10-man-raid
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From 25 to 10, a Lodur Story
I feel like it's been a pretty big debate since the inception of the concept, whether 25-man or 10-man raiding is the end all be all. Which is "real" raiding? Which is more difficult? Which offers you the most rewards? These questions have almost been a plague on raiding discussion since the option first became available. To be honest, I've never much cared for the debate. I'm the type of person that is a live and let live when it comes to personal preferences in video games. For me, I've always just been a raider. It has been a huge part of my enjoyment with the game, second only to the story and lore of Warcraft. I've also always been a large group raider from Classic World of Warcraft right up to Mists, but I did always run with a 10-man group right up until the point where 10 and 25 started to share a lockout, just so I could keep raiding and so I knew how to handle both situations. Recently, due to personal scheduling reasons, I've had to make some changes to my World of Warcraft playtime that has resulted in not only me re-joining the Horde, but also having shifted from 25-man raiding to full time 10-man healing on Lodur. This post is just my opinions and observations based on my own change from 25-man raiding to 10-man raiding. Your mileage may vary.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: 25-man raid testing starts tomorrow
10-man raid testing on the Mists of Pandaria beta has been under way for quite some time now, but if you've been wanting to give 25-man testing a try, it starts tomorrow. Watcher made the following scheduling post late last weekend. Raid Testing Schedule - July 30-31 After the weekend, we will be testing a number of raid encounters, including 25-player encounters. The testing schedule for remaining Normal modes will be somewhat accelerated, since the encounters are already familiar to many testers and we are just verifying functionality and tuning. Each encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below for all Beta Test Realms, regardless of suggested geographical region. Monday, July 30th Blade Lord Ta'yak (Heart of Fear) - 10 Player Heroic 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST) Gara'jal the Spiritbinder (Mogu'shan Vaults) - 10 Player Normal 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST) Tuesday, July 31st Stone Guard (Mogu'shan Vaults) - 25 Player Normal 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST) Imperial Vizier Zor'lok (Heart of Fear) - 25 Player Normal 12:00 PDT (15:00 EDT, 21:00 CEST) Protectors of the Endless (Terrace of Endless Spring) - 25 Player Normal 13:30 PDT (16:30 EDT, 22:30 CEST) Feng the Accursed (Mogu'shan Vaults) - 25 Player Normal 15:00 PDT (18:00 EDT, 24:00 CEST) Blade Lord Ta'yak (Heart of Fear) - 25 Player Normal 16:30 PDT (19:30 EDT, 01:30 CEST) Tsulong (Terrace of Endless Spring) - 25 Player Normal 18:00 PDT (21:00 EDT, 03:00 CEST) As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session or cancel it entirely, due to bugs, builds, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback. source As you can see, there is still some 10-man testing left, but it's going on right now, so log onto beta servers quickly if you want to participate. If you're wondering how on earth you'll be able to get a group together on beta tomorrow to do a 25-man raid, I can assure you there have been plenty of trade chat groups thus far that you can join. Many of the groups are guilds who don't have their entire roster on beta, so they have to pug additional players to fill their raid groups. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Breakfast Topic: Is DKP starting to become obsolete?
I was trundling through Wowpedia the other day for some background reading on loot systems (I'm writing a follow-up to Robert's not-so-original WoW miscellany) when I was struck by a sudden thought: I literally cannot remember the last time I saw a guild on my server advertising a DKP system or common variant like Suicide Kings. They advertise what level they are and what type of players they're looking for, the kind of raid content they do if they're raiders, if they do Rated Battlegrounds, and all that good stuff. But only very rarely is DKP ever mentioned, rarer still with a 10-man raiding guild. I trawled through the guild recruitment forums to see if this was actually part of a wider trend, but don't know what to think. The 25-man raiding guilds are the most likely to say they use a DKP system or variant; 10-man raiding guilds nearly all use loot councils, at least from my (admittedly brief) survey of the current advertisements. Is this also happening on your realms, or have I gotten this wrong? We all know that every DKP system has its issues and that administrating them is one of the larger headaches for guild leaders. 10-man raiding is also more popular than 25-man raiding right now, and it probably doesn't make sense for a guild to obsessively track DKP for a 10-man where most players probably aren't rolling on the same stuff. Is DKP dying, or is it just a sign of the popularity of the 10-man model?
