Shadowlands Season 2 is upon us and the mythic+ season has begun! Conquer the tormented affix to gain anima powers and push your keystones to the limit.

New Affix: Tormented

With the new season, as with every season before it, comes a new seasonal affix. This affix is called Tormented and will be present on every keystone +10 or higher in addition to the other 3. Tormented will cause 4 lieutenants to spawn throughout each dungeon. 

These are in fixed locations for each dungeon however, some of them might be out of the way. Because of this, you may opt to skip one or more of them throughout your route. Bear in mind, any lieutenants left alive by the time you pull the final boss will empower it with their abilities. This is very similar to Awakened in bfa except there are no extra mobs to fight during the boss.

These lieutenants do not have very much health however, they do not add to your dungeon mob count.

Opting to defeat each of these lieutenants comes with their own reward. Unlike Prideful, their reward is permanent for the remainder of the run. Upon death they will drop an anima orb offering 3 role specific anima powers. Healers, tanks, and dps will be offered unique abilities to their role with some overlaps. These powers are dependent on which lieutenant was defeated and they will always offer the same 3. It is however, important that you choose the best one for your class/spec in order to offer the most to your group.

Additionally, each lieutenant has its own set of abilities and a negative aura while engaged in combat. These are what will be passed on to the final boss if they are left undefeated.

Lieutenants

• Incinerator Arkolath
  • Soulforge Flames: a damaging aura that just deals damage over time while in combat.
  • Scorching Blast: a void zone attack that leaves a patch of flames on the ground in its wake. Additionally, every third cast of this ability causes the oldest patch to dissipate.
  • Melt Soul: A dispellable debuff that increases fire damage taken, this is the healer mechanic.
• Oros Coldheart
  • Chilling Presence: A hindering aura that reduces the movement speed of players by 50%.
  • Biting Cold: A pulsing damage attack placed on a player that affects anyone within 10 yards of them.
  • Frost Lance: A frontal cone attack that damages and knocks back all players caught in the beam.
• Soggodon the Breaker
  • Intimidation: A passive aura that increases all physical damage taken by 50%. Hooray for tank buster enemies…
  • Massive Smash: A hard hitting aoe ability that also stuns all players hit for 5 seconds.
  • Lumbering Might: A buff attack that increases damage done by 200% but also reduces movement speed by 50%.
• Executioner Varruth
  • Thanatophobia: A debuffing aura that reduces healing taken by 50%.
  • Sever: A hard hitting attack that leaves a ticking bleed on the target.
  • Carnage: A powerful whirling attack that also leaves a bleed on all targets hit.

Keystone Master: Shadowlands Season 2

Keystone master achievements have made a return in season 2 but have been changed quite drastically. These changes were done to supplement Blizzard adopting raider io’s scoring system and making it their own. The biggest change is the achievement requiring a certain score rather than needing all 8 dungeons timed on a 15 or higher. Players must earn 2000 or more points during Shadowlands Season 2 in order to obtain the achievement and mount.

If you’re struggling to get your dungeons done or want max vault reward for week 1 of the season, you can order some HERE.

Blizzard io

Blizzard has opted for a more linear scoring system in game. Each level of dungeon awards a static amount based on completion time rather than growing exponentially with key difficulty. What this means is players timing 20’s will be much closer in score to players timing 15’s. Depleting a key will still award some points until it passes a certain time, in which case no points will be awarded. Unfortunately, this linear scoring has been met with major discourse as it doesn’t reflect the exponential difficulty increase in higher keystones.

Another big change is taking affixes into account. Most mythic+ enthusiasts chose to ignore tyrannical weeks in most dungeons as the exponential scaling made some of the bosses impossible. Players will now have to run each dungeon on both fortified and tyrannical weeks in order to earn keystone master this season. However, those who are still stubborn and refuse to play on tyrannical weeks can still earn their 2000 points by timing every dungeon on a 24 or higher.

The way blizzard takes scoring into account is as follows: Your highest run for a given dungeon will give the full amount of points. You will then need an alternate run on the opposite affix however this run will only be worth half value. Keystone Master requires a timed 15 of each dungeon on both tyrannical and fortified. If you are running 18’s on fortified weeks, you will be fine with lower keys on tyrannical weeks since the runs are calculated together.

Additionally, Blizzard has also listened to tyrannical complaints and has since made several boss adjustments to each dungeon.

Rewards

Keystone master will also award the Soultwisted Deathwalker mount. This is a green recolor of the existing season 1 mount and it also flies!

Earning 1500 rating in mythic keystones will award the title, ‘the Tormented’.

Additionally, for season 2, several new achievements were added, one for each dungeon. These achievements are earned by completing each dungeon on a 20 or higher instead of being tied to score. Successfully doing so will grant a teleport to that dungeon on an 8 hour cooldown. These are very similar to the portals awarded for completing the challenge modes in warlords. Unfortunately these portals are character locked however, they reset upon completing a dungeon.

Boss and Trash Adjustments in Shadowlands Season 2

De Other Side

• Hakkar the Soulflayer
  • Hakkar’s cooldowns and energy regen are now paused during Blood Barrier. Additionally, he is no longer immune to interrupts during the barrier.
  • Blood Barrage is no longer interruptible but only persists while his Blood Barrier holds.
• Dealer Xy’exa
  • Arcane lightning’s periodic damage has been reduced by 15%. Also, the jump damage from this ability has been reduced by 20%.
  • Arcane Vulnerability now only increases damage taken by Arcane Lightning. Because of this, bombs are less likely to kill players unlucky enough to be the target of both simultaneously.

