Paragon disbanding

[caervek]

The community wasn't asking for 15man. Your part of the community was.

Which happened to be the majority of the community. 10 man wasn't killing off 25 man prior to Blizzards intervention because of climate change, it was because the majority of raiders preferred the format.

[cFortyfive]

In past droughts it was pretty bad but there was stuff to do, usually along the lines of farming old reps, completing old quests/achievements, and PvP. Now? Well, at least the first and last one seems pretty bad in WoD.

Don't know about the state of pvp at the moment since I haven't played any since the end of highmaul but I can't remember it being some sort of highlight for quite a while. Also I am personally not some reputation grind enthusiast but well I suppose shaohao took way longer than those tiggers for instances but still I mean is it really a major difference ?

[Dracodraco]

You forgot to bold any of it, but going off the context, somebody ran the numbers a while ago and between SoO after X resets and HFC after X resets (also factoring numbers from HM/BRD into it) the amount of players participating in mythic raiding had dropped by ~66%, quite shocking when the total player base had shrunk by much less in that timeframe (~7.5mil to ~5mil). All the relevant info/figures were posted in a big thread months ago which has been link to in this thread previously, but that's the general jist of it.

The participation has jumped up recently due to the EZ mode rings making it ridiculously easy to outgear encounters so anyone can faceroll most of the HFC bosses, but the problem was/is very real and is likely to get worse in Legion after it snowballed throughout this expansion.

Sorry, was supposed to bold the part where you said "If Blizzard had gone with the communities suggestion of 15m instead of 20m then the raiding scene would have been much healthier throughout WoD and currently in a much better shape headed into Legion."


As for participation shooting up, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but HFC with rings and Ilvl upgrades are comparable to SoO with cloaks and the second set of Ilvl upgrades - not easier. The numbers might have shown less *hardcore* guilds a few months ago when the tier was newer (was this before or after ilvl upgrades?), but it's quite evident by the numbers right now that the participation is similar to SoO when you take the general population decline into account.

This is also partly because SoO was released with both item level upgrades (+8 total) and legendary cloaks from the get-go; this allowed many guilds to enter heroic SoO much quicker than they usually would, because surprise surprise, the legendary and the item level upgrades were kind of a big deal, just like they are now. The difference is when people got access to them.

Which happened to be the majority of the community. 10 man wasn't killing off 25 man prior to Blizzards intervention because of climate change, it was because the majority of raiders preferred the format.

And as I just pointed out by quoting you the exact numbers off of wowprogress, assuming healthy rosters for each guild in both 25 and 10 man, there were at the very least the same amount of 25 man raiders as there was 10 man, and based on early numbers, probably significantly more. That's what I take an issue with; The fact that you think the "loudest" part of the community is the "majority", when we have numbers showing us that they weren't. The fact that most 25 mans had 10 man alt runs doesn't mean that there's more players adding to your numbers. It means 25 man players had days off they liked to fuck around on aswell.

[caervek]

As for participation shooting up, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but HFC with rings and Ilvl upgrades are comparable to SoO with cloaks and the second set of Ilvl upgrades - not easier.

That's what I said, however participation rates after the expansion is effectively over and everything has been trivialised so anyone can face-roll it aren't really relevant. Participation in mythic HFC after X weeks was less than mythic BRD after X weeks, which was less than mythic HM after X weeks, which was less than mythic SoO after X weeks. From SoO to HFC participation numbers dropped ~33% (note: the figures don't include lolmerseus, because lolmerseus).

And yes HFC with 795 rings and Ilvl upgrades is easier than SoO with cloaks and the second set of Ilvl upgrades was, this is because having a super heroism on a 2min CD is better than a static % bonus because you can use it when you want and effectively skip a lot of hard mechanics/phases.

[Dracodraco]

That's what I said, however participation rates after the expansion is effectively over and everything has been trivialised so anyone can face-roll it aren't really relevant. Participation in mythic HFC after X weeks was less than mythic BRD after X weeks, which was less than mythic HM after X weeks, which was less than mythic SoO after X weeks. From SoO to HFC participation numbers dropped ~33% (note: the figures don't include lolmerseus, because lolmerseus).

And yes HFC with 795 rings and Ilvl upgrades is easier than SoO with cloaks and the second set of Ilvl upgrades was, this is because having a super heroism on a 2min CD is better than a static % bonus because you can use it when you want and effectively skip a lot of hard mechanics/phases.

As said; I posted the numbers above. You're free to check them out if you'd like. It might have been different at few months ago, but right now, we're getting more people raiding compared to what we used to, which means that 20 man for all intents and purposes are a success; More people get to see the "hardest" content.

