Lets do some 25s for fun

Hey why dont we do some 25s and take all our guildies for fun, 25 OS, Uldular and Naxx I have never been to and I bet others have missed out as well...what do you think?

bring it

Get Some *gets run over by a forty foot blue rhino with a hammerhead that looks suspiciously like Malygos in disguise*

I've been a guest on some 25man pugs and it seems to me that the 25s are actually a lot more forgiving on players. You just need to be reasonably geared which has always been the breaking point but blizzard had been really good about helping non end game people break into end game with emblems and whatnot. I don't see why we couldn't do that kind of raid once everyone in guild that wants to raid gets in shape to go.

There's a number of reasons that we haven't run 25-man raids, and why I plan not to for a bit. Feel free to comment, question, argue, etc. these points, but this is why I do not setup 25-mans at the moment for Covenant runs:

(-1-) 25 PEOPLE: The usual setup for 25-man raids are about ~4 tanks, ~5-7 healers (depending on raid need), and the rest DPS. This varies for the situation, of course, but that's the usual raid composition. That requires a whole lot more people who are a certain spec, and proficient in that spec for that specific raid.

a switch from 10-man runs to 25-man runs is a difference of 15 people. Theoretically, when we are ready to do 25-mans, we should be able to have MORE than enough people for two 10-man runs. and all these people should login on time, be able to cooperate with the raid leaders and raiders, pull their weight, know the fights, not cause drama, etc.

There's the pure numbers factor in this: If we cannot have two 10-man raids that will reliably be online whenever we set a raid up, and be suitable in their roles and raid composition, then we cannot have 25-man runs setup.

There's also the purely social factor of this: Player drama, players that are heavily relied on in the raid (tanks/healers for example) not showing up, players fighting and causing trouble with the leaders, loot drama, etc. etc. It's 15 more people than 10-man, that's 15 more people that have the possibility of harming the raid.

(-2-)25-MANS CONSIDERED "HARD MODE": This doesn't fit every single fight, but it does apply. 25-mans are much more difficult than 10-mans in pure numbers and mechanics. balancing that out is more raiders, of course, but there are differences in the mechanics as well that are built to make it harder.

The original intent upon Lich King launch was that 10-man raids were to be the 'normal-mode' raids, and 25-mans were the 'hard-mode' raids.

Let's take Kel'thuzad for example, the final boss in Naxxramas. On 10-man, one of his most dangerous abilities, frost tomb, will freeze a target and any raiders within 10-yards of the target, dealing 104% damage to it over 4 seconds. This ability cannot be used on Kel'thuzad's tank (The tank can only be frozen if they are within 10-yards of someone who WAS targeted by this ability).

on 25-man, This ability CAN target the tank. In addition, there is a 25-man only ability that will mind control 3 of the raiders and give them large buffs. Healers may heal Kel'thuzad, Damage dealers may kill healers and squishies.

In other words: 25-mans are harder than 10-mans. and the 15 additional raiders may not be able to cover up for that.

(-3-) MORE PLAYERS TO WATCH: Do not stand in the fire-x25. That's all I NEED to say about this.

My point is, it's a lot of people. Pretty much take any problem we've had in 10-man, and then add 15 more people into the mix. it gets rougher.

I get that the bosses are harder but with 25 people layin the smack down there is a lot more room for error for people who dont know what is going on or dont have the gear...AND we will have to PuG and probably will get some great geared and experienced people to make up the difference. Dont fear the 25...it easier in ICC and VoA so lets see some new content.

I understand what Myre is saying, But who doesnt fear horrible, demoralizing failure? I also agree with WT, I have gotten into some 25-man raids about 0430 in the morning and done some good stuff. I enjoyed it and I messed up but I enjoyed that more then the 10-man that is constanly watch your own 6 and hope someone tells me when im standing in RED fire.

I totally agree with Myre in this. The stress of getting it together, having horrid pugs that get that loot drop on the first boss and bail, those uber people not understanding having to explain tactics to others. Most pugs expect the group they are in to know what they are doing and how to do it, leading something like that means we have to have tactics down in our own mind and make sure they are fool proof, that comes with experience.

