Raid balance: worse since 20 Mythic static size

[Enkrypt]

As someone who has only been successful Mythic raiding in Legion (not for lack of trying), I will say in my experience, that our BIGGEST problem that held us back from completing a tier on Mythic on time before now was the static 20-man raid size. Obtaining 20 Mythic level raiders that are:

1. Skilled enough
2. Available enough
3. Consistent enough
3. Mature enough
4. Able to play with others

...IS HARD. VERY, VERY HARD. Harder than the bosses themselves.

Granted, we're not world or server-first level players. We don't want to be. But finding people that don't jump ship or burn out was single-handedly the most difficult obstacle I achieved in WoW. I'm not sure if that's by design, but having 20 doesn't even work. What if someone gets sick? What if an encounter needs a different class to help smooth it out? You gotta realistically have 23-25 Mythic raiders, 5 of whom who are willing to sit during progression.

I just don't like this system. It excludes people from content who would otherwise LOVE to do it. I just can't buy that it can't be difficult AND flexible. Like, take Heroic difficulty, make it 500% harder, and call it Mythic. Voila. Lol, I kid, I kid.

Anyway, rant over...

[Eon Drache]

This applies to aluriel with ranged having to deal with shitty mark of frost, trilliax with cakes, krosus with adds, elisande with orbs...nh has been really punishing for ranged

We didn't really have enough ranged for those other fights so it felt really bad as a ret paladin. Specially Trilliax. I was running to the far corners collecting cakes haha. Same for Krosus and Aluriel. But I feel Gul'dan really took it to the next level where if you didn't have enough ranged you just couldnt do it. And if you did have the ranged melee just didn't really do anything. The only solace for us was melee did have to run out to help dps the orbs and adds because our ranged couldn't kill them in time.

[Craaazyyy]

So look at this and tell me 5 rogues are a problem. And there a lot other bosses where you stacked classes.

this wasnt intended tho.. stacking on KJ wasnt due to a bug or something like that

[Deleted]

* Avatar, overtuned at first, too much emphasis on soaking, good tuning after first set of nerfs.
* KJ, overtuned at first, too much empahsis on soaking, good tuning after the first set of nerfs.

That's funny cause only Method killed Avatar after second set of nerfs, KJ died only after third or fourth set of nerfs as well so how does that work ?

I think Maiden would have been a LOT harder if solo soaking wasn't possible. The amount of coordination required would offset the low dps requirement for the fight, and hps requirement would be significantly higher to keep the party completely topped off before each hammer.

WF kill was not solo soaked, while sure it made the fight a bit harder and way more annoying it was still a joke considering the bosses position.


@OP

Apart from Xavius, Fallen Avatar and Kil'Jaeden tuning has been quite impressive since mythic was introduced, especially throughout entire WoD.

[HyperJay]

Everything before Mistress is a joke. KJ shouldn't have been nerfed so much

[Reloe]

That's funny cause only Method killed Avatar after second set of nerfs, KJ died only after third or fourth set of nerfs as well so how does that work ?



WF kill was not solo soaked, while sure it made the fight a bit harder and way more annoying it was still a joke considering the bosses position.


@OP

Apart from Xavius, Fallen Avatar and Kil'Jaeden tuning has been quite impressive since mythic was introduced, especially throughout entire WoD.

usually if you talk about nerfs you don't include the ones that happened before WF, because lets be honest here those are not really nerfs, these are changes made after having players live-test them for blizzard.

Especially because some of them may not even be documented in the hotfix notes, so its very hard for the community to keep track of changes made during progression. Its way easier to see the boss in his "original form" when he was first killed and then go from there in terms of nerfs.

[Deleted]

1. Encounters have been anything but finely tuned
- Emerald Nightmare released extremely undertuned.
- Trial of Valor released extremely overtuned.
- Nighthold released with extreme AP requirements, and steep difficulty spikes (Trillax --> Krosus, Botanist/Tich ---> Augur)
- Tomb of Sargeras with steep difficulty spikes (Harj/Demonic Inq --> Sisters, Desolate --> Mistress, Maiden --> Avatar --> KJ). Kil'jaeden is quite possibly the most nerfed boss in the history of WoW.

