The recent 3.2 changes to Emblems acquisition have been a boon for most players.
I think even those that opposed them on the basis of belittling their raiding gear achievement have relaxed, either appreciating their higher geared raid mates, or joining in on the emblem feast, gorging themselves to the fill with the gear or gems that they can buy.
ToC has had a similar effect, with the high iLevel items allowing toons to punch many times higher than their previous weight.
Of course there is the other side of the coin and I have read many a story of renewed and inflated inspection requirements.
No T8.5… Sorry you can run Heroic Nexus with us.
Likewise just hours after the doors of ToC opened, people were expected to be experienced.
Now I expect I am at the casual end of the casual crowd, but I am finding myself left far behind.
Still wearing my old Naxx threads
- How long has 3.2 been out now?
- How many emblems have people (potentially) gained?
In that time I have rub Naxx 10 once, ToC twice and maybe one or two other heroics.
To be fair, I have picked up 2 upgrades, one with emblems and one as a ToC drop.
How many have you picked up?
We are intending to venture into Ulduar 10 for our (well, my) first time tonight and I will be doing it as a primarily Naxx 10 geared Mage.
I have done Naxx 25 about 1.5 times, and gained some loot. I have done Sarth0D a few times, VoA10 a few times, but I haven’t even entered EoE once.
Maybe I should take heed of Gevlon’s blue Ulduar success and not worry about the gear, but I’m the 1st to admit (well maybe 2nd if we are to believe Larisa) that I’m not the most skilled Mage out there. Competent, sure, but I wouldn’t consider myself to be OP. Especially as I am currently out of practice.
I should be grateful
I am not trying to suggest that the new emblem and ToC system of gearing is bad or unfair, just that I know I am being left behind (something that I predicted back when the new was 1at released).
I guess I should be thankful that I am playing with mates that reserve a raid spot (as well as a night out of their serious raiding and emblem gathering) for me. I’m sure if I was a member of a regular raiding guild I would be lucky to get a spot on the bench.
Paralyzed by Panic
To be completely honest, I haven’t given this too much thought. I had a moment of panic last Friday when I logged on, but breathed a huge sigh of relief when I realized it was Old World night with the intention to teach Nefarion the lesson we failed to give last time.
The panic has returned now, knowing it’s Ulduar on the calendar for tonight. In fact I think the panic has been with me for a little while, paralyzing me at the login screen.
- Gnomeaggedon
- Squidly
Which one do I choose… Squidly
I think the panic has been quietly gnawing at my Mage self confidence. Why log on and grind a couple of emblems which will amount to nothing unless I am on regularly, when I can play my OP Shaman.
Squidly = Green Gear Equality
You see, Squidly suffers from none of the emblem and Tier gear problems.
He’s well dressed in Greens plus a couple of heirlooms. He can heal any instance in his level range and is already getting a little tired of grinding one mob at a time. Anything less than 5 mobs at a time right now seems a little easy mode.
Squidly is still providing that long forgotten joy of new talents and abilities every hour or so, rather than a few extra points of Int, Crit or Spellpower.
Right now the yawning gear chasm caused by the emblem and ToC cataclysm is wearing on Gnomeaggedon.
I guess we will see how he goes tonight, but there is already a part of me that says Squidly = OP fun and Gnomeaggedon = tiring emblem grinding.
Gnomer and Out!
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http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/09/04/
emblems-of-everything-fail-me/
I’m glad it isn’t just me. That’s how I feel when I log my main on these days. I know it is partly because I’ve been busy in real life, but a lot of my friends have really thrown themselves into farming for badges of triumph via dailies … and the idea of running heroic nexus AGAIN makes me want to slit my wrists.
My new alt, on the other hand, is just fun.
I think maybe I’m just the wrong type of player for WoW sometimes. I really really really don’t like grinding instances.
definitely not you… but Typhoon Andrew has read my mind about the other probelm.. Alts nearing 80… that is making me wonder whether I am a real WoW player…
I’ve found that the only way to remain even close to the high end of the game has been to drop all my alts and only play my main. I miss my alts, especially the lowbie Hunter and 70s Warlock and Druid. But I just can’t gear more than one toon now with the need to have hundreds of Conquest badges. A tank and dps set is very very expensive in terms of time. Especially when that time is spent doing H runs where no upgrades drop. Don’t even get me started on needing 200+ or so Triumph badges.
