Category Archives: 25-man

The missed opportunity of 20-man raiding

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With the release of the Raid Finder and the recent changes to valor points, the debate about 10- vs. 25-man raiding, which is harder to run, and which is harder to balance rages on. I have friends on both sides of the 10/25 debate. I understand both points of view, and I think both are utterly wrong. Completely, absolutely wrong. The issue to me is when we went from 40-man raids down to the current raid sizes, the decision to offer 25-man raids didn't really work. I think we should have gone to 10- and 20-man raiding at the dawn of The Burning Crusade, and I still think we should.

We had 20-man raids back in classic WoW -- two of them, in fact, Zul'Gurub and Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. Neither exists as a 20-man raid any more, so this may seem odd to players who didn't raid then, but these were considered the small raids. People who had just spent hours raiding in Molten Core, Blackwing Lair or AQ40 would put together these runs on the fly to gear their alts or get a shot at off-spec loot, while other guilds that didn't have the numbers for 40-man raids would spend their time raiding these while trying to build up their numbers.

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The missed opportunity of 20-man raiding originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Patch 4.3 PTR: Valor and conquest point changes

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Bashiok has just announced new valor point and conquest point changes coming with patch 4.3 that aim to de-emphasize the collection of valor points as a primary way to gear up for content. Both 10- and 25-man versions of the Dragon Soul raid will give 100 VPs per boss, down from 115 and 135, and Firelands bosses will only give 50 points each. The changes are intended to encourage killing bosses for loot rather than killing bosses for valor points to purchase loot. One can also surmise that the change is being introduced to give players more of a reason to try the new Raid Finder feature, where bosses drop loot with a unique power level.

On the PvP side of the equation, the number of conquest points received for the first daily Battleground is increasing to 100 up from 25, allowing players to work toward their conquest point caps quicker while not feeling like they have to run Rated Battlegrounds or Arenas. Both Rated Battlegrounds and Arenas will still earn players points more quickly, but this change should allow those players who prefer regular Battlegrounds to not be left in the dust.

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Patch 4.3 PTR: Valor and conquest point changes originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Breakfast Topic: What happens when a raid ends early?

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Last week, we started and finished our raid night about 45 minutes into the block of time set aside for downing bosses because, well, all the bosses were dead. We set aside three hours for attempts on Ragnaros 25-man, and he was dead in 45 minutes. Flabbergasted and sort of taken aback, I had no idea what to do. I had set aside all of this time for the night to do what I usually did on Monday nights, and here I was, stupid and perplexed that my time had magically freed up. Four episodes of Breaking Bad later, it was time to sleep.

The night that I am writing this, we are doing the same thing as last week -- Ragnaros is the only one left, and hopefully he dies in a minimal number of attempts. There are so many episodes of Breaking Bad left to watch, League of Legends games to play, articles to get ahead on, and people to see. Even though I could be doing everything and anything, I still love to raid. I guess I'm just a little weird like that.

What do you do when your raid suddenly disappears or all the bosses are dead? Does your guild still use the time to do old content, or does everyone just sort of break for the night? I know it sounds like a weird question; that shock of suddenly having the night available is so wacky sometimes.

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Breakfast Topic: What happens when a raid ends early? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Breakfast Topic: What happens when a raid ends early?

Posted on by
Last week, we started and finished our raid night about 45 minutes into the block of time set aside for downing bosses because, well, all the bosses were dead. We set aside 3 hours for attempts on Ragnaros 25-man and he was dead in 45 minutes. Flabbergasted and sort of taken aback, I had no idea what to do. I had set aside all of this time for the night to do what I usually did on Monday nights and, here I was, stupid and perplexed that my time had magically freed up. Four episodes of Breaking Bad later, it was time to sleep.

