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by Tyler Caraway 
Jun 17th 2011 at 4:00PM
When Cataclysm was being developed, Blizzard announced a lot of changes that they would be making to the raiding scene. Specifically, 10- and 25-man raids would now essentially be considered one and the same. They would share the same lockout, reward the same loot, and generally be considered as equal.
The community, in their grand resistance to change, called foul on many of these changes. Certainly, WotLK created an embitterment towards 10-man raiding as being "easier" or a "lower class" of raiding that simply wasn't on the same scope as 25-man raiding. In their defense, they had every right to think this because that is exactly how Blizzard had made raids at the time.
Now that we've been through a whole tier of raiding under these changes, and as we move onto the next tier, it is time to reflect back on all of the arguments that sprouted and see how realistic they really were.
Rant 1: 10-man content is easier
Shooting right at the heart of the fight, there largest concern regarding having both 10- and 25-man content provide the same rewards was that 10-man raiders wouldn't face nearly the same challenge as 25-man raiders. Way back to what seems like forever ago, 10-man content was easier. In fact, raiding first at the 10-man level in order to advance into the 25-man level was considered to be a common trend. Although the gear rewards weren't the same, they still provided that extra boost that could help a struggling guild progress.
In Cataclysm, I feel that Blizzard has actually done a rather good job in terms of balancing the difficulty of encounters across the two raid sizes. That being said, there are certainly some very obvious discrepancies between the two that can cause a little bit of friction.
The first is one of cooldowns. The entire raiding scene this expansion has been all about cooldowns, no one cares how much you can actually heal for, it's all about how much damage you can mitigate. In this respect, 10-man content certainly has an easier go of the matter. This is because there are several abilities that have artificial caps on them. Anti-Magic Zone is a clear example of this.
Dropping an Anti-Magic Zone in a 25-man raid and a 10-man raid will probably result in the same amount of damage being mitigated due to the cap, yet in the 10-man raid there's significantly less damage going out. Nefarian is a prime example of this with his Electrocute ability. While AMZ will clearly break early in both situations, it would reduce a larger percentage of the overall damage in a 10-man raid.
The off-set of this is numbers. While such cooldowns are more effective in 10-man content, one would expect more of them in 25-man content. This dichotomy that exists between the two creates a natural balance, but is it balanced? Certainly healing in 10-man content is less intensive, but at the same time one can easily make the argument that each healer has more pressure on them because there is a disproportionate amount of healers. A 10-man with two healers has 1/5 of the raid healing, which equates to five healers in 25-man, yet six is a more common number to see.
I've seen nearly all 10-man content healed by a single healer once the raid is on farm. Though the accounts of 25-man content using two and half healers are fewer, it's possible that such occurrences simply aren't talked about as much.
Balancing encounter mechanics
For what it is worth, most content has been pretty evenly balanced at this point, but there are still some rather obvious outliers that deal exclusively with encounter mechanics themselves. It's a fact that we have to face: Certain mechanics will always be easier to handle in 10-man content, while others will always be easier in 25.
The Twilight Ascendant Council, as an example, is far easier in 10-man instead of 25-man. This is because the spreading mechanic that players have to deal with is simpler with fewer players. Further, DPS control is easier to do with fewer DPS, particularly fewer DOT effects ticking off on a boss. Perhaps the most grievous case of this offense was Al'akir, who was ridiculously easier to defeat in 10-man content than 25-man. So much easier, in fact, that many 25-man guilds broke down into 10-man raids just to tackle this encounter.
To be fair, not everything is rosy for 10-man raiders either. Encounters which rely heavier on certain class mechanics are far more difficult for them to handle. Cho'gall proved this rather effectively. 10-man guilds had a lot more composition trouble in having to deal with slowing adds and breaking mind controls. There are a plethora of abilities that can break Worship, but it's easier to do in 25 than 10.
The same is also true for encounters which require the use of a player to perform a secondary task. Having a death knight kite adds for Magmaw or Conclave of Winds is trivial for a 25-man group whom have plenty of players to spare. It's a bit harder to do this in a 10-man, though, where you don't have the player capital to go around.
With pros and cons on either side, it's difficult to say that either holds less value than the other. The reality is that both offer their own, unique challenges that have different ways of over coming them.
