My First Mythic+ in 2026: A Guide to Overcoming “Pug Anxiety” (Before Midnight)

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With just over a week to go until Midnight launches with Early Access, Season 3 of The War Within is officially over.

Most people are parking their characters. I decided to do the opposite.

For the last year, I’ve avoided Mythic+ like the plague. I’m an Arcane Mage refugee from Final Fantasy XIV, and the horror stories about WoW’s “Toxic Pugs” kept me strictly in Delves and Raid Finder. But with a Cracked Keystone rotting in my bags and a new expansion on the horizon, I decided to face the fear.

I went from 0 Rating to 1476 in one week. Here is exactly how I did it, and why the “toxicity” isn’t as scary as Reddit says.

The “Scared Cat” Cheat Sheet

If you’re too anxious to read the full diary, here is the exact formula I used to get my first key done without getting yelled at.

How to Start Mythic+ (Zero Anxiety)

Follow these 3 steps to run your first key.

Run Your Own Key You can’t be kicked from your own group. Talk to the Pandaren in Dornogal to get a +2 Keystone.

The “Magic” Note List your group with this exact title: “Chill run. New to M+. Learning.” This filters out 99% of toxic players.

Enable Native Alerts With combat addons banned, go to Options > Gameplay and enable “Enhanced Spell Alerts” to see boss mechanics.

The Outsider Perspective

First, I think it’s important to mention a few things about my playstyle. I’ve played MMOs for over a decade, namely Final Fantasy XIV. It’s only in the last year that I really stepped into World of Warcraft. So I’m not coming in blind, but I’m also not a WOW veteran with 20 years of muscle memory.

My luck with guilds has been fairly minimal, too. I don’t seem to have any luck finding a guild that is actually active and willing to try content without being ultra-sweaty. So, almost all of my runs are pugged. I have a lot of friends, but only one plays WoW, so I can’t exactly pull together a “safety net” group.

I understand mechanics. I understand AoEs, soaks, and how to optimize my Arcane rotation so I don’t drop DPS while moving. But M+ has been intimidating since the day I joined. You see so much talk on Reddit about “toxicity” and “leavers” that actually stepping into the Group Finder felt paralyzing.

The “Cracked Keystone” Anxiety

I had my Cracked Keystone sitting in my inventory for a while, staring at me. Finally, with the expansion ending, I decided: What the hell.

Score: 0.
Experience: 0.
Anxiety: 100.

I put up a group in the Group Finder. I was extremely clear in the title: “Chill run. New to M+. Learning.”

I figured if we went over time, we went over time. It’s my keystone, no harm done.

My First Lesson: Listing your group as “Learning” filters out 99% of the toxic players instantly. The people who join want to help.

Run 1: Halls of Atonement (The First Step)

The group formed surprisingly fast. The dungeon was Halls of Atonement (+2), a Shadowlands dungeon rotating in for Season 3.

I had no experience here. I had run some Shadowlands dungeons in Timewalking, but Halls of Atonement wasn’t one of them. While waiting for the Healer slot to fill, I tabbed out and watched a 5-minute guide on YouTube. It seemed straightforward enough: Soak. Move the ghosts to the lanterns. Dodge the red lines.

When the group filled, I braced myself for the worst. Instead, the Tank typed: “Everyone knows the lantern mechanic?” Someone said no. He explained it. Simple.

We completed the dungeon with 15 minutes left on the timer. I was ecstatic. My keystone upgraded to a +5. No deaths. Just a clean, smooth clear. I thought, “Maybe the internet was wrong about this.”

Run 2: Tazavesh (The Struggle)

My keystone upgraded to Tazavesh: Streets (+5). This is where the reality check hit.

I followed the same process. “Learning group” in the title. Watched a guide. But Tazavesh is mechanically denser than Halls.

The first boss went down easily. Then we hit the Ancient Core Hounds. For the uninitiated: You need to kill both hounds at the same time. If one dies and the other is still healthy, the dead one respawns with full health.

I kept my eyes glued to their health bars, switching targets to keep them even. But the other DPS were tunneling single targets.

One hound died.
The other was at 50%.
The first one respawned.

This happened three times.

I was waiting for the rage. I was waiting for the “DPS are trash” comments. But they never came. The Tank and Healer just typed: “We need to split damage. Kill them together.”

We finally got them down, but looking at the timer, I knew my keystone was dead. We cleared the rest of the dungeon and finished 8 minutes over time. The key downgraded. But… nobody left. Nobody screamed. We got our loot, said “GG,” and moved on.

