I should be raiding, but I have no power at home due to a nearby blown transformer. Some birthday week this is turning out to be. Anyway, moving on.
You’ve all heard about the Cataclysm raiding changes by now. The most glaring one is the loot and lockout integration of the 10- and 25-man content. This means that the 10-man version of Cataclysm raids will drop the same items from the 25-man. And once you commit yourself to the 10-man, you can’t do it again on the 25 due to the shared lockout. Blizz says that the 25-man version will simply drop more loot.
This begs the question: what is the incentive for 25-man raiding? I can think of two things: better loot and “easier” fights. The first one is self-explanatory so we’ll skip that. What I mean with fights being easier is that there’s more room for error. If you lose one or two DPS during a Festergut-25 fight, it doesn’t automatically mean a wipe. If the same thing happens with the 10-man version then you can say hello to a higher repair bill.
The upcoming changes just removed the first incentive. The loot is going to be the same, which leaves us with the second. I don’t think potentially easier fights are strong enough reasons to still do the 25. It then takes us to the incentive that Blizz presented. They say that more loot will drop in the 25, so the next question is how much more is “more”? ICC 25 bosses currently drop 3-4 items. Given the current itemization scheme, you’re not really fighting against 24 people for them. If you’re a tank, your chances of getting a drop are 50%, because your only rolling against the other tank. If you’re a healer, it’s you versus 4-5 other players. The chances to win are lower if you’re DPS since there’s more of us in the group, but that also varies per class. If you’re cloth, well, I tend to laugh in your general direction when it comes to winning rolls. Trying to win against 5-6 people? Seriously, good luck with that.
Now, compare those numbers with the 10-man. There are 2 drops per boss. For tanks, it’s still 50% since you’re only rolling against the other tank. For healers, it’s you against two other people, maybe. For DPS, the chances are definitely a lot better. The point here is obvious, and has blatantly been from the moment the changes were announced: given the way things are right now, no one is going to run the 25-man raids when Cataclysm hits. With that said, what’s your guild going to do?