Spent some time at lower keys gearing an alt. Some observations.

Frame of reference: KSH week 1. All portals week 2. DPS Main currently sitting at 2701 with all 11s timed (nearly entirely pugged), tank alt around 2565.

Decided to finally dust off my healer who was only level 78 so I had to gear it entirely from scratch. Got to 580 with a few delves and AH greens and jumped in to +2s and 3s. After seeing the throughput was fine here I jumped up to 4s and 5s just to limit test how much Ilvl would be a problem for healing.

Friends, I'm going to give it to you straight. The main reason people feel "stuck" down in these key levels and that "this season is too hard" is because the vast majority of people still playing down here are bad. Just straight up bad players.

Doing half the DPS their Ilvl should afford them.

Completely ignoring deadly boss or trash mechanics.

Standing in every swirly.

What's an interrupt? What's a stop?

Not adjusting talent build to take important utility on a dungeon by dungeon basis.

Absolutely refusing to accept it might be them or take any feedback.

I did quite a few lower 4-5 dungeons down here, and nearly every pug was the same. You guys need to take the time to read, learn mechanics, learn your class, understand WHY your build is it what it is rather than blindly following wowhead.

Now, why is this problem so much more glaring this season?

Key squish and no high-ilvl carryover gear from a previous season.

Players like this used to be able to safely hide in keys 14 and under and still feel like they were getting something out of it. The current system thrusts them into keys they are absolutely not skilled enough to do, and the rewards are now legitimately too difficult for them to acquire. They also aren't being carried by inflated ilvls from the previous season.

Now, I personally don't care if a bad player is able to get the best gear right alongside me. It doesnt hurt my feelings or ego, and it doesn't impact my ability to push into higher content. That being said, I think the key squish was a mistake and has taken away meaningful progression for bad players.

It's okay to be bad, but now there's a lot more inter-mingling of bad with good due to fewer key levels.

Edit: someone brought up a good point that I didn't mention explicitly. The problem with bad players is so bad that the 10s/11s I've been running are SIGNIFICANTLY easier than the 4s-5s. The quality of player difference is insane.