As for cloaks and second valor upgrades not being as big as rings and single valor upgrades, bitch please. Clearly you haven't been farming both of these instances for months on multiple characters through the time they lasted. You say that you can use the ring to skip mechanics? Meanwhile, Garrosh heroic got trivialised for the exact same reason that Archimonde did - super high DPS pushed the boss before an ability became threatening (respectively the intermission on Garrosh and Doomfires on archi). Likewise, the last phase got made significantly easier because you had to smash one ironstar into the boss, instead of two as on the early kills, again because of gear. Pretty much exactly like how gear made guilds able to only have to deal with ONE bad infernal wave, rather than two.

You push fel lord before he starts doing his disarmed phase and raping you with seeds? We used to push Juggernaut before it ever went into siege mode.

You wait for ages for mobs and shit to spawn on HFA? We did the same on galakras.

Bloodlust and burn allows you to skip through the healing intense part of Tyrant? Funny, it allowed us to skip entire phase on Malkorok aswell.

Generally, you can draw a shitton of parallels between the two raids, and all in all, HFC really isn't much (if at all) more difficult than SoO was, with all help enabled. Both tiers allowed you to do absolutely batshit insane things - the only difference is that now we have to control the ring and make sure it does what we want, while back then, we all just got added free damage (and a ton more item levels than we have now).

There's also the fact that because the raid is smaller now, it's easier for rosters to go completly berserk and stack the FOTM (arcane mages), making killtimes ridicolous. I may have to remind you of the borderline insane shit that was pulled in SoO, like a 2 minute protectors kill with "only" 8 warlocks:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

Or 1:30 dark shamans with only SIX warlocks:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

Now imagine if those raids had been filled to the brim like some raids are now.

In short - you're seeing the effects of a smaller raid with more overpowered burst classes (rogues, mages, and even a few warlocks/boomkins are allowed to compete if they're stacked with enough mages), and the fact that you can stack them.

The only thing I will concede is that the ring is stupidly skewed for Arcane mages and Rogues, which helps kill stuff quicker. But in the end, if you entirely skip any dangerous mechanics, it really doesn't matter if you're killing the boss in 1, 2 or 3 minutes; you're still left with an encounter with no real dangerous mechanics. There's no difference to pushing Iron Juggernaut before the siege phase (3 minutes) or Iron Reaver before bombs (2:15 minutes) - both are/were possible and largely done, and both skips the entire "downphase" of the boss supposed to drain your resources. Likewise, there's no real difference to skipping Malkorok's enrage phase at 2:45 or fel lords enrage phase at 1:30, both serving the same purpose. One dies quicker, but the net result is the same.

[caervek]

It might have been different at few months ago, but right now, we're getting more people raiding compared to what we used to, which means that 20 man for all intents and purposes are a success; More people get to see the "hardest" content.

More people taking part after the raid instance has been trivialised but less people taking part while it's ongoing/relevant isn't a good thing. This expansion is essentially over/completed now and has been pretty much since Christmas, anyone clearing stuff now is doing it after the fact using the power creep from items/etc, it's about as relevant as the people currently farming SoO for xmog gear.

More people getting to see the content hasn't been an issue since LFR got added.

As for cloaks and second valor upgrades not being as big as rings and single valor upgrades, ***** please.

They weren't, the rings/upgrades were much more powerful than the cloaks/upgrades, so much so that a % zone buff/effect isn't even needed for HFC because once the rings became upgradable with valor that was the same as applying a zone wide nerf. The benefit of having everyone in fully upgraded 2/2 gear and rings is significantly more powerful than having them in fully upgraded 4/4 gear and cloaks but the big factor is how little time it took for players to get the rings (or at least the activatable versions) and start rofl stomping encounters.

A prime example is HFA, the only really hard part of that fight is when the crusher/transport/named NPCs all come at once, and having a ring available at that point is Nth times better than having cloaks or even a +5%/+10% zone buff throughout the fight. Gorefiend and Kilrogg was more examples of where having on demand nukes was a game changer. How many guilds got past gorefiend due to 795 rings who would still be struggling with just 4/4 upgrades and no ring activate lol.

[Mlz]

There's no difference to pushing Iron Juggernaut before the siege phase (3 minutes) or Iron Reaver before bombs (2:15 minutes) - both are/were possible and largely done, and both skips the entire "downphase" of the boss supposed to drain your resources.

