How much wiping do most guilds go through on new content?

[Bigtime]

A trend I've noticed in guilds I've played in is that lots of players these days seem to have a very low tolerance for wiping. For example, a couple of months back my guild was wiping on Anub'arak 25-man normal mode and after about 5 wipes, everybody besides me wanted to call it. This was after about 1.5 hours of raiding.

I find this kind of lame and a recipe for failure when it comes to high end progress. Like, my server's top guild finally got heroic Anub'arak 25-man with 25 attempts remaining about a week ago - "after three months of wiping" in their own words. Lots of people probably wouldn't have the resolve to actually continue attempting something for that long.

My question is, how much time does your guild spend wiping on challenging content/hard modes? And how does this equate to your raiding schedule? Like, do guilds spend a full 4 hour raid attempting a single encounter?

[Darksend]

we killed yogg at 4AM on sunday morning the week ulduar was released, pretty sure we raided till 2-3am every other day that week too. We pushed really hard that first week but after that we never went past one for hard modes.

Attempts are really going to cut into that but I think we went till 2am on togc anub because we had to wait 30 minutes between attempts for rezzes and soulstones so it really streched that out.

back in sunwell we would spend 4 straight days of 5 1/2 hour raids attempting just muru and then just KJ. cant really do that so much anymore since stuff is so much easier they would all be dead in under 2 hours of attempts.

[Joe6606]

It depends on what type of guild your asking, and what content (ie hard modes vs normal). I'm assuming for my response that we're only talking about 25m bosses.

If you're a bleeding edge guild, these guys 1 shot everything that's normal mode. Hard modes though, especially the most challenging ones can take up to several hundred wipes. For example yogg+0. The easier hard modes may only take a few pulls.

If you're an above average guild, you likely 1 shot anything normal mode. For hard modes, you might beat your head for several hundred attempts and still never get heroic anub.

If you're an average guild, you might have a night while learning a boss where you wipe 10 times then call it, and go back and get him later that week, or maybe the next reset. These guilds generally either dont attempt hard modes, or will wipe a few times and then never attempt them again.

If you only wipe 5 times on a boss and your guildies want to stop trying, this is a big red flag that your guild is not very good, unless you're attempting content that is above your gear level.

[Padinbann]

My Guild has the same problem we have a few officers who are real downers and a few who are real enthusiastic and try and make every encounter work with reworking for the strat to make it work for us right now we have a problem with healers being more then lackluster and we spend 3 hours (8-11 PM) doing trash and doing boss attempts then doing trash AGAIN and a few people wanting to just farm trash and not attempt the boss because it is too hard? this is the DPS talking when imo DPS has a easy job in marrowgar tanks and healers have a bigger problem imo. I think all guilds have that problem i can bet that half the people talking were either carried though most content or didnt get into deep (farthest i got) Burning Crusade raiding (Vashj, Kaelthalas) so they have a VERY low tolerance for wiping id just tell the people to get used to it raiding isnt about lewt its about progression.

[Vorla]

I'd like to call our guild a casual raiding guild. We raid 1-3 nights per week and we haven't fielded a 25 man in a very long time. We spent some 40-50 attempts on Normal 10-man Champs pre-nerf over the course of one or two lockouts before we figured out that we were doing something wrong, and I think that is our longest streak of wipes on the same fight, ever, and we didn't give up.

When trying Heroic Beasts sort of early in the release schedule we quickly decided that there was no point in keeping up attempts as our DPS was way to low to beat any enrage timers. We went back when we had gear that you were sort of supposed to have (most of the TotC-10 drops, some 245 crafted etc) and had little problem in downing Beasts and Lord J. Unfortunately someone DC'd and we've never really gotten to coming back there seeing as our ten man nights go to ICC these days.

If we call it after five wipes, it's becuase we obviously lack something (such as a class/player that would make things easier, research etc), it's past the raid's end time or we have a followup planned later in the week so it won't matter as much. This happens only rarely though.

[Xianth]

We have a rule of stopping pretty soon after midnight unless we have a 1% wipe or something as we have a lot of people who have to work in the morning etc. Of course, we spend little time learning and defeating encounters so we can afford to avoid 6 hour raids every night.

