Hunter DPS Tip: Kill Shot

The new Glyph of Kill Shot reads:

If the damage from your Kill Shot fails to kill a target at or below 20% health, your Kill Shot's cooldown is instantly reset. This effect has a 6 second cooldown.

When I first saw this glyph I was in love instantly. However I started to think of how I should use this new gift we have been given to its maximum ability.

Fire 2 kill shots in a row or time it to drop one every 6 seconds.  After some napkin math I figured that timing it would be best.  Here is my napkin math for your perusal.

We are going to use some blanket numbers just for the sake of argument and figure that once the mob gets to 20% where we can use kill shot it will only live for 20 seconds more.  Figure Chimera at 7K, Steady at 6K, Arcane at 8K and Kill Shot at 12K.  Going to ignore Aimed procs, rapid fire and readiness for simplicity sake.

Here is what it would look like if you weave KS every 6 seconds with the glyph.

Second 1: Fire Kill Shot.  It resets with a 6 second timer.
Second 2: Chimera Shot. 5 seconds left.
Second 3: Steady Shot. 4 Seconds left.
Second 4: Steady Shot: 3 Seconds left.
Second 5: Arcane Shot. 2 Seconds left.
Second 6: Steady Shot. 1 Second left.
Second 7: Fire Kill Shot.  It resets with a 6 second timer.
Second 8: Steady Shot. 5 Second left.
Second 9: Chimera Shot. 4 seconds left.
Second 10: Steady Shot. 3 Seconds left.
Second 11: Steady Shot: 2 Seconds left.
Second 12: Arcane Shot. 1 Seconds left.
Second 13: Fire Kill Shot.  It resets with a 6 second timer.
Second 14: Steady Shot. 5 Seconds left.
Second 15: Steady Shot: 4 Seconds left.
Second 16: Chimera Shot. 3 seconds left.
Second 17: Steady Shot. 2 Seconds left.
Second 18: Steady Shot: 1 Seconds left.
Second 19: Fire Kill Shot.  It resets with a 6 second timer.
Second 20: Fire Kill Shot.  Because it is a killing blow now, no more reason to weave.

= 157K DPS (not counting sting damage)

Now with doubling up KS instantly.
Second 1: Fire Kill Shot.  Instantly available.
Second 2: Fire Kill Shot.  Now it is on a natural 10 second cooldown.
Second 3: Chimera Shot. 9 seconds left.
Second 4: Steady Shot: 8 Seconds left.
Second 5: Steady Shot. 7 Seconds left.
Second 6: Arcane Shot. 6 Second left.
Second 7: Steady Shot. 5 Seconds left.
Second 8: Steady Shot. 4 Second left.
Second 9: Chimera Shot. 3 seconds left.
Second 10: Steady Shot. 2 Seconds left.
Second 11: Steady Shot: 1 Seconds left.
Second 12: Fire Kill Shot.  Instantly available.
Second 13: Fire Kill Shot.  Now it is on a natural 10 second cooldown.
Second 14: Arcane Shot: 9 Seconds left.
Second 15: Steady Shot. 8 seconds left.
Second 16: Steady Shot. 7 Seconds left.
Second 17: Chimera Shot: 6 Seconds left.
Second 18: Steady Shot: 5 Seconds left.
Second 19: Steady Shot 4 Seconds left.
Second 20: Arcane Shot: 3 Seconds left.

=  153 DPS (not counting sting damage)

From this napkin math it seems that weaving kill shot for every 6 seconds and using that cooldown will result in a more kill shots for the time available and a small DPS increase not to mention a tighter rotation to keep steady rolling for procs.

I am going to have to find a place where I can test this out in a long term sense.  I am thinking those guys in the blasted lands that you can not kill.  I will have to bring an assistant to kill any adds that might respawn so they do no interrupt my rotation but it seems, on paper and even in logic, that weaving the kill shots at 6 seconds and then doubling up when you know it will be the kill shot is the way to go on this one.

Doing the double KS and waiting the 10 seconds will remain the easier way for people that to not want to monitor such things as an internal cooldown but weaving at 6 seconds will most likely be the maximum DPS for kill shot. Weaving will also result in double the kill shots when using readiness near the end if timed correctly.

