What's your ideal number of bosses/raids per tier?

[sergel02]

Was always curious what people preferred. Do you like smaller tiers with more unique encounters or larger ones where some fights may mesh together?

Also, how many raids per tier is your ideal? Intro tiers the last two xpacs have had 3 raids, whereas each tier afterwards in the xpac have had 1 large raid.

I felt 16 was a bit large for tier 14, but 12 feels good for a middle tier. I wonder how it'd be if the middle tier were 2 raids with 6 bosses each. Would that be a plus or negative for you? I guess it depends on how long a tier is out too.

[schwank05]

Ulduar/ ICC size.

[Thiron]

I prefer one single raid with 10-14 bosses and some path choices / wings.

[reckoner04]

I prefer one single raid with 10-14 bosses and some path choices / wings.

I like it like this. Which is how Ulduar and ICC were, for example.

[Kebren]

I prefer small raids that are released more frequently. Firelands with 7 bosses was about the perfect size for me. The more bosses a tier has, the more time a raid has to spend on farm vs progression.

Large tiers end up having 2 or 3 similar pieces per slot. I find causes a snowball of gear progression. The first half of the tier is kind of slow (while you're undergeared) and the second half is very fast (because you're close to overgeared).

[Septik]

ya i miss the wing setup, but in the end when you are running it week after week (times as many lfr chars/alts you are sporting) it doesn't matter which order you go in.

as for sizing, 12-16 bosses a week seems good, regardless of where in the xpac we are and personally it doesn't matter if its one big zone or 2-3 smaller ones. Guess that depends on how much story they have going on?

[Guyviroth]

For me, it has nothing to do with the size. It's to do with how good each encounter is.

No matter how you look at ToT with its 12 bosses, Tortos was still a piece of crap. =/

[Haywire5714]

I don't care how many bosses the raid has; as long as at least 1 boss has a pink dino or a spinning turtle in it i'm ok.

[Deleted]

Ulduar / icc was pretty much how a raid should be in size and path choosing + story and not to forget music : D
OT:
12-14. Though I can't say how a raid with 20 Bosses would feel. I guess I wont find out, but thats okay.

[tuesday the paladin]

Some variety is nice. Large winged dungeons like icc and ulduar are awesome. A couple medium length dungeons are great too, BoT/BWD was a pretty awesome tier as well.

[Deleted]

My favorite raid has always been naxxramas.
4x3 bosses and 2 final bosses in the '5th' wing. You could chose your own order and priority. This was the best raid ever.
2 bad they made it the 1st raid in wotlk so that even the worst players could wash over the epic encounters eventually.
But during vanilla this has been my best wow time ever since. Maybe because i'm feeling nostalgic, but I really loved raiding in naxx40 because of the challenge and nice envorinment.

But another naxxramas would really make me go back to serious raiding again.
4 wings (aka always 4 bosses to chose from while progressing) and the final 2 bosses... Man this was epic!

[Spotnick]

If tier lasts 6 months, then 12 bosses. Considering that is 24 raid encounters (12 normal and 12 heroic), it's 1 new boss kill every week, which to me sounds like the perfect pace.

[Totaltotemic]

I'm not a fan of multiple raid zones per tier, it makes progression a nightmare with all of the bouncing around and feels like a waste of time when you have to go to a different zone halfway through raid.

That said, every tier should have 12-14 bosses with some room for non-linearity (Ulduar is probably the best example ever of this).

[Deleted]

10-12 is a good number imo. i like the style of icc though with different routes for progression

[lettuce]

12 or so is a good number. A few more is always nicer. It is nice to have some variety too, such as 3 different raids on the tier, one with 3 bosses, another with 2, and the third with 7, etc. Choices are good. It seems like everyone is pretty much saying these same things, and it's for a reason.

[Deleted]

I'd say 8 per raid on the first tier on the expansion.

Then the middle tier 12 bosses.

Final Tier should have 12-16 bosses.

[hulkgor]

I like 10-14 bosses per tier, either crammed in a single large dungeon - but with path choices, think ICC - or separated into 2-3 different raids - think SSC+TK+Gruul, or BWD+BOT+4winds.

[CandyCotton Marshmallows]

Ulduar/ ICC size.

agreed; 12-16 bosses a tier. I don't mind them split up like T11, I think that is better than no alternative path raids like ToT being large.

Ulduar, Naxx, and ICC gave you some choices. It is nice to either switch up for the sake of it; or to give your raid a fresh boss if you are wiping on one for a bit. The same goes for a tier with separate raids. I don't necessarily appreciate the way they did T14 though; gated with different ilvls. Personally I found that to be a mistake, though I'm sure plenty were fine with it.

Even if it were to be smaller separate raids in a tier, the smaller raids should aim for some choice for the raid group, like T12.

I think releasing T16 flex in waves is a mistake as well; it would make sense in T17, since everyone needs the same gear, it would stop the burnout of the ones who force themselves to do LFR/Flex as well as their normal raid, but complain about it (not everyone feels the extra raiding for a few weeks is such an issue).

I honestly would prefer 16 bosses as the general rule for a tier. Whether in a single raid or split between a few. It gives people a lot to strive for; and after a 7 fight T12 and an 8 fight T13; I'd hope to never have a small tier like that again.

If they want to release a supplement raid, like Ruby Sanctum; or if ToC was a supplemental raid to Ulduar, instead of a full tier; I'd be fine with that. Small raids should not be considered a tier imo.

[Deleted]

Don't mind the number.

The only thing i DO mind is the 100% linearity, so that guilds (like mine) that raid only 2 nights per week can skip bosses to work on progress fights, and do the farm after.
Eg when were working on Iron Qon, it would have been nice to be able to skip Durumi-Animus and have more time for Qon, or maybe do them after (ICC style)

Now we always have to chose to extend raids, from previous saves, meaning we give up a lot of usefull loot.
If you raid 4 nights a week it's not an issue as you can always spend 2 nights on progress, and then clear it the last night, but we dont have that luxury.

[Deleted]

7-10 and then a new one sooner.