Rant 2: 10-mans require less logistical planning
Getting 25 different people together and running in a smooth raiding guild is tough work -- any guild or raid leader can attest to this. If it isn't one problem, then it's another. 25-man content requires more coordination, period. You need more time to set up player roles, more time recruiting, more supplies, more everything. It isn't easy, and for that 25-man raiding guilds felt they should be rewarded for the additional effort.
Blizzard agreed with this sentiment and offered superior loot gains for raiding in a 25-man setting, allowing you to gear up players faster (at least in the theoretical sense). While this wasn't entirely enough for some players, I frankly think that it is overly generous.
While there is no denying that it is more difficult to organize a 25-man raid, 10-man raiders certainly face tough logistical problems of their own. Raid composition matters far more in a 10-man raid than it does to a 25-man raid. This can actually result in recruitment problems just as difficult as those seen by 25-man guilds.
A 25-man raid doesn't need to stack any particular class nor spec. They need a few bare essentials, but after that, a vast majority of players are pretty much filler. Have two or three balance druids? Whatever, sucks for them to fight over the gear. Four hunters? Who cares? Having a surplus of any particular class or spec isn't really prohibitive in that setting.
This simply isn't the case for a 10-man raiding guild. You have far fewer options in the type of spec or class that you can take, and every one of those choices matters far more. For example, a 10-man raid with a fury warrior, retribution paladin, shadow priest, elemental shaman, and arcane mage as their primary raiding DPS is going to be in a really sore spot for AOE and slows.
Who you takes matters far more in a 10-man raid. There, your composition can literally make or break you for certain encounters. There's buff stacking to worry about, cooldown disparity, and a slew of other concerns that you have to juggle, too. 25-man raids aren't easy to organize by any means, but anyone who claims that 10-man players can just pick up nearly anyone and go is fooling themselves. Ten-man raids take their fair share of planning.
Rant 3: 25-man raids won't matter, guilds will die!
OMG RUN! RUN! RUN! It's the guild-pocalypse! Guilds all across the WoW-verse are suddenly going to implode and no one anywhere is going to be raiding 25-man content ever! Hide your children! Hide your wives! Hide your cute, fluffy teddy bears!
There was a lot of hubbub that every single raiding guild in the game was suddenly just going to disappear and that the days of the 25-man raider were numbered. Why would you bother running 25-man content if it was harder, more logistically challenged, and didn't actually offer anything tangible in return?
On the personal side of things, back then, somewhere deep down, I probably shared this fear. The guild that I had spent all of TBC and Wrath with died due to this very specific change. We were a struggling 25-man guild that was always recruiting people, and constantly looking for people. All in all, we were average. When it came about that we could do 10-man raids in Cataclysm and get the same rewards, that was that. We became a 10-man guild.
I prefer my 25-man raids and wanted to keep that, so I set off. It left me wondering how many other people had the same experience that I did. In all honesty, there's probably a large number. And yet, 25-man raiding didn't die in the least.
Twenty-five-man raiding still happens all over Azeroth. New 25-man guilds crop up all the time, and there just isn't any real sense that it's a waste of time to work towards 25-man raiding. It is clearly a matter of preference, and you'll gravitate to the one you like the most. If you want a 25-man raid group, you can easily find one, just as it was before.
Where will we go from here?
This has only been the first Cataclysm tier. The changes are still just settling in and no one can ever really predict what the future is going to hold. The player base changes as the demographic changes, and with that comes different needs. It is unlikely that we will ever return to the previous days of 40-man raiding, and I will honestly say that any new MMO out there which tries such a thing will only be able to reach a niche level of success that simply won't compare to what WoW has grown into.
MMOs themselves are changing, because those that play MMOs are changing. The original player base is getting older; their wants and desires morph with their age. The new young guns hold different ideas and values when it comes to gaming. Further, the "older" generation is becoming more and move involved in the gaming community. As time changes all things, so will games adjust. This has been one raiding adjustment; so far I believe it has worked out rather well.
What shall the future hold for the raid setting as a whole?
Ready Check shares all the strategies and inside information you need to take your raiding to the next level. Be sure to look up our strategy guides to Cataclysm's 5-man instances, and for more healer-centric advice, visit Raid Rx.
Filed under: Raiding, Ready Check (Raiding)
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 4)
DC Jun 18th 2011 12:15AM
This is a poorly written article. It is almost trolling.
