The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
10v25. See Dead Horse, Apply Hammer
by Vonya
This post is subtitled : In Which WoWInsider Steals My Chocobacon*
For the record, this was the subject of my post on Tuesday.
For one more record, I am totally not going to let the fact that WoW Insider JUST posted on this topic keep me from my beloved soap box.
And oh yes. I totally just linked to WoW Insider. Take THAT. Eat my bandwidth! BWAHAHAHAHA. …what? It doesn’t work like that? Drat.
On To The Post
As part of a hardcore 10 man raiding team that has neither the desire nor the manpower to attempt 25 man raiding, the powderkeg topic that is the dichotomy between the way 25 v 10 man raids are treated by Blizz can send me into a frothing, Hannelore-like rage. After a few hours in a burlap sack and a dark closet, I typically return to my senses. For my husband’s sake (he’s running out of burlap sacks) I am going to try and focus on one (!) aspect of the 10v25 argument.
Gear.
More specifically, how I believe the issues with gear may be solved, and how I believe they may NOT be solved.
What’s the Issue with Gear?
Okay, some background. One of the major differences between 10 and 25 man raiding is gear level. The gear you get out of 25 man raids a “jump” in gear level above the gear in 10 man raiding.
If you look purely at the Item Level assigned by Blizzard for Naxx, the 10 man gear is ilvl 200, and the 25 man gear is ilvl 213.
This means that those who complete 25 man level raiding will get better gear than those completing 10 man raiding. (This doesn’t take into account poor Blizzard itemization, where a piece of gear might be better from one than the other because the higher “ilevel” doesn’t have the appropriate stats – I’m talking generalizations).
Why Do I Think This Matters?
Because people can raid 25 man – get the better gear – and then blow through the 10 man achievements much more easily than people wearing gear ONLY gained through 10 manning.
The Immortal is impressive.
The Undying is impressive, but less so when you see it over the head of someone decked out in 25 man gear.
Getting a 6 minute Malygos kill is impressive – but what does it mean when someone does it while wearing 25 man gear as opposed to only wearing gear from 10 man raids?
Has anyone heard – has 10 Sarth 3D even been accomplished yet by a guild wearing 10 man gear?
There is absolutely NO DIFFERENCE. None. In-game, there is no way to tell whether or not someone reached an impressive achievement wearing the gear related to it.
I feel incredibly proud of what my guild has achieved. Without exception (to my knowledge) the only 25 man gear any of us are wearing, we earned by 10 (or fewer) manning the Obsidian Sanctum on heroic mode.
That’s bragging, yes, but we’ve earned it.
It is an absolute FACT that our dpsers do less dps (or should anyway) than they would if they were wearing 25 man gear.
Blizzard Agrees With Me
In an announcement that shocked me to my core, Ghostcrawler agrees.
You see, for Ulduar, they’d planned on having Server First Kills. One Server First for 25 and a separate one for 10 man.
They removed the 10 man one. Why? Because people were doing it wearing 25 man gear LONG before those wearing 10 man gear could accomplish it.
It’s not rocket science, and the fact that Blizzard RECOGNIZES the problem gives me a case of the warm and fuzzies.
You know, right up until I realize they’re not doing a WHOLE lot to fix it. Yet. I’m hoping there’s more coming.
What I Do NOT Think Should Be Done
One fix (and mind you, this wouldn’t be an easy fix to implement, just an easy fix to think of) would be to make 10 man raiding noticeably easier than 25 man. That means that the gear being lesser quality makes sense. Say, the difference between doing a heroic instance and a regular instance. *stops and thinks* Okay, the difference between doing a heroic and regular instance in Burning Crusade, not in Wrath. The fact that 25 man raids are CALLED “heroic” raids makes this fix even more logical.
I hate this idea. I want to shove it in a closet and set it on fire.
Blizz has agreed that they want the 10 and 25 man progressions to be SEPARATE. They don’t intend 10 man raids to be a stepping-stone to 25s.
