How does it happen? Partially it's the summer doldrums... if you can't field a consistent raid team because every week one or two of your main crew is off on vacation or whatever, you have to teach someone new the fight every week. And that's if you've got alternates that are geared enough to make a firelands raid. If not, you're off to tier 11 to fill in those gaps, or calling the raid off altogether.

Then there's the enormous amount of trash you have to clear before even spawning Shannox. If you're raiding on the timescale my guild did, you clear to Shannox and half your night was gone. Only got him to 5% before the soft enrage killed you on your best attempt? Sorry, next raid night you're still stuck with an hour of trash before you can make another boss attempt.

And trash made worse because it's constantly pathing across other trash packs; waiting for dogs or surgers or giants to stop standing in scorpions or whatever added quite a bit of time to the clear, not least because of wipes because they weren't as clear as the puller had hoped.