My previous post came out of playing a lot of PvP over the last few weeks, as you have heard about ad infinitum, ad nauseaum.
I started by identifying Shadow Priest upgrades, seeing what a big jump the merciless Gladiator’s Spellblade was over my crafted Eternium Runed Blade, and decided to go for it.
Along the way, I encouraged Cassieann to join me and go for her Merciless Gladiator’s swords, because I knew from talking with every other Rogue we game with that the PvP swords just kick the hell out of the other options we have. And Shadowpanther.net agrees.
But then I started wondering… is there anything worth getting for my Druid? I knew I had just about the best gear I could get otherwise… but shoulders have always been my weak point.
So I went and checked them out, did my comparisons, and left Champion’s Hall flabbergasted. The Merciless shoulders are HOW good?
Now, I browse the Merciless gear for both my favorite 70s, and I see that, for example, the PvP cloth Bracers are equivalent to the Runed Spell Cuffs, or better… and wouldn’t cost me hard-earned Badges. I could take the Badges I’d earn and spend them on something else, like the Icon of the Silver Cresent.
So… what are my thoughts on all this?
It’s complete bullshit.
I’m going to be completely blunt about this; making it a shitload easier to get PvP gear that is equivalent to Tier 5, WITHOUT making it easier to actually GET Tier 5, is bullshit.
And no, I am not advocating making it easier to get Tier 5. Be patient, and actually read this before you flame.
No, I’m saying they should never have made it easy to get this PvP gear in the first place.
It was one thing when the Gladiator Season 1 epics were available from Honor. They were good, sure. Playing BGs would get you gear comparable to Heroics and Kara, a few wasted stat points on Resilience for the non-tank classes, but you could go get a few pieces to shore up your weak points. It was comparable to Heroics and Kara, and close to Tier 4 25 mans.
It was still a bit over the top, but I felt at the time that, even though I knew a few pieces were better than my PvE gear, it wasn’t such a large jump as to make me go PvP for it. And it wasn’t so good that I felt that I was actually doing less than I could be to be the best tank I can.
Now, however. Now, it’s just bullshit.
The point of raiding is supposed to be to learn to work together as a team, coordinate activities, learn strategies together, WORK together to overcome obstacles and succeed as a team. There is a reason that Blizzard has stated that there SHOULD be better rewards for those that succeed in a 25 man raid over a 10 man. Blizzard has made it clear they feel that, even though the content may be the same for 10 man or 25 man raids in Wrath of the Lich King, the rewards for completing it at 25 man difficulty are going to be significantly higher.
Why?
Because it takes more skill, effort and teamwork to get 25 people to excel together than 10.
BUT… what the hell is the point if I can solo in a BG, wandering around, lost and confused, having no knowledge whatsoever about how to play my class, and after a few weeks, or even days depending on how much time I have to play, get Tier 5 comparable gear anyway?
Sure, it’s not the same for very class. I’m sure that the balance of stats for PvP gear favors burst damage and survivability, things that casters and healers may not necessarily favor.
But for a feral druid tank, I used to be able to say, sure a few pieces of PvP gear are good, but on the whole you want such and such PvE gear to have the right balance of Health, Dodge, and Defense Rating/uncrittable. Taking too much PvP gear can be a bad thing. Now, with Merciless… not so much.
And there is another thing about it, too.
Let’s be honest. Wearing PvE gear tells me that you were there, and you at least did well enough that you didn’t sabotage your raid’s chances for success. The higher the difficulty of the challenge required to attain your PvE gear, the better your ability to work together with others, and your knowledge of your class, should be. I see someone in Tier5, I give them mental props for knowing how to play their class. Tier 6? Even more so. I don’t automatically assume they are rockstars, but I figure they know what the hell to do with an Ice Trap, a Feral Charge, or Seed of Corruption.
All I know when I see you in all PvP gear is that you showed up. Period. Grats, you.
Arenas set a skill bar, yes, damn right. A very high one, to do well. But in taking gear from Arenas and placing it in Honor, you are removing that bar.
Seriously, it’s bullshit.
And yes, I’m benefiting from it, and I am telling others to also. Because I play the game the way the game is, not how I think it should be. I won’t cheat, and I won’t buy gold, but if Blizzard hands out druid tanking gear better than I will ever see from raiding, just for showing up and melting faces or clawing butt, then I am damn well going to go get them. And I will tell you to do the same. I’m not just gonna sit here and bitch and whine about how they get the good gear.
Hell no, I’m gonna go get me some. If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying, to use an old Marine (or Navy) saying… meaning, if you’re not using every advantage you can to win, you didn’t deserve to in the first place.
To put it another way, screw the Marquis of Queensbury rules, get out there and FIGHT, you bastards!
But I still think it’s bullshit.
I’m already prejudiced against players that show up for raids in all PvP gear. God, you should hear me in voice chat with Cassie when we join a Kara pug and I inspect the other players… and see a Hunter in all PvP gear.
It’s not nice of me to do it, but time after time I have learned that the player in a PvE raid in ALL PvP gear just won’t know how to work well with others, or how to play their class in a raid. I know there are exceptions, but the people in 100% PvP gear just… don’t get it.
Because it is my personal experience, from actually playing a lot of PvE, that people that spend all of their time in PvP do NOT automatically know how to play their class well in a PvE raid environment, the opinions of Amanda Dean be damned.
Amanda Dean, on one of our recent WoW Insider shows, stated her opinion that people that are good at PvP are just inherently more skilled than raiders. They’re just better. And she shared why she thinks that way. It seemed to center around having to know other player’s abilities, what they are likely to do or try in a given sitaution, and knowing how to counter it by using your class skills and talents.
Sure, that’s awesome when your opponents are other players.
Sorry Amanda, but I’ve actually SEEN the PvE content, and I don’t buy it. PvP success and twitch gaming reflexes, dealing burst damage and high crit and knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your opposing player character opponents, while requiring tons of skill and knowledge, DO NOT TRANSLATE into being better at PvE content than the raiders that live there.
Go gear yourself at Kara entry level, join a like-geared group of PvPers, and after you do your full clear by working together and understanding how you fit in the team, tell me again how superior you are. I’ll pay a lot more attention.
Until then, excuse me while I think that your PvP mastery has not taught you squat about mana conservation skills, sustained DPS and threat management.
And while you may have learned to work together with your Arena team, practicing coordination and communication, I submit to you that the Battlegrounds do not FORCE you to work together in order to have any success. It is each players choice to do so, and if you choose not to communicate or work together, you will still eventually win your epics.
Not so in PvE. Not hardly.
I think that opening up the gear to Honor was a slippery slope whose ramifications I, at least, am only now coming to fully realize.
Is it just that Blizzard knows Wrath is coming out soon, that all this stuff will be obsolete anyway, and they will release a new ranking system for PvP gear that prevents this from going too far? Is Merciless the last time we will see Arena gear released into the wilds of BG? Or is Vengeful up next?
The Arena ranking requirements for some of the pieces was a good start to setting a skill bar to PvP gear. I just think they set that bar too damn low.
Maybe they figure that, with the new PvP rules about destructible terrain, siege weapons and vehicles, and new BGs, that they can use that as an excuse to revamp their PvP reward system again, so the stuff you can get now is a last hurrah? That next time, if you’re not the uber leet, you’re just not gonna see it?
I just don’t know.
I do know that it irritates me to know that, while I make plans to have fun running content that I hope will provide me with a drop that I would really like to improve my overall performance, or those Badges I need to save up so someday I can get my Tier 4 equivalent gear, I could be in a PvP Battleground, watching foul mouthed BG chat, and earning my ‘holy crap’ epics.
I don’t like that feeling, the feeling that while I am having fun in PvE, that in some way I’m just spinning my gears and wasting my time trying to get a lucky useable drop when I could be in a BG getting something lots better.
I almost feel guilty playing and having fun, isntead of PvPing like a good tank should.
That’s just… damn it, I keep coming back to it, it’s just bullshit.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Amen, Bear. Your earlier post spurred a similarly themed rant from me this morning.
It sucks that the player who shows up to Kara in all PvP gear may not know anything about playing their class… or they may know exactly what they’re doing, and also know that this gear blows the 5-man drops, quest rewards, reputation items, and anything they could even want from Kara out of the water.