This is going to be a fun one to run some numbers on but I will wait for the true theroycrafters to do some of the work.  Now where do I go to tell them my idea?

Better Then Expected

Everything was up a little after 8PM EST so it was a little earlier then the 10PM I expected but a lot later then the 3PM they originally said it would be.  Even if it was 5 hours later then their original time I consider it a job well done.  For a patch this huge with as many changes as there were 5 extra hours is not really a long time.

My over all impressions on Hunter things so far.

First thing I did was log on to my main, my Hunter.  I speced him for BM and MM, just like he used to be.  Having to check around for specs was not needed.  With each spec there really are not enough options for anyone to really be different.  Everyone will have the same exact spec even if they never looked at anything online.  Hunters do not have a great deal of option, nor does any other class really.

After I speced out my Hunter I went and redesigned my tool bars.  Missing where some lost talents like freezing arrow, volley, aspect of the viper, etc.  Funny thing is, freezing arrow was not actually missing.  It was still on my bar, just not clickable.  Having a new aspect bar cleared up a little space for me.  Trueshot Aura always being on automatically also freed up a space.  Kill Command having a cooldown now frees up a ton of keybind combos for me and Aimed Shot being all but useless unless you get the proc freed up a prime spot for my keybinds (used to be my 3, now my arcane will take that spot).  It seems I have some free space now.  That is a nice change.

Beastmaster Spec 31/2/3
Marksman Spec 2/31/3

Like I said, not really much different you can do with specs there.  I bet everyone is using the same one or damn near close to it.  Odd how they said they changed things to make it so people did not all have the same spec and yet there is no way anyone would have a different spec (by much) being there really are no other decent options in either tree.

I went to to get some items reforged after my bars and specs where all done.  I basically turned every little bit of critical I could into Mastery.  Got myself 12.5% extra mastery while still having 50% critical.

After that I hit the dummies in Darn, have to love Darn, it was me and a mage, both with our own target, for quite some time.  People forget that Darn even has dummies.

My first impression on our new rotation.

Apply Hunters Mark while waiting on the tank before battle.
1) Serpent Sting
2) Chimera Shot
3) Steady Shot
4) Steady Shot
5) Aimed Shot (only if free from proc)
6) Rapid Fire (if you did not just do an Aimed)
7) Arcane Shot
8) Arcane Shot (if over 60 focus and you did not just do an Aimed or Rapid)
9) Steady Shot
10) Steady Shot
11) Kill Shot (if under 20%)
12) Kill Shot (if you are glyphed for it)
13) Back to 2 and repeat unless Serpent Sting somehow fell off, if so, back to 1.

Yeap, that is what it looks like for now as far as I see it.  Welcome to to world of a Mage.  Just a few buttons to manage.  No macros needed.  Boring, we are now mages without burst damage. 

Readiness seems to have lost its huge power for burst being we are limited by focus now.  Before I would burn a Rapid Fire, Kill Shot, Aimed macro with Kill Command and Silence Shot in it and Chimera then drop my Readiness to refresh them all and do them all again except for Rapid Fire, which I would do again when it expired.

Now without KC being off the GCD and not as much an option due to focus concerns and Silence having no damaging aspect to it any more those two shots are useless to refresh faster and add to that the fact that Aimed is now completely useless unless it is proced all readiness is good for is Rapid/Chimera/Kill Shot.  Still useful but not as useful as it used to be and basically useless for burst damage toward the end of the battle.

The initial impression I get is that Hutners DPS will drop, possibly drastically, and we no longer have any serious burst capabilities but we will be steady damage the whole way through. What we start at is what we will end at.  I guess there is something good about that.  Converting my Critical into Mastery seemed to be a good thing.  My Wild Quiver ended up being 16.1% of my total damage because of my high mastery for the level do to the conversion.  Not bad over all.

I noticed a few things that I am a bit concerned with.  My piercing shots where way below what they normally are but maybe that is because I am using arcane and not aimed.  Time will tell.  Another thing was my deathbringers will.  In 15 minutes of dummy time it never proced even once.  Is it broken or did it proc and it just did not shape shift me?  I can't say I noticed the proc being I always noticed it by the shape shift but I didn't even think about it until just now while writing this.

