That matters because +10 is where Season 2 gearing becomes considerably more interesting. As we recently covered in our Season 2 Great Vault and Nebulous Voidcore breakdown, completing +10 or higher Mythic+ can feed Myth-track rewards into the weekly gearing system while also giving players access to some extremely valuable Bonus Roll opportunities. Players therefore had every reason to push quickly rather than spend the opening week comfortably farming low keys.
More Than Half of All Keys Were +10 or Higher
According to the first-week Mythic+ data compiled from Raider.IO, 54.75% of completed Season 2 keys were level 10 or higher. Every key level above +9 represented a larger share of runs than during the opening week of Season 1, and the absolute number of completed runs was actually higher from +11 through +18 despite overall Mythic+ participation falling.
The completion numbers are equally revealing. Across every key level, the overall in-time rate was 87.00%, slightly below Season 1's 87.66%. But +10 keys improved by 3.34 percentage points, while +11 improved by 2.11 points. The affix combination was the same during both opening weeks, which makes the comparison particularly useful. Season 2 did not simply hand players a friendlier affix week. Groups were getting through the important Vault levels more reliably.
Some of that is probably preparation. Players entered the season knowing exactly how valuable higher keys would be, and we warned before launch that getting stuck with an unnecessary +2 Keystone could slow down your opening-week climb. Blizzard also made substantial changes to the dungeon pool immediately before launch, with last-minute Season 2 dungeon tuning removing several particularly ugly mechanics and route problems.
Altar of Fangs Went From Disaster to Surprisingly Normal
Nothing demonstrates that tuning effect better than Altar of Fangs. During the opening days, we covered how Altar of Fangs was immediately giving Season 2 groups a bad time. Its overall first-week in-time rate finished at just 83.72%, making it the weakest dungeon across the full week, but the picture changed dramatically after Blizzard's nerfs. The dungeon's in-time percentage improved by 8.90 points across all key levels, with improvements reaching more than 20 percentage points at certain levels between +7 and +13.
Players have also started discovering smaller advantages that make the dungeon less hostile, including the hidden Altar of Fangs interaction that gives the entire group 3% Versatility. Mythic+ is often decided by a collection of small optimizations. Sometimes that means perfect cooldown planning. Sometimes it means remembering that somebody in the group knows how to cook.
But Mythic+ Activity Still Dropped 22.61%
There is one large asterisk attached to the success story. Total Mythic+ activity fell 22.61% compared with the opening week of Midnight Season 1, while 17.05% fewer characters appeared on Raider.IO's leaderboards. So Season 2 produced fewer runs overall even while a much larger share of those runs happened at higher key levels.
That does not necessarily mean players are abandoning Mythic+. Season 2 has considerably more competition for their time, and WoW has repeatedly shown how quickly players shift toward whatever activity currently offers the best reward. We have already seen Timewalking pull players away from Mythic+ when the weekly reward math becomes attractive, and the current gearing system now includes raids, Delves, Bonus Rolls and Great Vault choices competing for the same hours.
For the players who did run keys, though, the message from week one is surprisingly clear.
Fewer people ran Mythic+.
The ones who did went high.
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