Applemask

TLDR: If 25 mans are not worth doing, don't do them - it is literally that simple. It is nobodies job to reward you for doing something you couldn't motivate yourself to do on your own.

This thread has nothing to do with 10v25 which his harder drama, so don't.

Recently I have read many suggestions about how Blizzard should 'save' 25 man raiding. I really hope that these changes do not come about. I am going to edit this post as I have gained a lot of insight in the last 10 pages of text.

- Removing shared lockout between 10 and 25.
This would be great for 25 man raids, but logistically devastate 10 man raids. ICC showed us a 25 man raid can easily have multiple 10 man groups exist within it that run outside of the normal raid schedule, this is not possible for 10 mans. Blizzard themselves has cited that despite it being a 'choice' most of us felt obligated to clear both weekly.

- Splitting achievements between 10 and 25.
This again would be terrible for 10 man raiding, while only benefiting 25 main raiding. Answer the question below honestly, which is more likely:

25H guild clears heroic DS, forms 10 man groups to clear heroic DS 10 for achievements.

10H guild clears heroic DS, forms 25 man group to clear heroic DS 25 for achievements?

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The biggest flaw in this entire concept is that Blizzard is in any way responsible for saving 25 man content, or boosting its popularity if you feel saving is not the right word since it still very much exists. Blizzard themselves stated that the motivation to raid 25s is because you enjoy 25s, so if they cannot stand on their own merit why do they deserve to survive?
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The most common arguments I have seen:

"25 mans take more work, so if Blizzard does not want them to fail they should have more reward"
This is a logical fallacy for a few reasons. First, the assumption that Blizzard is responsible for preserving 25 man raiding like it is a unicorn is a bit silly. Blizzard stated that if you prefer 25 man raiding, then do it, of you prefer 10s, then do it.

You cannot say "I like 25s but they are more work, so give me more reward". 25 man raiding is either enough of it's own reward, or it is not. If it is not, you know your options, if it is, then keep working.

"Blizzard forced 25 man raiders to go to 10s'"
Easily my favorite argument regarding this. Lets look at this logically, at the start of Cataclysm 25 man raiding was the majority of the community. So what happened? If people wanted to raid 25s they had every opportunity to do so, so why did 25 man guilds dwindle?

If 25 man raiding is the preferred format didn't the death of a few 25 mans cause a surge in recruitment opportunities for those that remained? If 25 mans are what most people preferred how could it possibly dwindle? Every 25 man guild death (and there was a lot!) would have just made the remaining guilds even stronger, but the number kept dropping? The only logical conclusion is 25 mans are dieing because the community is completely happy with running 10s.

"If a 10 man guild wants to do 25 man content they can Pug"
... Pugging 15 people for a heroic raid is not a viable solution, I appreciate your input but yeah, no.

"You hate 25 mans/You want 25 mans to die/You have no idea how 25s work"
Not at all, but all 25 man raiders need to understand that basically any change that improves 25 man raiding will hurt 10 man raiding. I don't want 25 mans to die, but I think going out of our way to save them is silly as well, let nature take its course. Lastly I have raided every tier of content since launch, I know the logistics of every aspect of a Guild.

"If an aspect of the game is dieing, that is bad game design the designer needs to fix"
One of the best things I have read in this entire thread, and I do think Blizzard is fixing it; or rather it is fixing itself. 25 man, as so many of you 25 man raiders yourselves are pointing out, are more work then they are worth. Blizzard increased the size of the raiding community massively by introducing 10s. More people are raiding, and the less efficient more poorly designed raid size is being phased out. Sounds like a solid fix to me.

"The only reason 10s are successful is because they are logistically easier"
Not really. I wont deny that some aspects of 25 man raiding are inherently more difficult due to the number of people, but most of this can be overcome with good leadership and delegation. You have to manage more people, but you have more people to help you manage. Also 10 man guilds suffer the same shortcomings as 25 man guilds. When 1 member does not show up it is devastating; when one member is late we must wait for them. 10 man has its own hardships that are quite numerous, some of which revolve on the much slower pace a 10 man gears up due to how much more specific your gear needs are.

Continued from:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3123246109 - #1
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3123036188 - #2

A bit of math for the front page:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An699vGZwDtZdHVzVWhIYnhqQmxfaTZYQUsyRk1qNWc&hl=en_US#gid=0

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3123036188?page=1#8

We didn't particularly want a lot of these items in circulation, so that's partially intended. We really do want to keep legendary weapons legendary, and Dragonwrath ended up being more readily available than we were comfortable with.

Nonetheless, we should have recognized that the completion rate was faster than we wanted, and taken action, sooner.

I don't think that's the point most (reasonable) people are trying to argue, though. Every single legendary churned out to date has come from 25 man raids. Some have 1, nearly 2; some have 2, nearly 3.

10 man-focused raids have zero. There are literally no 10 man raids with a finished legendary. The furthest-progressed ones are just starting the Essences grind (last week or this week) and if those guilds were killing 7/7 heroic, on the previous drop rates, at best they'd have their first legendary by the beginning of October. As well, with the Cinders drop-rates, those same guilds clearing 7/7H would still not begin the Essences portion of their second legendary until 2-3 weeks after finishing their first.

It's all well and good to want to stymie the flood of legendaries in the market and no one's arguing it inexcusable to nerf 25-man drop rates (though some are understandably put out that it took this long to ninja in said nerf, well after the best guilds have already finished 2) to accommodate this desire. The Sturm und Drang you're seeing is purely because the nerf impacted 10-man raids as well, in a way that doesn't jive with the reasoning of "too many legendaries spoil the raid". 10-mans don't have any legendaries to spoil the proverbial soup!

So that's the concern. It isn't that you shouldn't fix drop rates; it's that you should fix them in the raid level that's actually causing the issue.

[Continuation post borrowed from Texaporte]