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Asia first Garrosh Hellscream heroic kill goes to Tianqi
Congratulations to Chinese guild 天 啟 (Tianqi) for their Garrosh Hellscream kill in 10-man heroic mode! If you're wondering why this isn't visible on WoWProgress as a world first kill, it's because they have certain advantages over players in other regions. To start, there are separate weekly lockouts for 10-man and 25-man, allowing a guild in Asia to run both in the same week. Secondly, the loot in 25-man is 8 ilevels higher and the boss health and damage is also 8% higher. This allowed Tianqi to acquire higher ilevel loot in 25-man before going into 10-man to achieve their Garrosh kill. At least one of the players participating in the kill had a average ilevel of 575 along with a ilevel 588 weapon. These circumstances should in no way detract from their achievement, but the traditional world first race is still very much on for both 10-man and 25-man.
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.
25-mans have higher Thunderforged drop rate than 10-mans
The new Thunderforged loot designation -- much like the affix Raid Finder -- was introduced into Patch 5.2 for a number of reasons by Blizzard. While the affix does stay certain pieces from disenchantable execution on farm bosses, players largely regarded Thunderforged items as another attempt to help 25-man raiding guilds stay afloat. The developers didn't want to go back to late Wrath of the Lich King model of completely higher loot in 25mans, so instead Thunderforged items can drop in both sized raids. However, the drop rate in 25-mans would be higher than that of 10-mans. "How frequent is more frequent?" players would ask, especially when given the chance to chat with the developers about patch 5.2. Ghostcrawler deflected the question on TotemSpot's interview, preferring to let players figure out the drop rates themselves. Fortunately for us, WoWProgress has analyzed the loot drops using its database of characters, guilds, and bosses killed this first week of Patch 5.2. Looking at loot gains from Jin'rokh the Breaker, specifically: 11.7% of the 10-man loot equipped by characters was Thunderforged 25.7% of the 25-man loot equipped by characters was Thunderforged Even figuring in disenchanted items, WoWProgress figures the drop rates to be approximately 10% for 10-man and 25% for 25-man. From personal anecdote, my 25-man raiding guild saw usually one but sometimes two Thunderforged drops per boss in addition to four to five regular mode drops. Tier pieces, of course, will never drop as Thunderforged. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
15-man raiding is the option of last resort
Blizzard has made numerous comments over the past year that 15-man raiding seems like a good size compromise between 10-man and 25-man. The 15-person raid can provide enough slots for the necessary class balance, yet let flexibility come into play in exactly how many players of each class are taken. While some players are keen to enter the era of 15-man raiding, others loath the roster moves and guild shakeups this would cause. For those that were not around during the 40-man to 25-man transition in The Burning Crusade, many many guilds fell apart over having to make drastic cuts from their rosters. In a series of tweets, Ghostcrawler notes that the transition to 15-man raiding would cause guilds to prune 10 people from a 25-man roster, however I'd contend it'd be much more than that (around 15 people would need to be cut), due to the fact most 25-man guilds carry several more folks than necessary, which wouldn't be needed in a leaner and meaner raiding crew. However, it appears that a transition to 15-man raiding is essentially off the table. Ghostcrawler tweets:
Patch 5.2 PTR: Thunderforged items could revitalize 25-man raiding
Blizzard Community Manager Tyiliru has posted on the community forums with some information on new Thunderforged items, which offer increased item levels. These Thunderforged items can drop from both Normal and Heroic mode raids, but not from the Raid Finder, and have an item level which is six higher than the standard item level of items obtained from those sources. So, item levels will be as follows: Raid Finder: ilvl 502 Normal mode: ilvl 522 Normal Thunderforged: ilvl 528 Heroic: ilvl 535 Heroic Thunderforged: ilvl 541 Tyiliru also adds that these items will be more likely to drop in 25-man raiding, which will lead to 25-man raiders having a slightly increased item level compared to 10-man raiders. Tyiliru clarifies that this is definitely an attempt from Blizzard to offer greater rewards to 25-man raiders, without overly rewarding them to the extent that 10-man raids will feel undervalued. Ghostcrawler was kind enough to clarify that this was not the unannounced feature he mentioned last night! @rastailian @oliviadgrace Thunderforged is the controversial idea I mentioned weeks ago, not the cool unannounced feature from yesterday. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) January 23, 2013 Hit the break for Tyiliru's full post. Will this make you more inclined to push for 25-man raiding over 10-man? Is item level inflation getting totally out of hand, and will this really make an impact, given that 25-man raiders already gear somewhat more quickly than 10man raiders?
