Patch 2.4 Notes

[Taelas]

I still enjoy Karazhan. *shrug* I guess I just like the place.

[oldmandennis]

1050 badges if you want to fill every slot with it. Much of that stuff would be T5 quality, some like ring #2 would be worse.

That's one year of Kara, if you just do that. Or if you do Kara, 2 ZAs, and 2 heroics on nights where you don't have a 10 man, that is 2.5 months, playing 3-4 hr every night.

[Monkey]

If they put badges on 25-man content, and make bosses drop ~10-20 badges each and make each piece of gear cost at least 100 badges, then you have effectively done the same thing as requiring a different kind of badges. Lets not foget that the loot they would get in 25 mans would generally be more useful.

For those of us who obsessively click 'reload' on WoW news sites (I don't even play my 70 anymore. What is wrong with me?) on 2.4 news, these questions have been answered.

Every 25-man raid boss now drops badges of justice. At least in the Sunwell Plateau, they're currently dropping 2 each:
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images...lateaubadge.jpg

And the items cost between 45 and 150 badges:

Chest/Legs - 100 Badges
Gloves/Belt - 75 Badges
Rings - 60 Badges
Two-Hand/Caster Weapons (Including 1H Caster) - 150 Badges
One-hand Weapons - 105 Badges
Off-hands - 45 Badges

( from http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=4450.0 )

If these numbers carry to other 25-man bosses, then a full BT/Hyjal clear is worth 28 badges per week, while a full clear of Karazhan will still only be worth 12 badges per week--the same number as running SSC. So the only reason to run KZ (or heroics) will be if you are currently clearing BT, Hyjal, SSC, The Eye, Mag, Gruul, ZA, the Sunwell Plateau, and still want to earn badges faster.

[Mordekhuul]

If these numbers carry to other 25-man bosses, then a full BT/Hyjal clear is worth 28 badges per week, while a full clear of Karazhan will still only be worth 12 badges per week--the same number as running SSC. So the only reason to run KZ (or heroics) will be if you are currently clearing BT, Hyjal, SSC, The Eye, Mag, Gruul, ZA, the Sunwell Plateau, and still want to earn badges faster.

A full Kara clear nets 22 badges (more if you go for the animal boss, I suppose), and only takes about 3.5 hours tops with a geared group.

Its a pretty good time investment, even for higher end raiders, if there is badge gear for them to obtain =)

[Lissa]

A full Kara clear nets 22 badges (more if you go for the animal boss, I suppose), and only takes about 3.5 hours tops with a geared group.

Its a pretty good time investment, even for higher end raiders, if there is badge gear for them to obtain =)

22 with the animal boss, 20 if you kill the standard bosses

[Mordekhuul]

22 with the animal boss, 20 if you kill the standard bosses

Attumen 1
Moroes 2
Maiden 2
Opera 2
Curator 2
Chess 2
Illhoof 2
Shade 2
Netherspite 2
Nightbane 2
Prince 3

22 badges sans animal bosses, but who's counting, right?

[Skandranon]

1050 badges if you want to fill every slot with it. Much of that stuff would be T5 quality, some like ring #2 would be worse.

That's one year of Kara, if you just do that. Or if you do Kara, 2 ZAs, and 2 heroics on nights where you don't have a 10 man, that is 2.5 months, playing 3-4 hr every night.

This is insane. This is insane. Even clearing 25-mans you need to do Kara alongside them if you want more than a handful of things before Wrath hits.

On the other hand, I suppose there's loot incentive in the 25-mans now, since you need badges any way you can get them. I don't quite know if this is exactly the way I would have done it.

[Skandranon]

If these numbers carry to other 25-man bosses, then a full BT/Hyjal clear is worth 28 badges per week, while a full clear of Karazhan will still only be worth 12 badges per week--the same number as running SSC. So the only reason to run KZ (or heroics) will be if you are currently clearing BT, Hyjal, SSC, The Eye, Mag, Gruul, ZA, the Sunwell Plateau, and still want to earn badges faster.

As pointed out, Kara is 22 badges. SSC will be 13 (5x2, 1x3 - end bosses drop 3), TK will be 9, BT will be 19, and Hyjal will be 11.

Kara is still the most efficient source of badges for the time spent, again, factoring out learning time, etc.

