From that point on, providing more powerful equipment and tools to the players directly lessens the challenge you intended. When new equipment is added, you are reducing the skill or coordination or preperation needed to overcome the challenge.

My point in all this was to intentionally use inflammatory language to state that, for people who call themselves hardcore progression raiders, if they are not limiting themselves to using the gear they acquired from existing hard modes and drops in Firelands to defeat the Firelands, IF they are telling their members that they MUST get the Valor Point gear in order to progress, they are flat out saying that they need the challenge to be made easier for them to succeed.

The raid teams that have already cleared all of Firelands, and the Firelands hard modes, and they are out there, did not wait until they had the 3 pieces of Tier 12, plus accessories, plus vendor items from the Firelands dailies, plus new 378 crafted items.

Now, I’ll be the first to say that I am not as skilled as those leading raiders, and even if I were paid to do it, and had the time to spend trying my hardest, I don’t think I would be capable of it. I am getting old, and my reflexes are losing that hair-trigger responsiveness with the smooth control. Just a little, but sure as hell enough. This isn’t me saying I’m better than anyone else.

But it’s a mixed message. People want to boast about how hardcore they are at raiding, how many of what they killed and how fast. That’s great, but if you’re going to do that, then be aware of what people like me think of you boasting your accomplishments with the same mouth you’re using to tell your people that they have to get gear to succeed that other, REAL hardcore raiders, didn’t need.

Although I have to admit the T11 raids (normal, not heroic) make sense to me, if I was an ungeared player getting ready to start raiding, I would rather want to get some okay gear fairly quickly than to spend the time getting 2pc T12 with avg ilvl < 340 in the other slots.

Our alt nef run took 1 hour exactly, Even on my main I would not say no to a teir helm(4/7 firelands zero drops so far) and 175 valor.

from BBB Comment:
“Yeah, Cassie came down to my office laughing at my timing…”

EXACTLY, it’s a biach when non-reality smacks us in the face.
The only reason that anything is easy/hard in MMOs is due to fallible human manipulation of numbers in a computer SIMULATING a real endeavor.

I myself am “tired of hearing about” people either being more EJ _OR_ more whinny about this dynamic.

Unlike a real life sport performed at a high level where the rewards/difficulty/gravity/competition are not changeable parameters in a server room.

WOW and ALL MMOs _ARE NOT REAL_ any “price you’re expected to pay” is nothing but an ego driven illusion of advancement.
An ego driven Illusion that can be taken from you AT ANY MOMENT by said fallible humans changing the numbers.

Just like all the “gotta do Trolls to be IN DA Club” illusions of superiority that just got shattered HARD.

IT”S A GAME folks … and even more importantly it is not a game based in objective reality. You cannot take this thing any more seriously than a pleasant dream. One day we will all wake up and not play this game anymore… any angst we feel about easy/hard today WILL NOT MATTER in a painfully brief time period.

Still working towards Defender on my druid… but it’s slow going, our guild had another collapse… so back to advertising for raiders – again. sigh. WoW certainly takes more work than my job… at least it’s fun, right?

To which I replied that I love Blizzard even more for this.

Yes, they are hotfixing it so boss kills in 10 and 25 player BoT, BWD and Tot4W will give Valor Points. So all those complaining will feel vindicated. I said in my post I thought that having those bosses drop Valor Points made sense to me, this certainly doesn’t bother me at all.

At the same time… the AMOUNT of Valor each boss is worth makes me laugh my ass off. It feels like a token, a pittance, pity Valor. It’s like, dare I say it, a slap in the face.

As though Blizzard is saying, “Okay, you insist that Trolls are beneath you serious raiders, and you want Valor from your raids. Fine. Then go out and do full clears of all three raids and get your Valor Points. Go for it. Oh yeah, and then have fun adding Firelands raiding onto it.”

So the leet raiding guilds who can blow through normal mode raids in 1 hour will immediately do so, so they can max Valor Points without lowering themselves to do Trolls. BUt at the same time, those same leet guilds are saying, “We’re nowhere near leet enough to do Firelands without getting the pity Valor epics.”

The subtext to all this just makes me roll. Are you leet, or do you need your hand held? The rationalizations make my eyes spin. :)

THIS IS A GAME

Y so srs?