Yeah, no. Go and look at the statistics, and stop accusing people in not farming places enough if they don't agree with you. The fastest Iron Reaver kill in 25m was longer than 2 min, the boss started going into the 2nd phase at 2min. There are 102 guilds from 25m IJ HC which killed the boss in 3 minutes or less, 124 from 10m (to be more fair, I should've excluded the p2 kills but whatever). There are ~1500 guilds which have killed Iron Reaver in 2:15 or quicker. You're giving examples of "borderline insane shit" that was pulled in SoO but you forget that you're linking Paragon logs while now even shit guilds can pretty much faceroll through the majority of the instance because the ring (which scales insanely well with the +10 ilvls) is alot stronger nerf than you dare to admit. Shit like sub 1min or even sub 2min kills where you're literally a turret became a major thing with the mythic patch, not before, whilst now it doesn't take Paragon to kill a boss in sub 2 mins (or sub the magic 2:15 to be precise). Just go and compare the speed of kills and think. Raiding HFC now feels like raiding SoO in mythic prepatch in terms of turreting the boss and (not) dealing with the mechanics. And don't come with this "killing speed doesn't matter" bs now, yeah it does because shorter kill = a lot less mechanics to deal with in addition to the retarded ring. Oh and don't be delusional - not everyone who raids 20m at the moment, prefers it. People raid it because it's the only option - it's either go 20m or gtfo.

Also about the Garrosh vs Archi comparision - come on, you make it sound like Garrosh was only hard because of the first phase and the last phase iron star. Meanwhile Archimonde - Doomfire? Lol ring (+lust). P2 adds and chains and everything? Lol ring. Infernals? Lol ring. The only hard part left in Archi at this point is the 3rd infernal wave provided you haven't saved your cds for it. Meanwhile Garrosh p1 still recuired doing an engi (like you said, can probably compare this to the one doomfire) and dealing with the iron star damage, the first intermission still was a bitch because you couldn't just pop your ring and explode everything before the casts went off and wiped your raid (a lot of guilds cheesed the ToES, I take it), you still got the weapons (could probably compare it to chains if you really want to but you got more weapons than you got chains + a lot of guilds still baited the weapons which required precise timing from more than 3 people), dealing with the mindcontrols fast and not missing interrupts on them or the adds in p1 was elementary, getting the adds together and kiting them required some decent brainwork from a tank + stun coordination from others and last but not least, even speedkill rank ~50 guilds (25m) often got 2 bombardment calls in the last phase which made dealing with at least one Iron Star pretty much mandatory (which can be compared to the one (!) bitch-moment at Archi like you mentioned). Like, maybe it really is just me but ring does make Archi a bit of a roflstomp compared to what Garrosh was, even with the upgrades (Archi feels easier even compared to the Imperator and Blackhand, just because of how idiotic the ring is).

Actually one more edit: I think your issue is that you see the raid through a world ~100 guild eyes. People in your guild are rather very good players so it's harder for you to list abilities by difficulty apart from the obvious cases. Like, handling a doomfire for you is ez and you got it wrong maybe the first 3 times. For a world 500 guild, handling doomfire went wrong for the first 30 times and they still may get hiccups here and there. Same goes for other abilities or even swapping to the priority targets. The starting point is not the same in world ~100 and world ~500 (nvm ~1k+) guilds - so the ring doesn't do as much to you and rather feels like a flat buff like the cloak was. For you that ring may not be as big of an upgrade but it is massive for worse guilds which we have way more because you know, not everyone can be world 100. Obviously the ring won't kill the bosses for guilds but for the majority of the guilds it's a huge huge burst on demand to which a flat damage buff doesn't even come close to.

I was GM of a casual 10man guild, we ended SoO top 50 west and after that took a break to figure out what the plan was for legion.

You must be a bit special to come up with that kind of sentence. Consequence has not been anywhere near casual with 5days/week schedule. If you think you are, you need a very hard reality check. Also, no shit that recruiting to a world top 50 guild is easier than recruiting to a random world 700 or whatever guild (which means that top guilds struggle less when they need to transition because they attract players who are topnotch + they care about the result, not the journey), but not every raiders wet dream in this game is to obliterate the world rankings in terms of progress. There are ample of decent enough players who cleared HFC HC in a month or couple of months and would like to step further but the only way to do it is 20m. Sure, it's easier to balance and it's more fair towards the people who care about the world rankings (do people even know who got the bosses down after Method/Paragon?) but a lot of those not-absolute-top-tier-people who used to raid/clear HC didn't really care how balanced it was or what their world ranking ended up to be, they liked/prefered 10m for entirely different reasons (which are obviously not valid if your only aim is to get on the first page on wowprogress). When you and Draco talk in this thread it literally feels like you're so stuck in your own super hardcore raiding paradigm you have no idea what's going on (or used to go on before they died) in guilds 10 ranks below you.

[Stormspark]

Popular guilds disband all the time. Heck, there was a major world first guild that disbanded during BC, and people back then cried that the sky was falling too. It wasn't.

