Eh, probably got unlucky and ended up in one of those "uberpr**k" groups. Ya know, the kind that require 9k dps for Naxx 10.

Especially after the recent nerfs to the orbs and to whiteout, t9 is plenty for this boss. It was a bit tricky (and tended to required additional healers and a heavy tilt towards ranged dps) before the nerfs, because the orbs were a bit dangerous. Now you really can just stand in them (though I wouldn't recommend it for clothies).

I lead a pug VoA 25 this afternoon with help of some friends, I just announced in trade channel and invited any whyspers I received without checking anything. I didnt ask for gear score or gear checking, just to be reasonable geared for the place. The only people I checked was 2 healers, but only to see if I would need to find an extra one or we are good to go (they were so awesome geared that I just got the first dps I saw).

We simple one shot Toravon without any death

Ten bucks says the raid leader was also a warlock, looking to reduce the competition for any potential drops.

@Serra:
Yes that's after the nerfs. As Wild Colors said it wasn't that easy before on 25s.

What makes me a bit.. hmm.. jealous is that he drops two pieces of tier 10 on 10s.
The total of 155 frosties is huge compared to the invested time to collect the badges.
If you manage to get your two pieces, you're looking at 8 weeks of random heroics day after day and the weekly raid.
And now imagine you're the single lucky mage from my 25 pug that got both in the first week.

My first pug on VoA25 was on the day it was released. The raid leader required 5k+ gearscore from everyone, and we wasn't able to kill him. We wiped a lot from the orbs, they did insane amount of damage, and if two get close to you you were dead. I was able to defeat him with a guild run later that week. Our guild is running ICC25, so we had lot of good geared people. I didn't know that blizzard nerfed him.

My first run on VoA25 was also on the day it was released. It was half guild, half pugs. Many of the pugs and some from the guild had less than 5k gearscore.

People had either read the fight or attempted it on 10 man, I didn't even notice he died because I was kiting a frozen orb away from other dpsers at the time. I think we had one melee death from unluckily being stuck in between 2 orbs, but that's it.

10 man has always been a problem, because healing really makes or breaks it. The first day running it with 3 healers, we wiped because of not enough dps. Yesterday running it with 2 healers just wasn't working, so we grabbed an extra one when a dps had to leave and it was cake. Probably the easier 10 man difficulty was due to nerfs, but I'm not complaining.

I love that WoW has become more accessible to middling players like myself, however the resulting reliance upon gearscore really puts me off. I don't do great DPS at my 4500 GS but I'm usually tops in heroics and middle of the pack in the few opportunities I get to raid. Additionally I learn boss mechanics very quickly and I rarely die - even on new encounters.

However there's no chance I'd ever get to pug a boss like this because a number somehow represents my entire worth to the group. And that's fine if I'm being pushed out of groups because higher geared players applied. After all, I suppose we need some arbitrary way to measure skill. But I've actually been refused spots in shorthanded runs because I didn't meet the required gear and achievement checks.

@ProTech

Gear Score =/= skill

@wildcolors: It got nerfed? Great! I did it the day of it's release and we barely could finish it. Did it with a tank, 4 dps, and a healer up. (25 man) And me with only a 4.9k gs! (I was the healer up :)