The night that I am writing this, we are doing the same thing as last week -- Ragnaros is the only one left, and hopefully he dies in a minimal number of attempts. There are so many episodes of Breaking Bad left to watch, League of Legends games to play, articles to get ahead on, and people to see. Even though I could be doing everything and anything, I still love to raid. I guess I'm just a little weird like that.

What do you do when your raid suddenly disappears or all the bosses are dead? Does your guild still use the time to do old content or does everyone just sort of break for the night? I know it sounds like a weird question, that shock of suddenly having the night available is so wacky sometimes.

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Breakfast Topic: What happens when a raid ends early? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zarhym muses about 15-man raids

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Recently, a player on the official forums asked about the potential for 15-man raids in World of Warcraft. Zarhym responded to the post, stating that he believes that 15-man raiding numbers are a "pretty optimal number of raiders" since class representation is easier to deal with. However, there is no plan in the near future for Blizzard to implement three different raid sizes in the near future, which most likely means 10- and 25-man raiding is here to stay. But what if we lived in a world of 15-man raiding?

There are many benefits to 15-man raids that work around the scaling problems of 25-mans and the tuning issues of 10-mans. The big issues with 25-man raids include scaling and filling out the roster. Many guilds cannot field 25 people for their weekly raid and usually have to resort to pugging a few stragglers who aren't in tune with the group. Other guilds who cannot field 25 players choose to do two 10-man raids, but the issue of group composition takes center stage; where two 10-mans require a total of four tanks and five to six healers, the 25-man requires two tanks and six to eight healers. You can get a nasty split if you don't have just the right number of specific classes.

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Zarhym muses about 15-man raids originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 11 Aug 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Race to World First documentary releasing soon

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Looking for Group Productions has been hard at work on its documentary Race to World First for a good long while now, capturing many top-tier World of Warcraft guilds' attempts at claiming coveted world firsts in the raiding game as well as following Blood Legion's race to a top spot. Set to release in a few weeks, Race to World First looks like it's going to be an introspective look at the time and energy that many of these guilds put into the raiding game, as well as an examination of the multicultural nature of the game and the general excitement that goes along with MMO accomplishments.

Each week, Race to World First looks at clips from players in guilds that have been fighting for or actually achieved world firsts. Looking back a bit, this clip with Narilka of Ensidia chronicles her time spent with the guild downing Kil'jaeden at the end of The Burning Crusade when she was still just 16 years old.

We loved having the Race to World First production team at the WoW Insider reader meetup at BlizzCon in 2010 -- they were some of the nicest guys and had a blast talking to real players and real fans. I am excited to see this documentary. Check out the trailer -- you might even see some familiar faces!

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Race to World First documentary releasing soon originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Race to World First documentary releasing soon

Posted on by
Looking for Group Productions has been hard at work on its documentary Race to World First for a good long while now, capturing many top-tier World of Warcraft guilds' attempts at claiming coveted world firsts in the raiding game as well as following Blood Legion's race to a top spot. Set to release in a few weeks, Race to World First looks like it's going to be an introspective look at the time and energy that many of these guilds put into the raiding game, as well as an examination of the multicultural nature of the game and the general excitement that goes along with MMO accomplishments.

Each week, Race to World First looks at clips from players in guilds that have been fighting for or actually achieved world firsts. Looking back a bit, this clip with Narilka of Ensidia chronicles her time spent with the guild downing Kil'jaeden at the end of The Burning Crusade when she was still just 16 years old.

We loved having the Race to World First production team at the WoW Insider reader meetup at BlizzCon in 2010 -- they were some of the nicest guys and had a blast talking to real players and real fans. I am excited to see this documentary. Check out the trailer -- you might even see some familiar faces!

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Race to World First documentary releasing soon originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Paragon releases heroic Ragnaros 25-man kill video

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Earlier this month, Paragon earned the high honor of world-first heroic Ragnaros kill, downing the Firelord after over 400 attempts on his fight. Heroic mode encounters add something new and difficult to the mix, but it is rare that we see an entirely new phase to an encounter. Paragon's heroic Ragnaros kill video shows the final stage of the heroic fight, in which Ragnaros submerges in his lava pool and emerges at full strength on new legs allowing him movement all over the encounter room.