Macks point of "watch your own 6 and hope someone tells me when im standing in RED fire." is the main case in point. No one should have to tell anyone they are standing in fire. and until we can do that smoothly on 10 mans, I personally will not be hosting a 25.

I get stressed out enough finding a balance in a 10 man, don't want to deal with the prima donna pugs.

so for right now I say sorry...but I won't be hosting one anytime soon.

I can't see Red ... the 2d fire graphics kinda make it hard to use deoth preception and it almost transparent.

that is what deadly boss mods is for, it makes noise and does a raid warning when you are standing somewhere your not suppose to be.

Okay, I will get with you in-game to get that set up, mine doesn't do it Xp

Just FYI mack I don't see a lot of the animations at all red blue or white so I work around it by watching other members of the group and how they're moving. This is a game where situational awareness counts for a lot and you can use it to compensate for problems elsewhere

as far as DBM goes just make sure it is set to announce for each boss and you should be fine

well, im not afraid, hell i've pugged non guildy 25 mans that i'd never been to and was horribly undergeared for and we still did it without a wipe. 25 are close to 10 man raids but wit more people, some harder bosses and better loot. i have no problem hosting and running a 25 man naxx. almost no one does naxx now and 25 mans are popular so there shouldn't be a problem pugging the extra. we have too many tank healers and dps in total for 10 mans. we have 3-4 good tanks, many healers and LOTS of dps. i'll find a time to schedule and i expect everyone that says they want to do a 25 to sign up and join. we can pug whatever we need because people love doing 25 mans and it shouldn't be too bad.

as i've said before, raiding right is fun, so lets go have fun.

This is nothing to do with fear, thank you, it is practicality, there has been 1 time in the last 6 months that we have had more then 10 people sign up and actually show up and we had to leave 3 people out, that was last week.

Every other time, we had people sign up that didn't show, times we had to pug a tank as we were short a well geared tank.

And dealing with prima donna pugs all the time in randoms, that is really not the situation I want to put our lesser experienced people through. Nothing more disheartening then when some stranger whispers you and says "your spec is wrong" "oh don't cast like that" etc.

It is those type of things that get people to stop having fun, and you can really never be sure with a pug.

The end result guys, is, that 25 mans are not practical in the least for Covenant. You can PuG people, sure, and you can say that people will go, but there is a difference between theory and reality. Here, let me give you an example:

If we set up a 25-man raid for, say, Ulduar. Ulduar is pretty middle-ground contentwise, so let's assume that the majority of players want to go. We set it for Friday at, say, 6PM.

In theory, we could have every 80 sign up for that and show up. The 80's that are willing to join and usually sign up for raids are about (at maximum sign-up, that is all these people hit accept or tentative) 10-13. maybe 15. That's assuming all these people show up on time, emergencies don't happen, and tentative status doesn't translate to a no-show.

So, let's assume we have 10 people signed up for that 25-man ulduar. that's 15 less people than is needed. For the 10-man setup, let's assume we have 2 tanks, 3 healers, and 5 DPS. So, we should get 2 more tanks, 3 more healers, and the rest of them DPS.

That means that for the time we must have at least 15 more people we can Pug for Ulduar 25-man. Let's assume that 15 people ARE pugged for Ulduar-25, all who have adequate gear and are set to the roles we need (tank, healer, DPS)

In that case, we need these people to not only agree with the raid and not cause problems (via loot, drama, etc.) but they also need to be willing to deal with wipes and such. many puggers expect raids with no problems.

That was the theoretical situation.

The realistic situation? well, listen here, as this is personal experience with TEN mans, let alone TWENTY FIVE:

We set up a 25-man Ulduar raid on friday at 6PM. Already, we have people that may not make it because their time is not good for that friday. That's okay, but we can't appease everyone, so those people aren't gonna show up.

People set as tentative or denied. Those people we can't rely on to show up.

Some people as accepted are unreliable to show up for, others have emergencies that come up, and others aren't able to put out any usable DPS, healing, or tanking for the raid.

Let's say that takes out 3-5 people. I'd say we have maybe 6-7 people if we take those that don't have the right amount of DPS/heal/Tank for the raid. So that's about 5 people that know what they're doing, and 3 or 4 that don't. That leaves the rest of the 25-man raid to pug.

