Mythic+, also written Mythic Plus, is World of Warcraft's timed, infinitely scaling dungeon mode for five players. It reuses the same dungeons as Normal, Heroic and Mythic 0, but adds a keystone that sets the difficulty, a timer you have to beat, and weekly affixes that change how each run plays. There's no upper limit on key level and no matchmaking queue, so you bring four other people or you don't run it.
The system rewards players who understand it and punishes players who wing it, which is roughly why it looks confusing from outside. Most of that clears up once you see how four pieces connect: the keystone, the affixes, your rating, and the Great Vault.
What Is a Mythic Keystone?
A Mythic Keystone is an item in your bags that names a dungeon and a difficulty level. Slot it into the pedestal at the entrance, activate it, and the clock starts running.
You get your first one by clearing a Mythic 0 dungeon. After that it becomes a weekly rhythm: every reset hands you a fresh key, and how high it starts depends on how deep you went the week before. The Great Vault hands them out too, so once you're in the loop you're never really without one.
Three things decide whether a run counts. The timer, set per dungeon and usually landing somewhere near half an hour. Enemy forces, a percentage of trash you have to clear before the last boss becomes killable — you can skip packs, you can't skip the count. And deaths, which add a penalty to the clock every single time. Nobody believes that last one matters until a run three minutes ahead of pace finishes forty seconds late.
Beat the clock and the chest spawns at the end of the run. How far ahead of par you finished is what decides whether the key goes up one level or three.
What happens when you beat or miss the timer
Run outcome | Keystone | Score | Loot |
|---|---|---|---|
Timed well ahead of par | Upgrades up to three levels | Full value | Full end-of-dungeon reward |
Timed | Upgrades one level | Full value | Full end-of-dungeon reward |
Completed over the timer | Drops one level | Reduced | Still drops |
Abandoned before the last boss | Unchanged until reset | None | None |
Anyone who played Legion will remember depletion from the original version, where blowing the timer left you holding a dead key that had to be rerolled before it was usable. That's not how it works anymore. A failed run costs you a level and some pride, nothing more.
How Do Mythic+ Affixes Work?
Affixes are modifiers applied to keys above a certain level, and they rotate weekly. They're the reason the same handful of dungeons doesn't feel identical for six months straight.
Two of them anchor the system, and they never appear together:
Fortified | Tyrannical | |
|---|---|---|
What it buffs | Non-boss enemies | Bosses |
Where the danger is | Trash packs and corridors | Boss encounters |
How it plays | Smaller pulls, heavy crowd control, careful routing | Trash melts, you bank time and hand it back to bosses |
Best saved for | Dungeons where bosses are the problem | Dungeons packed with nasty trash |
Because they demand completely different things, most players plan the week around which one is up. Sitting on top of that pair is a seasonal affix, a themed mechanic that appears on higher keys and disappears when the season ends. Higher brackets can layer on an extra modifier as well, historically things like a much steeper death penalty near the top.
That seasonal layer gets rebuilt every patch, so check the affix panel in the Group Finder or pull up the live rotation on Wowhead before planning anything.
How Do Mythic+ Tier Lists Work?
A Mythic Plus tier list ranks either dungeons or specs by how hard they are to complete at a given key level and under a given affix week. They're everywhere, they contradict each other constantly, and most of that contradiction comes down to people not checking what a given list is actually measuring.
Dungeon tier lists | Spec tier lists | |
|---|---|---|
What it ranks | Which dungeons are easiest to time | Which classes and specs perform best |
Main driver | Trash density versus boss count, route flexibility, length against par time | AoE against single target damage, interrupts, stops, group utility |
Flips when | The affix swaps between Fortified and Tyrannical | Tuning changes, or the key range shifts |
The affix axis is the part people miss. A dungeon stuffed with dangerous trash and two easy bosses sits near the bottom of a Fortified list and near the top of a Tyrannical one, and it's the same dungeon either way. The same logic applies to specs: a build that shreds packs looks elite on one list and mediocre on the other.
The second thing to check is the key range a list was built from. A ranking drawn from top-end pushing describes a completely different game to the one you're playing at +8 — utility and survivability dominate up there, while raw damage matters far more in the middle of the ladder.
Used properly, a tier list tells you which key to run this week. It's a bad reason to reroll your main.
How Is Mythic+ Score Calculated?
Your Mythic+ rating is the sum of your single best run in each dungeon of the seasonal pool. Everyone calls it score or IO, and the maths is simpler than people assume.
Each completed run gives a score for that specific dungeon, scaled by key level and by whether you beat the clock. Only your best result there counts. Time a +10 in one dungeon and every +8 you run in it afterwards is worth exactly nothing to your rating. Timed runs pay full value, over-time runs pay less, badly over-time runs pay very little.
