02-10-2008, 09:32 AM
Quote:I have a bit different of a take on this. Your argument was basically the same argument I heard from a lot of people when the T5-level badge gear was added. People were saying "No one is going to bother to raid SSC and TK because Karazhan will be clearly better for reward per time." But that is definitely not what I have seen, since then. The groups that want to do the 25-man raids are still raiding, they're just doing it with better gear (via badges) which allows everyone a bit more margin for error.
Well, I didn't make that argument when the ZA badge vendors went on. I thought it was a good thing. Now, Bolty's right about attunements and the pressure they applied to keep running TK/SSC. But it isn't the whole story.
There are key differences between T5 level badge gear additions and T6 level badge gear additions. For one thing, the T5 ones were sidegrades to SSC/TK loot. They didn't invalidate any of it. In many cases, they covered gaping loot holes in the T5 instances (see Studious Wraps, covering for the fact that T5 cloth caster dps gloves are uniformly horrendous, and that Kael has an incredibly badly itemized piece for the same slot). Notably, they had huge, carefully designed holes themselves, and the important one there was weapons. You couldn't get a good weapon out of badges. That meant that you had to raid, and while ZA has some nice weapons, SSC/TK by far are still the best PvE way to arm up for further PvE content - especially with the 1850 personal rating addition to arena weapons in the same patch.
Drysc clearly confirms the presence of weapons on the vendor this time around, meaning that out is no longer available. Furthermore, BT and Hyjal loot have no large itemization failures that badges need to cover for.
Now let's look at what did happen. What wound up getting obsoleted by T5 badge loot?
That's right. Badge-less T4. If not for the DST, people wouldn't run Gruul at all; few enough do nowadays, anyway. And absolutely nobody does Magtheridon nowadays. The 2.4 changes are a desperate attempt to get people to do the fight again, don't think that Blizzard isn't paying attention. Magtheridon fell completely off the radar because he required focus, consumables, learning time, and doesn't drop badges, making him zero-percent progress toward a T5 epic. People responded to their incentives, and a raider starting right this second will probably never see Magtheridon. And don't think for a second that this cannot or will not happen to T5.
Sidegrades don't obsolete content. Upgrades do.