Remember back in 2008 when we were first hearing about the raid design for WotLK and Blizz was talking all about having separate progression paths for 10mans and 25mans?

What the hell happened to that?

I can’t think of many ways in which the phrase "separate progression paths" applies at all to what we have today. Originally I imagined how such a concept would play out using the Burning Crusade raids as a starting point. A 10man guild would start with Karazhan and after roflstomping their way through Medivh’s bedroom they would advance to Zul’Aman, (presumably with a more coherent storyline so the progression makes sense, not just a "Oh hey guys now that you’ve disemboweled Nightbane have a jog on up to the other side of the world and kill a one-armed troll" sort of thing). After killing Zul’jin, the storyline could/would take you on into a subchamber of the Black Temple where you dispatch a high commander demon hunter serving under Illidan or some such nonsense.

At the same time, the 25man story would be entirely different. At first, they’d start with Magtheridon. After killing Maggie, they’d follow the storyline into Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern ultimately ending up squaring off against Illidan in Black Temple and then Kil’jaeden in the Sunwell.

Separate progression paths, separate storylines guiding them.

That turned out to be the opposite of what Blizzard decided. With Wrath, they made two copies of each raid: a 25man copy and a 10man copy. Exact same bosses, exact same locations, and for the most part the exact same tactics and strategies. Slightly disappointing but understandable given what it would mean in terms of scope and effort that would be needed to make totally different raids each tier level.

Unfortunately things got muddy between the alleged "separate progression paths" very quickly. Blizzard’s overwhelming fear was that if people could do 10man versions of every raid, nobody would ever run the 25man version. The policy they came up with to ensure that didn’t happen, and the policy still in effect today, is that of showering 25mans with all manner of perks and bonuses and giving none of them to 10mans.

It might have looked ok on paper at first: 25mans get recipe and pattern drops, more loot, better quality loot, and an exclusive emblem token. The addition of legendary weapons only available to 25mans certainly sours things from the 10man perspective but even still, on paper it all appears tolerable to a degree. After all, putting in an inferior copy of a legendary feels wrong to just about everyone. Getting [Shadowmourne] is an awesome personal milestone, getting [Shadowsad] doesn’t quite feel as epic.

Where it breaks down is that use of the word "separate". The 10 and 25man "progression paths" are only separate if you’re in a 10man raiding guild. If you’re in a 25man raiding guild the 10man raids are just as open and available to you as any others. This is a huge problem in my opinion.

No, this isn’t 3.0 still and you can’t "just pug it" if you want to go into a 25man raid. Nor does that address half the problems in the situation anyway. I wish you the best of luck pugging Ulduar to get your legendary hammer.

Hard modes only further compound the problem. Let’s say a really nice, well-itemized trinket drops from a 10man hard mode. We’ll give it a nice made up name and call it the Mjolnir Runestone. For certain classes, this make-believe trinket is one of their potential best-in-slot items. No problem. The 25man guild fields a 10man raid to work on 10man hard modes to farm the trinket. The difficulty of said hard mode is made easier due to the raid being equipped with 25man gear. Along the way, this group amasses a sizeable pile of badges they can use to fill in any significant gaps in their own gear sets.

Now suppose a 10man raider wants a trinket that drops from a 25man hard mode. The "just pug it" answer is rightly exposed in all its ignorant glory and the 10man raider does what is practical and tries to forget the trinket ever existed.

If Blizzard thinks that 25’s absolutely need to be showered with perks in order to entice people to run them, whatever. I probably won’t care too much at all. To have all of the benefits exclusive to 25mans and the benefits available to 10mans is a bit much. 25man raiding guilds shouldn’t have the option of running 10mans as a means to practice an instance prior to doing it "for real" in the 25man setting. They shouldn’t have the option to gear up through 10s and 25s simultaneously.

We should get to a place where 10s and 25s really are separate progression paths as they were originally pitched. For now, let’s just make the raid ID’s mutually exclusive. If you want to run Ulduar on 10man, you can’t run it again that week on 25man. You stay on your side of the fence and I’ll stay on mine. I don’t expect many people to be on board with that idea but I’d certainly appreciate it.