A fourth difficulty setting for 5-mans?

[Rheckameohs]

This idea kind of came to me the other day while I was grinding Valor, but what if there were an additional difficulty for 5-mans that are geared for players that have JUST hit the level cap?

Think of it this way. You have your normal 5-mans while you level. Once you hit 95 (or whatever the new level cap is), you'll be able to queue for Level 95 dungeons. These instances are identical to normals, but the numbers are adjusted for capped players, and all loot has a higher item level. Players who only intend to run LFR will be fine with stopping here and moving on to those. Players who want to gear up further for Flex or normals will move on to heroics.

Unlike current heroics, these new age heroics are quite a bit more difficult, and not just as far as DPS and healing requirements. Bosses could have new mechanics exclusive to this difficulty, as well as drop new loot. In fact, heroics could have entirely unique encounters that normal modes and Level 95 dungeons don't have. Basically, the encounters have more of a raid-like quality to them, sort of like practice for when they move on to proper raiding.

Challenge modes utilize the same template as heroics, but like now, your gear is scaled back to, say, somewhere in between normal mode gear and Level 95 gear. Bosses drop loot, but only if you meet certain criteria, e.g. killing the boss within X amount of minutes, or performing some kind of action, similarly to the Glory of achievements.

IMO, this would provide new avenues of gearing, depending on how you intend to play at cap. If you're interested in LFR, you can stop once you've gotten Level 95 gear, and proceed to gear up through LFR. If you're not too keen on LFR, you can move on to heroics, and from there take on raiding. Challenge modes are for those crazy few who are gluttons for punishment and will do anything for achievements and fancy mog sets.

[Socialhealer]

not much to say other than it's not needed, dungeons geared you up enough to enter t14 raids, then you had valor vendors as well. now you have timeless isle that gears you up for LFR and those LFRs gear you up for flex and normal. anything easier than challenge mode isn't worthy of new gear i mean where does it fit in?

463 5man (heroic lol easy) 476 (crafted & boes) 489 (raid loot) 496(hof/toes), then LFR came (476 loot again & 483)

what level would this new "harder 5man" but easier than CM gear, 469? is it really worth the work for it? or are you asking for something retarded like 480+? because any kind of loot from a 5man cannot come near raid loot imo, CM's can be smashed within 4 minutes or 10 taking them slowly, even these should not reward loot close to raids, even LFR is probably more of a time investment.

[Rheckameohs]

is it really worth the work for it?

For the devs, or for us? If it's the latter, I'd argue yes.

But anyway, you're right, it's not needed, but then again, Timeless Isle really isn't "needed" either, it's just an option. Under this system, players would have more options for gearing, plain and simple.

[Socialhealer]

timeless isle is way more fun and entertaining to the "world" of warcraft than simply the same 5man with a slight number change, any kind of mechanics really wouldn't be that major of a change, i think scenarios and heroic scenarios are better personally i like to see something NEW rather than more difficulty levels.

[snuzzle]

Frankly, I don't see why we didn't get this a long time ago. With the three (now four) difficulties of raid being such a huge success, I can't see why this hasn't been brought over to five man content as well.

not much to say other than it's not needed, dungeons geared you up enough to enter t14 raids, then you had valor vendors as well. now you have timeless isle that gears you up for LFR and those LFRs gear you up for flex and normal. anything easier than challenge mode isn't worthy of new gear i mean where does it fit in?

It fits in with players who want challenging, progressive content but do not enjoy the large-scale format of raiding. For most of the game, there were dungeons that offered challenge to players who did not enjoy the raiding format. MOP is the only expansion to not offer this. Instead, Blizzard tried to give us CMs to cater to the players who wanted challenging five-mans, but the problem is that it doesn't fit that niche.

loot from a 5man cannot come near raid loot imo, CM's can be smashed within 4 minutes or 10 taking them slowly, even these should not reward loot close to raids, even LFR is probably more of a time investment.

Seriously? CMs can be "smashed in 4 minutes"? You're talking out of your ass. The top world scores (TOP, these are the best of the best, the people form whom they comp specifically for the dungeon and are basically the CM equivalent of world-first raiding guilds) can't even get that low on the shortest CMs. The average CM time for these TOP teams is about 8 minutes over all the dungeons.

And that's with lots and lots of practice, wiping, resetting the dungeon, and bringing your A-game. And you say this is LESS of a time investment than LFR?

Secondly... what's wrong with a five-man team tackling content that's just as challenging as a ten-man team and earning comparable rewards? I don't see the problem. People said the same thing when Blizz gave 25 and 10 the same lockout and loot, and now everyone seems to have forgotten about that. I would GLADLY tackle five man dungeons that took multiple nights a week with a regular team for fun. I much prefer the smaller format over 10 or 25.