[Unger]

Source: theholyfx Wait.. you saw tanks with WOLK gear back before it was even released... now those are hardcore tanks...

Meh.... you know what I mean.... that spikey shield that was uber leet....

[Beshara]

I can't even remember what it was called. Everyone I know of referred to it as Illidan's Car Door.

[Eravian]

The Bulwark of Azzinoth.

And as far as the Triumph emblems dropping, it's just speeding up the daily process so that the average server item level among 80's goes up a bit... since you could already get them in dailies anyway. All it will mean is that you can get the Epic achievement (i.e. a ilvl 213 in every slot), or rather, be geared for Icecrown citadel, just by running Heroic Nexus and Heroic Violet Hold. Probably the only real change that will be noticed is that you'll need 36k+ unbuffed health to be acceptable to tank Heroic VH in a pug, you'll see a dramatic drop in the number of people raiding Ulduar and Naxx, and even ToC, and everyone will look the same.

Besides, if the items in the new heroics are itemized for their level like the ToC 5-man stuff was, you'll be getting better gear from those than the T9 set anyway, and may as well just farm those and then head into Icecrown 10-man.

[Andenthal]

I admit I only read the first page of this threat - excuse me if this was brought up all ready.

Also - this is long - bring a cup o' joe.

A few people in this thread have stated something like, "if you only raid for the gear, you're raiding for the wrong reasons." Or something similar. While I don't feel I that this is my primary motivation for raiding, as a GM and raid leader there is a certain stigma tied to gear. Also - no matter how hard anyone tries, gear will always be a strong motivator for the majority of the populace.

I might be considered an "old school" raider by some. I raided MC, Onyxia and BWL when they were the only 3 raids available. There was no such thing as "badge" loot back then. Only late in the game, did they implement a quest line to upgrade the Dungeon 1 set (Tier 0) to T1 quality gear.

If someone had 5 piece T2, you could make certain assumptions about them. They probably knew how to kite (Razorgore), they probably knew how to maximize DPS and threat (Vael), how to utilize LoS (Firemaw), etc, etc. Since the gear could only be acquired by actually killing the bosses, these assumptions were more often than not true. You'd occasionaly find the player that got carried to ger - but that's going to happen regardless.

Going a bit deeper, you could infer more about the player. You could also assume they'd be through MC enough times to know the mechanics of each of those bosses. From the various "dispel frenzy" bosses (Luci, Gehennas), to the CC heavy bosses(Garr, Majordomo), to the straight up burn bosses (Golemagg). MC bosses taught you things you would have to use in future instances to survive. If you can't dispel well enough to kill Lucifron, Chromag will eat you alive. Can't burn down Ragnaros before the 2nd set of sons spawn? Then you probably won't be able to burn Vael the Guild Killer either.

You had to step your way up to each tier of raiding - not dive head long into the newest, latest raid.

It wasn't so much that the gear was the "reward" for downing the bosses (although many think that it is) - that you could prance around Ironforge with your shiny gear stating how much better than everyone else you were. It's more that if you had the gear, it means you knew WTF to do in certain scenarios. Those without Tier 2 gear, had obviously never seen Tier 2 type encounters.


Now with the introduction of badge gear players no longer have the prerequisite of learning the basics of raiding. Why would a player raid Naxxramas when they all ready have 226 - 232 gear? It only drops measly 200 - 213 gear.

Naxx teaches players how to move outta the fire (Heigan), how to burn the crap outta bosses (Patchwerk), how to deal with adds effectively (Noth, Gluth, KT). And it does it very slowly, one boss at a time, just as their MC counterparts did nearly 5 years ago. If you can not handle KT adds, Razorscale and XT will likely eat you alive.

The mechanics of 5 man heroic instances do not teach many of these same raiding principles. And if they do, they are not on the scale of a raid level encounter - the minimum requirements are just too low. Slacker DPS do not wipe a 5 man instance - they just make the other DPSers compensate for them. Standing in the fire does not kill a stupid player, it just forces the healer to focus heals on them for a short while.

I'm not advocating for harder 5 mans, I'm advocating for baby-stepping into raiding, rather than plunging head long into it.

When recruiting to my guild, I only look at gear now to see if it's gemmed and enchanted properly. I could care less about the actual item level of the gear itself. I look more at achievements and statistics to see what the player has done in the raiding arena.

If Blizzard's goal is to give more players access to raids, I think they are going about it the wrong way. I heard somewhere that more players finished BT and Hyjal in the 4 months that 3.4 was live than in the previous 6 months before. Many players attribute this to easier access to gear. I firmly believe it was because the bosses were nerfed by 30% - these players would have been able to complete the instances without the gear upgrades.

