WoW: Blizzard Scrubs Paid Boosts From Top 1% Mythic+ Rankings

Blizzard is combing through Midnight Season 1’s top 1% Mythic+ rankings to strip out players who paid for carries, and the rewards tied to that leaderboard remain unissued while the audit runs. World of Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas confirmed to PC Gamer that Blizzard is scrubbing through its Mythic Plus Dungeon top-1% rankings for people who paid for carries.

The timed dungeon mode offered its first-ever rewards at that level this past season in the Midnight expansion, which ended August 11. That timing detail matters: this is the first time Blizzard has hung a percentile reward on Mythic+ rather than a fixed score, and it is the first time it has had to clean one up.

Players are already trading theories about who got carried and how badly the cutoff moved because of it:

Umbral Champion, Umbral Ashes and a Flat Percentage Problem

The top 1% of Season 1’s regional Mythic+ rating earns the Umbral Champion achievement and the Umbral Ashes mount, a red phoenix built as a recolour of the Mythic raid mount Ashes of Belo’ren. The top 0.1% earns the separate Umbral Hero title. Unlike similar high-end rewards in PvP combat, this ranking level in Mythic Plus dungeons was a flat percentage of players, rather than a set score they had to achieve.

That distinction is why paid boosting turned toxic this season. These boosts were particularly controversial, as the percentage cutoff meant that every successful carry removed a player that legitimately earned the score. A flat percentile means a limited number of slots, and every purchased run for hire pushed someone else off the list entirely.

Hazzikostas Promises “A Thorough Scrub” and a Public Methodology

Hazzikostas, along with associate game director Paul Kubit and game designer Andrew De Souza, addressed the issue directly in an interview with PC Gamer. “The team is doing a thorough scrub of this for Season 1 and will share more with the community soon about how we approached that review, as well as the final results,” Hazzikostas said.

Icy Veins, corroborating the interview, reported that Ion Hazzikostas says Blizzard is auditing the Midnight Season 1 Mythic+ ladder for paid carries before top 1% rewards go out, and will publish its methodology. It is not yet clear how broadly the sweep will apply. The interview isn’t specific about what kind of paid boosting is being deemed ineligible, and it doesn’t clarify if the boosts in question are only those done via RMT or boosting communities, or if it applies to any paid boost in general, even those paid with gold.

22.75% More +21 Runs in the Final Week

The scale of the problem shows up in the numbers. Analyst Nightstalker314, writing on Icy Veins using Raider.IO’s weekly data, found that completions at the season’s higher key levels spiked sharply as the top-1% cutoff approached. The increases were 2.26% at +10 (portals), 5.8% at +12 (KSL), 3.53% at +16 (3,400 rating), and 22.75% at +21 (top 1%).

Outside of China, there were 3,378 additional +21 runs in the final week, which split across all 8 dungeons could represent 422 single-character boosts. Estimates of sold titles reach into the 1,000s for the final weeks of the season, according to that analysis. PC Gamer’s report added that resilient keystones, which let a key survive a wipe rather than depleting outright, made those bulk carries logistically viable in a way they weren’t in earlier seasons.

Read also: WoW Midnight Season 2 Revives Weekly Best-in-Region Mythic+ Titles

Spec-Specific Cutoffs Floated, But Not for Season 2

Blizzard isn’t backing away from percentile rewards despite the mess. Hazzikostas and associate game director Paul Kubit said they are popular and will continue. The team is, however, looking at ways to make the format harder to game.

Blizzard highlighted that it is happy with percentage-based rewards in Mythic+, but is experimenting with how best to deliver them, with one option being the addition of spec-specific cutoffs for future seasons. That idea, splitting the top-percentile pool by class spec rather than one shared ladder, won’t land for Midnight Season 2. Blizzard says the logistics still need internal discussion before it ships.

The crackdown isn’t Blizzard’s first this expansion. Blizzard recently removed the Mythic raiding mount from the accounts of players determined to have paid for them in the game’s large-group content, primarily with real-money transactions, which are forbidden by WoW’s terms of service. Season 1’s Umbral Champion and Umbral Hero rewards remain unawarded while that same enforcement logic gets applied to the dungeon ladder, with Blizzard’s full results still to come.

Reported from

• PC Gamer
• Icy Veins
• Wowhead