When to move up to the next raid
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 11th 2009 at 4:00PM
Now obviously, every guild is in a different place raiding-wise (and most guilds are way ahead of ours, I know), and TLaG is dealing with a different dilemma: whether to take down Yogg-Saron before moving on to ToC or not. And in her case, she's got the added "gotta catch 'em all" thinking. But it's a tough thing as a raid leader -- you don't want to move on past content you know you can do eventually, and progression always beckons. In the end, you've got to figure out what's best for the guild. And of course, the content's not going anywhere -- if you can't drop a certain boss this week, there's always the next raid reset.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nick S Oct 11th 2009 4:07PM
Skill-wise, nothing in normal ToC compares to Yogg. I'd recommend getting Yogg down first to remind your guild that you play to prove your skill, and not just to acquire more purples.
Kolyarut Oct 11th 2009 4:12PM
Personally I'd reccomend switching to ToC before downing Yogg to get more purples. : P Nobody has anything to prove to anyone, and those purples will help your guild learn new bosses more than wiping on Yogg will.
Pudie Oct 11th 2009 4:16PM
I dont agree with Kolyarut at all. Kill Yogg at least once before moving on. Trivializing hard content wit better gear is a cop out. If you raid for the fight, the challenge, and the reward of really defeating a boss then kill Yogg before you move on. If you just raid for purples then whatever.
PeeWee Oct 11th 2009 4:28PM
"If you raid for the fight, the challenge, and the reward of really defeating a boss..."
Yogg has been downed by a guild in blues only, no epic gems or enchants even. Everyone else is dumping the challenge with every purple pixel they equip. Go get'im boy! Let us know how it turned out.
Eternauta Oct 11th 2009 4:57PM
@PeeWee:
They DID use enchants and gems. But not epic ones, only blue gems and enchants that didn't require abyss crystal.
TL;DR: Blue ilvl 200 gear with blue gems and enchants.
Of course they didn't do any hardmodes and they wiped on a couple of bosses, but hey! that's what epics are for.
@Nick S and Kolyarut: Both suggestions are good. It all depends on what the guild memebers want at the moment.
Dart Oct 11th 2009 7:06PM
In this comment reply thread: You should down content to prove you have skill.
WHO NEEDS SKILLS, LET'S GET EPIX
This does describes PvP aswell.
Ed Oct 12th 2009 9:07AM
I'd actually say (just my opinion based on my xp) that all the bosses in ToC normal are easier than Yogg, Mimiron, Hodir, and Thorim (maybe even Cat Lady). I get the feel that Blizzard set the difficulty level of ToC normal to give guilds that were stuck in various parts of Uld a place to gear up. Yogg is one of the best fights, both lore wise and fight wise, that I've ever experienced in WoW. If you haven't fought the old god I strongly recommend trying it out.
Theldaris Oct 11th 2009 4:10PM
ToC is noticably easier then Ulduar content, I'd say give it a go, but keep ulduar in your schedule, more fun for everyone , especially if the fights in ulduar are new to you all.
Dreyden Oct 11th 2009 4:11PM
I'm having a similar problem with my guild, but for very different reasons.
My guild is the largest on the server, sitting on 540 members (including alts). The reason for that is that when I started my guild off I wasn't yet 80 and I wanted people to level with. Then I had school so I wanted a big social guild for people to talk to while I did non-time consuming things. Then I wanted to get more level 70's (back in BC) so I started up some 10 man raids. We're currently at 180+ level 80's, but that includes alts and retired characters and all other colors of the rainbow. We don't do 25 mans because we rarely have 25 people on at a time (that are 80, and able to do raids) because most people are very casual and only play once a week sometimes.
My guild is sometimes ridiculed on my server because we're well-known for not doing ToC. Before that it was Ulduar, but then when we finally did that we were put down because we only downed 10 bosses in a lockout period (on our first try, mind you).
So, my question is, should we move up into ToC 10? We do fine in Ulduar, getting to Mimiron/Freya usually before calling it.
Chris M Oct 11th 2009 4:16PM
To answer your question, Drey- definitely.
Encounters like Freya and Mimiron (hell, even Thorim) in 10-man require significantly more coordination and actually have higher DPS requirements (crazy, I know) than ToC10 (not ToGC, mind you). The ilevel 232 gear that drops makes it well worth your time (you'll note 232 loot is on par with only 10-man Ulduar hard-mode weapons, not even hard-mode armour is that high in itemization until you get to Ulduar 25.
