Hi Everyone,

Our guild is in an "uncomfortable" state right now, with about 12-16 Raid ready and geared people chomping at the bit to get into raids!

Unfortunatley, We can only take 10 to naxx at the moment. We are kicking around the idea of jumping to Naxx-25 and simply fililng gaps with help from outside of the guild. I know our two main tanks and 3 main healers from the Naxx 10 group can easily handle the 25-man content (because most of them have with other guilds) but I am concerned about our DPS and having to fill from outside of the guild. (Need at least 1 more tank and 3 healers)

I know this isn't Druid specific, but I also know most of you are Guild and/or Raid leaders too.

What are some minimum requirements for personell in Naxx-25?

Should we require that anyone who wants to run Naxx-25 have some Naxx-10 experience/gear? I am afraid such a policy would leave us short handed.

Blizzard has stated in a recent blue post that they expect 25-mans to have a mix of healing classes across the 5-8 healers.

Something like 2-3 tanks, 5-8 healers, rest is DPS. You do not need to run 10-man before you run 25-man. Might make it easier since you would be familiar with the pulls, etc. But not a requirement. Regarding gear, you probably have a bit more leeway with 25-man than you do with 10-man. Anyone with nice blues and a few crafted/heroic purples ought be ready for 25-man.

From what i've seen just based on the sheer volume of raid buffs/totems/shotus etc, it is easier to give more leeway to the lesser geared for 25 man raids. The primary concern of these early raids is "mechanics" people just need to know the one or two big mechanics that can make or break an encounter. If your confident that everyone knows what their role is then 25 mans have the potential to be easier then 10-mans. Mana regen is the one thing that i've noticed which seriously differs from 10/25 man raiding. In 25 mans it is almost impossible to run out of mana whereas in a 10 man i've noticed it.

The problem with taking lesser geared DPS in the 25 mans is the enrage timers you'll deal with. They are rough if you have DPS that's around the tank.

So long as they are geared in most 78+ and some heroic gear it should be fine ( if they know what they are doing ).

Thanks for the input. Our rule of thumb is, no one raids unless they are in full heroic blues and at least 1 epic (every class can use a least 1 crafted/heroic Epic)

Thanks for the input. Our rule of thumb is, no one raids unless they are in full heroic blues and at least 1 epic (every class can use a least 1 crafted/heroic Epic)

That's seems very reasonable. I know many guilds that wouldn't even entertain the possibility if you aren't hit capped and for some classes that can be hard to attin before entry level raiding anyhow. The issue i am always wary of is people who have bad latency, you can be solidly epic'd out with ilvl 213+ and put out less then 1500 dps if you can't ever face the mobs due to latency issues. yeah you might be more then geared but if your disconnecting 7 times in an hour i'd rather have the lesser geared person who can actually do an encounter.

i was able to gear up in just two or three days of heroics. In many cases i never even did the Lvl 80 normal versions of alot of the dungeons (i also had a good amount of T6 lvl gear though)

I only had T4/T5 and still had a similar experience. I was almost fully heroic dungeon geared shortly after 80. The shorter heroics really made gearing easier for me. My schedule in TBC often could not accomadate a heroic run, now I can get 2 or 3 in, and still keep the wife happy by actually being done with somthing in a 15-20 mins!

I don't think the 25 mans are all that much more difficult than the 10-mans. The thing is getting people trained up on the encounters in 10-man, then 25 man isn't hard really. And it's difficult keeping 25 people from getting grumpy on learning a new encounter. We had some new people on the Instructor Ravious fight controlling the students and it was a loooong learning curve, pretty tiring on everyone I think. If they'd had the practice for it from the 10-mans, I think it would have been easier.

With PUGs unless you can find experienced people you might not want to do that.

We're also having a hard time making the leap.

We did our first 25-man Naxx last friday (1-16-09) and it went...ok! We cleared the first two wings and only ran a bit over on our alotted time.

We wiped on almost every boss encounter at least once while the raid adjusted to the learning curve. Our 10-man team was there, and they have full cleared Naxx-10, so that helped alot. In hind sight, I think Naxx-25 is actually easier than 10, only becuase of buffs and versitility. Even if you lose a healer or two on Heigan (and lord knows we did!) you still have someone up cleansing diseases etc. Same thing with DPS. We had people putting out anywhere from 1200-4500 DPS and beat all the DPS timers by a land slide.

We ended up bringing about 4 people who were not guildies on the run. (They weren't pure PUGs, but from members friends lists). I strongly reccomend any guild that is able to push through Naxx-10, and has 15 or so reliable folks in guild to give it a shot and PUG the rest. Even if those 10 PuG's are dead the majority of the run, you have a pretty good shot at getting some big upgrades for your guild.

On a side note: We don't really actively recruit new members. We are the oldest standing guild on our server, and folks usually come to us from referral or word of mouth. The Naxx-25 group helped to spark some interest in our guild from those we did bring in. So if you are a few members short of a full 25 man, I say give it a shot! A few weeks in, I think your numbers will naturally grow.

Our guild is along the same lines as your guild in regards to numbers, Solar. We ran a Naxx25 this past weekend with people outside the guild that some guildies new and ran intances with very regularly. The Raid Leader was bombed with tells from people interested in joining our guild over this week. Good stuff!

Excellent! Well now the real fun begins...you get to try and figure out which ones will be contributing members to your guild and which ones are just every other guilds rejects!

Welcome to guild management...it's a blast!

Our blessing is also our curse, we are a family friendly guild, so many of the more skilled players in game are also those "less socially mature". We kick more people for just being rude than anything else. And unfortunatley most new members are not accustomed to "keeping it clean". Profanity is our #1 member killer right now.

I think Naxx-25 is actually easier than 10, only becuase of buffs and versitility

agree 110%. On a player-by-player basis, 25-man is much easier. Not as much oweness on each individual, more about the overall power of the group.

Just a little harder to actually gather 25 people and keep them all on track. heh

When I'm healing, I much prefer healing for a 25 than a 10. Better lewts, and 10's are more pressure! :D

agree 110%. On a player-by-player basis, 25-man is much easier. Not as much oweness on each individual, more about the overall power of the group.


Naxx10 is far easier than 25.
Don't forget about some bosses when not naxx25 geared allready:
- Widow (if enrage-dispell fails, your tank gets some problems)
- Thaddius
- Gluth (can be a pain in the ass if not enough damage to nuke down the adds)
- Heigan (more ppl = more errors while dancing)
- Instructor (manage the mind-control-thing)
- Kel (more ppl in iceblocks)

But these are problems for ppl new to naxx25.
So the jump from 10 to 25 will be i little challenging.

We are 3 weeks (tonight is 4th) into our 25 mans, and consistently clearing Spider / Plaque wings. Construct / Military are giving us some trouble, but we only raid one night, 3 hours, so we don't get a lot of attempts at the later 2.

We clear the "easy" wings first with the attitude that it is slowly gearing out guildies, with loot, and badges so that the other wings will be a bit smoother.