With 1.0 raiding, you could lose 2 or 3 people (as long as they weren't tanks) and still finish an encounter. 2.0 is much less forgiving, and certain encounters (Kael, Vashj, Gruul, Mag) require everyone to perform to the max of their ability while making sure they stay alive and overcome whatever mechanics the fights present.

Random abilities in encounters are also pretty crazy, but I'm a little jaded because we're working on Kael. Having someone get remote toyed while gazed by Thaladred is like Blizzard hitting the "You lose" button.

I assume by "consumable use", you're referring to mana potions and ironshield potions, because the remainder of it is manageable by comparison. Blizzard needs to take a serious look at these, because they really don't add to the game in a raid environment, and really add to the "grindy" feel that I think burns a lot of people out. Most people who raid are at least a little bit competitive, and part of being competitive is feeling like you're giving 100% to the effort. Obviously, the more Blizzard does to increase the amount of time investment involved in giving 100%, the more they're going to alienate the semi-hardcore crowd that (and this is totally speculation) makes up the bulk of the end game raiding crowd. And I say this because it's something I hear over and over again from friends of mine who play the game and stopped raiding, or are playing the game but are feeling burnt on it. Healers in particular. They just don't see why they should have to put up with long hours in raids followed by long hours farming just to feel like they're doing the best they can and not short-changing their guild.

The staff buff makes you immune to stun, how is that You Lose?

I'm only just beginning Hyjal and BT so I haven't seen the wonders of encounters like Mother S yet, but so far there haven't been any situations that aren't in the player's hands whether you win or you lose.

I agree whole-heartedly with that last sentence, but I would go so far as to replace 'guild' with 'raid.' My position is probably a bit of a rare one on these boards: I'm not in a hardcore raiding guild; I'm in a very *very* casual one. We raid approximately whenever the hell we feel like it, more often than not spreading it out and pugging Kara with our alts and mains and whoever LFG turns up.

When I raid on my healer, no matter who else is in my group, if I think we're going to kill the boss that attempt or not, I will always use mana oils and pot and elixir up (mana pots are the big one here) if for no other reason than I will be damned before an attempt falls short because of me being greedy with my consumables. If I screw up a heal (which is pretty rare [shameless]), fine, my fault, it won't happen again. But if I go oom because I didn't pot early or often enough, that's inexcusable.

Hmm, we generally did Kara with 1 tank, and then 1 "off-tank"...either a feral, or a DPS warrior who could throw on a shield for the few bosses that 2 tanks helped on, or the trash pulls where 2 tanks helped. Furthermore, said DPS warriors and ferals also tanked many heroics for us.

So on Hydross/Fathomlord, it was no stretch at all to have these people tank some adds, whereas in the guild we never went over 3 "tank-specced" players. To this day we still use ferals in raids. They will tank on some encounters and on trash, DPS on others, and while they are dpsing, they are always ready to shift over and cover somewhere if a tank is needed (Doom on an Azgalor OT, weapons on P2 Kael, all the Hyjal trash, etc).

I fail to see why people are forming the 1, perfect, ideal heroic group, then trying to multiply it by 5. In every guild out there, heroics have been run with DPS wars or ferals tanking, with odd setups on their DPS, with different #s and classes healing. Hell, I bet some ferals have healed heroics (oh, we use our ferals to heal in some raid encounters too....).

Anyway, we didn't have to add or drop any archetype in 25man raiding from what we had been doing in Kara or heroics.