Just a thought, looking at the history of raiding for the past couple expansions. You may just take it slow and wait for the inevitable nerfs to come. Blizz has seemed to go through the same stages lately where as new raid content is difficult off the bat to give those exceptional guilds a fair shake at world firsts and the likes, but then within a couple months everything is 'tuned' to the more, not casual, but typical raiding guilds. I wouldn't call the sky falling just yet, give it a shot, maybe take the advice of going back when you hit a wall with firelands and do some base HM's or what not and just wait it out a bit. I know that sounds somewhat negative, and I don't mean it as such, but basically they have proven that if the majority of people are struggling with something they will make it more accessible in time. My guild is only 3/13 heroic currently due to a lot of people coming and going and I worry about some of our early firelands experience too, but I think by the time we're at a wall with it there will be a first segment of nerfs to encounters. It pains me to say that as I would like us to be a great top end guild and all, but we just simply don't have the dedication for it as a whole. Point being, don't stress over the difficulty too much, things are always hard at first and if you're still raiding at this point without nef/cho'gall down then it says your guild is dedicated enough to stick it out without blowing up internally, so it shouldn't be any different come the next tier of raiding, right?

@Rohtak I'm in the same boat you are and I sincerely hope heroic raiding is not required to do normal raiding. I'm hoping to take down Nef and Al-akir due to the nerfs and farm a bit of tier gear from the final bosses to help out the Firelands progression. Fingers-crossed that it's enough.

My $15 bucks a month goes towards a game I sit down and enjoy after my wife and kids are in bed. I try and experience every aspect of the game. Try it some time. Blizzard has tried so much to have a happy medium between the "hardcore" and "Casual" players and have branched out in different directions to add variety. Nobody is ever happy. Every fight is scripted and if the script is followed he will go down. 10 minutes of research and a video is not that hard to make your 15 a month worth it. On average 15 / lets say 30 = .50 cents a day. I think your getting your moneys worth, pretty sure of it. Ask your self what you wish to obtain from this gaming experience. Is it a cheat code that gives you instant epics and scrolling text saying you did it? or an environment that gives you a break from every day life? Try just enjoying the game for what it is and not an entitlement that you feel your .50 cents a day deserves (on average, I am aware that number changes for many). For 5 years I've seen individuals complaining that they can't get past A to be rewarded B to access C because they don't have the time to put in the effort that the formula may require. I get it. You have a life. Good on ya. Just don't complain on public forums about how much you pay and how it's not fair. We all pay the same amount and how we choose to use our game time will differ.

Remember all regular t11 bosses will all be getting nerfed so you should have an easier time with any bosses you have left in that tier.

@ Kevlar WTF are you talking about?

I didn not once mention that I felt entitled to anything. I don't feel entitled. I like the idea of having to work for my rewards; however, I don't like the idea of putting content out of the reach of the majority of players. Watching a video on a fight or reading a write up doesn't not make the actual execution magically become easier. We have watched video's and researched the hell out of Neferian on 10 man. Simple fact is we just havent been able to down him. Am i complaining about that? No, not at all. If I felt entitled then i'd be crying for more nerfs and how blizzard owes me. But again I'm not. My guild and I have thrown ourselves at that damn encounter for weeks now and are determined to down him before 4.2 as a point of pride. We dont wanted to be handed epics.

What concerns me is if the next teir starts out on a difficulty level equal to Nef pre nerf (which alot of sources are indicating that is about where the first couple of bosses sit difficulty wise) where does that leave me and my guild? What do we do? Do we continue to pound away at Nef until we down him and run heroics to pass the time, or just wait for the eventual nerfs to Teir 12? Because thats the choices we are faced with. If Teir 12 is out of our reach then we are left with nothing to do. We are pretty muched past the current content, have no need for 5 mans or justice points, and flat out refuse to be forced into a progression path that makes us do T-11 heroics before we can do T-12. If thats the case, then yeah, its not worth my $15 a month. But if thats your idea of a good time and how you want to "enjoy the game" then by all means have at it.

I don't see how anyone, including Mr. Carraway, can speculate on the relative tuning of the upcoming boss tier. No one except Blizzard employees know how the bosses will be tuned. Even people who play on the PTR only really get a grasp for general mechanics, but often numbers get tweaked around enough before release that trivial mechanics become crucial and vice versa. It's definitely premature to speculate on what sort of gear you "need" to progress in Firelands- though going from prior tier experiences you do not have to clear the previous tier to progress in the next.

So @Rohtak, it's definitely too early for whining. If you're 10/12 regulars you're probably kitted out in mostly 359s already, just missing a few weapons (craftable in 4.2) and 4-set bonuses (irrelevant since you'll be replacing a lot of that equipment soon). My guess is you'll be ready to step into Firelands on day one.

4.2 is nerfing all of bwd bot and throne 20% across the board. if your raid can't clear this content after that nerf, look for a pug group in trade that should be able to do it easily because your guild group sounds terrible