The fact that they’re perilously close to implementing that when it comes to gear alone (there are lots of other ways in which they are most certainly NOT implementing that) makes me a sad panda, and thus the crafting of this post.
What I DO Think Should Be Done.
Many people clamor for the gear to be exactly the same between the two types of raiding. This would probably be the easiest to implement, but in my opinion it overlooks one very important factor. There ARE more people in 25s, and I believe there should be a reward for those willing to undergo the pain and suffering that comes with herding that many cats.
I think they should drop MORE gear. MORE tokens per boss, MORE epics. That would be my fix for that particular solution.
However, my biggest concern isn’t the i-level itself. My concern isn’t that my gear isn’t as good as Pineapples (and yes, that is the name of the #1 geared priest on my server – god help us all. Hello, Pineapples, if you’re watching. Your name scares me.)
What I care about is the fact that people wearing that better gear can turn around and get in MY 10 man instances and stomp through MY achievements and battles with an ease that has nothing (necessarily) to do with skill.
My true fix for the gear issue? Don’t let people wearing 25 man gear get 10 man achievements. BAM.
You can run a 10 man with 25 man gear, but you can’t get a Plagued proto-drake. You can kill Malygos in under 6 minutes, but you don’t get the achievement. You can kill Sarth3D, but you can’t get a black drake, and you DAMN sure can’t have The Undying over your head.
That’s MY fix.
And yes, every single solitary bit of that is ego.
*points at the blog title* I want my ego. I want my achievements to MEAN something. I want people to look at what my guild has accomplished and measure us accordingly.
If Blizzard truly wants to separate the two types of raiding, truly wants them to both be viable paths of progression – this is my fix (again, for the gear issue).
Again, Blizzard Agrees! Sort of!
It’s also Blizzard’s fix (and again, I facepalm at not posting this forever ago, when my guild first started bandying the idea about. I look like some kind of Johnny-Come-Lately).
Remember that server first I told you they removed? They put it back in, with a requirement that you can’t be wearing 25 man gear to get it.
HALLELUJAH, brothahs and sistahs! I seriously felt like ordering a cake when I read that. A fancy one, with balloons and little frosting roses. Not something from Cake Wrecks, though. That would be the wrong kind of celebration.
Why I Didn’t Order A Cake
As far as I can tell, that is the ONLY place they’ve implemented this code.
This little priesty most HUMBLY requests that they implement it for all of the 10 man achievements. Please. I beg of you.
(Along with a warning if you’re wearing any 25 man gear, so one of the people from Hanners’ pugs who forgot to change out his gear doesn’t ruin it for everyone).
Summary
While the gear gap exists, 10 man achievements should be limited to 10 man gear.
The issue of difficulty in content between the two raiding types is a topic that I am attempting to avoid like the pit viper that it is.
Also, the cake is a lie.
* No, I will not explain the chocobacon thing. Unless , of course, you manage to find me, get me drunk, and woo me with chocolate and strawberries.
April 2nd, 2009
I like the idea as it fixes the problem perfectly. Any objection along the lines of not wanting to have to earn a second set of gear – that is exactly the point – you have to earn the 10 man achievements every bit as much as you have to earn the 25 man achievements.
April 2nd, 2009
“(Along with a warning if you’re wearing any 25 man gear, so one of the people from Hanners’ pugs who forgot to change out his gear doesn’t ruin it for everyone).”
This simple sentence is probably one of the largest reasons why Blizzard won’t implement it for all achievements. Can you IMAGINE the QQ and demands that Blizzard fix the problem. (do it, your brain will hurt. Really.)
April 2nd, 2009
“No, I will not explain the chocobacon thing. Unless , of course, you manage to find me, get me drunk, and woo me with chocolate and strawberries.”
