Guys. I have a confession.
You know all the new badge gear? The stuff that is really really good? The stuff that is a godsend and is gonna let me catch up to my guildies in Ulduar?
Yeah, I don’t have any of it yet.
Because none of it has a story behind it the way the stuff I’m wearing right now does. The stuff I’m wearing right now is mostly from Naxx10, with a sprinkling of stuff from Naxx25, and dropped from raid bosses, some of whom took weeks to see, and when I wore it, I wore it very proudly.
I am having a really hard time convincing myself to replace it with stuff that is being held in sterile confinement in Dalaran and that I earned by doing “chain Heroics”. I feel like there would be no soul in said gear.
“Soul? You’ve lost it, Pike.”
Yeah, perhaps I have. That’s why I put the word “insane” in the title of the post. =P
This issue plagued me before; in Burning Crusade when they introduced all the stuff with the Shattered Sun dailies and Sunwell, remember? Suddenly there was all this gear that you could get with badges that far out-stripped my Karazhan stuff. I waffled on this new gear for a while, too, for the same reason. It had no soul. But eventually I caved and bought it all, topping it off with that infamous “Chocobow”, Crossbow of Relentless Strikes.
But when I got my Figureprint it was with the gear that all had stories behind it… Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle being the crowning piece. Aside from just looking better, it simply meant more to me than the badge bow did.
At some point before Ulduar25 this weekend, I’ll bite the bullet and snag some badge epics. And in the end, I’m glad they are there, because otherwise I’d just end up embarrassing myself in my new guild. And I don’t really have any moral problem with the way “welfare epics” are implemented.
But gosh if there isn’t gonna be a tear in my eye as one by one, all the names of raid bosses that you currently see when mousing over my items turns on Armory turn into simply “Vendor”. =/
Maybe I’ll get something from Ulduar to make up for it…
(Closing Note: I know this is a touchy subject for some people, and as such I feel driven to add a quick reminder that while discussion in the comments would be quite encouraged, be sure to play nice. <3)
I have a confession to make as well. I’m a badge whore. I’ve only been home for about a day and a half, and I already picked up a piece on my mage, and have the tier helm and 2 other pieces on my druid. I think I need a life.
@ Krizzly – you’re nuts, and we love you for it <3
I have to say I’m the opposite, I’m a badge whore too. In the two weeks I had since patch launched, I completely overhauled all my gear without a single raid. My primary problem with raiding is that my guild raids at the busiest time of day for me, so I make up with my lack of raiding with chain heroics.
But I can understand the “soul” thing too. However, I still am very attached to the gear I do have because I worked my little NE butt off for it. After all, those emblems don’t drop for no good reason. XD I think everyone has a little “soul” in their gear, one way or another. There’s been epics I’ve kept for sentimental reasons (like the ePhoenix crossbow), so I know I have a view of “soul” in gearing.
I mean, hey, I *did* do Occulus just for the Triumph badges….OCCULUS!! D=
I have to say the new badges have been a huge help. I’ve got a really hectic play schedule and I have a real hard time being there for raids and whatnot. That and I got multiple characters with multiple armor sets to gear up. Badges allows me to catch up in gear to actually be able to raid on the few occasions I’m able to.
Im currently on an Rp server as well (go moon guard!!) and the way i see it for the rp gear, is to use the gear manager and keep your rp gear with you, that way you can have epic gear but still look respectable in town, but thats just my point of view
I do understand those who object to these “welfare epics” but they are amazingly helpful to me.
Consider this: gear is not just a “reward,” it’s also a tool. Better gear makes your character more powerful, allowing him to play more challenging content.
I’m a fairly new player, with no guild to speak of, in the traditional sense (I’m in a very very small guild of friends, with about a dozen or so 80’s with completely mismatched experience levels, gear, and interest in endgame). I’ve had a heck of a time even getting through Naxx. I’ve done a few guild+PuG runs, and pugged one or two, but that’s about it. And Ive been reluctant to even PuG Naxx since I was pretty much in Heroic/crafted gear and everyone else was in Tier 7+. I’ve never even been in Ulduar.
