Back with Angered again, this time we talk to the other co-GM of the 10 man guild and get his perspective on things. If you missed the first part you can check it out here.

Introductions.

I'm Samadin, formerly known under the nickname Sameboy from previous expansions. I play a Protection Paladin as CO-GM and Main Tank in Angered. I'm a 22 year old athlete from Norway. I compete in pole vaulting at a international level, though I've been injured for the past one and a half years. I've been playing WOW Since early Vanilla, and I've played as tank throughout every expansion so far.


You've managed a high finish in the Dragon Soul race, was this something you were specifically aiming for or did it just happen while you were doing your own thing?

Despite our overall rank 40 from T12 I was very confident we would achieve a much higher rank as we were very well prepared, and everyone was ready to push hard for the ranks. I was personally a bit disappointed with the world rank we ended on, regardless of the giant leap from the previous tier.
We hit the brickwall that was Spine like most guilds and realised our roster wasn't strong enough for tendon burns, so we got stuck there way longer than we had predicted.


When you started clearing the heroic modes, did you have a feeling like it was really going well and that you might really have a shot at the top spots?

The entire guild was confident and very focused from the second we stepped into the instance after some valor farming and BH runs earlier in the day. We knew we had a head start due to the LFR bans, but we also knew that most of the 25man guilds were running 10man groups, so we kept pushing and didn't waste any time.


What was your situation with the LFR exploit, did it impact your guild in any way? Did it impact the 10 man race at all to your knowledge?

The LFR exploits had no effect on our guild, and I strongly doubt it had any effect on the 10man race as a whole either. Personally I didn't even hear about guilds exploiting LFR untill they actually got banned for it. As LFR is designed for 25players it was difficult for us to actually win items in there even with class stacking alts, hence why we spent minimal time in LFR.

Let's talk a bit about 10 man raiding then.

There are always discussions about 25 man vs 10 man, which is "better" or "harder" or which means more, but I think we can all agree they are just two different disciplines and each has its own unique challenges. What are your thoughts on that?

They are indeed two completely different disciplines, and since they are equaled as one when it comes to realm firsts we've had a hard time getting accepted on the server by casual 25 man guilds, simply because they remember the 10man scene to be easy back in Wrath, and they will probably stick to that state of mind untill the end.

It's very hard to judge which is harder, it's obvious that it's easier to gather 10 good players and have a strong core, rather than having 25 good players. But when it comes to raid setups I'd say you can pick classes more freely in a 25man guild, whilst some fights on 10man clearly favour ranged classes, such as Zon'ozz and Blackhorn. Not to mention Spine where some classes were highly favoured above others.

Pre nerf encounters on 10man haven't exactly been melee friendly the past few tiers, and the setups you can use to get the required amount of buffs for different fights are also very strict. We tried bringing melee classes in on Zon'ozz and Blackhorn, but it didn't take us long to realise which classes those flights favoured the most.

I'm not really bothered about the 10 vs 25 discussions as they always end up bad with the 25 man playerbase saying 10man is easy, and vice versa. But I think we all can agree that enrage timers currently are a joke on 10man, whilst they are slightly higher tuned on 25 such as Ultraxion and Blackhorn, and I would like to see tighter enrage timers on the 10man encounters in the future.


What is the 10 man scene like at the moment, with Dragon Soul being relatively over?

The 10man scene didn't change alot from from T12 except for a few guilds advancing on the rankings including ourselves. Though I have noticed a disturbance in the force with the huge increase of Korean guilds on the rank 100 list, and I believe there's many guilds out there to watch out for in Mists of Pandaria.

How important is class stacking in 10 man? Does it really impact the race as much as on the 25 man side?

I would actually go so far as saying that class stacking affects 10 man even more than 25. Zon'ozz and Blackhorn are so much easier with enough ranged classes in the setup, and Spine as we all know favours high burst classes. We actually replaced our Raid leader on this fight only to get in a better burst class.
We knew very early that we didn't have the correct classes for Spine and immediatley started gearing up alts and recruited a new Arcane Mage only for that fight, which also proved to be useful on Madness. And with our 1 tank tactic there, that fight favoured ranged classes aswell.

How hard is it to keep a good roster for you, obviously it's easier than on the 25 man side, but did you encounter any issues with it?

I'm very satisfied with our roster. We only have 11 players in it, and most of them have a solid amount of alts aswell. Our in-guild environment is very well forged together, despite some small crashes here and there over whoever gets Dark Intent in raids.


What would you say the biggest differences are between 25 and 10 man raiding, whether it's on a community, player or game level?

The social aspect in the guild definitely. We have almost every raider on teamspeak all day just sitting there having a laugh, I never recall that in any 25 man guild I've ever played in. It's always gatherings of small groups here and there talking behind the backs of other players. I really enjoy the environment we have where everybody knows eachother so well, except for the one crazy-guy you stay away from on the bus, which for us is a mage whose name will remain hidden for his own protection!


What is it your guild does differently from others that makes it special (can be good or bad)?