You shouldn’t challenge me like that, Ego…this sounds like a fun road trip…
>.>
April 2nd, 2009
I totally agree with you. About 10 vs 25 man achievements and about your proposed solutions. If they implemented the achievement requirements, Blizz wouldn’t have to remove the Proto Drake achievement awards, and they could even work this whole thing out retroactively (I want an Amani War Bear!). Though I do recognize the war bear wasn’t an achievement award. I want it anyway.
And while you’re on the topic of bosses dropping more gear for 25 mans…they need to drop 1 additional piece of gear anyway. 25 man raids have 2.5x the number of people that 10 man raids do, but only get 2x the gear (they get 4 gear drops per boss vs the 2 gear drops per boss in 10 man). How is this fair? Is Blizz worried about gearing 25 man raids faster? But alas, this runs off the current topic. Once again, good post.
April 2nd, 2009
I agree with you that 25’s should have some incentive over 10’s, just for handling the extra logistics, and to provide loot to 2.5 times the number of people. The game would lose something if everyone stopped doing 25’s and only did 10’s.
But I also think that 10’s should not be marginalized with inferior gear, as well as people from 25’s trivializing the 10-person content on their off nights.
Fortunately Blizzard is really moving in this direction. In WoW and TBC, 10/20-mans were mostly an afterthought, a hiccup in progression. In WotLK Blizzard is taking them seriously as part of endgame progression. I think they will work to continue to get 10’s and 25’s on even footing, even if it does take them till 3.2, 3.4, or 4.0 (Wrath of the Murloc King).
April 2nd, 2009
I guess my only concern is for those of us with alts/mains who have gotten some 25 man gear and sharded/sold the 10 man gear.
Maybe instead of a strict NO 25 man gear, do a calculation server side. IE you can have a iLevel score of 2800 or lower to get the achievement. (Number done off the top of my head. I’m thinking a number that allows you no more then 3 higher level epics)
They may have to implement that anyway with how they have the instances set up. You get slighter higher ILevel items off the end boss in Naxx, and I think Uludar too.
April 2nd, 2009
First of all i am relatively new to the blog, but you made the list my friend.. Good stuff.. You have been bookmarked..
And let me agree with you and take it a step further. I think 25 10 and 5 man instances should all be on separate progression. And i do think that at the highest level of each, they should all give about the same lvl of gear. What makes a 25 man harder than the 5 man? The health of the boss? All i know is that I can go afk in the 25 man and still get the pinata drop. You can do that in the 5 mans… if u lose a dps in the 5 mans the boss is not killable… U lose 3 dps in a 25 man your still fine. Valorious gear drops in VOA 25 and u can do it with only 18 people fighting. They should make 5 10 and 25 mans of equal difficulty and make the gear about the same.
They would need to make the 5 mans harder to accomplish this.. but thats what they should do
April 2nd, 2009
I’d much prefer the option of allowing the zone to scale down the ilvl of your equipment to the limit of the zone than have it so the achievement is meaningful. “Bring the player, not the gear” over “oh, you didn’t hold onto/farm your ghetto purpz, so you’re not really achieving anything this run.”
April 2nd, 2009
Err. I mean: instead of allowing achievements to be denied based on the gear of the participants, allow the raid leader to set an option so that each item that is over the ilvl limit on the raid has its stat reduced while the raider is in the zone.
April 2nd, 2009
Another caveat to this ILevel thing is relics. Seems like most of the relics really sucks, with one gem per slo.t So any class that uses a relic in their ranged slot should get a freebie.
April 2nd, 2009
Blizzard has also said that they intended several of the achievements to be impossible until the next tier of gear. Their mistake wasn’t in making 3d 10 too hard, but making 3d 25 too easy. It makes sense that people in heroic gear would be able to do 3d 10, but 3d 25 should have been much harder.
Of course, this doesn’t really compute with the fact that they’re removing the proto drake rewards with the patch, but does Blizzard ever make sense?
