Fair warning, subjective post from newbie forum member is subjective and based on what drove this player to raid.

Setting a scene, I did the most advanced raiding I've done in BC and I loved most of it once I got used to the difficulty spike from being in a much more casual vanilla guild At the time I was lucky enough to be raiding with a great raid team. You had to be to push content before it got nerfed.. We got Gruul(more stam greens plox!!!), Mother Sharazz and M'uru the weekends before they got their first major nerfs (I think!) and while we got nearly everything before major nerfs we were close on lots of them (I think M'uru had an early one but we got it before the big 30% hp nerf and definitely pre-3.0). Used to joke that Blizz were using us as their nerf yardstick.

That meant that we got through hard content but did it tough. When we killed something new after 3nights/6nights/whatever on it, the payoff was palpable, seeing a brand new part of the epically huge dungeon we were in (SSC, BT, Sunwell, zomg massive dungeonz). The reward was getting to fight our way through brand new trash that could kill us easily to a brand new boss that could kill us easier. When you do that, epic new boss really is epic.

(The above is meant to show that I like raiding to be tough, I'm not suggesting that hard stuff should be removed from raiding with the anti-hard-mode rant about to happen.)

Raiding tough feels different now. Apart from the insipid dungeon design of Cata (really Blizzard, the first two main dungeons are a circle and a zig zagging line? Do you even remember the layout of SSC or BT?) is that you don't get that same thrill from tough raiding. Killing a hard mode is a good feeling but its not as good. When you kill a boss for the first time, that should be the hardest its ever going to get for you to kill that guy. That's when its epic, the first time, not when you say practice is over big boy, I want to kill you again but stop going easy on me.

Instead of an epic slugfest you get to do a mini-grind with lots of small payoffs and you aren't as impressed by opening the next new bits of Uber-Dungeon-X because you haven't fought long and hard see them. You saw it all too easily as it flew past. Then once that's over you get to go back and have it *feel* like farming, oh except its hard as hell now. Hard farming... awesome!

Its not like you can choose to do it the old way either. Unless you have a truly elite guild, you must farm normal lots before you can push hard modes, the fights are tuned for that gear level.

There's no chance of going back to the old way now, Blizzard want to save money and double dip you on all content (big sigh). I wouldn't entirely want to go back completely. People need to be able to be casual and have their shot at amazing raids, absolutely. Normal/hard mode is in WoW to stay, much as I've grown to dislike it. But I'd prefer another path to that same end.

What I'd love to see is the old way combined with a more aggressive nerf strategy. Give top guilds their exclusive time in there. Make the first tier of raiding have some genuinely straightforward raids to start causals up and a crazy one for the serious. Then subsequent tiers start hard across the board....

Some time into a tier, nerf the rough stuff a bit. Then nerf it some more. Then take out some trickier boss abilities and nerf the trash to hell. Nerf it BIG after that, bigger than in BC by a good margin as you bring in a new tier. Leave in the fully tough version as an 'option' since there's nothing worse than just missing it before nerf (but start with one version and make the gear check the previous tier). Make the loot after nerfs worse if you have to (zzz) but honestly who cares? Its last tier by the time more casual people get it, let them have the shinies!!!

I don't think I've raided with anyone that cared that a fight was easier for them the 15th time they beat it than the first. On the other hand I've grown to hate it being harder the 15th time than the first. You feel like farm content is killing you... And people that feel that only hardcore raiders should see major raids and that there shouldn't, at some point, be some kind of casual version are just harshing the mellow.

Killing M'uru was my WoW high point (due to how awful achieving it was). 1.5 months of 3 nights per week, 35-40 mana potions per night (our dps had to pot and use drums the poor buggers), hemmorhaging players to the brutality of it and getting new ones because it was brutal for us and not getting there but not giving up. The path down to KJ afterwards felt amazing, KJ and his room too. And big. Massive! The best graphics in any game ever couldn't make it look as good in my eyes without that kill coming before it.

Breezing through it again at 80 with friends who had never done it, I was surprised by how much smaller KJ and his room looked than I remembered. The rest of Sunwell we farmed heaps so it all looked the same, but not that little bit that I'd seen far less of.

Hah well that's something about older WoW that I very much preferred. Progression be all the wrong way around now. It actually took me most of Wrath to realise this.

Anyone else the same? Does anyone really think killing it the hard way after doing it easy is *more* fun/rewarding and that I should be in a padded cell?