My main is doing fine in Ulduar, and I don’t need anything from Naxx or heroics, even the badge gear is not so great if you’re actually in Ulduar – so I´ll just get a little something out of helping a guildie gear some alt – maybe get some heirloom items for alts and gems of course.

But for my alts, this is just really welcome – I’ve been trying to gear my warrior up, but it’s just impossible right now. I dont need anything lvl200 or from heroism emblems anymore, so no reason to run heroics or Naxx 10.
All I really need is from Naxx 25, and the current pugs in my server are just a waste of time, since they suck at slow speed. And there arent many around.
I’m just stuck, unable to get to Ulduar with him, and with nothing to do but the stupid tournament right now.

This will bring new life to all content, and I do not care if the bad players can actually get gear – good for them!
Not much is gonna change for the raiders who are clearing Ulduar, we will just have a reason to help out someone in lower lvl content. And those stuck in that content will actually be able to move forward and Ulduar pugs might actually start showing up on my server.
Wangari´s last blog ..Is that cheating?

Conquest:
neck
gloves
legs
belt
chest(8.25)
head(8.25)

Then you add in the current EoValor

Valor:
Legs (7.25)
shoulders(7.25)
Bracer
Rings
Cloak
Idol/Totem/Libram

And all you need from heroism is:

Heroism:
Trinkets
Offhand

The only thing you can’t get from badges currently are weapons which as someone pointed out can be done through the Argent tournament and even crafted to get you by.

Thats every slot filled with only 2 or 3 ilvl 200 epics without ever having to set foot in a raid instance. I think this is the problem for most people, including myself, who think this is a bad change. What happened to raiding for raid gear? Heroics are easy enough with the current level of crafted and badge gear, what would you need 226 epics for if raiding isn’t your thing? And if raiding is your thing why would you not want to raid for your gear? Blizzard is channeling everyone into some form of raid or another by limiting the content ouside of raid instances. Now you won’t even have to raid to get tier set gear. At this rate I’m just waiting for the day when you ding 80 and get the top level raid gear sent to you in the mail with love from Blizzard so you never have to see the content they are pushing you to see, because people complained that not everyone got to see the content (what?!?).

Wall does also make a good point on the 10 man gear in that the badge kit will now be better than the gear that drops from within the instance. In all of the gear i have listed above not 1 piece is a 10 man tier item.

I do get your point that it will be easier to gear alts/new recruits and fill raid spots etc and it is a valid point. This is another mix of Blizzards “bring the player not the class” (or in this case gear) however i do like that currently and in the past having the gear = “i was there” even if you were horrendously unlucky and only got the badges and bought the gear. For recruiting / vetting PuG capabilities you now you have to look deeper into achievements and total work on a character than you ever had to before. Has the person got optional faction rep like oracles / frenzyheart and taken pride / put effort into their character to get pets / mounts or gone back and done old content just for interests sake. Have they tried harder achievements in the normal content or have they just been doing i187/200 level content daily and getting the 213 / 226 epics. Alumynym may also have a point by saying pugging becomes more difficult as the standards are raised to promote easy badge farming again. As in TBC it will become harder to find groups outside of the guild as someone who actually needs the gear. This may be remedied slightly by having guild members farming instances.

You make a good point, gathering Emblems for all pieces (even if you could get them all) would probably take ages. I still think it sucks though. The gear gained from Ulduar will only be placeholders until you’ve run enough heroics/raids to upgrade it. This is in my opinion only, but I think that gear gained from badges should complement normal drops at the right tier level, not replace them.

I guess the important question will be the difficulty level of the Coliseum. I haven’t read up on it but if it’s supposed to be the next tier in raiding then I have no problem with the “gear reset.” The game evolves. If, however, it’s just another VoA like raid then I can’t possibly sympathize with the opinion that what they’re doing is right.

Thanks for answering btw.

And here’s the other thing. Can you honestly get full gear purely from Conquest badges? Do you have any idea how long that would take? I’m actually looking at the vendors right now (all 3 of them).

