I Healed My First Warlords Challenge Mode, and I Liked It

Last expansion I did all the challenge modes on my hunter and I helped other people by either tanking or healing for them on other classes, even if I never completed all of them on either a tank or a healer.  This expansion my hunter was my only character I had any challenge mode experience on.  Until last night.

In a spur of the moment sort of thing someone in guild wanted to know if anyone was up for challenge modes.  Of course I was.  I am always up for things like that.  So when all the people that wanted to go raised their proverbial hands we had one tank and four damage dealers.

Of the four damage dealers I was the only one that had any real healing experience so even if I wanted to go on my hunter I offered to heal.  I did warn them I had not healed a single challenge mode this expansion and I am very out of practice when it comes to healing having healed so rarely this expansion at all.  But I would be willing to give it a try.

So we headed to the dungeon of choice, iron docks, as the leader of the group, the only one there with any real challenge mode experience, said that would be the easiest one being we had two complete rookies on DPS and me as a rookie healer.

The group make up was a tank and healer, of course, with one melee and two ranged.  Quite honestly I hate healing melee in a "challenge" type setting because they take more damage no matter how good they are or how hard they try.  It is just the nature of the beast.  But I was ready to give it the old college try, so to speak.

We finished the dungeon missing gold by 4 minutes and 19 seconds.  Boo.  But we could have done gold, really we could have.  We had one wipe on trash where just a little too much was pulled.  It was early on, we should have reset, but at that point I did not know if I would be capable of healing this so we were still in the "testing" phase.  We had to lose about 3 minutes, if I were to guess, due to that wipe.

So if you wanted to look at it that way we missed gold by one minute and 19 seconds and missing gold became 100% my fault.  While the over pull could have been avoided, I could have healed better and kept us from wiping.  But the real issue was I did not bring enough food.  Toward the end of the dungeon we waited a few seconds here and there for me to naturally regenerate some mana.  Easily we lost close to 2 minutes to that happening.  Not to mention the two players that died during the run which I needed to spend time reviving and they spent time eating and rebuffing.

So yes, we really honestly could have done gold.  In hindsight I did not need as much mana as I waited for.  I never was less than 50%, I was just worried as I did not know how I would handle things so I wanted to be at 100% whenever I had the chance to get back up.  I had absolutely zero confidence in my skills.  Even if it seemed as if the group was confident in me.

I would not be surprised if we had come close to realm best time if we had not wiped and I had bought mana food and I did not lose two people I had to revive along the way.  My realm does not have great realm first times mind you.  I think the next time we are there we could easily cut 10 minutes off the time we did it on.  Or at least 5 without that wipe and those 2 deaths along with my waiting on mana, that is for certain.  We can do an 18 minute run, no doubt.

I really loved the idea that my gear did not matter at all.  It was scaled down.  So the fact I did not have my tier set meant nothing.  The fact that I had a couple of 670 pieces on meant nothing.  It was all about spell selection and the skill of movement, reaction and planning.  I like that it pressed me to do better than I thought I could do being out of practice on a healer.  I am extremely happy with silver on my first attempt.  I think that is probably the best anyone could wish for when you were in the group I was in with two people that had never stepped into a challenge mode, one person that had not healed one, and the other two that had only done as high as silver before.

The melee would go from full to 10% it seemed every few pulls, if not every single one of them.  But he never died, and he also worked on protecting himself.  When he got low like that he stepped off for a second and let me get the heals he needed on him instead of pushing it and possibly dying.  I say it was very smart play on his part.  He could have stayed in the fight and lasted another 3 or 4 seconds an died, or he could have stepped back, let me heal him and lose those 3 or 4 second but be alive for the next 20 seconds it took to finish the mobs.  He made the right choice, lose 4 seconds of DPS up time to gain 20 seconds and not was 10 seconds afterward to revive them.  That was the right choice.

One of the range was a nightmare and I think replacing him and adding another, more raid aware, damage dealer would have really helped.  I was forced to heal him as if he were a tank.  He was always standing in something.  He was always getting hit by every avoidable mechanic, he was wildly pulling more packs and I think he was even the one that was responsible for the over pull early in the run.

