First, I need to apologize. I think I've confused the discussion here by confounding two unrelated issues. The issue Atar was looking for a vote on: Whether to extend this week's lockout for this Wednesday night (tonight) to try to get a few new kills before our week off, and the issue of how best to approach our raid schedule more generally after we return from our 4th of July week off.

I'll make some sort of a post else where to discuss the second issue. It's clearly one that people have valid opinions about on both sides of the fence and I'm glad to see the discussion is being had.

To summarize the collected opinions about whether to extend for TONIGHT however, here's what I'm putting together (please correct me if I'm confusing your opinion about the second issue with the one being discussed in this thread.

A vote to extend means to skip the first 9 bosses of ToT tonight and begin at Iron Qon and see how far we get.

A vote to not extend means to start with a fresh instance tonight and see how far we get.

Atar: Extend

Scaron: Extend

Instagram: Extend

Shatner: Extend

Kymmu: Extend

Jobs: Extend (?)

Chaca: Extend (?)

Ghostess: Not Extend

Grasen: Not Extend

Aeolyn: Not Extend

Elapsed: Extend

If I've missed anyone or misrepresented anyone, just chime in. I'm also aware that we're not necessarily operating in a total popular democracy and that our votes may or may not reflect what we end up doing. I'm fine with that. 

I've offered much more information about my feelings on the second topic my post addressed than the first. So let me just say this: As far as tonight goes, I think we would stand a strong chance of being 11/12 after tonight if we extend. Of course, it's true that we could wipe all night on Iron Qon and get zero kills this lockout.

I'm sensitive to the gear argument. The more gear we have, the easier it is to kill bosses--this is unequivocally true. However, with regard only to extending today, I'm not sure that I weigh the gear that we'd put onto people's main specs more highly than (I think) the strong possibility of getting two new boss kills tonight. I went back and checked on our raid's loot distribution for the last time we killed the first 6 bosses in one night. On that run we put 11 new pieces of gear onto main spec'd raiders. This is a far cry from saying that we'd be giving up 54 pieces of gear on the raid. While last week was 11 pieces, and MAYBE this week would bea little more, it could also be less.

If we could kill only two new bosses, we would still see 12 pieces (or so) of gear that we've never seen before onto our raid.

I acknowlege that it's a gamble either way, it's just my judgment that it's a funner gamble (new kills rock) with an approximately equal upside (about 12 pieces of main spec gear either way) to take a shot at killing two new bosses tonight.

A little late to the discussion since it's Wednsday ;-)

I think not extending is the better route in the long run. As mentioned by others  by skipping the first bosses we are passing up the opertunity for alot of loot/tier tokens. Also looking long term imo while Lei Shen is our ultimate goal we need to concentrate on being able to consistantly 1-2 shot Drumu. I f we can 1-2 shot Drumu and make it to Primordius who is a 1 shot we have a killer first night.

For night two we will want to get to the point that  Dark Animus is consistantly a 1-2 shot boss which will in turn give us more time on mastering Iron Quon to the point of 1-2 shot on him then roll on twin Consorts. While this takes more paticence in the end we will be rewardrd with more gear/tier tokens and more  time on Lei Shen.

Ok the subject of a third night? I think that will have to be a raid wide discussion once we are farming bosses 1-12 weekly and are  thinking about heroics.

I have not looked to see what the rumhor mill iis saying about patch 5.4 drop date but at this point do we need to rush the Le Shen kill?

Keep in mind that we're breaking first week of July so we're losing 9 or so boss kills to begin with. Opting to lose twice that number on purpose seems like a poor choice to me.

Skipping 9 bosses is also an enormous Valor loss. 40 valor per kill x 25 players = 1000 valor. Nine bosses = 9000 valor.

I can't speak for everyone but Man Hug is where my lion's share of my weekly Valor gains come from. No bosses = no gear upgrade for that week.

I can understand the notion of wanting to skip the first few bosses. But tossing Primordius and Dark Animus aside strikes me as madness. We've killed them twice ever. Animus tier chests are still very, very precious to the raid.

All we have to do is spend less time on Durumu and Iron Qon will fall. We got the kinks largely worked out on Qon too. Twin Consorts is face roll. We're opting to give up way too much to give ourselves 2 easy bosses and up time on Lei Shen. I don't believe the trade-off is worth it.

Especially when we can realistically go 11/12 with our current schedule / gear / skill no problem so long as we don't burn an hour and a half on Durumu pulls.

Here are my thoughts: For this week I would vote to extend. I really think we can pretty easily get an Iron Qon kill, we're figuring it out pretty easily and now that everyone has seen it, we just need to stay alive to have the dps to kill it before enrage. Twin Consorts is also quite killable in 1 night, it's much easier than the last 3 fights we've done (prim, DA, and Iron Qon). So that should at least let us see Lei Shen.

After this week, my vote would be that (provided we get at least a 10/12 clear) we begin moving to 2 week ToT clears. So on week one we take a reset and clear "farm" bosses as quickly as possible. After that, we would have time to (most likely) kill a boss or two and then have some really solid time on Lei Shen.

I think Lei Shen will take a while to master, but I think a raid can get demoralized if you head in to wiping on the same boss for weeks on end. Lei Shen is challenging and has the potential to be another Horridon. By doing a one week on farm one week on progression schedule, I think we'll minimize burnout, allow people to keep accumulating gear, and still allow ourselves solid time on Lei Shen.

Now, if we're still working on Lei Shen when we're starting to know that a patch drop is imminent, then maybe we could focus on full time progression until we get a kill. We'll have to see how we feel.

Thats my vote.

my vote is to let it reset,   but i'm good with either.