10 and 25-man to no longer share lockouts on KR realms in patch 5.1
The Korean World of Warcraft community site has published some interesting news regarding the future of raiding in patch 5.1. An update posted earlier today states that 10 and 25-man lockouts will not be shared. It looks like this change will apply to Korean realms only (for now). There's no mention if this change is going to affect realms in other regions. The item levels of loot in 25-man raids will be increased with this change. For example, Terrace on 10-man would drop ilevel 496 items whereas the 25-man would drop 504. As a 25-man raider myself, I am greatly interested in this change. It's challenging to maintain a healthy 25-man raiding roster. While this change would benefit 25-man guilds, it would also have an impact on 10-man raid groups. Equal item level rewards meant that most players would choose the quickest and most efficient route. What do you guys think of this as a possible solution to the whole 10 vs 25s issue? If you're raiding in a 10-man group right now, would this cause you to look for and apply to a 25-man guild? Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
The hardcore game is dead
It is a concept long familiar to World of Warcraft players: the hardcore raider. The women and men who were on the cutting edge of raiding content, who had the absolutely best gear, who played the most and knew the most about the game. Back in classic WoW, I was absolutely this person. I raided. It was all I did, really. My tanking gear was so good that players would stop me in Ironforge to comment on it. We killed everything first up until a new guild came to our server, then we traded kills with them until the end of the original game and the launch of The Burning Crusade. Cut to the hunt for BC kills. A lot of people I knew were burning out. Some of the encounters were seen as having been tuned too high, while others lamented the loss of 40-man raiding and the shift to 25s, especially with Karazhan as the 10-man raid having caused a lot of guild drama. "Raiding is too easy now. You can go with 10 people to some raids. It's lost the epic feeling of 40-man raiding. Look at how much faster raiding goes now than it did. We used to struggle to learn each boss; now the only real challenge is in end bosses like Kael and Vashj. Gimmicks like legendary weapons and orbs have replaced knowing your role and class." What am I getting at? Nostalgia is poisonous. The people who bemoan how easy raiding is now are the same people who defended BC raiding from the old curmudgeon MC/BWL raiders who felt like the BC raid game had dumbed down raiding. It's always better in the past, because the past has passed and become perfected by memory. At the time no one would have said it was the pinnacle of raiding -- far from it. People were still going back to Naxx-40 at level 70 and still having a hard time running it. People sang its praises as the ultimate raid right up until it was removed from the game.
Does World of Warcraft need to be more difficult?
The above video is a bit lengthy, but it's well worth the watch simply because it does raise a few valid points along the line. And lest you think this is yet another player whining about the endless hardcore vs. casual debate, it's not -- this is simply a player who is incredibly passionate about the game we all play. In that passion, he's decided to talk about the direction that raiding in WoW has taken and how it has gone downhill, in his opinion. On the one hand, he has a point. There is a stark difference between the feel of raiding back in the days of vanilla, The Burning Crusade, and now. There's a stark difference in numbers, which any graph can illustrate. More and more people can complete raids now from one degree or another, which leaves people barreling through content at light speed and doesn't really give that same feeling that raiding had in years past. On the other, is changing the difficulty in WoW really the way to accomplish that goal? I don't think so.
Does WoW need variable raid scaling?
If you've ever played a game of Diablo III and had a friend join you, you've heard the message "The minions of hell grow stronger." When you play DIII in a group, the monsters you're stepping on either grow in number or power and sometimes both. When you or your friends leave, the game tunes itself back downwards, so that while there are fewer of you, there are also fewer of the monsters or they have less punishing abilities. I bring this up because I wonder if just such a system would help address or perhaps even destroy the 10/25-man raid debate in World of Warcraft. What is there was no fixed raid size? What if raids were any group up to 25 players, and the trash and bosses simply scaled themselves for the size of the group? You see threads on the forums constantly debating the back and forth on 10- vs. 25-man raiding, exclaiming how 25-man raids are dying out, which I find undeniably true purely based on the logistics of each size of raid, and so on. I'm sure we've all been in a situation where we wanted to raid but we were a few short. Now, imagine if you could always raid, as long as you had the two tanks and three or four healers ready to go, because the raid would scale itself based on how many people you brought.
