Shoju, level 70 warrior of the Dalaran World of Warcraft realm, is having some issues with Karazhan and his smaller raid guild. (Oh how I envy him his guild’s smaller size!) Anyways, he outlined the problem in this thread, “Trash should not be a pacing mechanism”:

Our guild is small. We are finally starting up Karazhan after spending our time doing as many quests as possible, and getting the most out of the 5 mans as possible, and are finding that our progress isnt hindered by gear, or even by our own play styles.

It is being hindered by 30 minute respawn timers because we are not allowed time to get in boss attemps. Now granted, some would say, give yourself the wipe prevention. Of course, a Soul Stone, a Shaman, or even a DI’ed priest would work wonders, and we do this of course. I mean, every good group would do this of course to give yourself a chance at a given boss.

…

In Karazhan, you wipe once, or twice, and you dont have your wipe prevention up, you all of the sudden are stuck at the beginning again, and all of the sudden, you are staring at respawns that you have already cleared out.

And several posters try to get more info to help him with his problem, and then Drysc, Blizzard minion, veers off-topic by discussing Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep trash and tuning, which Shoju’s guild will never see since the first two Karazhan bosses are bringing them to their knees, and there’s only so long that players will knock their heads against a brick wall before they think, “fuck this game”, and make good on that. But thanks for jumping in, D.

Two amusing responses: A link to a ytmnd file, The Black Temple Instance Map (hadn’t seen that before — it’s funny cuz it’s true. True, hence funny) and #19, responding to Drysc’s GOOD NEWS! about Serpentshrine and TK:

The dungeons three or four guilds in the world are more important than every other dungeon the 99% majority of other guilds are in.

Clumsy wording, but the message is clear. And true. And funny.

I’ll agree that dungeon trash is a necessary evil, because God forbid anyone actually finishes an MMOG, but much of it is bullshit. (Hi, manafeeders. For the WoW noobs: magic-immune packs of bullshitty goodness.) Trash isn’t a problem for my guild, but I’m empathetic to the plight of the smaller, friends-only type guilds. I can think outside of my own experience and see that since everyone is in Karazhan or will soon be, or hope to be, maybe KARAZHAN should be the top tuning priority.

I should reveal my secret bias, however, so you have context: I fucking HATE Karazhan. Too much bullshit trash, too sprawling (should there be an unfortunate incident involving raid members who can’t for the life of them STAND STILL during Flamewreath), it’s a shard-rich environment and it’s ill-suited to the current one-week raid timer model.

It gets old, real fast, and that’s a shame because you’re going to farm this shithole for weeks and weeks and weeks for the attunement quest line and for a handful of drops.

On the other hand, some of my guildmates LOVE Karazhan. Because they’re insane and/or drunk. True story.