ICC25… Not an Upgrade
Along the twitter streams, I got hit with the signature line “10 mans are easier for 25 man geared tanks”. Now, had we been talking about Naxx, Ulduar or ToC, I maybe could have agreed, but we weren’t.
The ICC25 Edge?
The reality is the difference between an ICC25 geared tank and an ICC10 geared tank is negligible. The difference between the 2 gear sets boils down to…
- 1 gun if you’re too cheap to buy it off the AH
- 2 set pieces
The ICC10 Edge?
Consider if you avoided, ICC10 as an ICC25 tank. You’d miss out on…
- 1 wicked pair of bonus armor bracers
- 3 far superior weapon choices
- 1 crazy good trinket
The Real 25 man Edge
The biggest difference between your average 10 man player and your average 25 man player is that the 25 man raider does both the 25 man and the 10 man version of a raid every week. They create more opportunities to acquire loot. (and emblems)
For some reason, it’s expected for a 25 man raider to do 10 mans to gain an edge, but it’s considered cheating for a 10 man raider to do 25 mans to gain an edge.
But, my guild can’t do ICC25!
And I don’t expect you to do ICC25, but that doesn’t mean you can’t team up with your guild’s other 10 man or another guild’s 10 man and do ToC25. Pugging ToC25 is absolutely an option too. It’s all that extra item level 245 stuff (along with the best item level 232 stuff) that’s the real reason 25 man tanks have an easier go of ICC10.
I shouldn’t have to do 25 mans at all though!
Well in Cataclysm, you’ll get your wish, but for now consider this…
25 man raider’s path to ICC10
Naxx10 > Naxx25 > Ulduar10 > Ulduar25 > ToC10 > ToC25 > ICC10
10 man raider’s path to ICC10
Naxx10 > Ulduar10 > ToC10 > ICC10
The reality is the biggest reason an ICC25 tank walks into ICC10 with better gear is they’ve just put a whole lot more time in. The 10 man tanks that have been willing to put up the same time commitment are going to be walking in with virtually identical gear.
May 5th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Very true and very well said, Vene. What I didn’t say on Twitter (mainly b/c I didn’t want to be a spam whore) is that 1. You’re skill as a tank will trump your gear and #2: (just as you said) Running the 10 mans WITH 25 mans only gives more chances to gear up more quickly.
Honestly, I think the most important by-product of running both is the experience factor. Progression in 10’s is hugely helpful to the 25 man raider and raid leader especially.
Regarding gear, the only pieces I can think of which are acquired in 25’s that aren’t available in 10 man are the ilvls 277 from heroics and a few pieces like the Heroic Icecrown Barrier and the boots off Sindragosa.
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Everblue reply on May 6, 2010 1:58 am:
How does your skill as a tank improve your ability to survive (for example) Sapphiron’s frost breath? Or Soul Reaper + melee swing from Arthas?
Perhaps you need health or avoidance that you get from gear to improve your chances here?
Skill as a tank will only get you so far, and then you need emblems. See my post below about emblem costs which assume you run both raids.
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jericho reply on May 6, 2010 3:42 am:
To answer your question … How does your skill improve your ability to survive? Simple… by allowing you to think and plan ahead. Sure, RNG will always get you. The Reaper + melee swing on an undergeared tank will be the end of your day. Even then, on a fairly decently geared tank that particular scenario can still occur.
I would agree with you that the real problem is the entire Emblem system. The system of purchasing tier gear through emblems was an incredibly bad decision on Blizzard’s part. It did what they wanted it to do though. It got more players to a level where they could step into a raid and compete if they had the skill to do so. However, it causes issues with not only Encounter design, but encounter longevity and difficulty in general.
The original emblem design in TBC was flawed but it had its huge merits. The ability to augment or fill in itemization gaps for classes and specs that had no real alternatives. In the Sunwell era it changed and that is where its flaw began. The WotLK emblem system was better on its face. However the inclusion of tier purchases created more issues than not. Through Ulduar we had a two tier badge system. The 10 man content was of the “last tier” badge. With ICC that changed.
The question now is… if Blizzard had made 2 new badge levels for each new raid’s release would it have been better? Would it have balanced ICCs difficulty and Frost Badge pricing?
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Cleaved reply on May 6, 2010 3:53 pm:
The Frost Breath is something I can see there being a “fine line” as to survival, as well as Soul Reaper, but not Soul Reaper + melee. If you are getting a Soul Reaper hit THEN a melee attack, you are doing the fight wrong. Either the other tank is busy and you have a CD to survive both the SR and Melee, or you take the Soul Reaper and the other Tank taunted off while it was being cast, so he gets the melee attack.
In 10-man you can probably survive both, or with the latest “gimme” buffs that Blizz has handed out for ICC with the % boost and all maybe in 25 as well. At a certain gear level some things become trivial, but I agree with Jericho: knowing what to do, when to do it and being able to plan around working with what you have, is where the skill comes in
I have soloed bosses in heroics wearing ilvl 200 or lower (blues) when things went bad, and survived based on knowledge of when to hit what CD and how to manage incoming damage sans heals. Will that work on every boss? No, but skill trumps gear, always. Without the gear you can use skill to get the gear. But all the gear in the world will only take you so far or keep your group/raid alive to a certain point. The gear > skill argument is one made by people who think tanks just stand there and take damage, and is born of ignorance.
