@Xenofire

 

I understand your comments and your personal opinion towards 8man vs 16man. And you throw heavily around that 16 people are harder to control then 8. You also referenced at one point that 25 man raids in WotLK.

 

So my question for you.. If 16 mans are so difficult to coordinate and control then would I and many others be considered amazing players because we could coordinate 40 man raids in Vanilla WoW? Or coordinate 15 man Scholomance runs or Living/Undead Strat? UBRS?

 

That is what Vent/Mumble/TS3 are used for to create a outlet for coordination. That is why I feel that the argument based on "Getting 16 people to play a game is hard" falls short. There are still MMO's that require raid groups of more then 16. If you cannot put together a group of 16 people who play well or try to perfect themselves in their playing ability and min/maxing and or listening it isn't because '16man' is harder. That is your responsibility to field a group of 16 who can listen and coordinate. If you can't field a group of 16 listening players then go down to 8 man because im sure you can field 8 listening players.

 

 

I respect your opinion but I think and from what I read a lot of your posts lean on 16 man is harder to coordinate and for some people it probably is but that is their decision to raid with 14 competent players and 2 idiots just to make a 16 man raid.

The bug is extremely forgiving on 16 man though (imo); more likely to have sniper shield(s), more chance of having hybrids able to help out on the healing etc.... more OOC resses.

 

Our healers find it easier to heal through the damage in 8 than in 16. In 8 we let the whole raid stay in with 1 sniper and were fine. We also ran out on a previous attempt and got through it without anyone dying. (but later wiped due to tank snafu )

 

On 16 we were never able to leave the whole raid in so most of the raid ran to opposite side of the room and LOS'd the pull while our Mercenaries and Tanks stayed in and blew thier defensive CDs, absorb adrenals, etc.

Yep bugged for us on 8man HM we even tried to LoS his pull and it still wiped the raid while we were WELL outside of the AoE. We'll try sniper bubble + AoE heals next week. Maybe if we're lucky they'll have it fixed tomorrow, buuuuuuut I doubt it.

Well... we did 8 man hard mode tonight on live with alts. The only hard part of the instance was Kephiss, and he's only hard cos you still take damage when you get out of the circle. It was still doable in 5 attempts.

 

16 man is a real ***** on Kephiss, and 8 man is not, and the fights are basically identical damage wise. The damage you take from breath of the masters is exactly the same, but it's way easier to deal with saving 8 people than it is to deal with saving 16 people... I'm sorry, I just can't even close to agree with people that think 8 man is even close in difficulty difference. Two of the alts that did hard mode kephiss in 8 man had zero pieces of campaign or black hole gear, none at all. It's just not hard, it may even be undertuned compared to 16.

On Kephiss we found that the damage isn't actually cause by the AoE but by the grapple when he drags you in., we've been successfully clearing him on HM by having everyone LoS by the entrance door and the Tank keeping him at the far end bt the container .

 

One or two still get the grapple effect and start taking damage periodically but the healers should be able to heal through.

On Kephiss we found that the damage isn't actually cause by the AoE but by the grapple when he drags you in., we've been successfully clearing him on HM by having everyone LoS by the entrance door and the Tank keeping him at the far end bt the container .

 

One or two still get the grapple effect and start taking damage periodically but the healers should be able to heal through.

 

this is considered exploiting as far as the forums are concerned.

It's been fixed, at least says so in patch notes.. Hopefully they didn't screw up. -.-

Well... we did 8 man hard mode tonight on live with alts. The only hard part of the instance was Kephiss, and he's only hard cos you still take damage when you get out of the circle. It was still doable in 5 attempts.

 

16 man is a real ***** on Kephiss, and 8 man is not, and the fights are basically identical damage wise. The damage you take from breath of the masters is exactly the same, but it's way easier to deal with saving 8 people than it is to deal with saving 16 people... I'm sorry, I just can't even close to agree with people that think 8 man is even close in difficulty difference. Two of the alts that did hard mode kephiss in 8 man had zero pieces of campaign or black hole gear, none at all. It's just not hard, it may even be undertuned compared to 16.

 

Fail troll is fail.

 

We killed it last night as well. As a sorc DPS I had to pop health stim, bubble, rakata medpac and still barely survived (only 20k health). But yeah rough fight and felt good to get it done pre-nerf.

 

16 man is a real ***** on Kephiss, and 8 man is not, and the fights are basically identical damage wise. The damage you take from breath of the masters is exactly the same, but it's way easier to deal with saving 8 people than it is to deal with saving 16 people... I'm sorry, I just can't even close to agree with people that think 8 man is even close in difficulty difference. Two of the alts that did hard mode kephiss in 8 man had zero pieces of campaign or black hole gear, none at all. It's just not hard, it may even be undertuned compared to 16.

 

I have to say you stuck your foot in your mouth here. If the damage is exactly the same between the two difficulties, and you have twice the people to heal but also twice the healers to manage the healing it should even out. This in no way lends credibilty to 16 > 8. I might agree with you if you didn't specifically quote dealing with Gift. In that phase everyone should be semi coordinated in where they are going for cover/healing recieved so no variables exist between the two that change anything.

