on one hand i was ticked at the work made frivolous, but i was glad to take advantage of it at the same time. the thing that i think is gonna get me in the long run is how itll be achievs and not gear that discerns the bad players from good. it’s already tough when filling out a 25 with t8.5 helms that dont move from razorscale fire.

looking at my chars gearscores on w0w-heroes tho, the two mains ride high 2500s, while the 3rd now runs high 2300, and doesn’t have a whole lot else to go now except ulduar for better, or eventual triumph bade gear. i think that just about reflects what is made more concrete in the current tiers: hardmoders get a full tier above, raiders a half a tier, and casuals get a ticket in the door and a cookie.

i’m going to continue to raid on my mains at a nonhardmode level (until i find that group that really clicks anyway) and park my 3rd where i think the most advantage will be to the gear jump; not gonna raid ulda with it–just get the cheapie t9 slow and steady. shame tiers don’t have one more slot; i’d laugh if i could get it three tiers’ 2-set bonuses at the same time.

raiders as opposed to hardmoders probably have the most to complain about, what can i say though than ‘you know what’s gonna happen, find a way to take advantage of it’.

I know it’s frustrating to see people get something more easily than you got it, but I suggest looking on them with pity instead. What you got to do with hours of raiding (which I hope you enjoyed), they do four months later with hours of heroics. I’d earned over a thousand emblems of heroism, and now I have 600 emblems of conquest to get.

Good luck with Phase 2 – when it works, it WORKS. From my experience it’s all about the melee people in the portals dpsing hard (and not spawning an extra Crusher).

The other thing I notice makes a huge difference on Yogg, and it’s such a stupid little thing, is to make sure your raid leader tells your DPS ahead of time “ok this is the last Guardian for Sara, kill the rest – KILL them!”. It’s just something about the DPS mentality… it’s hard to scale back and not kill something, and it’s really hard to pick up and kill several targets quickly when we have a Crusher to take on.

Perfect Phase 1 = Yogg kill imo.

The badge changes has let me obtain the two last pieces of T8 I needed, that I hadn’t been lucky enough to get by bosses dropping them, for my 4-set bonus. So I think I like the changes. I still will have certain items those farming Naxx and heroics only never will have (Like Guiding Star, I like your taste in maces), but it still feels a bit like being handed the gold medal for finishing third.

As for TotC. The Beasts of Northrend was _tons_ of fun. Probably one of my favorite fights so far in the game. Introducing them one by one seems like a bad way to make the content last longer. At _least_ let us bang our heads against the heroic mode!

a) 10-man guilds preparing to tackle the 25man but a bit scared to do so because they haven’t got a good spread of 10man gear yet;
b) Gearing alts to fit raid spots that are missing in progress guilds or making sure they will be “passable” for the Colliseum raid;
c) People who switch from “casual” to “hardcore” can get a bit better gear so they won’t be flat-out denied by raiding guilds (and some raiding guilds do have retarded gear requirements from applicants);
d) Allowing PvP’ers to take advantage of the new PvP gear, so that the odds are evened out before the next season;

Any of these and then some could be the “real” reason for the badge change. I’d say Blizzard simply does so to allow for “catchups” and alts, myself. It can be quite frustrating if you’d like to raid with your Moonkin, but have to spend time pugging raids your guild no longer runs to get the gear to be contributing meaningfully to your raid.

Raiders will still have the advantage of getting their “best gear” from multiple avenues (badges, the new 5man and raids), while the catchups and casuals will need to stick with badges and the 5man. Raiders also tend to accumulate more Triumph badges quickly, while evening out in the Conquest department.

But I don’t believe all this will encourage people to push into Ulduar. I just don’t believe it. And isn’t that the whole reasoning behind these badge changes?

Now, with the Emblems of Conquest dropping from everything, people who just dinged 80 can do heroics and buy 2 pieces of T8 (head piece and chest piece), as well as some other items, and anything at the Naxx-25 level and lower.

I don’t really see this as bad. To get the T8 head piece, you need to shell out some 58 emblems of Conquest, which is about 12-13 heroics. So one piece of gear will set them back about as much time as it will to gear our alts. The emblems of Triumph are available from daily quests, but that goes for us as well as new players/alts/casuals/scrubs/pvp’ers and whatnot, so the field is clear on that.

When playing this game, I don’t look at the fact that others can get the gear more easily, or how content is nerfed. To me it’s important how my friends and I clear content; the other players do not factor in it and play their “own game”.

On a side note, this also means it is a lot easier to gear alts and get them into guild runs properly, as well as getting that nasty, awesome PvP set and claim some BG kills.

Because raiders double-dip.

They raid for Emblems and gear, and still get to go to all those heroics. Where mr. Patient gets what he needs, miss dedicated has a Dps set, healing set and a PvP set.

Mr. Patient is prepared to log in and do his thing.
Miss Dedicated is ready for anything.

It doesn’t help that this time around I really can’t seem to find a guild that fits me. On the positive side my alts are getting a lot of love.