Dungeon Finder: What this really means

So it’s been a few days since patch 3.3 went live, along with the cross-realm Dungeon Finder tool. With this there has been much chatter, both positive and negative in regards to the way groups are now formed.

Dungeon Finder Pros

There are many pro’s to the new system and personally this is the side of the fence I’m sitting on.

• Cross-realm means there is a much larger pool of players looking for a dungeon at any one time, so filling groups should be much quicker than if you were attempting to group just within your server.
• Random Heroic gives the ability to complete each heroic as many times as you can each day, and giving an additional 2 Emblem of Triumph (after the first random heroic which gives 2 Emblem of Frost), allowing gearing up to Tier 9 (and getting reputation gains through Emblem bought Commendations) to happen much quicker.
• Groups are filled fairly well, with gear requirements being put in place by Blizzard to stop players attempting content much higher than they can do.
• As a healer or tank the Dungeon Finder queue is almost instantaneous.

Dungeon Finder Cons

As much as I am fond of the new system, I am aware of the problems and disadvantages of the system.

• Although the system is now cross-realm, finding a group as a damage role takes upwards of 15 minutes. This is because there are so many damage classes trying to find groups, that the ‘pool of players’ is saturated by damage dealers.
• Despite Blizzard’s efforts to ‘gear match’ groups to an extent, there are occasions where a lower geared character is placed in your group, this can be problematic if they are the tank or healer in a difficult run.
• You have no say over who you are grouped with, one run it may be 3 Death Knights, and the next run it may be all Shamans. This can cause wipes on some runs which require certain amounts of AoE or ranged damage.

All in all, I love the new system, having put on my tanking boots and took up the role of the tank in many heroics because of the quicker queue. So if you are having trouble getting groups and play a hybrid, try switching to tank of healing, it’ll only take a few runs to start gearing up.

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