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May 5th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
This was always hottly contested in my guild. And to be honest the entire raid group was of the same mind.
After reading this entry and reflecting on it for a few minutes I can see one major thing.
Having the time to commit to running both 25s and 10s.
Personally I feel it was a cascading problem that maybe came right by the time ICC opened. At the beginning of wrath the challenge for blizz was to give the 25 man raiders a chance at gear which would see them through to the next level of raiding progression. Considering we all started on the same footing this meant that Naxx 25 was only the same “difficulty” as Naxx 10. But the gear drops were better. I suspect this effect slowly cascaded down through the raids. Those in Naxx 25 gear had a slight advantage of those in Naxx10 gear, and therefore when both tried Uld10 the Naxx25 guys found it fractionally easier. They were able to work through the Uld10 content a fraction faster and then work on the Uld25 with gear available from deep Uld10.
To add to this issue, that small advantage allowed them to gather a few more badges (running both 25 and 10), which resulted in gear sooner (exaggerated by the fact you could heroic farm for the early game gear fractionally sooner than those running only 10s and heroics).
Okay. Now I won’t deny that skill is VERY MUCH greater than gear. And the gear difference is probably only 5% or 10%. But when most of the fights look like they took the 10 man version and simply “scaled” things up to require 25 people that small advantage does make a difference when you go back to a 10.
My other big beef with the 10 vs 25 is that Blizz gave the impression that both the 10 and 25 paths would “viable options”. Which to me meant that I would get an equal chance to see all the content, and get all the gear regardless of whether I did 10s or 25s, and that I wouldn’t need to do both to have the best WoW experience.
While mostly true, 10 man raiders do miss out on all the legendary gear, they do have a slightly lower gear budget, and they aren’t able to gear up as quickly.
To make matters worse the accepted progression path was as you pointed out in your post. Almost no 25 man group did only 25s. There just wasn’t any point.
The fact that (currently) Cataclysm will have each raid sharing a single lockout and sharing the same gear gives me hope that all the 25 man encounters will no longer be “scaled up” 10 man. Blizz needs to give you guys a truly challenging and interesting encounter, not one that just requires more dps and more healing.
(I hold high hopes that the approach in cataclysm will work. Otherwise we end up with more wrath type QQ).
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Bhig reply on May 5, 2010 8:31 pm:
Hmm… Too add one more note to my (massive) QQ.
I find the attitude of players to be the bigger annoyance. I was constantly getting “looked down at” by tanks rolling in full 25man gear in the same 10 man raids I was running. Being compared by and to them was a real pet peeve for me.
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May 5th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
My guild only run 10’s, I would get in some 25’s but I don’t mostly because of time constraints. With the ICC crafted gear and some good luck on drops though I haven’t felt like I am that undergeared compared to the 25 man tanks on our server. I have run some Voa25 and feel like I am right there with them honestly, and I feel that if you are willing to put in the work to get the crafted gear and the best stuff you can get out of the 10mans you are running you shouldn’t be very far behind.
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May 6th, 2010 at 1:55 am
Sorry Vene - it’s the emblems every time. GC has said in a blue post that they set the emblem costs on the assumption that you are running both 10 and 25 man lockouts each week. Therefore if you are not running both (*raises hand) you are gaining emblems at just over half the rate that Blizzard expects.
Don’t worry though, Cataclysm will fix it.
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Veneretio reply on May 6, 2010 8:04 am:
Half the rate?
Especially early on, you’re going to get most of your emblems from simply doing your daily heroic and weekly raid. The difference in emblem gear starts at about 1 extra piece in the first 2 months and only now at it’s peak is it 1 piece/month. Hardly groundbreaking.
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Everblue reply on May 7, 2010 1:24 am:
If you run only 1 instance lockout a week then the pressure is on you to run a heroic every day to remain competitive. You are forced to do content that bores you to keep up with the tanks who are fortunate enough to run 25s.
Ultimately 25 man raiders get better gear, they get shared gear materially earlier, and that shared gear can be earned by doing more interesting content. Clearly from the mood in this thread and elsewhere there is disagreement about whether or not that is fair. Blizzard don’t seem to think it is fair, and they are currently planning to change the emblem system with that in mind for 4.0. It seems to me that the change will be more popular than it is unpopular.
I personally would have chosen a “third way”, and given emblems via weekly quests so that you were still free to run both lockouts, but you only got one set of emblems per week. Sadly I only made that excellent point on my blog (which not many people read!) and not on the official forums.
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Koomo reply on May 6, 2010 12:53 pm:
I think Vene is spot on.
In addition, using numerous lvl 80 alts to farm badges for making gear trumps any advantage a lone 80 could have when ICC first opened.
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Cleaved reply on May 6, 2010 3:59 pm:
Thinking the emblem system is to blame for gearing slowly and therefore progressing slower than others who do both 10 and 25, is an excuse used by those who think gear is what makes them a Tank. You can easily do ICC10 in stuff from ToTC10, this is how the progression works. They do not expect you to have emblem-equivalent 25-man gear or gear from the previous 25-man tier in order to tackle current 10-man content.
