Nerf QQ

Euripedes over at Critical QQ has a fairly strongly worded post about the upcoming change to the Emblems that drop from heroic 5-mans and raid instances. In case you haven't heard, the existing Emblems of Heroism and Valor will no longer drop; instead, we will be looting the new Emblems of Conquest. Emblems of Conquest can be traded in for Emblems of Valor or Heroism at a rate of 1:1, so we will still be able to purchase the existing Emblem rewards; of course this also means that we will be able to purchase the T8.5 items that are currently only available to Ulduar-25 raiders.

I'm not sitting on a fount of Emblems of Conquest myself. So far I have 6 on my main - 4 from FL+1 kills and 2 from a heroic VoA PUG. The soonest I imagine myself purchasing anything with them is 2 to 3 months from now. I simply have no access to more; unlike most other raiding Guilds, Rage On does not run 25-mans. We PUG anything larger than a 10-man raid.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to getting more Emblems of Conquest.

There's been a lot of talk about how much this move sucks; about how Blizzard is making it too easy for players to get good loot. It's led to a lot of QQ from players currently farming Ulduar about Blizzard cheapening their achievements. And like Euripedes, I wish they'd shut the hell up.

Nothing diminishes their achievements. Nothing.

As a raid leader going through challenging content, I'm actually happy to see this change coming in. I know my little raiding team is ahead of the pack. We're not attempting Yogg-Saron yet, but we're halfway into Ulduar. We have yet to kill a Watcher, but we're working on that. We're not a premier raiding Guild. We're a band of friends who likes raiding together, and we're actually good at what we do, for which we are rewarded amply by the game system.

Most players don't have even that.

Right now I have eleven - yes, just eleven - raiders. Two of them are married to each other. Another two are in a relationship IRL. If either of those couples takes a break from WoW or goes away for a weekend, we have to call off raiding until we can find replacements.

Usually such replacements are, at their best, Naxx-geared. Sometimes not even that. It's a given that they won't be delivering the same output as our regular raiders. Jizal, our lone Retribution Paladin, can put out 3.5k DPS on average. Last weekend we ran with a PUGged Ret Pally who brought 1.8k DPS to the table. Respectable, but not nearly enough what we need for Ulduar.

Because we only run 10-mans, and those on weekends alone, we also can't expect players hungry for new content to come on board. Also, because we're a close-knit community, we have to ensure that new players fit in with the rest of the group. The ability to get along with everyone in our Guild is more important than the level of one's contribution to the raid. We can help with performance issues. We can't help with personality issues.

The remedy is to borrow alts of friends or toons of people who have missed their Guild's scheduled runs - which we do as often as is needed. Again, we can't expect these guys to be geared, or to know how to play their class at a level appropriate for Ulduar.

Allowing these players and characters access to higher level gear gives them a chance to perform at the appropriate levels. It means that Ulduar-geared players can PUG an Emblem-geared player and expect him to deliver results. Better gear doesn't replace skill, of course, or experience - but it does help level the playing field.

I'm looking forward to patch 3.2. Like everyone not farming Ulduar-25, I'm hoping it'll deliver on its promise to make higher end content more accessible to players like me. That's a promise that Blizzard is bending over backwards to keep, and I honestly appreciate it.