Since Cata our old guild that was raiding ICC very well and got upto the LK fight has just disintegrated. The GM and some of the officers are just not raiding or playing anymore.

Myself and 2 of the other officers asked for them to hand over the guild (lvl 16) but were turned down by the gm. Very dissapointed as we put a lot of time and effort into the guild to build it up.

We have now removed most of our toons from the guild and started a fresh guild.

We are finding it hard to get a 10 man team together but working on it.

The best thing for us is the the 4.1 patch and the new ZA / ZG instances. They are like mini raids and a lot of fun for a group in quest blues, crafted epics and rep rewards.

The fight mechanics are enjoyable and not taking us 5 hours to clear. We are wiping but enjoying ourselves at the same time.

Would love to see a 5 man version of Kara and Sunwell

If you want to distinguish the hardcore raid from the 5 man raid idea fine – but make it an achievement or a title or a mount but what is killing blizzard is that there is so much content that is unseen by so many due to difficulty that this eventually will backlash.

On another track – the ease in leveling IMHO in both WoTLK and CATA led directly to what we are experiencing. Leveling has become way to easy and quest chains too simplified.

The CATA is out of the bag at this point so will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Good hunting to all!

At this point, I’ve gotten most of the gear I wanted out of heroics and now seem to be waiting for the new ZG/ZA content. I’ve come to terms with the reality that most raiding is only possible for those with ample time to invest in WoW. It is too bad, but like you, alts can keep me entertained while I wait for new content.

Once I hit 85 (and did every quest in the new cata areas) the only thing left for me to do is clear old raids with friends, get Loremaster, do the Argent Tourney stuff I never finished, and push the limits of my Retadin through some old dungeons.

I miss Wrath, and I never thought I’d say that.

By the end of Wrath, I think I had convinced myself I was a raider. But the fact is I’m a casual player who is hardcore about certain aspects of the game (I solo everything I can, I have over 100 mounts and pets, titles, blah blah.)

The 5-man and raiding environment from Wrath to Cata was a big change. Everything takes longer. There is very little tank-and-spank, and there isn’t one milk run in the game right now. One mistake from one player can sink a 10 man raid.

Frankly, I want to out-gear content by a bit. When you don’t, it puts you too much in the hands of other players, some of who have nothing better to do than to wipe all night and goof off in vent.

Certainly, if you’ve ground out your reps and run your 5-man’s, there are a few raid bosses that are farmable. But for the casual raider like me, that’s kind of the limit of what’s do-able right now.

My guild gets two bosses in an hour and then wipes on the third for two. Lame, I know. But for now, for a fun, casual guild, I think it’s fine. We’ll be 12/12 in 4.2 and down Sinestra someday. I can live with that, since that’s the kind of commitment I want to make to the game.

But it’s not as fun. I think it will get fun again pretty soon, so I’m not worried. Right now, I’m having fun getting my guild to 55 Exalted, getting dungeon achievements for the drake, that kind of thing. I’ll get back to raiding when it’s a 3 hour full clear, not a 4 hour wipefest.

Making progress in Molten Core was an absolute nightmare back in the classic game, since there was so much trash and it had relatively short respawn timers in relation to the time it took to reach bosses. It took my guild back then over 4 months just to kill every boss (raiding 4 nights a week) and when we finally got everything on farm status, it usually took 8 or more hours just to clear the raid instance.

By contrast, my current guild only raids 2 days a week for a total of 6 hours and we continue to make steady progress (9/12 currently). While we’re certainly not hardcore, I do think that the current raiding structure allows us to experience more of the raiding environment than we could ever hope to see in the classic game and the first expansion.

I think the biggest loss is that Cata has nothing past lvl 85 but Dungeon Queues, Reputation Daily Grinds, and trying to get a raid going. If you have limited time and use to trade skill or quest, that is pretty much gone. In WotLK you could quest post 80 and chat with guildies that were running a raid. The community held your interest while you ran around Northrend. With Cata, you stand in Org or Stormwind waiting for a dungeon queue, or repeat the same dailies that are so limited that you complete them all in 30 min. Boredom has set in bad in my guild and it is hard to get 5 players online now to do anything.

I’m actually looking at taking people back to ICC and Ulduar just because those were fun. Going for achievements and mounts. The Cata raids just are not fun in my opinion. But we’ve lost so many players already that we may have to fold up the guild and merge into the mega guilds to be able to do anything.

When 4.2 will come (July ?) everyone will forget that something was hard. They will do Firelands with propably 7+ bosses. There will be another time some more some less difficult ones but with next Tier of gear youll be able to do BoT, BWD and T4T much more easier.

Raids are not for everyone, but if you want another BH or VoA you dont know what youre calling for. Basically Magmaw & Halfus are easy enough for pugs. If you have only 2 hours for raids -> go for this 2, done