Raiding: Weighing the benefits of 25-man raids vs. 10-man raids
According to Wowtrack.com, the number of 25-man raiding guilds is several orders of magnitude smaller than the number of 10-man raiding guilds. Why is Blizzard spending so much effort balancing both the 10- and 25-man raid formats when the 25-man raiding community contains an incredibly low percentage of the raiding population? Blizzard Community Manager Zarhym recently posted this on a forum thread about the subject: Zarhym We'll continue making adjustments as necessary to keep 10- and 25-player raids within a relative alignment, in terms of time investment, difficulty and rewards. It may never be perfect, but we still see interest in both raid sizes for different reasons. And ultimately we'll continue designing 25-player raids as long as there are a decent number of guilds interested in the format. We've seen no evidence as of yet that such interest is waning to any degree that should cause us great concern. We tend to begin raid design around 25 players anyway before tuning for the various sizes and difficulties. That, when combined with our intent to carry on with 25-player Raid Finder group sizes, makes it very much worth our time to continue designing 25-player raids. Regardless of what players' personal preferences or opinions are regarding the varied raid formats in World of Warcraft, we don't see removing options as a smart choice in the foreseeable future. source
The missed opportunity of 20-man raiding
With the release of the Raid Finder and the recent changes to valor points, the debate about 10- vs. 25-man raiding, which is harder to run, and which is harder to balance rages on. I have friends on both sides of the 10/25 debate. I understand both points of view, and I think both are utterly wrong. Completely, absolutely wrong. The issue to me is when we went from 40-man raids down to the current raid sizes, the decision to offer 25-man raids didn't really work. I think we should have gone to 10- and 20-man raiding at the dawn of The Burning Crusade, and I still think we should. We had 20-man raids back in classic WoW -- two of them, in fact, Zul'Gurub and Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. Neither exists as a 20-man raid any more, so this may seem odd to players who didn't raid then, but these were considered the small raids. People who had just spent hours raiding in Molten Core, Blackwing Lair or AQ40 would put together these runs on the fly to gear their alts or get a shot at off-spec loot, while other guilds that didn't have the numbers for 40-man raids would spend their time raiding these while trying to build up their numbers.
Patch 4.3 PTR: Valor and conquest point changes
Bashiok has just announced new valor point and conquest point changes coming with patch 4.3 that aim to de-emphasize the collection of valor points as a primary way to gear up for content. Both 10- and 25-man versions of the Dragon Soul raid will give 100 VPs per boss, down from 115 and 135, and Firelands bosses will only give 50 points each. The changes are intended to encourage killing bosses for loot rather than killing bosses for valor points to purchase loot. One can also surmise that the change is being introduced to give players more of a reason to try the new Raid Finder feature, where bosses drop loot with a unique power level. On the PvP side of the equation, the number of conquest points received for the first daily Battleground is increasing to 100 up from 25, allowing players to work toward their conquest point caps quicker while not feeling like they have to run Rated Battlegrounds or Arenas. Both Rated Battlegrounds and Arenas will still earn players points more quickly, but this change should allow those players who prefer regular Battlegrounds to not be left in the dust.
Zarhym muses about 15-man raids
Recently, a player on the official forums asked about the potential for 15-man raids in World of Warcraft. Zarhym responded to the post, stating that he believes that 15-man raiding numbers are a "pretty optimal number of raiders" since class representation is easier to deal with. However, there is no plan in the near future for Blizzard to implement three different raid sizes in the near future, which most likely means 10- and 25-man raiding is here to stay. But what if we lived in a world of 15-man raiding? There are many benefits to 15-man raids that work around the scaling problems of 25-mans and the tuning issues of 10-mans. The big issues with 25-man raids include scaling and filling out the roster. Many guilds cannot field 25 people for their weekly raid and usually have to resort to pugging a few stragglers who aren't in tune with the group. Other guilds who cannot field 25 players choose to do two 10-man raids, but the issue of group composition takes center stage; where two 10-mans require a total of four tanks and five to six healers, the 25-man requires two tanks and six to eight healers. You can get a nasty split if you don't have just the right number of specific classes.
Race to World First documentary releasing soon
Looking for Group Productions has been hard at work on its documentary Race to World First for a good long while now, capturing many top-tier World of Warcraft guilds' attempts at claiming coveted world firsts in the raiding game as well as following Blood Legion's race to a top spot. Set to release in a few weeks, Race to World First looks like it's going to be an introspective look at the time and energy that many of these guilds put into the raiding game, as well as an examination of the multicultural nature of the game and the general excitement that goes along with MMO accomplishments. Each week, Race to World First looks at clips from players in guilds that have been fighting for or actually achieved world firsts. Looking back a bit, this clip with Narilka of Ensidia chronicles her time spent with the guild downing Kil'jaeden at the end of The Burning Crusade when she was still just 16 years old. We loved having the Race to World First production team at the WoW Insider reader meetup at BlizzCon in 2010 -- they were some of the nicest guys and had a blast talking to real players and real fans. I am excited to see this documentary. Check out the trailer -- you might even see some familiar faces!