On Kephiss we found that the damage isn't actually cause by the AoE but by the grapple when he drags you in., we've been successfully clearing him on HM by having everyone LoS by the entrance door and the Tank keeping him at the far end bt the container .

 

One or two still get the grapple effect and start taking damage periodically but the healers should be able to heal through.

 

seems to suggest otherwise.

 

Oh well, they seemingly fixed him in this patch, making him a cakewalk. Gift was the only remotely challenging aspect of the fight.

Fail troll is fail.

 

We killed it last night as well. As a sorc DPS I had to pop health stim, bubble, rakata medpac and still barely survived (only 20k health). But yeah rough fight and felt good to get it done pre-nerf.

 

Wasn't a troll, was being dead serious. We did it with little to no campaign or black hole gear on our alts, with one of our tanks from our main raid. Everyone else was undergeared as heck, and the only thing hard about 8 man was the attempts it took to figure out how to keep specific players alive on kephiss. Rest was cake.

 

I have to say you stuck your foot in your mouth here. If the damage is exactly the same between the two difficulties, and you have twice the people to heal but also twice the healers to manage the healing it should even out. This in no way lends credibilty to 16 > 8. I might agree with you if you didn't specifically quote dealing with Gift. In that phase everyone should be semi coordinated in where they are going for cover/healing recieved so no variables exist between the two that change anything.

 

The tank damage is drastically increased in 16 man. In 8 man, you need one person to stay with the tank and keep healing them, in 16 man you need two. In 8 man you need one person to heal 6 people, in 16 man you need 2 people to heal 13 people.

 

The problem is that you have to prebubble the whole raid, so for 16 man you need a minimum of two sorcs, and coordinating who is healing which squishy person is way harder. In 8 man we had one sorc so all he had to do was make sure he healed himself and everyone else could use their own cooldowns. Everything about the fight except gift of the masters is more damage in 16 man, since it's the same damage in 8 and there are more people per person to heal it makes it harder, it also makes it significantly harder to coordinate who will save whom. In 8 man, we just had our offtank intervene the only sorc, that was easy. The tank can also pop cooldowns and live without healing for a little, in 16 man you can't.

 

I don't see how any intelligent player who has done both thinks 8 man is harder. I do understand that there are a lot of players who haven't done 16 man who think that because the devs said 8 man was supposed to be harder, that makes 16 man easier; but the devs said "supposed to", not "is definitely", and the devs have been seriously wrong before... So if you really want an opinion in the matter, do 16 man and 8 man; until then you're just talking about something you have no clue in regards to.

I can confirm that the bug has been fixed on 16m hardmode. It's now ridiculously easy to move out of the circle. Killed him on our second attempt with a lot of new players (including one main tank) who had never seen the fight on hardmode before. Edited May 9, 2012 by bwortbutch

I don't see how any intelligent player who has done both thinks 8 man is harder. I do understand that there are a lot of players who haven't done 16 man who think that because the devs said 8 man was supposed to be harder, that makes 16 man easier; but the devs said "supposed to", not "is definitely", and the devs have been seriously wrong before... So if you really want an opinion in the matter, do 16 man and 8 man; until then you're just talking about something you have no clue in regards to.

 

I admittedly haven't done 16 man I only read from those that do. You say you have done both but are arguably a pro 16 man point of view on this matter. You said over and over that coordinating 16 people is where the challenge lies. So it can be said that the 8m encounters are at a very least on par with the 16m ones tuning wise with the edge in practical difficulty being harder in 16m due to logistical reasons.

I admittedly haven't done 16 man I only read from those that do. You say you have done both but are arguably a pro 16 man point of view on this matter. You said over and over that coordinating 16 people is where the challenge lies. So it can be said that the 8m encounters are at a very least on par with the 16m ones tuning wise with the edge in practical difficulty being harder in 16m due to logistical reasons.

 

The way I see it, the fights are designed for 8 people, and when they tune them for 16 man they just make stuff hit harder and make you have to do stuff for twice as many people; which is more irritating than it is challenging, but yes the challenge is more logistical than anything.

 

I'd prefer if they made fights for 16 people and then tuned them down for 8. Consider nightmare pilgrim, the only reason it's tuned for 16 is DPS, there isn't really anything that requires 16 people to complete; wheras every fight seems specifically designed for 2 tanks 2 heals 4 dps.

 

If they continue to make fights this way, 16 man won't even be fun in the long run. Tuning for 8 man, there will never be enjoyable encounters like they made in WoW.

Double the players, double the damage seems to be the order of the day in regard to 16 man content Xenofire is spot on. The Firebrand and Stormcaller encounter is the case in point, much like the Annihilator droid in NM EV was for the last tier. It is just plain harder. Double destruction on the tanks hits for 4k a tick in 8 man, versus 9k a tick in 16 man. There is no dispute among anyone who has completed this fight on 16 hard. Most guilds can't even DO it, yet there are plenty who rolled through it on 8 hard. As someone who has done both, as well as the 4th guild in the world to kill it on 16 hard, it is infinitely easier on 8. Edited May 10, 2012 by Nizel

Double destruction on the tanks hits for 4k a tick in 8 man, versus 9k a tick in 16 man. There is no dispute among anyone who has completed this fight on 16 hard.

