Players have pretty much /cheered across the board about the removal of attunements from Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep yesterday-- even the Blizzard curmudgeons over at PaladinSucks nodded in approval.

But as Elizabeth asks on the WoW Livejournal, what exactly does this mean? Can your guild change this weekend's Gruul run into a raid on The Eye? Can guilds skip over Karazhan and Heroics now, and just head straight to Serpentshrine? Will we see Void Reaver dropped by most guilds quicker than Isiah Washington from Gray's Anatomy?

Unfortunately, the answer to those questions is probably no. True, the removal of attunements does mean that more guilds can head into SSC and Tempest Keep right away (instead of waiting for 25 of their members to get attuned), but the bosses in both of the big raids aren't real forgiving unless your guild has already seen a few Kara clears, a few successful Gruul raids, and hopefully even a Magtheridon raid or two as well. Just as a reference, Void Reaver, the first boss in The Eye, requires about three or four tanks in the raid, and easily hits for 7k in the space of a few seconds. Likewise, Hydross, the first boss in Serpentshrine, is not nice to raids-- his adds hit for about 5-6k, and he enrages within 10 minutes.

But on the other hand, if you have run Kara, Gruul, and Mag a few times, most guilds are saying you'll have no problem at all with Void Reaver, so guilds who are ready already will definitely benefit from the attunements opening up for all. But if you're still stuck on Curator or Shade of Aran, you likely won't get much out of SSC or TK except a repair bill and a bit of perspective. You'll need to gear up before tackling the bigger stuff.