So one of the most exciting announcements from the recent flurry of news about WoTLK, at least from my point of view, is the that there will be 10-man and 25-man versions of every raid. Think about that for a moment. Yeah, that's right. That means that you and 9 other friends will be able to scale the heights of Icecrown Glacier and topple Arthas himself from his frigid throne.
First, go read Alex's post, because he makes some good points about recruiting for 25 man raids in Wrath of the Lich King. We now know that in the expansion, all raids will come with a 10 man and 25 man setting, effectively a 'normal' and 'heroic' mode for raiding. While I personally believe this to be awesome, I can understand the idea that this will adversely affect (not effect, I'm reminded) recruitment for 25 mans if people can see the exact same content by just running a 10 man. Sure, the gear won't be as good, but if the starter 10 man gear allows you to run the next stage 10 man, and so on until you finally reach a 10 man version of Arthas, guilds that run 25 man raid content might have a harder time recruiting people to run what is essentially the 'same' content with 24 other folks instead of 9 other folks.
The reason I don't think it will be a real issue (I do think it's worth considering, though, and I do believe it will have some effect on 25 man recruitment) is threefold. Unrelated to those reasons (which are coming up after the jump) I have to admit that this may vary by server: on Norgannon, if anything I'm seeing more new 25 man guilds recruiting and starting up the crawl through Gruul's and Magtheridon, so I may just be working from a glass half full through rose colored glasses state of ludicrous (and heavily over-metaphoric) optimism here.
With the barrage of Wrath of the Lich King news we've received recently, one little tidbit stuck out in the bad way. Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited about quite a bit of it, this one thing in particular just struck me as odd.
The mention of there being both 10 and 25 man versions of every raid zone is interesting, but makes me worry from a logistical point of view. I like the fact that it means more casual players can see the content, I like the fact that it means the content actually exists for the casual players.
I wonder, though, what it will do to 25 man raiding. I can't speak for all servers, but on my server(or more specifically my raid group) the gear that comes out of boss fights is just a way of progressing to the next boss. It is largely unimportant to us until we come across something like Brutallus, in which the gear is absolutely necessary to have to progress. Seeing the characters, bosses and the encounters is far and away the most important part of raiding.
This puts the first gate opening time at just about 2 weeks (the patch went live on March 25th, as you recall). If the next two gates come down just as fast, we may see a world first Kil'jaedan kill somewhere around early May. Then again, I imagine Blizzard wants to drag stuff out just a tiny bit so that they don't need to put out a patch 2.5 with new content between now and the release of Wrath of the Lich King.
For those of you who have hitting the PTR to attempt WoW's hardest raid yet, the Sunwell Plateau, it's going to be turned off for a little while, until the next PTR patch, which "will be very soon." Updates on the various bosses:
Kalecgos is close enough, will be finished internally and therefore presumably disabled on the PTR when the Sunwell comes back
Brutallus's stomp will remove burn when he comes back, only for him to be tested briefly and then disabled.
Felmys and the Eredar Twins will get "major changes"
Trash (or, in Blizzard's euphemism, "the oh-so-compelling, non-boss mobs") gets "a good deal of tuning" as well
What have your impressions of the Sunwell been so far?
Zul'Aman. Heard of it? Noticed a lot of folks trading in their Kara gear for some rickety pieces of wood held together with twine? ZA has been live for some time now and most of us have had the chance to check out Blizzard's latest 10-man offerings. So here's the question: Is Zul'Aman worth the trouble? Sure, it's fun. The bosses are nifty and whatnot. But is it progression?
A number of guilds have graduated from Karazhan in the last month or so, but instead of moving into 25-man content, the majority are turning to our new favorite troll town. Of course some of them are dabbling in Gruul's Lair but I dare say Lady Vashj isn't getting as much company as she used to.
There is definitely something to be said about the fact that ZA is 10-man content. If you have a great Kara guild but not enough numbers to move up, ZA is a blessing to say the least. But is that a good thing? Ultimately, if you want to see Black Temple, you're running out of time, and postponing 25-man content is not helping your cause. The expansion will arrive sooner or later and when it does, people will not be interested in killing Illidan anymore. They'll want to see Northrend. If you've tried to put together a Naxx run lately, you know what I'm talking about.
So what do you think? Is ZA helping people get the gear they need to succeed? Or is it keeping them away from the prize?
Meanwhile, Drysc returns again with news that the looting UI system is undergoing some changes, especially involving BoP items. If only you can loot it, you won't be asked if you want to anymore, and you'll see the name of the item in the confirmation window from now on.
In addition to news about enchanting, PvP honor and spell haste dropping today, it looks very likely that patch 2.4 is due sooner rather than later. Of course, it's also possible that they're doing all this to confuse and bewilder us.
"Sunwell is coming along nicely," says Tigole (a.k.a. Jeffery Kaplan). "It will be on the PTR shortly after 2.3 goes to the live realms. We still need to perfect 2.3 a bit on the PTR." There it is. Most of us suspected that patch 2.4 would be the big Sunwell patch, but now it's official. There's going to be lots of new instancing coming up once all the big changes in patch 2.3 go live. Tigole even adds that "The 5 person dungeon is complete and the 25 person raid instance is progressing nicely. There's also a cool "public" area featuring brand new daily quests called Sunwell Isle."
The 5-person dungeon plus even more daily quests are a bit more to look forward to for those casual gamers who thought all their goodies were finished in 2.3, and that 2.4 would be almost entirely about the new 25-person raid dungeon. For the more hardcore-inclined among us, this will be the startling conclusion to The Burning Crusade expansion, the last big raid before Wrath of the Lich King! How does it feel? Exciting? Nostalgic? More of the same?
As you may be aware, I've been leveling a Draenei shaman up, to raid with my guild (Vision on Khaz Modan, fyi) in the not-too-distant future. Vision's been great about this, and has been encouraging and helpful in making room for those of us who have abandoned our 60's and elected to take the long and painful path back to raiding status.
I've been talking with other guild and raid leaders from the community, and with the change in raid group size, the addition of a new class seems to create a bit of an issue. Now you have 25 slots for 9 different classes, so how do you achieve balance in your raiding organization?
As I've heard different answers from virtually everyone I've talked to, I want to see if we can get some sort of consensus here on WoW Insider, so that the community may form a semi-unified approach going into the new endgame.
Read on for a couple of approaches, and to add your voice to the discussion.
If your uber guild has freed Kalecgos, beaten Brutallus, and felled Felmyst, and you've been a little bored, here's some good news for you: Agamath, The first Sunwell Plateau gate is now opened. This means that the Eredar Twins, Grand Warlock Alythess and Lady Sacrolash, are now fair game. Good luck to all the guilds aiming for a world first!
The European forums see some 2.4 news dropping, as we find out that Doom Lord Kazzak and Doomwalker will see their drops go from BoP to BoE, 25 man raid content will see their token drops increase by one to three tokens per token dropping boss, gems from Heroics will no longer be unique, and reputation with the Scale of the Sands will now be greatly increased.
As you may be aware, I've been leveling a Draenei shaman up, to raid with my guild (Vision on Khaz Modan, fyi) in the not-too-distant future. Vision's been great about this, and has been encouraging and helpful in making room for those of us who have abandoned our 60's and elected to take the long and painful path back to raiding status.
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