Conquest vendors
* Legs
* Gloves
* Belt
* Neck

Valor
* Ring
* Cape
* Bracers
* Boots
* Tier shoulders

Heroism
* Trinket
* Belt
* Offhand
* Tier chest
* Tier gloves

…While you can probably build a decent set with that, you’re far and away not going to have the best geared character by exclusively farming Conquest badges based on items that you purchase. Look at it realistically especially from the Conquest vendor. 4 items that are 226 that can be purchased. The Valor and Heroism badges are lower tier so yes, if gear is what you want, then you have ample reason to pursue it. Because the Heroism and Valor ones don’t offer Chest, weapon, helms, shoulders, and other slots that are high grade.

If you’re satisfied with just gloves, belt, neck, and legs, I understand. But if you’re not, then this should help you accelerate the process to get into Ulduar to get other pieces.

First off I’d like to say (as others have said) that I’m not elitist. My guild runs strictly 10-mans, and we’ve only reached Auriaya (been in Ulduar *two* times ever since it came out, due to people wanting to bring alts to Naxx…). I didn’t even reach 60 in Vanilla, and only cleared Karazhan and Zul’Aman before WotLK.

Having said that, I think Blizzard has now crossed the line with “welfare epics.” There are tons of people who have better gear than me, and I generally have no problem with that. But I take pride in my gear. It shows a level of dedication and commitment. I’ve spent countless hours getting it. I agree with people who say that gear isn’t the most important thing (who cares about cool-looking pixels right?) but it’s still a part of the reason why I raid. It’s part of the reason why I want to see new content. Without the gear I’d probably not be playing WoW, even though the social aspects are great and the encounters wonderful.

When you can get better gear than my Ulduar-10 gear with just doing heroics, I don’t really see why I should spend my time clearing the instance. Seeing the dungeon is nice but I can think of other things to “marvel” at; good movies and books, for example. And don’t give me that bull about liking challenges. There are many things more difficult than WoW, and if all I wanted was to derive satisfaction for a job well done, I’d learn Chinese or advanced statistics or somesuch.

TL;DR: With Ulduar-10 gear (and its current badges!) having become obsolete, why clear it at all?

/2 LF9M karazhan. Must have full tier 6.
/2 LFM KZ badge farm. T6+ ONLY.
/2 LFM Kara. MAINS ONLY, NO ALTS. (Insert rediculous DPS benchmark here).

The emblem change brings a return to badge farming groups. Which actually HURTS the natural gearing up process unless you have a reliable instance group. Why? No pug would take someone who was at appropriate Karazhan level. They wanted their badges, and they wanted them quickly. Have some blues? Sorry, not taking you. Have heroic gear? Sorry, not geared enough. Just turned 70? Not a chance in hell. Heck, even just getting a heroic group could be hard… all people wanted were quick badges.

I couldn’t pug anything on my alts. I remember a couple occasions where guild alts and friends were only allowed in a Karazhan group because I was tagging along in my sunwell geared priest who could solo-heal the place. These were people with sunwell mains, and appropriately geared alts who were told no. These were people who, had they been able to run with other guild alts, could clear the place faster in blues and greens than the pugs could in tier 6 epics.

So good luck to anyone who was new to the game or server or had just gotten their first 70.

So the natural progression was supposed to be Level to 70 -> 70 dungeons -> Heroics -> Karazhan -> SSC/TK -> BT/Hyjal -> Sunwell

Instead it became Level to 70 -> ??? -> BT (or even sunwell) -> Karazhan

What?

I’ve seen it already in naxx pugs, though much less vicious (because honestly the gear gap isn’t that extreme yet). But I can’t wait.

/2 LFM Heroic Daily. Must have ulduar hard-mode gear. Will armory.

Not everything in this game is about gear. Just because player A is lootwhore and just wants to get 3 sets of Conquerer’s doesn’t mean player B is the same way. 11 million people play this game. Don’t think that they’re all the same.