WoD: Wait..what now?

I have been pointed out that my postwriting was down again...  and there is a simple reason for that, too much information which is actually no infarmation at all.  I have several unfinished posts now, something that has not happened before.

Normally I start writing, and I have a post, now I have several starts (including a RP-story even) but no endings. And I figured out why, every post is connected to each other (well, except the RP- story then). So, lets start with something..  the news that WoD heroics will be more heroic again maybe?  Time for a confession:

I liked the TBC-heroic concept.

Think about it. Before you could run heroics, you had to do the normals. You needed to be revered with the dungeon-faction to actually do the heroic version, which meant you had to run the dungeon several times before doing the heroic version, so everyone who could do it, actually knew what was going on.

Now the whole rep-thing was tiresome, but back then they didn't do in Ilvl-gating. The problem with Ilvl-gating is that you can 'fake' your Ilvl, especially if you are a Plate-user. Every item in your bags which you can equip counts towards your Ilvl, so a 522-coth belt would count higher as a 450-platebelt for a plate-user...  seems odd, but that's how it is.

Maybe they should include the MagT-idea again, no doing heroic dungeons, before you do the normal one, and you have to have a certain Ilv.

And there seems to be another little problem, the length of heroics, Shadow Labs Heroic anyone?

I liked Shadow Lab heroics....  I loathed magister terrace though..

A common thing I read and hear that no one wants that again, because it takes to much time...so, don't do them I would say. This idea that everyone seems to have, that even the most casual player who can only play 2 hours a week should be able to do the same as a hardcore player who plays 20 hours a week is ridiculous.

Oh wait, they actually can...  just not in the same time period. In my opinion normal dungeons and LFR's should be short and quick, for the casuals with not much time. Heroics/Flex etcetera for people with more time. I want more longer BRD-kinda dungeons to explore, which take time to do...

Oh, and I see Mythical dungeons coming, heroics scaled up in a later patch, so we cannot steamroll them.

WoD: 20 people it is.

The biggest news for the raiding community is the new raid-size of course. Blizzard just killed of 10's and 25's, and made one size: TWENTY

Yes, yes, they actually renamed some difficulties, and made the flex-system the standard with 3 difficulties, but for every guild who knows they are going to do hero..rrr...mythical, their default size should be 20.

First up, I should mention that, Yes, I see a problem for 10-man guilds. They are really screwed over after most of them gone down from 25 the last 3-4 years. The fact that Innovation during Firelands had a real problem getting 3-4 people,  makes recruiting 10 people at least, a horrific thing. BUT, I do not raid 10s, I actually like 25s. So my reaction to the 10-guild problem is basically; I don't care, maybe a little harsh, but that's the way it is.

For 25s the drop is not that big of a problem.Everyone who has raided in the past, knows that at the end of expansions, people disappear, so going down a notch is not that bad. And with the flex system, you can actually go 25 if more people sign up. But here comes the first problem. Apparantly every difficulty will have their own lock-out...

Innovation doing Firelands with 22 people.

That means you can go out and kill the same boss 4 times a week, and get loot 4 times. That really worked well during Wrath....if you want burn-out. The problem here is the tier-pieces and the trinkets. Getting that trinket, even if lower Ilvl, maybe an upgrade, and everyone knows how much an upgrade 4pTier can be, even if one or two are considerable lower Ilvl.

For a guild like Innovation, that would mean, normal on wednesday/saturday  (current flex-runs for fun), and one of the three raid-evenings should be reserved to try Mythical....  My mind has to do some more work on that, but I don't like the separate heroic/mythical lockout.

An other thing I read somewhere, and heard (fatboss), is that the new fixed 20-man will actually allow Blizzard to bring back some gimmick fights with, for example, mind control. The reasoning behind this is, that with 10s, you cannot expect every class to be present (even impossible), but with 20 you can.....wait...wut?  Innovation is 25, and there are some days we don't have a hunter or a mage, because they are doing something else.

In my experience, the number here is three. If you have three of every class, then you can actually expect to have a certain class present....  anyone for 40man raids? So, unless mind control also becomes a mage-ability or something, I don't think you can actually expect every class to be present. Although being Mythical, you can say that would be the guild's problem,  which I am actually content with...

Innovation taking down Sha with 25

So, basically, the current raiding-guilds should focus their size on 20, instead of 25. This does not seem that big of a problem. Even the social aspect with 5 raiders less is probably barely noticeable. You still want to have a decent raid group. Actually, with 3 raids/week, that makes 60 raidslots. And if you have a 66% attendance rule, that means 30 raiders, instead of the current...37-40...oh.

Ok... I didn't see the 7-10 difference number coming up for the current 25-man guilds....

Back to the hard calculations. I expect a standard-raid seize of 2 tanks, 5 healers and 13 DPS (6 melee/7ranged). So doing the same maths I did in August and September, that leads to a standard guild-size of:

3 tanks, 8 healers, 9 melee, 10 ranged.

So, some changes will be coming....but not yet.