MoP 25 man only for progression?

I started right at the end of BC. Hadn't even hit level cap until after Wrath was out. I struggled to find a raiding guild on Jaedenar which is a low pop realm that was imbalanced to the other faction (15-25% alliance representation on an overall low pop realm =nobody there). At the same time, I was a co-founder of a RL friends guild. Long story short, the RL guild is now on Stormrage and we are trying to establish a raiding identity but I have always been in a 10m guild. This has overall been a good expansion for us. We've downed 3/8 HM and lots of guild drama and lack of consistency kept us from more or I'm sure we may have made 6 or more by now.

As I understand the latest rumors I've heard, Blizz intends to keep the loot tables the same but remove the shared lockout. My opinion is that this will push 25m to being the only viable progression path. According to the math I've seen,
(http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...of-10m-vs.-25m), 25m already gears up as much as 40% faster. Include the extra shot at gear each week from 10m, and the only logical conclusion I can see is that all raiders are going to be looking to be in a 25m guild. 10m guilds don't do well in 25m because there are too many pugs and too much loot drama in a guild co-operation setup (gearing 4 tanks, etc because both 10m want their gear first). Additionally, those 10m who may be capable of hm's, are very unlikely to be doing 25 hm for that loot chance for the same reasons.

I don't really intend for this to be a 10m vs 25m discussion. I realize there is some risk as some people will feel that my basis is unsound, but....

I just want to know what preparations you feel we as a 10m guild should make for MoP likely being centered around 25s? We have about 900 members but honestly only maybe 15 consistent raiders (mass recruiting to level the guild when we moved). So far, we have been trying to get 3 10s working. The idea there is 25 + 5 bench. We had three groups for a while using too many alts but we have actually ebbed back down to fewer raiders again. I know some of this is end of expansion attrition, D3, etc. Just looking for some warnings and suggestions to make this all smoother. Thanks.

If the loot tables are equal why is 25 man the only viable way to progression? Is that just based on speed of gearing?

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Originally Posted by Theotherone

If the loot tables are equal why is 25 man the only viable way to progression? Is that just based on speed of gearing?

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Both gearing and the ability to see a fight twice in a week. If you're a 25 man guild and a fight due to mechanics is "easier" in 25 or 10s, you can first do the fight in whichever difficulty allows you to see all the mechanics and develop strategy (and get loot from the boss you're trying to progress on) before killing it in the "harder" difficulty (regardless of if that is 10s or 25s).

Now I realize the distinction of "harder" can be different, and for some guilds one fight might be harder in 10s than it is in 25s and for another guild it might be easier in 25s than it is in 10s. That's really not the point, and I actually like where this OP is going.

For a 10 man guild there are a few things I would say:
1) Rumors are rumors, it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings. If blizzard shares lockouts they may do a loot thing similar to Dragonsoul LFR where you can only be eligible for loot from a boss once per week, regardless of how many times you run it.

2) They may not do it at all.

3) Best advice: if you want to be a 10 man guild, then just don't care about what 25 mans do. Have fun doing the form you love. This might give 25 mans a bigger "gearing advantage" than currently, but if they don't have one then look at it from the other side: there's not much incentive to do 25 man raids other than preference of format. We can spiral out of control about details on that so let's not go there, but the point is "do the form you prefer, if that's 25 mans then go 25s, if it's 10s, go 10s. Even if there is a loot discrepancy between the two forms, if the difficulty is roughly the same, then you can still be competitive in 10 mans"

Exactly.
Running 10s only vs running 25s only, 25 gears up between 46% to 72% (depending on BiS saturation level you are looking at) faster. This is based on the statistics done in the thread I linked in the OP. That math is no harder than what I've done in my college career but I've never done that much stat work so I can't verify his math myself. I've read the entire thread and it satisfied me that he took the due diligence to be accurate.

Add in now:

10s will be able to loot only a few 25m bosses (based on WotLK experience) and 25s will likely be clearing 10m and 10hm at the same rate (or faster based on gearing rates) as they do the 25m. A lot of the people on this forum say "Loot to Raid, not raid to loot" which is all well and good (and tends to be my attitude as well) but practical experience says the majority of players don't play that way. Therefore, getting recruits will likely be massively weighted to 25s assuming equal levels of leadership.

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Originally Posted by sifuedition

Exactly.
Running 10s only vs running 25s only, 25 gears up between 46% to 72% (depending on BiS saturation level you are looking at) faster.