Neither of these have anything to do with the required raid size of 20...

2. Class stacking has never been this extreme
2 Guardians/5 Rogues/HPally+RShaman+RDruid comp was essentially mandatory this expansion. About a quarter of all damage specs represented in most Mythic raid groups.

Optimal, yes. Mandatory? Not so much.

[Nefarious Tea]

Neither of these have anything to do with the required raid size of 20...

It actually does. OP's argument was that one of the reasons for fixing mythic at 20 was "easier balancing and tuning of bosses." He's arguing that the ridiculous variance in difficulty (and nerf-hammers) in regards to Mythic fights this expansion essentially makes Blizzard out to be liars.

[Sarevokcz]

This applies to aluriel with ranged having to deal with shitty mark of frost, trilliax with cakes, krosus with adds, elisande with orbs...nh has been really punishing for ranged

everyone had to deal with trilliax cakes and krosus adds and we had melee doing some orbs on ellisande simply for the immunity soaks

and you have it backwards, NH had very punishing mechanics for melee and THATS why if possible, only ranged were assigned to them, the reason alluriel marks were exclusively assigned to ranged was simply because the mechanic was very punishing for melee, who couldnt dps for extended periods of time and be literally worthless, same reason why ranged were assigned to robots on trilliax or for the pulsing people on botanist, you didnt want melee to be out of the fight for half a minute or longer...

[Deleted]

It actually does. OP's argument was that one of the reasons for fixing mythic at 20 was "easier balancing and tuning of bosses." He's arguing that the ridiculous variance in difficulty (and nerf-hammers) in regards to Mythic fights this expansion essentially makes Blizzard out to be liars.

And what i am saying is that we have basically no idea which kind of effect it had. For multiple reasons:
- 20man limitation is in no way limited to Legion mythics... it has been around since end of Pandaria.
- the fixed number of 20 was not the only variable which might have influenced what he describes as a problem; things like Artifact power and artifacts had more of an effect here

We might never be sure what kind of effect it really had... heck, it could have had the intended effect and we just don't know it cause all the other factors had that much more weight.

[Dangg]

"If the team was to drop the Mythic size to 15, many groups would be happy, but your roster would shrink over time, and you would eventually be back to the problem of not having enough people once again."


What kind of logic is that? It's still easier to recruit and maintain a roster for 15 man. Just like 25 was an improvement over 40.

[Deleted]

"If the team was to drop the Mythic size to 15, many groups would be happy, but your roster would shrink over time, and you would eventually be back to the problem of not having enough people once again."


What kind of logic is that? It's still easier to recruit and maintain a roster for 15 man. Just like 25 was an improvement over 40.

No it isnt. There will be more guilds fighting for players. So nothing will be easier. People will quit and recruiting good raiders will be as hard as it is now.

Additionally it is harder to keep a good roster with smaller raids. You need more tanks relative to dps, so you will see a tank drought. Smaller raid sizes will favor ranged. You have less "free" spots.

Anyways, any guild with constant recruitment (we usually have 1 trial each week) + some people switching to alts if necessary is working really good although we are on a dead realm.

[omeomorfismo]

As someone who has only been successful Mythic raiding in Legion (not for lack of trying), I will say in my experience, that our BIGGEST problem that held us back from completing a tier on Mythic on time before now was the static 20-man raid size. Obtaining 20 Mythic level raiders that are:

1. Skilled enough
2. Available enough
3. Consistent enough
3. Mature enough
4. Able to play with others

...IS HARD. VERY, VERY HARD. Harder than the bosses themselves.

