Cataclysm Raiding (Or How Blizzard Royally Screwed the 25 Man Raid)

I’m one of the folks who take a look at patch notes, expansions, class changes and the rest of the panic inducing things Blizzard likes to throw out there to send the masses into a frothing frenzy and simply shrug. Meh, change happens, we’ll make it work. I don’t panic and if Blizz decides they want paladins to tank with tap shoes on while holding a barbeque fork and garbage can lid in Cataclysm then, by golly, somehow it will all work out. I can’t imagine changing my main to another class so I’ll adapt.

Pretty zen, right?

That was all before I found out that Blizzard is fucking with the one thing in this game that has made me log in damn near every day for a couple of years now: Raiding. Specifically 25 man raids. Yeah, yeah…I’ve read the blue posts, hell I read every page of the 330 page forum thread http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24401856405&sid=1 as it was developing, I understand the theory that sure you can still run 25 man raids but holy hell could Blizz be making it any harder to maintain that kind of raid group?

In any 25 man group there are people that:
A. Love the larger scale of the event

B. People that are there because the loot has always been better

C. People who would prefer to run 10s solely but all their friends are in 25s

If you take away the better loot the team will lose group B. If raiders have to make a choice between 10 or 25 in any given lockout you’re going to lose group C. This leaves group A sadly running 10s because there simply will not be the staff to do more.

If they want to cater to the strict 10 man guilds, the casuals, and the whiners who want easy-mode all the time they could go back to TBC style raids where a raid is either a 10 or a 25 not both. Gear is already way too easy to come by as a fresh 80 and is seldom an indication of skill anymore. I don’t want to see the game lose the last thing that offers a challenge to those of us want to work harder. Blue posts can say all they want that they will make the 10 and 25 raids of equal difficulty but it just isn’t that simple. It will never be as hard to manage a 10 man guild and raid team as it is to manage a 25. Once they post something like this chances are it is going live. I can hold out some small hope they might listen to the community but odds are definitely against it.

In the mean time while we wait to be sure I’ll keep doing what I’m doing for the guild now and mentally making a list of the raiders I do and don’t want in my 10 man guild in case I don’t quit the game altogether.