Normally, this is the point where dungeon activity begins quietly decomposing.
Main characters have finished their upgrades.
Push groups are focused on titles.
Everyone else has developed a sudden interest in games that do not require four strangers to interrupt anything.
Season 1 refused to follow the expected script last week.
Completed Mythic+ runs increased by 3.96%, driven primarily by a large surge in low-level keys and freshly levelled alternate characters.
The end of the season did not empty the dungeon finder.
It filled it with alts wearing suspiciously recent Timewalking equipment.
More Players Returned to Mythic+ in Week 18
Mythic+ activity increased during the eighteenth week of Midnight Season 1.
The rise was helped by the season’s final dungeon event week, which offered an additional reward for completing Mythic+ dungeons.
Activity did not grow equally across every region.
European runs increased by 10.55%, while North American activity climbed by 7.75%.
Taiwan recorded a smaller increase of 3.23%.
Korea and China moved in the opposite direction, falling by 0.90% and 2.09% respectively.
The regional split suggests that the final weeks of a season do not produce one universal response.
Some players use the remaining time to finish characters and collect rewards.
Others look at the approaching reset and decide they have already suffered enough.
The Real Growth Happened Below +10
The overall increase becomes more interesting when the runs are divided by key level.
Only 83.10% of completed runs took place at +10 or above.
That may still sound enormous, but it was the lowest share recorded since Week 4 of the season.
The missing percentage had not disappeared.
It had moved into the lower end of Mythic+.
Run totals between +2 and +9 increased substantially, with individual key levels recording growth between 15.68% and 54.81%.
The largest and clearest example came from +2 keys.
Players completed 12,213 more +2 runs than they had during the previous week.
For comparison, the increase between the season’s earlier event weeks was only 5,578 additional +2 runs.
That is not a small fluctuation.
That is an invasion of characters who recently discovered where the portal room is.
Turbulent Timeways Created a Fresh Supply of Alts
The most likely explanation is the overlap between the dungeon event and Turbulent Timeways.
Timewalking offers a fast and relatively forgiving way to level alternate characters.
Once those characters reach the level cap, low Mythic+ keys become an obvious next step.
A fresh alt may not be ready for a +10.
It can usually enter a +2, collect useful gear and begin climbing before anyone has fully decided what half the buttons do.
This creates exactly the pattern visible in the weekly data.
Low keys rise sharply while much of the middle and upper ladder remains stable or declines.
The timing also matters.
Because overall Season 1 participation is now lower than it was near launch, a wave of new characters has a larger effect on the percentages.
The same number of alts entering during Week 3 would have been swallowed by the much larger population.
In Week 18, they arrive wearing heirlooms and immediately alter the national statistics.
The Final Dungeon Event Helped, but Its Reward Had Competition
The weekly dungeon event normally provides a clear reason to complete Mythic+ runs.
During this particular week, however, it competed directly with Turbulent Timeways.
Players could earn a similar reward by completing five Timewalking dungeons rather than four Mythic+ runs.
Timewalking is generally faster and less demanding, especially for characters that are still being levelled or geared.
That reduced the event’s impact compared with similar weeks in previous seasons.
Midnight Season 1 almost caught The War Within Season 1’s Week 18 activity, but the event bump remained less dramatic than historical examples.
The extra Mythic+ box was still useful.
It simply had to compete with five dungeons where half the party could be powered by scaling accidents and optimism.
The Season Reached Its Highest Success Rate
The sudden arrival of low-level characters did not produce a catastrophic failure rate.
Quite the opposite happened.
The overall Mythic+ success rate rose by 0.07 percentage points to 93.72%.
That was the highest recorded success rate of Midnight Season 1.
An easier affix combination contributed to the result.
The increased share of +2 to +5 keys also pushed the number upward because those dungeons are completed successfully more often than high-end attempts.
This does not mean every pickup group suddenly became competent.
It means the season contained more forgiving keys where one missed interrupt was an inconvenience rather than a historical event.
Low Keys Became a Better Place to Start
The increase is encouraging for players trying to gear an alt before Season 2.
Low Mythic+ keys are healthier when enough people are running them.
More activity creates more listings, more varied group compositions and a better chance of finding players with similar equipment and goals.
Late-season low keys can otherwise become strange places.
A new player may be grouped with a heavily geared veteran farming a specific item, an alt belonging to a title-level player and someone who has selected every talent according to which icon looked most dangerous.
A large influx of alts makes the bracket feel more like an actual progression path again.
Not everyone is there because a rare trinket has personally offended them.
Some High-End Key Levels Also Grew
The week was not entirely about +2 characters learning the route.
A few higher key levels also recorded increased activity.
Keys at +10, +11, +13, +16 and +22 saw modest growth of up to 6.01%.
Those levels correspond with several recognisable goals.
Some players were completing Great Vault requirements.
Others were chasing score milestones around 3,000 or 3,400 rating.
