– Season 4 of World of Warcraft Shadowlands has started and is the beginning of the end for this expansion. In a rather experimental – Season , many old raids and dungeons are used again and should bring a breath of fresh air to shorten the waiting time until the release of the next expansion Dragonflight.

But instead of praise for this interim solution of content, it hails criticism in the subreddit and the official forums right now. The prevailing opinion is: Nobody really tested this in advance.

What’s the criticism? The biggest criticisms are about the new “Mythic+” dungeons that have been added this – Season . Where “new” is an elastic term, because in fact it’s mostly old dungeons from previous expansions (Battle for Azeroth, Legion, Warlords of Draenor) that are now in the dungeon pool.

The balance and thus the difficulty between these dungeons differs massively, if the community’s complaints are to be believed.

Especially the two Karazhan dungeons, i.e. the upper and the lower variant, cause a lot of trouble, as MrThorto notes with much approval in the WoW subreddit:

After running keystones in the +2 to +16 range with my guild yesterday, and we usually tackle keystones in the 15 to 20 range, I can clearly say that the dungeons are bugged and have been minimally tested by the developers.

I don’t know how you can play Karazhan – whether the upper OR lower – and say with conviction that you had a good time, even if you know all the mechanics.

The criticism of Karazhan in particular is particularly harsh. The large amount of mechanics that are clear “one-hits” make for a lot of frustration here.

However, some players also note that this is possibly due to this week in particular. This is because the “Inspiring” affix ensures that many enemies cannot be interrupted and can thus cast their deadly abilities without interruption.

Old mechanics do not fit with current requirements: Another criticism is that many of the current Mythic affixes simply don’t fit with the old dungeon design of, say, Warlords of Draenor. For example, in “Grimgleisdept,” the long train ride, you often have far too little space to even avoid the Quivering affix in the narrow corridors. At the same time, the end boss’s Lightning Plane ability is far too strong, as you can’t dodge it in advance and never know where it will land – at higher levels, a few seconds are enough to kill a character here.

What seems clear in any case is that Blizzard will have to do some more tweaking here, since the dungeons at the same level show significant differences in difficulty. Groups that otherwise plow effortlessly through “Mythic+20” are now already failing at low double-digit keystones. The balance doesn’t seem to be that successful here.

What experiences have you already had with the new – Season ? Can you understand the criticisms? Or did you have fun in the dungeons and don’t see the problems at all?