25-man gear should not be better than 10-man gear
by Eliah Hecht 
Mar 31st 2009 at 9:00PM
| 10-man | ilvl | 25-man |
| Naxx | 200 | |
| KT, EoE | 213 | Naxx |
| Ulduar | 219 | |
| Ulduar hard | 226 | Ulduar, KT/EoE |
| 232 | Ulduar weapons | |
| 239 | Ulduar hard |
So successful, in fact, that when Burning Crusade came along, there were no more 40-man raids - only 10 and 25. At the beginning, the only 10-man was BC's entry-level raid, Karazhan. Everything else, from the small T4 raids (Gruul, Magtheridon) on up through T6, was exclusively 25-man. Notably, Gruul and Mags returned the same quality of rewards as KZ. Eventually a second 10-man raid (Zul'Aman) was introduced, with roughly a T5 level of difficulty, and of rewards.
Blizzard noticed that people really liked these 10-man raids. And so it came to pass that in the current expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, every raid instance is available in both 10- and 25-man versions. However, in a departure from all previous tradition, the 10- and 25-man instances at the same tier (which is to say, T7, at the moment) reward different levels of gear: Naxx-10 gives you ilvl 200 epics, whereas Naxx-25 rewards you with ilvl 213.
Actually, saying that raids at the same tier reward different gear was slightly misleading of me. In actuality, the 10- and 25-man versions of raids in Wrath are tuned a tier (13 ilvls) apart. In the terminology of prior versions of WoW, if Naxx-10 is a T7 raid, we ought to call Naxx-25 T8. Ulduar-10 would then also be T8, and Uld-25 would be T9. We don't use names like this probably because the "tier" designation is related to tier sets that drop in raids, and the Naxx-25 T7.5 set is obviously more similar to the Naxx-10 T7.0 set than to the Uld-10 T8.0 set.
However, this is mostly a technicality. The take-away point is that in Wrath, the developers seem to have decided that 25-man raiding is better than 10-man raiding. It rewards better gear. And in Ulduar (which is of course the centerpiece of the upcoming 3.1 patch), this difference sharpens, since as far as I can tell there is no way to get the new legendary healer mace, Val'anyr, by doing 10-man raids.
The information thus far is that the Fragments of Val'anyr (of which you combine 30 to form the mace itself, reminiscent of Atiesh) drop mainly from hard-mode 25-man bosses, with a smaller chance to drop from non-hard-mode 25-man bosses. (Please correct me in the comments if you know this to be incorrect.) Which means if you're a healer in a 25-man raiding guild who's willing to put in some effort, you can probably get Val'anyr sooner or later. But if you're in a 10-man raiding guild, simply put, you're flat our of luck (unless you want to do a lot of pugs, I guess).
In my opinion, there is no justification for this. A common argument is that 25-mans are harder, and thus 25-man raiders "deserve" better gear. In my experience, this is absolutely false; the bits of 25-man Naxx that I've done I could practically have slept through, and 10-man Sarth with 3 drakes is generally accepted as the toughest fight in the game right now. This may be different in Ulduar (I haven't tried it on the PTR), but I doubt it - the more raiders you have, the more room for slack.
Another argument is that the 25-mans require more time investment. This is true to the extent that it's simply harder to wrangle 25 AFK-happy, incompatible-schedule-having raiders than 10 of them. But if that alone is enough to command better rewards, every guild leader who's ever held a guild meeting should get free epics. We should be rewarding skill, not suffering. This is related to the argument that 10-man raids are for "casuals", while 25-man raids are for "hardcore" players.
The third major argument in favor of the gear disparity between 10- and 25-mans, and a very telling one, is that if 10s had rewards equal to 25s, nobody would do the 25s. The only reason I can think of for this is that 25s are less fun to organize and/or to play that 10s. But should Blizzard really be using gear to incentivize players to do less fun content?
Note that I'm not advocating for free epics here. Reward should be proportional to effort. But reward should not necessarily be proportional to pain, which seems to be the idea behind the third argument.
I'll cut to the chase here: 25s are no harder than 10s, and not inherently better in any way that I can see. It's time to stop discriminating between the two. Let 10s and 25s reward the exact same quality of gear, and let the players' choice on which raid size to run be motivated by how many of their friends they want to play with, or the size of their guild, or what kind of a raiding environment they like, not the lure of better gear. And as an added bonus, you no longer have to itemize 10s and 25s separately if you don't want to.