Cataclysm WILL fix emblems, in the manor that it prevents us from having to log on every single day to either find a group or do a daily heroic. However, it does nothing to increase/decrease the rate at which you obtain gear, nor does it level the playing field between 10m raiders and those that do both 10/25m. You forget that people doing 10 and 25 will always have a leg-up in that they are getting an opportunity at gearing up 2x per week. It doesn’t matter though, if your focus is 10m content, you don’t need to worry over having 25m items for the reasons I stated above. Stop focusing on the Purps and you’ll be a better tank, imo.
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Bhig reply on May 6, 2010 7:05 pm:
I’m going out on a limb here and saying that you have always had access to at least some 25 man gear?
I only ran 10s, as did the whole raid group. And yes you are right that the content only requires gear from the previous level. But it was more challenging as a 10 only raider, purely from the fact that you were always entering with a mix of gear from the previous two levels of raid. Where as 25 raiders were normally a mix of 10/25 from the previous tier only.
This was exaggerated in Ulduar where I was running around with well over half my gear being ilvl200 and below. Which was common in my group as you are solely reliant on luck to get the drops you need. We sharded a whole heap of stuff (sometimes entire runs through naxx) due to repeat drops that no one could use.
In fact, despite running Naxx every week I only ever got three drops from there that I could use in my tank set. My DPS set was almost complete though…. which was irritating.. LOL
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Cleaved reply on May 6, 2010 7:19 pm:
10-man raiders have always (since Wrath) had eventual access to 25-man quality gear via emblems. This plugs the leaks a bit for things you can’t get to drop, etc.
In any case, 10-mans are supposed to be hard if you are in 10-man gear from the prior tier of content. As I said, that is how the progression goes. I say “supposed to be” because they really aren’t, even in 10-man gear, 10-man is easy, as are 25-mans in 25-man gear (from prior tiers, of course). There are too many ways to get gear easily, if not always as quickly as you would like, to be complaining about the rate at which you get gear. If you were given one piece of gear for free each week just for signing online, people would still complain about not getting 2
If you were around in Vanilla and the early parts of BC, I don’t know why you are complaining… it should seem like gear rains from the sky to you. If you weren’t around in Vanilla or BC, then you really don’t know what waiting for gear to drop or obtaining a full set is even about, and should probably best stop talking =P
Everblue reply on May 7, 2010 5:47 am:
That’s an odd point of view Cleaved, and one which is probably not shared by the majority of the WoW community. The current brouhaha concerning “the death of the 25 man raid” in Cataclysm is in part because 25 man raiders are unhappy about losing the 1 tier gear advantage over 10 man raiders. They wish to ensure that gear continues to “rain from the sky” on them.
You can agree or disagree with that point - everyone has their own view - but to deny that it’s an issue at all is to disregard the very heated debate currently ongoing. Anyway - Vene’s point was that there is no clear gear advantage for 25 man raiders. Your point that the gear differential is unimportant implies to me that you disagree with him, but in any event is a little off-topic
I was certainly around in Vanilla (since about 1.3) and recognise that gear is given out at different rates at different times in a game’s life cycle, but again that misses the point. We are discussing how gear is handed out *now*. The fact that I’ve been playing for 5 years is not much help in trying to understand how gear distribution works (and doesn’t work) at present.
I personally was not complaining about the rate I get gear. I was merely saying that Vene’s point about how I am not at a relative disadvantage compared to a 25 man raider is contradicted by GC, and Blizzard are planning on changing the design of the loot system with that in mind.
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Kobeathris reply on May 7, 2010 6:24 am:
The thing is, gear doesn’t “rain from the sky” for 25 man raiders unless they run both 10 and 25. 10s drop nearly twice the gear per person, it just gets sharded more often.
Cleaved reply on May 7, 2010 3:14 pm:
The “rain from the sky” refers to how often you can obtain a new piece of gear in Wrath, versus even the end of BC. Now, emblems are easier to get than ever, and there is absolutely no excuse for being less than fully T9 geared and partially T10 geared, unless you are outright lazy.
Cataclysm actually balances some things out, you get the same gear, but more of it drops in 25-man which should have always been the case, since (as you said) there are more people in 25m and a higher gear-per-person ration in 10m.
In any case, people make too much of gear and needing this or that piece to make something doable, or needing a certain amount of 25m gear to get 10m stuff done. That is the main point I was making. You have access to a lot of 25m quality gear even without setting foot in a 25m, thanks to emblems/craftables. Complaining about a difference in tiers and no access to certain items is ridiculous. If you put forth the time/effort to show up for a 25m or put on together, then you should get more loot per boss (if not higher ilvl) and access to quests/items/legendaries that are not obtainable in 10m.
Bhig reply on May 7, 2010 7:34 pm:
It’s interesting to say that people make too much of gear and needing things. One thing that a lot of people really like about the game is getting loot. When you’re not getting loot a lot of people aren’t enjoying the game. Loot is a big motivator for people.
I don’t necessarily agree that 25s should offer anything more than 10s. Shouldn’t the reason to run them be for the challenge and fun of the encounter? The feel of a 10 vs 25 is significantly different. People have said they like the 25s better because they feel more heroic and aren’t so pass/fail (like a 10 man can be).
