Raid difficulty

Raid difficulty is a setting that determines the difficulty of the encounters. The options vary depending on the raid, but there is usually a Normal mode and a Heroic mode for each size. It is controlled by the raid leader.

Warlords of Draenor introduced Mythic mode 20-man raids, which are even harder than Heroic. Since then, all raids have been available in Mythic difficulty. Warlords also extended flexible raid sizes to all non-mythic difficulties, including Raid Finder. This leaves Mythic difficulty as the only fixed size of raid.

In Mists of Pandaria Patch 5.4, Siege of Orgrimmar introduced the Flexible Raid mode that scales in difficulty depending on the number of players from 10 to 25. Drops are better than Raid Finder, but worse than 10-man Normal mode.

Prior to Patch 3.2.0 this setting was controled by the Dungeon difficulty setting to determine if a raid was to be a normal mode (10 man raid) or heroic mode (25 man raid).

• All raids introduced before Patch 3.2.0 will use 10-player Normal mode for the former normal mode (10 man raids) or 25-player Normal mode for the the former heroic mode (25 man raids). Burning Crusade raids likewise only have fixed 10-man or 25-man sizes.
• All newer raids beginning with the Crusaders' Coliseum can use the 10-player heroic mode and 25-player heroic mode settings to access harder versions of the raids, not to be confused with hard mode actions/events within the same raids.

Notes

• Blizzard has greatly added to the complexity of raids by changing the composition of modes with almost every expansion.

Patch changes

• Patch 7.0.3 (19-Jul-2016): Variations on Mythic mode based on [Mythic Keystones].
  
• Patch 6.0.1 (24-Apr-2014): Flexible Raid mode was effectively replaced by a flexible Raid Finder mode.
  
• Patch 5.4.0 (10-Sep-2013): New Flexible Raid mode for Siege of Orgrimmar.
  
• Patch 3.2.0 (04-Aug-2009): Introduced.
              Prior to Patch 3.2.0 you had to use the Dungeon difficulty setting.
  

See also

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Scenario difficulty: Heroic mode Normal mode Dungeon difficulty: 5-player Mythic mode 5-player Mythic plus mode 5-player Challenge mode ( and later) 5-player Heroic mode 5-player Timewalking mode 5-player Normal mode

Raid difficulty for - raids:[cn] 20-player Mythic mode Heroic mode raid Normal mode raid Raid Finder mode Raid difficulty for - raids:[cn] 25-player Heroic mode 10-player Heroic mode 25-player Normal mode 10-player Normal mode Flexible Raid mode only for specific raids Raid Finder mode

Raid difficulty for raids:[cn] 25-player Normal mode 10-player Normal mode Raid difficulty only for some pre-Cataclysm raids: Hard mode only for specific raids Heroic mode Normal mode