While this is true, I'm also seeing people who cleared t11 being left behind. It's a gradual "rising tide" of difficulty thing, pervasive.Correct it's easy to see when you go to the achivements on the armory. Another thing is it's been YEARS since then and peoepl don't remeber how far back they wer or wtv.
An example is you were an ICC Raider but it was 10 man. From your posts in this thread I asusme (not a good thing to do I know) that you were under the impression you were a decent raider back then and cleared stuff in 10 man thus a normal mode raider at a good pace. However looking at the achievement dates is what peopel need to go back and look.
I'm not doing htis to single you out just a s a referene as many seem to only think back and go "yea I cleared that no problem but raids are way harder now I cant do them now and I could then!!"
you got heroic frostwing halls 10 man on 08/22/2011
I got heroic frostwing halls 25 man on 11/26/2010
8 month difference
Even something like Onixya lair 10 man
You got the kill 06/10/2010
I got it on 09/24/2009
Just about 9 months difference
If you go back to TBC you can see that back then raids were like today
SSC
you got the lady vashj kill on 10/09/2011
I got it befor 10/14/2008 but that is the earlyset the achieve can go back so were talking years not months
Even the black temple
10/10/2010 vs 10/14/2008
This isnt a "Im way better than you" but I feel many that are in the same boat as you fail to go back and look at those dates and fail to realise they were tiers/ months behind the raiders of that era! They also had allot of valor gear and or in some cases the next tier gear buffing them in many cases and allot of them did things with a huge buff ala ICC... ALL things you will not have in current tier raiding on normal mode and this is what is steem rolling the previous "normal mode raiders".
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I did strict 10 man in wrath and it was no joke, fwiw. Everyone remembers it being faceroll because they had 25 man gear to nuke it with. It was definitely easier, but it wasn't that much easier.Even more than that, I think it's more like being told that normal is the right option, and now it's Flex. If Flex had been around from the start, I don't think there would even have been this issue as those of us who used to normal and now can't would never have tried normal, we would have been content with Flex. However, what we have right now is something like an amusement park with a "you must be this tall" sign that all of a sudden raised the minimum height by 6", so a lot of people who used to be able to get in now are shown away towards a different ride that's similar but not quite the same enjoyment.
Basically, Flex should have been thought of and done at the start of Cataclysm, with the statement that 10N is now tuned much harder than before due to the shared lockout, so if you were a 10N raider in Wrath, you want to focus on Flex and dabble in Normal modes. Instead, that was never really mentioned so you had and still have a bunch of 10-man guilds that were comfortable in Wrath struggling in normal modes in Cata and Mists (DS notwithstanding ofc), when in reality from T11 on, 10N wasn't the right content for them at all (however as we know there was no alternative).
For me at least, the goal is going to be reasonable progress in Normal, and Flex to supplement. Have some real life issues coming up (girlfriend and two young children are moving in with me) that might affect raiding seriously, so have to see. I do know that I probably won't be content to struggle in Normal and treat Flex as the new content though, so if and when that comes I guess I will have a choice to make