New Raiding, Ver. 80

[Proudfoot]

GO GO WALL O' TEXT

but i think its kinda sad that you go straight to saying that once ppl get geared they will go to an alt. This isnt normally the case and the ppl that just keep raiding even after getting gear or having better all ready have to keep chugging along. Its not about the individuals its about the guild. I mean its a game we are suppose to be having fun and enjoying the time in fellowship with other christians not about hey i want this bow and if i dont get it i quit! kinda mentality

I appologize if I made it sound like everyone is in it for only loot. I just know from experience that there are many who will get bored raiding if they know there aren't any upgrades for them in the current tier. If all of your gear drops in the first month of raiding, after a few months of running the same stuff over and over and over to help others get their gear you'll get weary. This is human nature and isn't a character flaw. You'll want to progress to new content/gear (most likely) or you'll want to play an alt to get them gear (if you have one). Everyone, and I mean everyone is to some extent raiding for the chance of getting loot. The reason I posted about the imbalance in the DKP system is because it will lead to discouragement in the more casual players of redeemed (and we want all memebers of redeemed to feel welcome right?).

I'm not sure how it would be irrelevant? You said a general decay, which applies across the board, so if (/cough, when) things drop that are simply unusable or downgrades, you're penalized. This is doubly so when there's a lack of progression, however said member puts in the effort and shows up week in and out to help the team progress (and doesn't DIAF (or slime as it may be) every week). This situation can literally lead to people not seeing new items for months, all the more so with the way itemization is done now and that pretty much every caster, healers included, may be rolling on a single piece of gear

The reason I said it's irrelevant is because it truely is. All that is relevant in any dkp system is your point total in relation to another members point total. If you are higher then the person below you, you have priority whether you have 500 points or 50. The decay applies across the board so your position will never change as a result of decay. You are never penalized when your items don't drop, you just continue to move up in points until your items do drop. In the situation where people wouldn't see new items for months... that would happen anyways, even with a simple round robin. If the items don't drop, they can't be awarded.

The law of large numbers is only applicable in a truly random situation...the RNG is not a random situation. Computers can simply "simulate" randomness...they're not random. Emprical events suggest that Blizzard's RNG isn't terribly random.

Arguing that Blizz's RNG isn't random is silly. The law of large numbers applys to large numbers. What I mean is even if one guild doesn't see a paticular item drop for a YEAR there are many who did see it drop. If you look at every guild in WoW, the loot does drop at the exact percentage rate it should.

 

[nattyg]

I'll see your WoT and raise you 2

Wall of Spreadsheets...

http://files.filefront.com/DKP+With+Modelsxls/;12811914;/fileinfo.html

The decay applies across the board so your position will never change as a result of decay. You are never penalized when your items don't drop

As you can see, in the second model (2nd tab), the second player is in fact penalized due to a late purchase - let's assume it's a simple case of not having a suitable upgrade drop. It cannot be said that the relative position remains the same when similar actions take place. Timing *is* essential, and the decay as it has been outlined in this thread (i.e. percentage versus a flat 'fee') effectively rewards those coming in with lower gear sets (although presumably that would be somewhat moot since it would be more likely that they would be purchasing more items).

The occurence of this situation will obviously decrease as more points are added to the pool (i.e. more bosses are downed), but nonetheless, it is present. A flat reduction eliminates this...likewise, a scaled reduction can as well (e.g. people that haven't spent points during the period lose 5%, < 10 points - 10%, >10 points 15%).

Speaking from a personal perspective and having been with exceptional raid groups and sub par ones where, for example, it took a priest 2 hours to figure out how to correctly control his Raz guard, I think there's something to be said for effort based points in addition to simply killing something. There are also times when people need to be asked to step out due to group composition (e.g. needing more healers or DPS to get past a hurdle) and at least from what *I* see, there's nothing to account for that.

Again, personally...I have liked raiding under the shroud system I linked earlier. In my mind, it has the following advantages:

1.) People new acquire points quickly...this is also aided by the shroud roll which docks 50% of a player's points for that "must have" item, narrowing the gap between old and new players.

2.) It's effort based - time put in on numerous wipes is worth just as much as time for killing a boss.

3.) It's not complicated - items do not have a cost, it's easy to manage, there's no negative balance. The "save" roll is a bit redundant, but that's a relatively minor issue.