If this leads to 25s being virtually abandoned, honestly, I see no problem with that. Let the most fun content win out. You don't see many people doing Heroic Oculus - should we make all drops in it 6 ilvls higher? To me, the answer is an obvious no. Instead, fix the content to make it more fun.
I don't, as it happens, think that changing 10s and 25s to drop the same gear would lead to an abandonment of 25s. There are lots of players out there who like the environment and the action of a 25-man raid, and there are lots of guilds built around that size of group. I seriously doubt everyone will suddenly start doing 10s just because their stats are no longer better than everyone else's.
Incidentally, this provides a solution to a concern about achievements that is currently under debate in the PTR forums. The realm-first achievements for Ulduar-10 were removed under concerns that 25-man guilds would pop into Uld-25 to get a few epics and then go back and clobber Uld-10, reaping the achievements. This is not behavior that Blizz wants to promote, so they pulled the Uld-10 realm firsts. If Uld-10 and Uld-25 rewarded the same gear, this would no longer be a possible strategy.
They are apparently planning to implement an achievement for defeating Algalon without having any gear of greater ilvl than Uld-10 hard modes (226), but we still don't get any realm-firsts in 10-man raiding, while the 25-man raiders do. Yeah, I'm whining a bit, but it is a disparity, and it does give the chance of a greater reward (a realm first) for easier content.
When I was hashing out this argument with the WoW Insider team, Alex and Rossi were very passionate that awarding the same gear from 10s that you do from 25s would kill 25-man raiding, despite the fact that many players prefer 25s. The reason for this would be that 25s take more time (which I'm not disagreeing with), and that players will optimize their play for greatest character advancement per time. In other words, if you can raid Uld-10 in 3 hours for gear of ilvl X, nobody is going to take the 4 hours to raid Uld-25 for gear of the same ilvl, no matter how much more they may prefer the 25-man-raiding environment.
This argument is reasonable, and Ghostcrawler appears to agree with it (or at least agree that the death of 25-man raiding would result from gear parity). However, I just don't buy it. I think that as long as the reward rate disparity isn't huge (as it is with current arenas, leading to their unpopularity), people will play what they want - if they like 25-man raiding, they'll do it. I don't think raiders aren't motivated by gear - they clearly are - but I also don't think they're solely motivated by gear. Other factors are at play.
For my 25-man-raiding constituency, I have make a pair of polls to test my hypothesis. These are obviously very unconclusive and unscientific, but I would appreciate your responses nonetheless. 10-man raiders or non-raiders, please refrain from voting; I'd like to keep these polls as representative as I can.
| Yes | |
|---|---|
| No |
| Yes | |
|---|---|
| No |
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 21)
Alex Sep 16th 2010 1:06AM
Excellent article!
I almost skipped 10 man naxx. I was brought as a healer into alot of pugs and friend's 25 man naxx runs and got some lucky rolls on healing gear. I've found that I only need gear in 10 man naxx for offspecs...
Snapjak Mar 31st 2009 9:40PM
Replying here simply so people will see a key fact that I'm not seeing anyone point out. If 10 and 25 man raids gave the same loot, both would still be run by those who want said loot. Since you could do both during the same week, and have a (slightly worse than) double shot at getting the things you want.
Alsides Mar 31st 2009 10:15PM
This is by far the worst article i've read.
1. 10 mans are by far more easy than 25 mans. You dont only get new mechanics that you need to fight against, you get more damage, need more heals, bosses have more HP so you need more dps.
1.1 Except from 10 man Sarth+3D wich is more difficult than 25 man version but, the same drake drops, and its easier to get that loot in a 10man, so at the end the most difficult fight atm gives a better chance on drake wich is the "reward" everyone wants from that figth, its a 10 man.
2. 10 mans are for casual, 25 man for hardcore... yeah you can pug a 25 man, but its hard to finish it unless its a joke like Sarth no drake. Any player with little time to play can log, ask for an invite in a 10 man pug and get some free loot. But the actual 25 man raider has to study strats, farm for mats for pots and stuff, need to have the enchants on their gear and has to improve himself everytime. Why wouldnt 25 man raiders get better loot?
People asking for same loot from 10 and 25 just want free epics and be able to say that they are skilled when they arent. And 25 mans can be as fun as 10 man... everyone has their nieche but that's no reason for people not putting same effort as hardcore raiders get at their same level.