We have a tiny roster consisting of 11 players, and each player has multiple alts. As a ground rule we want our raiders to have classes that can mainly perform their respective raid role. We also had all our tactics worked out before the actual heroic progress went live, and we spent more time on normal modes to get things straight than we did in the previous tier. Huge improvement for us, and we can still become better at this.

What really separates the best from the slightly worse comes down to situational awareness, it doesn't help pulling big numbers if you die all the time. On progress we do what we can to kill the boss, even if that means sacrificing abit of DPS to survive.


To what extent do you monitor what other guilds are doing and does it influence you?

We are mostly doing our own thing, but if someone kills stuff before us we check which roster they went with, calculate the possibility for us to run the same setup and tactic, or do as we do and keep banging our heads against the wall untill it collapses.

Dragon Soul

How would you rate the difficulty of the instance overall, whether it's compared to Firelands or previous tiers?

I was slightly disappointed with the difficulty level in Dragon Soul, especially the end bosses compared to Ragnaros which I personally think was the most amazing fight in Cataclysm. Both Spine and Madness were poorly designed, new mechanics but nothing that completely kicked me out of my chair when I first saw the fights. Out of the 6 first it was only Ultraxion that I thought was undertuned. I'll still rate the 6 first in Dragon Soul above the 6 first in Firelands.


What about Madness and or Spine, which was the real endboss here and how does it compare with Ragnaros or some of the previous endbosses? Was it worthy of an expansion finisher?

I must admit it I didn't get the same epic feeling in the end of Madness and Spine as I did after killing Ragnaros for the first time. Ragnaros had so many different phases and so many new mechanics you had to learn all the way untill the very end of the fight. And I really liked that, unlike Spine and Madness where you do the exact same thing for 10-15 minutes untill the boss is dead. Yet I believe Angered won the race to best nerdscreams on Spine and Madness.


How did you feel about the length of the progress race this time around?

I expected it to be shorter than it was, but I'm satisfied with both the amount of bosses they introduced and the length of this tier. The length of the tier of course depends on how many hours you spend in the instance as well, and we spent a lot of hours in Dragon Soul compared to Firelands over a short period of time.


How would you improve on the overall raid design that is currently in place? (can be anything from gating, to boss designs, to bugs, to raid sizes and restrictions etc)

I would like to see some tighter enrage timers on 10 man content and intense fights rather than long lasting and draining encounters. Surprisingly few bugs in Dragon Soul compared to Firelands as well, so I'm not gonna pick much on that, except for the Void Ball getting stuck in the floor on Zon'ozz all the time, that was abit annoying in the beginning.

How do you feel about the first 6 bosses' difficulty, whether it's compared to the last 2 or compared to the first 6 in Firelands?

They were about the same difficulty as the 6 first in Firelands I'd say. Spine was simply overtuned compared to the other 6 pre encounters, and I would really like to see tougher pre-end bosses in the future actually, like Blackhorn for instance.


What do you think of the progress the game has made since it came out, what were some of the crucial moments in WoW history for you and how did they change the game?

The game has evolved so much since the release, it barely feels like I'm playing the same game as I did back then. The most crucial moment I recall was the patch before TBC was released where most guilds quit raiding and started farming battlegrounds for pvp gear instead. I must admit, I was proper raging!


What's the funniest whisper you ever got during progress?

"You make me moizt"


Time investment in raiding. Do you think it's basically a necessity to be able to raid almost all day every day now, in order to be competitive in the World First race? What are your thoughts on that?

It feels like guilds are pushing harder and harder every tier, and that's not just on progress but also on farm. Running multiple raids to build a larger roster is an absolute requirement if you want to compete at top level right now. But you will definatley fall behind in the race if you stop raiding for a week or two. We had to go through 7 different tanks in Firelands, and again in Dragon Soul we had our off-tank quit mid-progress and no one else to take his spot. So we were lucky to manage Madness with only one tank in the end.

Favorites!

- Raid instances
I'm gonna say Dragon Soul, I enjoy new content.
- Boss encounters
Ragnaros HC, clearly.
- Expansion
The Burning Crusade
- Tier set design(s)
Well since I currently play a Paladin I'll say T12. I liked the theme.
- New Features
Flying Mounts in Azeroth, what a relief.
- 5 man dungeons
End Time, quick and simple.
- Class
Paladin
- Game(s) aside from WoW
Don't spend much time in other games.


Casuals and Hard-corers (it's a word), do you think Blizzard are doing a good job of catering to both?

I think they do a decent job, though they will never be able to fully satisfy casual players with only normal modes as everyone eventually wants to do bosses on heroic, hence the nerfs. And I don't mind nerfs as long as they don't turn the fights into a joke. They went too far with the Firelands nerfs, they made the encounters too easy, espeically Ragnaros. I think the nerf system they're adding in Dragon Soul looks interesting. I think it will make farm raids less painful and time consuming for us as well. So I cross my fingers.

In closing, do you think we're headed in the right direction in top-end raiding, on Blizzard's side and on the guild's side?

Absolutely. I like the innovative way of thinking when it comes to encounter design we've seen throughout this expansion.