April 2nd, 2009
The gear gap is shrinking as is – uld 10 has 219 and uld 25 has 226
It is unrealistic to do a total loot check, the most blizz can check is ilvl
Hard 10 is the same ilvl as reg 25, meaning it is currently not possible to filter out all 25 man gear
April 2nd, 2009
I completely agree with you but wonder how difficult the gear check would be to implement. As some people have pointed out, when you upgrade your gear you don’t tend to keep the lower level gear.
I would say make 10 vs 25 almost be a different raid altogether. Extra bosses, different challenges. The closest they came to doing that was the extra boss in OK on heroic mode and KT MC’ing everyone on heroic mode. They need to do that across the board and on a much more creative/larger scale.
Maybe implement different rewards for clearing the content or earning certain achievements while your gear is still a certain level. Or maybe they need to stop giving in to the QQ’ers that complained that Tier 6 was too hard to get unless you were an elite raiding guild. There should be a tier of gear that’s nearly impossible to get unless you are extremely skilled and extremely organized.
April 2nd, 2009
* hmm who left this jumbo size soap box out *
At some point I have to wonder why no one has bothered pointing out that you get ilvl 200, 213 and 226 gear in 25 man nax. The majority of the gear in 25 man nax is the 213 type, lord only knows why they put in 226 and 200 in there, I take that back I doubt god himself can predict blizz
Somewhere out there for some class, well probably for all the classes, you find that 25 man gear is not always better than 10 man. To go along with that, that gear from the easier wings/bosses in nax is at times much better than gear from the harder wings/bosses. Granted I have as yet to see BIS gear that isn’t from a 25 man but its surprising that the top 3 or 4 items often contain loot from “easy” content in 10/25 man or from 10 only content.
The achievement system is pretty much flawed to no end, the fact that your just now starting to foam at the mouth means you want to have your cake and eat it too. How many of you are walking around with the title of “The Hallowed” http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=1656 after the nerfed the bosses so hard that you could 3 man the boss in SM Graveyard?
So combining the # of blunders that blizzard has dropped * phew .. what stinks .. * with their desire to to make what happens in pve affect what happens in a bg affect what happens in arena. Lets just say “Can you say fertilizer and lots of it ?”
* hops off the soap opera box *
Since blizzard has deemed it wise to tie your gears ilvl to some of the fights in the next patch I think we are stuck with that issue. Oddly enough that approach might be a good one for alleviating some of the problems that exist with achievements without possibly having to remove them. Why not weight the gear, if any person in the raid has gear with average ilvl >X then the achievment is null and void for the raid along with if the average ilvl for the raid is >X then the achivement is also null and void. That would allow for a group of hard working people who are late coming to the raid scene get their drakes etc .. while keeping people from bringing in a ringer(s).
@vonya – please give hanner’s back all of her mana crystals, I don’t think they where ever meant for space goats
April 2nd, 2009
Compromise solution:
25-man raid loot spends the bonus iLevels on synergy, which helps out everyone in the raid by a certain amount.
Example:
raid(10) DPS Sword: 300Dps, +250Str, +200Stam
raid(25) DPS Sword: 300DpS, +150Str, +200Stam, all raid members get +9 to highest stat
In this example, if you have a raid-10, and everyone has their equivalent of the 25gear sword, the raid is slightly worse off than if they all had the 10gear sword. But in raid-25, everyone is +125 to highest stat above the gear10 equivalent.