And the people like me, who refuse to PvP because we don’t enjoy it, aren’t “pulling our weight” by getting the best gear we can.
Nope, it’s just not fair.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:30 pm
/cheer
I couldn’t agree with you more and whats worse? It isn’t equal accross the board. With the exception of the sheild and weapon you can’t gear up a pally or warrior to tank through pvp gear. My pally can’t really go into heroics because she isn’t geared enough even though I’ve done every lvl 70 instance.
I spend so much money on enchants and gems trying to be good enough for heroics and raids… and a dps/healer can as you said show up in bgs and have better gear… I’ve seen so many asshats with all pvp gear and 0 gems or enchants on them, claiming they are so much better then everyone else because they have all epics.
Wonder why there is a shortage of tanks for heroics?
July 1st, 2008 at 2:31 pm
If you really want to get irked, check out the Vengeful gear. Almost none of it requires a rating and the head is better than anything in T5, especially when you take into account the fun dance of dealing with crit immunity. 2pS3 (helm & chest) takes care of all of your uncrittability issues while having decent armor and amazing other stats - and it’ll take you about 6 weeks to get now.
And you won’t replace it until Archimonde or Illidan. Even Kael doesn’t drop crap for a chest by comparison.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I am going to keep this short … like you I can go on for hours, and if you ever really wanna have a bitch fest about it I will give you my personal vent info and you and several people I raid with, and myself can go on and on about it until we are blue in the face. I have done multiple rants on my blog about it, I feel the same as you do, and honestly it, well I won’t say has ruined the game for me, but it sure as shit has cheapened it.
We have people that have just joined our guild for our T5 content that skipped Kara/gruul/mag because they afk’d in a BG somewhere.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
not everyone has hours and hours and hours to raid, and in pre-BC WoW, I was left with shit gear with shit stats because I don’t have the time or kind of life that fits around a raiding schedule. I’m a casual player through and through. The best I could do was UBRS and even then I never won anything. I was wearing a bunch of BRD drops on my warlock and the Tier “.5″ BoE items.. why? cause I could upgrade them on my own time and buy them easily from the AH.
And I’m sorry, but its not easier to get to raids now? They didn’t completely remove the attunements to them? No fights have been made easier? I’ll call bullshit on that.
You obviously have your own problems where in the article you say you make “plans to have fun running content” and you can’t because you could be in a BG? Sounds like your own complex there, you can’t have fun doing what you like doing because you could be getting better gear in BGs? Tell you what, you grind through BGs and arenas and put together a full PvP, decked out to the nines. You come back here and you tell me it was easier or more fun. Cause its not. Every BG has at least one jackass that tries their best to ruin it by either not playing, talking to much, just riding his mount around telling you how you are all dumb, etc etc. Tell me how much fun you have.
At least you have fun stories and memories of your friends grinding through content, learning fights etc. I have stories of JoJo the retard telling us all that “allies r teh suxxor” or the small village that was set up in the AV AFKave in one fight.. 10 afkers, what an accomplishment.
Don’t get in a epeen contest because that guy in s3 has cooler looking gear than me, but I raided so I EARNED it. BS. you’re hitting the same stupid buttons over and over that I am, something pops up on your screen that says “ENTERING PHASE 2″ and you say “Oh phase 2, I step back” and then you continue spamming shadowbolt or frost bolt or sinister strike. I see a mage, I fear, dot and drain, Death coil when he’s out of the fear, sick my fellpuppy on him when he starts casting, etc. Same skills and spells, different application.
I’m not going to claim PvP is better than PvE or requires more skill or is however different. But you talk about grinding through BGs and stomaching it and so forth, but you seem to like raiding and doing 5mans etc. So do them! Have fun! its a freaking game when it all comes down to it. You’re supposed to have fun, not be proud of your giant epeen in your T6 gear telling full s4er’s that you EARNED it.
“but the people in 100% PvP gear just… don’t get it.”
Get over yourself.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Vengeful gear is supposed to be on par with Tier 6. It’s supposed to be better then T5.
And while twitch reflexes, awareness, and all that PvP jazz may NOT translate into PvE godliness, it’s often a good chance they will. Most PvE encounters have some sort of predictability around them or a pattern. Boss mods makes it easy to anticipate all the stuff being thrown. The stability is not present in PvP. You never know what that Rogue you’re working on is going to throw at you next.
While you never know what you get with a full vengeful player with completely PvP epics, you can’t make the argument that he has no hunter skill or anything like that. It does take some degree of work and effort to amass the rating and the points to get that high. The PvP tier gear you get is supposed to be equivilent to the PvE tier gear. It’s FAR easier to get a S2 helm which is similar to a T5 helm. It’s easier to find a PvP group to go in and farm honor then it is to find a PvE pickup group and farm Vashj. But the Guilds that DO have Vashj on farm can get more helms and other weapons at the same time.
So yes it’s bullshit. But depending on what class you play, and what role you perform, the PvP gear you get isn’t necessarily the BEST for the PvE role you’re going to be playing at. Sorry for the players that feel BG’s are the way to go to get gear. Either the Guilds that’re raiding aren’t recruiting their class or they’re having a hard time finding such a Guild. Maybe if Blizzard opened up LFG to other servers similar to a PvP queue, there wouldn’t be such a skewness.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:07 pm
It is completely cheesy. There’s basically nothing for me in Kara, at this point and I haven’t even gotten to see it yet.
But because I’m in a little friends and family guild, I’ve been gearing up the only way I can. Which is Arena and BGs.
And the other part of that is that, on my server at least, it seems no one will take you into a Heroic or a Kara run unless you’ve got at least 75% epics, even if your blues are better than the epics you could get.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Oh… I absolutely agree. One thing about the entry level raids and 5 mans… they’re there for more then just gearing you up to play with the big boys. Their biggest job is training you to do what your class does in raids. You can find so many examples that its not worth the time… whether its learning threat management… things appearing on the floor are bed, on the fly CC, endurance, AoE situations, properly timed bursts… all these things are vital in higher end raiding at various points, with training that doesn’t kick your ass to hard. Trying to teach these things to somebody who hasn’t done them in the 5 mans and entry level raids, often ends up with wipes, and grumbling. PvE and PvP have some very different skill sets… granted with some overlap. I wonder how many PvP warriors have no idea what Revenge does, and how many PvP priests have caused wipes by panicing and fearing?
July 1st, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Also, in full pvp gear you will have next to nothing in the way of hit and spell hit stats. There is some on the weapons and some on the shoulders, but thats it. Even if you regem every piece of pvp gear you have for only that stat, you will nerf yourself and I’m not even sure it would be enough. What does every forum I read about high end raiding stats go? hit(spellhit)>damage>crit>etc etc
July 1st, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Hey Toby? Can I please lose you as a reader? Next time, before you get your panties up in a bunch, try reading what is actually said by someone. Cause yeah, I’m such a hardcore raider. Pugging Kara once a week or so is just MASSIVE hardcore raiding. Wooo. I sure am hardcore. I just spend ALL my time raiding. Oh yeah, my epeen is just massive.
Matticus, I agree with your point, but I wasn’t talking about people that are in the Arenas. I’m really only talking about the gear that can be obtaind by just showing up and afking your way though loss after loss in a snowfield somewhere. I did try to say that I deeply respect people that form PvP Arena teams and kick ass in there. It requires skill and teamwork and damn good moves.
That is why I said that I know it’s not nice of me to go ‘oh noes’ when I see the all PvP geared guy in a Kara pug. Because he honestly may have gotten the best gear he possibly could, especially playing solo, and is really trying his best and really knows his class very well… and here I am unfairly judging him based on that gear as my initial impression.
And yes, all those things can be very beneficial to any player… but they have nothing to do with understanding how to play effectively as part of a team, instead of as the star quarterback that always has to run the ball.
As Cassie could tell you, and as long time readers of the blog know, I don’t HOLD that impression, and I certainly expect everyone I play with to know what they’re doing until proved otherwise. But I still feel that ‘oh no’, based on experiences playing with others that just didn’t know what the hell they were doing. At all.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I don’t know that I agree with the general tenor here, but: “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying, to use an old Marine (or Navy) saying… meaning, if you’re not using every advantage you can to win, you didn’t deserve to in the first place.” I absolutely agree with. If blizzard had not put decent epics available to me on my own time and schedule, I wouldn’t bother with PvP. As a druid tank the PvP gear is largely superior to anything else that can be gained outside of 25 man content, and much of it within.
