Before I start this post I wish to make it abundantly clear this is a post based completely on my opinion and your mileage might vary. We all read into things what we wish to and of course I am no different from anyone else and will do the same here.
Over the course of the years writing this blog I have had the 10 vs 25 debate multiple times in replies and a few posts that actually addressed the topic. I have always, and still do believe, that 10 man raiding is harder than 25 man raiding. Having been both a 10 and 25 raider in my life this has always been what I experienced.
Some people in those debates would concede that when they standardized difficulty so that 10 and 25 man were supposed to be created on the same level in cataclysm that the 10 mans could be taken more seriously, even if still not considered part of the world first race. However we looked at it differently. I always said that 10s were made much easier when they standardized difficulty in cataclysm and they believed it was made harder.
From my perspective it has always been that 10 man raids are harder mechanically on groups and 25 mans are harder with assembly and instruction. Both had their areas of difficulty of course but when it came to the actual fight I have always said 10 man raids were harder being their difficulty came from having less room for error when compared to 25s difficulty of finding and keeping 25 competent raiders and even harder, assigning them all places to stand. 25s difficulty was in logistics, 10 mans difficulty was in accountability.
When blizzard decided to condense the 10 and 25 man raiding scene into a single size of 20 man raiding I was secretly pulling for a 10 man guild to win the first world first that popped up. Because lets face it, after this point every group is a 20 man but coming into this point there is a 10 man group increasing to 20 and a 25 man group decreasing to 20. They are still who they came from, be it a 10 man or a 25 man. After this raid tier, everyone is back on even footing once again. Every top guild is a 20 man guild. They have all had time to work and meld as a team during progression.
Huge congratulations needs to go out to Paragon for not only getting the world first but getting it by a convincing margin. If you think about it they had the cards stacked against them. They were coming from being a 10 man team, which if you were to believe what seemed to be what the majority of forum posters, meant they had no chance of getting world first. What seemed to be the idea was that they would need this tier to learn how to play with a larger team and to step up their game and then next tier they would be back in the mix.
Paragon shows them all wrong. They took their 10 man team, added 10 more people, and then still wiped the floor with the competition. You would have to say it was harder for a 10 man to add 10 new people than it was for a 25 man to lose 5, but they not only managed it, they succeeded while doing so, in a way not many of the forum posters even thought was possible.
I was rooting for them not only because they were a 10 man team stepping it up, but because I like to root for the underdogs and it seemed that everyone on the forums counted them out as "second class raiders" because they had moved to doing 10 man raiding. Personally I think that 10 man raiding makes players into better players because of the high personal responsibility and accountability that is inherent to doing them. Not like these guys needed to be better, they were already a world first team and had been so for a very long time. They were the best to begin with. They once ruled the raiding world and they showed, even with half a new team, they could still be at the top of the pack.
As I said earlier, people can read into it what they will and what I choose to read into this is that a highly skilled group of people will be world first no matter what the group size is, as paragon proved.
But looking at their track record, they were world first when they were 25, they are now world first when it is 20, but they were not world first when they were 10. Why exactly is that? I'll tell you why. Because 10 man was harder than 25 man. Always was.
I guess we now have the answer to the age old question of 10 vs 25. Case closed.
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1 hour ago
Your opinion on this is my opinion. I have always said the same, that 10's had more personal responsibility as 1/10 is a bigger fraction than 1/25. 25's are no doubt much harder logistically, I had trouble managing a team to field 10 (as obviously need at least 15 really to consistently have 10) so yeah each had more difficulty in their own way.
ReplyDeleteI was not happy when it standardized to 20 as I don't like larger groups. I much prefer 10's but larger raids even with flex is now the norm. I'm not raiding now so I guess I don't have a dog in that fight but I really wasn't looking forward to trying to make the switch. I'm glad I don't have to, that's someone else's headache.
