Well, first of all. ZA is different from any 25-man, it's a different instance. It's fun to do a timed run now and then etc.

Now let's get some quotes.

An Interview With WoW's Lead Designers | World of Warcraft @ Curse.com

If it is not the same instance then what is it? They still miss the 25-mans if so. Also the next question...

Why ask this if it is not even same encounters? And the answer is...

Ok... That pretty much confirms it. It is the same instance...

Oh My God. He said it. Jeff Kaplan said it. Ok, let's skip the bullcrap.

My biggest concern and I really do hope they make guilds choose which progress route they take, 10man or 25man and then completely lock out the other option. ie. Give Raid IDs for players that lock them to that "bracket" (25man or 10man).
And to add a suggestion.
At WOTLK launch they could have a separate 10man instance (like zul'aman is). Then have 10man naxx be locked until someone in 25man clears it (and the failsafe of timed opening). This way 10man guilds will have something to do while 25maners clear naxx.

They already mentioned that 10 and 25 mans will be on completely separate raid ID's so a person can do both.

Why can't it?

1. The DK is the tenth class, setting the stage for having one of each
2. We know for a fact that Warriors, Druids and Paladins are all very viable tanks in any kind of content
3. We know for a fact that Priests, Shaman, Druids and Paladins* are all very viable healers in any kind of content.
4. We know for a fact that all 9 classes can put out respectable DPS

*Yes, I acknowledge that Paladins can use some help in the raid healing department, but that's what 2 new talent tiers and 10 more levels are for.

I just came from a heroic Arcatraz with 3 Paladins and 2 Hunters. One hunter was Surv, the other was BM. As we closed in on the 2nd/3rd boss room, it dawned on me that we didn't have any interrupts for Dalliah the Doomsayer. A Rogue would be required, right? Not quite. I just told the Hunters to maintain the Aimed Shot debuff on her every time she healed and DPS through the rest.

How about the Air Elemental miniboss before Harbinger Skyriss with the 50% damage reduction buff? I had the Hunters Arcane Shot it off.

Even if classes were not this versatile (and people not so innovative), why is it a bad thing to have to require certain classes for certain bosses, even in a 10 man? Head on over to wards the Season 4 PvP Changes thread and most people have acknowledged that if you don't have the right team comp, you're never going to get very far. Why shouldn't the same apply to PvE?

Like I said before, assuming Naxx is going to be inherently the same instance (which more likely than not it will be) there is no point in that because the strategies are already public knowledge and have been so for a very long time.

You're joking right? Perhaps in a perfect world, maybe, but you can't require a particular class in a 10man. This is a game, not work IRL, and people are always going to have the occasional scheduling conflict with a raid.

In 40mans and 25mans, you can generally assume 2 of every class, so you can require a class ability. Guild rosters generally have a third or a fourth extra of each class, so you can sub those in when necessary.

But 10 man raid guilds don't have the luxury of having so many people. You can only assume generic class abilities, like decursing (both mages and druids), offensive dispel (priests and shamans), etc.


The difference is that the arena isn't forcing you to get a particular class. Different comps work for different arena sizes. If you're a warrior, you want a druid so you can 2v2 with. If you can't find a druid, you can grab a paladin/shaman, plus a few extras for 5s.

So why couldn't you assume one of each class for 10's?

If you lack a Warrior's MS, go out and make a recruitment post, assuming Wound Poison or Aimed Shot couldn't fit the bill.

How could you lack an offensive dispel at this point when two classes can spam it and two others have it on a 6 second cooldown?

About the only other thing I can see as lacking would be spell interrupts, but even could be rectified by making stuns and silences able to interrupt casts even if the target is immune (such as Hammer of Justice and Silencing Shot).

I'm not sure how your analogy is working here. If that Warrior can't find a Druid, it just got significantly harder for him to get to 2200, and consequently, his S4 shoulders.

If you guild can't find a ... Priest for Mass Dispel (?), Boss x just got significantly harder for you to beat, and consequently, get his loot.

If you balance an instance around having one of each class you have to have one of each class to clear it. For example, no other class has Blessing of Freedom or anything remotely like it. What are you gonna do when your only paladin's girlfriend goes into labor? Pray your main tank is a gnome? For a 25-man guild you're pretty damn sure they have a couple pallys sitting around smashing things. For a 10-man its pretty common not to have one. What about Battle Rezes? Off-tanks? The list goes on.

