Mythic Keystone Dungeons are some of the most challenging content in World of Warcraft. However, with an item from Cataclysm, you can make them easier. Players fear that this won’t work for much longer.
What kind of content is this? It is about Mythic+ Dungeons, or Mythic Keystone Dungeons. These dungeons represent some of the hardest PvE content in WoW alongside mythic raids.
Through the keystones, you can theoretically make a dungeon progressively harder by giving enemies more abilities (“affixes”) or simply increasing their damage and healing.
Veterans and professionals constantly battle over the highest keystones, trying to reach another level. All means are acceptable – even ancient items from Cataclysm.
What kind of item is this? It is about the Paper Companion. This is a belt enchantment for engineers from Cataclysm, one of the least popular expansions of WoW. The Paper Companion was introduced with Patch 4.0.3, just before the release of Cataclysm in December 2010.
The enchantment summons a named Paper Companion that taunts enemies in the vicinity for a few seconds. This ability helps survive in Keystone Dungeons.
The Paper Companion Saves Your Tank
What makes the Paper Companion so strong: Since the Paper Companion binds enemies to itself, the tank has the chance to escape from mobs. This helps in various situations:
- The tank needs to get rid of stacks of debuffs for which they must not be hit – such as “Necrotic”
- The healer needs to heal the tank through an important moment, such as to remove stacks of “Horrific”
- A particularly strong ability needs to be intercepted, which could otherwise kill the tank
- The tank is dead, but the enemies are nearly dead too, and the group doesn’t want to risk a wipe
In general, the Paper Companion mostly helps with kiting, similar to the Treants of Balance Druids, which are used in the same situations.
The companion has a cooldown of 5 minutes, and theoretically, anyone in the group can use the enchantment.
In this way, attacks and resultant damage and debuffs are avoided. Kiting has been a popular strategy in Mythic+ for some time, as many enemies are already so strong that tanks can barely hold up. Mobile tanks like Demon Hunters are therefore also popular.
How to use the item correctly: You need to be an engineer to use the Paper Companion. You learn the recipe randomly while crafting engineering items from Cataclysm. To craft the Companion, you only need a Tinker’s Kit, which you can find with any Engineering Supplies vendor.
Apply the tinkering to your belt and then “use” it at the right moment. Make sure that the enemies are not positioned unfavorably – such as in pools of “Bloody”. It’s best to wait for a sign from the tank or deploy the companion when a wipe is imminent.
Note that bosses cannot be taunted.
Some players fear that the item will be nerfed in the future and will no longer work. They are concerned that reporting, such as from Wowhead, attracts too much attention and the developers might want to adjust it – because it is indeed an old enchantment that shouldn’t be useful anymore, as the players think.
However, completely different and crazy things are working in WoW that probably are also not planned. For instance, a mage has mastered the twisted corridors in Torghast at the highest level solo and naked. Whether the Paper Companion will continue to accompany you in dungeons remains to be seen.