In part I feel that 25s should get something more than 10s, simply because they are a lot harder to arrange and run (although for some guilds arranging and runnig 25s probably isn’t actually that hard). I would be satisfied with proportionately more drops/loot (although not emblems). But I don’t feel that they deserve the better loot if they are also able to get a shot at the loot a 10 man raider gets.
So, more loot. Better loot if they can’t double dip, and please give 10s a chance at equivalent legendaries, quest items.
OR, straight up state that 10 man raiders are going to be treated as the embarassing cousin to 25s and leave it as is.
Bihn reply on May 11, 2010 1:17 pm:
Cleaved,
You wrote:
“The “rain from the sky” refers to how often you can obtain a new piece of gear in Wrath, versus even the end of BC. Now, emblems are easier to get than ever”
That’s incorrect. I’m not sure what sort of metric you are using to base this claim on, but it really seems like you’re misremembering the events.
Not only were several excellent pieces of gear available through badges in the end of BC, but there was only one type of badge! The potential Frost Badges per week is far less than the potential Badge of Justices per week was at the end of BC.
May 6th, 2010 at 6:36 am
I press DPS very hard when I tank, and while I can swap in a full icc 25 tank set, its not what I usually wear (Sindragosa 25, and LK only at this point). Specifically, I wear the 245 badge helm, 2 DPS trinkets, the t10 legs (not sanctified yet) and the Bloodvenom blade (Previously Frost Giant’s Cleaver from 10). I lose tanking stats from doing this of course, but in the grand scheme of things, its not that much, and the biggest loss is from the trinkets, and for maximum EH, ICC 10 tanks have access to the same stuff as ICC 25 tanks. Now, having alot of ICC25 gear lets me do this, but my point is that, if I only had ICC10 gear available to me, and I put on a straight tank set, my survivability would probably be better than what I run with every week.
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May 6th, 2010 at 6:45 am
You miss out on more than that.
The armour neck. Armour ring. Sexy resist / stam trinket. And you can’t count weapons from 10, because the weapon comes from ToGC.
So you’ve got one trinket in each instance, one pair of bracers in 10, and boots / ring / neck from 25. Not to mention, most of the DPS gear in 10 isn’t itemized nearly as well as the 25 man stuff either!
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Whats my main again? reply on May 6, 2010 9:39 am:
Facelifter and the LK axe in 10 man are better than Last Word off of Putricide 25. As a 25 man raider I use Facelifter, organ, and bracers over 25 man items.
Also boots are debatable since the crafted ones provide more avoidance. Only time I would use Valithra’s is if I’m low on the defense cap or expertise cap for instance while wearing frost resist gear.
Of course Valithra refuses to drop the ring or the boots so she can go die in a lay waste.
Also unless they changed it the gun drops off of 10 man as well as 25.
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Kavtor reply on May 6, 2010 11:47 am:
Plus, the gun is BOE, so you can get if off the AH.
But the weapon isn’t from Prof. P. It’s from ToGC.
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Ghuyter reply on May 6, 2010 3:02 pm:
you are mistaken the weapon he is talking about is http://www.wowhead.com/item=50179 and it drops from putricide 25 man.
Kavtor reply on May 6, 2010 5:46 pm:
The most effective weapon for progression raid content comes from ToGC. Not ICC of any sort.
http://www.wowhead.com/item=48044
Of course, if you’re not doing progression wear a DPS weapon to clear the trash content faster. Just because content is easy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it right.
Cleaved reply on May 6, 2010 4:02 pm:
I use Last Word simply because until you do Heroic Modes, the content is so easy that you could use an ilvl 200 weapon and still get by just fine. Especially with the new ICC buff @15%, you should have no reason to min/max so much. Have fun and wear whatever you want, until you step into ICC10/25 Heroic modes, it doesn’t really make a huge difference. My girl can heal reg. ICC10 with a sub 4500 GS, because its just that easy.
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Roarc reply on May 7, 2010 1:36 am:
…and properly geared people can now progress though hard mode content instead.
May 6th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Perhaps we are all forgetting that it’s not just tanks in a raid?
If the whole raid has 25 man gear and is rolling in a 10 man raid (for arguments sake) then what’s the differences?
The 10 man group has maybe 5-10% less heals, EH and dps. Even at 5% that’s still 5% more the 25 man raiders have than the raid was “designed to require”. So following this line of thought, they find it 5% easier to clear the raid and so they can complete it 5% sooner. (This would be more significant during progression time).
And to top it off the raid (as a whole) is getting an additional amount of badges.
But hey. I suppose if you have the time to commit to running both 10 and 25s then that’s the rewards.
From the other side of the fence it is disheartening to see those people take off in front and then be able to claim all the “glory” before the rest of us even have a chance. (gosh, isn’t the grass always greener on the other side).
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May 6th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
The BoE gun drops in both 10 and 25man. But comparing 10 and 25 man gear is also worthless because you probably won’t find a 251 item that is *always* better than a 264. It depends on the nature of fight, any tank serious about his tanking job will switch items when it’s appropriate.
