Cataclysm Raid Progression: A Casual Raiding Quandary

By now, you probably have already read Blizzard’s annoucement on the changes regarding the raiding progression paths once Cataclysm goes live. Based on my own guild’s forums and chat, it seems to have elicited strong reactions, which I imagine is part of the goal.

I won’t pretend to know how someone who is staring at a Heroic Lich King 25 attempt feels about these changes, but I can tell you about one segment, which we will call the Casual Raiding Guild. I am currently an officer in a guild that defines itself thus. One of our central policies is that we recruit “friendly, mature, polite players”. The other key policy is that “everyone gets to raid”, by which we mean that if someone signs up, we will do the best we can to ensure that they see at least one raid a week they are prepared for.

We have a large player base, with varying levels of knowledge, skill and available playing time. Some enjoy the challenge of hard modes, and are always working towards improving. Others don’t raid, and another group signs up assiduously and reliably, but just can’t seem to perform at the same level. This means we invariably hit a wall somewhere progression-wise, which typically leaves heroic modes to smaller, more focused 10-man groups, rather than the 25-man raids we try to schedule.

What these proposed changes seem to do is ask us “What kind of raid do you want to run?“. Those guilds that can answer “We have a consistent enough group of people that we can always field 25 to handle tough content” will probably opt to remain that way. Those who prefer the small atmosphere of 10-mans will be able to do that without feeling that gear will pass them by because of their choice. The good news is that, even if you don’t who you want to be, you have until Cataclysm hits to figure that out.

I do hope for one thing out of these changes: that we never again have to see the likes of the Talisman of Volatile Power 🙂