2009 is almost at an end. The fifth year of World of Warcraft was the year of anticipation for the final showdown with The Lich King which we will see early in 2010 before ending in Cataclysm. We’ve seen some significant changes to both the game and the community.
1. IMMORTAL – The bane of every raid team. Sure achievements are fun, but if you’re the person that has a d/c and gets targeted for Anub’s spikes before you disappear costing your raid team a cloak for the week the fun quickly turns to stress and irritation.
2. Class utility – Bring the player not the class. We’ve heard this catch phrase so often over the past year, and Blizzard made good on the promise by spreading necessary buffs/debuffs/etc to various classes so that your team is covered no matter what. Unless you’re fighting Instructor Raz in Naxx, then you’d best have two priests with some hit. 😉
3. Casual Raiding – Heck, it’s not even casual raiding anymore. It’s PuG raiding. I was so proud of my former server in TBC for the number of successful PuGs we could run of SSC/TK. Now raiding truly is anyone and everyone’s game…well, as long as you stick to normal mode difficulty.
4. Gearscore – No, not the shaman alt one of our officers levelled. With this fun (sarcasm font) new addon, you can be judged instantly by the item level of those purples you have thrown on. So what if you’re a rogue wearing spellpower leathers? Those babies have an average ilevel of 245, and you’re good to go, lol. Gearscore is not a perfect tool for determining raid readiness. Most forget that Naxx was originally cleared by guilds with raiders in 70 gear, but try to get that idea across in trade chat. 🙂
It’s been a pretty great year for the rogue class, in my opinion. This expansion we received Tricks of the Trade, Fan of Knives, and a return to dagger viability. Sure it’s not a Warglaive year, but you can’t always be number one. Best of luck to my ret pally teammate as he collects some Primal Saronites to speed up his Shadowmourne building. 🙂
Enjoy the dawning of the new decade! Happy, joyful, and prosperous New Year!
RogueRaider's Adventures in Warcraft 
hmm… sometimes one may wonder if it’s a coincidence that some things Blizzard does are similar to things that may have been posted on the WoW forums… and yet, so different. ;/ ‘PUG’ raiding didn’t have to mean it was easy… the challenge should have been to allow an aggregation of skilled strangers (or several groups of non-strangers) with unpredictable RL schedules to ‘PUG’ content, not a random aggregation of unskilled ones… but some designs are so static that the only way to accommodate fluid raid compositions is to make the encounters very easy
The worst thing to come of random strangers raiding together is the stupid gear score. It’s like anonymous strangers knowing your credit rating.
Saw a post by a guild that’s forming to attempt to fully clear ICC 25 in blue gear. Their idea is that knowing what you’re doing is way more important than the ilevel of your pixels. I hope they do it. I know it was already done in Ulduar.
exactly :P… when you know absolutely nothing about someone, there’s all sorts of crazy and unreliable metrics you resort to using.. while if it’s more oriented around combining small groups (aka ‘guilds’~) into a larger force to accomplish a goal, then each group is vouching for the ability and competence of its own members.. then again, what do I know about raiding, I’ve never even used vent lol
It has been a great year for rogues and may 2010 bring more of the same.
Anyone who hasn’t played a rogue is really missing out on probably the most fun and challenging class to play!
I have to say I’m not a fan of the GearScore addon. What with the ease people can acquire gear these days this doesn’t really give you much of a clue as to who are the more skilled players and who are the below-average players.
Skill > Gear everytime and I’m more interested in seeking out those more skilled players.
Still it is nice to see a v.high gearscore (I’m currently 4th highest rogue and 32nd on my realm overall).
13 of the top 20 are in the realm’s no.1 guild so I suppose there is something to be said for the correlation between gearscore and player ability.
But only at the higher levels I think.
I think you have the right attitude! I enjoy theorycrafting alot, but sometimes I do miss the days of just playing a rogue for the hell of playing one. 🙂
My viewpoints on raiding have changed quite a bit over the years I’ve played the game. I think I have a good balance now.