Removing him and getting a better damage dealer in that slot would have done wonders.  I would have probably never lost the two people I lost during the run because one person was just taking so much damage demanding my attention to be split nearly 100% of the time.  I would have not needed to spend as much mana on the expensive fast heals because I would be able to keep up with the less expensive ones if I was not forced to spam people with heals to keep them alive in situations when they really should not have been taking any damage to begin with.  Speaking of mana, I would not have needed to worry about mana if I were not having so much more to heal.  All that avoidable damage wastes mana that should never need to be spent. I honestly believe if that one ranged was as good at avoiding stuff as the other was, meaning they only needed minimal upkeep, I could have kept both the tank and the melee up just fine without ever needing mana the entire run.  I am sure of that.

Over all I was proud of how well I did.  Of how well the whole group did, yes even the one standing in junk, because we still made silver with tons of time to spare.  When it was over I did not think "cool I helped the guild out", even if I did think that as well, but I thought "I had fun healing this, maybe I should make a challenge mode set, this was fun".

I actually want to heal some more challenge modes now.  I was to spam some dungeons and try to collect best in slot challenge mode gear.  I want to see how far I can push it.  I want to see if I can be a challenge mode gold healer.  Unlike last expansion when you could actually over gear challenge modes with gems and such (and I did like that in all honesty) this time around there is none of that.  You are really testing your ability and your ability only.  Well, yours and the ability of your group too of course.

I am sure in a poor group I would have not had fun.  I am sure if there was a wipe fest I would have not had fun.  I am sure that having a tank that knew his class and could help himself which allowed me to help others made it a fun run.  So I am not sure I would do these in random groups.  But I would gladly heal again for guild and not just to help the guild out, but because I kind of liked it.  As long as I have a solid tank to heal behind at least.

So I Can Get Valor From Some PvP but Not From Some PvE? Where is the Logic Blizzard?

I'll be the first to say I like the return of valor, it makes content long forgotten worth repeating, such as dungeons or LFR, but I am not exactly sure the way they are adding valor back is the right way to go.  Firstly there is no valor gear.  So collecting valor to upgrade gear is still RNG based.  Sure you can get the valor in a set way, but having something worth upgrading still depends completely 100% on RNG, which is a failed design to begin with.

But lets put the glaringly obvious fact that blizzard has completely screwed up the addition of valor without adding valor gear and look at the even larger glaring issue that pertains to something they did add, and not something they didn't.

Valor will be attained in the following ways:

• Your first random heroic dungeon per day.
• Each mythic dungeon completed once per week.
• Each raid finder wing completely once per week.
• Completing the weekly bonus event quests. (except for the pet battle one)

At face value everything here seem perfectly logical.  They are all well thought out and reasonable ways to gain valor.  Some people are complaining that the pet battle bonus event does not offer valor when all the other bonus events do but even if I do sympathize with their reasoning that because all other events do grant valor as a reward, the pet battle event should as well but I am going to have to side with blizzard here on this one, which if i am doing that must mean there is a good reason as I do not often agree with blizzard it sometimes seems, and say that the pet battle bonus even should not offer valor.

There are 2 solid reasons why the pet battle event should not offer valor and I will gladly share them, even if the blues have only shared one of the two reasons themselves.

1) The pet battle weekly is account wide.  This means I can pick it up on my hunter, do it on my hunter, and turn it in on my mage, for example.  It is not a quest for my hunter.  It is a quest for me, as the player, not me as the character I am playing.  As such, I can only do it once no matter how many characters I have.  So which one of my characters should I get the valor on?  What if I want it on all of them?  No can do, you can only turn it in on one character, as it is an account wide quest.  It is one and done no matter how many characters you have.  So I agree with blizzard, and this is the reason blizzard has given.  A very solid reason if you ask me.

2) This one blizzard has not said, but it is another very solid reason.  And there is also a reason why blizzard has not said this one, as you will find out shortly after I finish explaining it.  That reason is that pet battles are not PvE content.  Pet battles have noting to do with PvE, nothing to do with PvP, heck nothing to do with lore or quests or reputations or anything else in the game.  It is it's own stand alone mini game.  With that said, it makes no sense for a bonus event that honestly has nothing to do with PvE to award a currency that has uses for PvE purposes, and more importantly, only PvE purposes.  Like it or not, that is a very reasonable explanation for why a non PvE bonus even does not offer a PvE based reward.  Because it shouldn't.

