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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Good morning Azeroth!
by Adam Holisky 
Feb 23rd 2009 at 11:00AM
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.
Welcome to this edition of The Queue. It's 11:00 a.m. Do you know where your children are? Hopefully they're firmly planted in some sort of edumacation. I am so smart, S. M. R. T., I mean S. M. A. R. T.
AlexW573 asked...
"How many reasonably geared (entry 80 raiding) people does it take for TBC 25man raids?"
AlexW573 asked...
"How many reasonably geared (entry 80 raiding) people does it take for TBC 25man raids?"
That depends. Mount Hyjal and Black Temple were being cleared with 15 to 20 fully Sunwell geared players right before Wrath came out. I did a number of these raids myself. They were more difficult, sure, but when you had 15 or 20 players that had done the fights hundreds of times for a year, well, it's really second nature to many folks.
Sunwell was a different animal due to some of the DPS / Tanking / Healing checks throughout the instance. You'd have been hard pressed to do Brutallus with anything less than 22 people – and even that would be pushing it for most top-of-the-top-end guilds (pre nerf).
If you are going in with people that truly have been there for a year or more, I would expect it could be 10-maned easily. If the players are really top notch, the kind of god like players that you kind of wonder if they're cheating they're so good, you could probably see a 5-man clear MH/BT. For everyone else I'd recommend between 15 and 20 players.
Kara, Gruul, Mag, SSC, and most of TK can probably be 5-maned without too much hassle. I would say however that with Kael'thas you might run into significant problems. And remember too that several fights have legitimately hard mechanics which require extensive study and practice (ie: Kale'thas and Vashj). Even though the bosses might not hit hard, the actual encounters themselves still require coordination.
Jasuess asked...
"While I understand it's called WoW Insider, I'm curious on what everyone at WoW Insider thinks about the upcoming Blizzard releases of StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3? Also, any plans for a StarCraft Insider and Diablo Insider?"
Everyone here is excited about both those titles, and we're gonna be first in line to get them. I personally had the chance to sit down and play them for several hours at BlizzCon thanks to the press room, and I can say that they're truly amazing games.
I don't think there are any plans for specific sites in the future, but I can't really say one way or another. We do already have excellent coverage of StarCraft II and Diablo 3 over at JoyStiq and Big Download. For some more coverage, check out the interview I did with Chris Sigaty (lead producer of StarCraft II) and some gameplay impressions of StarCraft II. Also take a look at Daniel Whitcomb's coverage of the Diablo 3 Class Panel and Diablo 3 Art and Lore Panel.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column! Leave your questions in the comments and we'll do our best to answer 'em!Filed under: The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
Docp Feb 23rd 2009 11:48AM
its about stopping people powerleveling their characters. blizz wants people to take their time as they level up but without the penalties most people would just get in a group of 5 and burn through hundreds of mobs as quickly as possible.
Malkavos Feb 23rd 2009 12:02PM
Yes, Strahl, there is a cut. The bonus you mention is applied afterwards. Basically, for a group of 5 people at the same level, the XP gained from each kill is divided by 5, and then group bonus XP is added. So the group as a whole is gaining more xp over time than they would if each individual member spent the same about of time killing other things solo. The ratio changes based on level, however, with higher levels soaking up more xp, even if the mobs are grey to them.
vocenoctum Feb 23rd 2009 12:14PM
From WoWwiki:
1 person group = 1.0
2 person group = 1.0
3 person group = 1.166
4 person group = 1.3
5 person group = 1.4
Then divide by the number of members of the group. (Effort is divided equally, xp is also divided equally.)
The real penalty for groups, IMO, is that it's based off the highest level guy there. The Base before modifier can be noticeably different if there are a few levels different.
WoWie Zowie Feb 23rd 2009 11:35AM
i
Kinoko Feb 23rd 2009 12:17PM
^ I second this
WoWie Zowie Feb 23rd 2009 4:54PM
well i had written this whole thing on TBC raiding bosses and stuff but when i hit submit all that showed up was "i".
i'm not writing that whole thing again.
comment phail
Jack Spicer Feb 23rd 2009 11:36AM
I've been doing research online to figure out what kind of gear I need to have in order to start raiding and doing some of the harder heroics and there is something that I am confused about. A couple of sources I've read will often say "aim for 30% crit chance", but I don't know if they mean 30% crit unbuffed or is that 30% after buffs.
Malkavos Feb 23rd 2009 12:04PM
Before buffs.