This game is easy to play, people that say there's a learning curve are just lazy and dont want to think that its pretty simple, for year it has bean Fire = Bad for you... and it has been for years if you dont get it by now, please go play some solitare.
And no im not an elitist, i like to help people in their first time in a heroic or raid, and if they fail first, sencond even a third time its ok, but 4th time killed by a lava wave... c'mon you are just playing stupid.
Julie Mar 31st 2009 10:12PM
If they dropped the same gear, it would kill 25-man raiding. They would have to be just as difficult in order for the gear to be the same. And in that case if A and B are just as hard to do; but A takes less people than B does; you will almost always choose A than B. It's more efficient, productive, logistically logical.
Now, I am actually a 10-man raider myself. I think 25-mans are so full of distractions. Twenty five people talking on chat; twenty five people who have to show up at the same time; who have to learn the same strategy, who have to be geared. From an organizational standpoint, putting a 25-man raid together is a nightmare compared to putting a 10-man together. It doesn't mean 25 mans are harder to get through. Oh no, they are actually easier to finish. They are just harder to -start-. And IDK about you, but I don't like wasting two hours while a group gets organized. In this sense, you have to reward twenty five mans with better gear; otherwise no one would bother to organize them. Blizzard can't remove the better rewards; unless they just want 25-mans to dissappear.
That said, I think there needs to be more overlap in gear. 10-mans should drop 25% item level 213 items, for example. Would it completely kill twenty five mans? No, because if you can organize it (like in a guild), you still have an incentive to do one twenty-five man, instead of three 1o-mans. But other than that; if you really, really, really don't want to do twenty-five mans, ie. it's not fun, you wouldn't feel forced to. And why shouldn't you get just as good gear anyway? 10-mans ARE harder.
Mr Magoo Mar 31st 2009 10:24PM
The article is ridiculous.
The blue posters already said that some 10 mans accidentally ended up being harder than 25 mans and that this was a mistake. A mistake that will not be repeated.
Now you COULD argue that it was because 25 should have been harder or that a particular 10 man should have been easier. Personally, I think you would be wasting your breath.
Move along...nothing to see here.
jtrain Mar 31st 2009 11:30PM
I'm trying to respect the OP's wishes and not vote as I only run 10 man....but that means I can't see the results! Can you make the results viewable even if you haven't voted?
Thanks!
trogdor7 Apr 1st 2009 12:22AM
As a 10 man raider, i think it's silly that Naxx 25 drops better gear than Naxx 10. Generally, though, I don't have a problem with 25 man dropping better items, as long as the difficulty in Ulduar is tuned appropriately. I DO think it would be a good idea to make the disparity between 10 and 25 man smaller, say a 7-8 point difference rather than a 13 point difference. That would mean that, to a 10 man raider, 25 man loot would largely be "sidegrades" as opposed to full upgrades, but a 25 man raider would have no reason to go to 10 mans for the extra chance at loot, because theirs would be superior, if only slightly.
Eliah Hecht Apr 1st 2009 12:44AM
Jtrain: if you want to see the results without voting, just click the "vote" button without selecting an option.
epic sigh Apr 1st 2009 12:52AM
I''m with Alsides on this one. This article reads like a dam troll post off the wow general forums. 25man and 10man should have the same loot...you seriously think that? That's pretty outrageous, and shows how out of touch you are with what's going on. Just a few days ago GC himself mentioned the fact that any 10man encounter that's harder than a 25 is a mistake, simple as that. Chalk it up to learning the new system.
Ulduar will have a noticeable difficulty difference, 25 is harder than 10. 25 gets better gear than 10.
Ah screw it, i dont even know why i waste my time responding to the casual scrub insideer troll posts. I know you guys have to reach your quota to get paid, but these articles suck and it just reads like troll bait. The commenters are mostly idiots who downrate anyone who enjoys difficult content and effort for rewards. I can't wait until a blog with people who care about what they write shows up instead of one that just cranks out meaningless troll posts to meet the quota. I'm done here, and this site will (finally) be removed from my bookmarks. Thank you.
