What if Blizzard just admitted 10 and 25 are not equal?

[Deleted]

needing 3 tanks for some fights doesn't break 10 mans, if you have a dedicated core, it's not hard to gear someone's OS geared up. i don't remember this much complaining about sarth 3d 10.

It was well known that Sartharion+3 was HELL on 10-man compared to 25-man back in the days where you couldn't zerg the boss. I have no idea where your statement comes from.

Having 3 tanks makes a whole world of a difference in 10-man. Think of it as taking 2-3 additional tanks on 25-man(10% of the raid)


EDIT: It doesn't break 10-mans, but it certainly makes them harder. Frankly, I wouldn't want it any other way

[sicness]

It was well known that Sartharion+3 was HELL on 10-man compared to 25-man back in the days where you couldn't zerg the boss. I have no idea where your statement comes from.

Having 3 tanks makes a whole world of a difference in 10-man. Think of it as taking 2-3 additional tanks on 25-man(10% of the raid)


EDIT: It doesn't break 10-mans, but it certainly makes them harder. Frankly, I wouldn't want it any other way

Correct, the only real coveted encounter to defeat for the best guilds on every server was Sarth 3D 10 man during the first tier of WotLK. Losing 15k dps right now is a huge difference if you need a tank over a dps.

[Handsylton]

Okay, so the reason that loot would be the same for both is so people don't feel compelled to raid in an environment that they are not comfortable with. We can agree that both 10 and 25 man Heroic modes are extremely difficult, especially when you get towards the end bosses of the tier. Whether this is a balancing issue or just a numbers tweak, or that they simply have to nerf 10 man Heroic bosses a little, they are almost identically equal. If you are getting the same kind of loot from both 10 and 25, this would intrinsically make 10 mans slightly easier than 25 man versions, even if both are tuned to the same difficulty.

My post is certainly not saying "Raids are too hard, nerf them all to hell". Trust me, that is in no way what I mean by my suggestion. I am merely stating that a difficult challenge is what regular modes are for. An ultimate challenge is what Heroic modes are for. If you are skilled enough and your guild is skilled enough that going through regular mode fights are a little too easy for your liking, then you'll love the challenge of Heroic modes. If you are comfortable with the normal mode fights, then go for it on normal mode.

Also, I think that it is somewhat cheap having Heroic mode only bosses. Basically, there are probably less than 250 people in the world who have seen Lady Sinestra. That's pretty much nonexistent when comparing it to the player population. Now, if someone was reading a book, and chapter 5 had a lock on it, and the book had a little tag that said "you can only read chapter 5 after you've read all the other chapters and have the knowledge of the story to go back and read chapter 5. Oh, but we are going to reference things that happened in chapter 5 repeatedly, so you'll know everything, but not really." That doesn't sound like a good book to me. Holding back rewards from going to people who do not want to put in the effort or work is one thing. Holding back content to the storyline is something entirely different. It has always been my problem with Heroic mode only bosses. Holding back gear, titles, mounts is one thing.

Holding back intricate pieces of the storyline is detrimental to the player experience. Killing Sinestra on 10 man normal mode would in no way take away from killing her on 10 man Heroic mode, and to say that you don't want other people to experience CONTENT (and i say content as in story), is a pretty arrogant statement. It's not a give-in to clear 12/12 in 10 man normal mode. You still have to work for it. So saying anything else is just arrogant and selfish.

[Rushed]

NORMAL 10man fights may be slightly easier than 25m with the exception of Nefarian. You cant afford a 3rd tank on 10m Nef for adds in p1, depending on your raid comp you may not have proximity buffs/resistance on certain people. For example our Ony tank has no nature resist, so the electrocute + breath is a deadly combination. And then you split up into 3 groups and isolate even more people from proximity buffs. The pillar I'm on has shadow but not fire resistance, so we take the full brunt of Nefarians shadowflame breaths. Also its more difficult to have 3 consistent hit capped interrupts in 10m. We currently have 2, and on the third pillar if the interrupt misses, its a wipe.

