Modern WoW raids run at three sizes: Raid Finder, Normal and Heroic flex from 10 to 30 players, while Mythic is locked at exactly 20. A raid group itself can hold up to 40 slots, but no current-tier raid is tuned for that. Forty-player raids belong to Classic and old vanilla content, not retail progression.
Raid size by difficulty
| Difficulty | Players | Scaling |
| Raid Finder (LFR) | 10-30 | Flexible, auto-queued |
| Normal | 10-30 | Flexible |
| Heroic | 10-30 | Flexible |
| Mythic | 20 exactly | Fixed, no scaling |
Quick facts
- 20 is the only locked number. Mythic will not start with 19 and will not accept a 21st player.
- Flex difficulties re-tune live. Boss health and damage adjust as people join or leave, and the count is checked when you pull.
- The raid frame caps at 40. That is a group-size limit, used for world content and old raids — not a difficulty option.
- Loot scales with headcount on flexible difficulties, so a 30-player Heroic drops more items than a 12-player one, but each individual's odds do not improve.
- A typical 20-player composition is roughly 2 tanks, 4-5 healers and the rest damage. Flex raids scale healers and tanks with size — 1 tank works at very low counts, 2 is standard from mid-teens up.
What is the biggest raid in WoW?
By raw player count, the biggest WoW raids are the original 40-player instances — Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Ahn'Qiraj and Naxxramas — which live on in Classic and as soloable legacy content on retail. On modern retail, the largest raid you can actually run at current tuning is a 30-player flexible Normal or Heroic.
By boss count and physical size, sprawling raids like Ulduar and the vanilla Ahn'Qiraj Temple are still the giants of the list, even though today you can walk into them alone.
Why is Mythic locked at 20 players?
Fixed size lets designers tune every mechanic precisely — how many soak targets a boss needs, how many interrupt rotations exist, how much raid-wide damage lands. Flexible scaling can't be that exact, so the hardest difficulty gives up flexibility to get sharper encounters.
The practical cost is roster pressure. Mythic guilds usually recruit 23-25 raiders so they can still field a legal 20 when people miss a night.
Can you solo or duo a current raid?
Not a current tier. Flexible difficulties start at 10 players, so 9 or fewer can't zone in at tuned difficulty. Legacy raids from older expansions are a different story — most content two or more expansions old is comfortably soloable, which is why mount and transmog farming runs are usually one-person jobs.
Does group size change loot?
Yes on flexible difficulties: the game hands out roughly one item per five players, so more bodies means more total drops. Your personal chance stays the same. Mythic's fixed 20 means a fixed, predictable loot table per boss.
Filling out a raid group
Finding a reliable 20 is the real barrier, not the number itself. If your roster keeps falling short, PewPewShop's vetted human players run coaching and play-together raid help — Normal full clears from EUR 25, Heroic from EUR 55, and Mythic full clears from EUR 180 — plus single boss kills from EUR 9 if you only need one wall broken. No bots, no cheats, just people who have cleared it.