Neither the current proposed (or official?) system, nor the shroud system address hoarding...although the shroud system does provide the opportunity to spend a minimal amount of points to avoid the situation of DEing something that would be a marginal or so-so upgrade (perhaps it should be less than the Standard roll in reality...not quite sure why they made them the same). I guess you could always break out RatingBuster on people, but that seems a bit excessive.

Arguing that Blizz's RNG isn't random is silly. The law of large numbers applys to large numbers. What I mean is even if one guild doesn't see a paticular item drop for a YEAR there are many who did see it drop. If you look at every guild in WoW, the loot does drop at the exact percentage rate it should.

Given that they're rather lenient with their drop rate windows (some varying by as much as 25% or more), yes, it does. That aside, the RNG isn't truly random...it simulates randomness, hence the term PRNG. That's just the way PRNGs work and at some point you may very well receive a seed where f(a) = f(b) (where f = loot table function). You also have a rather small window of seeds available to you (52 per instance for a year) which further exacerbates it.

 

[Avesther]

Probably the best way to inhibit hoarding is checkpoints. To continue in progression you need XXXX, if you don't, you don't move on until you do. That XXXX can be dps, hps, amount of stamina, ap, anything

 

[galatian]

i really like that idea of having checkpoints... that way people that work their tails off to get those certain numbers can actually get somethign for their work. My idea on this could be flawed though since i have always tried to get hte best stuff i can for my hunter. I dont knwo the side of not having time to farm so yeah

 

[Lloren]

I agree with Proudfoot. Decay rocks. Rot does not.

 

[Proudfoot]

As you can see, in the second model (2nd tab), the second player is in fact penalized due to a late purchase - let's assume it's a simple case of not having a suitable upgrade drop. It cannot be said that the relative position remains the same when similar actions take place. Timing *is* essential, and the decay as it has been outlined in this thread (i.e. percentage versus a flat 'fee') effectively rewards those coming in with lower gear sets (although presumably that would be somewhat moot since it would be more likely that they would be purchasing more items).

The decay system is designed to combat "hoarding" and since it is not human it cannot distinguish between being unlucky with drops and just hoarding.
The penalty for hoarding is not a huge one and the system is also designed to help players always feel that they are "in the hunt" for gear.
Nobody likes to feel like they have no chance of ever getting the first "thingamabob". This system puts everyone in the mix for loot not just the uber consistent.

The spreadsheet you put up had quite a few things wonky. You were only charging 1 point for all loot. This is not realistic and doesn't allow for a round robin system to function.
You were also showing 4 bosses in spider wing (not real important though) I've updated the spreadsheet you linked and uploaded to filefront.
LINKY Yellow represents current prices, and orange represents the proposed doubling of 25 man costs. As you can see after changing the prices the outcome is much different.

Probably the best way to inhibit hoarding is checkpoints. To continue in progression you need XXXX, if you don't, you don't move on until you do. That XXXX can be dps, hps, amount of stamina, ap, anything

Enforcing a checkpoint system would be really hard. Many times we have a hard time getting enough people to even raid. hardcore guilds can enforce minimums on thier members and will kick people from the guild for not meeting them, we cannot. In the old loot council system you could award members of the raid who you knew were consistent and were consistently GOOD. In a DKP system "money talks" so to speak.

 

[nattyg]

The spreadsheet you put up had quite a few things wonky. You were only charging 1 point for all loot. This is not realistic and doesn't allow for a round robin system to function.
You were also showing 4 bosses in spider wing (not real important though) I've updated the spreadsheet you linked and uploaded to filefront.
LINKY Yellow represents current prices, and orange represents the proposed doubling of 25 man costs. As you can see after changing the prices the outcome is much different.

I was charging 4 points , i.e. 1 item (the models are labeled with the number of drops each player receives), which is the minimum point set. You've kinda gone and totally flubbed my spreadsheet So that being the case, the comments on the models you made don't really apply, e.g.

"The decay is an anti hoarding measure and doesn't care if you did it intentionally or just got unlucky. P2 isn't far behind and just got 4 items, he'll be happy for awhile."

Go back and put 1 in place of 4 and it may be a bit more evident.

But at the end of the day, it still holds that the statement of relative guanteed being maintained isn't correct You can only make that statement if you use a flat point deprecation rather than a percentage based one.

Also...