One good thing you will notice there is that I said 15 minutes.  There is no way with the old mana system that I would have been able to pound away for 15 minutes without any problems.  I am just concerned that I was only running 5800-6200 DPS unbuffed when I hear other people telling me they are doing 12000-14000 DPS unbuffed in similar gear.  I can't see how my rotation could be much different then what I mentioned above.  With focus restraints and the limited options we have now there is not much else that can be done. There is no way I am that bad compared to everyone else is there? I'm going to guess they are either 1) lying or 2) buffed or have the target debuffed.

I can't wait to get it into practice.  If we have enough people in the guild that did their homework and are ready to roll we will test out our new specs on the weekly tonight.  I can't wait to see what it is like in practice.

I also speced out my Druid (bear/tree) and my Priest (disc/holy) and fixed up their bars as well.  I did not do much testing on either of them so I do not have a great deal to say on them at the moment.  I did do power word barrier a few times because it was fun and tested the tree form for the few seconds you stay in tree but that is about it.

I also made a metric buttload of glyphs and even with my huge stash of inks I am out of some now and have not even come close to making all the ones I need.  Looks like I will have to do some serious flower picking this weekend.

All in all the uptime and the changes all seem to be better then expected and a lot smoother then they were on PTR.

4.0.1 - Will We Play Tonight?

I while ago when I was first put in the position of raid leader my first move was to change out raiding schedule from Tuesday and Thursday and Monday to a set up of Wednesday, Thursday and Monday.  The reason being was I hated raiding on Tuesday.  So often the server would be down for an extended amount of time.  Some of those times it was down up until our raid time started and a few times it did not come back up until after our normal raid time was supposed to start. 

Tuesday created a lot of ill will with some players that still wanted to raid even though the servers were back up late.  Some, after hours of trying to get on, just gave up so they were not even on for the raid.  I figured, not raiding on Tuesdays was just safer.  Over all, that has worked well so far and for this coming patch, it fits perfect.

There is no way in hell that WoW will be back up and running when raid time comes tonight.  If their track record shows us anything it is that they have no ability to estimate time it will take to do things.  How often have they said 1 hour of extended maintenance and it turn into 4 or 5?  I am a relatively newer player and I've learned well enough.

So with that said, and this extremely ambitious update coming in today I see the likelihood of us logging in today as slim to none.  Even if we do get on there will be the players having to relearn their classes.  Most of my guild mates are not like me, they have not read up on things, so they will be in for a shock when they log in next. 

I've read up on all 10 classes, not only because I have at least 1 of all 10 classes but because I know 90% of my guild will not have read up on their classes.  That leaves me as the person that will be playing teacher for the next few weeks I can imagine.

I can picture in my head already the list of issues I know I will see.

Death Knight Tanks in dungeons refusing to put Blood Presence on because Frost is the tanking one.  They won't care that it changed, they won't even believe me if I tell them.  I will just be a noob and probably get a kick if I tell them things changed.  I bet this will happen more often then any other mistake I see coming from the changes.

Some serious aggro issues.  I can see these lolaoe classes going all out and not giving a shit that all tank specs have been made a bit more difficult where they still just spam their AoE spells and that is it.  They will instantly start yelling, learn to tank, and will not except the fact that the tank is indeed trying to learn how to tank all over again.  Looks for many, and I do mean many, thaks to quit tanking with this patch.

Hunters getting crap for low DPS.  This is a given for a few reasons.  First off Hunters are the only class that have to deal with a completely new resource.  Some will adjust quicker then others but some it will take some time to get used to the new way of doing things.  So they will get a lot of grief for that I am sure.  Not to mention the lolaoe moments like the trash up to marrowgar.  Where everyone is doing 20K DPS from AoE on the trash hunters will be left behind as the only class with no AoE any more.  Multi shot will be okay, but unlike other classes, we will not be able to spam it.

I am nearly sure that there will be a few, if not more then a few, people that do not even realize there have been changes or will not understand the changes.  They will spec into some of the same things they had last time and not realize that they do not work the way they used to and that will effect their effectiveness in a raid.

