Thoughts on starting up a new 25 core

[InfernalKatana]

So I'm one of the minority I suppose. Whereas it seems like the majority of WoW players have shifted to 10 man because it's easier, because they can't find people, or because the management of a 25 man raid group is too much work for their leadership, I'm gearing myself up from doing the opposite.

I had a 25 man raid group, my previous officers told me that if I didn't downsize to 10 man, our guild would be gone, so I did. I didn't really enjoy it, but I followed the advice of the people I trusted and the end result was the 10 man eventually died.

So I'm taking a step back and deciding that I don't care if I have no help, I don't care if others want to do 10 man (they're free to do it), but I miss big raiding; I miss having a diverse set of classes and builds and most of all, I miss the epic feeling of having a small army take on the enemies of Warcraft, as opposed to just 10 people who get together and go through the motions.

Last I saw the statistics though, it seemed like >90% of guilds out there are 10-man now, so am I completely crazy to decide now.... nearing the end of the cata expansion when everyone is finishing up hard mode content or getting burnt out from the boredom of DS... to go "hey, I want to make a new 25 man raiding core!"

I know I'm not the only one who misses larger raiding (while some prefer 10 man, it's not my thing), but do you think I've got a snowball's chance of kicking something off from scratch?

[wynterlyn]

Well I've only raided 10 mans and have PUGGed a few 25 mans. I was getting recruited to join this 25 man guild that downsized to a 10 man. I asked them their reason and they said that they only ran 25 mans during WTLK was because of the higher item level on the loot. So that was basically their main reason and probably the main reason for a large number of 25 man guilds.

However, I've noticed that a lot of the 25 Man Guilds have downsized to 10 Man on my realm. My realm was a pretty much medium-high populated realm during WTLK. It has fallen down to low-medium. However, at the same time you have to remember 25 Man was a success because people would normally PUG 10 Man runs and keep 25 M for their guilds. You don't have that option today.

Lastly it depends on what size of realm you are one. Don't expect to form a 25M raid on a small-medium realm. It isn't going to work out in the long run. Unless you are on a high-full populated realm, you would have a chance with a lot of effort if you are starting from scratch. Most people wouldn't take the risk to leave their current guilds to join a 25M guild. If you would give us more information about your realm it would help.

[Deleted]

Depends on the server .
If is high pop. you may have some chance but is going really hard now.
If is medium to low server is impossible.
Its because of the managment and the difficulty like you previous said and we all know.
Just stick on 10-man or try something else , after all is your choice .
I never saw a new 25-man guild created in Cata btw and playing in 3 servers that 2 of them are high populated.

[Mamado]

I've wanted to do the same for a long time. 25mans were always a blast. Unfortunately, any level of 'casual' play within a 25man makes the guild need a ton of alternates- which in turn means that a lot of players will have to sit each night who might actually want to raid.

I experienced that first hand when I joined a 25man raiding guild when DS was released- after being benched due to having a full raid 2/3 nights a week or sometimes even more, it got frustrating. 10mans provide greater in-raid time than 25mans do.

[gakpad]

with the 5% debuff (and 10, 15, etc) the difficulty gap between 25 and 10 will only get smaller, so if you wanted to start one, i say go for it as long as you get mostly competent folks. I'm one of two serious 25 man guilds on my server where the rest of the 15+ guilds working on heroic content are 10 mans and I enjoy it, especially with the debuff allowing us to progress when some of us not might be as good as others.

[Krowz]

Starting a brand new 25m raiding guild from scratch this late in the tier will not be easy. Finding suitable recruits isn't even easy right now for us.