Run 3: Operation: Floodgate (Enter the Toxic Guy)

Being over the time limit in Tazavesh meant that my key downgraded to a +4 Operation: Floodgate. This group filled instantly, but alarm bells rang immediately.

One DPS joined, he had no Mythic score, just like me 2 dungeons ago, but he came in hot. “You need to do this. We need to skip this pack. Did you watch a guide? LISTEN TO ME. Don’t be bad.”

We trudged through to Keeza Quickfuse. This DPS spent the first half of the fight typing at the Tank instead of playing.

The Wipe: I got aggro from Bront. No matter where I ran, what bombs I ran him into, he stuck to me. I died.
The Aftermath: The DPS went nuclear. He blamed the Tank. He blamed the Healer. He blamed my positioning.

We wiped. He raged.

But here is the funny thing: He was the first one to die. Second attempt, we cleared it. We finished 3 minutes over time. My key downgraded again. But the downgrade didn’t bother me, the attitude did. It was exhausting.

Run 4: Eco-Dome Al’dani (The Redemption)

After the disaster in Operation: Floodgate, I honestly almost quit. The fun was gone. My keystone downgraded again, this time to level 4. I spent the next 24 hours ignoring the Group Finder entirely, retreating to the safety of Delves and mindless mount farming.

But that Keystone was still sitting in my bag. It felt like it was taunting me. It was downgraded, ugly, and unfinished. I knew if I didn’t queue up one more time, I probably never would again.

I decided to try one last time. It rolled Eco-Dome Al’dani.

The difference was night and day. From the moment we zoned in, the atmosphere was different. The group was chatty. We were joking about the trash mobs and everything in between.

For the first time, I didn’t feel like a passenger. As a Mage, I felt genuinely useful. I was watching the Healer’s mana, and using Time Warp at the perfect moment on the final boss.

We fully cleared it. No deaths. We beat the timer with minutes to spare.It was a huge confidence booster.

The Verdict: 1476 Score Later

I continued this process for the rest of the week. My key went up to a +7, then down to a +6, then back up again. I ended the week with a Mythic+ Score of 1476.

Is that a high score compared to the pros pushing +20s? No. Does it make me a top-tier player? Absolutely not. But did I learn more in one week than I did in the entire previous year? 100%.

I learned how to use my defensive cooldowns not just to save myself, but to stabilize the run. I learned that “Interrupts” are the most important button on my action bar. And most importantly, I learned that the scary “timer” isn’t a bomb, it’s just a pace-setter.

The “Toxic” Truth (My Biggest Takeaway)

The one repeating pattern I noticed across every single dungeon was this: The angry people die first.

Every time someone got annoyed in chat, whether it was the guy in Floodgate or a random tank later in the week, they lost focus. They were so busy typing or fuming that they missed a soak. They stood in the fire. They forgot their rotation.

It’s like they don’t understand that emotional control is just as important as your DPS rotation.

Mythic+ isn’t the toxic wasteland I expected. It’s a mirror. It reflects your own attitude back at you. It is a game mode where mistakes are highly visible, and that makes people insecure. But if you own your mistakes, apologize when you mess up, and list your group as “Learning,” you will find that most players are just like you and trying to get their Great Vault slots filled before Midnight drops.

Final Thoughts

If you’re sitting there reading this with a Keystone rotting in your bag, scared to list it because you think you aren’t “good enough”: Just do it.

The worst thing that happens is you deplete the key, and you try again. The best thing that happens? You realize you’re capable of way more than you thought, and you find a whole new way to play World of Warcraft.

See you in the Group Finder.

Update: I Hit +10 (And the Community Surprised Me Again)

Added: 18 February, 2026

Since I finished writing the original draft of this diary, I couldn’t stop playing. I decided to push my key just a little bit further.

I hit a +10 today.

If you had told me last week that I would be timing +10 keys, I would have laughed. But the score isn’t what surprised me, it was the people.

I ran into some genuinely incredible groups. And I don’t just mean “good players” I mean good people.

The Atmosphere: Nobody cared if someone died. Nobody raged if we wiped.
The Support: When we struggled on a boss, people didn’t leave. They typed in chat: “Let’s try this position instead,” or “Pop this cooldown at this point.”

It wasn’t just “tolerating” mistakes either. These people were doing active coaching. Strangers were helping strangers get better. It was, without a doubt, one of the best experiences I have ever had in World of Warcraft.

If you are still on the fence, let this be your sign. The “toxic” stories get the clicks, but the helpful players are the ones actually playing the game.

And for those looking for some more in-depth information on what M+ is, I recommend this video from BBMezzy.