Strict 10man tanks shouldn’t be envious about the gear available in 25man, if they do 10man only because they chose to then it’s cool for them, it’s another way to play the game IMO and I respect that. If they don’t do 25man because they can’t sneak in or because they can’t commit on the time it requires then it’s just QQ. But again, it’s already pointless to talk about that since blizzard has fixed that for next xpack. Oh wait, now they’ll complain cause the drop rate in 10man will be somehow lower. lulz
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Bhig reply on May 6, 2010 6:52 pm:
If I was a healer back in Ulduar, I’d be a little bit envious that it was impossible for me to get a legendary healer’s mace if I couldn’t/didn’t run 25s.
And there is/was one quest in ICC that you can only complete on 25man (unless it’s changed in the last few months). The rewards looked quite nice if I remember correctly.
As a team of almost strict 10man players, I think the worst thing is that it always FELT like Blizz was giving us the short end of the stick. Whether or not that is really true is what this debate is all about.
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Cleaved reply on May 6, 2010 7:27 pm:
You don’t need a 25m legendary weapon if you only do 10-mans. It isn’t being “given” the short end of the stick, if that is what you are intentionally signing up for. If you want the 25man stuff, you have to do 25man content. If you are only able to or only do 10man content, for whatever reason, then you have really made your own bed or should understand where you stand in the grand scheme.
They are changing this in Cata, because they increasingly bend to the will of players and realize that it rakes in more $$$. The more people that play and can raid, the more people that keep playing and paying to do so. They were already making money hand over fist when only 10% of people saw “end-game” and now..? I don’t know if Blizzard is even aware a recession is going on, tbh, because I see more people playing than ever. I like some of the changes, but while my friends and I see more content even in a casual guild (like the one I just went back to), it seems less important to even be in a cutting-edge guild downing content that gets progressively easy as time goes by.
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Bhig reply on May 7, 2010 7:49 pm:
I didn’t mean that people need a 25m legendary for running 10s. But I think people would’ve like the opportunity to get a 10m legendary for doing 10m, and a 25m legendary for doing 25.
Equally, being told that both that both 10s and 25s will be viable options, and then treating the raiders differently is a bit rough in my opinion. Perhaps others don’t think so. But I don’t pay to be treated differently to other players.
Also I said it FELT like the short end of the stick, even if it wasn’t.
Bhig reply on May 7, 2010 7:50 pm:
A post below reminded me that extra profession patterns in Uld were also ONLY available to 25s.
ix reply on May 9, 2010 10:41 am:
I don’t run 25 man (partly time constraints, partly because I cba). It’s pretty clear to me that 25 man raiders are generally people who have more time to spend. It’s an MMO, more time nets you better stuff. Players getting hung up on gearscore aside, what is the problem?
I disagree somewhat with vene though. Progression through ICC10 is a lot easier when you show up with ToC25 gear. But that’s only because you had the time to run 25 mans in addition to 10 mans, so see above.
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May 6th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
“For some reason, it’s expected for a 25 man raider to do 10 mans to gain an edge, but it’s considered cheating for a 10 man raider to do 25 mans to gain an edge.”
This is so true.. and one of the reasons I like the promissed combined lock-outs in Cat’
~Baruti.
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May 7th, 2010 at 1:19 am
You do neglect the fact of ICC 25M Hard Modes. 277-loot will boost you a lot over-all compared to ICC 10M Hard Mode loot.
ICC25… Is an Upgrade given 10M holds quite a lot of nice items as well.
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May 7th, 2010 at 10:42 am
As someone who runs primarily 10-man content (guild size not really allowing for any consistant 25s runs, and not having available time to dedicate to PuG raiding often). I have often felt that 10-man is viewed as the “minor leagues” by many people.
That said, I have done some 25-man content, and I have the Deathwhisper helm, and the gun from ICC 25m as well as the Sanctified gloves (VoA FTW), along with a couple pieces (boots and trinket) from ToC 25.
That said, I think my personal biggest gripe with the way things have been done centers not on the raid-drop gear, but on the availabity of CRAFTED gear.
If one were to run strictly 10-man content, the first level of high-end crafted item patterns available to them would be the ICC items, unless they were able to shell out large amounts of gold for patterns. While I love the fact that the patterns are now available based solely on rep, the gap in mat availabity still exists. The patterns are bought with items that must either be recieved as a 25-man only drop, or bought with badges (or large amounts of gold). Furthermore, these same items are required to create crafted pieces, and once again, you either need badges, 25-man content, or lots o gold. Granted, not a tremendous difference if one were to run 25s only vs. 10s only, one I can easily see, but as mentioned above, most 25s players also run 10s, and now their ability to get these crafted items is a bit higher, due to higher badge counts.
Anyway…
Another aspect that the shared lock-out will help fix is that of internal raid balance. If you are in a 10s guild, as long as everyone else in the guild is only running in 10s gear things stay relatively ballanced, however let’s say you have a hunter or mage that regularly PuGs into 25-man runs, and starts to be geared accordingly. Now that person is pushing larger DPS numbers (a good thing), but they also may start pushing the limits of the still 10s geared tanks threat generation, mobs start running amok, and now the healers are freaking… By allowing one lock-out per instance these issues should be kept down somewhat. Granted, this probably isn’t a huge issue, but it does still exist.
