Friday, August 1

Raidbalance aint fun

When the Burning Crusade expansion was released we said goodbye to 40man raids as Blizzard implented 10 and 25man raids.
The logic behind this? 25 people are easier to get together then 40, so far this is the truth... but for what reason?
You'd think that it's all part of their master plan of world domi... eh, to make raiding more accesseable to smaller guilds, groups of friends and casual members. In my oppinion they kind of failed at this at least partially.

First when looking at 10 and 25 man raids... a 25man raid is 2,5 times a 10 man raid (Holy Mathishan Batman!). Remember back in Vanilla Wow where we had 20 and 40 man raids? At least you could simply split up your 40man raidforce but nowadays you either need to have 3 10man raids or 1 25man raid, either way 5 people are likely to be disappointed.
Not completely true ofcourse as i'm actually getting to the actuall problem in our current raids: Raidbalance.

Let's say you have 3 Karazhan raidgroups (each 10man+2 backup) with which you will do 25man (with 6 backup then) raids aswell.
Karazhan requires 2 tanks or at least 1 MT and 1 OT so you would have a total of 6 tanks or if you are lucky 3 tanks and 3 dpswarriors/ferals.
Any idea how many tanks an average raidboss needs? Well in SSC and TK you aint that bad off, most bosses actually require 3 tanks, a fourth even now and then. If you are lucky you can give most of the OT's a spot aswell as regular dps.. so far so good.
When does it go wrong then? Why am i making all the hassle? Well, because of the Black Temple i guess.
First boss requires 1 tank, so you likely have to ditch 2 prot tanks for dps or healers while you needed them on the trash. "Thanks for the help guys! Just wait outside till we're done here ok?"
This whole instance requires to constantly switch out tanks as bosses require between 1 and 3 tanks. Sure some bosses require more healers then others but when you need 9 healers at one and 7 at the next the odds of staying in are still alot better then 1 on 3.
Is it just me or is the way Blizzard has designed bosses totaly retarded? This was drama bound to happen the moment they designed it.
If Blizzard is indeed gonna buff the prot tank's dps they are at least a valid contribution to the raid when not needed to tank, let's pray they will implent this properly in Wrath of the Lich King.

But back to the 40man raids versus the 25man raids. Will this allow more casual players to get a raidspot? I think often it's exactly the contrary!
1 person not performing at his or her fullest is hardly noticed in a 40man raid, this person has almost twice the impact in a 25man raid... let alone in a 10man raid. The result? To get to the better stuff you need to be better yourself aswell, which is likely gonna cost you your raidspot if you can't get to that level or simply don't have the time for it.
So more people raid yeah, good job Blizzard... but most are stuck in the lower raidinstances and the few people in those raids who have the potential are likely quite frustrated and quit the game or try to get in the better raiding guilds, thus setting back the guilds working the lower raid instances again.

If you want balance in your guild you will need some extra people of each class and often switch them throughout a raidnight.
And actually you will need more people unless you have a very very fanatic guild in which everyone is available each and every raidnight, no holidays allowed.. no break when your girlfriend's dog has died, just raid when you got a fever close to boiling point.
In our case that results in one night having the perfect raid with a bunch sitting on the bench picking their nose while the next we have to bring alts in get the required classes. Okay, okay... it's summer and some people have a pre-expansion depression but still.
Forcing raidbalance this way is really ticking people off and mostly the tanks who are being pushed around like ragdolls.
It's easy to point the finger at the Raidleader but it's not his fault ofcourse, if he/she wouldn't balance the guild chances to take down a boss are lower and he might get the blamegun pointed at him anyway.. a thankless job but thats a different subject.

Let's just pray that Blizzard manages to create boss encounters which don't require constantly swapping raidmembers and still keep it interesting, quite a challenge but that's what we are paying for i guess.

3 comments:

B said...

First off, I really enjoy reading your posts. They are very thought out and good. I wish you would post more to be honest.
~If they implement the two talent trees per person, isnt this really a mute point?~ couldnt a tank, just switch specs and gear and be fury for one fight and prot the next?... maybe this is how they are going to fix this...

Thanks,
Brandon

Anonymous said...

Great blog, I agree wholeheartedly, the need to easy up of class requirements for instances if they're going to go smaller, I think we'll see that in Wrath, with seemingly 4 viable tanking classes, 4 viable healing classes and many DPSers.

Anonymous said...

I echo your thoughts on the tank problem. There's a good chance it will actually drive me to switch to a mage for wotlk. Tanking for trash and then being kicked out at a boss fight is one of the most depressing things ever.