I highly doubt many players went from never stepping foot into Karazhan to fully clearing Hyjal in the 4 months that 3.4 was live. The only players that saw more content where those all ready raiding, but struggling a bit.

The gear requirement for Naxx is level 80 quest blues. The gear you get - you know - while questing. You don't need to get crafted items, or to run heroics ad infinitum for 1 or 2 specific drops. Any player will be "Naxx ready" within a week or 2 of hitting 80 as long as they have a suitable play schedule.

The gear requirement for Ulduar is (shockingly) that the majority of your gear be of Naxx level. That's it. To move on to the second round of game play you only need to complete round 1. Ding.
Etc, etc.

The players not raiding ToC currently fit into 2 categories (in my mind). Non-raiders - that is - those that have no desire to raid. And players that were just slow to start into raiding.

Obviously those that fall into the first category don't need raid gear. What is the purpose behind driving a semi truck if you're just picking up 1 bag of groceries?

Those in the second category also probably do not need that much of a pick-me-up to catch back up to the rest of us. Assuming your guild is currently working its way through Ulduar. You can just as well gear up with Conquest badges from the Conquest badge vendor incase you're unlucky with a drop from a boss (just as the rest of us did). By the time 3.3 comes out, these players should be working on ToC, and won't need Triumph badges from heroics, as they will be getting them raiding.

A better solution would be to maybe reduce the cost to buy badge gear (but keep the badges in place). I spent 58 Conquest Badges in July to buy my T8 helm because Thorim was being a punk and not dropping it. Adjust it so that a player still working on Ulduar maybe only has to spend 40 to get it - but that player would still have to do Ulduar to get the badges. Maybe next patch it would be down to 30 badges.

Players aren't raiding because of lack of gearing options. They aren't raiding because they don't have the schedule, they don't have the skill, or they just plain don't have the desire. Allowing players access to higher quality gear solves none of these. It only gives a pretense about what a player is likely ready for in the raiding world. For the handful of players that have the 3 above qualities, there are other ways around giving them gear boosters, than just handing it out after a handful of heroic 5 man runs.

[Daereg]

Source: Andenthal A better solution would be to maybe reduce the cost to buy badge gear (but keep the badges in place). I spent 58 Conquest Badges in July to buy my T8 helm because Thorim was being a punk and not dropping it. Adjust it so that a player still working on Ulduar maybe only has to spend 40 to get it - but that player would still have to do Ulduar to get the badges. Maybe next patch it would be down to 30 badges.

That does sound like a nice option, over time cheapen the gear but still put some effort into acquiring it the same way everyone else did. Problem is though, no one is running these old dungeons as much as they were, before Conquest badges were made to drop off everything, I hadn't done a heroic in months, there was no incentive to do one bar achievements, I'm sure a lot of raiders felt the same way about them and because of this, there was no one for the people who had started raiding later on in WOTLK to group with.
If you want people to catch up or at least continue raiding old content, you would have to make it still feel rewarding for the slower raiders. I would definitely wanna go back and do heroics again, as well as Ulduar in patch 3.3, triumph gear for offspecs and my alts would make it very rewarding.

I remember in TBC, I started playing the game very late compared to everyone else, it was really difficult for a first time raider to build my way up to good gear, so difficult that I never got it done, and in months all I got was some T5, had there been some later tier of badges(or in TBC's case, much cheaper items) could probably have caught up in less than a year...

[jaydee]

More accessible gear means more potential recruits for raids or guilds. Note the word potential. How do we differentiate? Check the achievements. Don't want to look through armory for achievements? Use pugchecker. If you don't want to risk a raid or your guild recruitment, make it black and white. No achievement, no raid slot. Though with this approach, you'd be missing out on PUGs that have good aptitude.

It's been this way ever since and blizzard always made it a point that OLD gear is made more accessible while top tier gear is always made available only to those who raid.

This is an old issue that always had a solution.

[Porcell]

I have no problem with having some gear available that is a tier or two behind cutting edge content. I know that I certainly don't want to go back and run Ulduar 25m over and over in order to gear up a new recruit so that they can be useful in our main raids.

Even in 3.3 with Triumph badges being spread liberally, I don't see it as "threatening" to my position as a raider. You'll have a bunch of people in the "junk" Tier 9 gear, with crafted bracers, one decent trinket, their ranged slot, and a good ring. They'll be two tiers behind in crafted Belt and Boots and the Conquest neck. Their cloak will still be junk, their other trinket and ring will be junk, their weapons will be junk. The "hack" players will still be easily identifiable, just like the current "hack" players can be identified by their abundance of 219 hToC instance gear and 2 piece Helm/Chest T8.