I think the most we have spent was 3 nights (3x3hours) on alone in the darkness 10 but it's easy to have my players throw themselves into "wipe nights" because they know they are in a team where everyone's pulling their weight and everyone has a desire to be on the team that makes the first kill. I don't think I could ever achieve this if we were a 25 man guild, there's always a percentage that make wipe nights = "wait for the dumbest/carried people to finally get it" nights.

[Bihn]

cant really do that so much anymore since stuff is so much easier they would all be dead in under 2 hours of attempts.

That's clearly a hyperbole.

Bigtime:
Personally, being in a moderately successful raiding guild, we do come to points where we have to spend all night on an encounter. In that case, we typically go for two hours and then take a 10 minute break, then go for two more hours. Occasionally, we'll take two breaks at one and two thirds of the way through the raid.

[Quinafoi]

Bottom line is people have been spoiled more and more. They expect to get their loot much easier. If they had an instance similar in difficulty to Temple of Ahn'Qiraj and the original Naxxramas when they were released, only the truly hardcore raids even get to see them. That's exclusive content. They changed their design to make it so that everyone gets to see everything, if they want and put forth some effort. If they released something of that difficulty now, chances are there would be a lot of raids that fall apart as a result.

[Bashal]

My question is, how much time does your guild spend wiping on challenging content/hard modes?

We wipe as long as we feel like we're getting somewhere (i.e. actually learning and doing better). After a point, though, you get so sick of wiping and/or doing the same thing again and again that you start to do worse instead of better. If we get to a point like that, we call it, and go at it again another day.

There are incredibly few times though in this expansion where we have run into that situation. In part its because we haven't tried all the hard modes, also in part its because we have some fairly decent players in our raids. But the stuff we decide we are hell-bent on doing usually gets done. Eventually.

[Bodasafa]

How many attempts can vary greatly depending on what kind of guild your in and what content your doing, so its kind of hard to give a real answer to that.

However I will add this.

I find the best way to control things is to have set times and don't deviate from them (more than 15 minutes one way or the other). Down time and extending time is a moral killer, especially when your learning/wiping.

In our guild invites go out at 7:30 and we start raiding as soon as were full, typically no later than 8:00. We take 1 break at 9:30 for 5-7 minutes. The raid ends at 11:00 and were done (if were close to a kill when time is up the RL will do a ready check to see if there is enough support to continue on). So roughly 3 hours total with 1 break in the middle.

We raid 3 nights a week and we will keep plugging away at whatever bosses were working on until the time for that night is up.

If you only go in an do a handful of attempts on a boss your guild is having trouble with and then quit, it will quickly become the norm and people will give up quickly. Have set raid times and keep plugging away until the time is up, that way people know if they come to the raid they are expected to be their the full time. If your crew is having a horrible off night and no progress is being made at all it might be best to call it, but use that as a last resort.

People need to understand that everything will not be a 1 shot when progressing and if they are not able to cope with many wipes in succession they should not be in a progressive type raiding guild.

[Proletaria]

That's clearly a hyperbole.

Agreed.

Anyhow, per the average laid-back raiding guild, not necessarily "casual," but you get the picture: We raid 3 nights a week and try to clear farm content in the first night (server permitting, MG is terrible most tuesdays).

Generally on progression weeks we'll go for a few hours, take 15mins, evaluate the progress we've made (or what we're doing wrong), then give it another few hours and call it a night. We used to try and line up raid nights back to back for momentum, but lately we found it better to spread the raid nights out. It gives us more time to work on our issues outside of the raid, without wasting attempts or time.

With all of that being said, our progress is entirely dependant on the core. When we're strong, we progress like mad, and when we have a few key players MIA, we slow to a crawl. That's just how it goes for a mid-level guild though. I wouldn't sweat being a little behind on content at this point. With a new expansion on the horizon there is always the opportunity to overhaul (should that be your goal) and find a new pace.

