Hug one, hug all. Does it really matter who’s got whit as long as yer still enjoying yersel? Does it make ye happier to deny someone else somethin’? Ah really cannae understand this whole thing…

You’d think, the way some of my guildies and some others are talking, that when 2.4 comes out they are going to have all their epics perma-removed and given to newly dinged 70’s. In fact, it’s worse, their e-peen is going to be cut off and tossed to the murlocs!

I usually stay away from topics like this, I even tend to try and ignore them in g-chat as they’re something that’s likely to bug me and both sides have pretty strong feelings. But, to hell with it, I’ll write it all down here where no-one can interrupt me while I write.

First of all I come from this with two different perspectives. The first is that of a true casual, solo gamer. On my druid I was in a Kara raiding guild but I barely went. I did most things I could solo and only ventured into heroics when I was dragged (though I usually enjoyed them).

Now, I’m in a t5 level guild – Kael is all we have left to do at that level of content. It’s a pretty ‘casual’ guild, we raid three times a week and usually have a Karazhan run on Wednesdays for anyone and their alts.

So, that said, what are the issues with the new badge loot reward. Here are one’s I’ve personally heard bandied about:

• It makes things too easy!
• Kara guilds will run into BT / MH!
• We wiped for months in SSC / TK and n00bs will come through and go straight to MH / BT!
• People won’t want to do raid content when badge rewards are better!

Apparently the new gear progression, according to these people, will go something like:

Ok, lets take this methodically. Most pieces of new 2.4 badge rewards are, minimum, 75 badges. there are a few exceptions to this (fist weapons, daggers and rings) but, for the most part the price is 75 badges plus for any one item.

If you farm Kara you will, for those 75 badges, have to do at least 4 runs. If you were to do heroics you’d be looking at doing at least one 5 badge instance for each of nine days – less if you manage to do the daily heroic for extra badges, maybe.

Now to the non-casual gamer this may seem easy – heroic runs are quick guild affairs which barely take any time. Now look at it from the casual perspective – A lot of people who do manage to do Kara casually with their guild can only take those few nights as full night runs. Some heroics take longer to clear than Karazhan if your group is sub-par and many people just can’t do 3/4/5/6/7 nights a week of gaming for hours on end. On my druid I was lucky if I did more than three heroics a week and I even only did that many when some guildies wanted specific loot and couldn’t find a tank. So, that shiny ‘9 days until epic’ drops down to something like 3/4 weeks and that’s for the lower priced items.

Heroics, whilst you can run them every day, are also likely to incur far higher repair bills (not to mention frustration). For the 150 piece loot realise that if you’re only running Kara, or a few heroics, you could take up to 8 weeks to get all the badges you need for one, single, piece of gear.

Of course, some guilds who’ve been running only Kara so far may well already have a pile of badges so we move onto the second part of our evaluation – “omg n00bs will be going into BT, MH and SuW skipping SSC/TK!”

Yes, probably. What with the 2.4 removing the attunements it’s likely that at least some small guilds might take a peek. Likely, however, they will not be able to do this straight away for two reasons. First is that to even get one piece of equivalent gear with which to boost themselves will take them 8 weeks… Secondly, if they were doing Kara they likely have a 10 man team or so. Most people will know the problems that happen when you suddenly try to scale up to 25 man raids. This will also be the issue for smaller guilds – even those who may have progressed to ZA by now. Their gear might be getting on par with others entering MH / BT via SSC / TK but they’re lacking in numbers and will have to up the numbers.

The secondary problem with this scaling up is that, even if you manage to do it, you still have to learn how to coordinate as a 25 man team. This has been a make-or-break issue for many guilds who’ve encountered Vashj / Kael and not been able to brute-force past it with even the best gear available to them.

Now, this argument spills over a bit into the opening attunements one, forgive me but they are slightly entwined under the banner of “making it easier for the casuals”. People complain that others will run to MH/BT but, as stated above, it likely won’t be possible for them to get very far unless they gear up a bit more (which will take time) and learn to work as a team (also taking some time). If any guild is considering farming for badge loot and bypassing SSC/TK then I’d say they’re shooting themselves in the foot. You could gear up in SSC / TK possibly faster overall to the point where MH/BT will be more survivable and, whilst doing so, will learn skills which will greatly impact how you perform in those new instances.

Anyway! A lot of this comes down to context – I can’t really stress that enough. To the elite raider the new badge rewards and open attunements make the game easier. Why? Because with the support of a guild geared for the upper level of raiding and with the level of coordination and teamwork gained from those raids as well as the drive you need to wish to do them these players often won’t have a hard time getting groups / doing instances/ doing <2hr Kara clears etc. They don’t often take the time to stop and consider that someone else might be in a totally different position to themselves in regard to ease of access to content.

In my opinion the guilds it will benefit the most are not those in Karazhan doing 2 nights a week, are not those who play casually and get all of their badges from heroics (or get none at all!). The people who are going to benefit most from both the new badge loot and the opening of attunements are guilds like those I am in currently. We have easy access to piles of badges (organised guild groups + kara runs) we’ve had the experience in SSC / TK and are at the tail end of completing them, we are possibly going to slide into the lower end of MH relatively comfortably and will appreciate the boost from badge gear which will cover any slots we might have been missing to give us a chance to experience that end game content.

We want to see more, we’re progression minded and there aren’t many upgrades left for us anyway in the non-end bosses of SSC / TK. What Blizzard are doing is giving semi-serious guilds the chance to hit all of that yummy new content before it turns into old news. We are, I believe, going to benefit greatly as will many guilds at this progression juncture (and there seems to be quite number of them).

Now, that is all fine and dandy, that’s the big picture but let’s have a quick look at the smaller picture from my own little rogue-ish perspective. Come the new patch there will be two reasonably major upgrades for me – chest and legs. If I hadn’t been late to level these probably wouldn’t even be such big upgrades for me. The third item and only other badge loot I’d consider getting is a marginal upgrade at most. I will be getting almost as many pieces of kit from the new faction (ring and neck) and some of my best ‘upgrades’ will still be loot from SSC / TK / MH. The new badge rewards will not make everything before them obsolete. They are not a whole set of items, they are not all ‘best’ in their class. I really wish people would think before they say that the new badge loot is going to make such a huge difference, that it’ll take away all their hard work an that, somehow, it will make their gaming experience less fun.

Take a look at how the new gear has been balanced – most of it is ever-so-slightly sub par to the tier equivalent that it is modeled after and tends towards giving you stats rather than gem choices. I don’t know many hardcore raiders who’d settle for second best when best was available for them. It is not pissing on your parade, you can sit back and call it ‘easy’ loot and cry over how hard you wiped to get something similar but if all you’re raiding for is to have better loot? You might want to quit wow before the next expansion when most of your shiny epix will become useless trash.

Anyway, rant done. You can feel free, of course, to completely obliterate my theory or add to my argument – either is preferable to random bitching and moaning all of which will be studiously ignored. Looks like we’ll find out soon enough what the outcome will be, enjoy 2.4!

7 comments