I know a lot of guilds raid Karazhan now, and many are about to start Gruul. I also know many of those guilds have people who are left out of those runs simply because of their class. You may be in a raiding guild but not actually be raiding. I know one guild that has 2 priests and 9 mages. It's easy to see what happens there. I know one top end guild that is also short on priests and actively powerleveling dreanei priests to replace people who can't get a raid spot.

On a longer term view, this also means that there'll be those people who have had a raid spot since the very first week of the very first Kar group (usually priests, warriors, druids) and will be fully geared, completely bored of the place, and other people will have only been there for a short while and will have missed it on some weeks when it's been full of x class and still need gear from there, while the guild is trying to push on.

How are you guys handling this now that it's a very visible issue? Do you see many people rerolling into more wanted classes, or just waiting patiently? Did anyone reroll because of it, or leave and try to join another guild? Personally my guild slowly died since TBC came out and we've had no luck with raiding. Fortunately I've been able to do Karazhan runs with some friends, but it's been less reliable than if it had been a solid guild group. I thought about rerolling but in the end I prefer playing the class I like rather than ensure myself a raiding spot with a priest.

For the most part we usually have DPS classes sitting out (rogues/mages/hunters/warlocks)--not because of any class limitations but simply because those are the classes from which we lost the least people transitioning to level 70.

Hasn't really been much of an issue for us at all. There's always the paladin/shaman option if you want to reroll.

We had a similar problem with the Priest and Mage situation. After we killed Kel'thuzad, many of our priests (6) left the game. From our Naxx days, we currently have ONE member priest (who recently has basically stopped playing his priest, in favor of a druid). Also, we had multiple players switch their mains to Mages since expansion.

To compensate, we chose to run multiple raid groups. However we're now seeing the aftereffect of that choice in slowed progression. However we don't have many people wanting to reroll priests for the specific reason you mentioned, enjoyment.

It'll be interesting to see where this goes, I'm tied between both the multiple groups, and forming a powerhouse group. Sadly, I don't think its possible to have both.

How many Karazhan raids are guilds finding themselves fielding, who are also interested in being tuned for 25 man raiding?

We are running 2 a week and looking into adding a third, but don't want to grow so much that many people must sit out of 25 man.

Absolutely the same thing as my guild right now. The problem we have currently is, like everyone else has said, we have way too much DPS in the guild and JUST enough healing and tanking.

I think the real fact of the matter is everyone wants to WTFPWN everything so they roll mages, rogues, locks, DPS warriors, Ret pallys, etc... and they don't realize that effective raids require class balance.

I actually had one person suggest that we stack a raid with 1 healer, 1 tank, and 8 DPS and just DPS stuff down before it killed the raid. Now, I don't know if he was serious but he seemed to think that it would actually work.

I mean come on...

We have a massive surplus of dps classes, but not enough competent tanks and healers to run a second group. It's currently causing a lot of stress and animosity, and I anticipate several eventual /gquits. Thankfully we are running a bidding system so at least those with currently guaranteed spots won't accumulate a permanent dkp lead.

It pretty much sucks balls all around. Making the entry-level raid a long 10-man on a 7-day timer was a huge mistake.

We have what seems like 8 Kara's going this week, so this was a huge issue 1-3 weeks ago when we had 1-2 Kara groups, but it's turning into less of an issue as new leaders step up and create more 10-man Kara groups. We are slightly heavy with DPS classes.

We have around 28 active raiders and run two Karazhan groups. I find slotting 14 people into a 10-man group is extremely effective, as it still allows class flexibility if necessary and gives a buffer if one or two people have to work late or can't go otherwise. People have to sit out on occasion, but we just hug it out if feelings are hurt.

As for class balance problems, of those 28 people, 5 are warriors and 5 are paladins (perhaps left over from the days of warrior-stacking). We have at least 2 of every other class though, so I'm fairly comfortable with it and we can have 1 class available for both teams. What's harsh, though, is when there's a great player who's interested in applying but they're a paladin or warrior and I'm not sure if it'd be fair to keep stacking those classes.