Ask the Devs Round 8 answers your Firelands questions
The Ask the Devs question and answer series continues with Round 8, where Blizzard devs answered user-submitted questions about patch 4.2's raid content, the Firelands. Players are anxiously awaiting the next tier of raid content, and Blizzard has had a lot to answer for due to the changing nature of patches in the months to come. Blizzard answers some pretty good questions this time around and even addresses the melee DPS problem in many of the tier 11 raid fights. Some answers are a bit cryptic, however. When discussing the planned Abyssal Maw dungeon (we thought it would be a 5-man, but apparently, raid fights would have taken place there as well), Blizzard says that it believes that the Neptulon story is wrapped up fine with Throne of the Tides but doesn't make mention of the Abyssal Maw dungeons making a return. They only mention "for now," so hopefully the complete Neptulon story will be told in the depths of Vashj'ir. Another interesting point that the devs make is that they don't really understand the complaint that some aspects of the raid game are too easy, when they look at the number of people who have completed the 25-man heroic encounters in relation to the normal content modes. Also, the devs wanted to stress that they were not trying to turn 25-man raiding guilds into 10-man raiding guilds and actively tried to make the 10- and 25-man versions of encounters similar in order to stress that point. I am very excited for a new Lady Vashj bridge in the Firelands, though. WoW always has the coolest bridges. Read the full Q&A after the jump.
Officers' Quarters: Be careful what you promise
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. Promises, promises. Politicians make them all the time. In fact, many of them get elected based on those promises. No one seems surprised anymore when a politician fails to deliver on a campaign promise, yet our guild members usually expect us to do what we say we will. Could it be that guild officers are actually held to a higher standard? Let's look at this week's email to find out! Hello I am an officer (well one of 2) in a medium sized semi raiding guild We also have a large number of "casual" players in our guild. During LK era, we had 2 different 10 man raiding teams going on. Both groups I took the time to rotate different players out each given week so everyone had a chance to raid.The second group was also made up of some of the first group's alts. This was very stressful on me due to I would take all week to get the groups ready only to have someone say at the last minute would say oh I can't make it 5 minutes before raid started, then I would have to rework the "group composition" in a flurry to be able to start the raid on time. Well during Cata we all agreed we did not want to do rotations and only wanted to do 10 man raids and wanted two solid 10 man groups with the same people every week ( with a stand by if needed), so we could work as a "family" unit and mesh well together.
RIFT's endgame detailed in 18-minute video
Much has been written about RIFT in regard to the title's first 20 levels, its soul system, and the titular rifting mechanics. Endgame has remained something of a mystery up to this point, but a new article (and an accompanying 18-minute video) at G4TV has conspired to shed a little light on the proceedings. RIFT's endgame features both 10- and 20-man raid types. Trion calls the 10-man exterior raids "on-demand rifting," and in a nutshell, the encounters function similarly to the game's public quest system. The main raid group initially opens the rift and deals with the resulting enemies. Random players can also join, and the more who do, the harder the content becomes. What about loot? Only members of the rift-opening group are eligible; late-comers will receive tokens and cash. The 20-man raid experienced by G4 was an interior instance named Greenscale's Blight, which featured a more traditional setup in that there was a lockout timer and no provisions for public participation. RIFT will feature five unique raid types at launch, with more unlockable instances scheduled for post-release. These raids will open up via world events, and they're not progression-based, "meaning you don't have to do the 10-man exterior rift raids in order to try out the 20-man ones." Hit the jump for the full video. [Thanks to Puremallace for the tip!]
Breakfast Topic: The changing face of raid group sizes
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Sweat was beading on my face, and the pain just kept coming; it would not cease. I stood and could only gaze at my friends as they slowly fell one by one. As they dropped, that is when I snapped into action, for I was the harbinger of more repair bills. I was the out-of-combat rezzer. This is what I imagine my priest felt as I ran him through the Molten Core. I am glad that spot went the way of the dodo. Indeed, there are a lot of things that I do not miss from raiding, and there are a lot that I do. One of the new changes, 10s and 25s sharing raid lockouts, made me think of the changes that we have seen at each expansion. As the game seems to gear itself towards the more casual raider, I find many things much more to my liking. Yet I do remember that feel of fighting a 40-man raid boss, and that is one of the epic feelings I miss. The problem I have found with casuals, whether we were running 10/20s or alliance-guild 25s/40s: We almost always came up too crowded or short-handed, depending on the week. Either people had to be cut, or people had to be pugged. This also got me thinking, why not 15s? If we had too many for a 25, we could get two 15s; too few, one 15. Then I thought, why not just have instances scale? The more folks, the more gear, the tougher the fights -- from eight to 40 and anything between. It probably is too complicated for the programmers, but fun to think about nonetheless. What do you miss and what don't you miss about the older raid group sizes? If you could have one WoW raid group size wish come true, what would it be?
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.