I don’t think it’s so much “bullshit” for the items to be available with relative ease. Even discounting the raiding skill (and, let me just say, I have raided with some really clueless people in T6, and some really great people in greens and pvp epics) and learning how your class works in raids, there is only a limited window while this content is still viable and current. If Blizzard wants people to enjoy it while it is still a challenge, this is one mechanism whereby they can ease that challenge for those who are not as dedicated or available for serious raid progression. Not everyone can benefit from this, but many can.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:49 pm
On the other hand, the badge system allows one to do exactly the same thing. One can slog through over and over, slowly accumulating badges and then… Ta-Da! You too have “teh purplz”.
My problem is Blizzard makes pvp gear that is far too applicable for pve… then doesn’t make pve gear…
Maybe that’s just the bare in me?
July 1st, 2008 at 3:56 pm
lol I respond to a long rambling rant with a shorter rambling rant and my panties are in a wad? I like your blog, have been a reader for sometime so I’m glad to see you care about readers. You have lots of great articles here and on WoWInsider, but PvErs belittling PvPers just gets to me. Are there morons in full PvP gear that want to pug Kara? Sure. Are there morons in my guild that run Kara weekly in T5 gear from their previous guild that still don’t know what to do? Um yes. To claim that all PvPers are just morons who AFK for their gear and don’t know any other aspects of their class is just silly.
Sorry for my previous rant, where my sarcasm was ignored regarding the T6 epeen. It was exaggeration to (try to) prove a point.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Meh…
You’re missing a parallel here. Badge gear is to PVE as BG-Glad gear is to PvP.
Now, I’m not disagreeing with your rant…not even a little bit, in fact, I agree, it’s cheezy as hell. But I just thought I’d point the parallel out.
I think people would be a lot less honked off if they’d done with PvP gears what they’ve done with badge gears. Instead of just tossing the actual glad sets themselves to the proverbial wolves, like they have, they should’ve made NEW sets, with new names and colors that are slightly differnt than the “real” stuff.
I love my badge gears, and I’m not ashamed to admit it, but I’m under no illusions that they’re anything other than “catch up” pieces so I can hold my own when I get into the rare pickup for SSC or TK. (Of course, it doesn’t hurt that badge gear, for moonkins, looks a damn sight better than anything else out right now….tribal thunderchicken for the win.)
Anyway, just my two cents. new reader by teh way, and I love this blog. Good stuff.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I understand where you are coming from, on the access to the gear itself, but there’s a problem in all this.
I like to PvP. It is fun, and I enjoy it. Sure, I get frustrated sometimes listening to BS in battleground chat, and sometimes I wonder wtf my teammates are doing or thinking. At the same time, some of the most fun and best memories I have in this game are from PvP. Some of those memories are all the sweeter because I know that I was under geared, outnumbered, or I know my teammates were clueless and I did well in spite of all that.
I do not have a schedule that will allow me to raid T6 content.
If I have no access to PvP gear, then I have to raid to be able to PvP. I would get two shotted left and right by someone in T6, and I don’t really think that would be fair either.
As far as PvE being better than PvP, well that is plain and simple stereotyping either way. The fact that a player is decked out in PvP gear does not mean they will be good at PvE (or PvP for that matter), or bad at PvE. It just means they are wearing PvP gear.
If you want some advice (and maybe you don’t) try to focus on what you are doing in battlegrounds; what you can learn and how you can do things better. Get in there and do what you can to help your team win and lead by example. Take the same approach to PvP that you are such a strong advocate of in PvE. Look at it as a way to improve your game, because you can polish skills that will apply to PvE as well, and a problem to be solved instead of a chore that must be endured to get gear.
Sure, some games will be loaded with tools, and will be annoying. You really have no control of that, so just try to let it go. At other times you will be elated because you know you had a good group, and that horde team was good but you were better.
I still remember and AB game I played with my 39 feral druid. Myself, a warrior, and a mage defended the lumber mill against waves of horde. I would heal that warrior and mage till I was almost OOM, switch to bear, and try to stay alive long enough that the other two would res in time to keep the horde off the flag. They eventually overwhelmed us, and ultimately we lost the game. We were outnumbered 15-10 by the horde, and didn’t really have a chance. We kept them out of the lumber mill for a long time though.
After the game, the warrior asked in battleground chat how to get out of the bg, having clicked on the score sheet without leaving. I sent them a whisper saying to /afk. I got a reply saying thanks, and nice heals at lm.
That’s why I PvP. It isn’t about gear, tokens, honor, or owning people. I want to get in there and be the best player I can be. Win or lose, I want to look back at that game and know I did everything I could to work with my team and win that game.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Welcome to the storm, BBB. You’re going to get a ton of flammage for this post.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:47 pm
So here’s my situation.
I’ve got a hunter in a high-end raiding guild. Actually, my server is pretty small-population — at this point, it’s really about the only high-end raiding guild in my faction on the server.
I raid a fair amount on my BM hunter (Call it twice a week.), and I’m one of the top-five dps guys and I CC and all that good stuff. I get stuck in the tank group every raid cuz +3% damage = +3% threat = everyone else can rip it up more, right?
As I said, the guild is fairly well-progressed; we just downed Vashj a few weeks ago and we’re working on Kael. We’re through two bosses in Mount Hyjal and we’re starting on Black Temple. Most of the regular raiders are sitting on a couple pieces of T5 — a few of the mains have a full four-piece setup. Back when we were hitting Kara/Gruul, I had a full T4 four-piece, and I’ve got a mix of t4, t5, two season three pieces from arena (if you count the axe), all of which I feel like I worked at hard and earned.
((Jesus man, what’s you’re point?))
Here’s my point. I’ve been leveling a druid as my second 70 (that’s largely to the inspiration here and at Resto4Life). He’s in his mid-60’s now and, since I hit Outland, I’ve been seriously working on getting together the gear he needs to join in the guild’s regular raiding.
But I’m going to have to cheat.
The guild runs Kara as multiple in-guild-pugs these days, and they’re on days and times (middle of the weekend afternoon?) when I am normally NOT on… even if I COULD or WOULD add another day to my play-schedule in addition to the days I spend progression-raiding with my main.
You guides, BBB, to gearing up for Kara as any of the Druid specs are GREAT, but the fact is I don’t need to gear up for Kara: I need to go from new-70 to 25-man progression raiding gear. Plus, at this moment my guild needs both Feral or Restro Druids, so I’m working TWO sets of gear.
Because of where we are in Burning Crusade as a playerbase, and because of the time that’s left before WotLK comes out, this thing that Blizzard has done with the Season Two gear (and the Guardian Belt/Boots/Bracers) is the only realistic way that someone like me can hope to get to 70 with a new toon and actually help my guild.
For me to say “I’m ready for Kara now” would be about as useful to my guild-friends as saying “I just rolled a new Druid, since I heard we needed one. I just got Bear form!”
If this were six months into the start of Burning Crusade and Blizzard had done this, I would freely admit that the move was complete bullshit. It would make Kara unnecessary at a time when learning Kara was the whole POINT of the raiding game at that point in time for the game.
But Kara’s not the point anymore, if you’re in a guild that can 25-man.
The point now (from Blizzard’s point of view) is for as many folks as they can manage to see as much of the end game as they can before it’s as obsolete… they know they can do this without breaking the game because, with that BC content obsolescence, so goes the Season Two gear that has everyone up in arms right now.
So yeah, I’m working having as close to 75000 honor as I can when I hit 70, and if I do, I’ll have enough honor to cover about… five gear slots.
Out of sixteen. Sorry, out of Thirty-two.
All the while working CE rep, Hellfire rep, Shatar rep, SSO rep, and KoT rep, so I can fill in the other slots as well as I can, as fast as I can.
You’re looking at what you need to do to fill in 1 armor slot for 1 spec: two weeks of daily BGs runs… like that’s a nothing kind of time commitment.
Take that times five, knowing that 75k honor is the max, and then assume we’ve got less than six months before Wrath comes out, and that the people gunning for this are probably doing it so they can raid BEFORE that gear is useless… not so they can have bragging rights for finally getting gear that people have had on their mains for a YEAR. Think about how much work that’s going to be. How much time.