(except he FAILED to down bosses 2 months in a row and thus started with less points)

If said player was the SOLE reason, or a reasonable contribution to the failure, sure. But in many cases, it's one or two...maybe 5 players, preventing a boss from going down. Further, if that player happens to be absent at a time when that group of players finally got the hang of something or, you know, stopped standing in big green blobs (or got over the OH NOES, I CANT RUN AWAY FROM THALADRED CORRECTLY...I THINK I'LL VANISH AND LET HIM PICK OTHER PEOPLE syndrome). Kael is actually a pretty good example of this...took my former guild 3-4 weeks to get the fight down and I would've been more than a bit irritated using a DKP system for contributing to the learning effort if a last minute situation arose and I couldn't have been there for the first kill...and someone else getting points for it.

It also doesn't address the fact that group makeups may not be correct, e.g. needing a DPS to sub in for a healer or vice versa which based on kill being the sole method of earning points, doesn't address the underlying problem that the DPS players (healers, tanks, whatever) were unable to successfully execute their task with the intended number of each role.

At the end of the day, successful raiding is a team effort...and those on and off "the field" contribute to the effort. I generally have a hard time seeing people not being provided some "compenstation" for their efforts for learning fights, particularly if they weren't the ones inhibiting a kill. For example...if they got stuck at work late on a raid night, got in a wreck, or oops...wife just went into labor /hint /hint.


Please understand, I'm not trying to be argumentative, but in my absence from Redeemed, I've seen several ways of accomplishing loot distribution and am providing my views from those varied experiences. I understand everyone has them and certainly hope other people would share too (the more spreadsheets the better).

I see a good loot distrbution system as having the following characteristics:

1.) Easy for players to understand and officers to manage.

2.) Provides new players to the raiding group opportunities to achieve *some* manner of reward in a reasonable period of time, i.e. they don't have to wait for 3 months of points to disperse before they have an opportunity to receive something.

3.) Doesn't slow down game play.

4.) Prevents, to the greatest extent possible, items going to waste.

5.) Keeps the significant majority (80-90%) of the raiding organization content.

6.) Prevents conflicts of interest.

7.) Recognizes effort for learning fights...raiding is a Team "sport"...everyone contributes.

Here's how I see this sheet stacking up against those criteria (Poor, Fair, Good, Excellent):


1.) Easy for players to understand and officers to manage. Fair to Good. Percentage based systems are not equitable and tend to elicit more questions. While it's generally easy to understand, questions will arise in edge case scenarios where it doesn't work out for a particular player. That point aside, most standard DKP approaches have sufficient software support through sites such as guildportal and others.


2.) Provides new players to the raiding group opportunities to achieve *some* manner of reward in a reasonable period of time, i.e. they don't have to wait for 3 months of points to disperse before they have an opportunity to receive something. Fair to Good. This is largely in comparison to other systems which demonstrate a more rapid convergence between the new player and a veteran (e.g. a vet may only be able to purchase 2-3 items before being in the same boat as a new player).

3.) Doesn't slow down game play. Excellent...I assume more than one person has 2+ monitors

4.) Prevents, to the greatest extent possible, items going to waste. Fair. The amount of decay doesn't materially effect "hoarding" until people start getting into larger point accumultations. In certain situations, it may be more advantageous for a player to purchase and vendor or DE an item rather than waiting due to the percentage based decay.

5.) Keeps the significant majority (80-90%) of the raiding organization content. TBD!

6.) Prevents conflicts of interest. Excellent. Points are points.

7.) Recognizes effort for learning fights...raiding is a Team "sport"...everyone contributes. Poor. There's simply no recognition of the overall contributions made to learning fights. This could be mitigated by providing points for attempting as well as the downing of a boss. So you may get 5 for attempting, and 15 (total) for downing (just as an example).


So...based on that, what I see to be the ideal changes would be points for attempting a boss and a flat decay rate.

 

[nattyg]

wow...that really was a lot of writing to get down to one relevant sentence at the end...

 

[Plankeye]

First off, I think people keep forgetting we are Christian guild. I expect the majority of the time, despite our human nature, we will follow God's will and be amicable with how we deal with events in game. Leave loot greed for secular guilds to deal with.

I already covered in a prior post how our MC DKP system was fair even to those with lower raid attendance awarding gear at a pretty static 5-6% per player regardless of 80% attendance or 5% attendance. An those that did have excessive points were the ones that already had gear from the raid and slugged it out in the trenches every week even though they didn't need to be there. They valued the time spent with friends and the sense of accomplishment compared to hoarding their points for some elusive drop. A big w00t to them for sticking around with us despite our times of stagnit progression.