[Kevin]

1050 badges if you want to fill every slot with it. Much of that stuff would be T5 quality, some like ring #2 would be worse.

That's one year of Kara, if you just do that. Or if you do Kara, 2 ZAs, and 2 heroics on nights where you don't have a 10 man, that is 2.5 months, playing 3-4 hr every night.

Yeah the claims that it was T6 gear as opposed to what it turned out to be were a little off on some stuff. While it is higher ilvl some of it (at least a few of the pieces I've looked at for tanks) are sidegrades. One is better for effective health one is better for avoidance. Take the pants.

New (ilvl 141 cost 100 badges) Sunguard Legplates
Armor: 1406
Stam: 78
Sockets: RB +3 dodge rating
Def Rating: 43 (18.18)
Dodge Rating: 35 (1.85%)
Expertise Rating: 23 (5.83)

Old (ilvl 128 cost 75 badges) Unwavering Legguards
Armor: 1406
Stam: 73
Sockets: RYB +6 stam
Def Rating: 22 (9.3)
SB Rating: 30 (3.8%)
SB Value: 59

So Even if you don't socket for pure stam on the old ones but get the bonus they will end up with more stam and the same armor as the new one, and they will up your block value. Since block has an impact on effective health (though it's less safe to assume that you will block every hit now with some of the attack speeds) the old pants are actually better for effective health. Of course as all good tanks know effective health isn't the only thing you need to survive but it is the top thing on some fights. The new pants don't give up a ton of EH and they have better avoidance with the little boost of expertise for aggro and less chance of getting "parry bombed". But they aren't clearly better.

You have something similar with the belts

New Girdle of the Fearless (75 badges)
Armor: 904
Stam: 58
Sockets: R +3 stam
Def Rating: 34 (14.37)
Hit Rating: 23 (1.46%)
Expertise: 22 (5.58)

Old Iron-tusk Girdle (60 badges)
Armor: 904
Stam: 45
Sockets: BY +3 dodge rating
Def Rating: 21 (8.88)
Dodge Rating: 33 (1.74%)

If you socket for pure stam (and I can see some folks actually going for the talasite in the old one instead of 2xstars) you end up with 70 stam vs 69 stam (or 66 and 4 more def rating and 3 more dodge rating). In terms of effective health they are pretty close. The old belt actually has more avoidance. But again there is value to hit rating and expertise on a tanking item, especially one that does offer very high effective health, but depending on your other gear from drops and what not the old belt could still be a better choice for a tank.


Now I didn't look at too many other pieces of gear. I know that the new badge BP (especially since the old badge tanking chests only had a pally option but there are 4 of the new options) is a very nice tanking option for a warrior and since it doesn't have anything spent on pally tanking stats is way better than the old badge option for warriors (and I know some warriors got it since they couldn't get drops). Things may be even more different for the DPS classes. But in looking at some of the tanking stuff I know that the new badge gear is not significantly better and in most case T6 generally offered more or the same EH and then added avoidance or aggro stats over T5, T6 was generally not a sidegrade some of the badge gear looks to be that way.

The badges do continue to offer a very nice way to gear up your off roll for many classes though. But I'm glad to see that on my short glance through that the new badge gear wasn't always clearly superior to the old stuff or even some of the T5 items. That helps with some of the incentive issues and it offers some really nice stuff for non raiders who also aren't interested in the PvP grind (or want to suppliment it).

[Concillian]

22 with the animal boss, 20 if you kill the standard bosses

I think we verified at one point that the animal "boss" does not drop badges.

Wowhead reflects this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=16179

[Jester]

This is insane. This is insane. Even clearing 25-mans you need to do Kara alongside them if you want more than a handful of things before Wrath hits.

On the other hand, I suppose there's loot incentive in the 25-mans now, since you need badges any way you can get them. I don't quite know if this is exactly the way I would have done it.

Head for the hills!

Madness has taken over! With italics!

The good folk of the realms will languish in Karazhan forever, trapped, unable to stop running instances they deeply despise for fear of obtaining slightly fewer rewards!

All is lost!

-Jester

[Skandranon]

The good folk of the realms will languish in Karazhan forever, trapped, unable to stop running instances they deeply despise for fear of obtaining slightly fewer rewards!

You really don't see a design issue with the fact that you're supposed to run the same thing for 1.5 years? Leaving aside the issue of whether you like it or not, you really think this is good design?

