World of Warcraft Season 2 has a new Mythic+ routing question.
Do you want to kill the giant frog?
Blizzard has pushed another round of live dungeon tuning, and one of the strangest changes is buried inside The Blinding Vale.
Potatoad Matriarch now awards 60 Enemy Forces instead of 30.
At the same time, the total Enemy Forces requirement for completing The Blinding Vale has increased from 655 to 686.
That is 31 additional count required across the dungeon.
The giant frog now provides 30 additional count by herself.
You can probably see where this is going.
Blinding Vale Now Requires 686 Enemy Forces
The latest live Season 2 Mythic+ tuning changes increase The Blinding Vale's required Enemy Forces total from 655 to 686.
Normally, adding 31 count to a dungeon would immediately send tanks back to their route planners looking for another pack nobody particularly wanted to pull.
Blizzard has effectively provided an answer at the same time.
Potatoad Matriarch previously counted for 30.
She now counts for 60.
So if your existing route already included Potatoad Matriarch, the new dungeon requirement is almost completely cancelled out by her increased value.
The dungeon asks for 31 more.
The frog gives you 30 more.
Mythic+ mathematics occasionally produces something almost suspiciously tidy.
Potatoad Matriarch Is Also Getting Easier
The increased count would be considerably less appealing if Blizzard simply demanded that groups fight the same unpleasant enemy more often.
Instead, Potatoad Matriarch has also received mechanical nerfs.
Toxic Spew's initial damage has been reduced by 50%.
The radius used when spawning Toadspawn has also been reduced from 10 yards to 7 yards.
That should make the encounter less punishing while simultaneously making the Matriarch considerably more valuable toward dungeon completion.
Blizzard is effectively saying:
Yes, we would quite like you to kill the frog.
Here is twice the count.
Also, the frog hurts less now.
Your Blinding Vale Route May Not Need to Change
If your route already included Potatoad Matriarch, there may be very little work required.
The additional 30 count she provides almost perfectly covers the dungeon's additional 31 Enemy Forces requirement.
If your route avoided her, however, the calculation has changed considerably.
Skipping a mob worth 30 count is one thing.
Skipping something worth 60 means you need to find that count somewhere else.
And because Blizzard has reduced some of her most dangerous mechanics, the alternatives may no longer look as attractive.
This is exactly why Mythic+ routes remain unstable during the opening weeks of a season. We watched Blizzard repeatedly reshape these dungeons during Season 2 Mythic+ testing before launch, and live players are now producing enough data for another round of adjustments.
The route you imported three days ago is not necessarily the route you want tomorrow.
Murder Row Got Nerfed Again Too
The Blinding Vale changes are not happening alone.
Murder Row has also received another small tuning pass.
The Dark Pact used by Warlocks later in the dungeon now shields for 30% of maximum health instead of 35%.
Those enemies could already take an annoying amount of time because they combine healing with defensive shields, so reducing Dark Pact should help groups move through them slightly faster.
The final boss also gets a change to Fingers of Gul'dan.
It now targets four players instead of five.
Each targeted player summons four imps instead of three.
That means the total theoretical number of imps actually moves from 15 to 16, but the mechanic is concentrated on fewer players, which should reduce how widely the spawn zones are spread around the arena.
Murder Row has already become one of Season 2's more interesting dungeons for hidden optimization. We just covered how the hidden Concealed Pistol can make enemies take 20% increased damage.
Apparently the dungeon contains both contraband weapons and ongoing municipal renovation.
Altar of Fangs Lost One of Its Popular Tricks
There is one change in the same tuning batch that is definitely not a nerf for players.
In Altar of Fangs, groups had discovered that Blood Sacrifice could be interrupted using line of sight.
That allowed clever positioning to prevent the healing absorb from becoming a problem.
Blizzard has now removed that interaction.
Blood Sacrifice can no longer be line-of-sighted.
That comes only days after Blizzard heavily nerfed several of Altar of Fangs' most frustrating trash and boss mechanics.
So the dungeon has become numerically friendlier while simultaneously losing one of the community's more creative ways to avoid a difficult mechanic.
Mythic+ giveth.
Mythic+ notices what you are doing and taketh away.
Potatoad Is the Change That Matters Most for Routes
For most groups, the headline from this tuning pass is still The Blinding Vale.
The numbers are unusually easy to remember:
- Enemy Forces required: 655 → 686
- Potatoad Matriarch count: 30 → 60
- Toxic Spew initial damage: -50%
- Toadspawn radius: 10 → 7 yards
If you already kill Potatoad Matriarch, your route should remain very close to where it was.
If you have been avoiding her, it may be time to reconsider.
Season 2 already made every Mythic+ enemy 4% tankier before launch, so efficient Enemy Forces routing matters even more as keys climb.
And right now, Blizzard has placed 60 points of that efficiency inside one enormous amphibian.
Kill the frog.
Get the count.
Try not to think too hard about why Mythic+ has turned us all into accountants who specialize in poisonous wildlife.
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