April 3rd, 2009
Only monkey wrench I see in that logic is people like my charchter. My real life prevents any real regular raiding schedule for me any more, so I tend to get pulled into whatever my guild is running that night when I log on if they need another player. My gear is a mix of 10 man and 25 man. It’s never been pure 10 man or pure 25 man. It’s a mix, and has been since pretty much the beginning. So by that requirement I’d either a) never get any achievements for b) have to try and sort out two seperate sets of gear (which I think would involve them coming up with another gear color or having to put a tool tip on each item which says (item level such and such) or someone like me would never keep the two straight. I have a hard enough time sorting my healing vs dps gear since some of it bleeds over into each other …
April 3rd, 2009
The WoW Insider article was had the same line of thought as you have. I am sure the Blizzard gods are reading your’s and other community bloggs about this and other issues. This issue and others should be put forward and disscussed. I think why we saw the 10 and 25 man content in Wrath is because of the discussions about them on the bloggs and forums. If nothing is said Blizzard will feel that they are on the right track and everyone is happy on how the game mechanics work and not make any changes. My understanding is that “anything” can be programmed it is just a matter of time and money. As for using higher ilvl gear ie 25 man instane to get a 10 man achievement, they could put a warning to all members of the group/Raid something like “no achievement will be granted as there is over level gear/gears being used. Inspect your gear”
April 3rd, 2009
The WoW Insider article was had the same line of thought as you have. I am sure the Blizzard gods are reading your’s and other community bloggs about this and other issues. This issue and others should be put forward and disscussed. I think why we saw the 10 and 25 man content in Wrath is because of the discussions about them on the bloggs and forums. If nothing is said Blizzard will feel that they are on the right track and everyone is happy on how the game mechanics work and not make any changes. My understanding is that “anything” can be programmed it is just a matter of time and money. As for using higher ilvl gear ie 25 man instane to get a 10 man achievement, they could put a warning to all members of the group/Raid something like “no achievement will be granted as there is over level gear/gears being used. Inspect your gear” could be used.
April 3rd, 2009
Our guild is small, in TBC we were stuck in Kara for months as we were neither in a position to recruit nor really interested in growing for the sake of growing. So obviously when we were told that there would be a separate 10-man progression line in Wrath we were ecstatic. The thing that really, really winds me up about the whole 10 vs 25 is the fact that there is a vs part.
I don’t really care which version is harder or what ilvl loot I get from it (as long as the loot is good enough to allow me to progress). We take our raiding seriously, everyone prepares, brings their best and we generally have done really well for ourselves. Unfortunately, there is no way for us to compare our progress to other guilds on our server thanks to most 25-man guilds running both 25-mans and 10-mans. Of course they do well on 10-mans – they are overgeared for that content. But there is no way to find out who the ‘true’ 10-man guilds are. It might seem a silly complaint, but I find it very disappointing not be be able to see where we really stand when compared like for like.
If 25-man raiders want to cling to the belief that 25-mans are the ‘real’ end-game and the only thing that matters, then why should the 10-man content matter to them? Stick them on the same raid lockout, then they cannot complain that we are ruining their epeening by having the exact same gear as them – but on the other hand they have to run 25-mans to gear up for 25-mans, just as we have to run 10-mans to gear up for 10-mans. Fair?
April 3rd, 2009
I like your ideas.
Each item has a unique identifier (I think they’re called “item ID”) and blizzard could probably just disallow the 10 man achievements if anyone in your raid group has a drop equipped by checking those.
Most people who are fighting this claim it doesn’t make sense to allow or disallow the achievements by checking ilevels.
Also I, like others, would like to see 10 man raids being different raids than the 25 man versions. Making 10 man “easy” vs. a “hard” 25 man is just lazy design, not seperate progression paths. I don’t think, for instance, OK vs. H OK, is a good comparison of how 10 man raids should relate to 25 man raids. Besides, many 10 man raids are harder simply because Blizzard forgot to address scaling issues when moving from 10 people with fewer resources and options, to 25 with many more. Having Kel’thuzad MC even one person in 10 man mode would be devastating, much moreso than even the 2 he MC’s in the 25 man version of the encounter. Instead, why not create a different, but equally challenging, mechanic to oppose the raid with?
Just my 2 cents.
April 3rd, 2009
I understand that I am a thumb in a world of fingers, but I must say that the problem is an order of magnitude larger than this.
