WLK

What I want from WLK - is for the larger raid to come first in progression.

When I first hit 70 I joined a guild that was just starting out in Kara. We wiped on Moroes for several nights. We progressed week by week until we were farming the place. We were actually about #3 on the server at one point. But because we had a 10-man raiding force, we stayed in Kara until Gruul's was old news. We fell behind. Eventually we merged with another guild and got into 25-mans, but we were never cutting-edge again.

My mum's guild (yes, my mum plays WoW) is in sort of a similar situation. They clear Kara. They're working through ZA. But because they formed with the intention of doing first Kara and then maybe 25-mans later, they're chained to 10-mans. Sure, they could merge with another guild or break up and find new guilds, but they're a tight-knit group of friends that play the game for each other rather than for the game. So they run heroics, they run Kara, they run ZA and they don't get to see all of the wonderful 25-man content. They miss out on most of the raiding game, because they wanted to do Kara first.

So I think that in WLK, the first raid should be a 25-man raid. People are saying Naxx will be the first raid - it's definitely been said by Jeff Kaplan that it will be an entry-level raid - but I think that the very first thing, right off the bat, should be a boss similar to Onyxia or Magtheridon - one boss in the instance, enormous monster. He's relatively weak, so a blue-geared tank can tank him. He has a couple of gimmicks, say a Saber Lash, or a raid-wide silence, or an enrage timer, or some predictable raid damage, or some adds, or phase changes (think Bear boss). But all in all, he is a reward for organising 25 people to get together and go and kill a dragon. And he should drop four epics - two nonset and two set.

The first boss in the first 10-man instance should be difficult. He should require co-ordination and skill. New raiders should look at him and say, 'hey, he's hard... maybe we should get some gear and experience from the 25-mans before we try him?' And he should drop two nonset epics, of a quality half a tier higher than the theoretical entry-level 25-man boss.

And so new guilds will say, 'Our goal is to kill Enormous Loot Pinata and then maybe start looking at other raids.' The transition from 25-man to 2x 10-man should be much easier than the transition from 10-man to 25-man. Because having to scrape together people for Gruul's from your two Kara teams, for lack of a better word, sucks. If you start with a proper 25-man raiding force, then you don't need to worry about that. You can keep progressing right from the start. You can start with Enormous Loot Pinata, then you'll immediately be able to walk into Naxx. Well, you say, we don't have the tanks for Patchwerk yet. I hear that Anub'rekhan is pretty easy - and he does drop those sexy tier 9 gloves! Okay fellows, let's do it. And then you're working through Naxx, and then you kill Kel'Thuzad and you can start working through Azjol'Nerub.

All in all, I think that 10-mans should sort of be off to the side in the logical progression of WLK. Like where ZA is now. You can start ZA if you can kill Nightbane regularly - it's hard, but it's doable. Likewise, you can start Gruul's Lair if you have two groups who can kill Nightbane regularly. In WLK, you should start the first 10-man if you can kill Enormous Loot Pinata regularly. You can start the second 10-man if you can kill Kel'thuzad or the boss of the first 10-man regularly. Et cetera.

Looks like I've rambled on a bit again, repeating myself for the most part. Oh well. Perhaps I shouldn't post when I'm mostly asleep.