Is your guild going to do Normal NH or jump straight to Heroic NH?

[Youn]

Well, after running it on normal. Elisande is going to be a road block on Heroic for most guilds. That enrage timer seems alittle tight. And there is a lot of trash in that instance. Sheesh.

[Cheze]

we did a normal clear, but it was just an off night thing since we don't normally raid tuesday

honestly it was kind of a waste, other than seeing the mechanics on some of the 'upper' bosses. We didn't use much gear and a lot of the bosses were tuned too low to really be educational (we pulled star augur along with half her trash and zerged it down, for example.)

[Sxq]

I don't really see how the normal gear is going to waste, tier bonuses and guldan trinkets alone made it pretty worth for my guild.

[Myztikrice]

Bonuses are crap and not worth the ilvl hit with normal gear

[Moshots]

Bonuses are crap and not worth the ilvl hit with normal gear

some classes getting as Much as 10% dps gain from set bonus's. tell me if you have 3 heroic and 1 normal piece or even 2/2 you wouldn't wear it for a 5% dps gain...

[RestoChango]

Same with our guild. Except we raid 3 days normally Thu/Sun/Mon and on those nights we'll be doing heroic on.

If for some reason we can't clear normal on Wednesday we'll do it over the weekend but as a 2/3M guild we figure the fact we've all watched the Fatboss PTR videos and understand the mechanics as well as have 885+ gear we should be able to brute force it even if we don't do the mechanics exactly right like we'll need to do on Heroic (particularly the later bosses).

Went and did our Normal run last night on our off night, thought I'd come back and post my thoughts.

We 3 healed a group of 22 and cleared normal in just under 3hrs. We had 1 wipe on Spellblade trash, 1 wipe on Botanist and 1 Wipe on Gul'dan but one shot all of the other bosses.

We ran like a god on the protector token and got an Ele Shaman to 4 set, a hunter to 3 set and there are two other 2 sets in the guild with a couple of 1 sets (people were using some of their 11 bonus rolls they had this week to roll on tier if they have a strong set).

There are a few fights where we have changed our strats slightly or asked people to re-study so that made our officer team very happy we did normal first and now our 3 nights of heroic this week can be efficient and hopefully get us at least a full night on Gul'dan.

IMO any guild would be well served doing normal first, some of the fights in there like Botanist/Star Auger/Elisande should be much easier on Heroic once you've experianced the mechanics on normal and the amount of usable gear it drops (particularly tier/Elisande trinket/Gul'dan trinket) is valuable even if you are geared already from EN/TOV.

[Wries]

What the fuck am i in then

Probably a fairly normal raiding guild. People on this forum have an extremely skewed perspective of what is casual and what is hardcore.

I define us as casual by counting time spent raiding. (Also casual=normal in my book) Or at least I think so, with a total 5hrs/week and attendance at all isn't mandatory for staying in the roster. The aforementioned mythic bosses also aren't really that hard so as long as you have 20 people ready to do them and accept that there will be some wipes. I imagine the 20p-requirement is what could be keeping many more casual guilds from having them on farm.

[Ausr]

Doing normal first to see how the fights should go on heroic (minus any additional abilities) and set pieces. I imagine once we clear normal, then heroic only then.

[OrcsRLame]

I define us as casual by counting time spent raiding. (Also casual=normal in my book) Or at least I think so, with a total 5hrs/week and attendance at all isn't mandatory for staying in the roster. The aforementioned mythic bosses also aren't really that hard so as long as you have 20 people ready to do them and accept that there will be some wipes. I imagine the 20p-requirement is what could be keeping many more casual guilds from having them on farm.

I think defining casual vs hardcore as time spent raiding is kind of silly. I also think defining it by skill is kind of silly.

Imo, the best way to define casual vs hardcore is actually the level of dedication you show. Things like keeping up on relevant time gated content, keeping yourself informed on the latest theorycrafting for your class, staying informed about boss tactics and always working to improve yourself.

Imo, you could raid 7 days a week for 8 hours a day in a top 100 guild, and you could be absurdly skilled, but if you need other people in your guild to explain the boss strategy and tactics to you, then you're a casual. Likewise, if someone knows every little fucking thing about the game and they apply that knowledge in the best way that they can they are a hardcore player, even if they suck.

There is probably some kind of time component to being a hardcore player, but after a certain point I don't think more time played is more hardcore. I will admit I would have difficulty considering someone that plays for 30 minutes a week to be hardcore, even if they know everything about the game. I also don't expect that a person like that actually exists though.

Basically, if you stayed up all night on expansion launch and leveled to 110 as fast as you could and then immediately went back to your order hall and started artifact knowledge ASAP, you're probably a hardcore player. If you didn't, you're probably a casual.