It's pretty daunting that a flow chart is needed to keep all of it straight. I'm not sure that's "clear progression," at least in the traditional sense. There's no more clear-cut "zone 2 > zone 1, in both difficulty and loot," as a bunch of them are interconnected now -- which Blizzard really wanted, rather than content becoming old and abandoned. Once we're all keyed for zones with "Tier X Sets," many people will remain focused on their sets and want these zones the most, regardless of other itemization.

Maybe the simplest way to write progression is:
5-man --> Karazhan & Heroic 5-man --> 25 man & outdoor raids.
(I wasn't in beta, so not sure where any other 10-man zones fit in.)

A slightly less detailed but easier to read chart, for your reference:
http://worldofraids.free.fr/bc/BCRaids.png

Good thing I like to see everything, eh? :)


edit: Ah, Gurg beat me on specific names for the 25s. (Zul'aman is also a future release.)

The optimist in me believes that Black Temple attunement will simply require "Splinter of the Tree of Life" or "Essence of Archimonde" or something of that ilk. I think even the biggest pessimist would have a hard time believing Blizzard have an entirely new attunement line for BT, particularly after the standard set by Hyjal's.

On a slight tangent, I know many guilds often calibrate their recruitment policies around attunements. What sort of attunements would you seek from your typical applicants once your guild gets back into the raid rhythm? At this point I'm not sure that demanding anything higher than all 5 Heroic keys would be feasible for your "average" raid applicant.

Just off what I've seen so far I'd definitely say include Karazhan key in there along with being up to the Heroic runs stage of Tempest Keep attunement myself. If they can't handle the Karazhan key chain/basic pre reqs for Cipher of Damnation they're, for various reasons, probably not people you want to be trying to raid with be it due to inexperience, laziness or just plain poor play or whatever.

Not to say not to invite/include people that haven't yet done that sort of stuff in guild depending on guild philosophy/atmosphere/approach but if looking for/accepting applicants specifically for raiding purposes who'll have expectations of a raiding spot no sense in not making sure they've done/can handle the pretty accessible preparation.

I'm with Gurg on this: Hyjal has no clear place in the tier structuring. We can assume quite safely that The Eye and Serpentshrine are shared, not in the least if you follow the lore they're both Illidan's Lieutenants. This would suggest a need to defeat them to face him. We know from Fanatik and the like that a tier 6 warrior set is ingame (or was), which also indicates Hyjal/Black Temple carries something other than tier 5. Also, a blizzard statement a month or so ago eluding to internal BT testing already being underway. I have a feeling BT will be like KH and Nax in scope, so expect all of tier 6 to be there. Which leaves Hyjal in a unique position. Presuming you're against the Infinity Flight's leader/archimonde at the end, you can expect some clear upgrades from the tier 5 offered in Shattrath. But if Hyjal is going to be paced along the lines of Black Morass and Durnholde, then it presents an entirely unique raiding zone: the pace could become overwhelming.

Of course this is just speculation going by version 1 raid zones and the Caverns of Time area. But in 3-4 months it's something I will be following very closely.

Tempest Keep Key, the Arcatraz Key quest is the triangulation quest.

Not quite. You can survive the supreme mode and continue damaging him. A 25 man raid could win if they can handle the mana drains effectively. However, the fight is much much easier with 40 obviously.

We had to get through one round of his supreme mode to kill him tonight. Though we did get as close to 4% on previous runs before he enraged. And yes, we had 40.

My group of guildies took a stab at a steamvault heroic run last night. We are all decked out in complete blues from lvl 70 instances and have been waiting for our guildies to catch up to start khara, somehow we're still #1 on horde skywall as far as what we have killed cleared(not to say much).

Our tank was very well geared for someone who has not been in khara/heroics. We had minimal consumables, elixers, and that's it, no flasks.

First pull, 2 mobs. First wipe. We were not ready for the one non-sheeped mob to hit our tank for 6k and then 3k(noncrit) in about 3 seconds, we just were not ready.

Zone back in, we're ready, kill the first 2, then get to the bog lords. We knew this was going to be tough, real tough, and it was.

The pull, I put down disease totem, agi, str, and the priest and I get to healing. By then our tank had gotten hit for a 9k crit, and then 3k, then 6k. At this point we realized this was not going to be possible for the time being, at all without more consumables. We did down the bog lord healing like mad men and popping pots(i'm enhance/resto LOL).

Anyway, after that the instance would have gotten somewhat more technical w/CC involved and we probably could have cleared a good deal of the small instance with flasks, and top end consumables and maybe a few khara gears.

But believe me when you first zone in through that pulsing skull zonein, you will be surprised how much harder it really is. We're going back next week fully equipped. Look out skywall's Steamvaults!

I haven't really delved much into the instances or knowledge of, but I've looked at the flow chart and it just seems to criss cross all over the place. The amount of keys it seems I have to collect is mind boggling, even though I realize in another few weeks it won't be.

BTW, how many of the instances are 10 man and how many 25? I had thought and heard Vashj/Kael were 25, as well as the Black Citadel and of course, Hyjal, but I had thought most everything else was 10 mans. Correct or incorrect?

Karazhan is the only 10 man content added by TBC

Karazhan is the only 10-man at the moment. Gruul, Magtherion, Vashj(Serpentshrine Cavern), Kael(Tempest Keep: The Eye), Black Citadel and Hyjal are 25mans.

Logistics, schedules, looting issues, timing of the spawn being up, just to name a few.
This just doesn't make sense that they tell people that 40 man raids are done and then include an outdoor boss tuned for 40.