Tell me and other guys like me that I’m getting a free ride.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I think the real issue isn’t so much the concept but the execution. I see why they added arena gear attainable via bg - to prevent arena from becoming one sided where if you weren’t already doing well and winning, it would just become harder as the winners continue winning and gaining an advantage at a faster rate. However, I think the problem is much more that the bg honor cost of those items really is too low. If they simply increased the amount of honor required to the point that it wasn’t a ’smarter’ choice to do bgs instead of kara or za, i think it would be a viable alternative.
AND, as an ‘ah ha’ moment….why the hell don’t they add an honor kill count requirement to purchasing old arena gear with bg honor…basically a bg rating requirement. This would prevent the afkers that don’t DO anything in a bg from completely getting free epics…they at least gotta do something to contribute. This would also make it so that the non-AV bgs became more balanced as a necessary BG instead of just the tokens count.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:59 pm
The mistake Blizz made was awarding honor and marks for losing in BG. You cannot move around just enough to not AFK and get badges for PvE epics; why should people be able to AFK and get nice S2 PvP epics? The high S4 arena ratings and restrictions on personal vs. team ratings are a start but it’s too little, too late. Also, even bad arena players still get arena points for attempts. You can lose 10/10 and still get some arena points for the week. Again, there is a disproportionate reward for just showing up. The fix for BG is simple enough. Stop giving bonus honor and a mark to the losing team.
The PvE equivalent would be to give raiders a badge upon zoning in with a full 10-man or 25-man raid. Engaging a boss in combat the first time gets you another badge that appears in your bags. If you actually kill the boss, you get to loot two more badges. This is patently ridiculous but it’s basically what the PvP system does now.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:19 pm
PVP and PVE are two remarkably different games requiring remarkably different skillsets, and different gear for optimal performance. Your T5/T6 player will get slaughtered in BG’s, and your S3/S4 player will not put out the dps/healing/survivability required in high end raiding. That being said, a big enough difference in item level will override this different gear focus (epic ilvl 159 PVP gear is nearly always greater than epic ilvl 115 PVE gear for example).
The root cause of your whining (and yes, it’s whining), is that the PVP player can show up with little to no skill and little to no teamwork and (ultimately) end up with rewards that surpass PVE rewards that require both skill and teamwork. Since your primary interest is PVE, this strikes you as patently unfair.
For PVP to work beyond a hardcore niche base of players, it must not be a zero or negative sum game - that is, every player must come out of the experience with at least some reward. Without this, you never achieve the critical mass of players (see Pirates of the Burning Sea or EVE Online). This means that even the loser who’s spewing vile hatred in chat and playing like a retarded monkey will ultimately earn a very nice reward for his “effort”. That is the price you must pay for PVP to succeed on a large scale.
To satisfactorily resolve this issue, there are a number of solutions:
1) Exaggerate the difference in stats required for the two types of games greater than exists now, such that an item 50 or more ilvls above another of a different type is less appealing than the lower ilvl piece.
2) Enable restrictions on gear such that it can only be equipped for the activity it is designed for
3) Separate the two types of gameplay into two entirely different games.
4) Kill one of the types of gameplay
Of these solutions,
1) Blizzard shows no inclination to do this beyond what they’ve already done
2) This solution is even more unlikely for Blizzard to implement
3) Entirely implausible.
4) Entirely implausible.
In summary, it’s a very complex issue. Calling the current situation “bullshit” is doing a disservice to yourself and your readers as it implies a simple, unfair situation which could be easily fixed. This is not the case.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:56 pm
If there’s one attitude I wish I could change in the WoW community, it’s the rather pervasive idea that the 25-man rewards are better than the 5 or 10-man because “it takes more skill, effort and teamwork to get 25 people to excel together than 10.”
What would I replace it with? The idea that the 25-man rewards are better because the 25-man instances are orders of magnitude harder than the 5 or 10-mans, so you need that gear to keep progressing.
What difference does it make? So that individuals in guilds with tiny memberships, who stick it out to help more casual players advance rather than jumping ship to someplace bigger and “better,” can look at Elitist Jerks or shadowpriest.com or Kaliban, see the purples at the top of the list and tell themselves, “I don’t need that because we’re not running Hyjal,” instead of “I don’t have that because I don’t have the skill, or because I don’t know how to work in a team, or because my guild sucks.”
It doesn’t weaken your case regarding the Merciless gear: the rewards you get should be appropriate for where you are and what you’re doing: PvP for PvP, 5-mans for more 5-mans (and the beginnings of 10-mans), etc. But it does let people who for whatever reason don’t have the resources to run the big instances not feel like second-class citizens.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Easy fix, PVP gear cannot be used within instances…
So by all means, quest in it, PVP in it and farm in it…. But you rock up at Kara, Gruuls,… BT, Sunwell with any pieces of PVP gear and it automatically gets un-equipped and put in your bags. If you have no bag room then you get booted from the instance.
While saying this, I had on the Vengeful Glad’s Wand for our Illidan kill this week as the only other wand I have seen is the kara wand which is far worse then the S3 one.
(Also, it makes my PVP gear look scrub that I only have the S2 shoulders even though I got them 2 seasons ago…)
July 1st, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I have to disagree with you there Whimzy. It IS fair to call it bullshit, and the reason can be explained using one of your ’solutions’. Essentially you said that the problem could be solved by exaggerating the difference in item quality, which you then negated since Blizzard showed no inclination of doing it. Does that mean it’s a bad solution, or simply that blizzard doesn’t want to do it? If it’s simply that Blizzard doesn’t want to do it, but the majority thinks it’s a viable solution, then that is indeed bullshit. I’m not saying I would go for solution #1 (I’m actually really liking a variation on the ratings requirements to obtain bg honor gear) but if it’s not being investigated as a viable solution just because it may not match with Blizzard’s end goals, I think it’s fair to call that bullshit.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:18 pm
/agree BBB
/agree Siobahn
If you can’t kill the boss that drops the T5 headslot, you don’t get a T5 helm. Period.
If you fail often enough, you can get an item that is functionally identical to that T5 item from the BG/arena orphan gear.
The issue for a lot of the PvE/Raid crowd is that there are big black lines in the progression that indicate “you must be this good to acquire these items.” And there are no equivalent progression checks in the PvP equivalents.
A clearer differentiation of PvP specific vs. PvE specific gear might help. Perhaps make the BG/Arena items slightly better than top level quest gear and then add substantial bonuses to them in BGs and Arenas that bring them up to or past PvE items in those areas. Suddenly, the hardcore PvP folks no longer need to raid for gear, and the PvE content for PvE items balance is restored.
Mainly, I’d just like to do away with the “fail your way to glory” aspects of the current PvP rewards system.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:21 pm
The problem is compounded for feral druids because PVP gear is almost perfect for our requirements. We need Armor - it has some, although less than the PVE equivalents. We need good base stats - it has that. We need flexibility so we can tank one moment, DPS another. And resilience is not a wasted point budget for us because it can be used to get to the uncrittable cap.
Add to this incredibly crappy itemisation in certain slots for feral tanks (hi 2 u, shoulders!) and it’s been a nobrainer for some time to snag PVP gear. I suck at arenas, but I ran them for the 2 peices I thought would be the best tradeoffs - shoulders and head. I recently picked up the brutal gloves because of the lack of a rating requirement for them and the whole ‘add interupt to main’ thing is kinda useful.
So, yeah. The answer would be simply this - give feral bears viable options in the equipment slots. Hell, just adding badge tanking shoulders would do it. Basically there’s NO options for bears except for 25 man tier gear and PVP gear, which restricts us down to gaming the system for what we need to do the job.
As for the PVE vs. PVP debate, I’ll simply say this.
Claiming in my earshot that you’re a better player than X because of Y simply gets you added to my egostisical asshole list. Really good players let their actions do the talking.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I’m kind of with Whimzy in that I feel the situation is much more complex than we (as players) tend to give it credit for being. It’s of course exacerbated by the massive gear inflation in PvP over the course of 3 Seasons, which in itself has been caused by attempting to keep up with the gear inflation of 25-man Raiding over the course of 3.5 Tiers. However placing blocks in the route towards getting the so-called ‘Welfare’ honour epics, such as an all-or-nothing Battleground reward system or greatly increasing the honour requirements for gear, serves to disenfranchise certain player types from PvP, class types from PvE (speaking as a Ret Pally) and reinforce a barrier to entry into both PvP and PvE end-game. All this at a time when Blizzard are trying their damnedest to encourage players towards partaking all forms of the game. What needs to be done IMO is to reinforce a separation between PvE and PvP gear such that mixing and matching is okay but full one or other isn’t sensible.