Unless Blizzard throws unique classes out the window (which, with the current state of PvP balance e-sport shit, I wouldn't be surprised about) there will always be something some class brings that no one else has. It is for that reason that expecting Blizzard to balance their "easy" instances for specific classes is foolish.

Sure, there will be the expected mechanics like Dispels and Interrupts because numerous classes have those abilities. But if they want to make unique encounters that require people to actually use more than 3 spells there has to be some sort of assumed group composition, which you can't have in small instances designed for casual guilds, or at least not the entry level that most players will be spending the next 2 years in.

While I'll agree that class specific requirements would be pretty much out of the question for a 10 man raid, major ability requirements that can be duplicated, or at least mimicked, by other classes are definitely fair game. Also, don't forget that there are an additional 10 levels of abilities, not to mention talents (and an entirely new class!), so there is a good chance that something will be able to replicate the functionality of Blessing of Freedom.

For instance, Druids have the only 'battle rez' in the game at the moment; however, it sounds like DKs could have something with a similar, but moderately weaker, effect! Sure, you come back as a ghoul (or whatever) but that's something. Additionally, since it's a popular example, Blessing of Freedom could also be emulated by a defensive dispel as long as the encounter is designed to not involve a 'physical' snare and resorts to a magic/curse/disease/poison instead. Or, even better, if BoF is needed to allow someone to kite a mob, why not make the mob itself snarable (snareable? whatever); that way, any class that can snare/slow/whatever can provide the same effect as a BoF but in a moderately less effective manner (which seems very much like what some encounters in ZA are geared towards--class X can do job Y the best, but you can cover for class X by doing Z instead).

10 classes * 2 = 20 out of 25.
10 classes * 1 = 10 out of 10.
(including Death Knights)

You can easily have 2 of each class in a 25 man. You have so many slots that even if you have 4 hunters, you can still have 2 mages (and 2 of every other class + a bunch more).

In a 10 man however, there is no leeway at all. You would effectively need 20 people (2 of each class) in the roster in order to support a full time "1 of each class" raid.

To turn this over to a 25 man situation, you need only 30 people (3 of each class) to support a "2 of each class" raid.


Losing the ability to design encounters around individual spells is a massive loss in raid design, and it's just another reason why 10 mans are easier. 25 mans can push the raid to the absolute min/max possible with a typical raid, whereas a 10 man would need to compromise this challenge in order to make it possible for raids without a:
-priest for Mass Dispel/Mind Control/Mana Burn
-hunter for Misdirect/Kiting
-mage for Spellsteal/Frost Nova/AoE Kiting
-paladin for BoP/Bubble/Freedom
etc, etc. That's enough to get my point across.

That's an example I'm getting at. They need to tone down the challenge in order to let the "moderately less effective manner" also be able to complete it. Imagine if Felmyst or Muru were designed so that you did not need a priest in the raid? The Gas Nova would need to tick for far less, or not hit everyone in the raid. This would make it very trivial for any group that does have a priest, and less of a raid killer for those that dont. Less adds would need to spawn from Muru's Darkness spell, etc.

If you don't require certain class abilities you run the potential of watering down content so badly that it will be completely trivial for people with min/maxed makeups. Or, alternatively, you water down class abilities such that no one brings anything truly unique to the table.

They are going to have to have dramatically different boss abilities in the 10 and 25 man versions or this won't work at all. And they probably will, so this is all a lot of huff about nothing.

By not making instances require unique abilities, you run into the issue with hunters and rogues during much of early TBC. Early Kara raids often could exclude both classes without much difficult, and in some cases, the raid goes smoother without them. This is something you don't want to happen, is when bringing a class is a negative, which happens if the encounter doesn't require the class and there is some penalty to their abilities. (Nature immune, cleave spam...melee aoe...spell reflect) Stuff like that might be fun, but having it on a single boss can somethings exclude an entire class/spec from an instance.

I am having the worrying feeling Naxx might end up like early Kara...

Prot Warrior, Feral Druid, Holy Paladin, Resto Shaman/Druid, Shadowpriest, Mage, Warlock, + XYZ.

Is to much to ask that I can be viable as Prot/Holy/Ret in Naxx 10 mans, or should I lower my expectations...

I think the point of the 10 mans is to provide a progression path for small group raiders, not a casual set of instances for 25 man raiders. So it's aimed at people who won't be doing the 25 mans, and to them it is unique.

Not really... unless it affects windfury... and each boss like that also is 20% more vulnerable to melee.