Anyway, bit of a pointless comment as basically I just agree with you. However, in my last comment I mentioned I was stuck on Nibbleh. Well after writing that I went down to Brawlers to find it deserted - my favourite mode. I loved not having to wait to fight and if I hadn't had to go out, I would still be there. Well, I read a comment on Wowhead which said try the movement pad, as that way you don't have to backpeddle, just concentrate on steering and dps. I one shot it with that which I guess is cheating as I looked up a strat. However, as I didn't know the movement pad existed, I'm going to excuse myself. That is definitely how to do it as melee. Stick walk on so you move slower, click the back arrow on the movement pad, steer with the mouse and dps - easy.
I got to the boom bots, beginning of rank 5 and I don't think I have enough dps to get them. Perhaps if I was a proper dps then I'd know how to reach a better potential. I'll try shifting round some talents next time I go and see if that helps. I didn't have time to do more than die to beserk twice, which is such a shame as the place was empty. Oh well, I suppose it'll be empty on another day when I don't have work.
I can tell you one thing for sure with the new flex format, it really shows how much harder fights are with 10 people. The more people you add the easier nearly all the fights in there get. Mechanics are easier to handle with more, adds go down faster with more, it is just like two different raids doing heroic at 10 and at 20+. Heroic at 10 is really heroic. Heroic at 20+ is like a cake walk. Just the same as it always was when comparing 10s to 25s. This just makes it even more pronounced.
DeleteI never understood why the brawlers guild was not a solo thing to begin with. No reason to make people wait. But at least if you are not in a rush waiting until the place clears out is an option.
Rank 5 is all I want for the meatball follower. You reminded me of it, might go nab that this weekend on a few characters, if I can. Otherwise I already did all the ranks and I am upset I have to do them again to begin with. Really wish they just added more ranks to it at the end and did not make me do the ranks I already did again. Wiping my progresses because they are lazy coders is not acceptable.
I agree in part with your view, especially on the responsibility part.. but ONLY when it comes to DPS.
ReplyDelete2 tanks - 2 tanks
3 healers - 6 healers
5 DPS vs 17 DPS
If a fight is easier on either size otherwise mostly depended on the mechanics. Best example - heroic LK. The defile mechanic is so much easier on 10 man because you have far more space.
Other mechanics again might be more relevant to logistics - in general it's easier to find 9 people you can trust not to f..k up, than 24. I remember too many times in Vent "oh no, XYZ is targeted ...and fails... let's wipe it".
So I'd argue both sides have their difficulties....
Rauxis, chosen of CAT
Even with the disagreement you partly agree with me saying the difficulty in 25 is about finding more people that won't screw up and positioning. If anything, the number of people is why I never really liked 25 man. To many assignments on where to stand and always someone that would screw it up. It is easier to find 10 competent people.
DeleteIn my time playing there were a few raids I was doing both 10 and 25 on at the same time, albeit on different characters, I've seen the 25 get further with lesser skilled players every single time. Heck in SoO we downed the first 7 with 19 people and a few of those where horrible, try doing that with 7 people in a 10 man, not going to happen.
As I said, experiences will differ but it is true as you said, some mechanics are easier in 10 man like defile. Over all however I think those sort of easier because you have fewer people mechanics are few and far between. I can't name too many of them.
I'd agree with Rauxis that the hardest part of 25's was finding a full 25 players up to the necessary skill level. During WotLK, 10's were easier for a 25 man guild mostly because it was easier to find 10 people with the skill. At that time the abilities didn't hit as hard in 10 man either and we already had 25 man gear, which was better back then, so that contributed to it. When I think logistics I think of the "where everyone needs to stand", but in a lot of fights for 25 that wasn't a problem because it was usually only two or three stack locations and didn't matter how many people you had at each. The difficulty was almost always that in order to get up to 25 people you'd end up with a few that really didn't have the skill. I know we almost always would drop down to 10 man to learn the difficult fights because it was just easier that way. HLK we killed on 10 man months before the guild eventually killed 25. Paragon was a World First guild by a mile in WotLK, and even dropping down to a 10 man they probably had a much larger roster than that. World First quality guilds generally run much larger rosters than other guilds to enable them to abuse stacking on certain fights. Especially when you consider how many people Blizzard have said have come back to the game from previous expansions it is possible that they didn't really have to add any strangers into the mix at all.
