So far, Wrath of the Lich King has been the lack of challenging end-game content. Once you hit 80, there is the familiar tour of existing 5-man instances in Heroic mode. They provide plenty of activities for the casual player for quite a while. Loot is good - good enough to replace old level 70 epics from Sunwell Plateau and a badge system with Emblems of Heroism allows you to obtain additional pieces to fill out that last hole or two in your gear. All Heroic dungeons have unique loot tables that do not share items with the normal version of the instance.
Both 10- and 25-man versions are on separate raid timers and with separate loot tables. 10-man raids dish out same Emblems of Heroism as Heroic 5-mans while 25-man raids have their own badge system with Emblems of Valor for set loot you can use to fill up any holes in your equipment.
Before Burning Crusade, Naxxramas is familiar to those who went hardcore on raids. The flying fortress was moved to the skies of Dragonblight and the content was re-tuned. Naxxramas is a massive instance with four wings and grand total of 15 bosses to farm for some shiny epic loot. It's considered to be the "Karazhan of Northrend" - the first step for any raiding guild to conquer. And conquered it was - first guild cleared Naxxramas in less than three days after launch. By the time Shaman hit 80 after a three day no-life leveling session; one guild had already done the same with 25 characters and killed every single raid boss available in the game.
Wrath of the Lich King end-game content is very easy; in particular, the raid content for 25-man raids is tuned for everyone who bothers to show up. Part of the problem is that there is only one real raid instance, Naxxramas. The three other raids are just single bosses, similar to Onyxia or Magtheridon. Only the Malygos fight includes some novel concepts that require some creative thinking when facing him for the first time.
In effect, 10-man raids are slightly harder than the larger raids. With just 10 people you have far less room to play around and even one person dying can put a serious dent in your capability to finish the fight. It's still not exactly hard, which means that if your small 10-man raid can clear Naxxramas, all you need is to add 15 random people and you are ready to take on the larger version - it isn't any harder, drops better loot and gives you far more room for individual failures. Many 25-man raid fights are perfectly doable with just 15 people playing properly.
Aimed to the casual player even the raids, Blizzard have responded to the related complaints about the content. The goal is to provide a very smooth landing to the world of raids for those who have previously been unable to participate. In this regard, Burning Crusade was the complete opposite - even Karazhan put up a fight early on and first 25-man raids were outright brutal early on. It was all nerfed later to accommodate casuals, but by then many had already decided that raiding was not for them. With Northrend starts out already designed for casuals and with the difficulty slider at "noob" level.
For the most part, we really want to say that the endgame content is scheduled to be patched in. To large scale, Wrath of the Lich King has numerous five man dungeons that can be set to "heroic mode", increasing the difficulty and the reward. The biggest complaint from casual players in the previous expansion pertained to the barrier of entry for the game's 10 and 25 man content, as it was still too high for the average players. Wrath of the Lich King counters this by offering every raid in a 10 or 25 person flavor, and making the first two raid instances achievable with little practice or gear.
Both 10- and 25-man versions are on separate raid timers and with separate loot tables. 10-man raids dish out same Emblems of Heroism as Heroic 5-mans while 25-man raids have their own badge system with Emblems of Valor for set loot you can use to fill up any holes in your equipment.
Before Burning Crusade, Naxxramas is familiar to those who went hardcore on raids. The flying fortress was moved to the skies of Dragonblight and the content was re-tuned. Naxxramas is a massive instance with four wings and grand total of 15 bosses to farm for some shiny epic loot. It's considered to be the "Karazhan of Northrend" - the first step for any raiding guild to conquer. And conquered it was - first guild cleared Naxxramas in less than three days after launch. By the time Shaman hit 80 after a three day no-life leveling session; one guild had already done the same with 25 characters and killed every single raid boss available in the game.
Wrath of the Lich King end-game content is very easy; in particular, the raid content for 25-man raids is tuned for everyone who bothers to show up. Part of the problem is that there is only one real raid instance, Naxxramas. The three other raids are just single bosses, similar to Onyxia or Magtheridon. Only the Malygos fight includes some novel concepts that require some creative thinking when facing him for the first time.
In effect, 10-man raids are slightly harder than the larger raids. With just 10 people you have far less room to play around and even one person dying can put a serious dent in your capability to finish the fight. It's still not exactly hard, which means that if your small 10-man raid can clear Naxxramas, all you need is to add 15 random people and you are ready to take on the larger version - it isn't any harder, drops better loot and gives you far more room for individual failures. Many 25-man raid fights are perfectly doable with just 15 people playing properly.
Aimed to the casual player even the raids, Blizzard have responded to the related complaints about the content. The goal is to provide a very smooth landing to the world of raids for those who have previously been unable to participate. In this regard, Burning Crusade was the complete opposite - even Karazhan put up a fight early on and first 25-man raids were outright brutal early on. It was all nerfed later to accommodate casuals, but by then many had already decided that raiding was not for them. With Northrend starts out already designed for casuals and with the difficulty slider at "noob" level.
For the most part, we really want to say that the endgame content is scheduled to be patched in. To large scale, Wrath of the Lich King has numerous five man dungeons that can be set to "heroic mode", increasing the difficulty and the reward. The biggest complaint from casual players in the previous expansion pertained to the barrier of entry for the game's 10 and 25 man content, as it was still too high for the average players. Wrath of the Lich King counters this by offering every raid in a 10 or 25 person flavor, and making the first two raid instances achievable with little practice or gear.