Which brings up the thing that quietly stalls more players than anything else: one dungeon you keep avoiding can be worth several hundred points on its own. Coverage beats peak.
Score wipes at the start of each season. You can see it in game or through Raider.IO, and it works as a CV whether you like it or not. WoW Mythic Plus group leaders filter by it, and past a certain point it decides which listings will even open your application. That wall is also why a carry is such a common shortcut for players who've run out of patience with the applicant queue.
Mythic+ Rewards: Loot and the Great Vault
Mythic+ pays out twice: an item at the end of each successful run, and up to three choices from the Great Vault at weekly reset. The Vault is the weekly chest that opens at reset, and it's where the real gear comes from.
Its dungeon row opens in stages, and completions count whether you timed them or not:
Dungeons completed this week | Vault slots unlocked | Item level set by |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Your highest key |
4 | 2 | Your 4th highest key |
8 | 3 | Your 8th highest key |
Eight runs a week is the number to remember. Players short on time or stuck below a +10 key often turn to a WoW Mythic+ boost to clear the score threshold and secure Vault rewards. A carry run with a pro team banks the eight completions without eating your entire week.
End-of-dungeon loot climbs with key level up to a ceiling, historically around +10, and past that the drops stop improving. So why keep pushing? Because the Vault ceiling keeps rising, your rating keeps rising, and upgrade currency keeps coming in. The item level ladder ends. The rest of it doesn't.
What Are KSM and Keystone Hero?
Keystone Master is a 2000 Mythic+ rating and Keystone Hero is 2500. Both are seasonal, and both come off your account when the season closes.
Rating | Milestone | Reward |
|---|---|---|
2000 | Keystone Master (KSM) | Achievement and the season's recoloured mount |
2500 | Keystone Hero (KSH) | Teleports to that season's dungeons, kept permanently |
3000+ | Title tier | Seasonal title, a genuinely different commitment |
Top fraction of a percent | Season ladder | The season's most exclusive title, awarded at close |
KSM is where most of the playerbase aims, and you'll get there by timing every dungeon in the pool around the +10 mark. Hero at 2500 is the one I'd actually chase, though: those dungeon teleports stay on your character permanently, and two expansions later you'll still be using them. Everything else leaves with the season — the mount gets recoloured, the achievement stops being obtainable.
Tips to Push Your First +10
Getting from +5 to +10 is mostly execution. Gear helps, but it isn't what's stopping you.
Learn one route per dungeon and stick to it. Route planning addons let you rehearse pull order and trash count without setting foot inside, and knowing where you're going is worth more than the trinket you're missing.
Assign interrupts before the pull, not during it. Almost every wipe below +12 traces back to a single caster nobody kicked, and the fix is a fixed kick order that people actually call out.
Use defensives on cooldown. On Fortified weeks especially, mitigation isn't an emergency button, it's part of the rotation. And fill your slots before you push — walking into a +10 undergeared burns someone else's key, and they'll remember.
Run your own keys where you can. You pick the dungeon, the group and the pace, and you skip the applicant queue that swamps every pug listing within thirty seconds. And get the basic addons — a boss mod and a rating addon are effectively mandatory now, while sites like Icy Veins keep per-spec guidance current.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does KSM mean in WoW?
KSM is Keystone Master. It means hitting a 2000 Mythic+ rating inside a single season, which awards the achievement and that season's recoloured mount.
What item level does a Mythic +10 drop?
The exact number gets rescaled every season, so there's no permanent answer. What stays true is the shape: a +10 sits near the top of the reward track, and the Vault gives you the highest slot you unlocked that week.
What are Fortified and Tyrannical affixes?
They're the two base affixes and they swap every week. Fortified buffs non-boss enemies, Tyrannical buffs bosses. Between them they decide whether trash or encounters are the hard part of your week.
Do you need a group for Mythic+?
You do. It's five-player content — one tank, one healer, three DPS — and there's no automated matchmaking. You either build a group yourself, apply through the Group Finder, or use a WoW Mythic+ boost.
What is Keystone Hero?
Keystone Hero is the 2500 rating milestone. Its main draw is unlocking teleports to that season's dungeons, which stay usable on your character long after the season ends.
Conclusion
Mythic+ rewards preparation far more than reflexes. Check the affix week before you plan anything, keep your dungeon coverage even so your score doesn't stall, and treat eight completions a week as the floor rather than the goal. Keystone Master is within reach of anyone willing to learn a few routes, and Hero tends to follow once the basics are solid. For seasonal specifics as they change, the official World of Warcraft site is the place to look