[Dangg]

Popular guilds disband all the time. Heck, there was a major world first guild that disbanded during BC, and people back then cried that the sky was falling too. It wasn't.

Yep.
http://www.curse.com/news/world-of-w...guilds-crumble

Although all of those weren't as big as Paragon, D&T was more successful than the likes of Blood Legion for sure.

[cFortyfive]

speedkill

Whole post was tldr but Juggernaut was still easy as fuck not even mentioning reaver was an entry boss.

Meanwhile Garrosh p1 still recuired doing an engi (like you said, can probably compare this to the one doomfire) and dealing with the iron star damage, the first intermission still was a bitch because you couldn't just pop your ring and explode everything before the casts went off and wiped your raid (a lot of guilds cheesed the ToES, I take it), you still got the weapons (could probably compare it to chains if you really want to but you got more weapons than you got chains + a lot of guilds still baited the weapons which required precise timing from more than 3 people), dealing with the mindcontrols fast and not missing interrupts on them or the adds in p1 was elementary, getting the adds together and kiting them required some decent brainwork from a tank + stun coordination from others and last but not least

Mindcontrol rofl did nearly autobreak on any geared guild, you could easily let casts through just not all at once, the engineer could be handled by three chaos bolts, only one person had a relevant job during the later stages of the boss and that was the monk.

[Mlz]

Whole post was tldr but Juggernaut was still easy as fuck not even mentioning reaver was an entry boss.

Mindcontrol rofl did nearly autobreak on any geared guild, you could easily let casts through just not all at once, the engineer could be handled by three chaos bolts, only one person had a relevant job during the later stages of the boss and that was the monk.

Sorry forgot that if you say it's easy it must've been easy regardless of the objectively larger amount of shit you had to handle during IJ or Garrosh encounters (although already your "lol just let the casts through its k" is false because if you got third casts it was already one too many; if you got 2 casts off at different times it still means 8 stuns landed perfectly which is way more coordination than Archi requires). Also I was not the one who brought up IJ vs Reaver comparision but sure, go ahead and compare Reaver vs Protectors in terms of mechancis you had to handle hehe

[Quibble]

At this point everything past two hours for a guild with archi on farm for a while is kinda mostly slacking and afking even you aren't world first material.

Also, when you constantly have to recruit because people now have their bis or mount, and suddenly cba to log in anymore.. it's not always as easy..

[cFortyfive]

Sorry forgot that if you say it's easy it must've been easy regardless of the objectively larger amount of shit you had to handle during IJ or Garrosh encounters.

Yes it was. No idea where especially on garrosh having more mechanics to deal with necessarily equals having a harder encounter when all the interesting parts during later progression just depended on a single person not fucking up.

Also, when you constantly have to recruit because people now have their bis or mount, and suddenly cba to log in anymore.. it's not always as easy..

Well logistics issues can always happen.

[Mlz]

Yes it was. No idea where especially on garrosh having more mechanics to deal with necessarily equals having a harder encounter when all the interesting parts during later progression just depended on a single person not fucking up.

Selective memory must be hard to live with.

[cFortyfive]

Selective memory must be hard to live with.

Well I suppose not much harder than having to live with perceiving Garrosh as an incredibly hard encounter with double ilvl upgrades and legendary cloak. Still smirking over the mentioning of mindcontrols.

[Mlz]

Well I suppose not much harder than having to live with perceiving Garrosh as an incredibly hard encounter with double ilvl upgrades and legendary cloak. Still smirking over the mentioning of mindcontrols.

Never said it was an incredibly hard encounter, stop twisting my words. I just pointed out the amount of things people had to deal with (yes, also mindcontrols) even when progress was rather late while Archi is a joke compared to Garrosh because of the ring. Maybe it got through your thick skull now, but not too sure.

[cFortyfive]

I just pointed out the amount of things people had to deal with (yes, also mindcontrols)

I don't know how utterly trivial mechanics add anything to your argument about one encounter being a joke and the other not but feel free to think whatever you want.

[Dizzeeyooo]

perceiving Garrosh as an incredibly hard encounter with double ilvl upgrades and legendary cloak

Sorry, but when was Garrosh attempted without single ilvl upgrades and legendary cloak? Both were available from day one of SOO launch, so not sure how having them made the encounter incredibly easy vs not having them, when everyone progressing Garrosh at any point had them unless they had literally rerolled one week beforehand?

[Mlz]

I don't know how utterly trivial mechanics add anything to your argument about one encounter being a joke and the other not but feel free to think whatever you want.

You killed Garrosh in October/Novemeber 2013, the fuck you know about things being trivial or not for an average guild? Get off your high horse, really.

[Thirstblood]

Guys.. Guys... Who cares and just move the fuck on! People come and People GO! STFU for fuck sake mon!