 

On my Scoundrel on 16-man Hard Mode DD ticks for about 4.7k. While I agree that 16-man HM is a bit harder than 8-man HM, let's not exaggerate the numbers.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Kihra

I guess DD only hits one of your players? How did you make that happen? You are correct however, as the max hit is indeed 4,702 per player on one tick, so its actually 9,404 a tick if Murphy is feeling spunky.

 

 

[20:44:17.261] [stormcaller Blast Tank {2876485627019264}] [@Evilyn] [Double Destruction {2876910828781875}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (4702 elemental {836045448940875}) <4702>

Edited May 9, 2012 by Nizel

I guess DD only hits one of your players? How did you make that happen? The max hit is actually 4,702 per player on one tick, so its actually more.

 

 

[20:44:17.261] [stormcaller Blast Tank {2876485627019264}] [@Evilyn] [Double Destruction {2876910828781875}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (4702 elemental {836045448940875}) <4702>

 

Oh you were adding up the damage across two players. Then yes, it's about 9k total damage ticking across two players. Note that it isn't really the doubled damage that makes it harder though, since you do of course have double the healing output on 16-man.

 

People running for the shields with DD ticking in 16-man is the only big difficulty difference, and that's a little harder than 8-man because the DD targets can drop dead faster without direct healing. Still, it's not particularly difficult to deal with, since you're very likely to have plenty of mobility-boosting options like Transcendence from your Sentinels/Marauders to get to your shields quickly, and you can always send your DD-soaker with bad mobility to the fixed side shield on 16-man.

 

There are other ways in which 16-man FB/Stormcaller is easier than 8-man too. For example you only need 2 people on the ground even in 16-man, so you can have a greater percentage of your DPS able to stand still and pewpew on 16-man. The enrage timer is also more forgiving, since 16-man FB/SC tanks have double the health of 8-man, but you have more than double the DPS of 8-man (10 dps vs. 4 dps).

 

Because the enrage timer is easier to deal with on 16-man, you're even able to just bring a third full tank if you want to simplify the tank swapping and have a single fixed tank on Stormcaller and two tanks that swap on Firebrand. Even if you do that, you're still ahead of 8-man enrage (9 dps + extra tank vs. 4 dps is still a win).

 

So yes, DD is harder. Coordinating 4 shield groups is a bit harder. There are other areas of the fight that are easier though. Overall, I do agree that 16-man is harder, but I think people who say "It's not even in the same league" are exaggerating a bit.

It actually is, as it puts a lot more stress on the healers than in 8 man, and if you push into a defensive measures phase while its running and the healers can't get to the DD soaks for whatever reason, its a wipe, flat out.

 

A lot of your points fall under what guilds do when the content is on farm, and this is common sense. Encounters are only hard while they remain progression fights, they are usually only difficult while elements in your raid force do not fully understand what they are supposed to be doing, and when they do, that synergy forms, and bosses die. Skill falls by the wayside as lockout after lockout provides an increase in gear for the raid until eventually your gear and knowledge of the fight allow you to carry people though content. This is just universal, and it happens to everyone.

 

For the initial pulls however, the chaos of 16 man surpasses the minimal inconvenience of 8 man, be it via attrition of members in key roles among your raid force, lack of raid awareness among some of your raiders, or lack of gear for the current level of content, - add in additional mechanics to a new fight, and it is not difficult to see why there are so few 16 man guilds running this content.

 

My only point here is that 16 man content is not easier, this is the 10 and 25 bc debate from wow all over again, and I come from the 40 man progression era of eq and wow. More raiders = more potential ways to fail.

More raiders = more potential ways to fail.

This is the ultimate truth of the matter imho. It's hard enough to put together a competent 4-man group.

 

Getting 16 people who know their class, can execute with that knowledge, have more awareness than a brick, have a computer and internet connection that can reliably run the game, and can be online simultaneously...

16 man is more forgiving on an individual failure level, but is more challenging on a collaborative level.

I can confirm this is also happening in 8 Man normal mode too! instant deaths for people well outside the circle, issues was not present before 1.2.3

Use defensive CDs and get out ASAP. Here's a vid of our takedown:

 

16 man is more forgiving on an individual failure level, but is more challenging on a collaborative level.

 

I think this is the most logical way to sum up the debate. Some will argue the mechanics themselves are the hard part or the ability of more people to handle said mechanics are. I think there is a fine line between the two but it is there. I think if top 8m guilds could duplicate their players and go into 16m fights it wouldn't be near as bad as if they recruited 8 more players to tackle the same stuff.

I think this is the most logical way to sum up the debate. Some will argue the mechanics themselves are the hard part or the ability of more people to handle said mechanics are. I think there is a fine line between the two but it is there. I think if top 8m guilds could duplicate their players and go into 16m fights it wouldn't be near as bad as if they recruited 8 more players to tackle the same stuff.

 

Thank you sir...this is the smartest thing that has been said on the topic of 8 vs 16-man to date.