Ready Check: Super (raid) size me!
by Marcie Knox 
Feb 15th 2008 at 3:00PM
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Kara or BT, everyone can get in on the action and down them some bosses. Srsly, that punk took my pink Huffy 10 speed.
It never fails. Every time I say something about raiding, I get comments about how people miss the old 40-mans, how the 10-man to 25-man transition doesn't even make mathematical sense, or even how everything should just be 5-mans. (Is that even technically a raid?) So today we're going to chat a bit about raid size and what it really means.
Looking back through the annals of raiding history, Blizz has spent some time trying to decide what the best raiding size should be. Off the top of my head I recall there being 10, 15, 20, 25, and 40-man raids over the course of WoW, with the 25-mans being the latest editions. The first limitation on raids is the number must be divisible by 5, since that's the smallest group unit in the game.
The 40-man raids seemed like the fairest from a math standpoint. You had 8 classes back then, and thus you could, in theory, bring 5 of each and everyone would be happy. No rogues and hunters kicked out for other classes, although good luck finding 5 shaman on the Horde side. The biggest complaint about this raid size is that there were just too many people. The pond was so big and the fish so small that you would end up with a core group that actually beat the content, plus a group that was just along for the ride. Whether you liked 40-mans or not seems to be dependent on how you viewed the coat tailers. If they were friends or people you just enjoyed playing with, then the 40-mans have a rosy hue. But if they were just there for the lewts, the 40-man feelings are typically sour.
Gear was also a pretty big issue since 40 people is a lot of mouths to feed. Even guilds that tried to be fair and impartial with DKP or other point systems would have to do a bit of Loot Council'ing in the end, just so the tanks would be geared enough to handle the content. Even if there had been a class token system that's all the rage now, I still think this would be the case.
On the other extreme, 10-mans seem a bit too small to me. Don't get me wrong, I think Kara is awesome and the content/bosses/loot are very fitting. But would it feel epic to down Illidan with only 10 people? If we could do it with that few, why doesn't Akama just grab some supporters and do it without us? I also have more than 9 friends in the game, the direct result of the 40-man days. So you end up running 2 10-man groups and people like tanks and healers rarely ever get to play with their other tank/healer friends because of class balance. Then you have this whole Group A vs Group B competition that never works out well.
The 20 and 25-mans seem pretty good to me. There's enough room for class variety, like more than 1 of each class, but not so huge that a fist fight breaks out over loot. It also feels epic just looking at all the people that it takes to down bosses. Now, before you think I'm just some sort of Blizzard wall licker, I still don't think they're the most ideal raid size evah. Does 25/9 = a whole number? Not for me it doesn't.
What I would like to see is Blizzard go with a bit more raid balance before traditional grouping size. Decide how many of each class you want and then have that many slots to go around. For me, I think 3 of each class is the key number, based on both buffs and raid jobs. What class isn't good in groups of 3? I can't really think of one. So if I have 9 classes and 3 of each, I get 27. Sadly, I'm not sure I want 3 groups of 9 on my raid screen. /deflated
What do you think is the best raid size? Should we continue to be limited by the 5 people per group restriction?
Marcie Knox has been raiding for a guinny squirrel's age. I apologize if I offended any of my readers with my ignorance. Rodent racism shouldn't be taken lightly. And if you can tell me the more common name for a guinny squirrel, I might just feature you in a upcoming article.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Ready Check (Raiding)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Andrew Feb 15th 2008 3:10PM
The addition of the Death Knight class would make 30-man raids adhere to your rule of thumb for 3 of each class. Of course, if they keep adding hero classes, things go sideways.
dan Feb 15th 2008 6:05PM
They've already said they may introduce an archdruid in wotlk so it goes out the door quickly.
The classes should be irrelevant. Instead it should be based on roles (like most strat guides already address things with) X tanks, x healers, x dps (with maybe a split between melee and ranged). Voila.
Heela Feb 15th 2008 3:19PM
Three of each class is not the key number. In most raids (if not all) you're looking at roles (not classes or specs). So you have X number of tanks, Y number of DPS, Z number of healers, etc.
To me 10 and 25 are solid. If you are fortunate enough to have more than 9 online friends, then you can easily play with the others in a 10-man when it resets.
I would prefer to see more of a path for 10-man instances out of the gate, though, and not have to wait a year for a 2nd 10-man instance (i.e. ZA).
The initial 10-man instance in WoTLK should not be such a gatekeeper for raid progression, but rather a simple starting point. Then, larger guilds can quickly jump to 25-man progression, while other smaller guilds and PUGs can make their way along the 10-man path.
RaidOrg - http://raidorg.com - Helping World of Warcraft Guilds Manage Raids
Charlie Feb 15th 2008 3:33PM
Mmm, opening raids need organization and attunements. Just from a pure guild leader perspective, you want people to go through the attunement process, you don't want newbies and people who just dinged 70 to jump into your raid, especially if they don't know how to play their class.
Yes thats the responsibility of the GL and officers to make sure you don't have those kind of peoples, but attunemnets help alot with that.
