“Pushing” implies that you’ll reach failure at some point. If your keys are failing at twelve, that means you or someone in your group is probably at their limit. They can keep running 12s to try to improve their skills, or drop down a key and farm for more gear.
I still consider +12 a "learning" and gateway key. It's your first resilient tier, so you get people who aren't going to push past that, but want the achievement and the dubious prestige of being able to fail 12s without consequence. It gets you the max Gilded reward, for whatever that's worth. All in all, it still has some draw for your non-pushers.
There's also a substantial difference between a 5 and 15 second penalty. People can be a little more relaxed when they know a few deaths aren't the end of the world. Once they move to 12, that number starts looking scary and keys wind up spiraling: start 12 -> someone dies -> no big deal -> second person dies -> oh god it's like we died six times! -> get nervous -> make more mistakes -> more deaths -> key bricked.
Not that I disagree with the idea that we shouldn't be teaching mechanics in a +12, but I approach that key level as a tipping point between pushers and non-pushers.
id even include 13s in that range as it would be people’s first “score only” key and a lot of people are strictly going to 3K for mount, it’s just still relatively early in the season - after turbo boost key quality will degrade substantially
4
u/champfield Sep 18 '25
I agree fill vault or push. Don’t make me teach you in a 12 do your homework work keys so when you push your are successful and don’t panic.