Difficulty for small Raids

[Deleted]

Hello there,

as a small group raider with 10-12 people, we do have problems on a variety of entcounters because of the bad tuning. Most of the entcounter are badly tuned and a lot harder with smaller raids. The fixes to change the issue often happens way to late or never.
As a 10 man group with 2 Healers, some mechanics are insanely deadly. Iron Reaver is a good example. P1 has 3x pounding, covering the third pounding without a healing CD is hard. P2 is the next issue, regardless on your raid size you get 3 artillery. If these 3 are DD, you take out 40% of the damage to destroy the bombs for a couple of seconds. Luckily these bombs die fast.

The same goes for Killrogg, but here the Adds are hard to kill. On our first kill we had to completly ignore the Runes to beat the entcounter. Nowadays we pull KR to deal with the first Add phase, when peoble are downstairs.

We had once an evening in BRF with an other guild and went from 12 man to 25 man. The result of this was a lot of new fast kills. On several entcounters with more then a minute, for both guilds.

My personal opinion in this regard is: Nerf every entcounter for 10 people by 10-15% and slowly even it out at 20 people. Fix the issue with some entcounter faster (hello archimonde)

[Deleted]

Hello there,

as a small group raider with 10-12 people, we do have problems on a variety of entcounters because of the bad tuning. Most of the entcounter are badly tuned and a lot harder with smaller raids. The fixes to change the issue often happens way to late or never.
As a 10 man group with 2 Healers, some mechanics are insanely deadly. Iron Reaver is a good example. P1 has 3x pounding, covering the third pounding without a healing CD is hard. P2 is the next issue, regardless on your raid size you get 3 artillery. If these 3 are DD, you take out 40% of the damage to destroy the bombs for a couple of seconds. Luckily these bombs die fast.

The same goes for Killrogg, but here the Adds are hard to kill. On our first kill we had to completly ignore the Runes to beat the entcounter. Nowadays we pull KR to deal with the first Add phase, when peoble are downstairs.

We had once an evening in BRF with an other guild and went from 12 man to 25 man. The result of this was a lot of new fast kills. On several entcounters with more then a minute, for both guilds.

My personal opinion in this regard is: Nerf every entcounter for 10 people by 10-15% and slowly even it out at 20 people. Fix the issue with some entcounter faster (hello archimonde)

Healing shouldn't be an issue. 2/3/5 was 'generally' the 10 man setup. The fact you're underhealing is your choice.

The only encounter I agree on being particularly lame on 10-12 man is Archimonde. Still need 3 downstairs, 3 shackles etc etc.

[Deleted]

Healing shouldn't be an issue. 2/3/5 was 'generally' the 10 man setup. The fact you're underhealing is your choice.

The only encounter I agree on being particularly lame on 10-12 man is Archimonde. Still need 3 downstairs, 3 shackles etc etc.

I remember the Assault in week one. We had 4k more DPS on average on every DD then a 20 man Raid from warcraftlogs who killed it. and we did get overrun by adds at certain breakpoints, even with a delayed BL and timed potions for these situations. I am not even mentioning the amounts of kicks we have. It just sucks when you are performing 5-10% stronger then a 20 man raid and wipe, just because the scaling suck(ed).

[Deleted]

Yes, normal raiding is overtuned.

Talk to @watcherdev on twitter, and tell him about it. I am sure he will yawn at least once. Or tell you that you should play LFR if normal is too hard for you.

Yes, he really has that mindset.

[Army Dreamer]

Yes, normal raiding is overtuned.

For small groups it is.

Talk to @watcherdev on twitter, and tell him about it. I am sure he will yawn at least once. Or tell you that you should play LFR if normal is too hard for you.

I doubt it he will even yawn.

[Neri25]

Boss and add HP scaling has been terrible for small groups this entire expansion. At this point I have to tip my cap to anyone still doing 10 man runs, you folks are putting up with more bullshit than I'd ever wanna deal with.

