Cataclysm is coming soon; raiding is winding down and Arena season 8 will soon come to an end. Now is the perfect time to start thinking about how you and your guild can prepare to hit the ground running in the upcoming expansion.

Get on the PTR

The test realm is now available with patch 4.0 which includes the majority of class changes that will be coming with Cataclysm. The more hardcore guilds can make use of this resource to get their players accustomed to the huge changes that will be coming, and to help people decide what class they might like to play.

The PTR is also a great resource to stave off boredom! After nearly a full year of farming Icecrown Citadel many players are finding the game pretty stale, so now is a good time to remind your friends and fellow guildies that the expansion is coming soon and not to let themselves burn out in these last few weeks.

If you can get Cataclysm Beta access for your guildies that is even better!

Solidify your Roster

Blizzard has assured us that there will be raid content available upon hitting level 85, so this is a good time for guilds to start thinking about who they will be using for raids. New expansions are the perfect opportunity to shake up your roster because gear, in the short term, is no
longer a factor. This is a great time to phase out players who are losing interest and bring in new, motivated players that might have been previously excluded because they weren't geared enough or experienced enough.

Guilds will also gain access to the guild achievement and ability system in Cataclysm, which provides a fairly strong reason to keep a large number of active players in the guild. The more players that are contributing to the guild's 'experience level' via honor, achievements, and leveling, the faster the guild will gain access to powerful passive and active abilities.

The need to solidify the roster of your guild also brings us to the next point which is closely related.

Decide what difficulty you will be raiding!

Cataclysm will be making some fairly significant changes to raid rewards, the most important of which is that 10 and 25 player raids will now drop the exact same items. In the current system 10 player raid item drops are lower level than 25 player, with 10 player heroic items being equal to 25 player normal and 25 player heroic being far above the rest.

This will present a huge dilemma to raiding guilds, make no mistake about it. In every guild there are a wide variety of players with varying motivations for raiding. Some raid for the epic feeling of massive raids, others raid for the social experience. Some raid to gear out for PvP, and others raid purely for prestige and gear. Currently all of these different types of raiders are brought together for 25 player raids because they're the largest, the most difficult, and drop the best loot. Once that changes it's likely that many players will re-evaluate whether being in a larger guild is really the right fit for them.

The sad fact of it is that many large guilds 'carry' several weaker players, and the stronger players are often resentful of them and feel that they're holding back the guild. These feelings will be vastly amplified in Cataclysm when the stronger players will have the option of taking their 10 best and making a new raid group to get the exact same loot. This is why it's going to be important to start thinking about what difficulty is the right fit for your guild and to start talking it over with your friends and guild mates.

Get started on Logistics

Expansions often usher in substantial changes to classes and specs, and Cataclysm is no exception. Many players will take the opportunity of the gear and level reset to change what class or spec they play. It's important to stay on top of class changes from your raiders so that you can get a rough idea of what your guild is going to look like at level 85. If your guild is hitting level 85 and you're ready to raid then you realize you only have 2 healers left from your previous 7 in WoTLK then you'll be in trouble!

All of the changes to buffs and debuffs are easily viewable now in the Beta talent trees, so the more extreme guilds can now begin theorycrafting about what their ideal raid composition will be. The very high level guilds will likely have certain people re-roll depending on how they feel the changes will affect the game. I'm not recommending this, but it's worth thinking about when you are considering the strengths and weaknesses of your guild.

Keep the guild happy right now!

Icecrown Citadel has been a very long tier. Lich King heroic is a brutal, unforgiving encounter. With Cataclysm just over the horizon it's important to keep your guild from burning out. Some guilds are choosing to go on raiding hiatus until Cataclysm comes out, others are continuing to raid hard in the hopes of making some final progression. I'd personally recommend a middle ground between the two; chilling out and perhaps scaling back your raid week to fewer nights and keeping raids light and upbeat rather than going all out to get kills before the expansion will go a long way towards keeping your guild happy and together.

The items that are dropping now will be of little use past level 83, even Shadowmourne! Keep that in mind when you're desperately farming for that last tier piece or weapon. It's all going to be changing soon in a big way.

This level 81 equippable Rare, crafted item is vastly more powerful than Shadowmourne -- the final Legendary of WoTLK