While the rest of the World of Warcraft players will be diving into the first wing of Highmaul in Looking for Raid (tool), the creme dela creme will be racing into Mythic (difficulty) Highmaul. Several out of the seven bosses within the raid will be defeated as quickly as possible and this could be a short race since Tier 17 raiding is split between instances.
The last time raiders had Tier content split as such was back when Mists of Pandaria first launched Tier 14 with Moghu’shan Vaults, Heart of Fear, and then Terrace of Endless Spring. Hopefully, this instance will prove a bit more challenging for the top raiders and will last longer than just four days.
Mythic will be live for these players by 10am PST for the North American realms while Europe will have to wait the following day at 10am CET. But what exactly is Mythic difficulty?
Mythic
For several years, raid difficulties had been split based on raid sizes of 10 or 25 players. The goal for the Warcraft team had always been to try to balance both raid sizes equally, but always encountered inherent issues while trying for said balance. Not to mention the big stink between these top tier raiding guilds on whether different raid sizes should be disqualified for World First once they shared lockouts after Cataclysm.
Many players are familiar with the raid structure on the left before Warlords of Draenor launched. With 6.0.3, several difficulties were merged together and the new Flexible system has been implemented across all difficulties–except one.
Mythic will require 20 dedicated players as it has replaced the previous Heroic difficulty from raiding seasons passed. This takes away the major issue for the development team to balance both raid size difficulty. Whereas before, fights such as Lei Shen (Throne of Thunder) was easier with 10 while Garrosh Hellscream (Siege of Orgrimmar) was easier with 25.
Consolidating to a single raid size allows for the developers to focus on providing the best challenging experience for the dedicated “hardcore” raiders. And currently only in-house raiders for Blizzard Entertainment have tested Mythic Highmaul.
Let The Race Begin
At 10am PST, the race for World First will begin for Warlords of Draenor. There are several progression sites for those interested in who will come out on top such as WoWProgress, GuildOx, and Wowtrack. But the race won’t be over until after Blackrock Foundry has been released several weeks later into 2015.
Several familiar favorites will be returning to try and claim the title from Method who dominated World Firsts during Mists of Pandaria. Several of these Mythic raiders have been gearing up for the challenge including the returning BlizzCon challengers Midwinter!
While Method does have the upperhand with experience, could Blood Legion or even Russian competitors Экзорсус (Exorsus) manage to take the lead since they are dominating in gear level? Perhaps “clever use of mechanics” may still prove more powerful than being better equipped.
