ARBITER
←SUN 13 SEP 2026 · 18:37 · KEY 96 OF 190→

The Blinding Vale

+16
Abandoned 2:13 in30:00 timer7 deathsTyrannicalFortifiedXal'atath's Guile
Timer · The time allowed for the key. Beat it to upgrade the keystone.Kick · An interrupt that stops a cast.Personal · A defensive cooldown that only protects you.Cascade · Several deaths within seconds of each other.Leaked cast · An enemy cast that could have been interrupted and went off.Overcap · Resource generated while already full, so it was lost.Tyrannical · Bosses have 25% more health and hit up to 15% harder.Fortified · Trash has 20% more health and hits up to 20% harder.Xal'atath's Guile · Every death takes 15 seconds off the timer.
Overpullran pack 1 into the Belcher pack, 17 mobsVeng DHWrong targetLightgorged Lashers never killedgroupTipStep out of Belch Spores

Seventeen mobs at once and the two that heal the grove left alive: Pollen Surge put back 46M of the 133M dealt, and the party took three times the damage of a normal opener.

Abandoned at 2:07 after one pull and seven deaths, and the pull is the whole answer. The tank took the first pack of the grove at 0:12 and, ten seconds later, ran it 80 yards forward into the Sporeblight Belcher's pack -- 17 mobs and 150M of health engaged as one. The two timed keys on this side of the dungeon in the archive (the +13 on 09-01 and the +12 on 08-29) pulled the first pack alone, 14-15 mobs, killed it in about seventy seconds with nobody dying, and took the Belcher pack afterwards.

It was not a healing problem. From first contact to the healer's death the party took 480k damage a second, melee counted once; the +13's first pack alone did 159k a second, and the +12's the same. Holy Priest put back 225k a second of effective healing over those 89 seconds -- two and a half times what the +13's healer needed on that pack -- and it was never going to be enough. The tank never fell below 6% and self-healed 17.8M on top of it.

The part nobody could see is why the pull stayed unwinnable after the first two deaths. The two Lightgorged Lashers cast Lightbloom Pollination every twenty seconds, a heal-over-time on every plant in the pack ticking 5% of maximum health. It put back 46.4M -- 35% of the 133M the party dealt. All eight small Lashers were killed first; neither Lightgorged Lasher was killed at all.

Written by Claude (Opus 5) from the combat log and the archive. The numbers come from the log, and the text can be wrong.
BREAKDOWN FOR

Hyporock

Retribution Paladin · DPS
DPS328.2K
HPS21.4K
Taken/s52.3K
Deaths2
iLvl320
M+3,235
The strongest part of your grade

Casting or attacking 100% of your time alive in combat

Activity scored 100. A solid, even key lands near 75.

Best grade of the last 8 keys in the archive
Where the most points went

Interrupts: −10 points

1 stops, 2 expected.

Measured. Nobody has written advice for this key yet.
Last 8 keys in the archive

Your best of the last 8

Murder Row +15: D+ 5959MR+15Murder Row +15: C 6767MR+15Murder Row +15: C+ 6969MR+15Murder Row +14: B 7676MR+14Ruby Life Pools +15: B- 7474RLP+15Ruby Life Pools +16: B 7777RLP+16Ruby Life Pools +15: B 8080RLP+15The Blinding Vale +16: B+ 8383BV+16

83 is above your median of 75 over these 8 keys. It is the best of them.

How the grade was built

◆ = 75, a solid key
Survival61−7.0
2 deaths
Starts at 100. Each death takes points off.
Damage9842%
328.2K DPS, 86% above the other damage dealers · compared with this party
Your damage, against your spec on Warcraft Logs when the key was uploaded, otherwise against this group.
Mechanics100−0
No avoidable damage that others in your role dodged · compared with this party
Damage you took that players in your role avoided.
Interrupts7032%
1 stops, 2 expected · compared with this party
Casts you stopped, against how many your kick allowed.
Activity10026%
Casting or attacking 100% of your time alive in combat
The share of your time alive in combat that you spent casting or attacking.
Utility97not counted
3 uses, about 5 were available
How often you used your spec's utility buttons, like stuns and immunities.

% = its share of the grade. Survival and mechanics carry no share: they start at 100 and only take points off. "Not counted" parts are shown for context and do not move the grade.