[vsb]

Some problems you might encounter:
* Most of bosses are much harder for casual guild in 25-man mode. This means that your progress will be lower than progress of 10-man guilds with similar skill. It drives down morale of players and you won't get a lot of good applications. Way to fight it is promote idea of "Elite bracket" and call 10-man guilds "easymode lol". People like to feel themselves unique.
* Division of guild to "pro" players and bad players. It might cause good raiders to go 10-man raiding because they tired to carry bad players. And there's really no way for casual guild to get rid of all bad players, so you have to live with it. Though try hard to get as much good players as possible. Gear them, show them your love, make ranks for them. Don't drive bad players too crazy though, keep balance. But remember - good players are what make raiding guild. It doesn't mean that you must be elitist jerk and kick anyone with less-than-perfect rotation, but you must keep competition spirit between raiders so they will try to get better.
* 35 active raiders is a good number. You will have choice for raid and people will try not to fail because they will know that they can be benched easily.
* Distribute loot very carefully. It's very important tool for awarding and it really sucks when geared raider leaves guild. I use council loot system with epgp, mostly loot is distributed by epgp but often I will give loot to some player who will just make more profit from it.

It's for guild with any ambitious. If you want to just have some friend casual guild which will try to raid 1 day a week, 10-man is much better.

In these days casual 25-man guild is very hard to manage and convince people to play in. Actually you better to get rid of this idea and play 10-man. Eventually all 25-man guilds will die, only really old and hardcore ones will remain. Starting 25-man guild now is pointless. But it's possible if your server is active enough.

[Deleted]

I went from 10m hc raiding to 25m hc raiding in FL and absolutely hated it. I wish i had stayed with the 9 friends i had made.

From a roster point of view its going to be a struggle with DS already classed as boring because of the ease of clearing it in LFR. Remember LK wasn't even dead at this point when ICC was released. 25m is certainly harder and many people will not care for the added difficulty. Added to that the potential for people not turning up and ruining 22 other peoples night!

[Ryme]

Recruitment right now is an absolute nightmare - LFR has near enough killed our recruitment ventures on my server, we're lucky to get a couple of applications a month. On top of that, you have guild levels and reputation, starting a new guild now is far too difficult and Blizzard needs to address it.


I wish you well, but be prepared for an uphill struggle.

[Crabby]

Recruitment right now is an absolute nightmare - LFR has near enough killed our recruitment ventures on my server, we're lucky to get a couple of applications a month. I wish you well, but be prepared for an uphill struggle.

This and we are on kazzak highest pop realm pretty much. and we have ALways had great progress and attendence , but the same loot ilvl for a lot less work ( guild building sorting 25 people out not jsut the difficulty of 10s/25s)

[StaeleAilar]

You may succeed, i joined a 25 man raiding guild just under a year ago now and by the end of FL we were simply forced to downsize to a 10 man. There were no players to recruit as they were all happy to do 10 man, get the same loot etc, which is fine, but i miss 25 man raiding as well.

Ah well, hopefully there's a return of seperate lockouts and such at some point.

[InfernalKatana]

Well staying with the 9 others is not a option, as 3-4 people quit. My two options are rebuild a 10, build a 25, or quit.

EDIT: I'm not starting a whole new guild, I have a level 25 guild with a ton of perks, it's just the raiding core I need to create.

[Crabby]

or join an established 25 man and keep that guild alive since as we said ALL guilds are struggling

[Mamut]

I also miss 25 man raiding, 10 mans are like just big party to me and not a RAID. But Im on shitty realm where PVE progress is very bad and Im just "walking around" guildless and thining about transfer and finding 25 man guild (they still exists??).

[Brett Skullcrack]

25 man raiding is dying out everywhere. Guilds that have long histories, good reputations, solid management and loyal cores are finding it impossible to maintain 25 man raiding in the current environment. Building a whole new 25 man core would likely be next to impossible. The effort vs. reward of 25 man raiding is simply too horribly bad. Ask yourself what you can offer to recruits. You can't provide them access to any content they wouldn't see otherwise, you can't provide them with gear they couldn't get otherwise, and most likely you can't offer high rankings either -- yet you demand more effort. The raiding model is just fundamentally broken at the moment, at least when it comes to 25 mans.