Raid Loot

[Instinctz]

so theres a debate in my guild right now about what blizzard means by More Loot per player in 25 man, in cataclysm raids.

i think that by more loot per person, that its going to be faster (overall) to gear up in 25 man (ie 6 loot per boss, so a a loot per 4 1/6 people).
and in 10 man say 2 loots per boss, (so 1 loot per 5 people).
so by the math its faster to gear up in 25 man. however my guildy seems to think that its going to be 2 in 10 man (1/5) and 5 in 25 man (so 1/5) and thus my arguement is no one would raid 25 mans if this was the case

insight please?

[Zao]

You're right on the math part (although noone can say how many pieces of loot drop.)

I'd still say it's faster to gear up in 10 man, since you don't have as many people benched and generally a smaller turnover of players.

[Kerr0r]

One thing that must be considered is that what really matters isn't the number of items per raider, but the number of usable items per raider. In 25man this will naturally be higher, because you'll probably have more classes/specs in your raid. So 2 items per boss in 10 and 5 per boss in 25 will probably still mean that 25man will let you gear up faster.

[jsz]

My thoughts tend to side with the "2 in 10man, 6 in 25man" ideology. Thats how Blizzard has liked to scale things. 1 valk on LK10, 3 in LK25. i'm sure there are other examples.

[Organoth]

You will also get more Valor Points per boss kill. There is a cap on the number of points you can earn each week, beyond the cap of 4000 points total. The cap on how many points you can earn per week is not known yet so far as I know. That allows you to get things like your Tier pieces quicker then people running 10 mans which should add in your progression.

[Nasser]

While 2 items / 6 items seems to be the most logical ones, a week ago I ended up doing my first 25 man PuG in the past 2 years, and I was pretty much shocked to discover bosses drop 3 items - "Caster Item A" drops... oh well, one happy caster "Tank weapon B" drops... sigh useless drops, moving on the next boss- "BiS Rogue item" Oh my gosh 3 drops!?! /roll 100

However since Cataclysm drops the same loot in both raids, I would more likely expect 4-5 items per boss. Why? Because with 4-5 drops you still have a huge chance of getting something during a raid of 5 bosses.

2 drops x 5 bosses = 10 items on 10 man, ~1 item for each member
5 drops x 5 bosses = 25 items on 25 man, still ~1 item per member
Then again, all of those 25 items could be caster and dps stuff and no tank items, so you might not actually get anything.

[Wonderboy]

with the advantages 10 man holds over 25 man currently they will have to put more gear in 25 man to offset it. It may be easier to find 10 people with the intellectual capacity to move out of fire but 25 mans will be more efficient at gearing people up. Expect 1/2 10m drops and 5-7 25m drops. If they don't offset the advantage then all progress guilds will just go to 10mans. Less people to fail.

[Bradwarden]

I think 6 drop per boss is just insane, it is epicfest! I hope it will be like 1 at 10 and 3 at 25, and they can make 25 mans with giving alot more justice point.

[Chareoss]

How do we even know 10 man bosses wont drop just 1 epic? Remember ZG?

[Mowg]

I think 1 piece of loot per boss in 10-man would be overkill. However 5 pieces of loot per boss in 25 man wouldn't necessarily be much of an enticement considering you could instead have x2 ten-man groups, and (if it's x2 drops per boss) you'll essentially have 4 pieces of loot per 20 people, plus you can arrange the groups so there's as little competition for loot as possible for each group.

It'd probably have to be at least 6 pieces of loot per boss for 25 man. Or they could add a little extra RNG for 25 mans, have bosses drop a minimum of 5 pieces of loot but there's a chance they can drop up to 7 pieces of loot.

[Instinctz]

While 2 items / 6 items seems to be the most logical ones, a week ago I ended up doing my first 25 man PuG in the past 2 years, and I was pretty much shocked to discover bosses drop 3 items - "Caster Item A" drops... oh well, one happy caster "Tank weapon B" drops... sigh useless drops, moving on the next boss- "BiS Rogue item" Oh my gosh 3 drops!?! /roll 100

However since Cataclysm drops the same loot in both raids, I would more likely expect 4-5 items per boss. Why? Because with 4-5 drops you still have a huge chance of getting something during a raid of 5 bosses.

and yet, you still have the same chance in 10 man to get the item you want, and lets look at a normal raid these days

2-3 tanks (offsetted by healers)
5-6 Healers (offsetted by tanks
that leasts 17 spots for dps, normally 8 melee and 9 ranged. so if its 5 drops and say 1 is a melee, item you have a 1 in 8 chance of getting it. (or 1 in 9 for ranged)

now in 10 man
2 tanks 3 healers 2 melee, 3 ranged. 2 drops, 1 is melee you have a 1 in 2 chance of getting it (or 1 in 3 ranged)

2 drops x 5 bosses = 10 items on 10 man, ~1 item for each member
5 drops x 5 bosses = 25 items on 25 man, still ~1 item per member
Then again, all of those 25 items could be caster and dps stuff and no tank items, so you might not actually get anything.

so whats the point of doing 25 man if this is the case? its a hell of a lot easier to find 10 compentent people vise 25 compentent people

[boseguy22]

so whats the point of doing 25 man if this is the case? its a hell of a lot easier to find 10 compentent people vise 25 compentent people

This is a valid point. the 25/6 vs 10/2 Raid vs item ration sounds about right, BUT getting more loot requires 25 people to get it right vs 10 people so the math is missing a variable.

