Difficulty 8m / 16m

[Arctus]

Hello,

i would like to read your expierence / opinion on the balancing of the different raid sizes.

We are a 8m group who cleared nim easily (only problem was soa). Then we expanded our rooster and tried 16m.
When we first entered 16m nm it felt harder than 8m nim. First we thought, okay its because the other 8 player we invited are undergeared. So we created 3 different 8m groups, who all cleared the whole hm content in 8 hours.
After this week we combined the groups again and tried 16m and it felt like a pain again. It was okay and we could clear 16m hardmode...

But every fight seemed to need so much more tactics and far better execution, compared to 8m.

So i m interested how you rate the difficulty.

[Rooks]

16 vs 8 isn't always black and white for difficulty. Some fights are actually easier with 16 people, obviously some are easier with 8, and some are just a wash (even... like the Council).

Trash is the biggest difference in 16 man. It is much harder, with the latter pulls in HH forcing you to use some smart tactics and be on the ball.

The EV droid is far more difficult on 16 man, to a point where we don't even bother with him on Hard mode. We just split into two 8mans, then reform for Gharj. The Droids shockwave hits for about 3.5 times more damage in 16 man than it does in 8 man. This is ridiculous.

Everything else in EV seems about even. Gharj is just easy period, the Pylons are the Pylons, and the Council is still a one on one fight. Soa is interesting because in 8 man, the mind traps are more of an issue and the lightning balls less of one, but in 16man that reverses. Mind Traps go down so fast they become trivial and P2 and P3 become all about cleanly taking care of lightning balls and protecting the raid.

8man BT is probably simpler just because it is easier to spread out, but Jarg and Sorno are probably better in 16man because you have more margin for error with more bodies. I can't say for certain. By time we got to HH, our raid was pretty much 16man full time so I have little 8 man experience there.

[Saeria]

I've done all of EV in 8 Nightmare and 16 Nightmare and I agree with the above, trash is the most significant thing. The differences themselves depend on the fight.

I find Soa to be more foregiving to 16 man because there are more bodies and less of a chance of RNG screwing you up. In 8 man pretty much every pull we experienced healer in mind trap + healer in the air. In 16 man, even if this happens you still have 2 more healers. Additionally you have a bit more flexibility, Sorcs are definitely advantageous to any healing comp and you can easily run 2-3 in 16-man to provide shields or aoe heal. In 8 man, if you're running only one sorc and he's in the air, then who is throwing out shields for lightning balls?

The trash though is just brutally stupid. The trash on 16 man leading up to Gharj is legitamately harder than Gharj himself and harder than Pylons.

I also believe some of the numbers tuning are off. As the above poster mentioned, you can't just arbitarily increase damage by 3.5x because the health pools of everyone in the raid is the same. More healers don't compensate either. That's not how it works.

[Cepma]

The other two individuals have covered it. Much like World of Warcraft with 10 vs. 25, there is no hard and fast rule in terms of difficulty of 8-man vs. 16-man. Some fights are more conducive to "work arounds" in 16-man due to the sheer man-power, and as aforementioned, Soa is a great example of that. On 8-man, if your tank is mind-trapper, or your main-healer, you're in severe trouble. On 16-man, you've got a literal manpower advantage that not only reduces the chance of your MT or MH being trapped, but also an advantage that should mean you have enough additional healers and at least one additional tank that should make losing the MT or MH fairly inconsequential. Jarg and Sorno are also an example of an easier 16-man fight; again, more bodies, less problems due to margin of error, as the previous poster stated.

Agreed on BT being easier on 8-man, worse on 16-man. 8-man is better on the couple of fights where "spread out" is the word of the day, as the boss rooms are constant between modes, but the number of bodies that fills it changes between 8 and 16-man - naturally meaning that BT is easier on 8-man.

So... yeah. More or less concur with the previous posters. Both modes have their hard parts, both have their easy parts, just like in any other MMO that has multiple size settings for end-game - one mode isn't neccessarily "easier" than the other, they're just different. Just run whatever makes more sense for your guild.

[NerfGaming1337]

i stuck with 8 as its harder as there is less room for error

[Rooks]

(04-21-2012 04:16 AM)NerfGaming1337 Wrote:  i stuck with 8 as its harder as there is less room for error

I'll agree with the second part, but in tier one at least, 16 man was far more difficult than 8, except on very specific fights. Bioware has addressed this somewhat in T2 (they seem closer in challenge), which is good. T1 8man was almost a joke in comparison to 8.

[Petrus]

(04-22-2012 04:10 PM)Rooks Wrote:  

(04-21-2012 04:16 AM)NerfGaming1337 Wrote:  i stuck with 8 as its harder as there is less room for error

I'll agree with the second part, but in tier one at least, 16 man was far more difficult than 8, except on very specific fights. Bioware has addressed this somewhat in T2 (they seem closer in challenge), which is good. T1 8man was almost a joke in comparison to 8.

I think this is really a matter of opinion, as for us there were only two fights that were harder in 16m. Overall 16m was easier, and we did all the nightmare modes while carrying 2 to 4 new players in blue/tionese gear. It may come down to class balance or strategy, but outside of Jarg/Sorno and Pylons I wouldn't say anything was harder in 16m, and most were easier. Annihilator, Soa, Crusher, Gharj and Infernal Council were all noticeably easier on 16m - Soa, Annihilator and IC were borderline faceroll - to us at least - where there were several 8m fights that were quite challenging.

[Inox]

(04-22-2012 04:10 PM)Rooks Wrote:  

(04-21-2012 04:16 AM)NerfGaming1337 Wrote:  i stuck with 8 as its harder as there is less room for error

I'll agree with the second part, but in tier one at least, 16 man was far more difficult than 8, except on very specific fights. Bioware has addressed this somewhat in T2 (they seem closer in challenge), which is good. T1 8man was almost a joke in comparison to 8.

*

I will remember for ever the fucking boss of jarg and Sorno on 16M NM..god, 21k in 1second, 0.5s to clear debuff.

Very hard boss imho.