Intro

Mythic+ affixes are a comparatively recent addition to WoW’s PvE. Simply put, the affixes are modifiers that show up on Mythic Keystones and add special rules to Mythic+ Dungeon runs. They are responsible for a large portion of this high-level content’s difficulty, as playing around those rules poses a distinctive and fascinating challenge. As you prepare to take on Mythic+ content, it would be prudent to study the effects of the currently active affixes and find out how your party may counter them.

Season one affixes

Most affixes power up some or all enemies in specific ways, while others hinder the trespassing player characters themselves. A few may even offer special advantages that resourceful players may seize, in addition to increased peril. So far, Shadowlands has removed or returned certain affixes and added new ones, while keeping most in place. The affixes that show up on Keystones during a season are known in advance and determined by the current week and the Keystone’s level. Higher-level dungeons will feature all affixes from lower levels, resulting in especially dangerous rule combos. As a result, knowledge of the rotation is invaluable for anyone hoping to obtain Keystone Conqueror or Master achievements for this season. Here are the affixes for Season One, starting with December 8:

Season One Week	Affix 1 (Level 2+)	Affix 2 (Level 4+)	Affix 3 (Level 7+)	Seasonal Affix (Level 10+)
1	Fortified	Bursting	Volcanic	Prideful
2	Tyrannical	Bolstering	Storming	Prideful
3	Fortified	Spiteful	Grievous	Prideful
4	Tyrannical	Inspiring	Necrotic	Prideful
5	Fortified	Sanguine	Quaking	Prideful
6	Tyrannical	Raging	Explosive	Prideful
7	Fortified	Spiteful	Volcanic	Prideful
8	Tyrannical	Bolstering	Necrotic	Prideful
9	Fortified	Inspiring	Storming	Prideful
10	Tyrannical	Bursting	Explosive	Prideful
11	Fortified	Sanguine	Grievous	Prideful
12	Tyrannical	Raging	Quaking	Prideful

Fortified and Tyrannical

The Fortified and Tyrannical affixes are fittingly straightforward for such basic and commonly encountered modifiers. Fortified gives health and damage bonuses to non-boss enemies, while Tyrannical gives broadly similar boosts to dungeon bosses. It also slightly increases the damage done by the minions that show up during their encounters. Dealing with empowered lesser mobs naturally encourages players to rely more on area-of-effect damage and crowd control abilities, sometimes even deploying critical buffs like Bloodlust against especially powerful hordes. It may often be better to avoid those mobs entirely if possible, perhaps using powers like the Venthyr Covenant’s signature Door of Shadows teleport. Conversely, taking on reinforced bosses puts a priority on single-target damage. Legendary Powers like Arcane Harmony can be crucial for shaving off the bonus health quickly. However, you should be careful not to overlook the trash mobs, particularly in higher-level dungeons.

Mythic 4+ modifiers

Most of the Mythic 4+ modifiers punish players for killing non-boss enemies.

Bolstering empowers nearby allies, including bosses;
Bursting does area damage over time (unless dispelled);
Spiteful spawn hostile shades;
Sanguine creates a pool that will heal your enemies and harm your characters, though its duration has been nerfed compared to its previous incarnation. The key is to make sure that your group can survive the punishment. Kiting is an effective means of distracting shades and minimizing the harm done by area effects. As this places a particular burden on the tanks, your party should pay special attention to their builds. Soulbinds like Pelagos or, once more Renown has been gained, General Draven can go a long way towards increasing their effectiveness. Careful timing is necessary to kill enemies at just the right time, defusing the threat posed by their deaths.
Inspiring and Raging are the odd ones out at this level since the former enhances certain ordinary enemies with an aura that shields their friends from crowd control effects and the latter increases the damage done by lesser enemies once they are down to 30% of their health. Quick kills are the obvious solution to both those complications. The Inspiring foes are not affected by their own auras, so stunning them before going for the kill seems to be the optimal approach. It’s worth noting that the enemies that get this effect are not random, letting you plan ahead once you are familiar with this version of the dungeon. If you can’t kill low-health enemies quickly on Raging, stunning them until you can dispose of them is an option too. Certain Druid, Hunter, and Rogue abilities can dispel rage, helping control the most dangerous berserkers. The Bastion’s Dungeons, including the one first explored during the Kyrian Covenant Campaign, are especially dangerous with this affix, though fortunately the Kyrians also offer some of the best perks for tanks such as the Phial of Serenity.

