Quote Originally Posted by zosia View Post
Alex normal should have come out one month after savage just like wow does it's LFR and Normal. Also, it should have been designed with the general raiding population in mind.
While I see and agree with some of your points I still think removing Normal mode or releasing Normal mode a month after Savage would've exacerbated the "raiding die off" problem.

Asuran gear is i180 - and crafted gear is exorbitantly expensive to fully meld. I consider myself mid-core; I cleared SCoB & FCoB before any nerfs but I have no interest in Savage SCoB. We started on Alexander Savage the day it came out. Faust smacked use down hard. My group was between i180-i185 due to having Normal mode available and we still took about two weeks to clear Alexander Savage F1 - but if we'd been stuck in i180 gear with no route to grow I doubt we would have made it past Faust.

My only point; if you make the barriers to entry too high or delay the tools too long you stonewall people getting into content while it's current. If you want people to stay interested you can but not without giving them a clear pathway to overcome their deficiencies; it kills any interest in your raid just as quickly.