Now, being we just explained why the pet battles are not offering valor, for two extremely valid reasons in my opinion, we need to look into what another bonus event does offer valor.  The battleground event precisely.

Why does PvP offer a PvE reward?

It is a very solid question, one I would love to see blizzard answer without just throwing their standard lines at us.  Give us a real and honest reason why someone should have to PvP to increase their PvE power.  Did they not learn anything from mists with their legendary quest line fiasco? Horde hated the 45 minute to an hour wait times, alliance hated the losing 39 times to get the wins they needed.  Win or lose, most people that were a solely PvE focused player liked it.

It seems that blizzard did not learn anything from their past mistakes.  They once again dangle the carrot telling PvE players, "hey, if you want to make the most out of your PvE gear the fastest you can, you have to PvP."  While it is true no one will be "forced" to do it and it most definitely is not "mandatory" the majorly of player who like to feel that they are doing all they can to better their gear will feel "forced" to do it and in their mind it will feel "mandatory".  So just because it isn't mandatory doesn't mean it will not feel mandatory for a great many people.

Just like I have two completely fair reasons why the pet battle bonus event should not offer valor I feel it would only be best if I do the same for why I believe the PvP bonus event should not offer valor as a reward either.

1) Just like pet battles, PvP has nothing to do with PvE.  While there might be a mild connection, such that you can PvP in PvE gear and you can PvE in PvP gear, they are two separate parts of the game.  Even blizzard has acknowledged that by the announcements for legion where they are splitting the two further apart than they have ever been.  So they can not play ignorant to the fact.  Unless they plan to start giving PvE players conquest points as a reward for finishing the weekly dungeon bonus events and killing raid bosses, they should not be giving PvP players valor for completing their battleground events.  It is as simple as that.

2) Just like valor does nothing for the pet battler, because it is not like you can level pets or increase their rarity with valor, it does nothing for the PvP player.  It is a completely useless currency in PvP.  You can not buy PvP gear with valor, you can not upgrade PvP gear for valor, you can not use valor to get enchants for your PvP gear even.  Bottom line is, valor is 100% useless to the PvP player.

All that said, if you do both normally, kudos to you, you can benefit from it.  But for everyone else, it makes no sense what so ever.  But there is something that makes even less sense than a PvP quest offering a reward that can only be used in PvE and that is the general focus of the entire game in PvE, raiding, not offering a reward that is used for PvE power.

Why doesn't raiding offer valor?

Sure, you can say looking for raid offers valor, but that is not what I am talking about.  I am talking about organized raiding, not random group raiding.

Lets look at what valor is intended to do this time around.  It is intended to boost the power of PvE gear a tiny bit to help people feel like they are getting stronger as the expansion goes along.  This is something all MMOs require.  As soon as people stop feeling as if they are advancing, they stop playing, in large amounts it seems.  To keep people playing you have to keep them feeling like they are moving forward, getting stronger, even if it is only 10 item levels at a time on one single piece of gear.

So even if all you are doing is farming content and not pushing it, having a little boost to your gear allows you to go from doing 88K on that farm boss to 90K on that farm boss.  It makes you feel as if you are still growing stronger as time goes on even if you are not pushing any new content for yourself, be it moving on to heroic or mythic.  You still will get to see your character grow stronger week by week, and people like that, they really really like that.

See, that is what the valor is being added for, to make people feel as if they are growing stronger.  But in some cases, and for a great many guilds out there, that feeling of getting stronger is not just about feeling stronger, it is about getting stronger. 

If you are that normal mode guild stuck on archie, having the entire guild being able to add 10 item levels could help push you through.  If you are that heroic guild just starting progression and hitting the gorefiend wall that seems to effect a great many guilds when they first got to it, those 10 item levels for everyone can actually mean the difference between downing it or continuing to wipe.  And then there are guilds like mine, with only 15 or 16 decent players, at best, that will never get to see a mythic.  Maybe, just maybe, we might be able to get a couple of bosses down if those 16 all had 10 extra item levels so we can carry a few slots with people doing heroic numbers in a mythic.  Or perhaps you are a group that have been working mythic but each boss becomes a new challenge, those 10 item levels for everyone can make that new challenge a hell of a lot more bearable in the dull drums of a late expansion when people start getting bored and wiping tends to tire people out more causing them to quit by turning and 50 wipe first kill into a 25 wipe first kill thanks to having a higher item level.