Once 3.3 hits I'll be sporting my full 245/258 gear ready to storm Icecrown, while the dreaded casuals will be frantically running heroics and old raids in order to gear up to a smattering of 232/228. That seems pretty fair to me.

[mero12513]

I would like to add a personal anecdote, simply to show why Blizzard uses the system they do.

I reached level 70 on my first character in July of 2008. My first 25-man was not until mid-August. I had less than 4 months to do anything and everything I could do in The Burning Crusade.

I raid led a guild to its first kills of Illidan and Archimonde exactly 2 weeks before Wrath launched. This simply could NOT have been done without badge gear. My guild was composed of around 20 mediocre players and about 5 legitimately good players. We needed to outgear content at least a little before we could kill it. We scraped out our first kills of every single boss by the skin of our teeth, even after the giant 30% nerfs. Without access to T6 equivalent gear (basically free), my guild of thoroughly average people could never have seen Black Temple. The removal of attunements allowed us to skip Kael and Vashj--both fights that would have kept us out of Hyjal and BT for weeks.

Put simply, I am a raider because letting people get easier gear over time allowed me to raid. I personally believe players who start playing well into expansion life cycles, casual players who cannot commit to a steady raid schedule, and yes, even straight up bad players should get the opportunity to experience as much content as possible in a game that they pay to play.

The experience of raiding (and acquiring new gear) is a very different experience depending on when, and especially how, you do it. There are bleeding edge raiders who commit serious time, energy, and skill into accomplishing things that are truly difficult. They clear content and get those rewards long before the rest of us, and that is good. There are also entirely different groups of players, who either can't or don't enjoy the many commitments (not just time) that raiding seriously requires.

Their inability or non-desire to do so should not preclude them from experiencing the remarkable content that blizzard puts out.

[Eravian]

I think if anything this argument illustrates that whatever people may say about loot, it IS a vital part of the game, and Blizzard realizes this. By putting in new content with new, better gear, and opening up the previous level of gear to the masses, Blizzard is ensuring that everyone gets a gear upgrade and thus will be motivated to continue playing. While this isn't the reason most people play, they play because they have fun doing it, the desire for better gear is still a great motivating factor. After all, most of the people who support the idea of giving people very easy access to T9 are fine with this because there is better stuff which is only available to them. If, instead, Blizzard said that with the next patch, there will only be one set of T10 armor for each class, and that they are purchasable by Triumph emblems which drop from Heroic dungeons, and Icecrown rewards achievements only - no loot drops at all - people would be outraged. Some people would still do it, and why not, they have fun! But just giving everyone the same gear and making it all based on skill and skill alone would, although very interesting, nevertheless be a bad business move on the part of Blizzard.

Thus you will always find with nearly every patch ways for everyone to get better loot... except for low level characters (but wait, they're revamping that when Cataclysm hits too ;-) ).


My only real complaint with the easier access to Triumph emblems is that it's not very game like... in nearly every game I'VE played, you get certain things by meeting certain requirements... if you get them without doing those things, you've probably cheated. People don't like people who buy accounts, and I would get banned if I just hacked the game to give me a full set of Tier 9 right now... although If I wait a few months, Blizzard will do it for me for no additional charge, and no ban! But, again, that's because this isn't a typical game, it's an MMO, and that means they need to keep people playing it to support the upkeep costs. That's why loot is becoming more and more accessible.

:-P Sorry about the wall o' text.

[Durandro]

People saying 'just do 10 mans', this isn't always doable.

1/ Even getting 5 people together can be difficult at times.

2/ 10 mans usually take longer. Alot of casual players don't have the time for this.

So given these two factors, would they rather spend 45 minutes gathering and clearing a 5 man, or spending hours gathering and clearing a 10 man, and getting more or less the same rewards?

Simple fact is we all pay the same amount for this game. Hell, Blizzard probably prefer casual players since then it's less usage of their bandwidth. Hense they give casuals a break, and encourage them to keep playing.

They are still far behind the curve when it comes to gear. Infact, with the current system, casuals will be two tiers or more behind the cream of the crop (10 man normal T9 compared to 25 man heroic T10? That's three tiers, essentially, even if you discount 10 man heroic/25 man/25 man heroic T9 and 10 man heroic T10 - so you could possibly say it's 7 tiers behind the cream!).

And weapons will never get to your level. Or trinkets. So what's the big deal? Ultimately WoW will end and all your gear will be deleted and all your achievements meaningless. So just enjoy it and stop going on like the sky is falling.

