Not entirely… all the new gear also needs Sunmotes as well (according to wowhead), which I suspect is going to require at least running the new 5-man on heroic.

And yes, it is a shame that newer players can bypass some of the challenges, but I’m pretty certain that our guild won’t be doing to much of that anyhow. We’re intelligent folk, and we know that we “Are NOT Prepared!”

Sorry, I couldn’t resist that.

And you’re right on the money about some of the old world content that gets ignored. For a long time I was in a small non-raiding guild (before 20-man instances were available, even), and I ran Scholo and Strat pretty much to death, and still enjoyed them. I also miss instances like Dire Maul, and Maraudon, which were very rarely run even before TBC was released.

Once I started raiding though, Molten Core got boring very quickly, quite honestly, and my guild didn’t manage any significant progress in BWL and AQ before expansion time. ZG was a ton of fun though, and the newer Zul’Aman is essentially Zul’Gurub all over again, but better.

And hey, they’re apparently retuning Naxx for the next expansion, and I for one can’t wait to see that. From everything else I’ve seen and read, it seems like it would have been a fun raid.

We are looking at this from two very different angles though. As your views are shaped by being a newer player who started after the expansion, I’m naturally looking at things from the viewpoint of an established player who is now playing catch-up with an alt. The badge rewards and attunement removals are something of a blessing for me, and anyone else who’s “been there before”.

I *still* think the AoE not breaking CC is BS though.

Well, it’s important to not look silly. Being a big bear with horns and tattoos making people mad at you while other people hurt them more is clearly the king of decorum. Silliness is just out.

Generating threat on multiple mobs isn’t bad, it’s efficient. As long as you can keep aggro on all the mobs – which is made much easier with swipe – doing things like multishot and chain lightning make it a lot faster to down mobs. If that’s laziness, so is the concept of tanking. I mean, why not just have everyone shoot whoever they please? They can deal with getting hit in the face. All of this ‘people not getting punched in the face’ thing…that’s just lazy.

Now, paladins are best at generating AoE threat, but druids aren’t too bad off. Especially for higher-geared content with more AP, swipe should be able to hold 3 mobs for AoE damage. 4 might be tough, you’d likely have to do a bit more juggling and/or mouseover deals, but it should still be doable. Again, that’s not a lack of skill or laziness – that’s doing the best job you can with being a tank. It’s made easier if you can CC in the middle of the pile without any problem, but the big improvement is that other classes can now look silly by shooting into a crowd and not worrying about it so much.

And you prove my point. “It rewards the lazy, the inept and the people with bad habit.”
How is reducing the time for clearing for the lazy? It’s lazy to want to get through trash you’ve done 100 times a bit faster? People who are new are going to have to go just as slow as before. I don’t know about you, but I like doing runs as quickly as possible while doing them right. If that makes me lazy, so be it.

You’ve been given a new tool. Other players have been too. Instead of complaining that things aren’t the way they were, adapt. Overcome. Learn to use your new tool, and learn to use how other people can use theirs.

That will reduce the time for clearing
And you prove my point. “It rewards the lazy, the inept and the people with bad habit.” All this does is make the instance that much easier to grind out for people who either develop bad habits and want to top the DPS charts, or they don’t want to pay attention, or they just don’t want to learn how to deal with playing as a group. I attribute this change as a symptom of the lack of grouping for all the old world instances. New players are thrust into Level 70 roles with no idea how to do these things and rather than learn, we change the rules of the game for them.

Or it encourages new playstyles. For example, with this elemental shamans and hunters quickly become really, really desirable in 5-man content. A hunter especially; they can trap then multishot around their trap without any problems. That will reduce the time for clearing, which will make those classes a bit more desirable.

Mages will have a big advantage as well – being able to sheep someone in the middle of a chaotic pull as a last resort is going to be a godsend some times. A rogue could probably pull it off too with a bit of practice, but it would be slightly harder.

I don’t see how these things are inherently bad. They are different. Right now, that’ll make things a bit easier. In the future I expect that blizzard will create encounters that specifically require this kind of skill to happen; for example, spawned adds like Crypts would require shackling after the adds appear; this could be a requirement instead of a helpful thing for some groups.

I guess I don’t see how this takes away positioning of groups. You still need to gather ‘em. You still need to point them away from the rest of the raid. You still need to make sure that you’re in LoS of healers. It takes away one aspect, true. If you like, just don’t play with swipe. Then everyone’s happy.

Very well-gearded and ready to raid” will have far less meaning because the change in the level of difficulty of those accomplishments.</i.

These already don’t have much in the way of meaning. A person can easily be taken through Kara or Mags or Gruul without having any skill at all. Or they could be great at DPS but crap at tank, and just have gotten a ton of tanking gear that no one wanted. Heck, for Druids this is especially true given how little loot actually drops post Kara. Don’t use loot as a gauge for quality; use it as at best an entry block.

Don’t take it as being a jealousy thing. Its not a matter of I had to work for it and they are getting it handed to them. My concern is when our guild suffers from roster changes, and we are in need to fill some spots. If they continue to make things easier, those applications we get that say, “cleared Kara, cleared Gruul’s, cleared Mags, etc. Very well-gearded and ready to raid” will have far less meaning because the change in the level of difficulty of those accomplishments.

Really, my biggest complaint/problem I have with the whole thing is that Blizzard is killing the experience of playing WoW so that they can make more money. Sure, it is a business and it is about making money, but at what cost do you draw the line? But who knows, maybe it won’t be so bad.

Though the Lifebloom nerf is BULLSH*T! :-)