Your deaths

bars = hits · line = your health · red = the killing blow
1:20 Belch Spores909.7Kfrom Sporeblight Belcher
Nothing pressed
−14 s−9 s−5 sdeath
took 2.75Min 13.6 shealth at the start 42%before the last hit 80%healed 1.92M by Holy Priest
1:44 Thornblade134.2Kfrom Underbrush Stalker
Nothing pressed
−6 s−4 s−2 sdeath
took 1.40Min 6.1 shealth at the start 68%before the last hit 8%healed 494.7K by Holy Priest

The Run

The same for everyone in the group

The whole key, on the timer

a pull, brighter = more damage takendeath penaltya death, in class colour
30:00 timerleft 3:50
0:007:3015:0022:3030:00

Where the 3:50 went

fighting 1:55death 1:45
Before the first pull0:04
Fighting1:55
Death penalty1:45
Out of combat, not walking0:06

How it went

  1. 0:36CascadeFury Warrior and Ele Shaman in 2 s, both to Spouting Floret. Fury Warrior went first. 1 of 2 with no defensive pressed.
  2. 1:20Hyporock to Belch Spores from Sporeblight Belcher. No defensive pressed.
  3. 1:42CascadeHoly Priest, Hyporock, Fury Warrior and Ele Shaman in 5 s, to Thornblade and Uproot. Holy Priest went first. 2 of 4 with no defensive pressed.
  4. 2:13The key was dropped 2:13 in, with 26:10 left on the timer.

What to change, biggest first

  1. Veng DH: pull the first grove pack by itself and fight it where it stands; the Belcher pack is its own pull. Both timed keys on this side did exactly that with zero deaths.
  2. Kill order in the grove: Lightgorged Lashers first, always -- they are the pack's healers and nothing else removes Pollen Surge. Then the Radiant Spellsower, then the Stalkers. The small Lashers die to cleave; leave them.
  3. Assign Light Bolt Volley. Four-second cast, roughly 570k on everyone, kickable; four kicks were up when it went out at 0:31, and it is what turned the first Floret into two deaths.
  4. Ele Shaman: Astral Shift into the first Spouting Floret, not after Reincarnation. Hyporock: Belch Spores reached a player on one of three casts -- it is dodgeable, and it was the only avoidable death in the key.
  5. Holy Priest: nothing to change on output. 225k a second effective, Guardian Spirit on a 6% tank, Divine Hymn the moment the first two dropped. The 33 is the pull, not you.
  6. Fury Warrior at 302 item level is 18 below the party in a +16; that is the first thing to fix, ahead of anything in the play.

Kick board stops against expected

expected
Veng DH3 / 5
Hyporock1 / 2
Ele Shaman3 / 2
Fury Warrior4 / 2

What the group left up

Casts that went off
Light Bolt
4 of 13got through
Light Bolt Volley
1 of 2got through
Frantic Blooming
1 of 2got through
Debuffs left up
Spore Spines
2.01M2 times, 25 s up
Could have been dispelled and was not.
Hit most of the party
Spouting Floret
19%of all damage taken
Hit 5 of 5. Everyone took it, so nobody is charged.
Eaten by enemy shields
Lightbloom Pollination
2.4%of the damage dealt
A normal key loses 0.4 to 2.5%.

What Each of You Takes Away

One thing to keep, one to change
Veng DHVeng DHB80
KEEP280.4K DPS, 11% above the other damage dealers
CHANGEInterrupts cost 12 points: 3 stops, 5 expected
Open the breakdown ↑
Holy PriestHoly PriestD+58
CHANGEHealing cost 31 points: Healed 41% of the damage that needed an outside heal
Open the breakdown ↑
HyporockRet PaladinB+83
KEEPCasting or attacking 100% of your time alive in combat
CHANGEInterrupts cost 10 points: 1 stops, 2 expected
Open the breakdown ↑
Ele ShamanEle ShamanB-74
KEEPCasting or attacking 96% of your time alive in combat
CHANGEDamage cost 10 points: 266.0K DPS, level with the other damage dealers
Open the breakdown ↑
Fury WarriorFuryD-50
KEEP4 stops, 2 expected
CHANGEDamage cost 27 points: 161.0K DPS, 53% below the other damage dealers
Open the breakdown ↑

Notes

Where the numbers need a second look

The pull, against the two openers that worked

Blinding Vale has two starting paths and the archive has keys on both. On the grove side the first pack sits at the same spot every time -- 14 mobs in the +13 (83M at that level), 15 in the +12 (77M) -- and both groups fought it where it stood, killed the three Lightgorged Lashers within 32-48 seconds of engaging them, and finished the pack at 1:22 and 1:18 with zero deaths. The Belcher pack (a Sporeblight Belcher, two Underbrush Stalkers, eight Lashers) was pulled separately, at 1:22 and 1:05.

