Unpopular opinion: 10 man raids should make a return in Shadowlands.

[Kalisandra]

I loved 10 man raids because i didnt have to join a guild to raid and share loot, it was far easier to get a small group of friends together to run raids, im not sure when they were phased out, was it cata?

You can still raid with a raid filled with you and nine of your friends. Hell, you can raid with over 20 of your friends as well. The one thing you can't (easily) do is raid at the highest level of difficulty with other than 20 people (though if you're good a couple less should be doable with flash gear, good skills, etc.).

[Onikaroshi]

You can still raid with a raid filled with you and nine of your friends. Hell, you can raid with over 20 of your friends as well. The one thing you can't (easily) do is raid at the highest level of difficulty with other than 20 people (though if you're good a couple less should be doable with flash gear, good skills, etc.).

Too bad the lower difficulty (heroic) is piss easy.

[Kalisandra]

It's not. You would be locked doing 10m compared to 25m. Like mythic raid ids work. Did you do 10m/25m back in the days or is this all new to you?

So you want to put 10M and 25M on the same lockout, but have them drop different loot? Do you have any idea how badly that would go?

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Garrosh was so tightly tuned that to have the dps paragon had to one heal. (and it was a holy priest, not a disc)

And of course nya doesn't fit with 10 man really, it wasn't designed with it in mind, if you design with 10 man in mind it works out much better.

Though I think the better compromise is just to drop from 20 to 15 and have every fight require 3 tanks and 3 heals.

A 15-man raid size is not a 'compromise', it's a win for the 'make raids smaller' brigade. Raids were once 40-man, with some smaller raids. Then they were 25-man with some 10-mans. Then they were 10- or 25-man. Now they are 20-man, 10-30 man (and most groups run on the smaller side), or 25-man LFR. Making 20M go down to 15M is not a compromise at all, it's the death of large raid groups.

[Clozer]

So you want to put 10M and 25M on the same lockout, but have them drop different loot? Do you have any idea how badly that would go?

I never wanted different loot. xD

It was because the boy said that 10m and 20m needed different loot to be different or else it would be same - dont ask me.

[Gorsameth]

The only realistic way to introduce 10m Mythic is by replacing 20man. The other options have been tried and failed for varies reasons.

[Elbob]

Garrosh was so tightly tuned that to have the dps paragon had to one heal. (and it was a holy priest, not a disc)

And of course nya doesn't fit with 10 man really, it wasn't designed with it in mind, if you design with 10 man in mind it works out much better.

Though I think the better compromise is just to drop from 20 to 15 and have every fight require 3 tanks and 3 heals.

Garrosh was tightly tuned on both difficulties I'm pretty sure. And yes on that fight it was a holy priest with 2-3 hybrid classes supporting. After Paradon's kill I believe most guilds starting using discs to solo it over holy though im sure they had a good reason to use a holy for their kill.

you say that BUT my post was instigated by this comment from this thread

All of nyalotha bosses mythic would be doable with 10 man assuming lower boss hp and bit less damage on raid.

And I wanted to point out 10 man fight design requires SIGNIFICANTLY different balance and design functionality.

While trying to force 3 tank strats on every boss is possible. The ways to make it happen get old fast. Its just more tank swaps or forced adds. I think 2 being the standard and every fight being possible with 2 is fine. Even when 3 on some can make it easier. Unless you make raid dmg the same from fight to fight there is pretty much no way to lock in 3 healers 100% of the time. Good healing teams currently cut on how many they need by using really good cd management and if that cd management is needed to do 3 heals than pugs and weaker guilds will need 4. If its not good guilds only need 2. So its still gonna have to be flexible.

[Relapses]

Garrosh was tightly tuned on both difficulties I'm pretty sure. And yes on that fight it was a holy priest with 2-3 hybrid classes supporting. After Paradon's kill I believe most guilds starting using discs to solo it over holy though im sure they had a good reason to use a holy for their kill.

It was the absolutely insane DPS requirement which caused Paragon to go with one healer. It was so bad that most guilds didn't get their kill until after it was nerfed twice. Early 10M Heroic Gary was a fucking monster.

[Ealyssa]

smaller groups = more of each class or spec will be taken

Sure, and earth is flat while visited by aliens...

[nocturnus]

Make raids 5 man content.

[Milfshaked]

It was the absolutely insane DPS requirement which caused Paragon to go with one healer. It was so bad that most guilds didn't get their kill until after it was nerfed twice. Early 10M Heroic Gary was a fucking monster.

Early 10 man Heroic Gary was not too bad once you got the gear. It was mostly cancer because of it being so long fight. Once people started having enough gear to skip one of those dream phases it got very easy. The only difficult part of the fight was the dps check before the mythic phase, and when gear solves your problems, it is not really a hard fight.