My solution: 1% Resilience = 1% more aggro generated. Picking up one or two PvP pieces (most often weapon) allows you to bridge the 5-man to Kara gear gap whilst still requiring that you don’t stack PvP gear. The only problem therefore becomes one where Tanks take extensive PvP gear for threat, and frankly if you take a PuG tank in full Merciless S2 you deserve everything you get.
Finally, there can be no solution to bad PuGs. A hunter can be decked out in full Beast Lord and not know how to play his or her class, or have ground to full S2 and be great (though not optimally geared). I guess it has to go with the territory, but at least with the status quo you have a built-in n00b filter if you choose to enforce it.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:45 pm
So having T5 equivalent gear available for “just turning up” doesn’t make T5 easier? Seems to me that Cassie having the Merc swords might push her up into the sort of sustained dps levels which you’d require to down T5 content, no? So they are making T5 more accessible, indirectly. I understand that some people find pvp distasteful but it’s a personal choice and, with wotlk coming up, I think it’s great that Blizzard are giving more players a chance to see more content before it become completely obsolete.
As a side note, I wouldn’t be getting up on too high a horse telling a pvper what they have an haven’t learned in pvp when you readily admit you dislike/rarely do it. It’s just as bad as the pvper saying pve is easy when they’ve only run heroics. And, as someone who plays a mage, the mana conservation and sustained damage skills (spike is only good for a kill, you’ve got to get them in kill range first…) I’ve learned in arena are far, far beyond anything I’d need in any raid content I’ve experienced so far (just starting hyjal). Situational awareness is so much more important in arena where you will be target, than in raid content where, so long as I watch my threat, I’ll be able to stand still and cast. (nb: I assume a tank’s role is harder in this content but as a mage I can think of very few encounters where I do anything other than spam fireball and occasionally resposition myself).
July 1st, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Okay, all that negative crap out of the way, the rest of you have made some AWESOME points.
First, Siobhan, I absolutely, wholeheartedly agree with you. That is the heart of my problem, not that the gear is given out, but that it is given out in a situation where the person does not have to DO anything but have a pulse.
YES, Badge gear is the same thing as far as ‘catch up’ gear… and YES I do agree that the PvP gear should be there too… it is the implementation in a system where players that are afk in the cave and hop once every few seconds still get the gear that drives me bugshit. At least with badges, you ahd to be there when the boss died.
If there were ANY way of truly ensuring that the person with the gear had to actually succeed at something, anything, in the BG to earn the gear, then I would totally stop feeling like it’s bullshit.
I WANT there to be a way for a solo, limited time player to get kick ass competitive gear. Abso-freaking-lutely. I mean it.
And right now, PvP gear is that way, for feral druids at least. The stuff is awesome. As I said before, the other classes, casters especially, don’t get it nearly as good, and poor rogues get shafted as far as PvE utility of the gear, and paladin and warrior tanks also don’t get the love that much.
But it is still high health high armor gear that can help you survive in heroics and is attainable by limited time solo play. I love that. I really do. Cassie and I were just saying tonight that I am starting to love PvP, and I’m thinking of making my Warlock a PvP only toon for pure fun.
BUT, I want there to be a way that you have to actually DO something in the BG to earn the gear. Have to, not just have the option to.
I have no idea what, or how.
It’s just… it’s too powerful to just hand to mr. afk. For one thing, it’s a slap in the face to people that fought their asses off in Arenas to earn those pieces in the first place.
What I would PREFER, would be even more daily quests that had a guaranteed badge of justice reward as the payoff. Maybe 5 dailies that would definitely give a Badge.
And make them available, 1 per level, starting at level 65.
That would let you get Badges to get the intro badge reward gear as you are leveling your alt, so it IS viable for your raids (at least in part), let it be something done solo and in limited playtime each day, and make sure you had to do something other than sit in a cave for 35 minutes.
And the gear would be actual PvE gear, not PvP stuff you’re settling for as your only option. Leave the PvP gear for the people who are fighting it out face to face.
I’m sorry, I’m just thinking aloud at this point.
I just think the people that kick ass and work so hard to fight and win in Arenas deserve better than to see the gear that was their pride and joy passed off to mr afk. And I also think that when I see you wearing your gear, no matter waht it is, the first thing I think of is how hard you worked to get it (or how much fun you had blasting your enemies), rather than wondering if you played for it, or just sat for it on a long summer vacation week.
At this point, the lack of caffeine has gripped me. And somehow I think I’ve managed to offend every PvP and PvE player that I do like, so I’m gonna take a break.
Maybe for an encore I’ll kick a turtle. That’ll catch the 10% I didn’t anger yet.
Okay, I can’t do that. But I can have Cassie call up her cute new crocodile pet, and I’ll glare at it very strongly. So there!
July 1st, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Oh one minor point - the whole ‘casters’ thing.
The caster PVP weapons are extremely viable, and specifically for warlocks the PVP gear is -wonderful-. My lock wandered around in Merciless till very recently, and rocked the damage meters in PVE content. Mmmmm delicious Int and STA.
Also, the PVP neck items are insanely good and the S4 ones don’t require a rating. Consider getting one for your Shadow Priest : )
July 1st, 2008 at 6:58 pm
That badge idea is really good!
I would say, however, that as someone who did make quite an effort in the arena and attained some good gear from it. I don’t mind at all that people are getting pvp-competitive gear with a low time investment. As you’ve found out, with little to no resilience you’re basically a sitting duck in any sort of pvp, this effect is magnified in arenas. I like to win a match because I out played my opponents, not because I out geared them. I’d even advocate gear which is free upon entering arenas and is not usable outside them - to give all players a chance to test their skills against each other, not their time investment.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:35 pm
You know what, Zom… I do like that idea. And I think a lot of others did too.
I think there was a recent event where there was a PvP only server with pre-made characters in full gear. Damn, I didn’t take part but I swear it was recent… a test server for PvP Arenas? Does that sound familiar? With pre-mades?
I know that the WoW Insider staffers were chatting about it tons, they were loving going in and just fighting each other, skill vs skill, no gear worries at all. And there were some serious chest beating going on because of the evenness of the gear.
I don’t know, I know there have to be rewards. And I’m glad to hear that you appreciate the PvP gear being available because it means more of a challange. That’s cool, I think that says a lot about what you get out of the game.
Same reason I feel good when I do manage to get a kill in on another player 1 vs 1… I feel that I did my best, I certainly tried to. If I die, then clearly I wasn’t good enough.
I did spend one BG whining about gear differences on vent, an Arathi Basin where we just got rolled like a drunk, but mostly I’m too busy trying to figure out how best to take someone on to worry about what gear he’s wearing.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:43 pm
OMG
I haven’t even finished reading all the comments yet but dang…
I’m laughing out load for real at my desk. I might catch a fireball for this but seriously, some of you have to give some thought to what you’re saying before you write it.
I think the best idea posted so far was to have some form of meter for HKs and flag caps/returns. That would put a huge dump on the afkers. The rest were kind of stupid, and _I_ know stupid.
Going back to read the rest of this…
July 1st, 2008 at 7:58 pm
I’ve been wearing my PVP Vindicators Silk Cuffs for a long time for PVE, I’ve recently regemed for haste and spell damage as per link.
http://s19.photobucket.com/albums/b153/notosa/?action=view¤t=Cuffs.jpg, I’m not sure Blizzard thought to the extent that theory crafting and other combinations of gear would see how some peices that were meant for one thing could be used across the board..
July 1st, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I liked the idea I read about making it so that you CANNOT wear PvP gear within an PvE instance, and on the flip side, making PvP stuff more powerful within an Arena/BG. Those two combined would be fairly significant, especially since in WotLK, they’re using different skins (LOVE that idea). There is the case to be made about scrubs getting essentially ‘free’ gear in both PvP and PvE (Hello Badge gear and honor stuff).
