5 man raiding? Sorta-ish?

[Joeydivision82]

Apparently Karazhan is gonna be a Mythic only 5 man with a weekly lockout.

How does everyone feel about this?

I wouldn't expect raiding as a whole to switch to this method, but it gives small groups of friends who don't have time to commit to a full on raid a chance to get a raid environment going.

At first I was bothered by Kara switching to a 5man until I read that and now I think its a pretty cool concept.

[darkdude103]

Kara raid isn't going away

[Jtbrig7390]

Personally I think they are testing the waters for 5man raiding...

Lets see how it plays out.

[Joeydivision82]

Kara raid isn't going away

Where did I say or imply that it was?

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Personally I think they are testing the waters for 5man raiding...

Lets see how it plays out.

I think so too, and this is the perfect way to test it imo. I spend many days doing HFC runs on my main and alts that this would be really nice. Maybe it can also be looked at as a smaller introduction/catch up way for raiders.

[Wildmoon]

I hope it's the way going forward that there will be some 5 man epic dungeons here and there as end game.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Ya I mean large 5 man mythic dungeons are totally something everyone should be excited for. They ALREADY operate like raids in a lot of structural ways, but you aren't understanding the fundamental difference between raids and dungeons if you think this is paving the way for 5 man raiding.

Two MAJOR differences between the two:
1. In a Dungeon, you spend most of your time doing something other than beating bosses. Meaning running between areas, clearing trash, etc. That is the majority of the dungeon so the challenge comes in how you can optimize that time.
2. Raid bosses are scaled around hundreds of attempts. So if you think they will make 5 man bosses like this, think again. There is no way they can properly tune an encounter with 3 dps specs present in order to make it that challenging. Not to mention fight length. 5 man bosses are like 1.5 minutes during fights where there aren't intermissions or odd phases. Raid bosses are 4-8 minutes ya know?

So no, I think everyone should be excited for more long dungeons like UBRS back in the day, or even like Kara back in the day. They are essentially the same thing, except UBRS had no lockout.

[NicoWolf]

It depends on a single question.

* Will Karazhan be considered a 5man Mythic Dungeon or 5man Mythic Raid?

The answer to this question may not be as simple as we think. What constitutes the difference between dungeons and raids currently is one is designed to familiarize you with mechanics and help you develop an affinity for the class you're playing; the other is test how well you perform, both as an individual and a teamplayer on a larger scale.. By the time you reach the current expansion of Normal Dungeon environments, you should fine tuning your spec's performance and adjusting for any new talents or changes to your spec as they come. In Heroic Dungeons, you're not only fine tuning, but you're also making your first steps toward progression to actual raiding; in short, gearing up to be raid-ready.

Enter the Raid Environment; During Normal and Heroic Dungeons, there was a loose observation and adherence to fight mechanics. As you progress through these difficulties, the mechanics become more impactful on your playstyle, forcing you to learn and adapt to the changing mechanics of the fight.

So what the hell does this have to do with Kara being a 5man dungeon or a raid?

It's about comparative value, difficulty vs. reward, and ultimately function.

Most importantly, what is the function of a 5-man Raid? It could be used for a lot of reasons; as OP mentioned, to give a smaller group of players a chance to reap rewards they would otherwise be unable to get in a larger raid environment due to time constraints, personal schedules, etc. But if that's the case, then what is the value of that gear? For it to qualify as "Mythic", said gear would have to be significantly greater than what a heroic instance might offer. However, if the gear is too powerful, say as how WoD Mythics can drop Heroic HFC quality gear, then it becomes a question of alternatives.

Would you rather face off against 24 other people in contest for a piece of loot or against 4 other people, 1 or 2 of which might share the same need for that specific loot?

Secondly, there's the value of the raid itself. if the value of the raid is higher than the current tier of raiding (minus 2pc/4pc Sets), then you're going to have people raiding Karazhan for superior quality gear and using the current raid tier as filler. Blizzard wouldn't allow that to happen, which means the value of the raid must be enough to encourage undergeared people to run it while providing the role of filler for heavily geared players. However, this is where the issue of difficulty versus reward steps in.

If the instance is TOO difficult for undergeared players, then they'll simply step into a normal/heroic raid and get their gear from there until they are ready handle 20man mythic content. If the instance is too easy, then there's no point.

Lastly, and this is the part that bothers me the most; timing.

7.1 will introduce Karazhan back into current content as a 5 man Mythic with a one week lockout. The timing suggests that this means the instance will be significantly harder than heroic dungeons, but not as difficult as the FIRST raid tier of the expansion which means all this effort into making Karazhan a new mythic 5man could result in the instance only being relevant for first part of the expansion. Once the next raid tier comes out, it would likely fall by the wayside for more powerful gear in environments that are either easier to attain or easier to get involved in.