@Tyler
You don't clarify anything you say with relevant information about the topic. In something as controversial as this topic has been, gauging how realistic some arguments were with nothing more than hearsay and personal opinion is lazy writing. Honestly, as much as you try to sound authoritative, you don't give each point enough attention to actually be credible.
DC Jun 18th 2011 12:22AM
Replying to my own post after reading some of the comments.
@Tyler
You clarify a bunch of your points in the comments. That's good. They should have been better clarified in your main article. If this topic wasn't controversial, it wouldn't matter so much. I especially liked your analysis of single healing in the comments. The radical statement of it in your article isn't so radical with that explanation. I'm hoping the rest of your points have similar reasoning that you don't show in your article.
rkaliski Jun 18th 2011 12:38AM
To Murdertime, I am sorry having done Nax 40 man and the Wraith version, the only thing that made Nax 10 and 25 man diffficult was if your healer or tank disconnected. Nax was the pratical rading exam for MMOs. If you couldn't hack Nax on 10 and 25 then you had better take up Farmville.
William Poulter Jun 18th 2011 3:30AM
Re- read this article in the light of day - and frankly its still rubbish...
I really think the writer should actually visit a few more servers than his own, as his statement regarding the longevity of 25 man raiding guilds since this change is frankly nonsense.
Its killing 25 mans - only the really well run ones are surviving
Why - well imo bearing in mind the ill-informed 10 man raiding comments here I would guess that we are looking at comments by players that simply havent played at a high level in large raids. Most of the issues for a 25 man raid surround what issue ...mmmm let me guess - Oh I know "SIZE". hey you have the same size room with more people - in that room is something plus its friends plus aoe damage that kills things - and hey surprise surprise as a result more people die....you have more to react to - more targets to heal and more chances of making mistakes....would that make the fight harder
I will let you join the dots on that one...
That simple issue aside - I will restate - that the main bone of contention is this
"10 mans are there to "open up the game" (make it easier) "make content available to all" (give them loot) Oh and (make it easier)
many many vanilla players have left the complexion of the game has changed - this is evident everytime you pug a 5 man heroic - player quality has gone down the toilet, influx of new players that blizzard to desperate to keep and hence tailors the game for.
Will this kill the game? I dont know ...not for me as I am in a quality 25 man guild...for others..thats their choice, what I do know is that recruiting on server for 25 man heroic - forget it, applications these days seem to be written 80% of the time by players barely in long trousers....
So 10 mans being "leet".....comments here ....NO surprise....would any of them have survived the twins in a 40 man raid in vanilla...
Nope.
threesixteen Jun 20th 2011 3:02PM
spot on.
poekai Jun 18th 2011 5:30AM
I have to say, 25m content is significantly easier then 10m content. That would be the only thing i would disagree with.
Lose one person in 10m...Brez..lose 2...it could be and usually was over at the start.
What took our 2 10m groups 2 or 3 weeks to get down, our 25m run did in its first 2 hours.
It was crazy how much easier it was. So much more room for error and bad play in a 25m then a 10m. Then throw in faster gear progression, its a no-brainer. Do a 25m, you spend less time and accomplish more.
Heck our first 25m's didn't even have 25 people we 22 or 21 manned a ton of it.
As for the guilds blowing up over this change...it didn't really happen. Once you do a 10man and a 25man, you see how much easier a 25m is...if u can do it, u will.
I used to raid 5 or 6 days a week. A 10m, a 25m, an alt 10m...and if i had nothing to do on a weekend..an alt alt 10m. There was just so much more to do. Easier healing mechanics produced more alt healers and smoothed out gear and learning curves.
Try to run a cata 10m with a bad healer and ur two other healers may try to murder you. Sure, once you have gear, u can two healer, single healer some fights, but getting to that point was not fun.
I got my last alt to 80 2 weeks before cata came out, i had 8 of em. (Yes, i might have played a bit too much heh)
In cata...i had those same 8 alts all at 85 by the 3rd month. Just feels like so much less to do on my main these days.
Trisnic Jun 18th 2011 9:10AM
Even if 25 mans are easier to run, they are not easier to organize, and thus stating that new 25 man guilds/groups are being created all the time because the raids are easier is not accurate at all. It is more difficult to organize 30 people than 12. 10 man raiding is easier to set up, period. For the raider there is less pressure to perform in a 25 man if you aren't a tank, sure, but that's about it.