[Itori]

The only realistic way to introduce 10m Mythic is by replacing 20man. The other options have been tried and failed for varies reasons.

Go the way of ff and make progression raiding 10m and lfr and special event dungeons 20m xD

[Jastall]

"Flexible Mythic" is a non-starter, for a variety of reasons.

The biggest one is that tuning is impossible. The devs can barely keep a strict-format tuned adequately enough to sustain a consistent and smoothly-scaling experience through a whole tier. More importantly, I can guarantee you that a variable raid size would only introduce a break-point meta that calculates a sweet spot. Not only would that make the meta 10x more toxic and unbearable than it already is, but it's not practical in terms of the effort required on Blizz's part (i.e. they're not going to scale up their raid team dramatically to support this idea).

I can sympathize with a smaller fixed format option that's more casual. Some of my fondest memories were doing this with some friends in WotLK. Not sure there's room between Heroic and that though, and in a game that has over 30 specs to cram into limited raid spots, it's not realistic to have such a raid at the top end. The drama over how many specs weren't 'viable' for an optimal 10 man was already absurd back then, and we know balance across specs will never be perfectly harmonized.

Indeed. There's already a lot of whinging about balance and viability in 20 man raids and flex ones in N/H, imagine if 10M becomes some new standard for the players too good for Heroic but not good enough for Hall of Fame (IE where I personally am, and where IMO many of the worst complainers exist in regards to balance). You'd get the forums flooded by people crying that they can't heal on their Shaman or DPS on their Druid because more than half of the raid's slots might as well be locked to classes that are already stupid powerful in raids such as Hpallies and Warlocks. That's how it was during Cata and Mists. Good luck maintaining a bench, too, when 10M raid groups are so easy to form.

Also, M+ fills the small group PvE craving now, and does it well I think. 10M Mythic would IMO be redundant in more ways than one, and add to an already fairly large difficulty bloat.

[Onikaroshi]

Also, M+ fills the small group PvE craving now, and does it well I think.

No, it doesn't, it's good for like 1 patch but unless they massively ramp up the number of dungeons they release over the course of the expansion it just turns dull. Plus, it's far too trash focused.

I just want hard 10 man back.

[Mozu]

Go the way of ff and make progression raiding 10m and lfr and special event dungeons 20m xD

Modern games realize smaller groups are just better.

The only reason WoW holds on to the "big raid" idea is due to nostalgia and people violently rejecting change.

[Jastall]

No, it doesn't, it's good for like 1 patch but unless they massively ramp up the number of dungeons they release over the course of the expansion it just turns dull. Plus, it's far too trash focused.

I just want hard 10 man back.

I was going more by the general opinion. It's quite the popular feature, and your own issues are more in line with things that are problems with M+ (that I largely agree with, by the by, we should get one new dungeon per numbered patch at least if you ask me, even if it costs a raid boss or two) than things which would be solved by 10 man raids. At least good affixes are decent at renewing interest in dungeons.

And you can want what you wish. Heavens know I want things to change in this game as well. But realistically, Blizzard going for increased class identity/diversity and elements like buffs provided by a single class absolutely does not mesh with 10 man raiding being competitive at all. "Bring the player, not the class" was an absolute necessity when 10 man raids were supported, and Blizzard is quite clearly in the process of ditching that aspect of their design paradigm.

[Onikaroshi]

I was going more by the general opinion. It's quite the popular feature, and your own issues are more in line with things that are problems with M+ (that I largely agree with, by the by, we should get one new dungeon per numbered patch at least if you ask me, even if it costs a raid boss or two) than things which would be solved by 10 man raids. At least good affixes are decent at renewing interest in dungeons.

And you can want what you wish. Heavens know I want things to change in this game as well. But realistically, Blizzard going for increased class identity/diversity and elements like buffs provided by a single class absolutely does not mesh with 10 man raiding being competitive at all. "Bring the player, not the class" was an absolute necessity when 10 man raids were supported, and Blizzard is quite clearly in the process of ditching that aspect of their design paradigm.

20 man really hasn't solved anything though, most of the time the best thing to do is class stack. When something is "required" (like locks in g'huun) it just pisses people off.

[DemonDays]

Last time they gave numbers mmo champ looked at raid participation, over 70% did lfr to some extent, over 30% did normal, 20% did heroic, and something like 5% did mythic.

And if you believe no one is raiding for fun, I have a really nice bridge to sell you

Imagine believing any stat this cesspool of a website ever puts out.

