WoW just released the latest raid, Blackrock Foundry, and the race for Mythic World First is in full swing. However, all the edge guilds are using a potentially worrisome tactic, perhaps one that could cause issues if it filters into the playerbase at large.
Each guild is running multiple (around 5 or more) Hard Mode raids, and funneling loot to the main raiders in each group. For example, the group takes 26 alts and 4 main raiders and clears Hard Mode. Every single piece of loot goes to those 4 main characters. The raid is 30 people to maximize the amount of loot per main. They then do this multiple times, until all their mains have run through the instance. Almost all edge guilds did this last week, when Mythic wasn't open.
Paragon, the guild who won the Highmaul race (and many other World Firsts from previous expansions), even delayed starting Mythic this reset in order to do the HM clears and funnel loot to mains. As a result, they started late, but have rapidly caught up. If Paragon ends up clearing Blackrock Foundry first, it's certain that all the other Mythic guilds will start imitating them.
This tactic is pretty hard to stop. And it does put a large burden on raiders. Each raider needs to maintain 5 or more raid-worthy characters, and run the lower instance multiple times each week. And that's even before we get into the actual Mythic content.
To be honest, the only mechanic I can think of that would stop this tactic is to cap the number of new epics a character can gain or equip per week. And that would hit everybody. Of course, a normal player generally doesn't get a lot of epics each week in regular play.
So maybe this is a case of just letting edge players kill themselves if they so desire. However, this tactic can work at lower levels too. A guild targeting Hard Modes could funnel loot from Normal Mode raids. I'm not certain that funneling loot would spread to lower tier guilds, but it certainly will become the norm among all the Mythic guilds.
It might be worthwhile to restrict everyone to prevent the high end guilds from demanding that every applicant have 5 raid-worthy characters.
Edit: it occurs to me that there's another reason that alt runs have become significantly better this expansion: gear consolidation.
In previous expansions, if you were a Holy Paladin, you could expect that 2/3 of the plate dropped were strength plate, and 1/3 were intellect. Now all plate drops are usable. So that's 50-200% more loot for each character, with a corresponding 50-200% more chance for Warforged or socketed gear.
That's the same for every class, even cloth, since spirit is no longer on armor.
"However, all the edge guilds are using a potentially worrisome tactic, perhaps one that could cause issues if it filters into the playerbase at large."
ReplyDeleteHave you not realized that they've been using this tactic since...like...Dragon Soul at a minimum? Probably earlier than that, even.
"I'm not certain that funneling loot would spread to lower tier guilds, but it certainly will become the norm among all the Mythic guilds."
It hasn't been and won't be for my Mythic guild. Of course, we're a two night a week guild that's not aiming at getting US to 50 or something. We just clear the hardest difficulty before the next tier, usually with 1-2 months to spare.
"It might be worthwhile to restrict everyone to prevent the high end guilds from demanding that every applicant have 5 raid-worthy characters."
I don't disagree in general, but it's been that way for years.
And that's why it's so annoying when people go "OMG THEY CLEARED THE RAID IN ONE WEEK SO EASY!" Those guilds doing that have the equivalent of 5-6 weeks of gear.
I think Paragon--the best guild in the game--actually delaying Mythic progression to get in their HM clears is a tipping point.
ReplyDeleteThe best situation I can compare it to was transferring from PvE to PvP realms. It wasn't until Juggernaut literally rerolled when they had Kil'jaeden down to 30%, that Blizz moved to change things to fix the issue.
Each raider needs to maintain 5 or more raid-worthy characters,
ReplyDeleteNo, they only need one. Normal/HM raid lock is per boss and you can redo the same boss twice (but cannot loot the second time). This approach with raid locks actually mean that they only need one character instead of multiple ones even if they do multiple runs.
Of course, there are other reasons for having multiple raid-ready alts, but these existed also in the past.
Well, they still need at least 2 characters. If your main is scheduled to get loot from the second run, you can't bring her to the first run, or you'll get locked out of loot.
ReplyDeleteBut you're right in general. The flex changes made it easier in terms of number of characters required.
The problem is the vertical progression system which doesn't go well with trying to be the best player.
ReplyDeleteJust use the challenge mode system for mythic raids.
Actually no you are wrong helistar, they would need 5 characters. because while you can bring 1 character to multiple raids that would be pointless. The loot that a boss drops is calculated based on the number of players that are in the raid that are eligible for loot. so every HM clear that they do they want to bring 30 characters that are eligible for loot otherwise you would get drastically lower amount of loot and would ultimately be wasting your time.
ReplyDelete30 loot eligible people == 6 loots
4 loot eligible people and 26 loot locked people == 0 - 1 loot
The loot that a boss drops is calculated based on the number of players that are in the raid that are eligible for loot.
ReplyDeleteOk, I stand corrected.... you do indeed need 5 characters then.
"I think Paragon--the best guild in the game--actually delaying Mythic progression to get in their HM clears is a tipping point."
ReplyDeleteYou mean their *second" round of HM clears, right? They already did what you said on the first week.