Trion Worlds takes players on a tour of RIFT's upcoming Hammerknell raid
Ia! Ia! Akylios f'htagn! You may have (read: should have, and if you haven't go do so now) seen our hands-on impressions article covering the new raid coming with RIFT's patch 1.3, Waves of Madness. The instance takes place inside of the abandoned Dwarven city of Hammerknell, where Akylios -- the Dragon of the plane of water and the object of worship of the Abyssal Cult -- has long been imprisoned. The cult has now breached the ancient stronghold and is in the process of awakening its aquatic master. In a new walkthrough video from Trion Worlds, VP of Development Russ Brown gives RIFT players a sneak-peek at the world event that will accompany the opening of Hammerknell's long-sealed doors. Once the doors have been opened, we're treated to a tour of the halls of the city itself, where the ghosts of fallen Dwarves and Abyssal cultists alike stand to prevent Telara's heroes from interrupting Akylios' awakening. The video shows off four of the raid's bosses, including Akylios himself, so those of you wanting to avoid spoilers can consider yourselves warned. Russ also takes some time to stop and admire the hauntingly lovely architecture and lighting of the deserted city, which is truly stunning. Any RIFT players who don't mind a few minor spoilers and who want to get a look at the upcoming content can click on past the cut for the full video.
E3 2011: Hands on with RIFT's 1.3 update
With patch 1.2 fading in the rearview mirror, RIFT players have turned their attention to the incoming patch 1.3 due on June 22nd. Titled Waves of Madness, the update will kick off a new world event and add an additional tier of endgame content in the form of an additional raid. We got the opportunity to dive into 1.3 early at E3, all while a petite seven-foot-tall dev perched on our shoulder and gave us running commentary. Patch 1.3's crown jewel is a 20-person raid in the ancient fortress of Hammerknell, which was built by folks who thought it'd be a smashing idea to cram evil spirits into runes and then use that as the foundation. Sounds to us a lot like building a summer camp on top of a desecrated native burial ground, but we're sure these architects had good intentions. Surprise, surprise, the spirits started to ooze out into Hammerknell and tore up the place. To make matters worse, Hammerknell is the prison of a water dragon -- and the water plane started to come to its rescue. So the Dwarves decided to treat it like an illegal toxic dump by sealing up the fortress, whistling innocently, and conveniently forgetting it until another raid area was needed. But it's not as simple as just unlocking the front door and marching in to claim some loot! Hit the jump as we walk you through the process of down-and-dirty archaeology!
RIFT's Spoils of War update deploys
It's a heady day for RIFTers as Trion Worlds has released the game's second major update. Titled Spoils of War, patch 1.2 includes several exciting additions to the game, most notably a Looking for Group tool, a cosmetic appearance system, and 10-man raid Slivers. The LFG interface will also offer daily dungeon quests with increased rewards as incentives to boost instance runs. The full patch notes are up over on the RIFT forums, and they're a doozy to read (but one has to have some way to pass the time while the game updates, right?). In addition to the headlining features, there is a metric ton of changes, tweaks and sparkling gems to absorb. Spoils of War will make the game's expert dungeons more attractive to run, and players who love tinkering with RIFT's soul system should rejoice at the addition of a fifth role. Trion's also added a lot more love for social media with increased integration between the game and Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Tumblr. There's really too much to cover in a few brief paragraphs, so after you read the patch notes, make sure to check out our larger coverage of this impressive update from a couple of weeks ago! If you haven't had a chance to get your hands on RIFT, Trion's also launched its seven-day free trial and Ascend-a-Friend programs for one and all.
