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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria news1,000 guilds have killed heroic Ragnaros
by Mathew McCurley 
Nov 16th 2011 at 7:00PM
Interestingly, 76% of the heroic Ragnaros kills have been completed in 10-man raids, with 24% of the kills in 25-man groups. Ten-man raiding has certainly made endgame raiding significantly more accessible, and 25-man only guilds seem to be struggling to keep their numbers as high as they once were, especially when the 10-man versions of the encounters are more accessible.
While 2% is a vastly larger number than the old days of endgame raiding, the content is still out of reach for a huge amount of the raiders and raid groups out there. Heroic content is meant to be the hardest of the hard, and these numbers reflect that. Hard should not be impossible, however, which is why we are seeing such a disparity between 10- and 25-man kills. Raiding at the 25-man level requires a commitment from more people, and the wrangling involved just adds to an already complicated encounter.
Nonetheless, it's good to see raiders raiding and content actually being completed, as opposed to the old days when content was only made for a very select few people. Hopefully, one day the numbers will be higher as to better justify the creation and facilitation of more hard-mode encounters as well as even better raids. Firelands was a marked improvement in raid design over Bastion of Twilight and Blackwing Descent, and it's good to see the numbers reflect that.
Thanks again to GuildOx for the numbers and statistics. Here are some other awesome articles to check out featuring GuildOx's data:
- Most popular Horde and Alliance character names, by race
- Most popular WoW character names, by class
- The world's most experienced boss-killer
Filed under: News items, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
Twill Nov 16th 2011 7:52PM
Let me rephrase that.
There is no way in hell that the majority of the playerbase is having as much FUN as they could be. Not when 98% of them feel like they're not good enough / the bosses are too hard and they can't progress.
Boobah Nov 16th 2011 7:58PM
From what the devs have said, if you're in a regular raiding guild it's their intent that you generally finish regular mode before the next raid content patch.
It's very much not their expectation that anything like a plurality of raiders completes heroic mode in that same timespan.
I do find it interesting that GuildOx's numbers (however they're generated) say that nearly half (~48%) of raiding guilds are raiding heroic Firelands.
B1ue Nov 16th 2011 8:06PM
@Twill
I disagree that it's a problem. Heroic encounters, as other have said, are meant to be the hardest, most challenging content out there. And the last boss on Heroic is meant to be the test by which the best can measure themselves. If 40% of raiding guild downed Heroic Ragnaros by this time, I'd see that as a serious overnerf of the content.
DragonFireKai Nov 16th 2011 8:06PM
Wowprogress has more accurate numbers, they do complete armory parses on occaision, whereas guildox and wowtrack still require manual input, and according to wowprogress, nearly 70% of guilds have cleared firelands normal and have the option to work on heroic, and 55% of guilds have at least heroic Shannox down. That's wildely out of the norm when compared to previous tiers. Not even ToGC had that many guilds downing bosses on heroic.
DarkWalker Nov 16th 2011 8:33PM
The other side of the question, though, is how many guilds raided before, and how many do raid in Cataclysm. I.e., if the raiding population is larger or smaller than before.
I have a gut feeling that the raiding population is significantly smaller - I know I have seen my share of stories about guilds that stopped raiding in Cataclysm, and it appears PUGs in most realms are also mostly non-existent, further reducing the chances of raiding - though I don't have any data to back that.
LynMars Nov 16th 2011 8:47PM
The baseline content is the Regular version of the raid encounter. They're meant for the majority, and for my casual 10man, that's good enough; we see the content, we get improved gear, we have fun.
We don't generally hit Heroic modes, and we're cool with that. They're the same fights with a couple extra mechanics. Most of my guild doesn't need to see more red and brown landscape and those bosses in a higher difficulty to feel like they got the whole story or saw all the content.
For bonus bosses, we still don't worry too much, and that tends to be something we go back and do later--as they're extra, not crucial to progression.
micho_1192 Nov 16th 2011 8:49PM
no its right hardest bosses should be hard killing them should be special and rare
Bogoradwee Nov 17th 2011 4:08PM
This is HEROIC! Its meant to be balls-to-the-wall hard. If this were normal, like back in the days of vanilla or BC, where there was only one choice in the difficulty of your raid, then I could understand your complaint, but if so many more people complete what is supposed to be the most challenging thing in the game, then something's wrong. It's like my cousin, who loves fable and likes to claim that he's awesome because he can follow a golden trail and face an outrageous number of enemies, even though when he "dies" he just comes back to life and can keep fighting (I'm not saying fable isn't a good game. It's loads of fun). Let's keep rewarding people for their accomplishments by keeping them WORTHY of being accomplishments.
postmodernized Nov 19th 2011 11:58AM
Go ahead, finish regular content. That's what it's for. As for heroic content, if you can't finish it, maybe it's not for you.