This group engaged nine mobs of the first pack at 0:12 and the tank kept moving: by 0:22 the fight was at the Belcher pack's spot, 80 yards on. Seventeen mobs, 150M of health, a Belcher casting Spouting Floret on the whole party every 32 seconds, and four Stalkers casting Thornblade instead of two. Party intake ran 480k a second against 159k for the first pack alone in both timed keys. Three levels of scaling do not close that gap; it is roughly double what the first pack by itself would have done at +16.

Kill order made it worse. The eight small Lashers (2.5M each, 20M together) were dead by 0:54. The nine big mobs were then still carrying over 120M and being healed.

Pollen Surge, the heal nobody could see

Lightbloom Pollination (1238158) is an instant the two Lightgorged Lashers cast every 20-25 seconds -- 0:25, 0:30, 0:46, 1:10, 1:30, 1:53. Arbiter reports the absorb it puts on the caster (3.5M eaten, 2.4% of output) and misses the rest: the same cast applies Pollen Surge (1238173) to every allied plant in range, a heal-over-time ticking 5% of maximum health -- 1.14M a tick on the Belcher, 634k on each Stalker. 82 ticks, 46.4M healed, against 133M the party dealt to those seventeen mobs. Net damage was 87M of a 150M pool, which is why at the wipe the Belcher had bottomed at 55%, the Grovekeeper at 59%, the Stalkers between 16% and 48%, and the Lightgorged Lashers themselves at 20% and 33%.

There is no counter except killing the casters. Pollination is instant -- no cast bar, nothing to kick -- and Pollen Surge has no dispel type in the client's SpellCategories table, so Purge and Mass Dispel would not strip it. In the +13 and the +12 the Lightgorged Lashers died 32-48 seconds after being engaged and Pollen Surge healed 9.1M and 8.4M across the first five minutes of each key. Here they were the two mobs nobody killed, and it healed 46.4M in two.

The deaths, in order

0:32-0:38. The first Spouting Floret (0:32, four ticks over six seconds, 0.8-1.0M per player on 840-950k health pools) overlapped a Light Bolt Volley the Radiant Spellsower started at 0:31. The Volley is a four-second cast, it is interruptible, and four interrupts were off cooldown -- Fury Warrior's Pummel since 0:28, Ele Shaman's Wind Shear from 0:31, and neither Veng DH nor Hyporock had used theirs yet. It landed at 0:35 for 550-590k on the three non-tanks it reached and 386k on the tank. Fury Warrior died a second later; Ele Shaman took Uproot for 368k at 0:36 and died at 0:38 with no defensive pressed (Astral Shift came after his Reincarnation). Hyporock, who had put up Divine Shield at 0:27, was the one player the Volley registered as immune on, and he spent the window keeping others alive: Lay on Hands on the tank at 6% (0:31), Blessing of Sacrifice on the healer at 39% (0:37).

1:20. Belch Spores: one hit of 909,708 on Hyporock's 838k pool. Three casts in the fight, one player hit once -- it is dodgeable. The healer was at 2-16% health and self-preserving for the seven seconds around it.

1:37-1:47. The third Floret arrived with everyone at 48-71%; a second later everyone was at 26-41%. The healer died at 1:41 (Thornblade, a Bleed nobody in this party can remove), then Hyporock, Fury Warrior and Ele Shaman inside six seconds with no healer alive. A second wave of 13 mobs -- nine Lashers, two more Lightgorged Lashers, a Spellsower, a Stalker -- was first touched by the tank's Sigil of Chains at 1:41 and had not been in combat before; it dealt about 4M of the 53M, all after the wipe was underway. The log ends at 2:07 with the tank alive among 22 mobs.

What the tables get wrong for this run

Throughput 33 is a floor, as the report itself says: the demand was outside anything the scale was cut on, and response dropped out. Both are the shape of the key, not the healer's play.

Every melee figure carries the swing double-count Arbiter still has. 'Party took 68M' is 53M with melee counted once, and the 'Melee 526,340' in Fury Warrior's death window is about 263k. Nothing above rests on a melee number.

Fury Warrior's damage score of 36 is two deaths (out from 0:36 to 0:45 and from 1:46), 67% activity, and 302 item level against 320-321 for the rest of the party. The gear gap is real; price it before the play.

Veng DH's interrupts read 60 for 3 stops against 5 expected. The group stopped 11 of 16 and the one that mattered is the Volley above. And the tool has no line for enemy healing at all -- the 46.4M is invisible to it, which is how a party dealing 1.3M a second stood in a pack for a hundred seconds and removed less than half of it.