Something I think would be good is when the season shifts, and (for example) S3 becomes the new honor gear, make a brand new set. They made it so that S1, S2, S3, and S4 were all part of the same set as far as assigning set boni. Statistically and functionally speaking, they match S3, but have them LOOK like the pre-arena honor set. It could make the difference as far as the badge of respect saying ‘He earned his pieces by playing well in arenas’ vs farmed with honor in bg’s. It would still provide the entry level functionality to be able to compete in arena’s and work your way up the ladder.
The biggest gripe to be seen… in all of this… is how easy it is to get away with NOT EVEN TRYING in PvP. For many, the reward for losing quickly is greater then it is to push as hard as you can… and thats not even talking about AFK bots.
The hardcore PvP’ers point to the badge rewards as ‘welfare epics’, which is true to a point. Granted, there are people running others through heroics and Kara that shouldn’t be there, and people in raid content that shouldn’t be there. I know I’ve been on both sides of that equation, both as my Feral tank, and my little baby hunter sporting mostly greens and a few blues (with the epic leather pants from Quagmirran). The biggest difference there is that the at the very least, you have to be somewhat active to see the boss… even if it’s to follow the group through the instance. No botting works for it, not really, though you may die horribly a couple times through. It’s not quite true with PvP.
I do like the rating requirements necessary for S4, especially. It is an upgrade over S3, though often not big enough to totally dominate them, although a span of 2 seasons gets to be fairly painful.
July 1st, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Yea it is pretty much BS but blizzard has dug themselves a deep hole.
PVP gear has to be competitive with PVE Gear at the high end of PVP, and they want people competing in pvp on a wide scale which means they need some sort of award. But the cumulative effect has us at this fairly stupid point. I offer up my latest alt. 8 hours played at 70 and 2 weapons as good as anything available from t5.
Matticus Yes it depends, and pvp gear isnt always the best option,. But sometimes it is, our 1st Nadinas pendant dropped arguably the best PVE dropped neck in the game for Paladins. Complete lack of interest. Why? Because the S4 neck which has absolutly no requirements except Honor and 10 eots Tokens is a clearly better neck.
July 1st, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I think the main problem comes from the whole e-sport problem.
The main outcome from raiding is the gear. You get on the treadmill, down bosses, get better gear so you can down the next boss, get better gear.
That’s how PVE works in WoW and how we like it (in general - otherwise we wouldn’t be here). PvE works by having encounters require better and better gear. You have lots of different gear to choose from and apart from Tier sets, you need to choose which pieces are more valuable to you.
The main outcome from Arena is the ranking. The gear is good to have, but everyone competitive will have basically the same gear by the end of the first month or so. That’s a basic part of the esport too - you need a fairly level playing field. What they’re really after is their name in rankings, the money from prizes etc.
As the gear has to get better every season (or you wouldn’t have seasons) we have some issues where this good-for-PvP gear also becomes potentially unbalanced for PvE. This is because the PvP and PvE both have very different goals and role of gear is very different between them.
All that said, I don’t think it’s that bad the gear is there. If you’re only just able to get into raiding now, you need all the help you can get. If your guild progressing so slowly that all your drops will be eclipsed by welfare epics, maybe it’s good you can supplement your gear outside the raiding environment.
What I’d like to see is free PvP gear for the season, each season.
It’s only usable in BGs and Arena, you still have to choose the sockets, enchants etc. This provides a perfectly equitable basis for the PvP, without making low-end PvE progression seem like a waste of time.
July 1st, 2008 at 10:02 pm
The problem with Arena only gear is that they should do the same to raiders. What’s same is equal.
——
As far as farming/5 man/heroics, I could care less about what gear are you using to do it. The problem lies on World PvP, which many people enjoy. Closing out Arena gear into arena means that PvP areas and servers will become dominated by those farther into PvE-only progression. Right now, if a T6 wants to stir trouble near the Horde Posts in Zangarmarsh, I know I can hold my own if he knows how to PvP, and I’ll squash him if he’s a PvP noob.
The Arena-only gear idea will make this match up loopsided in favor of PvE-only progressions.
July 1st, 2008 at 10:09 pm
As a very casual player I have been very happy with the increased availability of the PvP gear. I like to PvP, and Spellfire/Spellstrike doesn’t cut it, but I will never have the time for 10 arenas per week.
I have been stuck as far as weapons go too. The Archmages blade being the best thing that happened to me for quite a while. Our 7/10’s of a kara group can’t get kara on farm, so no chances at Prince’s blade and 150 badges is a long way off. I don’t need to mention the other “spell’ blades all seem to drop from end bosses do I?
Mind you I do like to PvP, so I aren’t there just for the loot, but 1st love is the PvE, so the PvP is supporting that love.
Mind you, each time we get a largely PvP geared pug in our PvE group, we all cringe a little bit inside.. aggro control seems to be the biggest issue, but that isn’t always the case.
I would like some way of penalising the afk’ers tho.. not just reported, but -5,000 honor would be a nice start. In one WSG recently I asked the group to report an afk’er. Someone responded that the afker had done the most damage.. so I shut up for a couple of minutes, untill I found them hiding at the side of the battleground, runnig against the wall… I guess their bot got disoriented.
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:16 am
It’s really weired this thing that you’re almost expected to go PvPing if you want to raid, just because the gear is so available.
But when it comes to me I don’t get berserc about it, I just shrug my shoulders and let the PvPers play their little game - as I play mine, preferring PvE (though I admit doing a little PvP now and then probably is good to improve my movability and reflexes, just as an exercise).
I’m proud that I’m not decked out in PvP gear. Most of it comes from badges, Kara farming over and over again since arranging 25 man raiding IS kind of hard. But I’ve got a few drops as well and they tell a story. Been there. Done that. Whenever I inspect other players I look for drop gear. It really reveals where your heart is.
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:18 am
As a committed PvE player i say: Let the PvE-gear be obsolete outside Arenas and Battlegrounds.
Of course i have done some BG’s to fill out some weak parts of my gear. For example the shoulders for my druid and the healing mace for my priest. As a member of an T6-raidingguild i get very annoyed when ppl spend all their offnights in arenas and BG’s and some ppl even took a break from raiding when the S-4 vendor came up, just because the PvP-gear is just too good to not have.
When farming the T6 content the bosses will drop 3 tokens every week and due to the droprate of just your class-token and your dkp rating you can’t predict when to get your next upgrade. When doing PvP you’ll know exactly what you need to get your next piece of gear.
So i’ll say it again and again. Let the PvP-gear be obsolete outside the PvP-world and make ppl play PvP for the game itself and not for the gear.
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:23 am
Oh, i meant PvP-gear in the first sentence. :/
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:29 am
You have to be careful when judging toons on inspecting gear alone. I know quite a few players that equip their level 70 alts with quite a bit of PvP gear before running into Kara, Grulls, or even SSC. These people have level 70 mains that are currently running T6 content, know how to play well in 25 mans, know Kara like the back of their hand, and over all would be an asset for a quick run of any instance or raid prior to Hyjal/BT.
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:52 am
I wish I could pvp on my pally for pve epics… Also wish I had lvled my pally first and then my druid since it is so much easier to get pvp gear for pve stuff for my druid then it is for my pally. I spent 3 months in kara on my druid to get enough gear to do 25 mans… now I could do that in a few weeks with pvp gear.
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:06 am
My point which I didn’t get to was that some of the above stated they did PvP so they could catch up to the raiding guild they are in or just as a new player getting geared up. But it doesn’t treat all players fairly. Sure healers and dps can get away with it… but for Tanks specifically protection pallies and warriors pvp won’t help you with this. So while the people you leveled with are geared out with tier 5 equivelant pvp gear, the tanks are still in blues because pvp gear just doesn’t cut it for tanks with the exception of perhaps the sheild and atleast for pallies the merciless glad mace
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:15 am
Your post echoes my recent thoughts. I wish there was a viable way to solo some nice PvE gear to fill the slots where I’ve been unlucky with drops, or I need to gear an alt up. Unfortunately relying on badge drops from Shattered Sun supplies is not it. So hurrah for the ideas about a solo way of getting badges.
Therefore I feel like I am almost forced to PvP, purely to gain the awesome gear which is just available for nothing more than honor and tokens. I don’t much PvP, I prefer PvE stuff like quests, grinding and silly soloing of elites. That’s just me and how I like to play. But I also want to improve my toon with phat epix and thus, like you say, I will go into BGs and win or lose, to get the honor.