Jostin Apr 1st 2009 1:03AM
I couldn't disagree more (Welcomes the vote downs). I've been playing since vanilla wow and can say this with confidence. HARDCORE PLAYERS made this game as it is today! Without them Wow would be nothing compared to that. Hardcore = more people, more time put in, more commitment, etc. for the reward of setting a difference between you and the normals. Though Blizzard has extremely shortened that distance over the years. In Wow(vanilla) Raids were pretty much only for Hardcore players, Bc they mainstreamed that with KZ and Grulls:Mag, and Wotlk 10 man were more designed for casual guilds stated by Ghost. Anyone that says 25 man content wasn't for hardcore never cleared Sunwell pre-nerf. Now back to the main point; All hardcore players have left in this game is the little difficult we have and gear in 25 mans if blizzard was to give the same loot to 10 man as 25 man youd see a major lose in players in a very short time. 70% of my guild members only log on during the week for are 25 man content and sarth 3 drakes runs and never show themselves during normal hours of the day. Without that I doubt they would ever log on. The only reason they log on is for the added difficult, waiting for harder content, and the feeling of being appart of something greater. In Vanilla and BC raiding was all about Progression and being able to say I've killed such and so. But with Wotlk they have mainstreamed that to no progression, no sense of reward, no sense of accomplishment; But comes down to what GEAR, and achivements. Right now the majority of the hardcore community is relying on Uldar to spark something in us again to feel the need to get a big group of guildies together and conquer something new. But after a few months of farming were going to end up exactly where we are now... Bored,empty, mainstreamed, and nostalgic. To take away the gear difference between 10 and 25 man content would be killing off the people that made this game what it is today. HARDCORE PLAYERS!
WIRED Apr 1st 2009 1:40AM
Agreed Alex. My SPriest hit 80 on a Sunday (hit capped gear), and was doing 25 man Naxx on Tuesday, and I had no heroic gear. While my DPS (and gear) wasn't that great, that was fixed by the end of the week with a few lucky drops that no one needed. It was over a month until I finally hit 10 man Naxx, and mainly for healing gear / missing pieces of gear.
As for what's easier, I'd lean a bit towards 25 man. If a couple of people die, it's easier to pick up the slack. 25 man also gives you more buffs, heals, and advantages. 1-2 battle rezzes in 10 man vs 3 -5 in 25 man, more group heals, more OTs, etc. Now of course 25 man boss mechanics are generally a bit more difficult (more health, etc), but 10s are easier to pug.
Personally I'm waiting to see how "hard" Ulduar really is. People are still going to run 25 Ulduar just for the rare gear, as when you come down to it, for some people it's all about the toys and who has them and who doesn't :)
sickbox Apr 1st 2009 1:31AM
If 10 man raids were just as challenging as 25's then it would be fine. This could only lead to more people getting geared in the long run. So make Tier gear available in 10/25 man raids and a few key pieces that are slightly better available in hardmodes for those hardcore guys that just have to be sporting something better than the norm.
This could cause blizzard to have to come out with more content or insane hardmodes (which is completely acceptable). I don't see any problem with this as long as blizz does not have any differences in tactics between the 10 and 25 man raid.
Being hardcore doesn't make you hardcore because of the gear you have. Truly being hardcore means doing something better than the other guy who has the same stuff as you through a means of skill and patience/practice. Give those guys more unique titles and mounts thats all they really need anyway. Give them something that will let them spawn Time-Lost Proto-Drakes whenever they please. Giving them better gear only makes the hard content easier for them. Whats so hardcore about that?
Dch48 Apr 1st 2009 1:44AM
I only have one word for this article---NO. Giving the same level gear for 10 man raids as 25's would be a huge mistake and not only kill 25 man raiding, but many Guilds as well.
rosencratz Apr 1st 2009 3:15AM
Coming from a guild that struggles to get a full compliment of 25 fellow guildees to do a 25 man run i find this idea a bit silly.
To put it simply, it's got nothing to do with the difficulty of either version of the instance. If 10 man rewards were the same as 25 man it would be a far simpler thing to run 2x10 man teams than 1x25 man team. The hardcore guilds would most likely do that AND then run both teams +5 through the 25 man stuff again thus making 25 mans a hardcore only niche for those who want bonus loot everyweek.
Regardless of that, as others have mentioned, when 10 man is easier than 25, it is considered a mistake and claimed not to be done again. I'd hardly say 10 man raz is easier than 25 man, that has been an obstacle for our guild for a long time.(not now though)
It's worth mentioning that 10-man HARD MODE bosses do drop equal level gear to 25man bosses in Ulduar... i believe.
