Yes, it definitely does.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands has a massive amount of endgame content, with the prevailing philosophy behind the game for much of the player base being that the game starts when you hit max level.
One of the main focuses of endgame content is the Mythic+ dungeon system. For those unaware, this provides an increasing challenge through harder dungeons and affixes that drastically change the content being played.
Up to four affixes can be active, with more affixes being added per level of key. The first three of these change by week, but the fourth – activated at a +10 key or higher – is the same for every week in a season.
This seasonal affix is one of the defining traits of a season, providing a heavy change to the dungeon in theme with the current content. This season’s is Prideful, set in a similar theme to the current Castle Nathria raid and Revendreth in general.
The only thing is that affixes generally are set to make things considerably more difficult. With Prideful, many players feel that the affix actually makes things significantly easier.
As one progresses through a dungeon, killing the trash mobs filling the content will spawn a Manifestation of Pride. The Manifestation isn’t too easy of a kill – it deals group-wide damage in a rapidly-increasing amount as well as gives players a new mechanic to dodge.
But once players manage to kill the Manifestation, they’ll find themselves greatly empowered. Damage and Healing are increased by 30%, movement speed by 60%, and players with mana will restore 5% of their maximum mana every second.
The buff lasts for a minute as well, which is a considerable amount of time when you’re in a dungeon, especially if you do your trash count properly to summon the Manifestation right before the boss.
Players that are able to path correctly through the dungeons and pull in a way that they know will give an optimal spawn for the Manifestation have a massive boost over others. Having this buff active at the right time can shave quite a decent amount of time off the dungeon.
However, it can be extremely detrimental for players that path incorrectly. Summoning a Manifestation in the middle of a difficult trash pull can very often lead to wipes and even break up a group.
If you’ve been doing your best to push high mythic keys where Prideful would be active, make sure that you’re looking up the needed route for the Manifestation to be summoned. While mistakes can be detrimental, doing Prideful correctly ends up making dungeons significantly easier without raising the difficulty at all.
