10M vs 25M raid difficulty: a look at the statistics

[Alfador]

Some facts that come to mind while considering the differences:

1. You can res roughly 1/3 of your raid in a 10man with either ankhs/combat res/soulstones. Nowhere near close to that in 25man.
2. A death in a 10man is really punishing, probably a wipe cause. Lesser room for error.
3. The most important factor for me that 10man will always be easier than 25man is that you get the same room to fight in as you would in a 25man and in fights with lots of aoe stuff on the ground, spreading out etc etc, it just isn't the same.

Actually it's 1/10 and 3/25, so in theory you have more ressing power in 25, but there are more people in the same space, more opportunities to be killed too so it probably evens out.

Yes, deaths are far more serious in 10 man. It could be argued (not that I am making that argument or not making it) that death is more likely on an individual level during 25 mans so it may even out.

And while it is true that 10 man is less people in the same space, ranged has a lot of breathing room now and most encounter areas are huge.

[flamejackal]

I like this thread. My group and I are starting to work on Halfus and Conclave and possibly Omnotron this week and we keep hearing that 10 man heroics are way overtuned compared to 25 mans. Our conjecture is that the difficulty is actually the same, the only thing that makes 25 man heroics much easier is the fact that you are able to have a lot more choices with raid composition. Going up to 3 tanks from 2 for Halfus is very difficult in a 10 man. In a 25 man the implication of switching a DPS to a tank is much less felt - hell you can have even more tanks and it would still be ok. In 10 man a composition change or adding a tank or healer has huge consequences on the dynamic of the fight. I feel that the biggest disparities lie in this - assuming equally skilled groups.
On my server VANQUISH is currently doing 10 mans. As many will remember, they used to be a world first achieving guild. Now they want to switch from 10 mans to 25 mans because heroics will be easier. Consider that when thinking about the differences. I'm pretty sure you will see that on most servers, the farthest 25 man is farther than the farthest 10 man - even within the same guild.

[DechCJC]

Thing is, unless it's to an ability that simply one shots you (which are generally easy to avoid), it takes more to kill you on 10 man. Also, a death on a fight like Halfus where it's important for max dps (at least whilst in normal gear (blues, a few BoE epics and 1/2 Valor epics)), one death can also mean a wipe. (Maybe a little exaggurated here, but it's a hell of a lot more difficult after a death (which is very likely to happen :P)).

Deaths tend to happen more frequently on 25 man than 10 man just in general, it's a lot more punishing now than it was in wotlk, a death of a dps can mean a wipe, ever tried LK25hc? If one dps died, you were nearly guaranteed to wipe. Shit load harder to get 25 people to move from defile than 10 people.

Going on a tanjent here lol, gonna stop it there :P.

[Smikis]

someone who raided both 10 and 25, in cata, i can easily say so far every boss we killed, was far easer in 25 man , healing is just so much harder in 10 man , number of bosses we 1 shoted in 25 man after wiping for whole evening in 10 man ..
couple of bosses are like night and day in 25 man

atramdes, surprisingly a lot easer and a lot more forgiving in 25 man, magmaw 10 man is just silly, since you gotta bring huge aoe setup, and strong healing, and cakewalk in 25 man , omnitron is hard and complicated fight in 10 man, faceroll in 25 man version that alchemist dragon ( forgot the name ) is bunch easer in 25 man version , halfus bit easer in 25 man too, rest is about same or cant give reasonable comparison

whoever says 10 man is easer is just pulling that out of his ass and didnt raid cata 10 mans, or just saying to say , 25 man is easer most of the time ,only thing 10mans had easer, is to get those 10 geared ppl early

ps i am in 25 man raiding guild

[Ehtnalav]

Think of it this way:
10m = 2 tanks/2-3 heals. So losing 1 dps is 1/5th or 1/6th of your raid's total dps lost.
25m = 2-3tanks/3-4 heals. So losing 1 dps is only 1/18th to 1/20th of your total dps lost.

3-4 heals for 25 man.. seriously? More like 5-7
But you do have a point.

Also, about what OP wrote: note that there are almost 100 000 logs for 10 mans and only about 30 000 for 25 mans.
Many guilds aiming at 25 did some 10 man runs at first, before they got 25 man team ready for raids.
So obviously, there will be more data about 10 mans, and most likely there will be more wipes there.