Paladin will undoubtedly have issues with Holy Power, that is something that is to be expected.  Paladins have been such a faceroll type of class for such a long time that having something else they need to keep track of will take some getting used to.  Basically any class that got used to do one thing will have an issue when having to do another now.

Some things I look forward too such as the Paladin buffs.  No more I want might instead of wisdom, or vice versa.  It is one buff, if you do not like what the buff auto gave you then bitch to Blizzard not to the Paladin that gave it to you.  I do think that the "smart spells" they are using now will be smart enough to know the difference between an Enhancement Shaman and an Elemental Shaman.  If case you had not noticed, the "smart spells" are included in a lot of cataclysm stuff.  Just look at the tool tip on the feasts for cataclysm.  Adds stamina and one other useful stat.  Yes, it really says that.

I am glad that Hunters no longer need to deal with ammo.  That is a minor thing but does free up some bag space which is always a good thing and it keeps me from having to waste an extra 30-40g each raid night on ammo.  What is going to happen to all the engineering ammo recipes?  Are they removing them?  There are a few spots while leveling it that making ammo is the best way to attain skill points.  Every good point has a bad point somewhere else.  Me not having to use ammo is the good point, engineering not having to make them is bad for them, leveling wise and profit making wise.

I think the biggest issue will be how people have to adjust without addons for however long it takes for the writers to update them.  It is at times like that we as players should thank the writers of the addons.  They make our life so much easier and they go out of their way to try and keep them up to date.  I thank them for that.

Speaking of addons.  I had gotten so used to the addon that notifies me when things proc that it will take some getting use to not having it.  Healbot on my healer has been a godsend but over the course of time I changed everything to mouse overs anyway so I should still be able to heal easily as mouse over is not all that dissimilar to healbot.  Healbot you hover over and click your mouse.  Mouse overs you hover over and click your keyboard.  I've been using a combo of the two.  Instants on the mouse, everything else mouse over.  Made it easier to do that way.  So used to hitting keys that mouse over was move comfortable for me and when moving heal bot for instants made me never lose a step.  Best of both worlds.

I do not expect to get on to WoW tonight, maybe tomorrow.  I bet a friend however that at 10 PM EST it would be back up.  Maybe that is wishful thinking but I hope it is.  At least long enough to get all my specs in place and to reforge all my critical into mastery on my Hunter.  Just to get the little stuff done so Wednesday night I will be ready to raid again.  Sad part is, and I am willing to put money on this, I will be one of very few that will be ready to raid at all this week.

For all the bad that has been done to hunters with this change I am really looking forward to it.  Maybe I do not fear change as much as I say I do.

New Pet Class: Rabbit

Have you ever seen Monty Python's Holy Grail?

I want that bunny. 

If I had my way and I could get any one pet class as a tamable class it would be the rabbit.  Sure, there are no non critter rabbits in the game but they can make some.  And if anyone says but a rabbit can not really be an attacker then they have not seen the Holy Grail.

Check it out.

I would never ever ever ever use another pet again if I could just get my killer rabbit.  Do you think Blizzard takes bribes?  I'd pay.

Playing with Mastery

I stopped on the PTR yesterday with my Hunter to test out some things, namely mastery.  With the changes to my gear nearly all my Hunters gear has haste and critical on it.  The armor penetration was changed to one or the other.  Lucky for me I do not have armor penetration gems so the changes will not be as costly to me as others. 

Normally my critical rate was sitting at 62% unbuffed before any changes so as you can imagine with the changes it went up some.  That is all passive too.  No gems or anything.  I can only imagine if I had been gemmed for armor penetration I most likely would have been close to the 104.8% critical cap.

For my test I wanted to see how I could get my mastery up some while not really effecting my stats much.  Being I had tons of critical to begin with and now haste actually means something to Hunters I decided I would change all my critical over to mastery and see what it would be.

As it turns out I dropped to 49% critical, unbuffed of course, if I change every piece of gear I have over to mastery as much as I am allowed.  The beauty is that all that mastery now gives me a huge boost to my bonus.

