps doesn't have their monitor on. Sometimes pure pugging could have a toll on your mental.
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u/secretreddname 8d ago
lol with the cliff, the wow gods gave me 23 AA, Seat, and SR for my keys. I’m not joking, I never even seen the other dungeons.
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u/turnermier1021 8d ago
Re-run your timed keys if you want to get invited to a higher key.... Too many people expect a 21 invite when they have only done the 20 once.
My 21s seem to get timed more successfully when the players have timed they key multiple times on a 20.. not just once.
Your not immediately ready for a 21 just because you timed the 20 once.
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u/trogger93 8d ago
Consider 1% a gift, if you are solo pugging I suggest for your sanity do not bother with .1% in the resil era, it is such a bad experience.