It'll be well worth your time to clear ToC10 for a few weeks, and if you're capable of downing the Keepers; your guild should make quick work of ToC10- I'd say a week of learning the encounters if nobody has been before, and then you'd be looking at 3-4 hour clears in the weeks that follow.
xenothaulus Oct 11th 2009 4:20PM
You should definitely move up to ToC-10. It's pretty easy, and more importantly, quick. It may take you a week or two before you're clearing it, but eventually you settle into a rhythm and you'll be able to get the whole place done in an hour and a half or so, less if you rush. You can then go back to Uld after, or on another night. This way you'll be seeing the new raid and getting upgrades for everyone.
Once you get ToC-10 down pat, or feel you've gotten everything out of Uld-10 you need/want, you can switch to heroic ToC-10. We have been running regular ToC-10, Ony-10 and VoA-10 (if it's up) one night, and then our other raid night is devoted to heroic ToC-10 progression, with off-nights for Uld-10 for whoever wants/needs to go.
Untflanked Oct 11th 2009 4:15PM
My guild downed toc before vezax. Toc is a piss. Yogg shows skill.
Peter Oct 11th 2009 5:29PM
I think you should move onto TOC just because it is fast. I don't think you should necessarily down the last boss of a raid before moving onto the next raid... but the majority of your raid time should be spent on finishing the older content.
It's really hard though, Blizz is adding raid content so fast, its not like the old days when you had months and months to farm the old content before the new even came out. I think my server had only 1 or 2 guilds that even downed Yog before TOC came out.
WoWie Zowie Oct 11th 2009 7:32PM
^^ this
toc is fast and relatively painless if you run with the same people every week. there is no reason to not do it in one of your nights, and then back to ulduar for the rest.
Kolyarut Oct 11th 2009 4:27PM
Well, I'm working on two assumptions here.
One is the assumption that most raiders (the ones who aren't the hardest of the hardcore) would prefer a simple run where they get some loot and down some bosses to a run where they chain-wipe to learn a very challenging new boss - and Yogg is still about as hard as they come, before you factor in hard modes. It's still not trivial even with ToC epics, since it's a skill based fight.
My other assumption is that all the hardest of the hardcore have already downed all of ToC and probably all of Ulduar already anyway. Suggesting that people who haven't pushed forward to the hardest content yet are inferior if they don't tackle the raids in chronological order is just a little disingenuous to me. Nobody has to prove their skill to anyone but their raid leader, e-peen flexing about "we beat Yogg before ToC" really is just that.
Kolyarut Oct 11th 2009 4:28PM
Comment system fail, that was meant to be a reply to the above... though I guess it just about works as a standalone comment. >_
Doellman Oct 11th 2009 9:48PM
I agree completely, Kolyarut. And it's a game; it's supposed to be fun. Wiping repeatedly on Yogg-Saron when the guild could beat up ToC doesn't seem to make much sense. I find spending a night wiping on a boss and learning a lot in the process (*cough* Archimonde *cough)to be worthwhile and fulfilling, but why should a guild spend ALL the lockout time on this when there is other new content that they can explore? For the sake of chronology? Please. My guild still does Naxx a decent amount of times, partly for alts but also because it's just a big raiding social gathering.
Dustin Oct 11th 2009 4:35PM
We had the same Yogg-Saron dilemma when ToC came out. We decided to extend our Ulduar raid lockout by a week so we would have ample time to learn and down Yogg-Saron. The OCD in me was pleased (haha).
Focusing on a mix might be best, though. At least doing regular mode ToC might be the best plan of action since on regular mode the encounters are relatively easy once you get the mechanics down and it lets everyone build up the emblems (and a few purples to boot). Outside of faction champions hangups we can often do this in one night with time to spare for Onyxia.
devilsei Oct 11th 2009 4:31PM
Yeah, honestly all of ToC (besides the Champions Fight) is pretty simple compared to just Yogg. My guild can, for the most part, one shot our way through all of Ulduar up to him, but once we hit him, it starts falling apart shortly after Phase 2 starts. Yet when it comes to ToC, we one shot everything, with the Champs fight proving to be the only thing that might impede us (and was that way for our first attempt at the raid).
Honestly? I'd love to down Yogg, not so much for the bragging, but because it be nice to achieve with the guild, even if it means we're a tier ahead on gear. (And just to say, I remember Ensidia clearing 10man Yogg with a bunch of 25man gear, yet people still hail them like gods, but if anyone else does it its a cop-out.)
So, if your guild starts to get stressed doing Yogg, do ToC. Don't tick off a bunch of your raiders by forcing them to do yogg over and over, refusing to do ToC until he's down. Besides, why does it have to either be about proving your skill or getting purples? Why can't you raid just for fun, with a group of people you enjoy hanging out with? Thats what I'm doing, and why I don't care we haven't taken Yogg down, but are raping Anub'arak. =P
Spazmoose Oct 12th 2009 11:03AM
"honestly all of ToC (besides the Champions Fight) is pretty simple compared to just Yogg"
This was very true pre-Champion nerf...now you can just remove everything in parentheses.