Awarding points for attempts is pointless given that in just a couple of weeks of raiding, team Redeemed has already dropped a dozen bosses. WotLK is not Vanilla WoW in terms of raiding. It was a long time to see MC down as a guild. Less time to clear Karazhan. Naxx is moving really fast.

Correct me if I am wrong, but you will find that those that end up having a lot of DKP points stored up are the ones that are there every week having fun fellowshipping online with a bunch of friends because that is what we are in Redeemed.

As I have been a fly on the wall all these years I wish there was a way I could even begin to convey how many times people in our guild that had the right to gear through points or by council have willingly passed it on to someone else. It speaks volumes to the character of this guild and those I call my friends.

 

[Plankeye]

Enforcing a checkpoint system would be really hard. Many times we have a hard time getting enough people to even raid. hardcore guilds can enforce minimums on thier members and will kick people from the guild for not meeting them, we cannot. In the old loot council system you could award members of the raid who you knew were consistent and were consistently GOOD. In a DKP system "money talks" so to speak.

We have actively enforced gear checks in MC/Onyxia (no green gear) and our 10 and 25 man raid checks in TBC. They do their job up to the point the content becomes trivialized and it does not matter if you bring in green characters.

 

[nattyg]

Awarding points for attempts is pointless given that in just a couple of weeks of raiding, team Redeemed has already dropped a dozen bosses. WotLK is not Vanilla WoW in terms of raiding. It was a long time to see MC down as a guild. Less time to clear Karazhan. Naxx is moving really fast.

It's not pointless for the following reasons:

1.) Naxx is a trivial instance, follow-ons will not be.
2.) It recognizes the team effort. Successful raids are comprised of teams, people ebbing in and out, and so on. Read the front pages of the successful raiding guilds...first kills are often attributed to 30, maybe 40 people. Being that isn't a hard core raiding guild, I would honestly think this would be a major selling point for adding attempt points.

First off, I think people keep forgetting we are Christian guild. I expect the majority of the time, despite our human nature, we will follow God's will and be amicable with how we deal with events in game.

Then why not simply revert to the loot council again? Point systems are intended to prevent ambiguity, not cause it. On top of that, while we may strive to do so...the fact is, humans are fallable - so at the end of the day, items can quite easily (and have) go to incorrect people, hence the need for a point system which pretty much makes the only factor if the leaders read the point count correctly and ML'd to the correct person.

Leave loot greed for secular guilds to deal with.

I really dislike this term as it's simply a pejorative phrase that implies that because someone wants or needs an item to improve their capabilities, then they're "greedy". Further, if this is the take on it, then why is there a need for decay, which implies that people are greedy and will save points for an extremely rare item over improving themselves for the good of the team?

Correct me if I am wrong, but you will find that those that end up having a lot of DKP points stored up are the ones that are there every week having fun fellowshipping online with a bunch of friends because that is what we are in Redeemed.

While I agree with the sentiment, it's only the case as long as bosses are being downed...but with a decay and minimal points being added (again...need to think along the lines of future instances), you're either hitting up old content for the sole purpose of maintaining points (boring and ineffective) or everyone whittles away to 0 on attempts. You really cannot examine this with Naxx as a baseline for difficulty or structure. You're supposed to be able to clear Naxx, in general, with L80 blues and future instances simply will not be this trivial. It's intended to be equivalent to KZ...the next TK, SSC, BT, et al will be around the corner and be much more demanding.

I honestly fail to see why there would be such an extreme reluctance to implment a flat reduction and points for attempts. It makes the decay equitable and provides a far more valuable environment for devising strategies that work to the capabilities of the raid unit as a whole without being penalized for not being present for a kill after X weeks of attempts and coming up with the right approach. It's good, great and wonderful where it may only take a night to down a new boss in Naxx...not going to be so great down the road.

 

[Plankeye]

I honestly fail to see why there would be such an extreme reluctance to implment a flat reduction and points for attempts. It makes the decay equitable and provides a far more valuable environment for devising strategies that work to the capabilities of the raid unit as a whole without being penalized for not being present for a kill after X weeks of attempts and coming up with the right approach. It's good, great and wonderful where it may only take a night to down a new boss in Naxx...not going to be so great down the road.