The problem is that 25 man raiding is really really dumb. “Managing the logistics of a 25 man team” translates into getting 15 more people to not go pee during the run. That is all it involves.
Ok, 15 people to NOT go pee……and maybe a few more huntards who need to NOT mess up a misdirect or something. Managing those extra people is a royal PITA, and has no game challenge whatsoever. The boss fights are a tad more interesting in that they are tuned up a bit, but the screen is so full of effects and crap that you usually can not actually see what is going on.
If you really really want a cool 25 man raid….design the encounter so that the raid has to physically SPLIT UP!!!! Put the boss in one room, and the needed adds down the hall. Put the boss in one chamber and the special switches you need to kill him in a series of far away rooms. Do something that actually requires coordination and timing. Make the bosses hunt the raiders. Something, anything other than the same old boss fights with a few extra croutons and alot of extra lettuce.
I’d say match the gear level across both. Scatter the gear availability between both types. It is not an easy solution. The real answer would require more development work and prevent much of the copy-paste design that exists between normal & heroic modes. Thus translating to either higher costs or longer time between patches.
April 3rd, 2009
What I find most amusing about the whole screeching “debate” about 10v25 man raiding is that the actual difference in the gear rewards amounts to about half a dozen or so stat points and maybe a dozen rating points. The actual difference in power is rather minor. From my experience, the actual difference in difficulty is pretty minor as well. The encounters in 10 man are well balanced for 10 people and the same for 25 man. All that said, I fail to see why there is a debate at all.
The real difference, in my opinion, is in whether or not you have 9 or 24 other friends to raid with.
April 3rd, 2009
I kinda agree with Tufva on this one. Put the 10 and 25 on the same raid id tag. It won’t stop people with 25-man gear from running the 10-man content and getting achievements, but it should delay them long enough that the truely awesome 10-man teams can get there first and get the recognition they deserve.
And if you need more ego stroking than that, you can always blog about how great you are . . .
Vess
April 4th, 2009
I has to say, based on what me friend Kinnavieve done told me, Heroic Naxx is badly named. Is just Naxx, onlies with more hit points. Only fights what was noticeably different were the ones what required mind controllings, i.e., shadow priests, i.e., the ones what violated the “bring the player, not the class” policy. /sigh So yeah, why is the rewards different? Shoulda made’em drop same loots, only 2.5 times as much.
Since they didn’t, I totally supports the “no achievement unless ya does it the way it were meant” idea.
April 4th, 2009
What I’d personally love to see would be heroic 10 mans that are still 10 mans, but drops top ilevel gear. Same mobs, same numbers, BUT you are required to defeat bosses under achievement-like conditions that are execution based rather than gear based, else everybody dies. Cross a charge on Thaddius? Everybody dies. Don’t defeat the horsemen within 15 seconds of each other? Everybody dies. Can’t dance on Heigan? Everybody dies. Etc etc. AND each wing comes with a brutal timer that kicks you out and locks the door when it reaches 0, allowing for no slacking on loltrash and no do-overs when someone forgets to not stand in fire. Fail and you don’t get to clear it that week.
Finding 10 people who can consistently do fights on hard mode is at least as hard as finding 25 people who can consistently show up and not /gquit at the drop of a hat, thus by Blizzard’s standards justifying top ilevel gear drops. Could even have a special epeen enlarging title for clearing it 5 weeks in a row or something. Would give 10 man guilds the opportunity to reach the top of epeen progression without having to recruit drones for 25s, those who choose not to do the hard mode still get to see the content, 25 man raids retain popularity, minimal amount of encounter redesign required, everybody wins!
(though to be honest, I’d settle for relic item progression having some basis in sanity >.< )
@Khol
Half a dozen or so stat points? Are you serious? Lets take a quick look at the minor difference in power. A paladin tank going from T7 to 7.5 gains 88 ap, 740 hp, 54 block value, 55 defense rating, and a smattering of avoidance ratings, not to mention some extra hit, expertise and armor. That’s a significant chunk of raw tanking stats before even factoring in talent scaling. From 5 of 17 slots going from ilevel 200 to 213.