Wellsee Nov 16th 2011 7:17PM
I'm not surprised that 2% of raiding guilds have gotten that far, but I am surprised that only 4% of the guilds that have tried heroic content have made it.
Not sure about this statement:
"Firelands was a marked improvement in raid design over Bastion of Twilight and Blackwing Descent, and it's good to see the numbers reflect that."
I'm asking from ignorance not contrariness: What makes FL a better raid than BoT and BWD?
John Nov 17th 2011 10:29AM
The main improvement is boss mechanics.
Boss mechanics in BoT & BWD & To4W (why do people forget To4W? oh yeah, because alakir was no fun at all) required excessive precision in execution and movement. There was 0 room for error with respect to multiple raid-wiping actions (lighning rod, interrupts, rng stupidity in phase 1 of Alakir, healer twitch-mode-whackamole on chimaeron to get people over 10K before the next poison bomb volley (or w/e it's called), etc. etc.).
Alysrazor pre-nerf was almost as stupid (especially the mandatory "bring classes with short-CD interrupts or you won't ever ever ever get this boss down"). Alysrazor was over-nerfed, though.
Overall, the bosses in FL are do-able (even pre-nerf, except Alysrazor) whereas Tier 11 was a no-fun zone for most people. Hence the mass drop in raiding population.
Newchron Nov 16th 2011 7:20PM
How about a "story mode" difficulty where the raid doesn't give you loot but you and your raid group can go in and faceroll the place to experience. Have the bosses do little to no damage while maintaining their health pools. That way the raid can have fun blasting away at the boss without wiping. Maybe then Blizz will see way more people in the raids.
As a player that doesn't have access to raiding guild, this would make me a lot happier than waiting for the next expansion to experience old raids.
jfofla Nov 16th 2011 7:49PM
You just described SWTOR
Spider Nov 16th 2011 7:54PM
That's actually kind of a neat idea. I raid myself, but I know countless people and friends who aren't really the raiding/dungeoning types and who can't see content until it's 3 expansions past, if at all. Something like the above would be a fun encounter just for sightseeing, and since there would be no loot rewards the only people who'd do it were ones who were equally interested in seeing it and probably wouldn't be a bunch of jerks.
DarkWalker Nov 16th 2011 8:38PM
You mostly described the upcoming LFR difficulty, if the early reports are to be believed.
For my part, if the LFR allows players to see the full lore - and if the random groups can effectively complete the raids with few to no wipes - chances are good I will never set foot again in a Normal/Hard raid. Count this tank out. The stress of babysitting a bunch of clueless players is definitely not worth the rewards.
Killik Nov 17th 2011 5:28AM
But isn't a significant proportion of a raid's novelty new encounter mechanics? Story mode just seems like "get the guild together to whack target dummies with different models." You might do it once, for a laugh, but a one-use raid hardly seems like a good use of development time.
noel mcleod Nov 17th 2011 10:50AM
@Darkwalker
As a non-raiding PuG tank I gotta say that you nailed it. With a good healer I don't need ANY DPS to run a reg. With a good healer I can still get wiped repeatedly by idiots who shouldn't have queued in Heroics. If I can reasonably tank an LFR raid and see the content with my ~ilvl 363 gear then I will be very happy and probably will spend even less time doing anything else. If I can learn the content well enough to tank a regular with a PuG, even better.
Dimmak Nov 16th 2011 7:26PM
I am a bit torn, I come from the days of Vanilla and did indeed complete MC, BWL, AQ, and Naxx 40 and didn't think I was one of the exceptional few. I was also raiding 4 nights a week until 3 am which in hindsight was way too much! These days I raid two nights a week for 3 hours each. The equivalent of going to the movies twice a week. My guild downs the normal mode raids while they are relevant but we struggle on hard modes.
Looking at this number, 1000 guilds... 2 % of raiding guilds... even less than 2% of all players are defeating the current final boss. I cannot think of a console game that would have that low of a completion rate. Or a game company that would be making content for such a small portion of the audience.
Before I digress further, I appreciate beating really hard bosses like this and the fact only 2% of those trying pull it off makes the feat that much more amazing. On the flip side should it really be that small of a number? Well in the end I really don't mind as long as I can experience the same content on a normal mode. Actually thinking of it that way I can appreciate LFR with easy mode to see everything and hard modes for bragging rights.
DragonFireKai Nov 16th 2011 7:38PM
What percentage of players do you think beat Halo on Legendary Difficulty?
Twill Nov 16th 2011 7:56PM
A ton more.
People that play Halo play it a LOT and get good. Then they do Legendary.
For example: I can do legendary on Halo. I'm 100% sure we won't get H:Rag down in time.