And the larger problem is the power of some of the tier bonuses and trinkets, that's why they feel they need all that gear. They don't think the place will fold within the week so they wanted to effectively get another six weeks of loot -- they've have recleared heroic at least once anyway. And given that the heroic clear takes like 3-4 hours tops (probably more like 2-3), spending another 15-20 hours for a massive gear boost when they're raiding 80+ hours a week anyway will substantially help.
"This approach with raid locks actually mean that they only need one character instead of multiple ones even if they do multiple runs."
No, you don't understand what they're doing. They bring in 26 alts or whatever solely to generate loot intended for 30 people (and then give all of it to those 4 mains). If they then brought those 26 alts to a second clear with 4 mains, the amount of loot for 4 people would drop. They need another 26 "fresh" alts who aren't loot locked.
You mean their *second" round of HM clears, right? They already did what you said on the first week.
ReplyDeleteYes. All the Mythic guilds did the alt raids the first week, because Mythic wasn't open. The key is that the other Mythic guilds did not do alt raids the second week. Method, et al. jumped straight into Mythic when the servers came up. That's pretty traditional for the World First race.
Paragon, in contrast, went for a second round of alt raids, and then proceeded to wreck the first 5 bosses. Now, part of that is Paragon overall skill level, but if Paragon wins the race, that second round of alt raids will become the new normal.
The first round is bad enough, but that might have been fixed by opening Mythic at the same time as Normal and Heroic. But now that fix will not work, because Paragon is demonstrating that the alt raids are worth delaying progression attempts.
"But now that fix will not work, because Paragon is demonstrating that the alt raids are worth delaying progression attempts."
ReplyDeleteWhich, like I said, is due to two factors:
1, Paragon expects to not clear the place in one week
2, the tier bonuses and some trinkets are insane
On top of that, Paragon also got to spy on the west for a day -- if Blood Legion went 8/10M the first day I'm fairly confident Paragon would have gone straight to Mythic as well.
But if you don't expect to clear the raid the first week, then it makes a lot of sense to do another round of heroic clears...and if you're going to do it, you might as well do it initially rather than at the end of the week.
I've never raided in a world class progression guild, however I competed for server firsts on a high-pop server for most of WotLK. Even at that paltry level of raiding we had people running progression raids with alts and alt raids with mains to insure we had the ability to put as much gear onto mains as possible. This was mostly a trick we used for our tanks and a few healers, and was exacerbated by good loot from 10m heroic and other WotLK specific issues.
ReplyDeleteThe problem here is not about people using alts to speed gearing up mains. The problem is the basic mechanical skill of the top guilds compared to the rest of the world and the time they will devote compared to the rest of the world.
Killing a raidboss is function of 3 things.
1: Gear
2: Time (number of attempts)
3: Skill
They are functionally maxed on skill (their failure to down a boss within the first raid-lockout is almost always either due to bugs or gear checks). Time is (at 80+hours in a week) also basically maxed out. The only other thing for them to do is push gear. They will meta-game to push gear as much as possible.
Now, if the difficulty of the bosses was increased so that it took 200 hours of attempts on the one boss instead of reach a certain set bonus and have the dps I think they would shift their energy from crazy gear pushing to just more attempts. The reason blizzard stopped doing this is that it sucks for everyone else, if it takes Paragon 200 hours of attempts to learn a boss it's going to likely be unkillable for normal players. Normal players whined when Blizzard started nerfing the bosses (or WotLK style buffing the players) every few weeks.
TL;DR there is no solution. They will push whatever avenue is open to them till they get the kills or collapse. Tuning fights so that the avenue they push is attempts instead of gear or introducing even more skill checks will shaft normal players even more.
@Balkoth, it occurs to me that there's another reason that alt runs become significantly better this expansion: gear consolidation.
ReplyDeleteIn previous expansions, if you were a Holy Paladin, you could expect that 2/3 of the plate dropped were strength plate, and 1/3 were intellect. Now all plate drops are usable. So that's 50-200% more loot for each character, with a corresponding 50-200% more chance for Warforged or socketed gear.
That's the same for every class, even cloth, since spirit is no longer on armor.
Just force personal loot on Mythic and all this nonsense goes away.
ReplyDeleteThat's a viable solution, Gevlon. Heroic mode could be forced to Personal Loot for the first few weeks. However, this will affect a lot of other guilds.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of people who don't really like Personal Loot for regular guild raiding. I'm one of them.
Justin's comment is excellent.
ReplyDelete"So that's 50-200% more loot for each character, with a corresponding 50-200% more chance for Warforged or socketed gear."
That is true in general.
Technically speaking, though, that's only 8/16 slots and tier often makes up 4-5 of those slots. So I don't think it's as strong of an effect as you think, though it would exist.
"There are a lot of people who don't really like Personal Loot for regular guild raiding. I'm one of them."
Indeed.
Doesn't seem like a problem that needs solving. If they want to knock themselves out for a silly world first, then let them?
ReplyDelete