Cynra Feb 15th 2008 3:43PM
Precisely the point that I was thinking when I read the article. It's roles that are important in raiding and not class; since multiple classes can hold multiple roles (sometimes simultaneously, but typically not as well as the person specced specifically for that role), you get a lot of flexibility in group composition. Interested in grabbing a tank? You've got your choice of a warrior, a paladin, or a druid. Want a healer? Druid, paladin, priest, and shaman. And, DPS? More than you can shake a stick at. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses, which can be offset by the composition of the remainder of the raid. .
While I raid frequently in a number of 25-man raids on two toons, I'd also like to see more 10-man content in the future. The gear should scale to the difficulty and also the number of individuals attending the raid, but it would open up more content to guilds like mine that don't have the numbers to organize our own 25-man raids and aren't unable to get into raids with other guilds (as I have done in my own progression). I enjoy 25-man raids and think that it's much more personable than 40-man raids and more challenging, since there is potentially less freeloading as the importance of each individual member becomes more significant. In a 40-man raid, one person that fails to do his or her job is just 2.5% of the raid; the same person in a 25-man raid is 4% and in a 10-man is 10% of the raid.
George Feb 15th 2008 3:24PM
Personally, 10 or 15 sounds just fine to me. Anything more than that lends itself to coordination and drama issues.
Nails Feb 15th 2008 3:23PM
coming up with a fixed # of people for a raid based on how many classes there are might work for a starting point, but what about classes that can fill multiple roles? for example, you could easily blow through kara with 4 pallys, 4 priests, and 2 (fill in anything else here)
there will always be people left behind b/c other classes can fill in their spot with ease
dan Feb 15th 2008 6:07PM
And that's why hybrid's shouldn't be as effective in primary roles as the more limited but focused parent class counterparts.
BadBart Feb 15th 2008 3:27PM
80. Back when I hosted the level 1 troll deathrace one raid of 40 did not feel epic enough. I'd like to see an 80 or 120 man dungeon. Like a co-operative AV with a huge boss in the center.
Charlie Feb 15th 2008 3:35PM
omg.
Please, think about the organization, think bout the guild leaders.
It hink and 80 or 100+ man raid would make me cry. It would be cool for novelty's sake, but dear god would that get tiring.
Meira Feb 15th 2008 3:35PM
That would be laggy as hell, I'm afraid :S
maybesew Feb 15th 2008 3:36PM
Shoutout to UBRS, the only 15 man raid ever
Ryan Feb 15th 2008 5:44PM
80 - (wo)man, have to be fair to the females that play like my ex gf, would be SICKKKK. But yes I will tend to agree that the 40 mans were and will always be more fun than the 10-25 mans ever will be.
I think PART of the reason that Blizzard is steering away from the 40 mans is because of the "average" Casual players who's computers would crash and burst into flame if they ever attempted to do an 80 man. Not to mention who here has ever waited for like 1-2 hours for 35-40 people to show up and have enough intelligent players on to do it? Probably most of us.
But just once I'd love to see an 80 man raid. That would be the most epic thing that ever happened in the History of WoW.
Scoottie Feb 15th 2008 3:39PM
25 mans should go back to 40 mans. Having 9 classes (and with the addition of DK this is going to be even worse) and 3 specs you have to have at least 27 if not 30 to have a nice round number. You should be able to take 1 of each spec of each class and then fill in the for the specs that are not raid specs like non-combat rogues and lolretadins.
And to respond to #4 if 10 15 is all you want because of coordination or drama then go PvP. 40 man raids were epic it actually took some skill to lead those and it was just plain more fun with 40 people.
Scoottie Feb 15th 2008 3:40PM
#4 = George
Didn't know that the numbers change when more people post
Balasan Feb 15th 2008 5:18PM
Took skills to lead a 40 man raid, maybe, but it doesn't take any skills to play in a 40 man raid. At all. 10 people are just there as freeloaders usually.
I remember one MC my guild had back in the days. One member said he'd be afk for a while. He came back 20 minutes later, almost near the boss. We asked him where he went. He actually went to take a bath! I surprised he didn't continue with a candlelight dinner or some fun time with his girlfriend or something.
Nope, 40 is just way too much.
Alch Feb 15th 2008 3:42PM
I like 20 myself. You already have to have two 10 man groups just to gear up. It seems like you could just move up once everyone had the gear. To get to 25 you either need to have 3 10 man groups and then leave people behind or take 5 from another guild.
I just think 25 leads to too much drama when you make the jump.
Heela Feb 15th 2008 3:45PM
@3
I never said to lift any initial attunement (or any attunement for that matter). What I meant was don't make the 25-man progression rely so heavily on the first 10-man instance. Add a long attunement quest chain for entering the 10-mans... that's fine. However, you need to give the larger, 25-man raiding guilds more options.
There are so many options for getting geared now than their were a year ago. We need those options when WoTLK hits so guilds don't spend months on a 10-man raid, splitting the guild up into 3 or even 4 teams.
RaidOrg - http://raidorg.com - Helping World of Warcraft Guilds Manage Raids
Heela Feb 15th 2008 3:49PM
* there were a year ago
/sigh :)
Heela Feb 15th 2008 3:49PM
* there were a year ago
/sigh :)