[Fenier]

Most of my guild raided together in Everquest, only 10-15 of the 54 (yes 54) person raids I used to lead made that transition however. In EQ we would beat most encounters in 2-3 nights of attempts (Talking Multiple Bosses per night, total attempts to clear the raid) We had a few bosses (1 or 2 in each expansion we worked in) which would give us way more difficulty and would take in some cases 1 or 2 months of attempts (Hi to you Queen Sendaii)

Our WoW transition was interesting, because in EQ you mostly play in First Person, and it doesn't have environmental effects like fires to worry about in 95% of content. We raid in 10 man format.

We started raiding late this year, with Naxx. Cleared all 4 wings, had some issues on KT. Worked with people on glyphs, rotations, camera angles, and so on and we did way better.

First time in Ulduar We had six people. Wiped 5 times, downed Flame Lev, then proceeded to down XT and Razorscale with 8 people. Had extensive issues with Ignis, downed Kologarn and Iron Council with-in 2-3 attempts each. Cat Lady took 3-4 attempts and most of that was getting the pull to work correctly. Finally moved on to Hodir (3-4 attempts) Thorim (2 attempts) and Freya (3 attempts). Never really worked with Mimiron since we changed to ToC.

ToC was fairly easy. Had issues with Beasts, several attempts. Lord J wasn't bad. Champions we did in 2 attempts. Twins took 3. First Raid there we never downed Anub'arak. Now we can clear it.

Haven't done much in Icecrown. We tried Marrowgar the first week, but our offtank couldn't take the Saberlashes. We downed him the following week after 3 attempts post nerf.

Was kinda late, tried Deathwispher anyway. Died all 3 attempts but we went in totally blind. Worked out how to handle all of the adds by the first attempt and she was almost into phase 2 when we died. We now know what to do and expect to beat it next run.

If your guild is willing to try without a full or ideal raid, that's a good sign. If they are willing to die 4, 6 , 7 times a night to one encounter then go back and do it again, that's also a good sign. When your first time kills earn you the 'Less is More' type achievements that's a good sign.

If your guild does none of those things, and gives up easily do not expect progression.

[rmpg505]

It depends on the type of guild, most certainly. If they play together on the PTR, I'm sure they go in and basically one shot everything.

My guild is casual with a serious mindset towards our progression. We only raid 3 nights a week for around 9-12 hours total on new content.
We've downed all the new bosses in ICC and anxiously await the next wing. Lady Deathwhisper was probably the reality checker for many people and their roles being played flawlessly. That being said, we do have great teammates that stick it out and try to improve after each attempt. Our guild is 18+ with the average in their late 20's and 30s. We are there to get it done and have fun, not complain. Members with that behavior don't last long with us and would not be invited to raid on progression nights.

I believe if you have good leadership and team members that do their homework prior to raid it cuts down drastically on the wipefests.

[Kazeyonoma]

normal modes normally don't take much time at all, but heroic modes always take several weeks and months for us, but we work through em, and makes every kill all that more satisfying =]

[Proletaria]

normal modes normally don't take much time at all, but heroic modes always take several weeks and months for us, but we work through em, and makes every kill all that more satisfying =]

And I think that is how it is intended to work. Granted, some guilds are going to get some, if not most, of the hardmodes down in the same amount of time we (more average) raiding guilds get normal modes. But blizzard's goal is to give most of us something to work on (and enjoy) for a few weeks at a time. I think they're fairly good at it, on average. There are always encounter anomalies that give guilds a much harder time, but on the whole guilds who raid a few nights a week (2 to 4) take a month or two to master new content (on my server).

Much like anything based on "average" performance, however, your guild's results may vary. It usually has a lot more to do with the encounter, how it works, and who in the raid gets tested the most.

[KnThrak]

On ICC now, AbA has cleared the 10man the very first week, and on the 25man has downed Deathwhisper 15 minutes after raid-end on the second night.

We had a 25man-raiding-break over the holidays now though - next week we're starting up again.

Did a lot of wiping on some fights, and none on all the others. That's how AbA usually is though, Thorim25, Thaddius25, Firefighter10, Anub25, Deathwhisper25. We have our single bosses which get us stuck, while once we're past them we plow through a bunch of bosses straight away again.