Super-guild has already cleared Naxx

[NiteFox]

Anyone considered that maybe the difference is that the playerbase has become more skilled at the game over the intervening four years? Maybe after honing our skills in classic raiding, in TBC and in heroics the average player of WoW is pretty adept?

I'm not entirely sure about that myself. As far as my instancing career is concerned, I did almost zero 5- and 10-mans in Classic; Ragefire Chasm was the first and only dungeon that I cleared on my first toon, and I've only revisited it with my paladin, as well as three-manning Shadowfang Keep for the Ranseur quest. I've soloed more Classic dungeons for various holidays and reasons, but as for approaching dungeons "properly"... Well, it's just RFC.

TBC was a lot better. In fact, the only two 5-mans I never actually did was Underbog, Slave Pens, and Magister's Terrace. Everything else, from Ramparts to Arcatraz, I've cleared. That said, I've never actually ran a Heroic. Not once. Well, except for three-man cheesing Don Carlos in Old Hillsbrad for his even nicer hat (The mention of which has reminded me that I really ought to get my butt in gear for the Haliscan set). I've always been massively insecure about my ability to perform in Heroics, as well as the general state of my gear. Nope, never been confident to try any Heroics.

When TBC started, I did attempt Ramparts at the recommended level, and due to an astoundingly inept tank was generally put off running instances "when I should". When I mentioned that I ran pretty much all TBC 5-man content, I mean that I did it at level 70.

I've vowed to be a whole lot better with Wrath. I ran Nexus within a week of Wrath's launch and was pretty much surprised as to how easy it was compared to Ramparts. There was no attempt at maintaining any CC, just powering through the trash. Generally, there was no surprises with the bosses, aside from one cloth DPS dying very late during Keristrasza due to standing behind her. Nobody was levelled beyond the 71-73 range the dungeon caters for, and we never even broke stride in clearing it.

Utgarde Keep was somewhat different. I ran it at 76 (Late 76... The exp I got from the three quests associated with the dungeon levelled me to 77). We had an Unholy Death Knight tank and a lagging Paladin healer, and we still had no surprises until Ingvar the Plunderer, who wiped us at about 5% in his second phase the first time, and killed three-fifths of the party on the second attempt. Those Dark Smashes tore the tank, healer, and our Fury Warrior to shreds before we even got him down to 25%, and the feral Druid only survived through throwing enough HoTs on himself, and I only through my Medallion of Heroism and being overlevelled, and even when the three other members dropped, I was down to 10%. My Ferocity pet had to tank him down to death, and even if I had to pop Heart of the Phoenix, I knew I wouldn't have any chance to survive the few seconds it takes for my pet to get back up. A pretty tense encounter, but mainly due to technical issues (Healer lag) and the sheer power of Ingvar.

I may run Azjol-Nerub tonight. To be honest, I'm not expecting any surprises.

Edit: This just in - Azjol-Nerub: Easiest. 5-man. Ever.