It needs:

Raid Size: 10 or 25
Loot Size: 2 or 6 (guestimate)
Wipes Per boss: ? or ?++

The fact is 25 mans usually wipe more, and looking at 5 man heroics in cata as an example, there is no more round it up and AoE. The ratio could be significantly lower in 25 mans, if you put a wipe coefficient into the mix. If we can get 2 pieces of loot with 3 or 4 wipes, or 6 pieces of loot with 20 wipes etc, Id rather to 10 man and see more content.

[Instinctz]

This is a valid point. the 25/6 vs 10/2 Raid vs item ration sounds about right, BUT getting more loot requires 25 people to get it right vs 10 people so the math is missing a variable.

It needs:

Raid Size: 10 or 25
Loot Size: 2 or 6 (guestimate)
Wipes Per boss: ? or ?++

The fact is 25 mans usually wipe more, and looking at 5 man heroics in cata as an example, there is no more round it up and AoE. The ratio could be significantly lower in 25 mans, if you put a wipe coefficient into the mix. If we can get 2 pieces of loot with 3 or 4 wipes, or 6 pieces of loot with 20 wipes etc, Id rather to 10 man and see more content.

must have joined during wrath of the nub king, i wiped way more than 20 times in BC and Vanilla fights and never had aproblem with it. maybe yuo should go try some 25 man hard modes (Lk, Sindy, Putricide) and see how much wiping you do there.

[Nasser]

so whats the point of doing 25 man if this is the case? its a hell of a lot easier to find 10 compentent people vise 25 compentent people

I never said 25 man should be equal to 10 man chances, because 25-man is less catastrophic when one member dies (or indeed several) and you get more gold, and more more points, all in all makes 25-man more attractive to me even if my chances at loot are lower. (And I'm sure there's other benefits and cons as well)

I personally play the game to have fun and enjoy myself - with 25-man raids being easier, I dont need to focus 110% on my survival because my death is instant wipe, and can instead play in a more relaxed way. Then again, maybe this is me - we shall see in December who is right :P

Also:

The fact is 25 mans usually wipe more

I wiped 10 times before getting past Saurfang in ICC10 - again this is more personal but I honestly stopped caring about wipes. Repairs were paid, I was having good fun, suddenly it was raid over time and I wanted more. Wiping on farm content is meeeeh, wiping on progression is not as bad as you think.

[Gilian]

You will also get more Valor Points per boss kill. There is a cap on the number of points you can earn each week, beyond the cap of 4000 points total. The cap on how many points you can earn per week is not known yet so far as I know. That allows you to get things like your Tier pieces quicker then people running 10 mans which should add in your progression.

No it's not. You can do 10 mans and just fill up the rest of the cap by doing daily 5 mans instead of doing 25 mans. So the only benefit is that you don't have to do 5 man dungeons when you raid 25 mans.

It's also not that easy to say 25 man drops 6 items and 10 man drops 2 items so 25 man reward more loot pp. If you are unlucky you spend twice as much time getting your 25 man raid running etc. and then bosses drop loot you don't need. Yes you have the same in 10 mans, I know. The problem is that you don't have a garanteed advantage/reward for the effort you put in. Why take the risk when you can just go 10 man?

Especially when you run pugs with different people every week 25 mans won't benefit you that much. You have less chance of getting rewarded as dps. As tank you have more chance of getting loot since 10 mans use 2 tanks and 25 mans 2-3 tanks. So only luck gets rewarded more.

Can't wait to see how this system works out. I doubt they will tune difficulty equally right away. It's not just numbers like damage and hp. 10 man raids have a lot more space to move in (same size rooms as 25 mans) and are much easier to coordinate.
Is the reward worth the effort? I doubt it. We will see in 2 months.

p.s. "Play 25 mans because you like it" is the same as saying in wotlk "play 10 mans because you like it". So it's not a good argument. People in wotlk did 25 mans for the gear. Gear that they didn't need for 10 mans. The same thing will happen in cataclysm. Even if someone thinks 25 mans is more fun but the reward is not worth the effort they will still do 10 mans. There are some exceptions but how many strict 10 man guilds are there now anyway?

[Strikesuit]

In considering expected value, one must weigh the number of bosses that are likely to be killed. Assuming the drops are 2 in 10 and 6 in 25, if the 25 man raid only kills 3 bosses and the 10 man raid kills 4, the loot per player is 8/10 (.8) and 18/25 (~.7). Given the addition of slotted tokens, 10 mans could still gear a player up more quickly if you skim the cream and take the best players.

In a friend's guild, I'll never forget his telling me how they had a 10 man team that basically cleared every ICC wing upon release but their second 10 man fell way, way behind. That guild also ran 25s fairly unsuccessfully. The first 10 would have been much better off using their lockout as a 10 man and leaving the others to flail.

[huth]

The biggest advantage to 25s will be that it's going to be far easier to get specific items, so you end up with a properly geared raid much faster than in 10s where you can go for weeks with nothing of value dropping, forcing people to use subpar gear.