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May 7th, 2010 at 11:44 pm
The 25 man has the BiS weapon, Mithrios is better then any of the 10 man weapons. 25 also has the best neck, the best ring, and the best boots, although only marginally so.
Mithrios has 14 more defense, 12 more parry, 12 more stam, + expertise on it, compared to loosing 30 dodge, this is compared to troggbane.
The Bile-encrusted medallion is better then any 10 man piece,
Dream walker drops the eternally cold ring, which is the best ring in the game, and also the grinning skull great boots, which have a bit more avoidance and expertise instead of hit over the crafted ones, although the difference on these is pretty negligible.
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thebitterfig reply on June 8, 2010 6:00 am:
Don’t forget that Vene is an orc (as am I, actually). That skews our perception about the relative worth of Troggbane and Mithrios. Heroic Troggbane is, for an orc, far and above the best tank weapon in the game, better than the heroic 25 mace. I’d put the regular mace a little bit up on the axe, but not by much.
Dead right on the other pieces, though.
Also, considering that the article is as much as anything about dismissing that 25m gear from ICC is miles ahead of 10m gear, I think it’s almost safe to exclude LK weapons. The point is almost to address the whole “well, it’s easy to do 10m LK in 25m gear” line, and for tanks, it doesn’t completely add up. Granted, your dps and healers will be stronger, and that’ll make a world of difference.
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May 8th, 2010 at 5:43 am
Quick question. I would like some opinions:
I have the opportunity to get the Heroic [Legguards of Lost Hope] from Marrowgar 25.
Currently using [Pillars of Might]. It’s a 1.1k armour loss, 32 stam gain and quite a bit of avoidance as well (negligible really).
Opinions?
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Lindentree reply on May 8, 2010 12:15 pm:
I’ve never seen a BiS list without Pillars of Might in the leg slot.
They’re that good.
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Furiat/Vege reply on May 9, 2010 12:26 am:
Lost Hope heroic legguards are good. But only if you’re thinking about boosting 4xt10 pc bonus cooldown. That way Xav used 4x t10 + heroic Lost Hope legguards on LK heroic mode as far as I know.
Remember, as always, there is no BiS list for a tanks, there is speccing/gearing for the fight ;).
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Artemis reply on May 9, 2010 1:42 am:
That’s what I thought, however it seems Kungen (Ensidia) and the other Warrior tanks from Paragon/Vodka/Premonition gear a very different way to myself and Vene. Kungen has agi + stam gems.
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May 9th, 2010 at 7:57 am
“The 10 man tanks that have been willing to put up the same time commitment are going to be walking in with virtually identical gear.”
This is very true. I’ve been a 10 man tank all through wrath. I’ve always maintained my gear, gotten best items I could through badges and craftables. I’ve never had an issue being picked up as a pug tank. I’ve often been at higher health due to proper gems and enchants over 25 man players.. We often have guests in our 10 man raids and our raid group has gained a reputation of being good players and are now regularly filling in a 25 man raid that has come on hard times. I’ve been main tanking for a guild that is not my own simply because they knew my skill and my gear is properly maintained. I honestly don’t feel like there has been a stigma associated with 10 man tanks throughout wrath personally, but our other guild tank and myself have always carried skill along with our marginally lower level gear. Then again we all choose to be 10 man raiders and have never pushed for 25s, we only go when invited.
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May 9th, 2010 at 6:36 pm
when cataclysm comes out dont you guys believe a new set of emblems will come out and triumph will be the new heroism? Embs of frost will be nothing, and we’ll be getting 2 emblems of fire or whatever the new ones will be called. Blizzard wants to keep us playing and giving us the thumbs up to get as much gear as we want as long as we play will not work well for their profits.
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May 9th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
First post in a long time I strongly disagreed with, as other have mentioned before, I find the comparisons between instances to be a bit shortsighted.
There is the amazing stam/resist trink from sind 25 (versus the armor trinket that has very disappointing uptime from PP 10), the +armor neck of Rotface 25, the +armor ring of Valitheria 25…and that’s just off the top of my head.
Also I don’t know why you’re so hard on last word, the uptime on the proc is very good…
…AND this also ASSUMES you can actually get the voa 25 tank pieces to drop and win them. Kind of a strong assumption imo.
Vene, you are really upselling 10-man gear and really REALLY downselling the 25-man gear.
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Veneretio reply on May 10, 2010 12:01 am:
I make the assumption in my post that if you’re walking into ICC10 with ICC25 gear that you’re walking in with only those obtained from the early bosses. (Admittedly something I’m not clear about at all in the post) I think we can all agree that if you’re killing Sindragosa25 that you’ve long since completed ICC10.
There’s no question that if you walked into ICC10 having already completed ICC25 that you’d have a massive advantage, but then that advantage would be more so from having already done the encounters than having a few upgrades.
Where the real gripe from the 10 man community comes is that 25 man players get to jump start their progression into the new 10 mans utilizing what they already had from the previous 25 man as well as those early pieces they get in their 25 man progression. It is proposed that this gear is what gives the 25 man players such a huge advantage and why we see 25 man raiders completing 10 man raids first. That’s what this article was really trying to tackle… that this just isn’t an excuse especially in regards to tanks.
