10 Man vs. 25 Man Raiding

[sethious]

Clock it is great to see you my friend. We will have to catch up on everything sometime in vent.

[Blacksen]

I think MOST 25man raiders have the same feeling...

1) We're happy that we don't have to do 10mans anymore.
2) But we're skeptical that the new system will work.

I just don't see a way that Blizzard can possibly maintain the "bring the player, not the class" mentality while simultaneously creating encounters that are equally challenging in 10man vs 25man. Just to give a quick example: Life Grip is probably going to be a cool ability that Blizzard could put in various encounters... Except how could they "require" it when not every 10man raid is guaranteed to have a priest?

Imperative plans on using 10mans to our advantage in Cataclysm. We will be staying a 25man guild (we are #55 out of those, after all ). 10mans, however, give us an immediate option to have geared alts ready to go in 25man raiding. We're hoping to have our same 25man raiding schedule with a few alts that go on the weekend. If we ever have a week where we need another geared tank, we should have one read to go out of 10mans. It also gives us an easy way to test initiates and not jeopardize 25man raiding time.






My main concern about 25man raiding is "how the fuck are they actually going to balance ALL the classes in ALL spheres?"

We're sitting here, now, with generally unbalanced classes in two spheres (arena and 25mans). In Cataclysm, they're planning on adding 2 more spheres (battlegrounds and 10mans). How are they going to balance every ability in all 4 spheres when they've thus far failed with 2?

What's going to happen to Prot Warriors, who are the weakest of the four tanks by a massive margin? How will they be a 10man heroic raider in "cutting edge" fights? What's going to happen to Resto Shamans, who need at least 3-4 targets standing close together in order to be effective with Chain Heal / Rain of Healing? What's going to happen to Warlocks and Mages, who need nearly every raid buff to meet their potential, while Hunters and Warriors don't need any?

[Krieg]

Stop hating on me Black!

Prot warriors are definitely undergoing a pretty serious overhaul, especially with rage mechanics. However, right now our threat and EH pales in comparison to every other class, so I am curious how it will all balance out given the new trees, masteries, rage normalization, etc.

[Blacksen]

The effective health is a fucking joke. Paladins have a whopping 9% more effective health and a reactionary cooldown if they ever die. Druids are untouchable at their effective health. Death Knights are about 6-7% ahead.

The problem are those Ardent Defender and Will of the Necropolis talents (the passive portions).

Here's the real question... How much damage does it take to kill a tank with 100k health?
- If it's a warrior, it takes 100k damage.
- If it's a death knight, it takes 106.18k damage
- If it's a paladin, it takes 108.75k damage

Math Part:
Death Knight: 65k to get them down to Will of the Necropolis
15% less damage taken
(35k/.85) = 41.18k damage to kill them after Will of the Necropolis
65k + 41.18k = 106.18k damage to kill a death knight
If a Death Knight is hit for 100k... they take 65k upfront, then 35k is reduced by 15% = 29.75k
Paladin will be left at 5.25k health.

Paladin: 65k to get them down to Ardent Defender
20% less damage taken.
(35k/.8) = 43.75k damage to kill after Ardent Defender
65k + 43.75k = 108.75k to kill a Paladin
If a Paladin is hit for 100k... they take 65k upfront, then 35k is reduced by 20% = 28k
Paladin will be left at 7k health.




There's just no way that Blizzard is going to be able to balance this. Tanks alone can't be balanced enough now.

Looking at the current Cataclysm simulators and such, it would be absolutely shocking if a warrior tanked any notable 10man heroic top 100 kills. The differences are just magnified too much in such a smaller setting.

[Sin]

Blacksen, I think you raise some valid questions and at this point no one can answer them knowingly. Since the Beta caps out at 83 ten man raids really haven't had extensive testing beyond Blizzard employees.

For those that have ten man aspirations. Questions of which classes to include or exclude in their core should weigh heavily on their minds. Beta feedback and logs will be gold once ten mans are established to those key holders.

I know that I have had apprehension in trying to decide my class for Cataclysm with your questions in mind. Will I be "gimped"? How will my class scale in ten mans? Will my class bring utility as well as viable output?

My answer to this atm, is to level an alt right away. Be prepared. Especially if you want to run out of the starting gate in terms of PvE content. Homogenizing classes and raid comps is something that has never been done before. At this point having an alt is all that I have for an answer. Although it requires a good portion of your time when Cataclysm is released it will save you from being left on the forums qq'ing about your class that is apparently "working as intended".

[Pokeadot]

Also keep in mind that they are working from a fresh slate right now. These new trees were just the first pass, and some of them are just placeholders at the moment anyway (Paladins). Next few builds should show us the direction they are going. Mastery also isn't fully implemented yet either, at least to any meaningful degree that I can personally measure right now.

[Blacksen]

Blizzard obviously read my posts...

Ardent Defender (redesigned): Activate to reduce damage taken by 20%. While active, attacks that would otherwise kill you cause you to be healed for 15% of your maximum health. Only usable when your health is below 35%. (2 minute cooldown)

Will of the Necropolis was also redesigned to proc a damage reduction buff that has a cooldown. It no longer reduces the ENTIRE attack, however, which is why it was overpowered.

[Dalrok]

Blizzard obviously read my posts...

Ardent Defender (redesigned): Activate to reduce damage taken by 20%. While active, attacks that would otherwise kill you cause you to be healed for 15% of your maximum health. Only usable when your health is below 35%. (2 minute cooldown)

Will of the Necropolis was also redesigned to proc a damage reduction buff that has a cooldown. It no longer reduces the ENTIRE attack, however, which is why it was overpowered.

Of course we do Blacksen... :: snicker :: No but that is kind of weird I must say.