But then theres heroic 10mans which are completely overtuned to the point its laughable. Blizzard didn't account for the differences in 10 and 25man groups. If you have to kite an add throughout a fight in 25m, you make a hunter or something do it and you lose like 6-7% of your raids dps. Same add in 10m and you lose 20% of your dps, and they didn't seem to account for that. H- Chimaeron is an easy fight, but very susceptible to rng if you get too many feuds in a row your tank just wont live. Easily solvable in 25man by having a 3rd tank. Losing proximity buffs on H- Conclave can mean you don't break the wind guys shield fast enough for his aoe not to rape you.

Those are just a few personal examples I've been involved in, and my 10m is at the point where we're looking for an equally progressed 10m guild to start doing 25mans with, its just not worth it when these fights are clearly tuned for 25 players and not 10.

[badgertgb]

Here is blizzards stance: We want 10 and 25 man to be very similar in difficulty, provide the same loot, have the same lockout - so people can choose which to do and not be hurt for it.

You know what, they are actually pretty close. People claiming that 25 man is harder are not really looking at the big picture. Some 10 man encounters are tougher, some 25 man are tougher, but all in all they are really pretty close (the hardest encounter currently I believe is 10 man magmaw, iirc nobody has killed him because the kiting in 10 mans takes too much away from boss dps). People seem stuck to the idea that 25 will always be harder, which is obviously not true, if blizzard tries to make them equal I think it is likely they will be pretty close.

25 mans are not always harder (sometimes harder, sometimes easier) get over it. Remember 3 drake sarth 10 man?

[Handsylton]

You guys do realize I'm not saying that 25 mans are harder right now right? I'm saying that Blizzard admits that separation between 10 and 25 should occur because they are two completely different kinds of raiding and should be treated as such.

25 mans command more respect, and top tier guilds almost exclusively raid 25 man Heroic modes for world firsts. This overshadows 10 man Heroic modes, as they are being judged on the same level now.

What I'm saying is they should be separated in world first achievements, server first achievements, and be tuned to be similar in difficulty, maybe have 25s harder than 10s just because it would be the "top tier" of progression, but keep them close in difficulty and have them as completely different tracks that both garner respect. People who want to do 10s will do 10s, people who want to do 25s will do 25s, and both will be rewarded for their efforts.

And I'll stick by my statement that Ulduar style hardmodes and unlocking them yourself rather than right clicking a portrait is the way to go. Add some flavor into unlocking them, doing a fight in a more difficult way as hard mode. That's the way it should be in my opinion, and everyone I've ever talked to loved the way these were designed.

[Torzak]

10s are definitely tuned harder than 25s; if your first thought to the contrary is based on strictly normal mode experience, then you need not reply!

Whether blizzard knows/realizes it or not I don't know, but I think the facts speak for themselves:

The **top eight** 10mans in the world right now are 6/13 hard modes with another 23 guilds after that that are 5/13.

There are **102** 25mans in the world right now that are 7/13 hard modes or better with another 33 guilds after that that are 6/13.

If 10s weren't tuned harder than 25s, I'm sure you can imagine the numbers would be at least a little closer than they are.

I know there are a **lot** of people that walked into Cata with the mindset that 10s would be easier from the perspective of Raid Management and because Blizzard essentially said they'd be equal in difficulty, thought it'd be a good idea to try them, that are now finding themselves with no choice but to move from their 10man and merge with another 10man to make a 25man just to progress. My guild is in this situation and I'm not happy about it.

[Rushed]

My 10m guild is in the same situation where we're looking for another equally hardmode progressed 10man to merge with to work on 25m hardmodes cuz they're actually tuned properly. It's no fun.

[ComputerNerd]

Despite blizzards intentions they will never be truly equal, you did not need to tell us that.
Larger raids offer more buff and role options, but suffer potentially from greater coordination and movement issues particularly in confined spaces.
Smaller raids suffer more from 1 sub-par member than a 25 man would so both come with their own problems and challenges.
As much as threre are complaints about the system, it necessary to prevent a substantial number in 10m raiding being locked out of the same progression and gearing opportunities that 25m raiders had.