Kemikalkadet Feb 23rd 2009 1:40PM
Anything that gives stats to aim for assumes unbuffed. Group comps can change all the time but your normal unbuffed stats are a constant.
thumper242 Feb 23rd 2009 4:34PM
http://be.imba.hu/ is a good gear check, though it is of course not the last word in telling how prepared you are.
Rob Feb 23rd 2009 11:37AM
Just a note on retro raids. Old level 60 ones are extremely easy. I'm sure you can a 5 man group of 80s with a tank anda healer and be fine. Mag otoh really needs a bunch of people simply bc there is so much to do. You need a bunch of people who can tank, a few healers, 5 cube clickers. You need at least 10 people, probably more like 15-20 if you haven't been there before.
Kara is now a joke, I'm sure you can 3 man it.
Gruul is also very easy.
BT has already been commented on.
I haven't done SSC/TK at 80 yet, but my guess you can 10 man it.
Nadril Feb 23rd 2009 11:43AM
With a DK tank you can actually just have him tank through the ability mag does (that you would stop with the cubes) using Anti Magic Barrier or something.
Kara has been one manned by a DK (save for a few bosses) and I'm sure that any healer/tank that are decently geared could do it. 3 man would be a lot faster though and you could do all the bosses I think.
Rob Feb 23rd 2009 12:07PM
Good points. I'll update with ZA. ZA is really annoying to get into because of the click fest to enter. It says you need 5 people, in reality you need a full raid. We tried with 7 guys for 20 minutes and gave up. Kinda pathetic. No, we're talented enough, but its just a really stupid mechanism.
lightningjynx Feb 23rd 2009 1:05PM
The door to Z'A has been glitched since 3.0 came out, at least for all the groups I've been in. We've had almost the entire raid clicking on the gong for about 5 minutes, and nothing will happen. When you click on it, you hear the gong sound, but your character stops swinging. Basically you just need to sit there and click it over and over and over and over again until it finally works. I really think that since they took out other requirements for the number of people to complete an instance or for items to summon bosses, that they should take this out as well. What is the point of locking someone out of a raid because they want less than 5 people to do it? There really isn't much to get out of the raid anymore other than the achievement.
/shrug
Guess it's one of those things that Blizzard will get around to fixing eventually, like the cower bug and the flying carpet bug.
Pyornthe Feb 23rd 2009 1:48PM
I've run ZA /easily/ with 5 people, we probably could have done it with less. And as for the gong boss, you people are mistaken about how to do it. Before they fixed the boss it was a click fest, now everyone just needs to click the gong ONCE.
You click the gong once, your toon goes into frozen-swing mode, and when enough people have clicked once, you'll enable the door to open. If you stand there doing a click-fest, there's no way in hell you're going to manage to time that right.
Gimmlette Feb 23rd 2009 11:40AM
Thanks for the opinion on running TBC endgame with level 80 geared characters. As Spectacular Death works through the last of Classic content and moves to clearing BC content, we were wondering how many people we should be soliciting to run things like Gruul, Mags, SSC, etc. Your ideas will help us plan when to add BC endgame to the schedule.
BGO Feb 23rd 2009 11:42AM
i have crappy internet at the place im at now and i always lag. tanking heroics, i thought i sucked. But the other day i was at a web cafe with little lag, and was kicking ass. does lag really impact pve content? should i even be tanking heroics with 500 ms + lag all the time?
Nadril Feb 23rd 2009 11:45AM
For tanking I personally wouldn't unless you can tell the DPS that and let them compensate for it. The reason why is that if someone pulls aggro you might not get wind of it until a few seconds after the fact, and by then they may already be dead. Heroics it might not be that big of an issue but raiding it certainly is.
500ms + is quite high though, high enough I think it will effect you negatively.
Hoggersbud Feb 23rd 2009 11:50AM
500 ms? Think? I know. You are screwing yourself and people you group with that much lag. It is very noticeable, and improving it to 100-250 will be a major boost in your capabilities.
laughtrey Feb 23rd 2009 12:02PM
My guild went through and did the T6 raids with relative ease, we had a bunch of people only because everyone wanted the achievement. I know we blew through a whole lotta stuff pretty easy, but there were some fights that still needed to be played like they were intended. For instance we didn't have a mage for Illidari Council and as a 7.5 geared tank I got one-shotted by the mage.
We did however kill Illidan before he got to go into demon form, and killed Kil'Jaeden before we needed more than one dragon shield.