The +22 range remained relevant to players competing near the top 1% cutoff.
At the extreme end, +24 runs increased by 19.14%, while +25 activity jumped by 70.37%.
Those percentages represent a much smaller population, but they show that the final push did not stop simply because Season 2 was visible on the calendar.
Some players see an expiring season as permission to relax.
Others see a deadline and begin calculating routes.
The Middle of the Ladder Was Less Healthy
Several key levels between casual progression and the title race continued losing players.
The sharpest decline occurred at +19, where completed runs fell by 27.95% compared with the previous week.
This reflects a growing problem near the end of a Mythic+ season.
Players who only want weekly rewards can stop at lower levels.
Players chasing the highest seasonal achievements continue pushing far beyond them.
The key levels between those goals offer fewer obvious rewards.
A +19 may be considerably harder than a weekly key without providing a meaningful destination for players who are not pursuing the top cutoff.
The ladder therefore develops a hollow section.
At the bottom, alts are gearing.
At the top, competitive teams are pushing.
In the middle, someone has listed a key and is beginning to wonder whether the group finder is working.
Maisara Caverns Still Struggled to Attract Players
The distribution across the Season 1 dungeon pool remained relatively even, but Maisara Caverns continued sitting near the bottom.
Its share of all runs fluctuated between 11.41% during Week 1 and 9.89% during Week 6.
Earlier balancing changes improved the dungeon, but its reputation had already suffered.
Once players identify a dungeon as slower, harder or less likely to succeed, that perception can survive several rounds of tuning.
Keys are not selected entirely by mathematical efficiency.
They are selected by five people remembering what happened the last time they went there.
A dungeon can be fixed in a hotfix.
Its group-finder reputation requires a longer recovery period.
China’s Mythic+ Population Is Winding Down Faster
The late-season pattern was especially pronounced on Chinese servers.
Low-key activity increased by as much as 61.23%, partly because the bracket normally contains relatively few runs.
At the same time, activity around +19 and +20 fell by almost 32%.
Chinese players are often heavily represented around the current rating ceiling.
The latest figures suggest that many have either moved toward the very highest keys or finished their seasonal goals entirely.
This creates an exaggerated version of the wider trend.
The bottom receives a temporary alt population.
The top remains highly competitive.
The middle clears out early and leaves its keys beside the road with a small cardboard sign.
Season 1 Is Ending With Two Different Mythic+ Communities
The final weeks have split Mythic+ into two distinct activities.
For one group, the season is almost relaxed.
They are levelling alts, entering low keys and collecting equipment before Patch 12.1 and Season 2 reset the progression ladder.
For another group, the pressure is increasing.
Top players are still chasing title positions and completing +24 or +25 keys while the deadline approaches.
Both groups increased activity during the same week, but for completely different reasons.
One is preparing for the future.
The other is attempting to finish the present before Blizzard removes it.
Is It Worth Gearing an Alt This Late?
Players should not expect Season 1 gear to remain permanently valuable after Season 2 begins.
The new season introduces a higher item-level progression track and a fresh Mythic+ dungeon pool.
However, preparing an alt now still has advantages.
A reasonably equipped character will enter the new patch more comfortably than one wearing levelling gear.
Players can also learn the specialization, configure their interface and identify which buttons prevent death before those lessons become attached to a Season 2 key.
There is little reason to chase perfect Season 1 equipment at the last moment.
There is plenty of reason to avoid beginning Season 2 with a character whose most powerful item came from a Timewalking boss that died in twelve seconds.
The Alt Parade Will Not Last Forever
Early data from Week 19 already suggests Mythic+ activity is beginning to fall again.
At the time of the latest analysis, North American activity was down by 3.49% and European activity had fallen by 6% compared with the same point in Week 18.
China showed a much larger decline of 18.44%.
The dungeon event has ended, players are finishing their final goals and Patch 12.1 is close enough to make current progression feel temporary.
Last week’s increase therefore looks less like a permanent revival and more like one final burst of practical activity.
Players levelled their alts.
They collected some gear.
They reminded themselves why their original main had keybinds arranged that way.
Season 1 Is Going Out With More Life Than Expected
Midnight Season 1 did not end with an empty dungeon finder.
Week 18 produced a 3.96% increase in completed runs, more than 12,000 additional +2 completions and the season’s highest overall success rate.
Much of that activity came from low keys and freshly levelled alts rather than established characters returning for one last serious push.
That distinction matters.
The season itself may be winding down, but players are already preparing the characters they intend to bring into the next one.
For the moment, low Mythic+ keys are crowded, successful and unusually alive.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
Once Season 2 begins, every experienced player will return to pretending they have never seen any of the new dungeons before.
Sources
Icy Veins’ Week 18 analysis based on Raider.IO’s Mythic+ participation data.
Raider.IO’s live World of Warcraft Mythic+ rankings and run data.
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