Sorry for the long winded explanation, but that's my take on it.

TL;DR: Karazhan will be a nice filler in between heroic dungeons and actual raiding.

[Joeydivision82]

Ya I mean large 5 man mythic dungeons are totally something everyone should be excited for. They ALREADY operate like raids in a lot of structural ways, but you aren't understanding the fundamental difference between raids and dungeons if you think this is paving the way for 5 man raiding.

Two MAJOR differences between the two:
1. In a Dungeon, you spend most of your time doing something other than beating bosses. Meaning running between areas, clearing trash, etc. That is the majority of the dungeon so the challenge comes in how you can optimize that time.
2. Raid bosses are scaled around hundreds of attempts. So if you think they will make 5 man bosses like this, think again. There is no way they can properly tune an encounter with 3 dps specs present in order to make it that challenging. Not to mention fight length. 5 man bosses are like 1.5 minutes during fights where there aren't intermissions or odd phases. Raid bosses are 4-8 minutes ya know?

So no, I think everyone should be excited for more long dungeons like UBRS back in the day, or even like Kara back in the day. They are essentially the same thing, except UBRS had no lockout.

I get what you're saying, but you're forgetting something, you don't the exact structure of a 10+ man raid and implement that into the 5man, you take the basic structure and find the middle ground between a 5man and a raid, hence what could be potentially a new system of PVE.

But if you're saying they cant tune a raid to support something like a raid into a 5 man, that is EXACTLY what the new version of Karazhan is doing. It was tuned for 10 people and will now be doable with 5, therefore a raid is being tuned for 5man. They sort of did it with ZG/ZA but changed things to be a 5man at heart, this is being changed to be done on multiple trips there the same way a raid is, and given a week lockout where ZG/ZA had the heroic reset.

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It depends on a single question.

* Will Karazhan be considered a 5man Mythic Dungeon or 5man Mythic Raid?

The answer to this question may not be as simple as we think. What constitutes the difference between dungeons and raids currently is one is designed to familiarize you with mechanics and help you develop an affinity for the class you're playing; the other is test how well you perform, both as an individual and a teamplayer on a larger scale.. By the time you reach the current expansion of Normal Dungeon environments, you should fine tuning your spec's performance and adjusting for any new talents or changes to your spec as they come. In Heroic Dungeons, you're not only fine tuning, but you're also making your first steps toward progression to actual raiding; in short, gearing up to be raid-ready.

Enter the Raid Environment; During Normal and Heroic Dungeons, there was a loose observation and adherence to fight mechanics. As you progress through these difficulties, the mechanics become more impactful on your playstyle, forcing you to learn and adapt to the changing mechanics of the fight.

So what the hell does this have to do with Kara being a 5man dungeon or a raid?

It's about comparative value, difficulty vs. reward, and ultimately function.

Most importantly, what is the function of a 5-man Raid? It could be used for a lot of reasons; as OP mentioned, to give a smaller group of players a chance to reap rewards they would otherwise be unable to get in a larger raid environment due to time constraints, personal schedules, etc. But if that's the case, then what is the value of that gear? For it to qualify as "Mythic", said gear would have to be significantly greater than what a heroic instance might offer. However, if the gear is too powerful, say as how WoD Mythics can drop Heroic HFC quality gear, then it becomes a question of alternatives.

Would you rather face off against 24 other people in contest for a piece of loot or against 4 other people, 1 or 2 of which might share the same need for that specific loot?

Secondly, there's the value of the raid itself. if the value of the raid is higher than the current tier of raiding (minus 2pc/4pc Sets), then you're going to have people raiding Karazhan for superior quality gear and using the current raid tier as filler. Blizzard wouldn't allow that to happen, which means the value of the raid must be enough to encourage undergeared people to run it while providing the role of filler for heavily geared players. However, this is where the issue of difficulty versus reward steps in.

If the instance is TOO difficult for undergeared players, then they'll simply step into a normal/heroic raid and get their gear from there until they are ready handle 20man mythic content. If the instance is too easy, then there's no point.

Lastly, and this is the part that bothers me the most; timing.

7.1 will introduce Karazhan back into current content as a 5 man Mythic with a one week lockout. The timing suggests that this means the instance will be significantly harder than heroic dungeons, but not as difficult as the FIRST raid tier of the expansion which means all this effort into making Karazhan a new mythic 5man could result in the instance only being relevant for first part of the expansion. Once the next raid tier comes out, it would likely fall by the wayside for more powerful gear in environments that are either easier to attain or easier to get involved in.

Sorry for the long winded explanation, but that's my take on it.

TL;DR: Karazhan will be a nice filler in between heroic dungeons and actual raiding.

This is the kind of response I was hoping for, so no need to apologize. It's insightful and well rounded with opinion and actual explanations that may be how things play out.