An exclusive look at RIFT's Update 1.2 and beyond with Scott Hartsman [Updated]
With almost two months on the post-launch clock at Trion Worlds, RIFT appears to be holding its own in the wild and woolly field of MMORPGs. With a major update and the first world event under its belt, RIFT is sailing into the future with the wind at its back and a hull full of subscribers below. We got Trion's Scott Hartsman on the phone to discuss RIFT's second big patch, Update 1.2, as well as to see how the game's progressed thus far and where the team is trying to take it into the future. And of course we couldn't let this opportunity pass by without a candid dissection of the uneven world event and how Trion plans to learn from its mistakes. So hit the jump and witness Scott Hartsman giving us a Care Bear Stare full of info and exclusive tidbits about the inner workings of RIFT!
Officers' Quarters: The great raid-size debate, part 3
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. Welcome to the third and final column exploring the various pros and cons of raid size in WoW's upcoming Cataclysm expansion. Before we talk about the final category, let's recap. In part 1, I examined the various gameplay considerations that come along with the different sizes. Gameplay We can only speculate about relative difficulty. 10-man raids offer fewer options for dealing with specific boss abilities and/or adds. Position-based abilities are easier to deal with in 10s. Player deaths are not as crippling in 25-mans. It's easier to cover for someone else's mistake with 25 players. In part 2, I talked about the logistics involved in running each size and the rewards you can obtain from them. Logistics A 25-man raid requires an intense recruiting effort. "Cat herding" is flat-out easier in 10-man raids. More raiders mean more attendance issues and technical issues. Subbing is easier in a larger raid. Scheduling difficulties are easier to manage with more players. Loot is easier to distribute in 10-man.
Officers' Quarters: The great raid size debate, part 2
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. Last week, I received an email asking me for my thoughts on raid size in Cataclysm. As it turns out, I have quite a few thoughts -- three columns' worth, in fact, covering four different categories: gameplay, logistics, rewards and intangibles. My goal is to help officers and their guild members to choose which raid size is best suited for their guild. A week ago, I wrote about the gameplay category. This week's column will cover two topics that have been linked together throughout the history of the game. From the very beginning of WoW, Blizzard has made a connection between more difficult logistics and greater rewards. Molten Core, Onyxia, and later 40-man raids rewarded the best available gear in their respective heydays. Throughout The Burning Crusade and Wrath, 25-man content yielded the best items. For Cataclysm, this paradigm is shifting. Let's take a look at the logistics involved with the two raid sizes and the rewards that each size offers.
Officers' Quarters: The great raid size debate
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. Cataclysm, as you are probably already aware, brings with it massive changes to the raiding scene in World of Warcraft. Certainly the most controversial change is Blizzard's desire, announced in April, to balance and separate 10- and 25-man raids -- namely, both sizes will share the same lockout and loot tables. The 10-man scene, widely regarded as inferior throughout WoW's history, will be designed to have approximately the same difficulty as its 25-man counterpart. Reports from the beta dungeon forums indicate that 10-man bosses are currently much easier to bring down than their 25-man versions, but we can only assume that Blizzard will take steps to even out the difficulty according to its stated goal. In the weeks following the expansion's launch, it will be extremely interesting to see how this whole situation shakes out. These changes will force most guilds to choose one size or the other as their primary raiding focus. As I've previously stated, this is a good thing. Many officers right now, including the one who wrote this week's email, are wondering which size to choose. Officers' Quarters is here to help! Hail Scott, What is your take on 10-man versus 25-man raiding in Cataclysm? Our guild would like to continue raiding 25-mans, but several of the other raid guilds on our server have apparently decided to switch to 10s. Are they jumping to conclusions, or are they on to something? Is this the end of 25-man raiding, and are we in for a repeat of the guild implosions and massive raider unemployment we saw when 40s were dropped to 25s?
Match your makeup to your guild colors: Win fifteen dollars in makeup from Geek Chic!
Let me be straight with this: raiding unfashionably isn't really raiding. You need to make sure that your eyeshadow and foundation aren't running down your face like a bad wax sculpture because if you don't, you're going to look like an idiot in the newspaper. Then, instead of the peasants saying, "Oh, wow, you looked so cool! Thank you for saving us!" you'll only hear, "Hey, ugly, you looked like a clown in that newspaper picture!" Luckily we've partnered up with the experts of raid makeup: Geek Chic Cosmetics. Deborah and Chantel won't let you walk into any lair without the right touch, and they're gratefully offering a coupon for fifteen dollars in makeup to one of our lucky readers. Interested in winning some makeup or learning more about Geek Chic? Head on after the break for all of the pertinent details.
