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Writer's pictureSarah Ertelt
Sep 184 min read

How to Get Your First Mythic Keystone in World of Warcraft: The War Within

Updated: Sep 24

Season 1 of Mythic+ in World of Warcraft: The War Within launched September 17th, and there are 3 ways to get your first Mythic+ Keystone.

After waiting two hours past the scheduled reset time, suffering through multiple disconnects and getting no tier out of first Great Vault (thanks Blizzard), my Mythic+ group was just ready to get started with keys. To our surprise though, a level 2 mythic keystone didn't appear in our bags after collecting our reward from the Great Vault.


In Dragonflight, players could track down Lindormi, a panda NPC, to replace a missing keystone if they didn't have one. When we couldn't find her, our group put two and two together and realized that we had to start with a Mythic 0 in order to get our first mythic keystone. After running Mythic 0's for an entire week, I wasn't overly excited about it.


However, the weekly quest located in Dornogol is another choose-your-own-adventure, and you can choose to run The Dawnbreaker on Heroic or higher difficulty. If you accept this quest and run The Dawnbreaker on a Mythic 0, you can kill two birds with one stone: complete the weekly quest and get your Pinnacle Cache and get your first mythic keystone too!


There are 3 ways you can get a mythic plus keystone in World of Warcraft: The War Within:

  • Complete a Mythic 0 dungeon to receive a base level keystone

  • Participate in a Mythic+ dungeon to receive a keystone at the end

  • If at least one Mythic+ dungeon has been completed the previous week, open the Great Vault after reset to receive a mythic keystone


Season 1 of Mythic+ in The War Within started this past reset on September 17th. In previous expansions, each Mythic+ season lasted 6 to 7 months. With Blizzard's ambitious plan to release 3 expansions for The Worldsoul Saga in 3 years, it's unclear how long each Mythic+ season will be in The War Within.

Here is the Mythic+ dungeon rotation for Season 1 of The War Within:

  • Ara-Kara, City of Echoes

  • City of Threads

  • The Dawnbreaker

  • The Stonevault

  • Mists of Tirna Scithe

  • The Necrotic Wake

  • Siege of Boralus

  • Grim Batol


Lindormi and The Timeways make a return in The War Within. Lindormi and a portal to The Timeways are located in a building in Dornogol, and this portal leads to all other areas players need to access all the Mythic+ legacy dungeons.


New Mythic+ Affixes in Season 1 of The War Within


Season 1 of Mythic+ in The War Within also brings entirely new affixes: Xal'atath's Bargain: Ascendant, Xal'atath's Bargain: Voidbound, Xal'atath's Bargain: Oblivion, and Xal'atath's Bargain: Devour.


On Level 2 mythic keystones, players see the first affix - one of Xal'atath's Bargains, which changes every week. For Xal'atath's Bargain: Ascendant, once a minute 10 orbs of ascendance will spawn that cast Cosmic Ascension. If these casts go off, the orbs will buff enemy mobs with 20% movement speed and haste per orb. If all the players interrupt, crowd control, or purge every orb, players will receive a 20% haste buff themselves.


For Xal'atath's Bargain: Voidbound, Xal'atath will summon a Void Emissary while players are in combat that tries to cast Dark Prayer to empower enemy mobs. If the cast goes off, enemy mobs will take reduced damage. If players successfully defeat the Void Emissary, players will get a 20% ability cooldown buff and 10% critical strike buff for 20 seconds!


On weeks with Xal'atath's Bargain: Oblivion active, crystals will be summoned that can either run into players or enemy mobs. If the Shattered Essence crystals collide with enemy targets, they will get 10% damage reduction. If players absorb the crystals instead, they will get increased Mastery and Leech.


The final variation of Xal'atath's Bargain is Xal'atath's Bargain: Devour. Players will receive a Void Rift shield that either needs to be healed or dispelled, similar to the Afflicted affix in Dragonflight. This week will require a group composition with multiple dispels. If the shields aren't removed, enemy mobs will be healed for 10%. Players that successfully have the absorb shield removed will get 2% health and a 4% critical strike buff.


On top of these new seasonal affixes, mythic keystones also have additional challenges on higher levels:


On keystone level 4, either Tyrannical or Fortified will become active, alternating every week. On keystone level 7, a new affix called Challender's Peril will become active. Every death in the key will cause your remaining time to be reduced by 15 seconds. On keystones level 10 and above, both Fortified and Tyrannical will become active. And finally, on keystones level 12 and above, Xal'atath's Bargain will be replaced by Xal'atath's Guile. All enemies in the dungeon will receive a flat 20% buff to both health and damage, and players will no longer be able to get the buffs available with Xal'atath's Bargains.


With all of the Mythic+ changes and difficulty increases, players who take on the challenge will be rewarded! Here is the loot table for both Mythic+ rewards and Great Vault rewards:

You may also be interested in these other World of Warcraft articles:





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