So the emblems are allowing me to catch up somewhat, and will hopefully allow me the ability to do higher-level content without having to have a bunch of Naxx-10 runs under my belt (which I now probably won’t ever have).
I do tend to think that the Emblems of Triumph as heroic daily rewards is a bit much. Seems to me the the best of the best should be for those who have done the most recent content. But Tier 7 and even Tier 8 is “yesterday’s news” lol. So I think it’s fine to have that stuff available by doing other content.
I’ll also note that the new 5-man is great, in that it’s eminently do-able for me in my pre-3.2 gear, and I’ve already gotten three *huge* gear upgrades in there. I can’t remember the last time I got something new in a heroic.
Anything that makes doing 5 mans more popular is just fine with me. I love me some five mans so much, Id rather run 8-10 heroics for an epic than an unknown number of raids any day of the week. 5 mans are just way more fun.
If you are looking for a story behind the piece, just think of it as a commissioned peice of armor that you had to merc yourself out to pay for. Or it could be like the kid looking at that shiny red bike for weeks while saving their allowance.
Honestly though, just because you bought it from a vendor doesn’t mean it doesnt have soul.
@ Everyone so far – I am in the same boat as many of you in regards to not being able to raid very often or at all, and as such I definitely don’t have a problem with badge epics being there.
I’m just saying I have a weird emotional attachment to my current epics, is all =P
@Pike:
“I’m just saying I have a weird emotional attachment to my current epics, is all =P”
And there’s nothing wrong with that at all =)
Yeah I hear you there Pike. While I like getting gear upgrades, I can’t help but feel the badge stuff is a hollow victory, the gear pieces are not symbols of ability or markers of where you have been.
I just bought my last piece last night, the Belt of the Ardent Marksman, and it replaced my Torn Web Wrapping and that kind of hurt. I won the Wrapping from the Maexxana fight, I didn’t buy it and I wanted it for so long. So winning that was a victory for me. The Marksman belt is not a victory.
But I’ve replaced my Helm of the Hyaline Sniper with the badge hat, and again, a well-earned piece falls to the wayside in favour of something from the Dalaran Wal Mart.
But an upgrade is an upgrade and I’m glad to have the new stuff as it keeps me competitive in my raids so it’s a necessary trade off.
But now we have the T9s to look forward to earning properly (the number of Triumph badges needed to buy that stuff is nuts so I don’t see a lot of these items being obtained that way, at least for now).
What I love though is that the badges make gear more obtainable for people with wonky schedules. I’ve always maintained that the quality of your gear should not be wholly dependent on how much time you have available. So while the badge gear may lack soul, it’s still rewarding for people who can’t commit a lot of time or who aren’t in raiding guilds.
And that’s a win overall.
I had to die on Malygos in PUGs about 10,000 times before my guild got in there and took 20+ tries to get him down. We did it and I was lucky enough to get the Ice Spire Sceptor. Now, the mace from H:TotC is technically (albeit minorly) better and I do have it in my inventory because no one wanted it.
Yeah. I’m not using it. No way. Maly was too difficult for me to get down to replace with lulz smash heroix loot.
And woot woot to the other person from Moon Guard, GO RP REALMS! 🙂
I would have much preferred they only bump it up one level (ie valorous to conq and heroic to valorous). To me it would have made more sense.
I’m in the same boat as you, Pike. I like the stories behind my gear. I liked that when I -did- buy my t8.5 helm, it was from weeks of blood sweat and tears in Ulduar.
“I’m just saying I have a weird emotional attachment to my current epics, is all =P”
I still have my Staff of Jordan9first epic) from 3 years back in my bank.
