Observations from a Casual Raiding Guild Leader

We're a month into Wrath of the Lich King and it has been a real eye-opener. Wrath effectively flipped WoW over onto its back and jabbed its soft underbelly until the game cried 'Uncle'. Where once there was a game where a group quest literally required a group (and sometimes more, lest we forget The Scarlet Oracle, Demetria), and players wearing purple items were as rare as an EverQuest player with an actual life, it is now a completely different story. Death Knights consistently solo group content, and the first end-game raids have ridiculous amounts of room for error. Our guild, which previously progressed as far as clearing Black Temple, walked into Naxxramas last Friday and tore the entire instance apart. It was exciting to be able to hand out so much loot and see content so quickly, but it was very much a shock to the system.

As a Guild Leader that manages a casual raiding guild, I've been forced into the position of having to recruit aggressively and have high expectations of players that step foot into an instance. Perhaps, that gave us more of an edge when the time came to do this more 'relaxed PvE' thing that Wrath has thrown at us. Whatever the case may be, I think this was the right decision for Blizzard. Entry-level raiding in TBC was a nightmare, and although many guilds with the right mindset and mentality (regardless of whether they were hardcore or not) eventually got through things like Gruul, Magtheridon, and carved their way through Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep, it was a long and painful process.

I'm still a firm believer that Magtheridon, in its original implementation, was far too complex of a raid mechanic to introduce at that level of raiding (which was, essentially, the start of raiding in TBC). Hell, I still see players epic failing on a daily basis to successfully right-click a Warlock's summoning portal, without accidentally moving, double-clicking it, or doing something else stupid. And trust me, I'm always the first one to remind them in vent, "Nice work on the summon attempt. If this had been Magtheridon, we would all be dead now..."

Beyond Gruul & Magtheridon, it only got worse. Our guild actually had the luxury of not setting foot in SSC until after the dreaded 45 minute trash respawns were hotfixed, never mind the fact that that the "keying" requirements to grant players the actual ability to set foot in an instance were (at times) painful and unnecessary...and only served to frustrate guilds with large pools of players that raided casually. Even the requirements of being Revered with various factions in 2.0 before being able to run Heroics was difficult (and not alt-friendly).

Of course, all of these things are gone in Wrath. No keying (with the exception of The Eye of Eternity). Instant access to heroics at 80. The reputation you gain is decided by you (via Championing with a custom tabard), not by the instance you're having to run. And while the mechanics of certain raid bosses may be considered "complex" (that's debatable), there is so much room for error that you can still make many mistakes and win. I have to admit I was pretty embarrassed at how much frost damage I took from Sapphiron's Chill (and the raid in general) when it is pretty obvious how to move out of it...yet we still slew the Frost Wyrm.

I am happy with Wrath and having a blast...I just hope that this entry-level raiding isn't "dumbing down" my guildies, so that they start pulling what I did on Sapphiron, and simply "healing through it". Xi, the notorious raid leader of Death & Taxes had a good quote back in the day: 99% of all the raid mechanics boil down to these six words: Move out of the fucking fire. If your guild can't grasp this basic tactic, you (and your guild) fail.

Wrath has proven otherwise...thus far. I hope we wake up and get moving out of the fire again, otherwise Ulduar and beyond may slap us around like Biff Tannen.