Finished Karazhan

Last night my guild did an impromptu mini-raid on Karazhan, finishing off the last two remaining optional bosses: Illhoof and Netherspite. I came along, we killed both on the second try, and I have now downed every boss in Karazhan, if you count the opera as one boss. I still need to see the other two opera events, having only done Romulo and Julianne twice. I picked up a shiny new epic belt from Illhoof, and some more badges of justice. I think I need to spend an hour looking through WoW-Loot and make a list what items I need from what boss. But up to now the difference between "good blue" gear from dungeons and "average purple" gear from Karazhan isn't that great. I haven't had a single epic yet which was just plain better than what I was wearing before. It was always improving one stat by a little more while lowering another stat by a little less. The difference between T0 gear from Scholomance/Stratholme/UBRS and the epics from Molten Core was bigger.

I must say my guild is doing an excellent job of getting Karazhan raids together with a good mix of noobs like me who can still use most of the loot, and experienced raiders who make sure we don't wipe too often. On the more complicated encounters we might wipe once until the players there for the first time understand how it works, and then we down the boss on the second try. The easier fights we manage on the first try. Wiping repeatedly on the prince was really an exception. For once the small raid size of Karazhan is an advantage, because you need only a handful of experienced and well equipped raiders to complement another half consisting of new raiders, people who know their stuff and are equipped in decent blue gear but don't know Karazhan yet. And the badges of justice system helps there, because even somebody who has every single piece of loot in Karazhan can still use the 20+ badges from a complete run.

The downside of the raiding system for me comes now: X weeks of doing Karazhan over and over, until I have a set of gear that allows me to participate in the next stage of the raiding circuit. I am not saying that you don't need any skill to raid, but the real obstacles to raid progression are more often gear checks than skill checks. The whole system is designed to keep people occupied, to slow down their progress and force endless repetitions, because otherwise players would "finish" the game too fast. I'd much prefer a system where you'd advance a bit faster through the raid circuit and then the next expansion would come out faster. Blizzard being unable to produce expansions in a year or less is directly responsible for the raid grind system.