You see, the item level boost, while nice for everyone, is actually required for raiders.  And not just high end raiders, raiders of all skill levels from normal to mythic.  Allowing a normal guild to get their first archie kill, allowing a struggling guild to get past gorefiend on heroic, allowing guilds like mine who thought mythic was out of the question to think, once again, we might actually have a prayer of seeing a few bosses if we were higher geared so we could carry a few lesser players, and of course, the better guilds working through their first progression on mythic will have a more enjoyable time with it, or even the best guilds that already have everything on farm by making their farming go much smoother and faster.

So those valor upgrades will effect raiders, actual raiders, more than any other players in the game.  Yet for some reason, one that completely escapes me, you can not get valor from raiding.  Why?  If you can get valor from PvP and PvP gear can not even be upgraded, why can you not get valor from raiding when those people not only can upgrade their gear but very well might be the people that need to do so the most.

Now with my piece said, I would like to end by adding, why no valor from our first of each challenge mode each week too?  It could breath more life into it and isn't that what valor is supposed to be meant to do, at least this incarnation of it.

So my question is this blizzard...

Why can we get valor from PvP when we can not upgrade PvP gear but we can not get valor from raiding when we can upgrade raiding gear?

I do not see the logic behind this at all.

I Support Removing Challenge Modes

Seeing that blizzard is going to be removing challenge modes really upsets me.  I have not done them yet for a few reasons, one of course being that I have yet to find a group to do them with and the other being I always thought I could do them whenever because they would always be there.  It was scaled technology and no matter what we were wearing we would be scaled to it.  So it would be there forever.  I could do them now, in the last months of the expansion, in warlords, or even some time in the future when we face the legion again 2 or 4 expansions from now.

But no.  Blizzard is removing them and now I have a ticking clock if I ever want to do them to get the title, mount and transmogs sets.  So yes, I am upset they are removing them.  Something I waited to do because I did not figure there would ever be a rush to need to get it done because I did not think it was added with an expiration date is now going away and I am pretty upset about that.  I guess I have my work cut out for me in the coming weeks.

So if I am upset about it why exactly do I support blizzard removing them?

Good question and one I believe is best explained by something I like to call "looking at the big picture" and the big picture right now is that they need to be removed.

Challenge modes were designed with the concept of the game we have now.  The game we have now is changing incredibly next expansion.  Not just a minor change in abilities or what they do but huge sweeping changes and all those changes will effect challenge mode balancing.

Challenge modes where made with the following in mind, all things that are changing, and were scaled back to 463.

Hit and Expertise:

With the removal of hit and expertise come warlords those stats will be changed into some other secondary stats be it mastery, critical strike or haste.  Now every even half way decent player is sitting at their appropriate caps for hit and expertise and that is a hell of a lot of stat points going into those.  That stat allotment will mean that we will have that much more of some other secondary stat when hit and expertise removed.  The scaling tech is not designed to scale down appropriately in a world without hit and expertise.

Fewer Gem Slots:

We have been told that fewer pieces of gear will have gem slots on them.  While you might not think it matters but it does.  Challenge modes were built with a self nerfing system involved and anyone that has ever considered doing them knows exactly what I am talking about.  When gem slots are added to a piece some of the base stats are removed to afford the slot in the stat budget.  So the smart players will not go in there with a pair of 463 gloves with no slots because a pair of gloves with 1 slot would be better.  The 160 of a main stat or 320 of a secondary stat you gain from the lost base stats is much more than the pittance taken away by the scaling down to 463.  Two gems slots are even better.  Challenge modes where designed knowing this and with fewer gem slots they need to be rebalanced to correctly allow for some changes when you do get gear with gem slots.  Remember, gem slots in warlords will not take away from the base stats on the item, it is a true bonus.  So not only do they need to readjust for fewer gem slots but they need to readjust for more powerful gem slots.

Fewer Enchanted Items:

While there have been no specifics told about what will be able to be enchanted and what will not we have been told that we will have fewer items that will be capable of being enchanted.  You might not believe this but the challenge modes were designed around us being enchanted.  Yes, they expected everyone that was doing it to have every slot that could be enchanted enchanted.  With the removal of some things being able to be enchanted there needs to be some adjustments made to scaling to adjust for that.