Maybe someone could speculate on what the battlegrounds would be like if they were not full of people purely grinding for honour, but instead people who actually wanted to PvP…
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:18 am
@Velarie: Then let Raid loot be usable inside Raid instances only.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:43 am
@Rav: Np, using PvE gear in Arena or BG you’ll get ganked in notime
Another side of this i didn’t mention by all the “easy to get” PvP-gear is that LFG is totally dead on my server. The only two instances there is a chance to get a group is the daily heroic and Slavepens. Imagine what LFG looks like when Slavepens is the daily. According to that it’s impossible to run a few heroics a day to get some badges, ppl are more than happy to get those badges from the raidbosses and to do a 4-hour run in Kara for 22 badges.
I say improve the PvE loot system in the same way as the PvP-rewards are improved so ppl are motivated to keep on doing the heroics, and all of them.
Btw, English isn’t my first language but i hope i make myself mis-/understood anyway.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:06 am
Sadly, there are three people in my guild, who sport T5 gear (not all peices mind you, but 3+ each). I thought, wow, they are the shiznit. Until I got into Kara with them. They were the worst of the 10. I fonud out after the run, they are all friends and they all gave up lvling there own characters (one was in my alts guild, amazingly enough) and “aquired” these characters. He wasn’t specific but, all three people, lvl 70’s with some t5 peices …it’s clear he mean’t “bought the characters”. All types, all walks …you never know in any event what to expect with people. “haz moniez — will travelz”
Cheers
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:38 am
In specific, PvP is so good for ferals because Bliz still hasn’t fixed itemization for ferals. Resilience is a PvP stat, but it just so happens that it is also perfect for ferals. For a bunch of reasons, and another post.
But, the idea that either a PvE of PvP player is somehow better, is bullshit. I’ve seen people who have been in Kara forever, never seen a battleground, and they suck. I’ve seen people come from just PvPing, join a Kara run, and do great. There’s nothing inherent about one over the other that is better, and it’s obvious that Bliz wants people to do… BOTH.
It’s all about time investment, and time investment for both is honestly, still about the same, and normally (again, ferals just benefit from pvp gear way more) the gear isn’t quite as good. PvE gear is still better for PvE.
And just to point out, how many people do you know that go to PvP in PvE gear? A TON. And no one thinks it’s bullshit. Someone picks up a few blues from a quest, and they think they can just pop into arena? What bullshit. That’s meant to be sarcasm…
I used to be a raider, and I used to have the elitist attitude, but now I do a ton of BGs and Arena, and I can tell you, this game is not all about loot. There are a ton of ways to get it, and I don’t think any of the ways is all that broken.
Except that PvP gear is great for ferals, and always will be until they change itemization.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:56 am
“Can I please lose you as a reader?”
Wow.
I had initially intended to reply to the original article with a “QFT” kind of response. But after reading through some of the other comments, I see that a) it’s not necessary, and b) that apparently all feedback isn’t necessarily wanted, either. Which is rather stunning to me. I’m rather at a loss as to how to phrase an appropriate response to that type of behavior. Is it your blog, and you can do what you want? Yep, definitely. Will handling emotional comments in like fashion score brownie points? I’m guessing probably not. (Based on my own reaction to it, which was “What an asshole”.) Does it matter when you’ve got as many readers as this site? Probably not. So, very little incentive to try to approach such interactions in a level-headed manner, I guess.
Either way, the bottom line was that my respect for you took a steep nose dive. Will I keep reading your site? Probably. You’re a prominent member of the community. Will I comment more often? Probably not.
It is, however, unfortunate that that single interaction completely overshadowed any desire I had to contribute to the topic at hand (which is, incidentally, something I feel pretty strongly about, and generally agree with you about).
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:27 am
And no, I am not advocating making it easier to get Tier 5. Be patient, and actually read this before you flame.
That’s because they already did make Tier 5 easier to get when they removed the attunements. How many guilds that couldn’t get organized past Gruul’s are now in Hyjal and Black Temple? PvP equivalents always lag a bit behind.
No, I’m saying they should never have made it easy to get this PvP gear in the first place.
The only reason that this is really upsetting is because of mudflation. As new gear is introduced (S4/T6), it makes your existing gear worth less. You worked hard for that gear, so it makes your efforts feel trivialized. However, PvP players shouldn’t be punished because the system is broken. You should be mad that Blizzard won’t address the root cause of the problem which is mudflation and lack of foresight.
Because it takes more skill, effort and teamwork to get 25 people to excel together than 10.
For the honor gear (not the Guardian stuff, but the S2), I would agree that it takes more skill and teamwork than Battlegrounds. In terms of actual effort or time played, I think that’s pretty arguable. From a time played perspective, I think 1000 honor per hour is doing well on average. So the S2 mainhand weapon takes approximately 17 hours of Battlegrounds, and that presumes you can get 20 EOS tokens while achieving 1000 honor per hour. I think once you factor in the marks, it’s more like 20-22 hours per Epic.
However, the one area that this honor gear has a distinct advantage is choice. This is a big reason why the weapons are a big deal for Rogues. You can choose the weapon type, so if you are Swords then you can be assured of having awesome Swords. In any PvE scenario, you are at the mercy of random drops. You could get what you need right away or you may never get it. Again, this is a problem that stems from the game design, not from any inherent issue with the PvP honor rewards.
This is also a big reason Badges of Justice are popular. Speaking of which… You could easily make all the same complaints about how easy and powerful the Badge gear is to obtain. If you figure that the average Badge run (including the Daily Heroic) gives you about 4 badges and that each run takes a maximum of two hours, then each Epic will take you between 18 and 50 hours. And quite a bit less than that if you also run Kara once a week and can cut the average time of your run to an hour or hour and a half.
wandering around, lost and confused, having no knowledge whatsoever about how to play my class, and after a few weeks, or even days depending on how much time I have to play, get Tier 5 comparable gear anyway?
I’ve raided with a few people I could say that about…
On a more serious note, I agree that AFKers and non-contributers are a complaint of mine in Battlegrounds. For one thing, I think people should have some system that works where they can kick out people. Secondly, I want to see RATED Battlegrounds instead of Join as Group. So, for example, S1 would have no requirement other than honor and S2/Guardian would have honor + RATED BGs. I’ve always maintained that I thought it was asinine that the only RATED matches were the equivalent of Team Deathmatch when they could also be Team CTF, Team Dominion, etc. A highly ranked AV team would be as difficult to organize as any 25-man raid.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:53 am
I understand and respect the position, but I just can’t agree, BBB. PVP gear has immensly helped my guild be able to run content. It has been a godsend for getting us to Gruul and getting a second kara team going. Glad honor gear helped get a truckload of new or undergeared lvl 70s that were not ready to go into a heroic, much less a raid instance, into a position where they could start earning badges, and learning kara. There isn’t a need to run old 70 instances ad naseum for rep or an elusive drop to replace a green, when someone could earn honor instead (solo or grouped) and with enough dedication and time, get gear that would let them move faster into the big leagues. It moved people from the lfg channel or bumming around shatt into instances where they could participate and have fun. Runs are now faster, smoother, and we have a bigger pool of people we can draw from for raids than we would without great gear being available through pvp. And it has gotten even better with merciless.
The point is, ‘free’ or ‘easy’ epics have made it much more possible and practical for us to raid. I am having more fun now with the 4 hour kara clears than I would with a longer, two day clear that a less geared playerset would produce. And as raids get harder, and more gear is required, then stuff like tier 4 will fall by the wayside. No one sheds tears for molten core. Rather than make it harder to gear up, I like that blizzard makes it easier, since now more people can access content, but there is still a clear gap in determination and skill between a tier 5 guild, a BT guild, and a Sunwell guild. Merciless won’t change that much.
But here is the solution I would go with: I agree with you that people shouldn’t be forced to pvp to get your tier 5 equivilent. What I would do is expand the badge gear system, and make pvp gear (and some new pve gear) available for badges. I would create new daily quests to get badges that anyone could do, but that would go faster for players with more skill. That way, people who are into pve can stay out of battlegrounds. Make the good gear more accessable to different kinds of players, and let them get it by playing the game the way they want to. Hell, I am still waiting for RP dailies that reward cool stuff. The midsummer blossoms were kind of close to that: go to exotic locals, get fun rewards and cash for doing so.
