Tier 11 Difficulty Data – Comparing Normal, Heroic, 10 Player, and 25 Player Stats

With Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, and Throne of the Four Winds now out for over a week, we decided to take a look at the group data for their launch week to see statistical differences between all the different raid difficulties now present in Cataclysm Classic.

This data was collected by Warcraft Logs from May 30th to June 3rd, with the specific snapshot of data below being collected on June 4th around the weekly reset time.

Bastion of Twilight OverviewBlackwing Descent OverviewThrone of the Four Winds Overview

Heroic Difficulty Curve

To start, we can look at the number of kills on Heroic for both 10 and 25-player modes.

10 Player Heroic Kills

25 Player Heroic Kills

In both difficulties, the easiest boss to begin progression on is Halfus Wyrmbreaker, with over 2100 kills on 10-Heroic and over 1800 kills on 25-Heroic.

After that, the next step seems to be the first five bosses in Blackwing Descent, with Magmaw and Atramedes being the easiest ones, followed by Omnotron Defense System, Chimaeron, and Maloriak. While the progression happens all in Blackwing Descent, Maloriak has half as many kills as other bosses, but the progression is fairly linear.

The next step in the difficulty curve is Valiona & Theralion and Conclave of Wind. After that, difficulty ramps up, and discrepancies begin between 10 and 25.

For 10m, Al’akir seems to be the easiest choice here, followed by Cho’gal and Ascendant Council. Note that while all Heroic bosses are required to kill Sinestra in Bastion of Twilight, you can kill normal Ascendant Council and then Heroic Cho’gall, which seems to be the choice for some guilds, as Cho’gall is easier and the loot is superior to Ascendant Council. The final bosses then are Nefarian and Sinestra, both with around 110 kills each during week one.

For 25m, Al’akir seems to have a similar difficulty to Sinestra and Nefarian, leaving Ascendant Council and Cho’gall as the next step after Conclave of Wind. After those, then 25m raids head into Al’akir, followed by Sinestra and Nefarian.

Population Comparison

One interesting aspect of the data is comparing the number of groups doing 10 and 25-player content. With lockouts shared in Cataclysm, players need to choose between 10 or 25-player raids for their characters. For Normal mode, we have almost 90,000 10-player kills between all Tier 11 raids while only having a little over 37,000 25-player kills logged. If you normalize for raid size, there’s an even split in the number of players doing 10 and 25-player normal raids, which leads to a larger number of 10-player kills due to roster size.

For Heroic, the numbers change drastically. During the first week, there were 10,892 10-player Heroic kills logged and 10,058 25-player Heroic kills logged, which means that more than double the number of players doing 25-player Heroic content than 10-player Heroic content.

Difficulty Per Boss

The data offered by WarcraftLogs allow us to compare the number of attempts logged per boss versus the number of kills on each boss, offering a good insight on the average number of pulls each boss takes to die per difficulty and raid size.

10-Player Normal

25-Player Normal

10-Player Heroic

25-Player Heroic

The first thing you’ll notice from those charts is the ramp-up in difficulty that is Nefarian on Normal mode for both 10 and 25-player raids. It represents a steep increase in difficulty and challenge for groups in every raid size.

Looking at Heroic, it is interesting to notice that every boss takes, on average, more attempts to kill in 10-player Heroic than in 25-player. This can be an indication of 10-Heroic being more difficult or perhaps that the best players prefer to do 25-player content. More research is required to pinpoint the cause of it.

Raw Data

10-Player Normal

Boss	Kills	Wipes	Kill %	Parses	Pulls per Kill
Omnotron Defense System	8093	595	93.2	8688	1.07
Atramedes	7666	1450	84.1	9116	1.19
Cho’gall	8189	1961	80.7	10150	1.24
Theralion and Valiona	8159	2380	77.4	10539	1.29
Halfus Wyrmbreaker	6473	2141	75.1	8614	1.33
Conclave of Wind	6368	2775	69.6	9143	1.44
Al’Akir	6897	4271	61.8	11168	1.62
Magmaw	7353	5370	57.8	12723	1.73
Maloriak	8321	6481	56.2	14802	1.78
Ascendant Council	8371	10697	43.9	19068	2.28
Chimaeron	8180	12203	40.1	20383	2.49
Nefarian’s End	5869	67545	8	73414	12.51

25-Player Normal

Boss	Kills	Wipes	Kill %	Parses	Pulls per Kill
Omnotron Defense System	3599	175	95.4	3774	1.05
Halfus Wyrmbreaker	2204	207	91.4	2411	1.09
Atramedes	2978	281	91.4	3259	1.09
Theralion and Valiona	3268	676	82.9	3944	1.21
Cho’gall	3284	748	81.4	4032	1.23
Conclave of Wind	2522	895	73.8	3417	1.35
Maloriak	3604	1695	68	5299	1.47
Magmaw	3381	1836	64.8	5217	1.54
Ascendant Council	3404	2550	57.2	5954	1.75
Al’Akir	2681	2835	48.6	5516	2.06
Chimaeron	3533	5762	38	9295	2.63
Nefarian’s End	2804	19960	12.3	22764	8.12

10-Player Heroic

Boss	Kills	Wipes	Kill %	Parses	Pulls per Kill
Halfus Wyrmbreaker	2162	18682	10.4	20844	9.64
Magmaw	1698	27168	5.9	28866	17.00
Atramedes	1644	10090	14	11734	7.14
Omnotron Defense System	1220	17352	6.6	18572	15.22
Chimaeron	995	11690	7.8	12685	12.75
Maloriak	857	6619	11.5	7476	8.72
Theralion and Valiona	742	15733	4.5	16475	22.20
Conclave of Wind	656	15510	4.1	16166	24.64
Al’Akir	270	7345	3.5	7615	28.20
Cho’gall	217	2288	8.7	2505	11.54
Ascendant Council	208	6111	3.3	6319	30.38
Nefarian’s End	115	4467	2.5	4582	39.84
Sinestra	108	2661	3.9	2769	25.64

25-Player Heroic

Boss	Kills	Wipes	Kill %	Parses	Pulls per Kill
Halfus Wyrmbreaker	1840	11645	13.6	13485	7.33
Atramedes	1663	7146	18.9	8809	5.30
Magmaw	1395	21307	6.1	22702	16.27
Omnotron Defense System	1171	11234	9.4	12405	10.59
Chimaeron	1009	7821	11.4	8830	8.75
Maloriak	918	4387	17.3	5305	5.78
Theralion and Valiona	647	11131	5.5	11778	18.20
Conclave of Wind	483	8803	5.2	9286	19.23
Ascendant Council	235	5752	3.9	5987	25.48
Cho’gall	233	3353	6.5	3586	15.39
Al’Akir	174	4466	3.8	4640	26.67
Sinestra	153	2352	6.1	2505	16.37
Nefarian’s End	137	3807	3.5	3944	28.79