I read guild leadership and raider type forums all the time. To say there are as many 25 man guilds around now as there were in January is not true. They aren't being formed as fast and some are dying. I've heard of entire servers where there is one 25 man guild left, or none. In addition to this, almost everyone these days seems to request 10 man strats.
Also Al'akir 25 and Council 25 are not easier. Some bosses are easier in 25 and yes you can 22 man normal content although I'd question how many heroics you can get down with your 22 man group. It isn't suprising that your group went in as a 25 and got down all of the bosses it had taken you two weeks to down before in two hours because people knew the fights. We went in with a group who had never done 10s and we got down the heroics in four hours what it took us six to do in the previous week AND we got down a new heroic boss in those four hours. It works both ways.
threesixteen Jun 20th 2011 3:03PM
totally off base here. you must not have ever tried to organize and lead a consistent 25 man team. only people who have no experience with 25 man cata raids claim that tens are the same or harder. they aren't. period. full stop.
cyanea85 Jun 18th 2011 6:17AM
@Tyler
You...don't know how Chimeron works, do you?
Three targets have to be healed up to 10k in about four seconds. MT has to be healed up to 10k every 5 seconds (unless you get lucky with a dodge), and your Double Strike tank has to be healed up to full about every eight seconds. That's not including Massacres knocking EVERYONE down to 1 health. That's not including Feud phase Caustic Slimes which requires people to be brough up to about a half, and kept there for twelve seconds through 200k hits spread out among the raid.
Vampiric Embrace ticks for about 900k, and only works on Direct damage now. An Enhancement Shaman Chain Heal is only going to heal for 3k or so on the first jump and has a three second cast time.
I don't think you understand how Chimeron works.
weepixie Jun 18th 2011 8:50AM
Before I comment, some background: we are a 10man casual guild with 4/13 down, although we've done minimal raiding in the past 4 weeks due to graduations/breaks/early summer vacations pre-Firelands. But 3 of those heroic bosses went down in our first night of attempts on them - in other words, we haven't spent days learning bosses. Our raiders are smart, reactive, and learn fast. On our server, we are 6th in progression, and of the 5 guilds ahead of us, 4 are 25man guilds and have been hardcore raiding guilds for many years.
That said, every progressed raider (in those guilds) that I've spoken to regarding 25 vs 10 difficulty has said that 10s are a heck of a lot harder and they'd rather stick to their 25s. They're a lot less forgiving, because there's a lot less room for error. You mention AMZ and the fact that a lot less damage goes out in 10s, but since there are fewer total cooldown abilities available to 10 raiders, this is hardly an argument that 10s are easier. For example, on average in our 10s we have maybe 3 raidwall-type abilities available to us, and a heck of a lot more than 3 times when they are needed, particularly at the heroic level. Composition is a lot more particular for 10s, which you mention, but I feel like you completely underestimate the impact this makes on the level of challenge.
Also, I'm confused by your argument about solo-healing Chimaeron. The timing alone can be faster than the *GCD* allows. We single-tank a lot of regular bosses now, including Halfus and Omni, but, like Matticus, I'd like to know what is being solo-healed. And I'd like to see their logs too. For educational purposes, of course.
All of this said, I'm not arguing that we (10man raiders) should have any special consideration or any changes or whatever - I like the level of challenge and think it's a good test of players. I just don't buy the argument that 25s are harder. The difficulty of the content is balanced by the number of cooldown abilities available to the raid.
blessthemartyrguild Jun 18th 2011 11:23AM
@ Nomembrane, you sir are an idiot, there are 5 adds on nef in 10 man....let me check, oh wait more than 5 on 25 man. You say 10s are harder but provide zero evidence or reasoning behind it, please go look at wowprogress.com and then compare the number of 10 and 25 heroic kills on every single boss, you will see that there are many more 10 man kills for every boss sans sinestra. While 10 mans offer different challenges the bottom line is as a whole a well balanced and stacked 10 man will have an easier time than 25(I am not saying 10 man is easy at all). You have more room, less things to interrupt, less to coordinate, less dmg going out(raid wide cds are much stronger on 10man) less adds to contend with, and when blizz gets it right a boss not tuned to you having every single tool in the shed. Yes personal responsibilty is greater in 10 man but you knew that back in wotlk and its much easier to get 10 good players vs 25.