Tertiary Stats are Being Added:

The challenge modes were not designed with the concept that some people might have tertiary stats or that someone might even go through the trouble of building a specific set with those stats to use for them.  Sure the chances of items with tertiary stats dropping is low but being challenge modes are scaled down people have basically forever to start building pure sets filled with as much of those stats are they can get. 

Full life stealing sets, full speed sets, full cleave sets, you name it.  When warlords starts going deep people can run the starter raids just for drops with the tertiary stats they need to complete full sets with as much of the stat as they want.  Being they will be from old raids they will be easier for people clear each week, even multiple ones, increasing the chances they get them.  The fact they are old gear would mean nothing to the person doing the challenge mode being it will be scaled down, so having a piece with tertiary stats from the first tier in warlords would be just as valuable as having one from the second or third tier. 

So while that could be considered as someone going above and beyond to make a set just for the challenge modes with all speed on it or all life stealing on it, which undoubtedly would help with challenge modes, they were not designed to interact with them so there is no saying what bugs or unexpected things could happen being they are on the gear, even in small amounts, and this would need to be tested for balance purposes first.  Don't put it past people to build specific sets for running old scaled content either.  I know I would make a set if I knew it would be best for me and I am not even hard core about it.

Reforging Being Removed:

Don't think that challenge modes where designed with reforging in mind, think again.  They were designed thinking that people would reforge their gear to whatever is the best stat for the scaled technology.  They knew that their player base would take every advantage they could in trying to get them done and they were designed to meet the challenge for those people that were smart enough to do so.  With no reforging people will not be able to handle pick which stats they want just for challenge modes.  Sure they can farm gear with the stats they want but that will take longer and they can not switch to their challenge mode reforges just for them.  There will be some rebalancing needed to work with reforging no longer being in game.

No More Snapshots:

A good player with abilities that snapshot what they do will use that to their advantage and get the best possible DoT on a mob when they have the appropriate temporary buffs.  It might not seem like a lot but trust me, good timing of your abilities that take a snap shot of their damage can be large.  With no more snapshots in warlords the balance needs to change, not much, but just a little bit and they will need to take that into account for challenge modes.

No More Breakpoints:

As mentioned in reforging, one of the things people would reforge to were haste break points.  With no more reforging and no more break points, just like with snapshots, there might need to be a little bit of adjustments that need to be made.  It might not be a huge thing all on its own but with all the other changes this too will need to be taken into account and balanced around.

Stat Squish:

We are getting our stats squished down which I figured everyone knows by now unless they were living under a rock or they got hit in the head by some stray debris from something a gnome blew up, presumably accidentally.  Being everything in the game needs to be adjusted to work with the new stat squish it would not seem like a stretch to say that challenge modes would need to be adjusted as well.  And as something that is scaled to one specific level of gear and not intended to be over geared, it has a set difficulty level involved and the balancing needs to be a hell of a lot more precise than the redesigning of the older raids which they might not care if we over gear to work in the squished world.

Profession Bonuses Being Redone:

Okay you can call me out on this one because blizzard has not specifically said they are doing this but listen to me first before you say that I am talking out of my ass on this one.  They will be removing or changing many if not all profession bonuses.  How can I be so sure about that?  Logic of course. 

With fewer gem slots in the game having your character be a blacksmith that can add two gem slots becomes insanely over powered as a profession.  Every character that is serious about doing their maximum potential will become a blacksmith just for those two extra gem slots.  The addition of them would be incredibly insane in warlords where few pieces even have a chance of having a gem slot on them. 

Lets not even start on jewel crafting where those two stronger gems would mean so much more than they do now.  If you only have two gem slots having two better gems in them is a huge increase over what we have now when you have 14 slots or so and only two of them have better gems in it.  The effect of those better gems means so much more when you only have two slots than it does when you have 14. 

And what about leatherworkers with better bracer enchants, will we even still have those?  Or scribes with better shoulder enchants, will we even still have those?  Or, well, you get the idea.  With the removal of enchants and gems being so abundant and on everything professions need to be changed to adjust for it.  Challenge modes are designed with today's profession bonuses as they expect that everyone that is doing a challenge mode is someone that wanted the challenge and people that usually want a challenge take advantage of their professions.  There would need to be some rebalancing here as well.