Because this complaint is worse then comparing Naxx 25 gear to Heroic 5 man gear (which was equivilent and sometimes better then Naxx 10 gear).

[Arvandor]

I'm leveling an alt that I plan to raid with. Most of my alts I'm not worried about raiding, but with this one I keep thinking "Ugh... gearing her to be able to actually raid is going to be a royal pain, and is going to require my guild to carry my toon's sorry ass."

Then I remember how emblems work, and it's mildly comforting. Though only mildly, because while being able to farm triumph gear will be handy, it'll still leave my alt relatively undergeared.

[sicness]

Those of you who really don't like this change must be in a fairly stable raiding guild. I know most guilds - and most guilds aren't high level guilds, most are mid to low level guilds - are always looking for more people and this change only helps them further. Yes it adds the influx of players who aren't as experienced or play the game as well with similar gear to the players who know what they're doing, but it's not difficult to weed those people out in a raiding guild. Typically looking at their gemming/enchanting and their spec is more than enough to base that they don't know everything about their class.

The only people who should feel threatened by this are the people who under perform/slack in raids and have the possibility of being replaced. Once you get past the 'omg I'm not unique anymore' mindset you'll realize how much of a benefit this is to most raiding guilds.

[Ollin]

Source: Unger I am seeing both sides to the story. One one hand, during the days of the Burning Crusade, we had to look at the tanks with the Wall of Terror run by every day and it was a bit of a badge of honor. These days, we have that, but it doesnt last 4-5 months. Its more like 4-6 weeks. We dont raid for gear.... sure enough. But we all love our toons enough to know that we want to differentiate them from others. That is why people pay crazy amounts of gold for things like extra mounts, chef's hats, etc. For the raider, we want our reward too.... something that says "we have accomplished this" that we can wear around all day. Something cool that isnt easy to get..... I can understand this. So perhaps Blizzard has it right to give this gear to casual players.... but they should probably set aside something.... a weapon, a shield, a helmet.... SOMETHING that allows the top end players the opportunity to have some bragging rights too. They do this somewhat with the special mounts off end game bosses (Alganon). What do you say Blizz?? How about one for each class.....?

They're called titles.

[gacktt]

Back in BC you could get weapons that were better than 4/5 8/9 of tier 6 and almost equivalent to illidan/arch loot for 100 badges.

Hell, farming sunwell trash gave you 2 handers that had more dps than cataclysms edge.

[kolben]

Source: squats I understand blizzard wanting the vast majority of players to be able to see normal-mode content, but making it possible to get a full set of T9.0 just by farming heroics is just a bit to far. It was bad enough that you could get 4 set T8.5 by doing heroics and Vault when 3.2 came out... seriously.

First of all, the only set of "full T9" that someone can get is the conquest set. Triumph still requires a trophy for each piece - unless of course the remove that.

Secondly, achievements are the new bar guilds are measured with.

Lastly, gear has scaled way too fast for someone who just reached level 80 to have a prayer of getting into anything. By the time someone farms up the hundreds of badges they would need for Conquest gear - the guilds that raid will be getting geared up in T10 - it's a moot point unless all you do is stand around in Dalaran hoping people will inspect you.

[Knigit]

You simply cannot gear up through the original path, it takes way too much time. Imagine having to run naxx 6-7 times to get the gear for Ulduar and the same again to progress to ToC. So obviously it was necessary to provide a way to grind up alts or mains returning from inactivity. I think the changes touted in 3.3 are simply the natural conclusion of what has been tremendously successul in 3.2. I know many people who took the time to level an alt and get it up to a reasonable gear level. We now have more tanks, more healers and just more options on any given collection of players - be it on a progression night or just fooling around in VoA or whatever.

In short, keeping the gear reasonably achievable means that Blizzard are always developing new content for a large portion of the playerbase, and that players get to bring alts up to speed without a huge effort.

Just remember that when you say 'just farm heroics" it actually takes a fair bit of time to fully kit out in badges gear, and most casual players will not get there any time soon.

edit: the downside is obviously that players progress to more difficult encounters without having to learn the mechanics, but that problem pre-existed anyway and isn't really that much of an issue.