We currently run 2 karazhan raids with a decent night being 32 people around that are able to go to kara. What I was looking at and the guild with 35 people and 2 raids as well may consider is this: You fill the 3rd raid with generally flaky attendance people and don't try to force it through too much as long as you are getting them through some early bosses and getting extra upgrades without hurting raid 1&2s full clear potential it seems like a good thing.

I think the problem with this is honestly until you hit Curator the actual "upgrades" are really few and far between, and its yet another headache if people end up basically in the c team. I mean, it could be a respectable setup, just filled with inconsistant attendance people, and honestly hardly any raid group is ever filled with say, 10 people who can't raid on the same day. For us with the 3 groups we had a total of 26 people who could be there every day, but missing 1-2 people per group on random days with only a total of 2 potential substitutes (and substitutes are basically people who are even more inconsistant on those days), well, we ended up with 3 groups who really all ended up just being unable to raid on those days.

Unfortunately people just can't be consistantly be categorized as any one way, unless all of them really have no schedule conflicts and can play the game as much as they want to which I would guess for many guilds isn't reality.

We're staying a bit larger than the avg "25 man" raid, but then again we have a lot of quality people and I don't feel like kicking them just because there's some avg guild size to aspire to. They've been mostly ok with sitting out and finding 5 man heroics. That said, there's always a bit of griping if what you really wanted to do tonight was x and you have to do y instead.

We have three kara runs going atm, basicly formed by volunteer raid leader types as people keyed, and aside from talking with each other to make sure one raid doesn't lock 9 healer types, the organization is mostly "who wants to go". The first of these groups formed on our forums from a "I'm starting a kara group" post when the first set of 70s hit their keys, and they're working on nightbane. The second formed the same way but included a "only raiding twice a week" type clause and they're on nether? The last group was started by our main tank 2 cycles in when we had enough keyed for a third group (I'm our progression raid leader for 25 man stuff, but I find myself going with whoever's the furthest behind in the kara groups because I know the zone very well and I enjoy tagging along when I can.) and they're midway through.

The instance is easy enough to explain quickly that you can bring people who are competent but new to the zone, which is a nice perk. It's also a tremendous help to bring even a single person who's done it all, because the fights are memorable enough that even our most tongue tied members can give a veritable dictionary entry on any of the fights. The gear is also not hugely better than heroic 5 man stuff from what we've seen. I have the Sun Eater - I like it better than The King's Defender. Stuff like that is happening all over the place. If you can't go to kara, go clear heroic X.

I think every guild has a bit of the "omg smaller content, now there's a (larger-than-expected) wait list" stuff going on (even the groups that tried to downsize that I've talked to have more of a waitlist than they expected because they downsized with all the hardcore 100% attendance types). It's going to be a bit bumpy while people get used to it, but to be honest, I like the thought of me missing a progression night isn't the end of the world. (Well maybe I shouldn't miss as the raid leader, but I'm pretty jealous of the member benefits of rebirth).

Obviously this is going to change based on your guild's focus, but we've never wanted to be nihilium (crazy, but fun) or DnT (Equally crazy/fun) or even Mechanical Squirrels (Crazy in a different way, still fun). We've wanted to be ourselves, and part of being ourselves is those extra people on the wait list. Another part is killing dragons. Conveniently, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

I suppose the lesson to take from this is: everyone wants to be at tommorrow today. Slow down, enjoy today, and remember that tommorrow will get here soon enough. Lastly, if you are not doing something and you feel angry at someone else about it, instead ask yourself why you're not organizing whatever it is you want to do. Even when we have 3 kara raids running, it's not too difficult for the other people to find a 5 man, although they might have to go out of guild for a healer/tank/cc. Maybe that's just skywall having a semi-decent atmosphere though.

Perhaps the other lesson to take from this: Unless you plan on starting up your own guild, it's going to be insanely difficult to find a guild to join in the next month or so.