Blizzards response on number 20 for Mythic

[Babylonius]

There is just a few people making a big stink.

this is the answer to most questions on the forums

[nianla]

People adjust no matter the changes

[eschatological]

Sorry, but no. The official response is cobblers. It was made 20 purely and simply so that there was no perceived winner of the 25vs10 debate (i.e. slanging match).

Their stated reason that it had to go to one size was perfectly valid. You are very restricted with boss mechanics if having to tune a raid for a size so small that you can't even have one of each class there (much less multiple specs of each). They tried dealing with this by having standard buffs and debuffs and passing them round several classes, but it just wasn't enough.

The fact of the matter is that the larger the raid size, the less you have to worry that a guild will lack certain abilities and so you can feel free to design the bosses as you wish. As such, reducing the maximum size from 25 to 20 makes no sense. It doesn't help them design the bosses; it still restricts them, just not as much as when they had to deal with 10-man. However, they obviously feel that 20 is a good compromise because it won't be too restrictive and it means 25-man guilds are hit with the change as well as 10-man guilds.

And again, the "compelling" mechanics statement is just BS. Do you think any serious 10 man lacked a priest, or a mage? We could have every ability available to us. Frankly, heroic 10 man raiders would enjoy the more serious "personal responsibility" fights, and just putting in those changes without changing the sizes would have served to prune the lower end heroic 10s which would probably help 25s (where they'd go to get carried) while offering an even more compelling challenge for high end 10s.

The only way they could say such a thing was if they had 11 "compelling, class-unique mechanics" in one fight, one for each class, which a 10 man would be physically unable to handle. But they're not going to do that, even in 20 man. There's not even enough of those class-unique mechanics to do that. Most of the "signature" stuff can be readily copied by other classes.

[Qualia]

And again, the "compelling" mechanics statement is just BS. Do you think any serious 10 man lacked a priest, or a mage? We could have every ability available to us.

Yes, I do, judging by the number of QQ about "we don't have this and that ability" on MMO-Champion, official WoW forums, or simply just through hear-say, mainly from 10M group (BoP, Smoke Bomb, Lash, Banner, etc.). Heck, just 2 weeks ago my 10M raid leader friend complained / bragged to me how he killed (or had to kill) the hard-version of Thok (compared to 25M) because they didn't have either a shaman or a pally. Or look at the "zerg" strat for Blackfuse, in which a poster mentioned it's harder for a 10M group to kill Blackfuse without hunter to solo every belts. I'd say a 11-12/14H guild is "serious" enough, although they may not be the most skilled players. And those surely wasn't the first or only complaints about lacking of certain classes I've seen / heard about.

Put yourself in Blizzard's shoes, what should they do? Tune encounters assuming a group will have specific classes (and lead to above QQ), tune encounters assuming a group won't have any specific class (and make it much easier for group with those), or make sure it become the norm that a group will have specific class / ability that Blizzard had in mind while designing fights?

[Daerio]

It's not JUST being able to assume your raid has 1 of every class, it's ALSO about being able to more accurately tune the numbers for 1 raid size.

Remember 10 man Dark Animus zerg strat? 10 man Blackfuse zerg strat? 1 tank 0 heal Jin'rokh 10 man? (lol) 1 tank Megaera zerg strat? 1 tank 1 heal Durumu zerg? This list goes on and on.

I wonder why there are always these zerg strats for 10 man?

[Dukenukem]

It should really remain on 25. With no smaller option to jump to, that would fill easy enough like in the old times (or current in some cases)

[Ossandran]

I loved how many times Ian had to answer that question at blizzcon. I figured he would have been like "Look motherfuckers it's how it is... deal with it" sorry don't know how to do the cool sunglass guy

[eschatological]

It's not JUST being able to assume your raid has 1 of every class, it's ALSO about being able to more accurately tune the numbers for 1 raid size.

Remember 10 man Dark Animus zerg strat? 10 man Blackfuse zerg strat? 1 tank 0 heal Jin'rokh 10 man? (lol) 1 tank Megaera zerg strat? 1 tank 1 heal Durumu zerg? This list goes on and on.

I wonder why there are always these zerg strats for 10 man?

Do you think 25s were 2 tanking Durumu? I notice you didn't include the 1 tank Iron Qon here, because it would probably be way too disingenuous to ignore how prevalent that was on 25 man. 1 tank Jin'rokh is a post progression "for the luls" thing since the fight was up for about 10 minutes in both formats. DA zerg strat? Most guilds on progression that I know of didn't use that.

The Megaera one is maybe the only legit one you posted. I do know guilds that did that on heroic 10 progression, though we weren't one of them, since the issue on Megaera 10 was more healing than anything else.

It seems like all you listed were "easier ways to beat farm bosses."

[Daerio]

Do you think 25s were 2 tanking Durumu? I notice you didn't include the 1 tank Iron Qon here, because it would probably be way too disingenuous to ignore how prevalent that was on 25 man. 1 tank Jin'rokh is a post progression "for the luls" thing since the fight was up for about 10 minutes in both formats. DA zerg strat? Most guilds on progression that I know of didn't use that.

The Megaera one is maybe the only legit one you posted. I do know guilds that did that on heroic 10 progression, though we weren't one of them, since the issue on Megaera 10 was more healing than anything else.

It seems like all you listed were "easier ways to beat farm bosses."

