--Syrus-- posted:

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A real good group can 4 man any 5 man dungeon. Exception players with decent gear can even 3 man. Fights take a lot longer but it can be done.

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Auenwing posted:

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Because in the end, that's their focus. 5-mans, I think, will always been seen as a stepping stone, now more than ever, because of how successful they were in LK.

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The_Korrigan posted:

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You can actually, as a tank (paladin and DK at least), solo most heroics except the 3 latest LK ones, and even some of those have apparently been soloed. I facerolled HoL not too long ago, out of boredom. A good indication of the difficulty of WotLK 5 man dungeon...

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--Syrus-- posted:

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If you are such a good player, why are you playing with all these baddies? If you were trying to PuG 40 man raids in Vanilla no wonder you don't remember it with fondess. If you are a good player you should be able to get in a good raiding guild to complete the content.

Again if you are talking about 5 man's, you should still be able to complete the content even if there are a few bad players in your group.

You sound like a very anti social player, playing a very social game. If you want to play a game where you don't depend on anyone, stick to the solo content, or play a single player game. Or again, join a good guild. Bad players don't plauge me. I litterally ran more then 10 5 mans last night, all of the runs had a least one bad player. I went through a instance where I was both tanking and healing myself. Wasn't a great expirience, but we still got it done.

A real good group can 4 man any 5 man dungeon. Exception players with decent gear can even 3 man. Fights take a lot longer but it can be done.

For all the boasting you do about your individual skill it sounds to me like you don't enjoy a challenge. For me facerolling a dungeon is not fun. I've actually nodded off while healing some dungeons with my Shammy.

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Auenwing posted:

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Yup. Solo, or 1 player 2-boxing can do almost all of them (except the 3 ICCs/ToC). A real good group can 4 man dungeons at level any where in WoW (been that way from vanilla.) And yes, you can 4-man HoR (whoopiedodah)

Gearcheck =/= difficulty.

It's a gearcheck.

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Malachi256 posted:

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Before I'm off to work, just wanted to throw out something - I appreciate the well thought out post =)


I think the original "dungeon 2" set is good evidence that, at least at some point, Bliz thought of 5-man content as end-game content for at least some of their playerbase. The dungeon 2 set was a rather complex series of quests involving lots of 5-man content that resulted in a very nice 8-piece set (half epic, half blue, if I remember correctly). I never heard of anyone who talked about it being required to get into raiding - most of the vanilla raids had already been chugging along for quite a while when it was implemented. It was entirely to appease people who just loved 5 mans or couldn't get into raiding.


There's no doubt, though, that Bliz would love for everyone to get into raiding. Raiding provides the social hook that keeps people playing for a long time, and the gear reward rate (combined with the limited number of runs per subscription month), is their end-game cash-cow for sure.

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--Syrus-- posted:

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Bad players don't plauge me. I litterally ran more then 10 5 mans last night, all of the runs had a least one bad player. I went through a instance where I was both tanking and healing myself. Wasn't a great expirience, but we still got it done.

A real good group can 4 man any 5 man dungeon. Exception players with decent gear can even 3 man. Fights take a lot longer but it can be done.

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Auenwing posted:

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I hear that. Except I'm not sure (now) what the original intent of 5-mans was supposed to be.

And I'm still not sure that Blizzard sees 5-man as a legit separate playstyle.

I think Blizz just sees them as a means to an end to get more players into raiding. (They'll LIKE raiding, if they would just TRY it!) I think the fact that there is a portion of the player base that prefers 5-man is incidental to Blizz's long-term goal. And those players are making it their endgame in spite of Blizz's intent.

(On the other hand, I've had less than 2 hours sleep, so I could totally be blowing smoke here. I'm willing to take my lumps if my thinking's not clear. )

I'm not sure that I can go back and definitively say that 5-mans were put into the game by intent to be an end-game for those that couldn't / wouldn't raid. I think Blizzard was probably surprised by the success of Dire Maul at a time when "Raid or Die" was Kaplan's agenda. I think they've always been seen as the progression-hook to raiding.

So in TBC, they put in more (which were definitely challenging walking in with greens/blues). Once again, demonstrating that the instances themselves were not particularly hard, it was the glass-wall created by lack of gear. Once properly geared, those instances were moderately easy, leading to the model of AoE-style fests we see in LK. Blizz found however, that a lot of the player base was not doing them (putting in the faction-key barrier was a great speed bump idea on paper, and not smart in the end.) However, they did provide a progression path to places like Kara, once again, it seems, with the thought of herding the playerbase into what they considered the only true end-game: raiding. 5-mans were the place players spent a long time grinding to get into, then grinding through for gear (speedbumps), before moving on the real target: Kara and beyond.

(Do note, however, that in TBC, Blizz got the 5-man and 10-man gearchecks "backwards". As originally released, some of the 5-man heroics required Kara gear which is what made them feel like endgame.) They corrected that progression in LK, by "oversteering" the other way.

So, realizing that players WOULD grind through 5-mans as a way to gear up, Blizz then swung the pendulum the other way in LK, making it incredibly easy to walk through the regulars as a leveling playground, and, as you said, turning the Heroics into a way to easily obtain gear to be able to progress toward 10-man raiding, and hopefully drawing more and more players in, sheparding them towards raiding. In LK, it became incredibly efficient for guilds to send players through to get their gear without having to run individuals through themselves. (Yay for DF). 5-mans were once again, a means to an end.

For all that I've said Blizz has been inclusive about the diversity of playstyle out here, it sure seems that they are still focused on getting more players into raiding. Only this time, instead of berating them (a la Kaplan in Vanilla), they may still be assuming that it is lack of proper gear, not incentive, that keeps players out of raiding. So they've consistently lowered the barriers to acquiring gear to the point that heroics have become an easy-regular-feel AoE-fun-run in LK.

The fact that the DF makes it eaiser and more players are actually enjoying them is probably, again, incidental. And yes, there are more ICC-10 and 25 PuGs which would only validate Blizz's perspective that everybody wants to raid. So they are providing more paths to get there easier.


So, yes, I hear you and your concerns. I love 5-mans as a playstyle as well.

BLizz has heard is that 5-mans are too easy now and are swinging the pendulum the other way, at least temporarily. And will probably, as many have cautioned, be adjusted down to allow more cattle, er players, through the gear-chute on the way to raiding.

Because in the end, that's their focus. 5-mans, I think, will always been seen as a stepping stone, now more than ever, because of how successful they were in LK.

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