Win a 10-Man Raid eyeshadow set from Geek Chic Cosmetics!
If you've ever looked at your class's nameplate color and thought, "I sure wish I could decorate my face with this," then do we have a contest for you. We're proud to team up with Geek Chic Cosmetics (recently profiled in our 15 Minutes of Fame feature), purveyors of fine geek-themed makeup, to offer one lucky winner a full 10-Man Raid eyeshadow set (worth $49). To enter, all you have to do is comment on this post between now and Friday, Aug. 20 at 11:59 p.m. EDT. We'll randomly choose a winner once the contest ends. There are some official rules, though! For example: you can enter only once. The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older. Make sure your email address is up to date in your commenting profile, because that's how we'll be getting hold of you if you win. Also? It'd be really cool if you liked makeup. That's not a rule, though. More of a request.
Typhoon Struggle claims world first strict 10-man heroic Lich King kill
Big congratulations are in order for <Typhoon Struggle> of the Defias Brotherhood (EU) server, the first guild in the strict 10-man GuildOx rankings to kill the Lich King on heroic. GuildOx interviewed Sheeana, Typhoon Struggle's guild master, who shared some of the trials and tribulations of the kill, especially the brutal first phase of the encounter. What are the 10-man strict rankings, you ask? GuildOx ranks the progression of guilds all across the different realms. The strict 10-man rankings are, essentially, 10-man raid groups that never have access to the 25-man versions of the instance. This means that a strict 10-man raiding group will never have gear or drops obtained through 25-man raiding. To be considered and ranked on the GuildOx strict 10-man rankings, members of the 10-man raiding group can never earn an ICC-25 or ToGC-25 kill. Even though ICC-25 drops the same iLevel gear as ICC-10 heroic, GuildOx discourages the practice, as this allows strict 10-man raiding groups to gear up twice as fast. "Strict" means "strict." In addition, strict 10-man guilds usually only have a limited roster of between 10 to 12 people, since most others go on to the 25-man versions of the encounters. According to Sheeana, the toughest phase was the first, as the Lich King's minions on heroic scale in power exponentially. These are raiders using, at the most, iLevel 264 gear. For the full interview and announcement, including the criteria for the strict 10-man rankings, visit GuildOx. You can learn more about the criteria surrounding the strict 10-man rules here. Again, big congratulations to Typhoon Struggle!
Premonition gains A Tribute to Mad Skill achievement
Via GuildOx, we have another big raid achievement coming down the pipe for Premonition of the Senjin-US server, who probably needed a boost after that horrible wipe to Hogger at BlizzCon. They've just grabbed the 10-Man Tribute to Mad Skill achievement, which means they defeated the 10-man Coliseum raid on Hard Mode up through and including 10-man Anub'arak with less than 5 wipes over the entire time.Premonition has established itself among the solid lead US guilds before, having also been the first US guild to get Heroic: Alone in the Darkness by killing 25-man Yogg-Saron with no watchers. It looks like they're poised to continue that streak now that all the bosses in the Coliseum are unlocked. Congratulations to them, and good luck in the future!Update: We're attempting to verify this through other means at the moment. Hold onto your pants! -AlexUpdate #2: Confirmed.
Loot, rationality, and the Sunwell effect
Here at WoW Insider we don't always agree with each other. Whether it's debating the merits of various tanks on different encounters, the damage difference between pure and hybrid DPS classes, the ideal function of a particular healing class in raids, or the superiority of cake over pie, our back-channel discussion tends to be pretty interesting.Eliah Hecht's article "25-man gear should not be better than 10-man gear" sparked a lot of great discussion with our readers and, I think, some illuminating poll results as well. The majority of responders believed that giving 10-man and 25-man raids the same loot table would result in a significant drop in popularity for 25-man raiding. Overall, I tend to agree with this, but I also think that Eliah touched on something that speaks to Blizzard's evolving sense of game design, much of which is evident in the transition between late Burning Crusade and Wrath. I would like to call this the Sunwell effect, or "ingame rationality." To wit: don't incentivize players to behave in a manner contrary to your actual design interests. I believe this played a huge role in the differences between BC and Wrath raiding, and that it underlies why the 25-man loot table has to remain superior to its 10-man counterpart.