[capt]

I agree with the old dude above, each patch they should make all badge items cost 1/2-2/3 of current cost. this with known strats, and and craftable gear would make each tier faster the more total tiers their are.

even if you want to help level out alts for mains who are in ToC, it would be easy to make badges BoA or just 2 reg badges=1 BoA badge.

the reason there are no real naxx guilds (as in guilds that are progressing through naxx like current raiding guilds use to) is because of the way gear is, if they made people progress you would see guilds looking for people for lower content.

if I was guildless and my gear and knowlage were in the mid uldar level I would want to start their with a new guild, not skip to toc.

even if a new guild cant get past late uldar before cata, so what? is old content less fun because its old? I would rather see 2/3 the content then blow through the last 1/3 and sit on my hands for next patch. (there is something to be said for always having something "over the next hill")

[Eide]

Source: felhoof Something like...the ironbound proto-drakes? Or the special cloaks that you can only get from Insanity tributes? Or heck, the heroic versions of the T9 gear? Or special titles like Starcaller and Celestial Defender and Twilight Vanquisher? Just checking.

Just wanted to highlight this response, bcause this poster is spot on.

Seriously, the time where you raided for epics is long gone. We're not in Vanilla anymore, and things have changed. Deal with it. Besides, gear says nothing about what you have achieved. That's exactly why there's achievements and titles etc.

If purple pixels are still the main reason why you are raiding, you need to start wondering if WoW is the game for you, because the last time WoW was about that was back in 2007.

I'm fine with this. Let people be able to get gear, let people get ready for whatever. If people are willing to invest bundles of time in raiding the same heroic instances umphteen times for those badges, fine. For me raiding is about achieving. Screw the gear, it's just a means to an end.

[almightypancake]

Source: Eide Just wanted to highlight this response, bcause this poster is spot on. Seriously, the time where you raided for epics is long gone. We're not in Vanilla anymore, and things have changed. Deal with it. Besides, gear says nothing about what you have achieved. That's exactly why there's achievements and titles etc. If purple pixels are still the main reason why you are raiding, you need to start wondering if WoW is the game for you, because the last time WoW was about that was back in 2007. I'm fine with this. Let people be able to get gear, let people get ready for whatever. If people are willing to invest bundles of time in raiding the same heroic instances umphteen times for those badges, fine. For me raiding is about achieving. Screw the gear, it's just a means to an end.

I agree with this, but I have only one concern with the whole new system.

By skipping early levels of content, new raiders are put in a position where they don't have to learn the fundamentals of raiding. Sure, it's obvious to us how to perform rotations, juggle cooldowns, have situational awareness, and eat cheetos all at the same time, but someone who has been doing lovely tank n' spank heroics up to 232 gear is missing out on several worthwhile lessons in earlier tiers of raiding. It's Jokerammass to us, because most of us had to push through and clear it in mostly blues/greens. As such, 232 gear makes it an absolute titfest for us.

My concern isn't the idea that I might be grouped with these people, but rather that the game could potentially be more enjoyable for all players if we could ensure more players could clear content. One friend of mine suggested an idea of "gating" badge loot--sure, you can buy 219 level loot, but only after clearing naxx at least once. Clearing ulduar leads you to be able to buy some lovely 226 loot, and clearing ToTC lets you get those fancy-pants 232 and 245 gear. The same ease of gearing exists, and new players actually learn something instead of running around, touting their gearscores and dying to gormak's fires.

If you're gearing up an alt, it's still worthwhile to clear those instances at least once. Just because you know how to tank every fight in existence doesn't mean you grasp the basics of healing.

Just my twenty cents.

[Eide]

Source: almightypancake . Sure, it's obvious to us how to perform rotations, juggle cooldowns, have situational awareness, and eat cheetos all at the same time

I actually do that while bouncing my three month old son on my knee

Source: almightypancake but someone who has been doing lovely tank n' spank heroics up to 232 gear is missing out on several worthwhile lessons in earlier tiers of raiding. It's Jokerammass to us, because most of us had to push through and clear it in mostly blues/greens. As such, 232 gear makes it an absolute titfest for us.

Agreed, however, that's also something where guildleaders and raidleaders come in. I'm an officer in my guild, and one of three raidleaders. Our biggest contribution to the raids is educating raiders with less experience. It's also the most time consuming bit for us. We still do the occasional Ulduar or even Naxx gear run, where we take people who're prefferably as undergeared as possible. We Iron Manned Naxx last thursday, with 2 people in the raid who never even went to Naxx before, and the only overgeared person was me, just because we were short a tank.

In other words, you can train these tyhings, but as a guild you need to be prepared to train it.

Source: almightypancake One friend of mine suggested an idea of "gating" badge loot--sure, you can buy 219 level loot, but only after clearing naxx at least once. Clearing ulduar leads you to be able to buy some lovely 226 loot, and clearing ToTC lets you get those fancy-pants 232 and 245 gear.

Not a bad idea actually!