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That's really the key point isn't it? If there are more bosses with fewer drops per boss, then gearing up in 10s vs. 25s actually becomes much closer... actually my gut tells me there's an inflection point where you could gear up faster in 10s even with the same gear ratio because 25s would get so many repeat drops that just get DE'd, but I mean... a lot of this is all speculation at this point. I just don't see blizzard changing lockouts without modifying looting at least a little bit. It was obvious in WotLK that double loot was a bad idea, I just can't see blizzard just going, "WHELP NOW YOU CAN DO BOTH IN ONE WEEK, I'M SURE THERE WILL BE NO CONSEQUENCES TO THIS AT ALL!" and wandering off.

If they do that, they need to make it that you cannot get loot more than once a week from each boss, cannot gain quest progress more than once per week per boss and cannot gain reputation more than once per week per boss. So basically, there is no point running it twice, which makes allowing two lockouts per week pointless.

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Originally Posted by Fetzie

If they do that, they need to make it that you cannot get loot more than once a week from each boss, cannot gain quest progress more than once per week per boss and cannot gain reputation more than once per week per boss. So basically, there is no point running it twice, which makes allowing two lockouts per week pointless.

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Well, it does allow you experience with mechanics, a way to try out apps, and help with alt runs. In WotLK a lot of guilds would do bosses FIRST in 10 man (even if it was easier) just to get a feel for the mechanics, then they'd do it again in 25s.

I tend to agree with virtually all of what's been said -although I can't see them limiting loot if they remove the lock outs; I fully understand the argument, but gear has become soooo important in the game that such a move would just piss too many off. Can't you see the 25 man pug where half the raid doesn't realize (6 months after MoP) that you can't loot in 10 and 25? Boom, half raid gone and no way to fill out the pug. Hell people still mess up BH "what do you mean I'm saved, I only did 10 man so far...." - it's only been 18 months.

I've said for a while when we'd talk about changes in MoP, that the I hoped the shared lock out would go away- I really enjoyed running a 10m and a 25m in ICC. I'm wondering if 10m guilds, like mine, will expand or will just find "sister" guilds to run 25s with. I know from our RL and GM perspective, they never really cared for 25m in ICC - the whole logistics of it moved them move to 10 man; and that's where we've stayed.

That said, we're starting to see an increase in members for whatever reason, so as you say we may be forced to move to 25m. However, I do like the "sister" guild idea to run 25s with. In that vein, don't discount the power of cross realm raids to bring 10 mans together for a weekly 25 man run.

I did a cross realm ICC 25 for shits and giggles and it was fun.

I think loot becoming too important IS his point though. In order to be competitive gear becomes far more important and therefore if 25s already have a loot advantage and THEN can run 10s also, whereas it is MUCH harder to go from 10s to 25s as it is to go from 25s to 10s, then the only "competitive raiding" becomes 25s by default.

This in the face of the massive shift to 10 man raids. I just can't see blizz doing it. I feel like the "what do you mean I can't get loot since I already did it in 10s" would be the same problem as "what do you mean I can't get loot form LFR the second time?" It's whatever, those problems will quickly absolve themselves. Even then, "PuGing" isn't really what we're talking about, we're talking specifically about progression raiding.

To me, this is an affront to the 48 THOUSAND guilds now raiding 10 mans, and most of those people want to raid 10 mans b/c they can still be competitive and they enjoy the format far more than dealing with 24 other people in 25 mans.

Me and the two RL friend who founded the guild have started to "panic" at times about being ready and discussing which format we want to try to be. We all actually like the idea of 25m but have also been a very tight group with our raiders, which is easier in 10s. We tend to be in mumble every day regardless of guild activities being scheduled or not, that kind of thing.

I recently brought up the point that we may be starting this "preparation" to soon since we don't know the final details on MoP loot, etc as well as we never know what's going to happen with the players themselves in MoP. Do half decide to reroll panda? Do half leave the game? Does any % of that 900 who are inactive come back and want to raid and turn out to be an all-star? How fast do we get 10/25 of the right composition to 90 and raid ready? Etc.

Sounds like the general consensus is that I may have been right to say it's too soon to make those preparations. Regardless, I would like to have a mental map of how we want to run 25s IF that becomes our best move. Loot may need to be handled differently. We are mainly MS > OS high roll now with a pretty good group willing to pass an upgrade if it's better for someone else. I can't see it really working that way in 25s so I guess we should have a loot distro plan just in case. Any suggestions there would be good.

Any recruiting suggestions? We haven't been the most efficient guild at recruiting even for 10s. We have the regular issue with tanks but oddly, we are having a lot of issues getting skilled ranged as well.

There are probably other issues that we should have at least thought about ahead of time. Anything you have for suggestions is appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Aggathon

I think loot becoming too important IS his point though. In order to be competitive gear becomes far more important and therefore if 25s already have a loot advantage and THEN can run 10s also, whereas it is MUCH harder to go from 10s to 25s as it is to go from 25s to 10s, then the only "competitive raiding" becomes 25s by default.