However, when you're looking at an instance, which is engineered to isolate the 10 or 25 people that enter the door, you have to suspend for a moment that there are other equally epic people out there. In that moment, it's just you and your 24 friends facing off against a 10,000 year old night elf who sold his soul for power long ago. Or you can be that guy who doesn't even know who Illidan is.

My point is, the instance mechanic is designed to remove the rest of the world for a time; this makes the small group of adventurers logic a little more feasible.

I keep seeing people saying "oh well, 10mans will be as hard as 25mans, you just wait and see", but nobody has yet given a plausible example of a 10man raid being even remotely as difficult as a 25man raid. The fact is, a 10man raid CANNOT be as difficult as a 25man because of these class composition issues. If anything, 10 mans should be upped to 15mans, and 25mans upped to 30mans. That would buy some breathing room in guild rosters to guarantee one of each class in each type of raiding.


TBH, I prefer having hunters in Kara. They can CC everything in there thanks to the godliness of Freezing Trap. Rogues (and melee DPS in general) can be annoying in Kara, especially with all the PBAOEs that get thrown around (Prince's Nova, Maiden's Consecrate). Really the only reason that melee is accepted in Kara is because they completely tear apart clothie mobs like Aran.

And Ret in 10mans... probably not going to be a great idea until Alliance gets Seal of Blood. The only reason Alliance paladins go Ret in 25mans is to keep up other pally Judgements, and to put up Imp SotC. In 10mans, Imp SotC is much less valuable, due to the fact that there are fewer DPSers getting the benefits of it.

I hate to repeat the same arguments from 5 pages ago, but the fact that the set of feasible 10-man encounters is smaller than the set of feasible 25-man encounters does not mean that 10-man encounters will necessarily be easier. People seem to be operating the following fallacious logic:

1) There are some 25-man encounters that can't reasonably translated into 10-man versions

2) Therefore Blizzard will "dumb down" the 10-man versions by simply dropping the mechanics that can't be translated. 10-man Vael wouldn't have BA, therefore trivializing it. 10-man Faerlina won't enrage. 10-man Magtheridon won't have any cubes or Blast Wave, and only 2 channelers.

However, in no way, shape, or form does (2) follow from (1). It's just lazy thinking. If you want an example of a hard 10-man boss, I provided one earlier: Imagine a 10-man Bullet Hell Reaver. Tell me that it couldn't be tuned to be harder than any encounter currently in game, yet still doable.

The burden of proof is on you, my friend. You have to prove that the hardest, most complex possible 10-man encounter will always be easier than the easiest possible 25 or 40-man encounter in order for what you said to be true.

Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Your assertion is that "because nobody has yet shown one, it cannot exist". That's like saying "M'uru is the hardest possible raid encounter ever, because nobody's ever made one that's harder than M'uru". Hell, the world first Eredar Twins were done without any melee, and world first M'uru was done without druids, so what's that mean?

If 25-mans don't all have the "Thou Shalt Have At Least Two Of Every Class" rule, why should 10-mans be forced to adhere to it?

That's a little unfair since it is an unprovable argument.

Besides, can we get this thread back on topic or moderate the hell out of it

Two sides are adamant on their views. The last five pages have proven this. However, it is impossible to prove that a 10-man can be as challanging as 25-mans. And with 10-mans giving poorer loot and being there to allow raid content to be seen by the masses, it is highly unlikely any evidence proving the reverse will appear.

Like a hamster on a wheel, this ain't going nowhere.

Thats a rather silly blanket statement you made - the easiest encounter you can do regardless of raid size is a simple tank/spank mob which there are many of really - there is not a bottom limit to complexity like there is an upper limit to hold them back, they can do something really really pathetically simple in a 25man or 100man if they wanted.

I wont insult your intelligence by naming multiple examples of sub Kara/ZA level 25/40man raid bosses in regards to complexity.
Here's one though: Jan'alai (10man, more complex) vs Golemagg or Sulfuron (40man, near-basement level of complexity of what exists).

Please note I made no real reference to the complexity of 10mans or whatever the argument is about, just that there is no real lower limit (in any size) to compare to an upper limit from either - my personal belief is that 10mans wont be able to compare without forcing specific class/specs due to limiting raid size, we will see in how classes work at 80 but untill then... concerned.

If the Shaman in my 3's doesn't show for this week, the Warrior has to live without WF, even if we can find someone else to sub in.

Perhaps it would be a slightly exaggerated to say that our lack of a Shaman would cripple us against certain comps, but it would certainly make them that much harder. Very difficult to beat? On the scale of doing Maiden without Blessing of Sacrifice, I'd say so.