Halls of Atonement

• Loyal Stoneborn melee and Stone Breath damage have been reduced by 10%. Unfortunately, this nerf also carries over to Venthyr players who tame the Stoneborn.
• Shard of Halkias’ Thrash damage has been reduced by 20%. However players can no longer out range it as it’s range was increased to 60 yards.
• Depraved Obliterator’s Wicked Bolt damage has been increased by 27%.

Mists of Tirna Scithe

• Ingra Maloch
  • Ingra Maloch’s health has been reduced by 10%.
  • Additionally, Droman Oulfarran’s health was reduced by 5%.

Both of these changes are aimed at decreasing phase times on tyrannical weeks but will be a welcome change for fortified as well.

• Drust Boughbreaker’s health has been reduced by 15%.
• Spinemaw Staghorn’s health has increased by 30%.

Necrotic Wake

• Amarth
  • Amarth’s health has been reduced by 15% and in addition, Tortured Echoes now deals 15% reduced damage per stack.
• Nalthor the Rimebinder
  • Zolramas Siphoner’s health has been reduced by 15%.
  • Champion’s Boon’s duration has been increased to 40 seconds from 30.

Plaguefall

• Globrog
  • Globrog’s maximum health has decreased by 10%.
• Rigged Plagueborers that spawn during the gauntlet have limited spawns.
• Rigged Plagueborers the spawn outside of the gauntlet have been replaced with Wretched Plagueborers.

Plagueborers have become a fan favorite strategy for quickly completing high plaguefall keys with plenty of time to spare. These mobs killed trash for you and much less group dps was required in this dungeon specifically. Because of these changes, we will likely see more route diversity in shadowlands season 2.

Sanguine Depths

• Kryxis the Voracious
  • Juggernaut Rush’s damage has been reduced by 15%.
  • Essence Absorption damage has also been reduced by 15%.
• Executor Tarvold
  • Fleeting Manifestation’s Growing Pride damage has been reduced by 20%.
• Chamber Sentinel’s Severing Slice ability is no longer a cleave and now only strikes the primary target.
• Remnant of Fury’s Explosive Anger ability has been reduced by 25%. However, in high enough keys this is likely to still be deadly without a curse dispel in the group.
• Vestige of Doubt no longer casts glowing mistrust.
• Research Scribe’s Explosive Vellum’s detonation timer has been increased by .5 seconds, bringing it to a 3.5 second delay.

Spires of Ascension

• Ventunax
  • After recharge finishes channeling, all existing Shadowhirls now despawn. Because of this, there should never be more than 2 puddles active at a time and it should be easier to dodge the bolts.

Theater of Pain

• Affront of Challengers
  • Xira the Underhanded has returned to the fight on mythic difficulties. This mob was removed for unknown reasons during season 1 and must be cc’d as soon as it spawns in.
• Xav the Unfallen
  • Oppressive Banner’s health has been reduced by 20%. It was common practice in super high keys to completely ignore the banners because of the ridiculous health scaling. Unfortunately, this will likely remain commonplace above 20’s but will lessen the burden in slightly lower keys.

Affix Adjustments in Shadowlands Season 2

Bosses and trash mobs weren’t the only things to see adjustments for season 2. A number of the less favorable affixes have also received quality of life changes. In the meantime, angry melee players are still waiting for the removal of spiteful… 

Additionally, players will see a new affix schedule throughout this season which differs from the previous one.

• Bolstering
  • Bolstering now only increases maximum health by 15%, down from 20%. However, the damage increase remains the same, at 20%.
• Necrotic
  • Enemies that apply necrotic now only apply it on every other auto attack. Tanks can now enjoy having slightly more uptime on damage during these awful weeks.
• Raging
  • Raging now only increases damage done by 75%, down from 100%. With this change, tanks won’t fall over quite as fast but classes with soothes will still be invaluable.
• Storming
  • Storming whirlwinds now always move in the same direction and at 30% slower speeds.
  • Additionally, any player hit by one of the whirlwinds will cause it to dissipate.

Rerolling Keystones

Shadowlands Season 2 has brought with it yet another good quality of life change! Players can now reroll their keystones at the end of a successful run to get a different dungeon. This is simply done by speaking with Ta’hsup who will appear at the end of the completed run. However, if the key is a higher level than the one that was just completed, they will be ineligible for rerolling. This also extends to the original keyholder’s new key. Rerolled keystones must be at or below the level that was just completed.

Ta’hsup is also hanging out in Oribos near the Great Vault where he will offer additional services.

Players will be able to obtain a key from them even if they didn’t receive one from their vault that week by speaking with him. With this in mind, players must have completed at least one mythic keystone during the current season to be eligible.

Ta’hsup will also drop your keystone levels without having to travel and reset the dungeon multiple times. Speaking with him in Oribos brings up the dialogue option ‘My keystone level is too high. Can you reduce it?’. Selecting this will deplete your current keystone by one level and can be done multiple times.

All of these changes should make getting your new Keystone Master achievement much easier.