On the surface, not much has changed. Mythic+ dungeons continue to drop Hero-track loot, while the Vault awards a single Myth-track item each week, but the difference lies in the difficulty. Mythic+10 dungeons can be run repeatedly and are widely believed to be easier than Heroic raid bosses, if for no other reason than reducing the burden of coordinating so many players, while raids operate on a weekly lockout, resulting in a significantly faster rate of gear progression from dungeons than raids... soon to be emphasized even further in the upcoming Patch 12.0.5.
Even Delves are providing more loot than ever before, giving players more keys per week and new Heroic gear vendors, without stepping foot into Mythic+ or raids whatsoever!
Limited Crest Economy
Even Mythic raiders are feeling the effects of this new paradigm, as their item level is limited by a common crest economy of 100 Hero Dawncrest and 100 Myth Dawncrest, rather than how much gear they receive each week.
While the raider in this example does have more Myth-track gear, it isn't actually gaining them any particular advantage, since the lack of crests leaves them unable to upgrade it. Both players are crafting or upgrading roughly one Myth item each week, with any extra drops being pushed further down the line.
This also means that bosses don't feel as though they're being nerfed by loot progression, as killing more bosses isn't actually resulting in a higher gear level across the raid, as players are going into raids already in most or full Heroic gear.
Now you would think that the raider will eventually pull ahead. Sooner or later, the dungeon-only player is going to be out of Sparks, chance into a bad vault, and have nothing to spend their crests on, while the raider catches up on their debt... but that all changes starting next week.
More Myth Loot from Bonus Rolls
With the new bonus roll system coming in Patch 12.0.5, players will have even more access to end game gear, gaining up to two additional Myth-track pieces each week just from completing the same +10 dungeons they're doing already. While those rolls can be spent on raid bosses instead, doing so requires using both rolls for only one piece of loot and the bosses can't be repeated anyway, making dungeons better in terms of quantity, especially for players gearing fresh alts. All in all, this means practically every player who engages in Mythic+ can obtain up to three Myth-track items per week, even if they have a bad vault - an unprecedented amount of gear barely a month into a new season of content.
A bad vault just means an extra bonus roll.
Certainly there will be bad rolls. While the Nebulous Voidcores use a knockout list to ensure players will not obtain the same item twice, it is inevitable that they will receive a piece that isn't an upgrade, especially as they get down to chasing their final pieces of gear. That applies to both sides though, with the raider actually feeling it even more keenly, since they are more likely to reach that point sooner.
More Parity, Less Incentive
None of this is necessarily a bad thing. For years, Mythic+ mains have been asking for more equalized rewards, and we've seen Blizzard experiment with several new ways of boosting them, from Deathless Tazavesh to trying a new reward track on the Midnight Beta. While this is great for players focused solely on Mythic+, WoW has a complicated ecosystem, wherein incentivizing one activity ends up detracting from another.
Mythic+ mains gain the most, with rewards functionally equal to that of raiding, even if they don't necessarily have access to the very best item.
Mythic raiders may feel slightly less rewarded for their efforts, and more pressured to run Mythic+, but they ultimately still have access to the best gear quicker than everyone else.
Heroic raiders are almost entirely disenfranchised, no longer receiving rewards commensurate with their efforts or even upgrades over what they already have.
It could be argued that this inflation serves another purpose though, encouraging those former Heroic raiders to make the push into Mythic raiding instead, especially if Flexible Mythic Difficulty Raids becomes a standard feature of future tiers. This is a more complicated consideration though, as many players don't want the increased difficulty of Mythic raiding, even though Heroic now feels pointless. If Heroic raids become too easy or unrewarding, and you can't really use the extra Mythic loot, will players really be incentivized to take on the extra difficulty?
With World of Warcraft players known for being extremely rewards driven, particularly with regards to time invested, all of this begs the question: does creating more parity between activities feel more balanced or does it run the risk of making Heroic and potentially even Mythic raiding feel like it's just not worth doing anymore?