Talent Changes:

Every expansion some talents change and this one will be no different.  While we are not getting a completely new talent tree for the first time in, well, ever, there are going to be some changes to talents, or so we have been told.  Some talents might be removed, others will be reworked, and there will be added level 100 talents.  With everything else changing around it as mentioned in the previous points, how these work can very well be unexpected.  Time will be needed to tell if these changes do not turn mages into challenge mode gods where they can solo gold.  Sure it is not likely at all, but who knows how things will work out.  And being this is a wild card along with the other things it would be best to adjust the challenge modes to better work with the new talents.

Removed Abilities:

We might not know what is being removed or how much is being removed but we know for a fact some things are being removed.  Control things like CCs and the such.  For anyone that has ever done challenge modes, even myself with extremely little experience, we know that control can sometimes be huge in making the timer.  The challenge modes are designed for people to use all their tools.  Sure there is some cushion there where you can still get gold with a very talented team and no control at all, but control makes it easier sometimes and it was originally designed with that in mind.  So with various abilities being removed it is quite possible that some adjustments will need to be made to the challenge modes.  Whereas they expected every group to have something to deal with a certain pack or abilities the pack did, with some things being removed, that might not always be the case and that is why they will need to adjust the challenge modes to deal with fewer CC options.

Timing:

Just a complete guess here but I believe that, in blizzards mind, they will think people have other things on their mind at the time they remove the challenge modes so much so that people might not actually miss them.  I am going to guess they will be removed at, or near, the 6.0 patch, the prepatch for warlords.  Which means people will be doing whatever prepatch event they give us to do then we will all be working on leveling to 100 and running new dungeons and gearing up for new raids and testing new abilities and building up our new garrisons and catching new pets and exploring new areas and doing new things that we won't actually be caring about running old content.  So, like I said, while it is only a guess, they are removing it to work on them when people would be least likely to be doing them anyway.  That is of course assuming they ever add them back which is no slam dunk mind you.

End Note:

So while I am really upset that I never got a chance to do them all because I thought I had all the time in the world or might not even get a chance before they remove them I do support them removing them.  The reason for that support comes from the fact that so much is changing that to fix challenge modes to work as intended they would basically need to completely redesign them from the ground up to deal with no hit and expertise, fewer gem slots, fewer enchants, tertiary stats, the stat squish, profession bonuses, talent changes and skills removed.

I just think they are better off spending the time it would take to fix them making warlords better, more clean and finished, when it comes out.  I am glad to see they are setting their priorities straight and taking care of the new and not the challenge modes.

Sure, challenge modes are something that have no time table, you can do them any time and they are meant to always be the same experience.  As scaled content you can do it whenever and it will always be just as difficult, or easy, as it was when you did it 6 months or 2 years ago.  But that is the thing, they can fix it any time they want, it will always be there.  It will always be scaled content.  It will always be just as challenging as it was intended to be, even if we do it three expansions from now.

So I support them not wasting their resources on fixing them currently.  I do hope I can get them done before they are removed of course but if I don't and if they do come back, who cares if I did them now or if I do them a year from now.  They will still be the same exact challenge they were intended to be.

Now, with all that said, I do support blizzard in removing them, but if they never adjust them and never bring them back and I never get to do them, I might be a bit more upset.  Over all blizzard is doing the right thing removing them now and being it is so rare they do the right thing, we might as well enjoy that for this moment, they are doing the right think and thinking about us for once.

Can Challenge Modes Replace Heroic Raids?

An interesting idea just came to mind as far as competitive gaming goes.  While I know I will never be part of the top on any charts for them, challenge modes seem to make for a more compelling contest than the race to world first in a heroic raid, in my opinion.  And if it was extended to all 5 mans and all raids it could make for many races.

Here are my reasons for believing that.

1) Gear does not matter:
The group that had better luck in the previous tier will not have that tiny advantage that gear might provide.  With normalized gear everyone, no matter what they are wearing, competes on the exact same level.