We’ve recently started 25m Ulduar too, and doing ok, but general gear level and learning fights is taking the time I’ve read about it taking. So we continue to grind heroics.
Pitty there is not a way to trade the iLevel 200 epics to our alts. I know we have heirloom items, but its not the same. I see items getting laughed about that an alt would find a good bump.
What really kills my want to play an alt is also knowing that after getting to 80, I get to start the same gear grind that I would be avoiding by leveling an alt. So either way I’ll be grinding instances, but if I play my alt I’ll just have two average toons and still not be able to raid.
“What really kills my want to play an alt is also knowing that after getting to 80, I get to start the same gear grind that I would be avoiding by leveling an alt”
^^ This ^^
It’s funny you should say that… because that’s has just hit me in the last few levels…
I WAS celebrating level 40… Whooo Hooo 1/2 way there…
then it started dawning on me… 1/2 way to the beginning of the “badge” grind…
Why must we want that which cannot last? The alts, they are so fun! But when we play that which we love, it levels up and before long it is 80 and ruined. At least it wasn’t so bad before Ulduar, back when people actually did heroics for heroic gear and expectations weren’t quite so absurd. For a while 80 was like leveling without xp. Then Ulduar and badge bonanza arrived.
Still, I suppose it could be worse. You could hit 80 on an alt and be unable to do anything because people would still want naxx+ gear but there wouldn’t even be anyone running heroics.
I guess we could pay 10g and freeze them in place…. but half the fun of an alt is the DING!!!
Actually, I would go further and say…
“At least things weren’t so bad before badges were introduced”
But then I would sound like one of those crotchety old Vanilla Vetrans… which I guess I am…
What I mean is that bad in earlier TBC, you had to earn your gear… but there were multiple avenues… Crafting, Raiding, Heroics… hell even normal instances gave some nice upgrades…
But you had to fight the RNG.. both in loot and in getting a party…
me thinks the World of Lootcraft might be better if instead of getting emblems, we got tokens… DPS tokens, Tank tokens, or Healer Tokens.
Yeah similar to the Tier tokens… so some of the RNG is taken out of the game…
I mist admit I would still (I think I have preached on this before) prefer it if there were a little more smarts in the token drops (or gear drops in general)…
No Warrior tanks… don’t drop warrior tokens…
No druids.. no druid tokens…
One Mage that is already sporting the token’s prize… no mage token…
I think it was Jong (I may be wrong) who actually wrote one time, to Delete your main and do it all over again.
I was fortunate enough to have been not too bad in gear. I did have to grind out some emblems, but it wasn’t near as bad as some people. the T8.25 chest and helm, a belt (which I replaced less than a week later – OY!) and thats about it. Im halfway to my helm, already have everything else. I am glad that grind is over. I did the heroic grind to get geared for naxx, I really didnt want to do it for ToC. On the flip side, though, I got a chance to spec heals and do that for the guild heroics, which was a blast and a change of pace.
These days though, I have stepped away from that and started to do loremaster. I Still need 30 some badges for my helm, and the shoulders that absolutely REFUSE to drop off of H TOC, but meh. I was having fun baubling around storm peaks last night, with no commitments to a raid group, or a heroic group at all.
Although, I still want to get my red drake. That has been bugging me for a while.
My gear isn’t bad… by Naxx10 standards, but I can’t say much more than that.. yeah Jong is quoting Brigwyn (I think) that starts a new toon every expansion
I’ve seen the “You need to have Ulduar 25 gear to run heroics” attitude and I think it’s ridiculous. My main is a healer wearing almost all Ulduar 25 or higher gear (except trinkets, I have no luck with those). I’m at a point where all of those conquest emblems are useless to me but I usually do the daily heroic for the triumph emblems.
My process when getting a group for these is to ask if anyone in the guild is interested. When I don’t get a full group out of there, I go and grab whoever I can out of lfg.