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Bhig reply on May 10, 2010 4:23 pm:
Double the practice time surely does count for more than a 5-10% advantage. But surely you must concede that a 5-10% advantage in a 10 man gives you a bigger margin to learn the mechanics of a fight. And that you then take that advantage into the 25 man attempt and gain even more experience, and so the cycle continues.
As a 10 man geared person, you are slightly less likely to get into a pug on current content (fair enough too usually) as the only way to measure a total stranger is by their gear. With the more limited exposure the 10 man geared person’s struggle is that little bit harder.
And the rich get richer, the poor get poorer (so to speak)?
Is this a reasonably fair comment?
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Tom reply on May 11, 2010 2:05 am:
I don’t really see this relates to the original post. You’re not in a 25 or a 10 man guild and you only PuG 10 mans? Obviously players leading PuGs would rather take more geared strangers over lesser geared ones. This would be the case even if 25 mans didn’t exist.
Bhig reply on May 12, 2010 5:23 pm:
Vene’s post rightly stated that the biggest gripe from the 10 man community is that 25 gear raiders get a jump start when a new tier of progression opens up. His argument is that it’s the time, dedication and experience that make the real difference.
I can in NO WAY disagree. There is no doubt that a person who is putting in the time to raid two different levels of the same raid is going to progress better and faster.
But as a player who concentrated on 10s for my own personal reasons, I saw that those with previous raid 25 man gear always seemed to find it easier to get progression. Those teams always seemed to be the first to finish 10 man progression.
There can be no doubt (in my mind) that their dedication and experience gave them the greatest advantage over those of us who can/would only run 10 man. But I’m also saying that their previous level of gear gives them a distinct (albeit small) advantage over a purely 10 man geared player. This small advantage accumulated until it becomes a significant experience advantage. As an example, how many “firsts” in a 10 man raid were achieved by groups running only gear available in 10 man.
My other personal gripe (which is really just QQ) is that Blizz made it sound like 25 raiders would feel fulfilled running just 25 raids and 10 raiders would get their fulfillment running just 10s. Instead, on the floor 25s ran both, and 10s didn’t get the nice extras that the 25s got. Instead it seemed like Blizz was encouraging 25s (specific quests, legendary items, specific drops such as profession patterns) over 10s. Further to this, I always felt as if I was meant to go back and raid 25 man previous level just to get the gear so that I could progress.
Add the fact that it seemed like 10s were harder than 25s (I have been in groups running both and this is my experience) and it really felt like a let down.
And about the pugging. I once got into a 25 pug as the “back-up” tank. My position was based upon my gear. When the raid started it became horribly obvious that the other two tanks were not as experienced as me. I was summarily kicked from the group when the other tanks couldn’t do their job and I ended up having to save lives (but died because the healers didn’t change their assignments, instead choosing to heal the first two tanks who were at full health). I’ll admit it was my fault for controlling the uncontrolled mob and trying to save lives when I was only the back up…..
tPaste reply on May 18, 2010 10:29 am:
“Add the fact that it seemed like 10s were harder than 25s (I have been in groups running both and this is my experience) and it really felt like a let down.”
I really don’t feel that this has been the case since the opening tier of the expansion, and even then only a few specific encounters like Grobbulus and Sarth 3D. Since then I’ve been one of the guys generally doing 10 and 25 mans and I don’t feel like 10-man has been more difficult in any of the subsequent raids.
I’ll definitely be interested based on what I’ve read for cata how things shake out. If blizzard sticks to their guns and has 10 and 25-man gear be the same and the difficulty the same…well I just don’t see a reason for most people to do 25-mans anymore. They’ve claimed they’ll have incentives, but it feels like it’s going to kill one type of raid or the other.
Bhig reply on May 18, 2010 2:54 pm:
It’s good to hear other peoples feelings regarding the wrath raiding difficulties (10 vs 25). As I said, it was just my experience with the raids that gave me that feeling.
I’m hoping that blizz’s plan works out. It’ll be nice for the decision between 10 and 25 coming down to just personal preference toward the challenge. I would like to see 25s being set up differently to 10s (same basic concepts for a fight but different execution) and not just scaled up.
Personally, if blizz have shared lock outs, and similar gear drops then I think it would be fair to have some 25 man specific quest/drops/etc as the incentive, as long as 10 mans also got some specific stuff (albeit of lesser “value”).
But that’s just my opinion.
May 10th, 2010 at 6:21 am
I can only repeat my experience as a 10 man tank which I have mentioned before on here as it resulted in me turning my Prot Warrior into a bank alt and rolling a healer.
I bought into the talk of viable progression paths for both 10 and 25 and ran in a 10 man guild through the early part of WoTLK.
First area where I suffered is that many healers and dps were able to pug 25 mans and gear beyond me. It was virtually impossible to tank in those pugs as there are obviously proportionally fewer tank spots and every 10 man tank on the realm was trying to get one. Mostly the pug spots were with guilds that had only put 18 guildies together. They always had their own tanks and just needed some extra dps or heals.
Now this didn’t cause me threat problems, actually what happened was that our good healers and dps geared up and moved on to the much better 25 man guilds.
So I was left stuck in a weakened guild that wiped on content I had previously cleared with ease. Luckily I pretty much had all the BiS 10 man gear at that point so I took a back seat and let others gear up their tank off specs.