ReplyDeleteI think it's much less clear cut than saying one is easier than the other. During Cata some fights were harder on 10 and some on 25(for the same guild of 30ish raiders), it all depended on what the mechanics of the fight was. You talk about doing them with less people but you need to consider the percentages of each role when you say that as losing half your dps is very different from losing a third as usually you still need a required number of tanks or healers.
I find it hard to find 10 people that can do well on my server, never mind 25. It was a good thing that 25 required less skill or we would have never been able to do 25s.
DeleteIn Wrath 10s were easier for 25s because 25s dropped better gear. Of course it would be easier, the 25 teams over geared it to do it. Funny how all those people that raided 25 then always say, but 10 was so easy when I did it and conviently forget they over geared it and already knew the fights. If you already know how to do something and over gear it, it is supposed to be easy.
Tanks are the only thing that were steady between the two, and even at that, 25s offered the option to add a third tank whereas in a 10 man that would quite possible make the fight impossible. In SoO we often ran many 25 fights with 3 tanks because it make the fights so much easier. Think shaman which becomes a trivial fight with 3 tanks. Some others were also make much easier with 3. Part of the reason 25s in general are easier. They have the ability to do things 10s could never even think of doing.
Afaik Paragon downsized for real. By their site only a few (3?) ppl from the old team rejoined, rest were new. They have a post somewhere with the new roster and where the players came from.
DeleteIt makes what they did all that more impressive, in my opinion. To meld into world first material with that many new people that quickly is something I find quite impressive.
DeleteI will add that I always preferred 10's because you were also more likely to get along with everyone in the raid. Almost every guild always has a few people that rub others the wrong way. Especially in the most competitive guilds, sometimes people with terrible personalities were put up with because they were good at their class.
ReplyDeleteMost defiantly agree. It is easier to do 10s with a group you get along with because you are more likely to find people you meld with in a smaller setting.
DeleteMy 10s team never had loot drama, as in ever. Even when something 3 or 4 people needed dropped, we gave it to the person that we knew it would help the whole team the most. No drama, ever. We did not even need to roll for things most of the time, just hand them out to who needed them. We knew we would be back next week and kill things again.
Compare that to more personalities in a 25 and more people rolling and I can tell you, for an absolute fact, I have never raided more than 1 week without someone creating drama in a 25. That person did crap DPS, he does not deserve the trinket, it is a smaller upgrade for him than it is me, I should get it. A damage dealer should not have won that because the healer could have used it. I've been here every week, he is only a part timer, I should get the piece before him. Do I need to go on?
25s were a nightmare. If I never heard another person complaining about loot I would be a happy elf.
It got to the point I was going to start telling people if you complained about loot you would get guild kicked. Seriously, 25s were always a nightmare drama fest.
I rathered the harder 10s because their difficulty was on the battlefield, not on vent like with 25. But I must admit, I always pugged 25s because it was like a free loot pinata. Even half decent groups could down bosses and you had to love that about 25s.
10 and 25 can be difficult depending on tuning. There have been fights where 10m were hell (megaera first week) and others where 25 was hell compared (Alysrazor, Ultraxion). So to each their own.
ReplyDeleteI didn't want Paragon to win because I think they were mean to get rid of 15 ppl when they downsized. I'm emo like that. Also, this was not a clean victory so meh, guess this is why i dnt much care.
It sure would have sucked to be one of those 15 that got downsized, but I am sure they probably did not go about making that decision lightly. Who would purposely ruin a good thing when they know the community would never respect a 10 man world first team. So I think they did it because they kind of had to.
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