150 Badges for 2.4 Items = Grind Intensifies

ONE HUNDRED and FIFTY badges of honor for the 2 hand Axe being offered after patch 2.4. Just mull that number over for a bit, let it roll around in your mouth. 150......... that's probably 100 hours of doing heroics. Say the average heroic takes 1.5 hours to complete for a good group of players, and you get 3 badges for it. So 9 badges takes 4.5 hours. For simplicity lets say 10 badges takes 5 hours of play. So it takes 50 hours to get 100 badges, and 75 hours to get 150. Now, factor in party prep time, and pug formation time. Maybe half an hour per run if your lucky. So we'll say 100 hours to get 150 badges. That's assuming everything goes well, and you know that it definetely will not. Most of us will have to pug in order to get enough runs. That means many setbacks and wipes with blue wearing noobs who only need honored with factions in order to run now.

Okay, so maybe kara can help you get the required number of badges slightly faster. But still, 150 badges!! Are the items really THAT good? Or is this huge number of badges meant to cut down on the raider's whining that epics are being thrown at players and their raid epics that they supposedly worked SOOOO hard for, are being made obsolete. Getting a group together and downing Magathon, especially after your guild has it down pat, and having an incredibly powerfull epic handed to you by your GM, does not equal 150 badges.

Why does WoW's grind have to intensify at a time when most players are becomming bored of the game do to intense grind? Casuals just have very little reason to play, the population levels of my server have dropped from being HIGH on everyweekend, to medium. I can't say that all those green and blue wearing people are missed, but i think it shows a reaction to this game's endgame grind intensity.

Blizzard needs to tone it down, this will turn people off and ultimately cost accounts.