[Mlz]

I'm curious why didn't they make raid mechanics scale with the size - a'la the amount of Sha prisons was dependant on the raid size. Could be done to so many mechanics in HFC aswell.

[Deleted]

Yes, normal raiding is overtuned.

Talk to @watcherdev on twitter, and tell him about it. I am sure he will yawn at least once. Or tell you that you should play LFR if normal is too hard for you.

Yes, he really has that mindset.

Normal is "OK" (not archimonde), you can ignore some mechanics because of the low numbers and you can handle it this way. The switch to HC is very hard on a small group, because you can't do it anymore and you have to deal with the bad scaling.

[Deleted]

I'm curious why didn't they make raid mechanics scale with the size - a'la the amount of Sha prisons was dependant on the raid size. Could be done to so many mechanics in HFC aswell.

The reason for most of this is they try to avoid breakpoints at any cost.
In SoO one of the biggest concerns regarding flex was the point that you have breakpoints at playernumbers. Bring 1 person more and you will get an additional x leads to not bringing this person. So flex was mostly at fixed groupsizes because people tend allways to do the lazy way and bring only the number of players which is "ideal".
I dont say the current solution of Blizzard is better. They have to find a better way. At abilities like shakle u could at the rng from loot like "there will be raidsize/5 shackles" and a 0.2 shakle is a 20% chance to get a third one.
On mechanice like Killrogg thats difficult because it would be annoying to wait for the runes to cast and see if person 4 can go in or not.
I hope they will learn more and more and get the tunning better next raid.

[Mlz]

The reason for most of this is they try to avoid breakpoints at any cost.
In SoO one of the biggest concerns regarding flex was the point that you have breakpoints at playernumbers. Bring 1 person more and you will get an additional x leads to not bringing this person. So flex was mostly at fixed groupsizes because people tend allways to do the lazy way and bring only the number of players which is "ideal".
I dont say the current solution of Blizzard is better. They have to find a better way. At abilities like shakle u could at the rng from loot like "there will be raidsize/5 shackles" and a 0.2 shakle is a 20% chance to get a third one.
On mechanice like Killrogg thats difficult because it would be annoying to wait for the runes to cast and see if person 4 can go in or not.
I hope they will learn more and more and get the tunning better next raid.

They fixed it in SoO by adding that exact "X chance of getting an extra Y when the player number exceeds Z" and that fixed the issue for most non-retarded groups. Obviously there will always be leaders who think that going with 14 people is the best because... reasons.

[Nitros14]

I don't think anything is particularly harder with 10 people now except Archimonde, since Kilrogg got nerfed.

[Deja Thoris]

I don't think anything is particularly harder with 10 people now except Archimonde, since Kilrogg got nerfed.

Could you link your 10 man logs then please? I'm curious if you back up your opinion with facts?

[Leih]

Archimonde on 10-man vs. Archimonde with 20+ is like a totally different difficulty level. Just because of the cooldowns and the tools available for handling the mechanics even before you look at the scaling of the incoming damage and HP on the adds.

When you only have 10 people and you are having to deal with breaking your shackles, safely handling the laser beams, killing the shadow adds and spreading/killing the infernals at once... yeah, have fun with that. And lets not even think about what happens if you time the transition badly and get a banish at the same time With 30-man you can get away with all that at once sooo much more easily.

[Nitros14]

Could you link your 10 man logs then please? I'm curious if you back up your opinion with facts?

I do normal and some heroic with a 10-man group outside my guild on my alt tank. Nothing has felt particularly harder except Archimonde. They don't run logs.

[Wvvtayy]

Good. That's how it should be. Bigger groups are more difficult to maintain and manage and it being tuned easier offsets this. People should be encouraged to bring as many people as possible, not discouraged.

[Deleted]

Hello there,

as a small group raider with 10-12 people, we do have problems on a variety of entcounters because of the bad tuning. Most of the entcounter are badly tuned and a lot harder with smaller raids. The fixes to change the issue often happens way to late or never.
As a 10 man group with 2 Healers, some mechanics are insanely deadly. Iron Reaver is a good example. P1 has 3x pounding, covering the third pounding without a healing CD is hard. P2 is the next issue, regardless on your raid size you get 3 artillery. If these 3 are DD, you take out 40% of the damage to destroy the bombs for a couple of seconds. Luckily these bombs die fast.