1 month after expansion release laid back guilds just starting with 25 mans, and they are the majority, not hardcore ones like Paragon or Ensidia.
So i say check that data just before new tier of gear is released. Then we can talk about how easy/hard 10/25 fights are.

[Amghealme]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but World of Logs data is uploaded by players, not automatically from every raid that runs. Wouldn't this cut out 99% of the PuG factor data peo

[Deathcold]

While the numbers are low it wont say much, since the best guilds in world progression play 25 mans. For stance (its a madeup number to make a point) only 20 guilds killed nefarian 25 man and 5 killed nefarian 10 man, where 18 of those 20 are world hardcore guilds and 1 of those 5. Something around those lines ll messup all the number data since it isint showing the regular player data base and the regular player skill lvl. Other than that i heard from players that 25 man is easier than 10 mans since you cant carry slacking players on the 10 mans and 25 mans alowed 2 or 3 slackers.

[Vudu]

I must admit, I started skimming as soon as I realized the OP was based on the assumption that 10/25man wipe rates are a good way to determine what's easier.

I'm 12/12 normals atm and working on my 2nd heroic, mostly 25 with a few 10s. In my experience, most fights tend to be easier on 10. However, occasionally some are harder, such as Nef (It's alot harder to heal a platform alone imo and keeping the add tank up solo-healing can be very difficult when you have to reposition). One of the opposites would be Al'akir, which I found ridiculously easy in 10 man but a real pain in 25. Added to this is that 10 man can be led around by the nose by one person much easier, whereas 25man the raid as a whole has to work together more just due to logistical issues.

If they ever change 10 mans to have less space than 25m, then they'd be alot closer in difficulty. Until then though, there will be far more fights that are easier in 10 man than the opposite.

[Siri]

How many good guilds converted into a 10man raiding system?
I think, in general, the 25man raids are more organized guilds, while 10mans are more likely to just be a bunch of friends playing for fun.
I've played both 10man and 25man and I can say from experience that while some fights are harder on 10man, some are harder on 25man too and the scales doesn't tip more to one side than the other overall.

[Deleted]

To the clueless people in this thread.

First of all there's plenty of 10mans formed by ex-top players from 25man guilds.

2nd. 10mans on normal mode are pretty much the same if not easier than their 25 counterparts.

HOWEVER

Once you get to heroic modes, you quickly realize how stupidly unfuckingtested the content was. Most of the fights DO NOT scale down to the 10man enviroment as they should. You need the same amount of interrupters as you need in 25man, same amount of tanks, an extreme amount of healers (4 out of your 10man group) and also in some cases ( maloriak ) you need the dps to do the job of twice the people you have in that raid (adds having almost same hp as they do in 25man heroic).

That, and the loot. 25mans getting heroic tokens (1 or 2) + 6 more items while 10mans only get 2 items.

It's fucking bullshit. Anyone disagreeing with this is either clueless or a fucking idiot. Go do your research thanks.

PS : Best 10man guild is at 4/12 heroic modes. Not 8/12. That's just wowprogress showing 25man kills as 10.

[Liagala]

More than likely your 25 man raiding team has an average lower level of skill than your 10 man group will have.

I think it's the other way around, right now. For all of Wrath, the best loot always dropped from 25-mans. 25-man raiding guilds had their pick of players, because everyone wanted the better gear. Now that both tiers drop the same loot that might change over time, but I doubt it has completely evened out in just a month. I think the higher caliber raiders are still in the 25-mans, for the most part.

That said, I believe that 10-mans are a little more difficult in some ways. Positioning is definitely easier, for fights that require spreading out. I'll grant that without a fuss. But a mistake in 10-man is a LOT more costly than one in 25s. One idiot in your 10-man raid who dies to fire (or runs off the ledge into the lava pool on Magmaw, as I did the other day) drops your effectiveness by 10%. I single-handedly wiped us on that attempt. In a 25-man raid, one idiot drops your effectiveness by 2.5%. You can afford to carry one or even a couple idiots in 25s, where 10s require every member to be on their game.

[fex]

All the casual/new players, do you think they go for 10 mans or 25 mans? I think the answer is obvious here, 10 man attracts newer and less serious players which is why there are more wipes % wise

Fortunately, I already addressed this: it was the first point in my self-rebuttal.

---------- Post added 2011-01-13 at 04:50 PM ----------

1. You can res roughly 1/3 of your raid in a 10man with either ankhs/combat res/soulstones. Nowhere near close to that in 25man.