History. Decay would have done absolutely zero back in MC. It will do absolutely zero now. The argument about the casual raider doesn't hold any water. I already showed that. Even with a decay, if someone attends 80% of the raids and someone attends 15%. The 80% attender is going to have more points and will have priority over a particular drop until they receive it and it goes to the next in priority.

The hoarders as they are being referred to in this thread were our MC raid leaders and top damage dealers back in the day. Decay would have made no difference for them.

You guys make it seem like the expectation for a casual raider is to walk into their first night of raiding and expect multiple drops. Decay is not going to solve that expectation.

The other thing that is nutty is you want to award points for attempts yet take them away with decay. "Here is your cookie" and right as I am about to eat it "you really didn't want that, I'll be taking it back now".

The what if spreadsheets are great for analyzing but reality has to be what we go by. Who is hoarding points?

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pv_d7zepLwUWQLzE39Fo3UA

By the way, this is public data scraped directly from the DKP site.

 

[nattyg]

History. Decay would have done absolutely zero back in MC. It will do absolutely zero now. The argument about the casual raider doesn't hold any water. I already showed that. Even with a decay, if someone attends 80% of the raids and someone attends 15%. The 80% attender is going to have more points and will have priority over a particular drop until they receive it and it goes to the next in priority.

I guess I'm not making the point sufficiently. It has nothing to do with a casual raider...it has to do with someone who shows up week in and out of tedious attempts on difficult content yet earns no points at all because they, forwhatever reason (life does this) weren't there for the kills. It's not unreasonable to expect people to end up with a net negative for a given decay period when challenging content is encountered unless it's mitigated with doing old content again, i.e. there's no true incentive for putting in the hard work for getting the tough fights out of the way.

The hoarders as they are being referred to in this thread were our MC raid leaders and top damage dealers back in the day. Decay would have made no difference for them.

I would refer to those people as something else for the sake of clarification. Those were definitely one group, but if I'm not mistaken, we also had several people passing on low-mid upgrades to save points for rarer drops - I seem to recall some OEB issues in particular, perhaps that's just one that sticks in my head. That's what I consider hoarding. Based on this from Avesther, I'm assuming that his definition is similar:

Probably the best way to inhibit hoarding is checkpoints. To continue in progression you need XXXX, if you don't, you don't move on until you do. That XXXX can be dps, hps, amount of stamina, ap, anything

Which basically is stating (and correct me if it's incorrect) that you prevent people from not spending on low-mid upgrades by mandating that they have spent sufficiently, via raids or crafteds, to participate in content.

You guys make it seem like the expectation for a casual raider is to walk into their first night of raiding and expect multiple drops.

Could you point out what I said that lead to this impression so I can clarify? That's not even a point of discussion as far as I'm aware and not something I intended to state or imply.

The other thing that is nutty is you want to award points for attempts yet take them away with decay. "Here is your cookie" and right as I am about to eat it "you really didn't want that, I'll be taking it back now".

I realize this may not be a direct "I don't think decay is a good idea", but from one of my previous posts:

So...decay could be okay, but a heartbeat, based on attendance, should refresh the decay interval for an individual.

(emphasis added)

I'm not sure that that qualifies me as being nutty

Providing the attempt points with a flat decay was an attempt to come to a middle ground between two point systems. The flat decay keeps relative positions...period (well, until you approach the 0 point), the attempt points reward people that put in effort for a lengthy period of time to conquer difficult content.

 

[Where]

I "hoarded" a few weeks back in the MC days when I wanted the sword off Ony because I thought my pvp gear was just as good as t1. I got talked out of that by our more experienced rogues and ended up grabbing all my t1 set and watched my damage get up into the top 3 without ever getting that sword heh.

Others might not listen to their peers but isnt that an issue for a class leader/raid leader more so than a dkp system?

 

[nattyg]

Perhaps? But unless it's an obvious choice (I would usually consider a tier set a better upgrade over a weapon due to bonuses...so that *may* have fallen under that bucket at the time), what you described seems to add more ambiguity rather than removing it. If I know something is around the corner...say a tier piece, and there's a weapon or trinket that's a marginal to medium upgrade, I wouldn't be inclined to spend points on it.

Personally...I don't have a problem with "hoarding" as long as someone isn't so horribly behind the group that they need to take whatever they can get to be competitive. More of a proof is in the pudding kinda thing.