I don’t gear check. I don’t complain about tanks that don’t have 30k health unbuffed(I did replace one that had 490ish defence), or dps doing less than 4k. But I just grab whoever responds first and go and get stuff done. All of those really well geared people expecting other really well geared people are just lazy. The people I’m far less likely to want to run with are the ones that join the group then sit around in Dalaran waiting for somebody else to go to the summoning stone to summon them. Those are the types of people that don’t deserve to be on the run, and I would take someone in terrible gear that’s actually trying over one of them any time.
Some of the best (most fun) instances have been with undergeared or under-experienced (even noob) pugs…. because there is a challenge.
Nothing better than turning a noob mistake wipe around into a glorious victory!
I think there’s a huge difference between the imagery of ‘farming’ the heroics and ‘grinding’ them.
It’s when my mentality switches over to ‘grind’ that I can’t bring myself to go on.
I may have to post about this later.
Ahh yeahs.. farming vs. grinding…
I have a grinding post knocking about in the back of my mind.. even drafted the title…
But I am looking forward to your farming vs. grinding post!
I guess the new emblem awards work out for me, because I like running instances. I liked running heroics even when they were just giving emblem of hero.
I love running instances… love them!
If I could, I would do those in preference to Naxx.. because it is variety… don’t just pick one of 4 wings, pick 1 (or 3-4) Instances that suit your mood.
Unfortunately, my (main) playtime is dedicated to 10 manning raids (which really has meant Naxx till now).. we are lucky if we get in an instance.. maybe a HVH after we finish, assuming it’s early enough.
Generally my mates have run their fill before Friday, so I don’t get many offers there…. and it’s either abandon my mates on a Friday to instance, or run the raid of choice.
I still have to knock over 2 Northrend instances… and as Zupa pointed out to me ages ago… I haven’t officially (since achievements) done the Outland instances… and I have never done Heroic MGT
Totally agree with Jong here. I never really raided, and probably won’t, but I love running 5 mans. Especially with my core group.
I think everyone’s got a touch of the alt-itis lately, which isn’t a bad thing. I’ve definitely learned some new respect for our tank since leveling my paladin (she’s 43 now ^_^), and I’m sure I’ll respect our healer that much more once I dual spec her for healing. ^_^
I defeintly have some alt-itis going on right now…
We were heding to Ulduar last night, but at 10pm, as we were forming up (I was already over it after waiting for 1.5 hours), my PC went into snapshot mode… single frames.
I was asked if I wanted to give up my place for someone that could be relied on, and I chose to step down.
Instead I did RFD on Squid, and tried Mara with a fail pug (those slimes can not be meleed… it’s not the healers fault!
I guess I will probably post about it, but I (as top DPS) for the run got slagged off for not saving the tanks with heals… then got bagged out because I soloed 4 of them.. thus I was better than the tanks…
At that point I wished I didn’t stop the wipe
[...] Solution? I have no idea. I thought I was done grinding when I got level 80, but no, now I just get the chance to grind emblems to get gear just to be allowed in a raid. Gnomeaggedon had a great post about this that I enjoyed/agreed with/cried at http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/09/04/emblems-of-everything-fail-me/ [...]
I just reread your post for about the 5th time, and I agree with absolutely everything you say. I just made my own post about my own frustrations, although I must say it is not as elegant as yours.
An alt may be my only chance for fun. Would you say it’s cheating to mail 100g and some bags to start out with? Maybe help out some with riding skill at stuff? I don’t remember if you’ve mentioned that about Squidly… I’ll go reread =)
Cheat away I say!
Originally I planned to roll Squidly blind.. no guides, no gold, no gear.
I broke that plan pretty much straight away.. I blog, I am inquisitive, I had to read and I wasn’t into Squid for the struggle to grind cash, I was into him for the struggle to grind mobs.
I do regret slightly getting the heirloom gear… I don’t really need to level 10% faster, but Gnome had no use for the emblems etc. so Might as well allow Squidly to be born with a silver spoon.
I highly recommend Shaman.. I am enjoying the experience more than I did with my Lock, and I dare say coming from your Druid experience you will enjoy the mix of melee/caster dps/healing.
Different to a Druid, but there will be enough of the elements of your preferred playstyle to get you through