Editor’s Warning: This post is long. If you don’t like em long you can skip straight to the good stuff here.

I’ve been the acting guild and raid leader for <Specced for Awesome> since the mid-TBC era. We started out as an extremely casual guild and delved headfirst into Karazhan with our motley crew of 10 or so raiders. Most of us had never raided before (that one time where I lolcleansed a ZG pug in vanilla doesn’t count). We dabbled in 5-mans here and there but Kara was that first hit of the hard stuff. We were hooked.

Months later we were clearing the entirety of Kara in one night. So what next? We naturally attempted to jump right in to Zul’Aman where the Amani trolls proceeded to have their way with us. ZA was challenging to say the least. Kara was (and still is) a great instance but it wasn’t really giving us the fix we needed. We really had no choice but to head into Gruul’s Lair and Magtheridon’s Keep if we wanted to progress. There was just one problem: we were a 10-man guild and these raids required 25.

So we did what we had to, we upped our recruitment efforts. We recruited pugs from heroics and Kara runs, we advertised in trade, solicited the unguilded and even braved the dreaded realm forums. It took a guild merger/acquisition but we finally got the numbers we needed.

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If you haven’t heard or seen the announcement yet…

Quote from: Zarhym (Source)
She has lurked in her lair and done battle with the many brave adventurers who travelled to that familiar location over the years. Now, in honor of the World of Warcraft 5-year anniversary, the dreaded brood mother Onyxia is being revamped to make a return to the forefront of Azeroth, as part of our big plans for the upcoming 3.2.2 content patch.

This permanent update to Onyxia will convert the dungeon into 10- and 25-player modes. We will be adding new items to Onyxia’s loot table that have the same model as some of the classic loot from this dungeon, like Tier 2 helms, with stats updated to match the current level of content. There will be a special new item too: a normal drake-sized 310% speed flying mount modeled after Onyxia herself called an Onyxia Broodling. We will also be updating the encounter mechanics to be more fitting for modern raiding, but we can guarantee players will get to experience the frightening horror of deep breaths once again.

Then for a limited time, after the 5-year anniversary event officially begins in November, anybody who logs in will receive an Onyxia Brood Whelpling pet.

We’re very excited to bring this classic encounter back to provide a fun new experience for both new and veteran players. Further details will be available in the near future, and we will be setting up the Public Test Realms soon to help test out this fight along with all the new content we have planned for the patch. Keep an eye on the forums for updates!

I never got to experience Onyxia until I was able to 5-man her at level 70 so this is awesome news! The new rewards (woot another Judgement Crown) and the Onyxia Broodling mount are just icing on the cake.

Now based on Zarhyms description and the fact that they’re revamping and retuning the encounter for level 80 leads me to believe that the entire dungeon as it exists in the game right now will cease to exist (a la Naxxramas) Unfortunate news for those old-school raiders that like to relive the glory days. I’m guessing the original achievement will be given the Feat of Strength treatment.

I know this is a special occasion with it being WoW’s 5-year anniversary (have I really been playing this game that long?), but I really hope that they take this approach with some of the other content.

Update: Looks like Bornakk confirmed that the old version will get nyxed.