The Difficulty

The first and most obvious change between versions of Naxxramas was the reduction in difficulty. On the surface the raid was obviously a bit easier to run because it was made possible for 10 or 25 players to run it rather than 40. Additionally, players were able to enter into Naxxramas immediately at Level 80. At Level 60, it was considered a top end raid that capped the Level 60 raiding content. The difficulty was set to match the role it played there.

Redundancies and Scaling

Additionally, the content really wasn’t changed all that much. Some encounters were altered slightly to make it a bit easier to run with less people and certain things like the frost armor that was previously required to complete the end of the raid is no longer required due to the cut back of resistance encounters in the game as a whole.

Creating New Rewards

Of course, this time around, the instance has a completely different role. While most players will use it as a stepping stone into level 80 raiding, and back into Heroic dungeon running, it has also become the easiest way to farm for epics, due to how easy it is to run multiple encounters in short periods of time every week. There are 16 different encounters in the raid and that makes it much easier to get the gear that is available to players for completing each encounter.

In the end, Naxxramas at Level 80 was a great opportunity for players who came into WoW after Naxxramas was closed down or for players who remember it nostalgically and are intrigued and excited to get involved in the content again but with different goals and rewards. It also reintroduces bosses familiar to players now through Death Knight story lines and generally makes for a much more interesting, feature rich run through than the original Naxxramas, even if it is much easier.

Naxxramas used to be the biggest thing around. Learn if you’re classic strategies will get you anywhere and if you can stand up to the new 10 man raiding content in WotLK by visiting WarcraftFormula.net today.

But that all changed when WotLK hit and the game started emphasizing more advanced, real time battles in World PvP with their first real time PvP battle zone in Lake Wintergrasp. The new zone had players facing off in epic battles on the live server (no instancing) and getting rewarded with points that would allow them to buy rare and valuable items such as the new Heirloom items that can be used on any character in the account from level 1 to 80 and beyond.

In addition to the way in which the game now works on live servers, many players can get directly involved to include a slew of different ways in which players can take advantage of weaknesses of their opponents, use PvP to get into PvE content and then get rewarded with everything from Emblems of Heroism to the rare and valuable Season 5 Gear.

In the end, while there are new PvP objectives and World PvP options in Grizzly Hills as well, you are only going to hear about Lake Wintergrasp where Blizzard has put into place more options than ever before to get players involved, ensure that the content remains fresh and relevant and to build up a means by which they can grow their PvP options to compete with other MMOs built entirely on PvP like Warhammer Online.

World PvP is here to stay and as the popularity of Lake Wintergrasp dicates, you can expect a whole slew of new options in future patches and expansions as the game gets more depth added to real world PvP. Expect that your skill level now will have a huge impact on how you perform in the future as well, especially if you want to start getting the top rewards and achievements.

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PvP Bible

What a 10 Man Raiding Group Looks Like

A 10 man raiding group is going to fundamentally look a bit differently from any other group out there. While the 10 man raids are technically considered to be easier than the 25 man raids (and currently are pretty easy when you get it down), they do require quite a bit of flexibility from every member on your team. You’ll be going up against 1 million HP bosses with two teams of players and if a healer goes down you may have one extra on your staff. The same is true for your tank, so it is important that every single person on your team can play at least two roles. This is much easier these days with stats compounding for casters and tanks.

For tanks, you should have two tanks for every 10 man group and at least one off-tank who will act as DPS but can step in for tanking if necessary. Feral Druids, Blood Death Knights and Retribution Paladins are all good for this.

For healers, you’ll need two for most groups – this provides one for each tank but can make it hard to maintain the healing you’ll need to keep your group members alive against AoE bosses or ones with diseases or DoTs. Three healers is better, though you then need to consider whether you have enough DPS coming from the remaining 5 DPS members, especially against bosses with enrage timers that are shorter than most.

The best way to balance this out is to have two dedicated healers and an off healer who can throw out heals as needed for DPS members when they get hit – Shamans, Druids and Paladins can all play this role if they are properly specced. Shadow Priests are also good here because the Priest gear is all pretty close to the same now since Spell Power covers healing and damage.

Keep in mind that when you go into a 10 man raid, you need to flexible and versatile. Keep your eyes open, build up a group of highly talented, multi-functional people and bring the player not the class and you’ll do well.

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