I can life with the fact that I got people who were able to wait in the queue.

I don’t think you can really ask more than that.

I thin you convinced me to never solo join as a tank ever again.

I think in 10 man its more

….

Bit it used to be
HC off here somewhere in the far far distance

Difficulty wise, the ICC bosses are spot on in my opinion, although it is horrifying how quickly we’ve gone from struggling with Saurfang to dropping him before he gets a single mark out. Though the raids are still good it’s the back-end of the game that has become retarded. How am I revered with the new rep after only 10 or so raids, what the…

There is the tank abuse which means that less and less tanks queue up alone. I know I rarely do. And the nice thing is, tanks don’t have to. They always find a guild member who queues up with them.

Spinks even recommended in a former post to not queue up alone as tank and I think she’s right.

Regarding abusing the lfg tool it’s a shame and I think it will become more rampant over time, not less. As Gevlon says in his post the tank supply will dry up and this kind of gamesmanship will become virtually the only way to enjoyably group as dps. Bad news for anyone too ethical or too clueless to join in the scam. As he says too, it’s hard to see quite how Blizzard will fix it. Maybe you’re right and social solutions are the answer but I’m not sure the WoW playerbase is primed to look for them.

As for Tobold I and others unironically replied along the lines of Dear Tigole, I’d like X not because we didn’t get the joke but because we wanted to talk about the topic, not the style of delivery.

So in that respect, it’s pretty much exactly like TBC — the difference is that PUGs can get the same sort of normal progression that I can in a casual raid group (but without the level of social interaction.) I think that’s a win, although I may feel less special.

Back in TBC I was in a number of ‘also-ran’ guilds and raid communities. I went through the painfull process of gearing/atunement for Kara _twice_ and raided it as both Horde and Ally. As Horde I got as far as the Eye and SSC a few times. I never saw the inside of Black Temple or Sunwell. I never got to fight the guy on the box cover. That seriously peeved me. I was in awe of the guys in the top tier gear.

Now in WoTLK I’m if not that guy, I’m close. Of course so are a fair few folk. But I have my Ulduar hardmodes and my Heroic ToGC one shot clears while it was still current content. I’m not getting server 1sts but consistanly in the top #10. BUT Joe Schmo who is a decent player can come back to wow/level to 80 right now and gear well enough to PuG ICC 10 (if they put a bit of time and effort in and can actualy play. Ie not a ‘Moron and Slacker’) and _see_ the current content. It also means if they’re not a M&S they have a decent chance of getting into a decent guild/raid com and going for the hard modes.

Its nowhere near as good to be ‘at the top’ as having ‘heroic’ in green next to a item isnt anywhere near as nice as having a entirely different higher tier gear set than the folk ‘below’ you but its better over all. And of course those top guilds will have a much easier time gearing alts/finding replacement players when folk burn out/quit. Hardmodes? Make them as silly as you want and give out rewards/titles and other visible signs of your uberness.

(I love my Rusted Proto Drake)