[Malefic]

In general on normal mode, from what I gather the difficulty is fairly tightly tuned between the different raid sizes, some fights maybe favour one raid size, another maybe favours another raid size, I genuinely believe they're of equal difficulty however.

But believe me, when it comes to heroic its a completely different situation. Those saying " 10m is easier then 25m " stop being stubborn, stop playing the ' its harder to get 25 people ' line also, its old and overused. There is 0 room for error from a single player in 10m, you can lose 20% of your raid on 25m and still kill something.

I am 3/13HC on 10m, and right now as people have said THE BEST 10M PROGRESSION IN THE WORLD is 6/13HC. Some fights are physically impossible, Valiona and Theralion for example. The fights require INSANE amounts of stacking, Halfus requires either 3 Tanks or 4 Healers, doing either of those makes the enrage timer so tight its not even funny, the only reason my guild killed it is by giving in to the disc priest stacking required.

Maloriak HC, those of you that don't know there is a Darkened Phase added in heroic which spawns Vile Swills, these adds on 10m have 1.8million HP and there is 5 of them. That means 180k damage per player in the raid (I'm fully aware healers won't be DPSing or anything, I was using it to signify the difference of 10 and 25m) on 25m these adds have 2.5mil HP, thats 100k damage per player in the raid (Again healers won't be DPSing and what not, just signifying the difference) so overall the 25m version of the fight requires less DPS then the 10m version of the fight, even though due to 2+2=5 25m naturally has higher DPS numbers.

Overall 10m on HC right now is harder than 25m HC, I don't care what peoples opinions are on it since if you genuinely believe 25m HC is harder then 10HC right now you're extremely stubborn and want a feeling of self satisfaction knowing you're killing stuff on its hardest difficulty. I ask all of you 25m raiders, go kill shit on 10m HC, see how long you last.

[Deleted]

I'm raiding in a 10m group within a 25m guild atm. The heroic modes on 10m are retardedly hard compared to 25m. Bosses like Halfus and Chimaeron which are almost free kills on 25m hc, are so much tougher on 10m hc. If it wasn't for my sucky computer, I'd rather raid 25m which is more balanced. Maloriak and Conclave are also good examples of bosses doable in both 10 and 25m hc, but again much much more difficult on 10m.

The only boss in favor on 10m I guess is Al'Akir.

[Morrie]

10-mans are definitely more difficult right now. Aside from all of the buff and individual contribution issues between the two raid sizes, 10-mans have to deal with what I call the warm body problem. The encounters often require you to perform a number of control duties that consume the attention of a larger proportion of your raid team in 10-man. For example, suppose a mob spawns that casts an interruptable spell (that must be interrupted) so frequently that it requires two people to catch all of them. In 25-man, sparing two bodies to do that is generally not a big deal. In 10-man, you just diminished the horsepower of 20% of your raid team to handle a critical mechanic. In some cases, the 25-man encounter makes up for it by spawning more adds, or something like that. However, for some encounters, that is not the case and your margin of error in 10-man narrows considerably due to the disproportionate loss of horsepower.

Personally, I like 10-mans being more difficult. I've played continuously since vanilla and am kind of over the whole large raid thing, but I still like encounters that take some analysis and practice to figure out. Playing with a small group of solid players to tackle something that is a little bit more of a challenge has kind of a special ops feel to it, I suppose. So long as things don't turn out to be completely overtuned to the point that 10-man content becomes the new Naxx 1.0/Heroic 25m LK, I think that casting 10-mans as the "arena of PvE" is appealing.

[Handsylton]

People are misinterpretting what this whole thread was originally about. I'm not saying "oh, 10 man and 25 man are not equal Blizzard". I'm saying, maybe they should stop trying to push in the direction of 10 and 25 man being equal and just give in to the fact that 10 man raiding and 25 man raiding are entirely different, and stop trying to force them to be the same when they just can not be the same thing.