Shifting Perspectives: So. Um, do bears suck?
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week we shelve the column we originally intended to run due to a rather pressing matter.OK, folks. I have a confession to make. This week's Shifting Perspectives was originally meant to be a full guide to gearing your Restoration Druid at 80, and I'm still going to post that, either this week or next. A lot of people have (correctly, I think) observed that this column has historically paid more attention to Feral than to Restoration or Balance, and it's my aim to balance (har!) that out a bit. Part of it is just that the people who play Druids on staff here at WoW Insider are usually feral, and part of it is that -- at least as of the last numbers we had on it -- most people playing Druids are also feral. I confess I would love to see the demographics on Druids post-Wrath, because I get the sense that Balance in particular has become markedly more popular.But the Resto post is going to have to wait a few days, not least because my eyes are swimming from so much Wowhead. We found out today that Swipe's threat is getting a significant buff, but over the course of reading the pertinent forum thread and some back-channel discussion here, I ran across a few things concerning bear tanking that really made me sit up after the hell of tanking last night's heroic Old Kingdom and go, "Wait. It's not just me?"Personally whenever I encounter serious problems in a dungeon I tend to chalk it up to the fact that I suck. I find this to be an efficient and typically accurate means of pinpointing the source of an issue. However, my fellow Druids, our problems may actually be more wide-ranging than that.
Wrath 101: Heirloom items and how to get them
Wrath of the Lich King introduced not only new content, but an entirely new type of item. These items are called Heirloom items, or Bind to Account (BoA) items. They aren't tied to any one character and can be freely passed from alt to alt, but they're all tied to one account, the account that bought the item. No handing them over to your friends, no mailing them to other players, no mailing them to your second account. So far none of these items are drops, but rewards for more veteran players of the Wrath content. There are two different ways of earning these items, but they dovetail nicely.Quite simply, you need to participate in Wrath's content. Items suited to PvE are acquired via Emblems of Heroism, and items suited for PvP are acquired via Stone Keeper's Shards.
Naxx-10 loot discovered
The ten-man version of Naxxramas was enabled in last night's beta patch, including loot. And thanks to insomniac beta testers and to MMO-Champion, we now get to see a whole bunch of that loot, including class sets, which is what I'm most interested in at the moment. The class sets aren't quite finished yet – their names are things like "Naxxramas 10 Rogue Set," and there aren't any set bonuses – but it's still interesting to see what sort of stats Blizz is planning on giving us. Some observations: The item level on all this stuff is 200; Kil'jaeden's drops are ilvl 164. Given that two tiers are typically about 14 ilvls apart, this implies that when we see Naxx-25 loot it will probably be ilvl 214 or so. I know that we've got spell power now, and no +healing, but it still took me a few minutes to figure out why I couldn't find a healing weapon. Melee one-handed weapons are doing 143 DPS; by comparison, Hand of the Deceiver, from Kil'jaeden, does 114 (the highest currently available in a one-handed weaopn). I don't like to see items with shield block on them that aren't shields (Deflection Band, Waistguard of the Tutor), since only half of the tanks can use them. There's an oddly large amount of crit rating on the Priest healing set. Is this a consequence of some change I haven't quite digested yet? Anyway, this all looks good; go look at the items yourself at MMO-Champion. I can't wait to see what they're going to do with tokens, and to see some of the Naxx-25 stuff start to drop.
Breakfast Topic: Does Zul'Aman appeal to you?
With the new 10-main, post-Karazhan instance, Zul'Aman, the centerpiece of Patch 2.3, I have to wonder just how much of the WoW population it's going to service. There's the non-raiders who will never put in the time commitment to do even the 10-man raids and then there's the 25-man raiders who see the new 10-man zones as not worth the time.So I figured I would take a poll:%Poll-4232%If you are active 10-man raider, and you answer "no" I'd love to hear your reason below. If you are a non-raider or a 25-man raider and answer "yes" also please explain.