One thing I am confused about in your post is, you're calling it a Mythic, but I don't know if you're comparing it to Mythic 5-man or Mythic Raiding 20-man.

It's placement makes me think that it can also be used for those who are late to the party or are switching mains after The Emerald Nightmare to help catch up and be closer geared for The Nighthold, or depending on ilevels for each level of raiding, it may be a catch up to jump into The Emerald Nightmare. But either way, this is something we've never seen and no real information has been release so it's pure speculation.

My personal hope would be to see it be very similar to actual raiding but with a tight knit group of friends instead of having filler, even with lesser rewards, or side grades. It's something my guild would probably do on our mains for the hell of it and actually work with our alts on it when we aren't raiding if that were to be the case.

[Shuji V2]

Guys, it's called a party. 5-man raiding, on what kind of crack are you guys =/

[I Push Buttons]

Dungeon sets please, and I don't just mean the jewelry/trinket combos from launch dungeons.

[Joeydivision82]

Guys, it's called a party. 5-man raiding, on what kind of crack are you guys =/

a standard dungeon doesn't have a week lockout.

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Guys, it's called a party. 5-man raiding, on what kind of crack are you guys =/

a standard dungeon doesn't have a week lockout. my point is, things are changing and this is something we've never seen.

[ReVnX]

a standard dungeon doesn't have a week lockout.

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a standard dungeon doesn't have a week lockout. my point is, things are changing and this is something we've never seen.

Current mythic dungeons have a week lockout

[Joeydivision82]

Current mythic dungeons have a week lockout

Good point, but its stressed that this isn't intended as a quick run. It follows a raid format unlike a current Mythic dungeon.

[NicoWolf]

I get what you're saying, but you're forgetting something, you don't the exact structure of a 10+ man raid and implement that into the 5man, you take the basic structure and find the middle ground between a 5man and a raid, hence what could be potentially a new system of PVE.

But if you're saying they cant tune a raid to support something like a raid into a 5 man, that is EXACTLY what the new version of Karazhan is doing. It was tuned for 10 people and will now be doable with 5, therefore a raid is being tuned for 5man. They sort of did it with ZG/ZA but changed things to be a 5man at heart, this is being changed to be done on multiple trips there the same way a raid is, and given a week lockout where ZG/ZA had the heroic reset.

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This is the kind of response I was hoping for, so no need to apologize. It's insightful and well rounded with opinion and actual explanations that may be how things play out.

One thing I am confused about in your post is, you're calling it a Mythic, but I don't know if you're comparing it to Mythic 5-man or Mythic Raiding 20-man.

It's placement makes me think that it can also be used for those who are late to the party or are switching mains after The Emerald Nightmare to help catch up and be closer geared for The Nighthold, or depending on ilevels for each level of raiding, it may be a catch up to jump into The Emerald Nightmare. But either way, this is something we've never seen and no real information has been release so it's pure speculation.

My personal hope would be to see it be very similar to actual raiding but with a tight knit group of friends instead of having filler, even with lesser rewards, or side grades. It's something my guild would probably do on our mains for the hell of it and actually work with our alts on it when we aren't raiding if that were to be the case.

In response to the bold section: The title of your post is "5 man raiding? Sorta-ish". I used that as the backdrop for everything I stated going forward. Sorry for the confusion. I did preface it with the question of whether or not it'd be a 5-man Mythic Dungeon or a 5-man Mythic Raid as to provide better clarity.

Also, in regards to your placement statement, about players being late to the party or switching mains; I doubt Karazhan would weigh into that equation until all other options had been exhausted. Whatever instance offered a higher ilvl would likely be chosen over it, especially if its a matter of current tier versus previous tier content. That said, if they are late to the game and it is still the current tier, then Karazhan can still maintain that active relevance to the experience.

[Deleted]

All mythic dungeons have a weekly lockout.
It's just a big mythic dungeon.

Old Karazhan isn't going away, this isn't testing the waters for something novel, it's just something we've had for all of WOD. The only thing to take from this is that Blizzard might (finally) be putting some effort into making big and interesting dungeons again as opposed to the bitesized content they've been doing for the past few expansions, since that fits within the mythic dungeon difficulty framework.

[DaHomieG]

Isn't 5 man raiding just a dungeon..? What makes it any different other than difficulty?

[Shuji V2]

or its follows the vanilla dungeon format

This basically.

[Joeydivision82]

Isn't 5 man raiding just a dungeon..? What makes it any different other than difficulty?

Did you not read my entire post? or read anything about the 5man Karazhan?

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or its follows the vanilla dungeon format

So you're saying Vanilla dungeons had weekly lockouts and were a difficulty where it would require multiple days to finish?

[Alopex]

BRD sure felt like it took multiple days to finish

[Wildmoon]

BRD sure felt like it took multiple days to finish

BRD is an outlier. It's bigger than most raids.