Make 10 man Heroic modes for people who don't want to do a large raid, and tune them to be slightly less difficult than 25 man Heroic modes. I'm not saying they are less difficult. I'm saying Blizzard should tune them to be slightly less difficult than 25 man heroic modes. Due to the downfalls of 10 man groups not being able to raid stack, more attention/skill per person to down extremely difficult content, Blizzard should implement 10 man raiding as a system that allows you to be challenged while not being pigeon holed into stacking classes and finding OPTIMUM buffs. If your best friend is an awesome raider and has two classes that don't fit into your raid group, that should not penalize them. This is never and will never be a problem in 25 man because you can bring multiple classes that share the same buffs, so no one suffers.

Have 25 man Heroic modes as the marquee class of WoW progression raiding. Keep them as difficult as they are, if not MORE difficult. They have the advantage of more resources, so they should have to deal with harder content than 10 man Heroic modes.

10 man regular and 25 man regular should both be accessible but not easy. From what I read, they have 10 and 25 man normal modes pretty much perfectly balanced and equal, which is perfect for the system I'm talking about.

Create separate world first and server first categories and achievements, and give each group recognition, and you'll see a lot of people that are probably a lot happier with the raiding scene.

[takolin]

@ Sweetz. Doing the 12/12 normal stuff on 10 man aint what the issue is.
The real issue is that: You have to have either 3 tanks, or 4-5 healers (some of em being disc priests) for something like halfus 10 man. Otherwise the dmg inc is just too immense to deal with. Another one: Chimaeron u have to run with 3 tanks aswell on heroic 10 man. Otherwise you WILL lose a tank during the feud because of the debuff being applied. (Thank god for DKs and their blood pres). However that should IMO not be the point. You should not have to pull in a tank / healer / raider, which u don't have anyways in a 10 man team, to fill the class stacking.

Atm for me... I feel like people who are only doing 25 mans, OR have JUST cleared 10 man normals.. don't know jack about the 10 man heroics at all.

A melee dps with a taunt should suffice as non feud tank so a ret pala with RF or a dk with BP should work.

Possibly a warrior/kitty as well.

Even a shaman with rockbiter (unleash works as a taunt) should have the same effect.

[Alsonia]

So you want 10 man to be easier and have the same loot as 25 man?

10M normal modes are easier, however the tuning of heroic content for 10m makes them considerably more difficult on 10m.

There is maybe one fight that is more difficult on 10m than 25 and that is Nefarian. Normal ofc

[Solidseal]

I think 25s will always be easier .. simple fact that you can add one ore 2 more healers if needed ..
if you put to many healers in a 10 men you wont have any dps left ..

on the other hand .. if you add 1 more healer you need better dps ^^
maybe I am just talking to much :P

[Maxbaer]

25s take plenty of organising and are at a real disadvantage there. I could get 10 guys to raid 7 nights a week at a high standard, no chance of that in 25s (for us) however. 10s tend to expose people to the mechanics more, yes a fail will hurt more, but when people are exposed more often they learn. I find DCing a much larger issue in 25s too, so much more spell effects going off.To balance 10 and 25s must be one hell of a nightmare.

My answer:

Scrap both and have 15 man raids. 15 is only slightly harder to organise than 10, gives a far better spread of class. While most 25 guilds would likely have a core 15-20 anyway, so shouldnt need to trim too much. Instead of facing a balancing nightmare, Blizz could spend time delivering the very best bug free raiding possible!

[Torzak]

I'm not saying "oh, 10 man and 25 man are not equal Blizzard". I'm saying, maybe they should stop trying to push in the direction of 10 and 25 man being equal and just give in to the fact that 10 man raiding and 25 man raiding are entirely different, and stop trying to force them to be the same when they just can not be the same thing.

You are saying they aren't equal by saying "stop trying to force them to be the same thing when they just can not be the same thing".