Granted, we're not world or server-first level players. We don't want to be. But finding people that don't jump ship or burn out was single-handedly the most difficult obstacle I achieved in WoW. I'm not sure if that's by design, but having 20 doesn't even work. What if someone gets sick? What if an encounter needs a different class to help smooth it out? You gotta realistically have 23-25 Mythic raiders, 5 of whom who are willing to sit during progression.

I just don't like this system. It excludes people from content who would otherwise LOVE to do it. I just can't buy that it can't be difficult AND flexible. Like, take Heroic difficulty, make it 500% harder, and call it Mythic. Voila. Lol, I kid, I kid.

Anyway, rant over...

you still will exclude people even with flex. i mean, if you are ok to benching someone to bring a class that make smoother progression, why you shouldnt set the raid with the optimal number to make easier the encounter (than unavoidably exists)?

[God Save The King]

All your objections have essentially nothing to do with 20 man raid size.

The issue with this expansion has been AP and titanforged gear. It has inflated player power to a much higher level before entering the new raid. So Blizzard has tried to compensate.

As an example, my entire guild entered Emerald Nightmare on week one, with 852-854 ilvl, and perfect stats due to crafted gear. We stomped through heroic and mythic because of that preparation.

Also, difficulty spikes have always been a thing. From classic to legion, all raids have had difficulty spikes.


If they make it 15 man, or 25 man, it's going to fix neither of these issues. Blizzard needs to have better foresight of their systems. It was obvious from an outsider that we'd have substantially more power going into EN than we did into any previous introductory raid.

[Enkrypt]

you still will exclude people even with flex. i mean, if you are ok to benching someone to bring a class that make smoother progression, why you shouldnt set the raid with the optimal number to make easier the encounter (than unavoidably exists)?

I'm sorry, can you elaborate more? I don't quite understand the question.

[ItsTiddles]

All your objections have essentially nothing to do with 20 man raid size.

But people need to complain about roster issues. So that way Blizzard can drop it down to 15 man so then raid teams get smaller and still have roster issues.

[Marrilaife]

I agree that tankbalance is in a very bad state, but monk/dk are just as viable.

Having only 50% of the specs for the role be "viable" is a complete disaster, let's not wrap it in cotton. I hope BFA does something about it, I wonder how would people feel if only 50% of dps specs were viable? Everyone just focuses on disparity between top and bottom dps specs, as if dps was the only role in the game.

2. Blizzard wanted to add mechanics that could only be countered by certain specs and there was a strong argument it was possible not to have that class(let alone spec) in a standard 10 man heroic guild.

That's another problem, because Blizzard gave some abilities to SPECS not CLASSES and hello, we have 6 tank specs but only 2 (rarely 3) tank spots per encounter. If an ability tied to a tank is necessary to counter a mechanic, it's a disaster, screwing guilds who don't happen to use that specific tank class, they need to rush to recruit one, force one of their tanks to reroll, or bench one of their tanks and make another person play a tank offspec if they happen to main that class in another role.

Additionally it is harder to keep a good roster with smaller raids. You need more tanks relative to dps, so you will see a tank drought.

No idea what do you mean by "drought", at the moment you need to be much more skilled and dedicated tank to find a guild than if you play hunter or mage. Rarely if ever there are any tank openings and when they exist, they're subject to extreme scrutiny, while ranged dps are in extreme demand and can always find guild even with mediocre logs or poor guild history. There are few exceptions, for example in TOS guilds were extremely eager to recruit a "bench" guardian druid that would only fill a role of a 3rd tank on KJ - not really a glorious perspective for anyone willing to tank, as they would be used for 1 fight and then discarded. And yes, I've seen tanks looking for guild on wowprogress that stated one way or another they were just used as a 3rd tank for KJ and then the guild has no more future for them. I've also seen hunters with mediocre logs looking for "only world top 100 guilds" and surprise, surprise, they're actually finding spots despite their expectations are extremely elevated in comparison to how they present themselves.