[Jester]

You really don't see a design issue with the fact that you're supposed to run the same thing for 1.5 years? Leaving aside the issue of whether you like it or not, you really think this is good design?

It's not perfect design, no.

I just think it manages to jump well over the bar of "insane". It seems to accomplish most of what Blizzard wants in terms of getting more people to see more content. People who are content to farm Karazhan forever will farm Karazhan forever, and that's okay. People who hate Karazhan but insist on farming it anyway... well, not much that can be done to keep masochists from hurting themselves.

People will get gear. People will run new instances. I know we on Terenas will.

Things continue as normal. The design is still leaps and bounds past where it was in the Molten Core days, and people still loved it then.

-Jester

Afterthought: How is is a "fact" that you're "supposed" to run Karazhan? Isn't it just one of a whole raft of options for gearing and playing now?

[oldmandennis]

A few people for whom the new gear is a mediumish upgrade might do 1-2 extra karas they would rather not to pick up a couple of pieces. Nobody is going to drop a 25man raiding night to go back to Kara, not when the easy bosses of early T6 are there waiting to shower loot on them. At no point before Brutalis is gear > skill - while you do need to gear up, it's been proven to not be too difficult to do so during the natural course of progression.

If you want to look at hiccups in raid progression design, how about removing attunement and early easy bosses in T6 means a lot of people are going to skip the end of T5 - which many people agree are some of the best encounters in the game.

[Jester]

A few people for whom the new gear is a mediumish upgrade might do 1-2 extra karas they would rather not to pick up a couple of pieces. Nobody is going to drop a 25man raiding night to go back to Kara, not when the easy bosses of early T6 are there waiting to shower loot on them. At no point before Brutalis is gear > skill - while you do need to gear up, it's been proven to not be too difficult to do so during the natural course of progression.

If you want to look at hiccups in raid progression design, how about removing attunement and early easy bosses in T6 means a lot of people are going to skip the end of T5 - which many people agree are some of the best encounters in the game.

That's where the biggest bottleneck is. Kael'thas and Vashj are freaking difficult, epic encounters, and the stuff that follows is less impressive for quite some time. So, guilds are going to go skip Kael and Vashj and instead poke into easier killable bosses in BT and Hyjal.

I don't think this is such a bad thing, although it is regrettable that two cool bosses will go somewhat down the route of C'thun as someone only elite guilds ever did, or ever will, beat. But even then, plenty of people have seen them, and will kill them in the future. I know we plan to, and we're certainly not likely to pull it off our schedule for Karazhan just because the badges/hour is better there.

-Jester

[Mordekhuul]

New Patch Notes at mmo-champion

Looks like Blizz put in *some* of the class change ideas that were leaked a few weeks ago on the EJ forums.

[Warlock]

You really don't see a design issue with the fact that you're supposed to run the same thing for 1.5 years? Leaving aside the issue of whether you like it or not, you really think this is good design?

Hell yeah. I ran scholo from release to BC. If I'd stuck around I'd still be running slave pens.





Seriously though, I agree there should be tiers of badges. With new tiers of heroics for them to drop in, there didn't need to be 15 different wings all with the same intended level. Even 'best gear in the game' players should have some 5-man zones that provide a reasonable challenge. Too late now, maybe for Lich King.

[Gorthag]

This is insane. This is insane. Even clearing 25-mans you need to do Kara alongside them if you want more than a handful of things before Wrath hits.

On the other hand, I suppose there's loot incentive in the 25-mans now, since you need badges any way you can get them. I don't quite know if this is exactly the way I would have done it.

I think it's fine, who says anyone is supposed to be able to fill every slot from every available loot source? People can do whatever size dungeon they want, get loot from that and work towards a nice bonus upgrade from the badge vendor at the same time. Sounds like a good design to me.

[Sir_Die_alot]

I think we verified at one point that the animal "boss" does not drop badges.

Wowhead reflects this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=16179

I've done him 3 or 4 times since Kara started being the badge source of choice, he does not drop any badges.

[Mordekhuul]

In light of the Magtheridon nerf in 2.4, I saw another signature quote that I love on EJ today I thought I'd share:

"In patch 2.5, Magtheridon will click the cubes himself."

Gave me a good laugh. Poor mags.