The real killer came when Ulduar was released. At this point the guild collapsed and split. The reason for this was that most of the 10 man guilds (weakened by losing their best dps and healers to 25 man guilds) couldn’t make much progress. This led to another loss of our remaining half competent healers and dps and we broke up.
I then found myself as a tank in 10 man only gear trying to get into a raid guild for U10 - and I mean a guild that does more than just 3 bosses….
It wasn’t happening, I had a reputation as a very reliable and highly skilled tank and my dps/healer friends tried to get me recruited into their guilds but people just didn’t want a tank with my gear level no matter how good the “word of mouth” on my abilities was. Posters on here can say what they like about skill but on my realm where tanks are concerned gear talks louder than anything else.
I actually think the lock out and gear changes in Cataclysm will be of more benefit to 10 man tanks than ANY OTHER class/raid size combination. I challenge anyone to dispute that. It will level the gear playing field and make skill the determining factor again.
Can’t say this enough: skill can easily overcome a lack of gear for a healer or dps but for tanks it doesn’t count for much. You are just left banging your head on a glass ceiling if you aren’t establised in a stable 25 man guild under the current system. 10 man is just a poor side show that leads to you getting blown out the back of the gear race and sent into exile.
That said it is far better today than it was back during the Naxx/Ulduar days. Thanks to the marvels of the current emblem/crafted system a 10 man tank can acquire enough 264 to get himself into the weaker 25 man guilds. It is just a shame that items are so expensive. This does benefit 10 man dps/healers as it keeps their tanks raiding. After 8 weeks in Naxx/EoE 10 I had absolutely no reason to raid anymore and joined the hordes of washed up drunken 10 man tanks drowning their sorrows in the nearest Inn.
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Daruckus reply on May 11, 2010 9:49 am:
“I actually think the lock out and gear changes in Cataclysm will be of more benefit to 10 man tanks than ANY OTHER class/raid size combination. I challenge anyone to dispute that.”
Disagree. 25 man raiding tanks will get geared faster as the ratio of tank loot to tanks will be much better, 2-3 tanks in 25 man and 2 tanks in 10 man means any tank loot will be rolled on more per head and more per drop in 10 man. I am happy to be a 25man geared tank and look to keep it up well into cata.
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Geilosh reply on May 12, 2010 6:02 am:
What I meant was that it would offer the greatest benefit over the current system to 10 man tanks. That is not to say that 25 man tanks won’t still be better off due to a higher chance of receiving an upgrade. 25 man tanks will be better off but only for the few weeks longer it takes 10 man tanks to farm the gear.
However my realm is very weak and 25 mans often fail due to having to carry too many weaker players that make up the numbers.
I therefore believe 25 man tanks will be worse off as their team, weakened by half a dozen poor players making up the numbers, will make less progress and therefore receive less drops and emblems.
The current thinking on this realm is that very few guilds will risk getting saved in 25 man raids as a result of this. Most people believe that only one or two guilds in my faction will continue with 25’s and for the majority the 25 man raid will be consigned to history or completed later on in the expansion for achievement purposes.
On a stronger realm where 25 mans are far more successful then I can understand your desire to continue in 25.
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Bruntorbjects reply on May 11, 2010 11:07 am:
There are things you can do to gear up your tank set. You should have dual spec and I would hope one of those is dps or you are able to quickly respec. I would often go in a pug as dps, many times a geared tank will only be running older content for a trinket or that one upgrade that never dropped, they won’t be fully gearing out a toon. This means that even as dps you are going to get to roll off-spec on almost all tanking drops. I have also had some success asking to roll as a tank in a pug. Not to mention getting badges and in Naxx/Uld the chance at tier tokens, which you could spend on tank gear. The other option is to start your own pugs. I see a lot of QQ about how people never get into pugs because of GS or this or that, simple answer is start your own pug. If you are clearing on 10 man every week the 25 mans are typically only a slight tweak to the fight. You could even reserve loot if you where so inclined.
Skill is very important for a tank and can overcome a lack of gear. I’m not saying you can take harder hits just because you are skilled. Skill is going to include things like; turning mobs, holding aggro, picking up loose mobs, timing cool downs, taunt swaps, gearing for the encounter. As at tank if you can’t do some of the tasks I’ve listed your gear won’t matter and your group will likly be unsucessful.
I think that there are other issues here you are not admitting or not willing to see.
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May 15th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
i’m not sure if you are including hardmodes in your analysis, but the 277 Dreamwalker boots have got to be BIS for stam/EH sets. even with the 264 version the defense on them would be a big help since there is no (or there shouldn’t be) any defense on your tanks legs, chest, and gun and the stam/resist trinket is just pure sexy for about every fight except saurfang, the use on it is like a mini-AMS, and for those of you that aren’t fortunate enough to play DK tanks, having a CD that can be used so frequently is just amazing
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May 26th, 2010 at 1:13 am
The 25M Sindragosa trinket is a godsend for certain fights - even for LK 10M HM.
Again, ICC 25M is an upgrade but if you compare normal 25M to heroic 10M things are very even (but that’s always been the case - heroic 10M loot usually beats normal 25M loot).
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