K well, you can take whatever stance you want, but 25 man guilds were NOT 1 tank 1 healing Durumu and killing him before he did first death beam. Period. My 10 man guild was doing this and killing it so fast that WoL wouldn't even register our kills as valid. Zerg strat was the way MY 10 man guild killed H Dark Animus the first time.

So, it isn't just farm bosses. Also, being able to drop 1 healer for a DPS makes a much bigger difference in 10 man than it does in 25. My point of being able to accurately tune bosses still stands. It should be clear they haven't been doing it lately.

(1 heal heroic Garrosh?)

[theyanger]

Do you think 25s were 2 tanking Durumu? I notice you didn't include the 1 tank Iron Qon here, because it would probably be way too disingenuous to ignore how prevalent that was on 25 man. 1 tank Jin'rokh is a post progression "for the luls" thing since the fight was up for about 10 minutes in both formats. DA zerg strat? Most guilds on progression that I know of didn't use that.

The Megaera one is maybe the only legit one you posted. I do know guilds that did that on heroic 10 progression, though we weren't one of them, since the issue on Megaera 10 was more healing than anything else.

It seems like all you listed were "easier ways to beat farm bosses."

As noted above, you're forgetting that the benefit of single tanking on 25 man is notably smaller. You're talking about like a 20% 'dps ratio' gain in a 10 man to swap one more person, plus the vengeance gain, while on 25 it's like a 6% gain.

[eschatological]

Doesn't that say anything about the fights' difficulties themselves? We one-and-a-half tanked H-Spine (bearcat) and one tanked H-Madness pre any nerfs (with spriest/hunter/rogue impale soaks), because that's what was damn near what was required on 10 man. I don't think any of these strats were required in 10 man, and in fact, many guilds did without them. Saying 10 man heroic was unbalanced because you *could* one tank a fight is like saying H-Council of Elders 25 was unbalanced because you COULD just ignore Frostbite, and rotate purities (before it was nerfed) in 25 man.

[Daerio]

Doesn't that say anything about the fights' difficulties themselves? We one-and-a-half tanked H-Spine (bearcat) and one tanked H-Madness pre any nerfs (with spriest/hunter/rogue impale soaks), because that's what was damn near what was required on 10 man. I don't think any of these strats were required in 10 man, and in fact, many guilds did without them. Saying 10 man heroic was unbalanced because you *could* one tank a fight is like saying H-Council of Elders 25 was unbalanced because you COULD just ignore Frostbite, and rotate purities (before it was nerfed) in 25 man.

So you're trying to twist it into a 10 v 25 "which is harder?" argument, when in fact this is pointless. Perhaps you should be agreeing that balance, and better tuning, will exist with one raid format. And imbalances like dropping a tank or healer for a DPS will have less impact with more players. That's the point.

[Outofmana]

You don't have to ditch 5 people to try mythic. You'll run normal/heroic with 25 as you said, because you have to maintain a roster of ~25 people to support a 20 man raid. So your whole roster raids normal/heroic (and if sometimes you can't field 25 people then you don't suffer for it) and when you reach mythic you have 20 people raiding from a roster of around 25, which is more or less exactly the situation most 25 man guilds are in right now (25 people raiding from a roster of 30-32). Yes, you have to drop people at the start to get from 32 to 25, but after that you'll be able to use your entire roster more often, not less.

Until the new instances comes out, and you're back recruiting again for 25man.

[Dukenukem]

Until the new instances comes out, and you're back recruiting again for 25man.

25 recruits all the time, once you stop your guild is going bad pretty soon
You want the right amount of tension to force people to get better and be on time or really replace them with the new ones

[Qualia]

Until the new instances comes out, and you're back recruiting again for 25man.

As others have said, 25m (the one care about progression at least) pretty much recruit all the time. At the moment most 25m guilds run with a roster of 30 or more people, yet you don't see much of "we have to drop / bench 5 people to do normal / heroic", do you? By WoD, a raiding guild will probably run a roster of 25-30 people, do normal / heroic same way as how guilds do flex currently (do with 25 people, or split into two raids) and do mythic progression with 20 depends on raid comp. requirement. Except the transition to drop 30+ to 25+ at start of WoD, nothing will change much actually.

[pewpewheals]

I think it should be 10, 15, 20, 25!

[Melkandor]

Honestly, it's Blizzard guys what more do you expect? They can and have repeatedly gone back on their word. Remember no Faction Transfers, no transferring from a PvE to a PvP realm, and everything else that they've done it too?

[Siberia]

Not on frontpage yet, so here we go:

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I think it makes a lot of sense, and was a brave move from Blizzard.

I completely agree with you. I think it's a fantastic move forward, and I'm so happy to see Blizzard taking some brave/risky moves that appeal more to the original crowd. Excited!

[PetersenIII]

Not on frontpage yet, so here we go:

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I think it makes a lot of sense, and was a brave move from Blizzard.

This is another reason that class additions need to be very careful. We're already at 11 classes, we can't even currently take two of each class to a Mythic raid, one more class and we will be at the limit where we can take two of each class to a 25-man raid (which I believe they should have made mythic raids, but WTF do I know...). I don't think I see anything in here that justifies/explains going to 20-man instead of 25-man for heroic/mythic raids, just going for 20 instead of 10.

[Realsykes]

It never went away in heroic level content.

I agree, you're never going to get away from that aspect.

Bringing the class that a player can play right, is another way of putting it.