Actually, you get 1 combat res per 10 people in 10-man, and 1 combat res per 8 people in 25-man. In other words, 25-mans are more forgiving with combat resses.

---------- Post added 2011-01-13 at 04:52 PM ----------

Truth be told, I dislike 25 man because I like the intimacy of 10 man groups better. Just being another cog in a raid of 25 doesn't jive with me very well and is not how I prefer to play the game. Whether 25 is harder or not, I don't care, but I certainly agree with the OP that there's no a priori consideration as to why this should be so.

Exactly. In a 25-man raid, it's easy to get "lost in the system". It's very easy to just do your job, maybe get a little lazy here and there, and still do just fine. In a 10-man raid, though, every action has a resounding impact. Every heal you cast is noticed. Every time a DPS does something awesome, it's noticed. There is, as you said, an "intimacy" to playing with 9 other people instead of 24, which makes it much more fun for me. I'm glad Blizzard has finally made 10-man raiding both viable and challenging.

---------- Post added 2011-01-13 at 04:53 PM ----------

Could be because scrubanubs goes into 10man, expecting to down it, while the more experienced guilds do 25man.

I addressed this concern in both my first and third points of self-rebuttal. I encourage you to read the entire post before replying, next time.

[xile]

Something that people fail to take into account is that by nature 10 mans are easier than 25 mans. There are 15 less people to coordinate which is more often than not the biggest failure in groups. So for 10 mans to be as "hard" as 25 mans, they're content should actually be more challenging, just to even out the difficulty.

[fex]

More than likely your 25 man raiding team has an average lower level of skill than your 10 man group will have.

Hahah, I'm so glad I'm not the only person who thinks this. One of the most common responses I seem to be getting is "10-man raiders are worse than 25-man raiders", but in all of my experience, 25-man raids are the ones littered with bads being carried.

[spiny]

All things being equal, you will see more 10 man PUGs than 25s, and this will skew the success rate per encounter.

[fex]

Something that people fail to take into account is that by nature 10 mans are easier than 25 mans. There are 15 less people to coordinate which is more often than not the biggest failure in groups. So for 10 mans to be as "hard" as 25 mans, they're content should actually be more challenging, just to even out the difficulty.

Exactly - in order to compensate for the easier coordination of 10 people than 25 people, you have to make the 10-man content harder. Sort of like they did for OS10+3, and sort of like it seems like they've done for Cataclysm raiding.

---------- Post added 2011-01-13 at 04:56 PM ----------

All things being equal, you will see more 10 man PUGs than 25s, and this will skew the success rate per encounter.

I addressed this in my first point of rebuttal. Keep reading my original post, you'll find it. :}

[Chronosaga]

People keep saying that when a player dies in 10 mans its more punishing than 25s but in my experience its easier to die in 25s than 10.

[fex]

Also, about what OP wrote: note that there are almost 100 000 logs for 10 mans and only about 30 000 for 25 mans.
Many guilds aiming at 25 did some 10 man runs at first, before they got 25 man team ready for raids.
So obviously, there will be more data about 10 mans, and most likely there will be more wipes there.

1 month after expansion release laid back guilds just starting with 25 mans, and they are the majority, not hardcore ones like Paragon or Ensidia.
So i say check that data just before new tier of gear is released. Then we can talk about how easy/hard 10/25 fights are.

I will be sure to revisit this as more and more data becomes available. I find it fascinating.

[Aonix]

This. One person dying in a 10 man is 10% of your group gone. One person down in a 25 is only 4% of your group.

easier to find 10 really good player then 25..
Both have their pro and cons , but no one will ever give a shit about 10m raiding :/

[Zathrendar]

People keep saying that when a player dies in 10 mans its more punishing than 25s but in my experience its easier to die in 25s than 10.

And the impact is much less felt.

How many good guilds converted into a 10man raiding system?
I think, in general, the 25man raids are more organized guilds, while 10mans are more likely to just be a bunch of friends playing for fun.
I've played both 10man and 25man and I can say from experience that while some fights are harder on 10man, some are harder on 25man too and the scales doesn't tip more to one side than the other overall.

Right, which suggests 25 man over 10 is more a matter of guild preference than anything to give self-entitled elitists a reason to look down upon people raiding in 10 man. ;p