The same website that literally posted a 30 step guide on how to recruit yourself to Recruit-A-Friend to put more money into Blizzards pocket.

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Also, M+ fills the small group PvE craving now, and does it well I think. 10M Mythic would IMO be redundant in more ways than one, and add to an already fairly large difficulty bloat.

I like to imagine that anyone that spams 10 or more Mythic+ dungeons a week are the same type of person that would enjoy watching paint dry.

Over the course of TWO YEARS we got a single new "mega dungeon". Sorry, but that's just pathetic.

How can anyone actually enjoy spamming the same fucking shit over and over. Especially since some dungeons are considered a "dead key". Baffles the mind.



There is no challenging small group content that isn't tied to a fucking timer.

Warfronts are not challenging. Islands once again have a fucking timer and they're boring AoE fests. Mythic+ is just a stressful race against time where you can't really enjoy them.

Why can't we have REAL dungeons like BRD back?

[Jastall]

20 man really hasn't solved anything though, most of the time the best thing to do is class stack. When something is "required" (like locks in g'huun) it just pisses people off.

It really varies on a per fight basis. G'huun was class stack city for Locks, but Jaina wasn't, U'unat was to a degree (with the unlikely Shaman stacking due to the absurd damage requirements, later on any class worked fine), Azshara wasn't that much, and N'zoth wasn't, not on DPS at least. 10 man would have seen far worse, imagine 10 man Mythic G'huun, literally anyone who isn't a high mobility class can fuck right off from the onset, no contest, and 4 out of 6 DPS slots would be Locks, urgh.

Going back to Legion, the only endboss that was really class (and even race!) stacked was KJ, due to being overly hard. Xavius was a joke, Helya mostly required some soaks and you were gucci, Gul'dan was fine so long as you had enough ranged and required one (1) lock or mage which is hardly an unfair demand in 20 man but could very well be in 10 man, and Argus was immune stacked to a degree until nerfed and favored a 3rd tank. It's hardly a ridiculous situation IMO, and a lot of the stacking happens in the very top guilds, only a few fights such as Coven in Antorus and G'huun really enforce some classes or roles rigidly for mostly everyone.

[Onikaroshi]

Imagine believing any stat this cesspool of a website ever puts out.

The same website that literally posted a 30 step guide on how to recruit yourself to Recruit-A-Friend to put more money into Blizzards pocket.

That was long before it changed hands 40 times. But the numbers make sense and match up with what blizzard has hinted at in the past.

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It really varies on a per fight basis. G'huun was class stack city for Locks, but Jaina wasn't, U'unat was to a degree (with the unlikely Shaman stacking due to the absurd damage requirements, later on any class worked fine), Azshara wasn't that much, and N'zoth wasn't, not on DPS at least. 10 man would have seen far worse, imagine 10 man Mythic G'huun, literally anyone who isn't a high mobility class can fuck right off from the onset, no contest, and 4 out of 6 DPS slots would be Locks, urgh.

Going back to Legion, the only endboss that was really class (and even race!) stacked was KJ, due to being overly hard. Xavius was a joke, Helya mostly required some soaks and you were gucci, Gul'dan was fine so long as you had enough ranged and required one (1) lock or mage which is hardly an unfair demand in 20 man but could very well be in 10 man, and Argus was immune stacked to a degree until nerfed and favored a 3rd tank. It's hardly a ridiculous situation IMO, and a lot of the stacking happens in the very top guilds, only a few fights such as Coven in Antorus and G'huun really enforce some classes or roles rigidly for mostly everyone.

Tomb had an entirely different kind of stacking, immunity stacking.

And g'huun was just horribly designed overall. Even in lower difficulties. Point is, you can design things that work in both, and you CAN design 10 man around requiring a class, we're talking about the top level here, you can definitely do alts, only heroic and below should be able to be done with any decently made up group.

[Jastall]

That was long before it changed hands 40 times. But the numbers make sense and match up with what blizzard has hinted at in the past.

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Tomb had an entirely different kind of stacking, immunity stacking.

And g'huun was just horribly designed overall. Even in lower difficulties

Sure, Tomb was a shitshow in Mythic (fine in Heroic- IMO) and Blizzard never did something like that again. It's not like it would have been less of a problem in 10 man, would be worse in fact since even just two soaks means 1/3 of your DPS is likely running around eating the green slime or whatever.

G'huun was them trying the Blackfuse thing again, except doing it twice with much more cheesing available and an extended burn phase at the end. The problem is the Blackfuse thing, IMO the beam should have easily activated and used to help clear out an ever growing spawn of adds rather than be mandatory to pass the soft DPS check, even if it was fun to pump damage on the boss while it is stunned it's still not as good as Gorefiend was.