Balian Apr 1st 2009 3:31AM
I agree w/ the article that the change would not kill 25-man raids.......initially anyway. Let me explain: In my current situation, the only drop I have interest in from Naxx10 or 25 is the Wall of Terror off KT25. Because there is no longer a drop I want in Naxx10, I dont run it. Now, if the Wall of Terror dropped off of KT10 and KT25, I'd be running both versions every week to get 2 shots a week at the shield. Eventually I'd get it and stop running both. Its not like anyone has any use whatsoever for badges anymore w/ the slim selection we've been given to choose from, so those aren't much of a motivating factor to keep raiding. In Ulduar, ppl would only be running 25-mans to get a 2nd shot at gear that they wanted but didnt get in the 10-man each week. Ppl would simply get geared up twice as fast, and then spend less time playing WoW at all or raiders would switch their focus to PvP to keep from being bored all the time. In the end, the gear parity you speak of would diminish interest in the game and undermine Blizzard's own interests, which is to keep ppl coming back every month and filling their pockets a bit more. This is a business afterall. They do this to make money first, everything else second.
Gareth Apr 1st 2009 10:09AM
To Alsides I see it completely different, 25 man Naxx is just something you pug while you cannot afford to have too many sub par players in Naxx 10.
The differences to the fights are not all that much and as long as you have a core of quality players in Naxx25 you can handle them leaving the rest of the pug to fill in.
Saying that I find it hard to justify going 25 man content if its only going to drop the same loot as 10 man. If anything here the problem is that the 25 man content is way too easy, its not heroic mode and even Blizzard admit it (even Ghostcrawler talks about Naxx welfare epics).
For me the problem really could be solved here easily by having different instances for different raid numbers (just like in the highly popular original WoW) and drop the 25 man's completely except for outside bosses.
The reason I'd drop 25 mans here is simple, they don't fit into scale, we should have 10 man, 20 man and 40 man raids, that way multiple guilds can combine easily to form larger raids and get more people involved in the end game, 25 man just doesn't fit and never did in TBC.
Verit Apr 1st 2009 3:55AM
@Alsides
Hardly true - I can name a bunch of fights in Naxx that are lol easy compared to the 10 man version - especially starting out when gear isn't so great.
Grobbulus for instance - the first time I ever did him on 25 man we lost 10 players to stupidity, but *we still downed him*. First time we did 10 man grob we worked out that if anyone messed up and died it was a raid wipe. Now days dps is so good this boss is hardly an issue, but point it - it was way way easier on 25 man - almost faceroll easy.
Same with Gluth. In 10 man if you don't have a class that is decent at kiting mobs it can be really hard - in 25 you almost always have 5+ people always that can deal with him. Same with 4h - in 10 man if you didn't bring at least one hybrid that knows how to heal himself - it can be rather troubling.
Saph 3d should be a fight geared around 10 man gear, but its not and neither are any of the 10 man achievements. The only guilds I know of on my server that have finished Saph 3d and glory of the raider did it with all best in slot 25 man items.
So I wear my 10 man gear with pride because I know it was harder to get than the 25 man counterpart. If anything its ilevel should be higher in some cases.
Schadow Apr 1st 2009 5:04AM
I raid 25s because 10s are stupid. The encounters are more difficult and the gear is not as good.
Did I say more difficult? Yes, I did. You can carry several weak players through most 25-man content. You can't in 10s - the weaknesses are more exposed because there aren't as many people to cover for them.
Sure there's more damage done in 25s, but there are more healers. If the raid takes damage, they have 5-6 people to heal them up, rather than 2. With one person focusing on the tank, that's 4-5 healers vs 1 to heal the raid.
If you think 25 is "hardcore", you're doing it wrong. It's cakewalk.
narell Apr 1st 2009 5:52AM
Let's turn everything into 10-mans, heck, let's make everything 5-mans, and have a solo mode. And while we're at it, let's distribute the game as a console without all this multiplayer crap.
Zamn10210 Apr 1st 2009 6:47AM
What really needs to be done is making it so there are two, distinct progression paths: 10 man and 25 man. So a guild chooses one path and sticks to it rather than doing both like is the case at the moment.
I'm not sure how you would make this happen or whether gear parity is the way forward considering the extra time investment and effort required for 25s but to make 10 man raids - and indeed 10 man raid guilds - viable they need to be a distinct progression path and not the ugly sister of the 25s.