Lack of Ulduar10 emblems - terrible idea

#0 - April 10, 2009, 1:25 a.m.

[TLDR VERSION] - The lack of new Emblem of Valor gear removes all relevance from emblems even existing in Ulduar-10 and basically backslides to pre-TBC days of pure luck. Even new flavour items, like a 200-valor flying mount, would be something. A GOOD solution would be to give Ulduar 10 its own set of emblems and vendor to prevent stockpiling Valor emblems from Naxx25 to buy Ulduar gear on patch day.

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Q u o t e:
Currently the only items I noticed added to the emblem of valor quartermaster are the relic items that were in Naxx. Examples: Sigil of Awareness, Idol of Awakening, Libram of Resurgence, Totem of Hex, etc. While it is technically "old" gear, the emblems of valor that drop in Ulduar10 will give you access to items that are of the appropriate level to help progress in that dungeon. -Bornakk

This is an incredibly bad idea.

I mean, ordinarily I give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt, and cheerfully take my nerfs with my buffs in the name of a game more in line with their vision. They've got much, much better people now than they did when they started (paladin tanks what?) and they continue to be clever about practically everything.

But this is an incredibly bad idea.

Armory me if you wish. I'll save you the time: my only ilvl213 items are my boots (Naxx 25) and trinket (OS 25); everything else is from 10-man or even Heroics. Hell, I have the Kirin Tor dagger - that's got to balance out the boots and put me at '10-man geared' status.

I have also got quite a few Emblems of Valor (about 80) because I do heroic raids and just never see anything good drop. (Still hoping for Life and Death.) I was hoping to spend these emblems on new T8 tokens, or at least other upgrades. Apparently the only new items added to the Valor vendor are relics.

That means that for the LONG foreseeable future (because they're not going to add the post-Ulduar raids any time soon) I can use the Ulduar-10 Valor emblems to upgrade to 25-man cloak, bracers, boots, T7.5 shoulders, T7.5 pants.

The cloak/bracers/boots are itemised for generic casters, meaning they either have spirit or mp5. Mages are getting a use for spirit, but it is still not AS GOOD as finding a piece that spends those item points elsewhere, like I've done. So taking the spirit penalty, those are basically a sidegrade.

For example, let the WoWHead item comparison engine explain: http://www.wowhead.com/?compare=37884;40741;40740 (My bracers, from Heroic Violet Hold of all places, followed by the two Valor vendor bracers.)

Wow, I can lose crit and gain hit I don't need OR a lesser magnitude of haste? SIGN ME UP! And the T7.5 gear may look pretty, but it won't share a set bonus with the Ulduar-10 T8, so I'll want to replace it as soon as possible.

And let's not forget that most Ulduar-10 gear is actually better than Naxx-25 gear, so there's zero chance of a person with no EoVs right now wanting to save up from their Ulduar raiding to get something good - the only way anyone will go from Naxx-10 to Ulduar-10 and actually use the Valor emblems they start picking up is if they get screwed over on rolls again and again and again. And even then, the emblem gear (after a month of raiding) will be worse than the stuff someone else gets on the first or second night by luck.

To top it all off, there's no Valor emblem sink. A sufficiently dedicated heroic- or 10-man-runner may eventually pick up the 200-emblem mammoth and a whole selection of heirloom items. Whereas a sufficiently dedicated Ulduar-10 raider will... uh... convert all their EoVs into EoHs and pick up the mammoth and some heirloom items. Well. It's a good thing their participation in the new, much more difficult raid has you know what I don't even have the motivation to finish this sentence.

And as a final, relatively minor point, being able to save up emblems for Tier tokens was an especially good touch in the first rank of raiding. Groups I run with tend to see a LOT of mages/DKs and constantly losing rolls doesn't sting so much when you know you can be sure of getting it in the long run. If you run Ulduar 25, you still get this system. Run Ulduar 10, and you don't deserve welfare tokens, apparently.

I really can't think of a single good reason Ulduar-10 shouldn't have its own emblem and vendor.

#6 - April 10, 2009, 2:53 a.m.

The idea is to keep a clear progression for 10-player and 25-player content. If a small guild spends the majority of its time running Naxxramas on normal mode, running Ulduar on normal mode will give them a chance to get gear that will be more helpful there. They'll be able spend Emblems of Valor on 7.5 pieces they may not already have, rendering them better equipped to conquer 10-player Ulduar.

Granted, Naxxramas is quite easily puggable on heroic mode, so a lot of people may not have as much use for Emblems of Valor from 10-player Ulduar. That said, we think the progression pattern for emblems and tier pieces will become more clear as the raid content gets a little more difficult. Players shouldn't necessarily expect to clear heroic Ulduar in pick-up groups, and particularly not with hard modes... at least not for a while.

There is also always the strong possibility we will upgrade the items available for purchase with various emblem types as raid progression continues to evolve with new encounters.

We are listening to the feedback players are giving on emblems, as this system is a little different from the badge system in the Burning Crusade, but we do feel things are on the right track now, and will make sense for a large number of players who are still leveling up, experiencing the end game content, and equipping themselves with competitive PvP and PvE gear.