Not even mentioning the fact that two progression pve paths - mythic+ and mythic raiding, have extreme disparity in ratio of tank to dps. Which means a successful mythic raid guild when they want to farm m+ on a side, experiences shortage of tanks. To this day you can check what guilds are recruiting - mostly dps, maybe a healer here and there, then pop into m+ queue and see how hard is it to find a group as a dps due to this discrepancy, you list a group on your key and there's 20 dps for every tank or healer, especially since tanks and healers will find guildie dps to fill a group, but a dps won't always find a spot in a guild group because there's more dps than spots.

[Deleted]

I don't mind having a diverse cast of healers. This is how it was back in the days when I enjoyed raiding the most. I loved having these unique healer classes which all had very different strengths and weaknesses. Back in Wrath, you always wanted a holy pally for the tanks, a resto druid for topping people off and brez, and resto shamans for their powerful multi target healing, mana tide, and Bloodlust. Disc was also very good for their Power Word: Shield.

Honestly I think healing is one of the few things they've gotten right a lot of the time. Seems like you always want a diverse cast of healers. I wish they could do the same to DPS classes.

I agree that DPS is a problem. Fire Mages making cleave fights a joke with their damage, as well as being able to soak infinite amounts of damage with Ice Block and having Blink to counter KJ's knockback. They're PREEETTY good for that fight. And then you have rogues which are basically the single target equivalent of fire mage (not to mention that Frost mage is very good single target still as well). Rogues have so many tricks to enable them to solo mechanics that are normally meant for multiple people. Cloak of Shadows is normally just a better version of Divine Shield or Ice block since most bosses just use magic damage anyway. The fact that Feint makes them so resilient is also a little ridiculous. It has zero CD and only a slight energy cost but reduces damage taken from AoE by 50%. Wtf is that? Icebound Fortitude is a 20% damage reduction on a 3 minute CD and they have a 50% damage reduction on practically all soak mechanics with zero CD on top of Cloak (which is like a 1.5 minute CD, yeah?). It's absurd. You'd think they'd be taxed heavily on their damage what with all of the utility that they bring.

Not sure where this "give the rogue all of the tools" thing came from anyway. In Vanilla, they were just pure single target DPS with little in the way of preventing their own death aside from Feint reducing their threat which made it possible for them to DPS even harder than other classes with limited ways to reduce their threat. Cloak wasn't added until TBC.





Also the balancing has definitely been worse. Part of the reason that they decided to consolidate raid sizes was the apparent difficulty problems they were having. In Cata, the first raid tier was plagued with 10 man being harder due to limited raid size. You could class stack the FUCK out of 25 man. They also had the luxury to three tank some encounters which made them significantly easier that 10 man just didn't have. When my guild did Maloriak for example, we had to have our holy pally swap to tank and just two heal that shit because we needed the DPS. A 10 man would lose 1/5th of their DPS if they had one swap to tank, but a 25 man would only lose 1/19th, 1/18th, or 1/17th doing the same depending on how many healers they took. And then you had the OPAF feral druid stacking on heroic 25 man Nefarian back when bleeds would snapshot. I forget the exact method of cheese, but I remember it was fucking NUTS. I think this was also back before they changed battle rez to be a group wide thing so... brez stacking was always pretty good as well.

Yeah, Rogues are definitely on the overtuned side of Utility at the moment. They have so many ways of avoiding any and all types of damage while also having access to Cheat Death AND they also do great damage. Sub has been very strong recently.

[Daedius]

Tell Blizzard to get off their weird obsession with soaking shit and it won't be an issue, has nothing to do with Mythic being 20 man.

Probably some dev's dog pissing all over in their workplace, and usage of super soaking kitchen towels, giving them ideas...

[Abradford13]

I think this xpac has been great, its just with the addition of mythic+ for the first time, im sure it made it difficult to balance raids. Lots of new things being added to the game, Just wait for BfA and hopefully they have finetuned everything to fit better and make raid balance to player power more predictable