As most readers know, I'm a 25-man raider. It's not that I dislike 10s, it's more that I just don't care about them. A lot of other people do care, though, enough that's it worthwhile to have 10-man raids exist.
But to me, 10-man raids are UBRS1. I did UBRS a lot, before I started raiding. It was fun and all, but it was just UBRS.
25s are Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. The grail, the goal. When I think of 25s, it seems to tap into that line of instances.
I'm not really going anywhere with this train of thought. But really, I don't think there's any real, logical reason I prefer 25s to 10s.
I do think that for the Royalty guilds, the Paragons and Premonitions, 25s will provide a greater challenge than 10s. But for someone at my level, I think a tuned 10-man can be just as challenging as a 25-man.
I do like working within a sub-team, having a healer channel, etc. Yet it's also nice being part of the entire team.
But still, at the end of the day, 10s are UBRS and 25s are Molten Core or Blackwing Lair. The patterns laid down in our youth are hard to break.
1. Upper Blackrock Spire. But really, it's UBRS.
I never got into raiding until Wrath, and even then I was only a sub in most of my experiences. My schedule's too unpredictable.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I have tried both ten and twenty-five man raiding, and I have to say I far prefer ten-man. I find that in 25-man there's usually so many effects going off and everything that I just feel totally lost.
Molten Core and Blackwing Lair will always be 40 man in my book. Those were the true raids to me. Managing that size of raid was always impressive and that's why the step down to 25% of that raid size feels like a pug of sort.
ReplyDeleteI always feel nostalgic during the few weeks before an expansion.
ReplyDelete25 mans are ZG :P
ReplyDeleteNothing touches 40 mans!
I personally have been playin wow for over five years. I remember 40 man MC and how frightening an experience that was. Wonderfull, yet very scary. Downing rags with 39 other people was mindblowing. But enough with nostalgia for right now. For me, 10's seem like they may be more challenging. Not in the " Fights too hard " Sense, more in the " No room for error " sense. Tiny Green Ragdoll on icecrown is the guild I have done the most raiding in thus far, And I see them going 10/12HM 25man but then not being able to kill LK on 10. Maybe thats unique to TGR, But thats my take. but then again, I DID start in 40 man Molten Core
ReplyDeleteI nostalgia depends on when you started and your mention of UBRS brought back good memories. Many people don't realize that at launch UBRS was 15 man and the top of the content. To get there you had to run 10 man Scholo and Strat when they were ridiculously hard and one bad pull was a definite wipe. Most guilds couldn't finish them but it was necessary to run them and 10 man LBRS if you ever hoped to get to UBRS. The reality was that 15 man UBRS was just a pipedream to most people as you had to know someone to open the door pieces of which only dropped from the bosses in LBRS.
ReplyDeleteEventually, Bliz released Molten Core and decided that people at max level needed easier content. They nerfed Scholo, Strat, LBRS and UBRS many times until they became what Karazhan was for BC and the heroics/badge gear was for WotLK. As I wasn't in an endgame raiding guild at the time I have many fond memories of pugging UBRS. It's really were I learned how to play the game.
I too get incredibly nostalgic right before an X-Pack. I know Bliz is stepping back and trying to make dungeons and heroics fairly important again, but the sheer epicness of a 3 hour run through Black Rock Spire or getting completely demolished by Jandice just to get a piece of blue gear will never be replicated.
ReplyDeleteAs an old-school 40-man raider, I can definitely agree with your point about the great feeling of having a larger group. When you had ~5 raiders of EACH class in your raid group, each class banded together in their own chat channels, and it really lead to a great sense of camaraderie between members of a class.
ReplyDeleteNowadays, though, I do 10-man raids. More camaraderie between the raid as a whole as opposed to a subset of it, less chance for douchebags in the group, and you know everyone a little bit more personally. I definitely still enjoy the feel of 25-man raiding, but I think managing a 10-man group is just much less of a headache on a day-to-day basis.
I definetly prefer 10 mans, and in a similar vein 15-man bgs, to the larger scale 25-40 man alternatives. When I dig through my psyche and try to establish why, all I can come up with is that I feel like I am having more of a personal impact with less people present. Which, upon reflection, is both narcissistic and irrational.
ReplyDeleteSo, much like yourself, I just can't seem to provide an empirical reason for my preferred raiding size's superiority.
I still stick by my guns though :D
I think 25s and even 40s are true raids for the same reason that we don't have 5 man "raids"...below 20 people it starts to feel less like a raid and more like a group doing just a lengthy dungeon.
ReplyDeleteOn the nostalgia topic -- I remember that excited yet nervous feeling I'd get when we finally got to the end-boss (Drak, Rivendare etc..). Fun times!