Hello fellow Azeroth adventurers,
I’ve been reflecting on the current raid buff scenario in World of Warcraft and it’s clear to see there’s a significant issue affecting our raiding experience. The necessity to have almost every class represented in a raid to benefit from all the available buffs/debuffs has drastically limited the flexibility in raid composition.
This not only imposes a rigid structure on raid groups but also often forces players into playing classes they might not prefer, just to ensure that essential buffs are provided. This situation stifles the creative and enjoyable aspect of raid composition, and can be quite disheartening for guilds and groups of friends who wish to raid together on their preferred classes.
The Problem:
The current system requires locking in about 16 of the 20 raid slots to specific classes to ensure all raid buffs are covered. This severely limits the variance and the fun aspect of building raid comps with friends or guild members. It’s a bit of a dampener when players are forced to play certain classes to provide essential raid buffs.
Proposed Solution:
I propose a solution that decouples raid buffs from individual classes and associates them with the Tier Tokens instead. This change can retain the essence of having diverse class representation while eliminating the constraints imposed by the current system. The idea is to introduce four new buffs, each tied to a Tier Token category:
- Mark of the Zenith
- Applies the Mark of the Zenith to your raid group, increasing Intellect, Attack Power, and Stamina by 0.75%, reducing damage taken by 0.75%, and enhancing Physical and Magic damage dealt by 1.25%. This effect stacks up to 4 times, but can only be applied once per Zenith tier token class present. Duration: 2 hours.
- Mark of the Dreadful
- Applies the Mark of the Dreadful to your raid group, increasing Intellect, Attack Power, and Stamina by 0.75%, reducing damage taken by 0.75%, and enhancing Physical and Magic damage dealt by 1.25%. This effect stacks up to 4 times, but can only be applied once per Dreadful tier token class present. Duration: 2 hours.
- Mark of the Mystic
- Applies the Mark of the Mystic to your raid group, increasing Intellect, Attack Power, and Stamina by 0.75%, reducing damage taken by 0.75%, and enhancing Physical and Magic damage dealt by 1.25%. This effect stacks up to 4 times, but can only be applied once per Mystic tier token class present. Duration: 2 hours.
- Mark of the Venerated
- Applies the Mark of the Venerated to your raid group, increasing Intellect, Attack Power, and Stamina by 0.75%, reducing damage taken by 0.75%, and enhancing Physical and Magic damage dealt by 1.25%. This effect stacks up to 4 times, but can only be applied once per Venerated tier token class present. Duration: 2 hours.
Each mark provides the same buff, and they stack up to 4 times but can only be applied once per “tier token” class present in the raid. This way, the sum total of the buffs remains the same, but the distribution is more flexible, allowing for a wider variety of raid compositions.
I believe this solution could significantly alleviate the rigidity of the current raid buff scenario, bringing back the fun and creative aspect of raid composition. It’s a win-win situation where we maintain the importance of class representation in raids without enforcing a rigid class selection.
I’d love to hear the community’s thoughts on this proposal and any additional insights or suggestions you might have. Let’s work together to create a more enjoyable and flexible raiding experience in World of Warcraft!
Safe travels through Azeroth!
I feel offended I am a hero…thats what a certain dwarf calls me.
All they need to do is go back to the Wrath-era model where each buff/debuff was brought by 3 different classes.
It worked fine.
The TL;DR:
TL;DR: The current WoW raid buff system requires specific classes for buffs, limiting raid composition flexibility.
Proposing a new system where raid buffs are tied to Tier Tokens (Zenith, Dreadful, Mystic, Venerated) instead of classes.
Each token type provides a stackable buff, allowing for diverse raid compositions while maintaining the total buff values.
This fosters a more flexible and enjoyable raiding experience, letting players choose classes based on preference rather than buff necessities.
Honestly, that really only matters in very high mythic or mythic raiding
Raise the raid size to 25 or flex at least 24-26 since we are now at 13 classes.
Only had 11 classes when raid size was set at 20.
Only had 9 classes when raids were 40 then 25.
2 Likes
I feel like it’s difficult to find and keep a good 20 right now that both want to raid at the same level you do - and are similar in skill level to you. Recruitment is a forever battle. Raising the raid size to 24-26 would exacerbate that problem by a lot I think. x.x
Now I’ll agree that mythic raids should be 10 man if the guild/group wants it to be
No, I don’t think that’s the case. Yes, raid buffs are very much mandatory while raiding in mythic, but surely you still chase after those on even AOTC clearing guilds.
Fixed sizes are a bad idea; they got rid of fixed sizes for most raids when WoD came out and should have gone all the way.
1 Like
Na, not really most of the raids that I got AoTC most times consisted of too many hunters. No warlocks and no priests honestly
Flex-sized raiding would be worse at the highest level. In addition to chasing the raid buffs, you’d also be chasing the mathematical best number of bodies to make the boss the easiest to kill. It’s like that already when heroic is tuned towards difficult side week 1. xD
@Ponykisses
Your experience is valid, but I think you may be mistaken. Even in your example here you would have still had Chaos Brand, Mystic Touch, Mark of the Wild, Battle Shout, Arcane Int… you just didn’t have 3% Stamina and a lock gate/cookies. 
To your point, however, when I was chasing the dragon legendary this tier I didn’t worry a ton about raid buffs either later in the tier.
But when the content is difficult - all the buffs matter a bit too much. This impacts all of mythic definitely, but also AOTC gamers as well.
My jailer kill had 4 hunters one warrior DPS and a shaman DPS 2 pally tanks
A monk healer and shaman heals
That’s all the guild had at the time to raid
But that’s the point. They outright said this when they were talking about giving hunters a unique buff: they want each class to have some basic reason to bring it aside from numbers.
If you merge multiple classes into providing the same buff, you’re just going to bench everybody who plays those classes except for the one that sims the best.
This change would required 16 players in your raid group which automatically makes it bad for smaller raid groups.
While I like the overall idea, it needs to work for 10 man groups and maintain the same power as current for 5 man content.
There aren’t nearly that many raid buffs.
@Fortuna - That’s not sustainable. There are too many class/spec combos to fit in their content. And larger raid sizes isn’t the answer either (citation: WildStar, World of WarCraft)
@Latsyrc - This change would actually empower smaller raid comps! You would get all the current power from your raid buffs with just 4 people.
@Theodas - There really are that many buffs now.
Required:
- 5% Intellect - Mage
- 5% Stamina - Preist
- 5% Attack Power - Warrior
- 5% Physical Dmg - Monk
- 5% Magical Dmg - DH
- 3% DR or 1-5% Dmg - Paladin x2
- 3% Vers - Druid
- 3.6% DR - Rogue
- Healthstones / Gates /Curse - Warlock
- Windfury - Enh Shaman
- 5% above 80% Dmg - Hunter
- Bloodlust - (Varies)
- Combat Res - (Varies)
Fight Dependant Haves:
- Burst Move Speed - (Druid, Shaman)
- Mass Dispel - Priest
- Innervate - Druid
- Death Grip - DK
- Blessing of Protection - Paladin
- Rallying Cry - Warrior
- Darkness - DH
- Blessing of Spellwarding - Paladin
- Immunities - (Varies)