In MM I would not have a 36% change to fire an extra shot at 115% damage.
In BM my pets damage would increase by 34%.
In SV my elemental damage would increase by close to 20%.

Now that makes those mastery bonus's look a little more attractive over the base specials they offer.  It is going to be two months before we see anything with mastery on it to start with so for now this is the only way we can get mastery. 

The question I need to ask myself is if losing 13% critical is worth the gains in any of those numbers.  Without testing, just thinking about it, I would have to say yes, it will make a difference.  If the PTR does not get taken down this weekend, which it will if the update is going to be on Tuesday, then I will try and run some tests to see.

In a way I hope it does get taken down this weekend.  I am looking forward to the changes for as much as I really do not want them.

While testing on my Hunter last night I noticed something that is going to be an issue for me.  Kind of like a relearning all over again.  I was doing the stormwind invasion event (which is really fun, get ready for it) and it is all bang bang, lots of elementals and lots of running around, so a good test for me to try some things out.

Mind you my normal keybinds are not there but I did some basically simple stuff, just for testing.  Serpent is 1, Aimed is 2, Chimera is 3, Arcane is 4, Steady is 5. That was it really, anything else I would just click.  I have not taken much time trying to set it up.  I was just testing thing.

Everything was going down rather quickly so I could not test out the sting/chimera heal as much as I would have liked to in an actual situation but it seemed to heal me for 1400-2400 each time I did get a chance to do it.  The few times I got the chance to use it were enough to always keep me topped off.  So in minimal damage fights it sure seems as a hunter you are self reliant on keeping yourself healed now and it also seems that the 5% heals can indeed crit.

My one problem was focus, of course, and getting used to it.  I was out of focus quite often (basically any time I had to shoot and move, can't wait for fox at 83) so I picked a target that was further away and spammed steady some to get it back up.  As it went on, I got better at choosing when I had time to steady and when an instant was required.

My second problem comes down to being a keybinder.  A clicker would not run into this problem, or at least I do not think they would.  When I was spamming steady and the free aimed proced (impossible to miss the proc which is kind of cool) I would fire an aimed shot.  The thing is, I spam my keys.  Remember, Hunters have a 1 and 1/2 second global to begin with so I was always in the habit of spamming the key for the next shot ahead of time.  When aimed lit up I would go 2,2,2 real quick.  Like I said, out of habit.  I would be spamming my aimed (which is normally 3, shift 3 for a KC/Silence/Aimed combo).  I've never had a problem with it.  Now I do.  I have to learn how to hit the damn keys only once.  By doing what I did I hit the free Aimed and then started a full cost aimed after being there is no global there.  Oops.

So either I have to get out of the habit of spamming my keys like that, which I could learn of course, or I need to move aimed away from my comfort spot where I can spam it and put it somewhere like Z where I would need to move a little to get to it so I only hit it once.  Or my third option, I have a floating panel I use for "special" situational stuff that I leave in the middle of my screen for quick click use (it is movable, called extra bars if you are interested.  I usually have just 4 things on it and it is can be made really small so it is not intrusive at all).  Putting it there might work as well.  Only time will tell.

Grumpy Rant Time: Continue at your own risk.

Over all however there was not much to complain with.  The loss of volley is HUGE in a event like this where everything is just all out.  Multi is kind of sweet, but it costs way to much to be spammable and it needs a target, so it is not just a click and let lose spell like everyone else has.  I feel like the red headed stepchild no one loves. 

I used Multi when I could, but the damage has been nerfed to all high hell.  My normal mutli now is 3 shots from 8K-15K each.  Now it is as many shots as needed for roughly 2K-4K each.  They took away our volley and nerfed the hell out of our Mutli.  They really do not want people playing hunters any more I think.

Outside of the obvious mistreatment and apparent disdain for hunters the development staff has it is going to be more about readjusting how we do things then it is about complaining.  Nothing seems like it will be game breaking for us at the moment, not even the loss of volley, we just need to do what we always do as hunters.  We need to adapt.  We have always been able to do so many things, we will figure out how to do them again, it will just take some exceptional skill. Hunters are the most complicated class to play well as it is, focus surely doesn't make it any easier.  Take pride in that as a Hunter.