 

[CGamer]

In reference to the casual raider. I myself was the epitome of the casual raider in Vanialla WoW.
i.e. In reference to Alhana who was my main at the time with Gnimish as my backup.
I raided MC with Redeemed Holy spec *shudder* which allowed me to get 5 or 6 of my T1 pieces solely through Friday night raiding, not sure what my raid attendance (looked it up was 26% of all raids) was but then we used a dkp system and though at times it seemed unfair that certain "raiders" always got first shot at most gear because of "high" dkp it worked out in the end. I should add in that I had/have a long standing relationship with Holicron Knights and Fallen at that time which a majority of the people in Redeemed did too that allowed unique opportunities to raid Ony, AQ, and ZG which otherwise I couldn't have with Redeemed. This allowed me to get T2 pieces, AQ and ZG gear which in turn helped me out in Redeemed raiding.

I think every loot system has it faults I've experienced Redeemed's old system of dkp, HK's 2-3 dkp variations, Insanity's loot system and the plain old /roll 100 by Blizz.
i believe in rewarding people for their work if a person attends every raid why shouldn't they get first shot at an upgrade item.

Also during MC days, it seemed ppl were more generous in regards to class specific loots, i.e..T1 priest shoulders which I could have gotten one night but decided to pass up on because it would have been a huge upgrade for them but only a minor for, I think it was Laraptor or Deamiter(original) but I could be mistaken.

Granted I know the Tier pieces now are open for 3 classes now but in a 25man raid you have what maybe 6-8ppl vying for said piece.

Anyway the point I'm trying to make is that even with any sort of dkp system you'll probably have ppl willing to pass up on items so the "new kid" on the block gets an item or at least I hope so.

 

[Proudfoot]

I've spoken with Mordos regarding my concerns with the DKP system. He has put the vast majority of my concerns to rest. He understands how dkp should work and has put systems in place to make sure that it does.

#1. He told me that we would no longer be awarding/spending dkp in 10 mans and that we only did it to put some "money" in the economy.

#2. He told me that there would be a decay system but that it would only kick in at >50 points. So once someone has over 50 points they are subject to decay. Nobody so far has hit this mark.

#3. My spreadsheet was using an incorrect assumption that 25 man boss kills would award 2 points. Apparently this will only be the case for first time kills and all other times it will only be 1 point. This makes the issue of inflation much less important since there will be much less of it. There may be no need to charge double for 25 man drops (need to do some more maths).

The argument about the casual raider doesn't hold any water. I already showed that. Even with a decay, if someone attends 80% of the raids and someone attends 15%. The 80% attender is going to have more points and will have priority over a particular drop until they receive it and it goes to the next in priority.

The point is not that casual players never get loot. Regardless of system everyone will get loot, we aren't going to DE it if someone can use it. A balanced DKP system just makes loot distrobution FAIR. In an unbalaced system, sure, high attendance raiders will get first shot at every piece of loot and then casuals will get a shot. THIS is not a round robin but a priority system. Because X person has shown up to more raids they have priority over EVERYONE and until they get a paticular piece nobody else can get it. This leads to some serious issues and should be avoided. As I said before everyone likes to feel that they are "in the mix" for loot and not just recieving scraps that the main raiders don't need anymore.

Knowing that Redeemed is a christian guild and that we will pass on gear when other guilds would not is not a good enough reason to not have a balanced system. Having a balanced system is a good thing and I think we have one.

 

[Avesther]

No system is perfectly fair and somebody will be hurt by it. So in the end, the only question the leaders have to ask themselves is "whose toes are we stepping on today?"

 

[Grimbeorn]

That is a very valid point. I can tell you from previous experience that you cannot please everyone. Someone will always be unhappy with the setup, you just have to try to do it as well as you can.

 

[Flamethrøwer]

I by no means know all the ins and outs of the new system, but from what I've read, it seems to be a very good one. I feel like I could raid once a week or once every two weeks and be a part of everything.

As a casual raider, I don't need to get a drop every time, but I do need to know that I'm making progress toward something. The worst thing about raiding in BC was I felt that I could either go raid for three hours with nothing to show for it, or go level an alt.

My alts got a LOT of play time.

When I hit 80, I will definitely like to start building up my DKPs and joining in on more raids!

Along those lines, my main spec will be a fiery inferno of dps. I have no idea what my alt spec would be. I currently have a 71 pally tank, 70 holy priest, and 72 unholy DK. Any suggestions?