Ps world first nefarian kills were done on 10, so think about that for a minute.
Big Shoe Jun 18th 2011 11:52AM
Having tried it both ways, I much prefer 10 man raids to 25 mans. It's not because of the balance, the gear, or the challenge level. Even though you really can't hide in a 10 man -- if you lose even one person, you feel it -- whereas a 25 man can lose four people and still power through to finish the fight.
It's about camaraderie. A 10 man group is small enough for everyone to get to know each other, become friends, and learn to work together as a well oiled machine. Rarely do 25 mans achieve that level of intimacy and synergy. We sometimes forget that under all its theorycrafting loot treadmill veneer, WoW is a social game at heart.
William Poulter Jun 18th 2011 5:14PM
I should qualify my 25 man vs 10 man comparison
I am ONLY talking about heroic mode - frankly anyone playing normal mode cannot have a valid opinion on raid differences as both are easy.
I also dont agree on the camaraderie point by Big Shoe...in fact the social banter in a 25 man is a huge part of the fun, you have your favourites obviously but within a 25 man environment you can have social cliques - and that gives you space to allow players that have differing temperments and qualitys. 25 mans that dont do that - collapse.
25 mans that do are progression guilds and do so becuase of solid leadership, quality players and a diverse pool of members within the guild itself
Thats really another "beef" with 10 mans - they really become little more than a tight circle of mates - 25 mans encourage much more complexity of social and team arrangement and are challenging just off that.
I also read an earlier comment implying that a 25 man raid can "afford" too loose a couple of players unlike our heroic 10 man cousins....another falicy, IF you are raiding at heroic level in 25 man you will need every single point of dps to bring bosses down and every one of your 6/8 man healer team will have to sweat their butts off. The point people are trying to get across here is that the"FUN chaos" factor is what makes 25 man raiding great - being in a large raid with all the colour of a raid boss fight at heroic is what makes raiding great - 10 mans - sorry just dont cut the mustard in comparison and never will
chrissie Jun 19th 2011 9:13AM
"I've seen nearly all 10-man content healed by a single healer once the raid is on farm. "
Regular modes = all 10-man content now? Because I can't think of a single heroic fight I'd like to solo-heal -- even Halfus has the big burst damage in the beginning. Mayyyybe a Holy Priest with H Chim? Or possibly Twin Dragons, if people are very good about Twilight Blasts? That's about all I can think of.
Not to mention I don't think there's any way you can solo-heal Conclave, Al'akir or Nef, regular mode or not, just because of the mechanics.
Less than half =/= nearly all, just sayin'.
Sorry, I know this is nitpicky, but there is such a thing as too much hyperbole.
Also, having a single cooldown for every big damage spike -- like Electrocute, since you mentioned it, or Maloriak's red phase fire pre-nerf and pre-overgearing, or Cho'gall after he gets his elemental buffs -- can be amazing, but it doesn't happen too often in 10-mans. You gloss over number of cooldowns so quickly, but it's actually a pretty big advantage.
(P.S. I was in a 10-man strict guild. Thanks for dismissing us out of hand! Heroic LK before all the ICC buffs were out, that sure was easy for us 10-man groups. Trying to 2-heal that at 10~15% buff without a Holy Pally was definitely one of my favorite WoW experiences!)
Brian! Jun 20th 2011 1:45PM
I would like there to be a separate lockout for 10 and 25 man raids. If they are so different, let us experience both with a different lockout each.
snuffey Jun 20th 2011 3:59PM
Tyler caraway has every right to his opinion and for the most part he is correct. But I was in a 10 man strict guild, originally not by choice. I do have to disagree about no way to legitimize strict 10 man let me introduce to you something i like to call achievements. Perhaps you've heard of them something introduced in wrath if you don't have the achievement for 25 man you don't have the gear for 25 man. Then there is gear 1/2 a tiers worth pretty easy to see if you have any 25 man gear. hears the truth as i see it strict 10 man is harder than 25 man. Truth much easier to bring 10 peeps together than 25 peeps. Truth many peeps would pug 25 man and bring that gear to raid in 10 man. Many 25 mans would do 10 man to test new players or get new players gear in 10 man. So you cannot fault him for having what is a pretty widely held belief, though it is readily apparent he has higher regard for 25 mans.