Hunters will most likely never see the top of the DPS charts again and will no longer be able to tank things non tank classes have no business doing and extreme soloing is now a thing of the past but I believe it can still be a fun class to play. We have one thing no other class will ever have.  Our pet.  It is not an elemental, it is not a demon, it is an animal pet and our pets rock more then ever now.

Zero it is.

After researching online it seems that getting exalted with The Aldor and the Scryers does not count as two reps, only one.  Same for Oracle and Frenzyheart.  I will make that switch as well.  Got the dragon from the Oracles already so no need to stay there.  Not to mention when switching I can get a few more achievements there and you all know achievement points are might tasty.

I got my response from Blizzard and amazingly enough they are as stupid as I thought they were.  My response when something like this.

"We are aware of the problems and are sure that it will adjust itself over time.  It is common for things like this to happen around maintenance time.  If you need any more information please check the forums."

Gee, thanks for the standard cut and paste reply you brain dead piece of shit.  Did you even read my message?  If you did, and if everything I researched online is true, you would have told me that I can not get exalted with both scryer and aldor.  Good work Mr. "I Know Nothing" GM.

Didn't I tell you that all GM's are a few Fruit Loops short of a bowl of cereal?

The Future of the 5-Man

The current state of the 5 man dungeon is rather simple.  Start it, run through it, finish it.  Even with mostly new people in the group, you are destined to get some, that know what they are doing it will be easy.  You will work through it.  Very few encounters are dead ends for people even in quest greens.  Everything can be done with minimal skill.

Of course, for the most part, many people know these dungeons like the back of their hand now.  So even when running a new character through them it is easy enough.  You will occasionally run into a new player that does not know the fights but if you take 3 seconds out of the run to explain you will be fine.  Public Service Announcement: Please do not be the jerk that kicks someone just for being new.

One of the advantages of the LFD system is that people start using it at a low level.  No more do we see Warriors leveling as fury or arms only to respec prot the second they hit 80.  They are now leveling as prot and leveling in dungeons.  So they do not hit 80 and walk into a dungeon and have no clue.  While they might still have a lot of learning to do they had many levels to get a grasp of the skills required.  The LFD system allows tanks to level as tanks and healers to level as healers.

With Cataclysm coming fast I have read a lot, most of it negative, about the difficulty of the 85 heroics. It makes me start to wonder about how the game is going to change.  I like that some difficulty is being added to them, that's for sure, but I also am aware that it will surely be nerfed within a week or two of a few people hitting 85 and crying.  I am slightly torn here.

If the level 85 heroic dungeons stay hard:

It will take time, a good deal of it, to gear up.  Your daily run will not be 15-20 minutes it will be an hour and a half at best.  These new heroics are like mini raids.  Raids on a 5 man scale.  I love that.  Actually, pick 5 people that have never stepped foot into Black Temple and know nothing about the fights in Black Temple.  Even at 80 they are going to have their asses handed to them if they do not take their time.

What this means is that the people that make the effort to do those heroics and work that hour plus to get it done will get a chance to get some gear, get some points and get some experience.  Those will be the people with better gear scores (for lack of a better way of explaining it) and the ones that you know have at least took the time to try and learn to play appropriately.

When the time comes to start raiding you will know who "earned" their gear and who has "welfare" gear.  People who earned their gear will have achievements from heroics, will have heroic drops and will have some points gear.  People who did a few bosses here and there and weekly's or only the easy dungeon whatever that might be will only have their "welfare" gear only.  The gear someone is wearing will actually show their skill.  That might actually mean that gear score will come to mean something.  I shutter at the thought, but it would be nice.

If they continue to treat heroics as mini raids then I see a bright future for raiding guilds.  Picking out the people that are willing to put the time and effort into it will be easier.  No more will we have to listen to people say I have 8 characters with over 6K gear score because quite frankly no one has that much free time if one dungeon is going to take nearly 2 hours sometimes.  However, for this to work Blizzard will need to make sure that the badges do not become like they are now.  Points should only ever be able to buy T11.  Even when we are up to T15, you should never be able to buy anything better then T11 with them.  Maybe trinkets only or something else so they are not useless, but not full gear.  Full gear should only be earned.  Like heroics will give points for T11.  T11 raids will give points for T12.  T12 raids will give points for T13.  And so on.  If they do that, which seems their initial intention, then I see a bright future ahead.

