I have to chime in on this, something struck me about 10 pages back about the need for 3-4 'easier' bosses at the start vs the ONE this tier, and I think that is pretty spot on. Looking at my crap ass server we have 2 guilds that were decent. The top one eventually cleared all the content on heroic pre 5.2, the #2 guild was close but I dont think they got heroic sha. Either way, these 2 guilds consist of the majority (but not all) of the 'good' raiders on our server. So far this tier that #1 guild is at 1/13H and the 2nd guild is at 6 or 7/12N. Looking at their rosters, I don't see any key players missing, I've raided with most of them in one way or another over the years and they are mostly still playing, just not doing nearly as good as they did last tier or even in cata. And it's not just them, the guilds that were stuck on garalon (without counting ones that skipped to terrace and then came back for it, a lot of 3/6 HoF, 3-4/4 Terrace guilds) last tier, are now all stuck on Horridon, just like
the old gypsy woman said they would. And it's pretty sickening, for a new tier to drop and have it require heroic gear from the previous tier for NORMAL, else get stuck on the 2nd boss, its stupid. And to make it worse Blizz is adamant about that not being the case. None of the raiders in my team had a 4pc tier bonus without half of it being LFR gear at best. Some got leggs/hands from sha, i didnt, i had 496 pants and the rest 483 tier peices. Most of our weaps were LFR sha touched, everything else was ok give or take some bad luck with trinkets. Take that gear into ToT and Horridon becomes difficult. The challenge is nice, but it would be nicer to get in a couple bosses before such a large roadblock.