What are the 10-man 'strict' guild rankings?
The 10-man strict rankings show the achievements of pure 10-man raiding guilds. A 'pure' 10-man raiding guild is one that does not participate in 25m progression content. We recognize that 25-man guilds or guilds that regularly participate in 25m pug runs often have a distinct advantage since they can gear up at accelerated rates and move faster through 10-man content. Consequently, our 10-man strict rankings exclude guilds which access any 25-man content that offers higher ilvl gear than what the current 10-man normal content provides. If you are a 10m guild that has members which want to run 25 man pugs then the 'strict' classification is not for you.
First introduced by GuildOx in early 2009 - we became the innovator of 10m strict guild rankings.
What is the 10-man 'strict' criteria?
Guilds will be excluded when they earn any Icecrown Citadel (ICC) 25 normal kills or any TotGC 25 hard-mode kills. Guilds must also have their 10M Progress World Rank be better than (lower than) their 25M Progress World Rank.
We have added a special trigger for the ICC 25 normal kills that will exclude a guild from strict rankings when 8 players achieve it over time. For example, if your guild pugs ICC 25 normal then you will be excluded from the strict rankings when a total of 8 players in your guild participate in the Lord Marrowgar 25 normal kill. Please ensure you discourage your guild members from participating in any ICC 25 normal and TotGC 25 hard-mode runs if you wish to remain on the strict rankings. Also be sure minimize the recruitment of players that have previously achieved these kills since they will contribute to the guild total, regardless of when they achieved it. VoA 25 and Onyxia 25 are exempt from the criteria and can be run without risking your 10m strict rankings.
Special tip: If you wish to remain on the 10-man strict list over the long term then be sure to have your guild stay within the criteria - we are unable to remove earned achievements once they are in the GuildOx database. Also note that the criteria will change as new content is released. The best approach to future-proof your strict ranking is to advise your guild members not to run any 25-man content that features higher iLevel gear when compared to the current 10-man normal content. We reserve the right to tighten the criteria at any time if we judge that guilds are 'gaming' the strict rankings.
But ICC 25 normal drops the same iLvl gear as ICC 10 hard mode, why can't we run ICC 25 normal and stay 10m strict?
It is true that ICC 25 normal drops 264 iLvl gear and this is the same iLvl at ICC 10 hard mode. However, guilds can gear up at twice the rate if they run ICC 25 normal and this is clearly an unfair advantage - GuildOx ranks guilds based on the rate at which they earn achievements/kills. Yes, we understand that you can get iLvl 264 gear from emblem vendors and other sources, but we have drawn the line at ICC 25 normal. We also understand that Lord Marrowgar 25 is easy to run as a PUG.