Originally Posted by
Fyersing
There were 1,101 guilds that completed all of the bosses of ICC 25 (H) during WotLK. This equates to 27,525 players participating in the highest difficulty.
A list of other raids, for comparative purposes:
Tier 11 | There were roughly 1350-1450 guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 12 | There were roughly 5000+ guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 13 | There were roughly 14,000+ guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 14 | There were roughly 1,700 guilds that cleared it (Heroic, 10/25-man).
Tier 15 | There were 366 guilds that cleared it on 25. There were 4,578 guilds that cleared it on 10.
Tier 16 | There were 1,026 guilds that cleared it on 25. There were 2,792 guilds that cleared it on 10.
Tier 17 | There were roughly 1,700 guilds that cleared it (Mythic, 20-man).
Tier 18 | There were roughly 2,750 guilds that cleared it (Mythic, 20-man).
Now, more important than the number of guilds is the number of actual players represented by them. The real number of people actively completing the highest difficulty is, very roughly, as follows:
Tier 11 | 20,047 (or 11,137 players on 25, 8,910 players on 10)
Tier 12 | 74,250 (or 41,250 players on 25, 33,000 players on 10)
Tier 13 | 207,900 (or 115,500 players on 25, 92,400 players on 10)
Tier 14 | 25,245 (or 14,025 players on 25, 11,220 players on 10)
Tier 15 | 54,180 (or 8,400 players on 25, 45,780 players on 10)
Tier 16 | 53,570 (or 25,650 players on 25, 27,920 players on 10)
Tier 17 | 34,000 players on Mythic 20.
Tier 18 | 55,000 players on Mythic 20.
So what does this all mean?
Firstly, it means that the even the least participated-in raids from each expansion post-WotLK were very nearly identical to ICC 25H in terms of player participation. Secondly, it suggests that even though the game faltered in many ways post-WotLK, the bulk of the players who unsubscribed simply weren't end-game players... because not only did the post-WotLK iterations of the game increase the number of people participating at the highest-end, but it has maintained that increase for now 4 expansions. In fact, the period which saw 10-mans as viable alternative to 25-mans actually had higher average turnouts for raiding in general.
TL;DR -- The worst and least played raids of every expansion after WotLK, including those that were released during the "oh my god, 10-man raiderz R baddiez" expansions of Cataclysm and MoP, were still often twice as participated in than ICC 25H was. At least in terms of raiding, it could be argued that compared with even Cataclysm WotLK was shit.