Pugging:

This assumes that there are enough people currently wanting to do that raid. enough people to fill all the slots (4 tanks, 6-7 healers and the rest DPS) and enough of them being actually playable with. That is:
Friendly at least to the point of not causing drama
able to pull their weight
willing to deal with wipes and not leave
Not leave as soon as they get gear
etc.

This is not going to happen. If we DO get that many people, I can garuntee you it will not end well.

Solkata, If I may address your post specifically:

I do agree with Kenzy here, as it's not fear or hate that makes me say I don't want to do 25 mans. Sure, if you ask me in vent i'll say "Oh god no, I hate 25-mans. so many people to watch out for, too many chat sendings, etc" But I'll tell you right now if we had the capability to do 25-mans, I would lead it immediately. There's a difference between a personal preference and the better of the guild raid.

The fact is, we aren't capable of running a guild 25-man. You'll end up with a VAST majority of Puggies, which is NOT fun for most raiders, and NOT a guild raid in the least. Puggies are unpredictable in every aspect. you can't say that they will be undergeared or overgeared, whether they will know the fights or not, whether they will cause drama or not. It is very likely the raids you've run are with those geared people who know the fights. A good majority of them would probably be from the same guild. which is my point.

As for our people being excess for 10-mans? completely wrong, I must admit. sheer numbers is a difference from the reality, once again. We have only recently gotten back to a stable 10-man with people that can pull their weight and willing to actually learn with the fight and improve their stats and output. We have an excess of great healers, yes. Our tanks are sorely low, we only have 2 or so that are where we'd like them to be for the content we're progressing on, and our DPS is for the most part piss poor, i'm sorry to say. It's starting to be brought up, but as I said, we have some people now that are pulling what they're supposed to, and a majority that for this reason or that, are not.

I have to say from the experience of setting up a raid each week for covenant, we have not had the numbers or people to get through 10-man progression content easily, until just recently. 25-man is a challenge due to its harder difficulty, yes. on 25-mans, people are expected to know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. we shouldn't have to carry people. I'm sad to say, if we did 25-mans, we would most definately be carrying people, or it would be 2-5 people pugging 20 more. IE: Not a guild run in the slightest.

By all means, I have to say that you're welcome to set up your raid. All guild members are free to setup a raid and invite their guild members to come. The only thing is that they are not led by the guild raid leaders, and are therefore not subject to their rules or decisons. That is, to say that these are Solkata's runs, not Guild runs.

And please don't take any of this as a fight. The last thing I'd like to do is stir up a fight over something so little as "Hey, can we do this?" Rather, see it as an arguement and this being my rebuttal. All I'm saying is that as a guild, we are incapable of doing 25-mans until we can at the VERY and I mean VERY least have two 10-man groups that can do a naxx 10-man on their own, following the strategies and doing it well (that is to say, minimal wipes or drama). that is, two ENTIRELY seperate groups. 20 people.

We don't.

That's not to say that 10-mans aren't fun. We've had a lot of fun with 10-mans perfectly well, we've had fun in naxx 10, and we are still progressing in 10-mans. Raiding right isn't the problem, we can raid right and even better than right on 10-man.

I strongly believe we as a guild cannot on 25-man, at this moment in time, I'm afraid. and that's my opinion as a raid leader who has lead Covenant raids since Burning Crusade and the start of Lich King.

Good idea, wait we did do that before. Great idea, jus mark anothe hunter for me to follow

Guys lets all take a chill on this one...if someone wants to do a 25 let them...they wont be locked out of a 10 man guild run so what is the problem.

No one is asking Myre or Kenzy to lead these, if someone wants to do a 25 they lead it and either fail or succeed and I really dont think that preventing someone from trying is a good idea...if you dont want to go with them...DONT...if you do...DO...its that easy.

Wall o text reduced to: Setting up a raid is hard. We like to play with our friends therefore we do it hard mode. Going to a PUG is easy if you have minimal skills and are not a tank. However you're not playing with friends and there is always more crap being dangled like a carrot for the gotta have types.