Mythic +7 affixes

Each of the affixes added at the next tier throws in an extra source of damage to the battlefield. They tend to be very tricky to deal with, especially coming on top of all the previous modifiers, so you might want to consider getting some PvE coaching to learn how to cope with them before taking on Mythic 7+ Dungeons.

Explosive allows all enemies to spawn volatile orbs that will blow up in a few seconds, taking half the maximum health of all nearby heroes with them. Killing the orbs will prevent the explosions, but crowd control and area-of-effect abilities will do nothing. Two or three explosions are a practically guaranteed wipe, so you should make taking them out your top priority. DPS or tank specs could usually handle a few orbs, but bigger swarms will require a full team effort. During combat, Grievous inflicts damage-over-time stacks on all characters below 90% health. While nerfed since its first appearance, it still demands immediate attention from healers lest they become overwhelmed later.
The melee attack-based debuff added by Necrotic also causes damage over time, but its healing reduction component is more troublesome. Fortunately, some abilities can dispel it, including the previously mentioned Phial of Serenity or Dwarf racial; alternately, the Blessing of Protection or Evasion boosts can prevent it from taking hold in the first place. Ensuring that your tanks are properly equipped to withstand this attack is key.
Volcanic lets enemies summon spouting plumes that inflict scaling damage and throw their victims up into the air, temporarily disabling them. Those plumes target the most distant characters relative to the summoners; as a result, they are usually a problem for ranged heroes. There is a two-second interval before the plume erupts; it is generally a good idea to move away as fast as possible, perhaps with the help of the Soulshape signature spell provided by the Night Fae (who are already the usual ranged choice).
Somewhat similarly, Storming allows your opposition to create moving, damaging whirlwinds. The difference is that they spawn next to their summoners, making them more of an issue for melee players. Moving quickly out of the way is the answer here as well, especially since the whirlwinds’ spiral motion is easy to predict. However, this threat also places a premium on promptly clearing away enemy waves, as the whirlwinds can stack up quickly otherwise.
By contrast, Quaking makes the player characters themselves emit shockwaves that harm and interrupt their allies. This affix requires careful positioning to render its effects harmless. Otherwise, it can greatly delay your progress, which is especially frustrating when you are hoping to beat the time limit for a Mythic+ upgrade.

The Prideful affix

The Prideful affix affects all dungeons at the highest level for this season, but will presumably go away once it is over. Every time you and your allies wipe out one-fifth of the non-boss enemies in the dungeon, it will spawn a sturdy Aberration whose health and damage scales with the Mythic+ level. This mini-boss ignores all crowd control abilities and strikes with increasingly powerful multi-target attacks and a single-target countdown that causes its target to emit damaging and stunning rays in the four cardinal directions. Other affix effects do not affect the mini-boss; it also does not heal after wipes, though its primary attack resets to its original strength. Most importantly, defeating this Manifestation of Pride will give all nearby heroes a potent minute-long buff to damage, healing, movement, and magic regeneration. Killing it just before taking on a deadly boss is an obvious strategy; meticulous players can also try timing their other kills to get it to spawn as close as possible to the boss fight. Defeating the mini-boss itself can be a challenge in its own right. The best approach is to hit it hard early on before activating defensive abilities to weather its escalating bursts. You should also pay attention to positioning in order to avoid the amply telegraphed ray attacks. Necrolords may offer the best advantages for taking on this content due to their emphasis on durability and melee output.

Conclusion

It is likely that more affixes will appear in later seasons and expansions. Developers have hinted at bringing back the missing affixes from Battle for Azeroth in the future. However, most of the ones listed here will likely remain a fixture as well, so the lessons learned by dealing with them will continue to serve you in the future. In the meantime, whether you are after the best Mythic+ Dungeon Gear or the Glory of the Shadowlands Hero, you should make sure to plan around the weekly affixes.

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