I am a fan of everyone raiding how they want and even casuals seeing content, but LFR has compounded the declining skill problem that is plaguing WoW. As a GM of a 10 man guild working on heroics, we often have nights were a dps can't make it and we decide to pug and clear on normal. I have no problem getting responses in trade from 20 people in full 378+ gear, but I would bet half the guild bank only 1 will do acceptable damage for their gear level. On top of this, Blizzard is streamlining everything from talents to dps rotations but even these simplifications aren't helping players perform any better. I was in an LFR this weekend with a holy priest who was way high on activity, but did less healing than 2 shadow priests. That is simply.... stunning.

Scott's remark about his guild moving up in ranking by virtue of surviving rings true on my server, where there is only 1 25 man guild (counting both factions) that has killed Deathwing. T13 is by far the easiest tier yet in cataclysm, but each tier less and less guilds are making progress due to (in my opinion) a horribly degraded player base. The ICC nerfs and what that did to player expectations and performance was devastating, and my server never recovered.

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