The final stage of the fight involves Archdruid Hamuul Runetotem, Malfurion Stormrage, and Cenarius assisting players in dealing with the entirely new mechanics this new heroic mode phase presents. If you've been trying Ragnaros or have killed him, you already have experienced the hilarious Living Meteor ability. In that new phase, meteors must be kited over patches of ice on the ground to freeze them, and then players must DPS down meteors to control the number up at any time. At that point, players are also frantically running around extinguishing ground fires and trapping Ragnaros in roots on the ground.

All in all, it looks incredibly fun and challenging, and it's very nice to see Ragnaros putting his new legs to good use kicking the crap out of guilds across the world. My favorite part of the video has to be the end, with the custom death animation for Ragnaros. Watch until the very end -- it's worth it. Congratulations again to DREAM Paragon for their heroic first kill and for this awesome video of the accomplshment.

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Paragon releases heroic Ragnaros 25-man kill video originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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World First: Paragon defeats heroic 25-man Ragnaros

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After just a few weeks of Firelands raiding, DREAM Paragon has defeated Ragnaros on 25-man heroic mode, earning them the world first and the Firelord title. DREAM Paragon announced the news on their website, promising their kill shot and comments in the near future. Congratulations to Paragon for this world first.

The heroic version of the Ragnaros fight adds a whole new phase to the encounter in which Ragnaros regains his full Firelord strength, steps out of his swirling molten pool, and becomes mobile around the platform with his new firelegs. Cenarius, Hamuul Runetotem and Malfurion Stormrage assist the players in tackling Ragnaros' many abilities in this new phase, finally putting out the Firelord's lights for good.

Heroic modes for the Ragnaros fight and others in the Firelands were also not available on the public test realm, making it that much more difficult for these hardcore raiding guilds to get time in on these encounters.

I am excited to hear about Paragon's time with these bosses in the Firelands. At only seven bosses, the Firelands is one of the more accessible raid zones, with a time commitment that feels far smaller than the monolithic endeavors of the past, like ICC or Ulduar. Has Firelands presented enough of a challenge to the top of the top guilds? Whatever the case, congratulations again! I hope that my guild will be at heroic Rag's door in the near future.

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World First: Paragon defeats heroic 25-man Ragnaros originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ask the Devs Round 8 answers your Firelands questions

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The Ask the Devs question and answer series continues with Round 8, where Blizzard devs answered user-submitted questions about patch 4.2's raid content, the Firelands. Players are anxiously awaiting the next tier of raid content, and Blizzard has had a lot to answer for due to the changing nature of patches in the months to come.

Blizzard answers some pretty good questions this time around and even addresses the melee DPS problem in many of the tier 11 raid fights. Some answers are a bit cryptic, however. When discussing the planned Abyssal Maw dungeon (we thought it would be a 5-man, but apparently, raid fights would have taken place there as well), Blizzard says that it believes that the Neptulon story is wrapped up fine with Throne of the Tides but doesn't make mention of the Abyssal Maw dungeons making a return. They only mention "for now," so hopefully the complete Neptulon story will be told in the depths of Vashj'ir.

Another interesting point that the devs make is that they don't really understand the complaint that some aspects of the raid game are too easy, when they look at the number of people who have completed the 25-man heroic encounters in relation to the normal content modes. Also, the devs wanted to stress that they were not trying to turn 25-man raiding guilds into 10-man raiding guilds and actively tried to make the 10- and 25-man versions of encounters similar in order to stress that point.

I am very excited for a new Lady Vashj bridge in the Firelands, though. WoW always has the coolest bridges. Read the full Q&A after the jump.

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Ask the Devs Round 8 answers your Firelands questions originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 25 May 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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