2) No time issues:
Say your server had an issue on release day while your closest competitors server was up and running just fine, you lose out on valuable time in the race for worlds first.  How about some time zones getting the raid before others thus giving them an advantage.  Being the challenge modes are based on time to complete it, even if you started after someone else you can still do it better at it.

3) The contest never ends:
Kin raiders gets world first and the other top guilds finish off the content as well shortly after and they are all basically done with the game.  They might still play some or they might not.  They might bring in alts or new players but the contest is over.  First has been decided and that is all that matters.  Not so with challenge modes.  Perhaps Kin Raiders did get world best time when they did it first but then the world fifth might have beaten it.  This means that there is no slacking off for Kin Raiders if they want to keep that number 1 spot, they need to get back in there and try to get their world best time back.  It makes the heroic tier last a hell of a lot longer.

4) No loot drama:
So and so's guild had two lock outs in firelands and was able to get an extra legendary.  So and so's guild abused the looking for raid to get T13 first.  Who cares, all gear is normalized, even if someone had more lockouts in the previous raid or someone gamed the system getting free LFR loot for everyone they are still in the same boat at the same gear level.  Skill matters here, not what you wear.

5) Class stacking is a non issue:
They had more raid ready feral druids, they dragged along an under geared shaman just for the spirit link totem, they had more mages on their team.  Being there is no real gearing issues, there is an extremely low item level requirement, all you need is to get your character to max level and you can stack just as easily as anyone else.  Being you are not constrained by a world first title and it is time based, you can get those mages later and beat the timer.

6) The competition never ends:
You could go get first place in BWD now if you wanted too even if it now old content.  If they did it to all raids could you imagine the fun of running an AQ40 with normalized gear for a timed run? I would actually beg blizzard for something like that.

7) Old content can be returned:
Old naxx, old ZA, old ZG, old ony are now all relevant content once again.  There is no reason to remove them and the content will last forever for those that want to challenge the timer.

8) Casual guilds can compete:
Just because you downed madness with the 30% buff doesn't mean you can not get a great timer run going.  So even the guilds that had no prayer in the world of competing on a world or server first level can now actually compete.  Not saying they would, they most likely won't, but it is possible.

9) It adds to the game instead of subtracting:
Without challenge mode any dungeon or raid is useless once you pass the level of doing it and sometimes that stuff gets removed and forgotten about but with challenge mode once you finish a raid you can keep finishing it to get better times.  It makes all raiding content stay around longer, as in forever.  Nothing become obsolete.  All that time wasted making this expansions content was not wasted once the next one comes because it can still be done and it is not useless now.

10) It makes people better:
No looking for raid or looking for dungeon version of challenge modes means you have to assemble the groups yourself.  While this could lock out a fair deal of players from ever doing it, it will also be a way for players to get better because they will have to if they want to do it.  They would have to perform well to do well and no longer let gear carry them.  People not doing what is expected will easily stand out and it will be easier to help them in a controlled setting where everyone has the same gear.

11) It builds community:
Something that has been dwindling for a while now is community but being you need to assemble your groups yourself you will get to know the people around you again.  Not to mention, word of mouth, about those that are skilled will get out just like the good old days when even I, as a damage dealer, would get whispers as soon as I logged on because they knew I was a decent player.

12) More playing, less waiting:
You can run 5 mans, 10 mans, 25 mans, 40 mans, you name it.  They can even do them over and over. Challenge modes are not subject to a lock out.  So no more waiting a week to run something you like again, just reset it.

So like I said, while I would never be someone ranking in them, it sure seems like it would be awesome to have content that is always relevant.  Content where the best teams with the best execution is the one that gets praised as the best group.

A runner praised for being the fastest runner is not the person that finished the first race ever, it is given to the person that finished it fastest.  Now that is what real competition is all about.

Do you think we will ever see challenge mode raids?
Do you think we will ever see old dungeons with a challenge mode for their level?
Do you think we will ever see old raids with a challenge mode for their level?

I don't think we will ever see the old stuff, but we might see raids in the future.  Either way, that sure as hell sounds like a fantastic idea to me.  I would love to do all the old stuff in challenge mode because it would be a lot more fun, again, in my opinion at least.

If they ever made a challenge mode raid do you think it would replace heroic raid world first as the new focal point of competition?  I think it could, and I think that competition would be a better one to see.