Don't skip Kael if you've killed Vashj

beside the items, for me is the best encounter in TBC

I absolutely agree with killed Kael once. We did something similar when Naxx hit. We were still working on C'Thun, but we decided to stick with it and push until we killed him and it was pretty awesome.

But it all depends on how long you take to kill Kael. If you've been stuck on him for a month, a couple of quick Hyjal/BT kills will energize the raid and give them the drive to kill Kael.

I actually disagree. The loot isn't important, but guild morale can be nice. If your guild is generally fine with skipping content, a series of boss kills won't hurt, and also won't be bad at all for guild loot progression.

Morale is always a huge bonus wherever you can find it, but being able to kill a difficult boss like Kael also builds good teamwork skills for the raid. Again, a large reason why we took a few extra weeks to kill C'Thun before jumping into Naxx. C'Thun was a complex fight, and gave (at least my raid) some good structuring to allow us to raid at the next level.

Hrmm....Considering I am in a situation where this is quite relevant to me, I should have an opinion.

I think you should kill Kael. I don't think its necassary to do it "right now" or to hold to true progression and refuse to step into T6 zones without his head on a stick(figuratively speaking). For our part, we've pounded away at Vashj forever and while we got her down to 3%, I'm sick of her. We should have a full 3 hours on Thursday to kill her. Sunday, we go to Hyjal.

But after that, we will be going hard on Kael not so much for loot but for pride. I raid for the sense of accomplishment and the brief moments where you feel like you defeated something difficult. There would always be a hole there if we left him standing.

I hope we can go in and knock out Rage and maybe a few other bosses but after Vashj, Kael is going to be our priority. There is something to be said for beating heads against a wall while we get passed by guilds who havent defeated Vashj yet. I've got friends who dropped Vashj and Kael both and have as many as 5 T6 bosses down across the 2 zones.

I don't want to be stuck with nothing but Kael wipes for a month of raiding.

We've been wiping on Vashj for over a month now. Our guild probably would have fallen apart (or people would stop signing up for raids) if it wasn't for the fact that we are killing other bosses, including a couple in Hyjal and BT.

We have killed vash 5-6 times, with 3 being 1 shots. This week was our 3rd raiding week in a row 1 shotting kaz'rogal (3rd boss in MH). Probably the only boss we haven't wiped on yet...

but somehow our kael learning attempts are just nightmares. We are going to spend 2 full nights on kael for now, but for a guild that 1 shots vashj and goes 3/5MH and 1/9BT the first week you have to wonder if wasting time on kael is worth it. I'm on the fence. The good thing is almost all our raiders want to kill kael. We'll see if we can do better on him tonight.

My thoughts exactly Horacio. Better said than I.

Now if you don't mind me asking, did you kill Kel'Thuzad?

No, we didn't. We ran out of time before the Xpac hit. We didn't really start in Naxx until after the world first Kel'Thuzad kill. Got as far as spider/abomb wings cleared, and first two of the others.

I only got Kel'Thuzad to 1% =(

The reason I asked is because our guild was also faced with the decision. By skipping C'thun and jumping directly into Naxx we were able to finish both zones.

There are a few circumstances that make it a bit different than Kael today, particularly that by getting early Naxx kills, we were able to attract more solid members via recruitment.

That's a really good point. To be honest, the raid was on the fence. Some of them wanted to push Naxx asap, and others didn't. The twins really killed us, it took 2 months to kill them, and another 5 weeks for C'Thun. I think we were doing one day/week in Naxx at the time, but 3 days in AQ40 really slowed us down.

Maybe if we had taken a little more time in naxx we would have cleared both, no idea.

Some people will look at the question of whether or not to bypass Kael from a progression minded PoV. The answer could vary there as well as from a lootcentric PoV but if a guild is currently faced with that decision, I think its fair to say progression is not as critical as perhaps Naxx vs. AQ40.

In any case, among the raid force there are loot concerns and while I don't see anything on Kael (or anyone's) loot table I can't live without, I had some one grumble last night over skipping Hydross. (/sigh...I led my first raid in 6 months last night and I remember why I love/hate it)

Any given raid will likely clean up a boss or two before engaging Vashj/Kael and you'll likely have a split among the raiders as to who would like to do what.

So the question of skipping Kael and going to Hyjal/BT is not just Kael but probably a few odds and ends off the other bosses in there. Probably a good idea to pick off Al'ar and despawn the trash.

Its a precarious position to triangulate for a RL/GM/Corps of officers. Each raid is different and while one group can stay focused and positive, 3 weeks of wipes with nothing else can kill the morale in another. Among the membership, you'll have divisions. If you killed a boss 946 times and a player still needs an item, they may let it go, find an alternative, or sulk and pout over it.

I suppose its possible to have a makeup that its best to just go on and forget it because you risk losing people when things get hard, though I don't think I'd want to be in that raid/guild.

It is a constant struggle - how to balance the needs of 30-35 raiders. There are those that want to farm earlier bosses for some items; those that want progression; etc

We had not killed Kael'thas before 2.4 but I clear that he should die. However to balance the needs of the guild we agreed to alternate between MH and Kael. In the end it only took one weekend before Kael died but I still think that this would have been a workable long term solution.

I may have had to adopt a different approach had we wiped for weeks. An alternative would have been to grab some nice loot in early MH/BT and then come back to Kael. My concerns with that approach would be:
(1) Setting a poor precedent. What happens next time things get tough? Killing Vashj and Kael has giving our guild the belief it needs to push all the way.
(2) You aren't always going to have the opportunity to get better loot to kill lower tier bosses.

However, in the end it is a game - so enjoy.