I'm sorry, but there is a pretty large disparity between the two modes and no amount of attempt to sway things one way or anther on such small details on this subject is going to stop people from bringing up what the real issue is:

They aren't balanced. That *is* the problem. If they were properly balanced, then the achievement issue would be a non issue because anyone who earned the achievement on 10 or 25 would have put forth the same effort toward getting it. Instead, for the most part, anyone putting effort into 10mans and getting achievements, in my book, has actually put forth more effort than anyone doing the stuff in 25mans, however, the people doing it in 25mans, because of a long standing prestige of 25mans, are seen as the better raiders.

My guild (a 10man) has more or less given up on the raid scene in 10mans and we've floated in and out of World Top 400 (out of all guilds 10 and 25) several times since release. We didn't do anything serious this whole last week because we're looking at moving to 25s. Instead, we cleared everything we knew we could clear with no fuss. We didn't even bother to make progress on anything new. The tuning is ridiculous. So instead, our whole raid week was done in what amounts to one raid night. That's not exactly fun to me that that's what it's come down to for us, having to look at options to form a 25man. And the reason we're looking at it, is because right now, it seems like the most logical choice. They are easier, and they drop more gear per person per boss.

Make 10 man Heroic modes for people who don't want to do a large raid, and tune them to be slightly less difficult than 25 man Heroic modes.

You're not saying, "they aren't equal blizzard", but you're saying to make 10s easier than 25s, where as right now they are harder than 25s.

In your original post there's this:

In the community, it seems like right now, 10 mans are SEVERELY overtuned to the point of ridiculousness on some fights.

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out exactly what it is you want to say.

The achievements are a **non issue** in this implementation **assuming** you could strike a **proper balance** between the two sets of raiding and I *do* think that's possible. Blizzard just needs to get off their ass and watch some 10mans and figure out what tweaks they need to do to bring them in line.

If they can't, and refuse to make that attempt to strike the proper balance between the two, then yes, you need separate achievements to signify which version of the encounter you completed it on.

Create separate world first and server first categories and achievements, and give each group recognition, and you'll see a lot of people that are probably a lot happier with the raiding scene.

If they were balanced, then this wouldn't even matter, because it'd be equal opportunity to grab that realm first.

Because some of the 10mans are borderline "insane for even trying it", it doesn't even matter. What world first/realm first is a 10man going to get any time soon in their current form? 25mans have already been completed in full, and yet the best 10mans out there are only 6/13? How is adding new realm first/world first for 10mans going to surpass the historical prestige of 25mans and how or why are people going to care about them when they come some few or several months after the 25man version?

Blizzard goes on about bring the player not the class, but 10mans promote something very different.

There are lots of ways to fix a problem, and they said from the start and lead everyone to believe that 10s and 25s were going to be balanced and provide the same gear. Then they ran into problems about gear drops per person in the raid, so they gave 25s more gear per person per boss, and now we find out that in all reality, it's the 10mans that **need** that higher amount of gear drops just to make any attempt to progress.

[junialum]

Bring the player not the class will never work out until content becomes generally easier where losing that one extra buff or utility skill does not matter. Top 25man guilds already class stack for optimization for each fight. Optimization is further needed for 10mans due to the lack of variation of classes.

Blizzard will not implement different achievements because loot level is equal. That is how they see dungeons.

[mercutiouk]

I'm reading this as:

Why don't we make 10man for the casuals and 25 man for the hardcore but not do anything with gear?
You basically want Wrath mentality back.
It's gone, accept it.

The other point is that different fights are actually harder/easier on 10/25 man. A lot of the big progress guilds are 25man because they historically have a guild membership that supports that many people. 25man does mean the initial bit of gearing is slightly faster too so they were able to get out of the blocks a bit quicker and push for world firsts.

I'm not flaming but your view is just a little too blinkered and about your own circumstances.

10m and 25m are/should be (more or less) about as hard. This is a good things as it lets folks play how they want. If you are struggling too much in the current tier of content take a break for a couple of months and wait for the next content patch. A lot of guilds will finally get on their feet in 4.1 once gear is a little easier.
That (I think) is where the break is going to be between hardcore and casual. Good hardcore: Hard modes. Regular/social hardcore: Current tier. Casuals: 1 tier down.