This in the face of the massive shift to 10 man raids. I just can't see blizz doing it. I feel like the "what do you mean I can't get loot since I already did it in 10s" would be the same problem as "what do you mean I can't get loot form LFR the second time?" It's whatever, those problems will quickly absolve themselves. Even then, "PuGing" isn't really what we're talking about, we're talking specifically about progression raiding.

To me, this is an affront to the 48 THOUSAND guilds now raiding 10 mans, and most of those people want to raid 10 mans b/c they can still be competitive and they enjoy the format far more than dealing with 24 other people in 25 mans.

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Sounds like you nailed my basis on the head. Although that point is ancilliary to the main question. That is in there to say why I think we will need to be a 25m guild in MoP. It has to be fair debate material since it is a bit of supposition on my part but if the rumors pan out, then I think that will be the outcome. I think that Blizz has heard the "save the 25s" talk in multiple forums and I think this is the plan to do that. As a community, we tend to be all or nothing. It is either the best gear/spec/raiding format/whatever or it is bad. As such, the huge swing to 10m for the easier organizational jobs (even if getting the best players into the right compositions is harder). If the shared lockout goes away, I think the gearing discrepency will overwhelm the simplicity of managing a 10m due to the fact that about 20 (or more) of those raiders don't really have any extra work to do in a 25m anyways.

Pugging is too important to Blizzard these days, I can't see them doing anything to discourage it and as a result you're correct guilds like mine will have to make a decision to scale up to 25 if loot isn't locked out; something I don't want to do. It is easier for a 25 man guild to run 10s, then it is for us to scale up. I like the people I raid with in my 10 man, 25 always felt more impersonal to me.

I tend to agree, IF they make shared loot/shared lockout, a lot of people will flock to 25s b/c they feel they "HAVE" to do it. If I had the time to raid two formats, I'd probably do it too.

It really depends on how much you're willing to sacrifice for raiding. It's a LOT of organization and time to run two formats. It's a lot of stress, lots of headaches, and LOTS of recruiting and management, and a little bit of luck in finding the right people.

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Originally Posted by Theotherone

Pugging is too important to Blizzard these days, I can't see them doing anything to discourage it and as a result you're correct guilds like mine will have to make a decision to scale up to 25 if loot isn't locked out; something I don't want to do. It is easier for a 25 man guild to run 10s, then it is for us to scale up. I like the people I raid with in my 10 man, 25 always felt more impersonal to me.

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Isn't LFR what PuGing is for? This doesn't affect that at all, what evidence do you have that blizzard actively supports pugging outside of maybe BH and LFR?

And even if they did, ultimately that is not what this thread is dicussing. Unless they make their opening raids hilariously easy, you're not going to see people pugging 14/14 HM T14

The question then seems to be one has to ask oneself, "self, how important is server 1st, 2nd, 3rd to you or how important is being top 10 on your server for progression." That really dictates how hard people will push to move their guilds to 25 man. If that is important, then the move to 25 becomes a must, no question in my mind. If you're a small botique type guild, good players who like to play together who'll get your 4,5,or 6/8 heroic, then not so much. What the 25s will do to those guilds is kill recruitment; which usually means replacing the one or two players who leave durring the course of a patch becomes that much harder.

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Originally Posted by Theotherone

The question then seems to be one has to ask oneself, "self, how important is server 1st, 2nd, 3rd to you or how important is being top 10 on your server for progression." That really dictates how hard people will push to move their guilds to 25 man. If that is important, then the move to 25 becomes a must, no question in my mind. If you're a small botique type guild, good players who like to play together who'll get your 4,5,or 6/8 heroic, then not so much. What the 25s will do to those guilds is kill recruitment; which usually means replacing the one or two players who leave durring the course of a patch becomes that much harder.

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And that was the exact problem I predicted. We have a hard time with recruiting in the first place as a 10m. I usually raid lead and one of the other co-founders (stay at home mom who has some more time on her plate) does most of the GM stuff. We have always been support role at best while raiding until we moved to Stormrage. I was RL or at least the strat researcher/fight explainer when I didn't have the responsibility of making the raid comp which I also sometimes did. None of us has been a recruiter until now. I don't really have enough time for that and I think we have been a little less than...selective before. Even at that, we don't get enough recruits. If we were being selective, we would have had VERY few recruits duing this expansion. That could be a nightmare for us if all the recruits are looking to join 25s in MoP and we remain a 10m guild.

Expansions have a bad habit of killing guilds, especially if there's a significant raiding paradigm shift.