I think nerfing all the pvp gear, or restricting it to battlegrounds and arenas would be a huge mistake. Would you wear gear that was only good in certain instances, and crappy everywhere else? would you feel as impressed when you got it? would you take as much pride in your character? ” I know I look like a noob in all greens now, but when I get into the eye, watch out!” I don’t see that being satisfying at all.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:19 am
Lassirra… I am sorry you feel that I shouldn’t have expressed myself in that way. And I really hope that you don’t feel that the way I talked to him somehow means that I do not want, or value, any comment that you would feel like making.
I’m thinking the core problem is, I still think of the people that come here to the blog as my friends. That’s how I started and how I’ve gone. When we get into a discussion on stuff, I figure it’s just a bunch of friends hashing it out.
I think that, if you look back at that article I did ranting about the talk show hosts going off on people for respecting the confederate flag, that I certainly didn’t flame anyone in the comments, and most of the people that commented there were pretty explicit in stating they thought I was not only wrong, but dead wrong. Horrifically wrong. I think there were a few indications folks thought I was a clueless idiot, too. And that’s fine with me, I learned quite a bit from the comments there. In many ways, I came to agree that when so many people have deeply held personal convictions about the way the confederate flag has been taken as a modern symbol of racists and bigots, that my personal respect for the people that fought at that time for what they believed was right just isn’t really valid as an argument in modern times. I need to separate my respect for those that fought for their freedom, from the symbol that now is simply another rallying cry for racism. I may be slow, but I care about the opinions of my friends and try to think about what you say and adjust my own attitude if I’m wrong.
This isn’t the official WoW forums. I blog here because I really like the people I meet here, including you. I really do. I feel that I am among friends. And I want to hear the opinions of my friends. That’s why there is no verification words or whatever to limit who can post comments. At least, there shouldn’t be.
Lassirra… be honest, do you really think that I would ever shut down or belittle your opinions? Would a friend ever do that?
Maybe I’m out to lunch, and the rest of you think that I’m wrong, but I do think I should get to choose to say ‘bye’ when I meet someone here I just don’t want to hang out with.
I just don’t… I don’t think of myself as being that big. This ain’t an official production of the yadda yadda network, where I have to watch my mouth or the sponsors will pull their ads. Damn, if I am that big, then I need to seriously revamp my attitude, because I’m being all personal and stuff here, and talking about personal non-WoW projects and throwing up funny vids I find and personal writing projects and all sorts of stuff. I never intended to share that with asshats, ever.
Just with you folks that I think of as friends.
If someone actually comes here to take the time to tell me I am an epeen-waving braggard that hates PvPers and is an elitist raiding snob that needs to get over himself… well, is that someone YOU want for a friend?
I’m sorry this has gotten so long. But I feel very badly that someone I enjoy chatting with and whose blog I reads and whose opinion I respect now thinks that I am all full of myself and that you don’t feel comfortable commenting here anymore.
Edited, because I’m at the point now that I’m so burnt out I can’t think straight anymore. I do apologize to you for spelling your name wrong. At least I know you’re blog well.
My 70 hunter loves it.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:40 am
Siobahn makes an excellent point. As someone who did some BGs for gear because our tiny guild couldn’t even put together a decent 5-man heroic group, I’m not ashamed of my “welfare epix” (and lord how I hate that term!). However, I did work for my gear: I never gave up in any BG, no matter how badly we were getting beat. And at the time, it was the best gear I could get.
Now, I’m one of the top healers in a T5-content raiding guild, and there are no PvP pieces on my Priest except the 8K trinket (why is there no badge equivalent, anyway??). My hunter, on the other hand–who once was my main and is now forced by raid needs to be an alt, still sports several pieces of hard-earned PvP gear. And when he gets to go on a 5-man heroic, or *gasp* even into Kara (but generally can’t roll until Mains & Alt-Specs roll), he kicks ass because I know how to play.
But I agree with the point that one doesn’t really have to do anything but move once in awhile in BGs to get gear with outstanding stats. I DISAGREE with the point that one doesn’t have to do much more to get badge gear. If you’re only getting your badges by doing SSO dailies, you’ll never amass enough to get much, if anything.
The only other way to get badge gear is through HEROIC 5-mans and raiding. I’ve yet to see the heroic instance that can be routinely 4-manned, which means everyone in the group has to contribute. And yes, Kara can be 9-manned, but it ain’t easy–and I’m pretty certain if someone’s just “along for the ride” they won’t be for long. So I guess I don’t understand the pooh-poohing of badge gear. If you can’t win the rolls or the bids for raid drops, badges are certainly an excellent alternative, and not one to be ashamed of.
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Restricting PvP gear to BGs and Arena and/or PvE gear to Instances and Raids is stupid. It really is, so stop suggesting it. It doesn’t even come close to solving anything.
Which makes me ask, what’s the problem? Why do you have an issue with somebody sporting SX gear? You don’t want that guy in your raid? Why? What if he knows his shit, know how to control his aggro, and is a great guy to hang with? He shows up in Merc Gear and suddenly he’s got cooties?
Yes, there are people in PvP gear that don’t know jack about PvE. Yes, there are people in awesome PvE gear that couldn’t kill a lvl 50 toon. Just don’t invite those people into your raid or onto your arena team. BUT give them a chance to prove themselves first. Give them a shot to hang or shine on their skill, not their gear.
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Just an FYI: In WotLK, resilience will not work in an instance. Not that this matters hugely for most people, but it might help the pve/pvp issue somewhat.
As to having great gear being a mark of PvE-quality: there are a number of people on my server who are making a ton of money in exchange for giving them 3pT6. Not T5, T6. Mother, Council and Illidan. 10k for the whole thing. 10k gold sounds like a lot, but 3.3k gold per T6 piece is pretty easily done, and is on par in a time investment with the honor rewards assuming about 100g an hour (which is pretty easily done).
Then there was Alex Ziebart on WoWinsider who was advocating buying your Hand of A’dal title.
Gear is not a measure of skill. Or at least most isn’t. Getting that armored netherdrake might be, but that’s about it. We have keyboard turner rogues who have dual warglaives on our BG. We have a T6-geared mage who does not know how to make food. That awesome gear your worked your ass off for someone else bought on eBay. That’s just the way it is.
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
People who play on PvE servers have a distinct advantage to those who play on PvP servers: you chose when you can be vulnerable, if ever. That’s why the half-assed “Arena-only gear” solution won’t work. Highly progressed guilds will have a huge advantage over actual PvPers on World PvP. Staying unflag on high turmoil zones is not an option on PvP servers. And World PvP is one of the funnest things to do.
If you want to do well enough on your area (be it PvE or PvP), you can (as of S3) bypass the other side’s gear offer.
If you want to be great, you have to cross over as many pieces as you can. Most PvP healers will be drooling over the Pendant of the Lost Ages ( http://www.wowdb.com/item.aspx?id=30008 ) and many casters will be DKP-fighting for rings with armor. Mind you, there aren’t many PvP items in Raids, but those that do exist have a medium to high impact on Arena.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Was gonna write a reply, but it got to be four pages long in Word, so. I posted it on my blog.
http://4haelz.blogspot.com/2008/07/rebuttal-for-bear.html
Enjoy
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:51 pm
There are so many reasons I disagree with this post. So many. But mainly . . . the fact that too many people can’t grasp that not everyone can play the game like they do. I won’t bother elaborating. You seem set in your ways.
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:54 pm
**Just an FYI: In WotLK, resilience will not work in an instance. Not that this matters hugely for most people, but it might help the pve/pvp issue somewhat.**
I think that is silly and solves nothing.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I seem set in my ways?
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Ok, BBB asked that we let this post and the personal attacks (not dialogue, but personal comments and emails of hatred and nastiness) stop and people are continuing. So rather than allow that to continue, the post will be locked now. And for the first time in the history of the blog.
There will be people who will see that as censorship or something to additionally complain about, but the bottom line is this is a blog about a game that is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. Maybe people are using sarcasm and are joking, but it’s not coming across that way and there’s only so much constant flood of nastiness that a person can take before they start to take it personally and not as a dialogue about a game. 50+ comments and people making their own blog posts to point out how wrong they think someone is and personal emails that are vicious and nasty aren’t fun and ruin the game for our family.
So it’s time to move on. Tomorrow will be PBEM story time and then hopefully we’ll return next week with other fun game play to report on. Thanks.
Cassieann