If the level 85 heroics get nerfed:

Then it will start turning into what WotLK became.  A joke fest for gear.  Everyone will have T11 in their first week after hitting 85.  What would follow that is that points will then be able to buy T12, then T13, then T14.  It will take away any chance of progression and being able to tell where someone is based on their gear.  It will turn into what it is now.  How it is now is the reason gear score is a useless add on.  Everyone can have over 5K gear score 1 week after hitting 80 if they took one weekend to chain heroics.

You see, the problem is not about welfare gear so to speak.  The problem is with giving continually increasing welfare gear.  Let people get some solid starter gear from working for it.  Do not let them keep getting upgrades forever from it.  That is what turned WotLK into a joke.

If people could only buy T7 with spamming heroics they would finish that off and then need to work their way up.  A few weeks of Naxx, then a few weeks of Ulduar, then a few weeks of ToC, then maybe they could have earned their way into a ICC run.  It will have shown they deserve to be there.  They worked for it. 

I was in an ICC 25 PuG last week where everyone had reasonable gear but we could not make it past deathwhisper.  Even after it was explained to them a dozen times and they still could not understand.  Most people where all in 245/251 or better gear.  An occasional 213 piece here and there and a hunter with a 200 greatness, which as a hunter I will never even think of questing that, even up to ICC that was a fantastic trinket.  But these people had gear. The gear numbers show they should know what they are doing or at least it would if they had earned that gear and not gotten it from chain running heroics.

The way the system turned out in WotLK, and will turn out in Cataclysm if they give in and nerf dungeons, is that people will be able to buy the most recent tier of raiding gear from doing heroics.  That creates a trickle down effect.  That means more people will have more gear which means that more random heroics will have more over geared people which will turn them all into a joke fest like it currently is.  Which again in turn means new players will end up getting carried through because of such huge over gearing no one will notice they have no clue how to play and then that asshole that just got his top gear from being carried through heroics is the idiot assembling the fail raid that can not get past the second boss even with a 30% buff.

The dungeons is where it starts.  Heroics need to feel heroic and stay feeling heroic. Then hopefully they will not make the gear selling mistakes they did in WotLK but allowing fresh 80s that know nothing to get into ICC gear while never having actually had to run a dungeon when it was hard.  By never having to deal with raid mechanics.  Those people are the reason why there are so many failed ICC PuGs.  Because they never worked for their gear, they did not earn it, it was given to them.

Even if things get to the point where heroics become a joke fest because of the people that did make the effort then the one person that got carried thought will still need to start raiding at the lowest level to move up.

I heard about the days in Vanilla and BC when it was like that.  It was before my time.  I am a WotLK baby but I really want to see things like that again.  I want to get a piece of gear and know I earned it and not have the feeling like I do now where I consider I deserve it because everyone else has it.  I consider myself a reasonable person and if I feel that way how do you think these kiddies feel.  We all know they do not want to work for anything, they think when they hit 80 there should be a mail waiting for them with all their T10 gear, and no, I am not exaggerating.  I say this is a great way to make sure they never get into our raids.  Make them work for it.

So as it seems (and yes I know beta is beta) the future looks bright for the future of 5 mans to start off with.  I hope with everything I can hope with that Blizzard does not make the mistake they made in WotLK and give away so many thing so easily like they did this time around.  Sure, I may stumble on my feet and become one of those people that just could not make it but if I do, then that means I need to get better.  I await the challenge.  Lets hope it stays that way.

I foresee a future of many many long heroics and many many kicked people in the first month or so of 85 heroics while the people that are willing to learn and the scrubs that have been carried through WotLK are separated.  I hope I can keep up and not become one of the scrubs.  At least I can assure you one thing.  I know I will be one of the people that is going to try my hardest.  Please blizzard, do not give the gear away that I am going to bust my ass trying to get to other people 2 months after I worked for it.  Let everyone else work for it too.