The same goes for Killrogg, but here the Adds are hard to kill. On our first kill we had to completly ignore the Runes to beat the entcounter. Nowadays we pull KR to deal with the first Add phase, when peoble are downstairs.

We had once an evening in BRF with an other guild and went from 12 man to 25 man. The result of this was a lot of new fast kills. On several entcounters with more then a minute, for both guilds.

My personal opinion in this regard is: Nerf every entcounter for 10 people by 10-15% and slowly even it out at 20 people. Fix the issue with some entcounter faster (hello archimonde)

The change to kilrogg went through and i understand you on this issue as i went with a couple of friends on realese day before our raid and it was very hard, otherwise the reason smaller teams will always have a harder time is because a smaller team has less people which means less raid utility like aura mastery, barrier, tranq etc. This unbalance will always be there and has always been there.

[Xart]

Archimonde on 10-man vs. Archimonde with 20+ is like a totally different difficulty level. Just because of the cooldowns and the tools available for handling the mechanics even before you look at the scaling of the incoming damage and HP on the adds.

When you only have 10 people and you are having to deal with breaking your shackles, safely handling the laser beams, killing the shadow adds and spreading/killing the infernals at once... yeah, have fun with that. And lets not even think about what happens if you time the transition badly and get a banish at the same time With 30-man you can get away with all that at once sooo much more easily.

And how is that any diffrent in a 30 man raid? You still have to time breaking shackles. You still have to safely handle the beams. You still have to kill shadow adds. You still have to instantly focus infernals and spreading them.

[Leih]

And how is that any diffrent in a 30 man raid? You still have to time breaking shackles. You still have to safely handle the beams. You still have to kill shadow adds. You still have to instantly focus infernals and spreading them.

Yes, but it doesn't take up 100% of your DPS and Healers time moving and dealing with all this at once?

You have a lot more DPS who AREN'T shackled, beamed and tanking the infernals who can be busy actually killing the shadows and the infernals or, you know, killing the boss.

If you are 10 people and 3 of you are breaking shackles, 2 of you have the laser, 2 of your are tanks... you've got a whole 2 people left in the raid who can actually be focusing on their output without all that movement.

Now compare that to a 30-man raid, with the same number of mechanics.

[Thereaperszone]

Good. That's how it should be. Bigger groups are more difficult to maintain and manage and it being tuned easier offsets this. People should be encouraged to bring as many people as possible, not discouraged.

No it isn't how it should be at all.

Anyways imo they really don't care about any scaling issues or tuning unless its mythic for the most part. BRF scaled horribly as well for a while then they fixed it somewhat. They really need to fix things for the smaller groups you really shouldn't get the same amount of say bombs and other things in a 10 vs 20/30.

[Deleted]

Yes, but it doesn't take up 100% of your DPS and Healers time moving and dealing with all this at once?

You have a lot more DPS who AREN'T shackled, beamed and tanking the infernals who can be busy actually killing the shadows and the infernals or, you know, killing the boss.

If you are 10 people and 3 of you are breaking shackles, 2 of you have the laser, 2 of your are tanks... you've got a whole 2 people left in the raid who can actually be focusing on their output without all that movement.

Now compare that to a 30-man raid, with the same number of mechanics.

This has been the main problem for smaller raids this expansion. I've been raiding with people i have know for a long time, but we just could not manage anymore. We merged with another guild and now with these added numbers things are a breeze. Mechanics are so much easier with a bigger number of people..
When on killrogg and you have the runes incoming at the same time as the adds spawn and the aoe is coming, then having 3 people to deal with it is just not enough. Most of the time one add will slip through no matter what you do.. If you have a few more people then the adds never come through, simply because there are more people able to stun or slow them. The same goes for healing cd's on other bosses, the mechanics are just horrible for smaller raids.