Folks like me that either cannot commit to the steady diet of attempts that lead to the types of sucesses you describe.

I aspire to it.

I think it would be awesome.

I would trade places in half a heartbeat.

But I simply am unable to commit the time to it that it currently requires. Particularly when I am not fortunate enough to be in a guild that has a spot for me on the off chance I am able to go.

There is a place for folks like me though, and that place is in Pug raids.

A week before Wrath hit I was still going in every week and puggin Kara. You know what? I had fun.

A week before Cata? I was puggin whatever the weekly raid quest was, and having fun doing it.

With the advent of Cataclysm, and there not being a puggable raid instance that place no longer exists.

With no raid to gear up for there is no need for me to run heroics. With no need to run heroics there is no real need to gear up in normals. With no need to head into normals there is little reason to bother grinding up faction rep for enchants and such. After all, the gear I got from questing is good enough for anything outside of an instance and will all be vendor trash by the time I hit 86 anyhow.

In fact, there is little reason to do anything but ride circles around the capital city of my choice waiting for the next expansion so I can have 5 more levels as a goal I can actually work towards.

Its enough to make archeology look like and exciting passtime.

Then again my solution is an easy one. I simply quit paying on all but one of my accounts. Soon that one will go away as well. I’ll be loggin off until some content I can actually work towards is availible.

I think the last one expires on the 25th.

TLDR: Yes, I am in favor of a good whackin with the nerf bat. So people like me, on the other end of the progression spectrum, can actually raid.

I´d like to add that a lot of classes are supposed to get preemptive damageoutputnerfs for the tier 12 gear rating inflation, I guess the old content nerfs are to compensate those players already behind behind in progress suddenly doing less damage in the old gear.
Additionally there is not a single heroic mode nerf in the announcements, so Blizzard seems to push the envelope there.
Thank you for your post and best of luck with your novel!

TerraformerX

Most current raiders will probably continue on T11 hardmodes mixed with T12 or more likely just start straight into T12 and hit T11 hardmodes on off nights. Normal T11 will become a place for inexperienced or underskilled raiders to cut their teeth, see content, and hopefully improve their skills a bit. Trade PUGs will get a lot further in T11.

Some raiders will be upset about the underskilled and inexperienced seeing “their” content. Luckily, they’ll have new content and new titles to get, and they can suck it up.

I guess we’ll see how it plays out, but my belief is that Blizzard just wanted to get some raids together for the casual crowd, and this was a good opportunity.

It’s not like what someone is doing has any affect on your progression.

Oh – btw BBB, if I interpret your post a little differently, Blizzard probably doesn’t need to re-tool the encounters as you have said. But from a player point of view, I play what’s in front of me and move on.

Wholeheartedly agree with the tequila comment. I frequently mention the absence as the root of all evil.

I blame it on the tequila. As in, I haven’t had any.

Clearly, I need to re-read my next post and edit it for clarity at least a little.

Because you asked, BBB, I’ll give my perspective.

My guild, as I mentioned, isn’t hard core top progression anything. We were clearing Naxx 25 when ToC came out. We were just scratching at the Inner content of Ulduar when ICC came out. We used ICC gear to help us master ToC – and we never did finish ToGC. I got my Kingslayer title a few mere weeks before Cataclysm struck – we NEEDED that 30% buff – it was obvious. We could chart our progression based on the increase of the buff. We weren’t bad, per se, just had a few people who weren’t as dedicated to the cause – and the buff helped smooth out that roughness.

When I read the 4.2 nerf notes, I was ecstatic – I know, without a doubt, that now we’ll be able to get past Ascendant Council, Al’Akir, Cho-gall and Nefarion. I’t entirely possible we’ll get there pre-4.2 – out last few raids have been one shotting the bosses we have on farm – it’s mostly a time constraint on doing the rest of the bosses (we only get 1 good night of attempts a week – and people still need items off the first bosses – so no one wants to lock out). 20% reduction means 20% faster runs – which can definitely make the difference between doing 8 bosses on farm and having time left over to make an attempt or 2 at ones we haven’t even seen.

Again, because our guild progression has no affect on anyone else’s progression – who cares if we needed a crutch to get where your guild is already? You get to play in the Firelands for a few weeks before we do – congratulations – no hard feelings here :)

My biggest worry, honestly – is heroic modes. The 20% difference, on top of harder mechanics will make normal vs heroic that much harder to master for those of us who haven’t tasted them at all. That will certainly keep my guild challenged, even as y’all go play with Fire.

Personally, I am really looking forwards to Firelands – two things in particular: the staff from Staghelm and Rhyolith. The latter is a boss you don’t tank, you simply steer him by attacking his left leg or right leg. It sounds like a headache to coordinate, but how much fun is that going to be!

From a wider perspective, I think Blizzard have frequently nerfed the previous tier of raiding through Wrath, it was just a little more delayed and a little more subtle. Getting people to see the exciting content is huge, so I think this is a good thing.

The ICC buff is a slightly different beast because it was an end of expansion raid and therefore there was no next tier of gear available (until you hit 85) to allow others to go back and do it. But I don’t remember them nerfing the previous tier in the other expansions – it naturally became easier because of the gear upgrades available through other methods – but I’ll admit I was paying less attention back then.