If you’re saying that the difference in power between -individual- items is rather minor, then sure. But individual items don’t make the dragon’s head asplode, nor do individual players, it’s the raid as a whole. A half dozen or so stat points * 17 slots * 10 people * scaling talents * scaling raid buffs = a hell of a lot more than a minor difference.
And lest we forget, some of the “hardest” current 10 man achievements are tuned to “require” gear from 25s, whereas you can step into 25s straight from heroics and never look back until you’re ready to go wtfpwn the 10 man achievements for giggles once you overgear them. That’s the essence of the debate right there: there’s no reward for staying on the 10 man progression path, just punishment via achievements being tuned for gear you can’t even get on that path. If Blizzard wants 10 and 25 to be their own legitimate progression paths like they say, they need to stop treating 10 like it’s some kind of casual’s lounge with extra stuff for raiders from 25s to do on their off days. If it were just a matter of whether you have 9 or 24 friends then there wouldn’t even be a debate, they’d just drop the same gear and those with 24 friends would run 25s so no one had to sit out, and be satisfied with an extra title or mount as reward for their cat herding expertise.
Thankfully, Blizzard realizes there’s a problem and is trying to fix it without making 25s pointless, as they realize that if people could get the same gear in 10s without them being significantly more challenging than the 25 equivalent, a lot of raid teams would suddenly discover that there’s approximately 15 people they didn’t really like all that much after all.
((also tbh, those who find it all a bunch of pointless flailing because they don’t care about gear or achievements aren’t effected by the debate or changes to the status quo in anyway way, shape or form, thus their points are invalid and they need to stop talking <- not aimed at anyone in particular, just sayin’))
April 4th, 2009
As a 25 man raider it doesn’t matter to me whether or not Blizzard imposes a gear limit on all 10 man achievements. However, since the hardest achievement of them all is the one that’s limited by gear I’m not sure why you feel the need to have the other ones also limited. Who cares if someone was able to /kiss Yogg-Saron using 25 man gear when you ‘re walking around Dalaran with over your head?
April 6th, 2009
[...] is a subject that’s popping up in a few places (as a minor note to the overall debate of 10 man vs. 25 man raiding) as we all [...]
April 6th, 2009
I honestly don’t think that gear level dictates how well a character/guild does in 10/25 man content.
There are some of us in my guild who are desperately trying to get glory for the raider and yes many of us are in primarily 25 man gear, but in spite of that achieving heroic glory to the raider is probably not going to happen as there is usually one idiot out of 25 who can’t seem to you know “get out of the fire” or something similar.
Is it easier in 25 man gear to work towards those goals, there is no doubt, but I contend some of the harder achievements (undying/immortal, Sarth+3D) are harder in 25 man because it requires 25 people to know what they are doing and aren’t as much about gear as coordination. (GET OUT OF THE FIRE/GOO/BLIZZARD/VOIDZONES etc etc etc)
April 17th, 2009
Woot for another Drenden priest! (Sure you’re Alliance, but no one is perfect, right?) ^.~
I’d love to see more distinction in how the 10 vs 25 man content is measured and accomplishments between the two rewarded. When Mogwai and I announced people had to choose between being tracked as a 10 or 25 man guild for the server tracking site, I was shocked at how many of the people wanted to be counted for both. I’m sorry, but the 25 man guilds would have topped out the 10 man list thanks to the speed advantage they’d have from their gear. I was so annoyed that people actually argued the point after it was explained that we wanted guilds who could only have the shot at 10 man stuff to be able to get a top 10 ranking without it list being overrun by 25s thanks to the blatant gear discrepancy. :p
I will say this though, the 10 man Sarth+ Drakes and Maly fights are harder than the 25, in my opinion.
So glad I found this site! Wewt!