Yes, this CAN present a problem given an extremely linear set of bosses, but that's what experimentation is for, ala 4 different wings of Naxxramas. Your Priest has appendicitis? Skip Razuvious. Your Warrior got food poisoning? No Four Horsemen this week. All 5 of your Warlocks' wives had a baby all at the same time? No pre-2.4 Magtheridon for you.

The point is, whether it's a 10-man, 25-man or even 40-man (Hunters on Huhuran?) encounter, it's possible to require so many of a class that you wouldn't be able to do it, depending on how you structure the fight.

More people decreases the chance of this happening, but I don't see why rock-scissors-paper comps are acceptable within PvP but not within PvE, given that you're already supposed to have that many more rocks, scissors and sheets of paper to work with.

What if the layout of these new raid instances would be like Zul'Aman (with a dash of Nightbane/Illhoof/Netherspite): No strict order to the bosses, take them in any order you want, with one or two optional bosses to boot. If you lack a certain class for this week, you don't kill that boss, but that's okay, because it doesn't stop you from clearing the trash to the other 5 that you DO have the numbers for.

In fact, take it a step further. Imagine a ZA with 6 animal bosses, but you only needed to knock down 4 to open up Malacrass and ZJ. Would mandatory class participation be that bad in that case?

What i'm particularly interested in, peaked by these leaks is the subject of further hero classes. We all know the Death Knight will be the first. But... i distinctly remember from Blizzcon footage that the DK wont be the only hero class. So, in addition to the DK being soley referred to as a "Class", are they abandoning the whole hero class concept and just deciding to pack in extra "Regular" classes? This is provoked by the lack of mention on only DK's, and not even a tiny taster on any other possible class additions.

Speculation? Demon Hunters, Archmage... Blizzard could add anything from the Hero selection of Warcraft 3 in additon to a menagerie of their abilities that arent already owned by other classes (IE Demon Hunters who could train Evasion which was given to Rogues, Immolation given to Warlocks etc).

What i am slightly perterbed about is on some of the latest leaks about the grizzle hills... and Arugal. Let me take a moment and hark back to the days of silverpine forest a few years back. Level 24 elite wandering around ganking your face off... im guessing that the new devilsaur/fel reaver will be a level 80 Elite Son of Arugal... with Lazers.

If anything i'm a little dissapointed blizzard have once again re used old content (As fun as SFK was the first few times you went in).

There are basically a couple of cases in which encounters require class specific abilities:

- Fear stance dancing (This one is mostly noteworthy because while there are ways of working around it such ways are typically not viable for a 10-man as they rely on other classes; Shamans for Tremor or Priests for Fear Ward, of which the latter would require very infrequent fears).
- Spellsteal tanking.
- Mind Control (Only really used in the current version of Naxxramas).
- Tranquilizing Shot (Very frequent pre-TBC, barely used in TBC).
- Mass Dispel (Felmyst being the only example in TBC I know of currently; the only other boss encounter in which Mass Dispel is massively useful in TBC being Zul'jin though it's not required there).
- Spell Reflect (Essence of Desire being the only case I can think of where it's pretty much required when first learning the encounter)

As you'll note I'm not mentioning Blessing of Freedom, I'll agree it's the optimal way of dealing with Vashj her Entangling Roots, but you can also work around it by having an off-tank stand far enough away to avoid Roots who taunts her after she casts it.

But most of those mentioned abilities aren't really what makes the encounter difficult. Most encounters which require a class-specific ability are actually seen as "gimmick encounters", figure out the gimmick and you've beat the encounter.

Does the difficulty in the Illidari Council encounter lie in it requiring a Mage that can Spellsteal Dampen Magic? No, it lies in having your raid dodge AoE properly. Does the difficulty of Instructor Razuvious lie in requiring Mind Control? Yes, but mostly because the encounter's only other unique attribute is casters having to run in and out of LOS to dodge Disrupting Shout.

Edit: As Razuvious actually fits into the context of 10-man Naxxramas, the encounter could work in a 10-man with a few changes. Specifically the add types shouldn't be exclusively humanoid; make one add undead (I'll assume here Death Knights get some form of Enslave Undead spell) and one add a demon. Also change their Shield Wall to a damage reduction debuff on Razuvious instead, that way you can tank Razuvious normally for a bit even after the add is gone. Perhaps Blizzard will even add a Command Beast spell for Druids which would open a fourth option.

To summarize: There are a lot of encounters that require class specific abilities, but for only a minority of these encounters does the class specific ability provide a large part of the encounter's challenge.