After three weeks of ToC and doing nearly every daily heroic since 3.2 came out, I just bought the BiS shoulders. It disgusts me to no end, but if this is the game Blizzard wants to play, then so be it. I can’t say I’ll be playing it much longer.
“I’m just saying I have a weird emotional attachment to my current epics, is all =P”
Yeah, well. I’ve found this to be the case, too, and I am quite relieved to find I’m the only one!
I grind for, and wear, the welfare epics too. I don’t think I’d be doing my part to not bring as much as I can to the raid but I’ve also kept the pieces that mean something to me–I will be buried with my Rhok longbow and my Wraith Spear (my very first Naxx get)! I am an avid collector of polearms and I dream of the day I can pry Hoperender or Lotrafen from the cold dead hands of general vezax!
I was really happy when the conquest change was announced, as my guild is a shambles. I’ll never see the inside of ulduar with them.
Unfortunately due to aforementioned guild shamblism and politics which will eventually cause my inevitable resignation, I haven’t been playing my hunter much. I have 3 (count em’!) emblems of heroism. My protege, semseye dinger 80 about 2 weeks ago, and is now pulling 500 dps more than me. I taught him to kite, to gear and about the bm shot rotation and he’s surpassed me completely.
I still support the decision to make emblems of conquest drop from heroics. It’s just… Worked out REALLY badly for me 😛
My personal failings aside, a lot of people forget that gear affects more than just your attack power. Much as I appreciate no longer colliding with an impenetrable (for us) gear wall, I’m also surprisingly disappointed that it’s possible to accomplish more now in two weeks than in my previous two months.
I don’t really know WHAT to think!
Aaaaaaand corrections!
3 emblems of Conquest (not heroism)!
Apologies also for my iphone’s… Enthusiastic auto-correct. I’m not sure that “dinger” is any more of a word than “dinged” (which was just corrected to “ringed”?!)…
No more commenting at work I think! 😛
Well I think patch 3.2 is basically handing ilvl226 items out to people to shorten the gear gap between uber hardcore players and casual players. I think Blizzard wants to help people get geared for Icecrown because Arthas is such an important character in lore and they want people to see him. If you played Warcraft 3/ The Frozen Throne you’ll know he is one of the main characters (and his downfall [or rise, depending how you look at it] from Knight of the Silver Hand to Lich King is extremely interesting). I actually think I’m going to stop playing WoW after the WotLK’s expansion cycle is over because Arthas is the last recognizable villain I know.
The Conquest Items are a godsend for my guild because we have basically 12-15 really good raiders and they’re never all on at the same time. This will allow other guildies to gear up and join us in 10m Ulduar and help us more easily down some more bosses in 25m Naxx to gear up more guildies.
I just recently earned Valorous Scourgestalker Leggards (and you currently have Conquerors, Pike) off of Hodir (who was a big b!tch to say the least). I won the token in a roll against a Shaman and he offered me 3000g for the token! I refused it because I won it (and it saves me some badges because now I don’t have to buy the badge pants!). But now I only need 1 piece to gain the 4 piece set bonus. Hopefully the shoulder token will drop off of Thorim soon. That same Shaman who wanted to buy the pants off of me took the token for gloves that dropped off of Freya. I suspect he was just making sure I don’t get it because he was sporting Conqueror’s gloves… Anyways, there is still much gear to be earned, Pike, and these Conquest Badge pieces are already obsolete.
I like the Badge-loot system. I’m a firm believer that if you were there for the Boss kill you should be rewarded for it. If 5, 10, 20 (or 40) players spend 4 hours in an Instance and kill 3 Bosses, how is it fair that just a few of them get upgrades? Especially if you take into account a 40-man (sorry, 40-person) Raid where maybe just 5 items drop. To succeed in that encounter required a concerted effort from all 40 players, so IMO all 40 players deserve to be rewarded, and badges are an excellent way to achieve this.
@ Capn John – I like the badge loot system too. Particularly for my fresh 80s…
I love shiney new purples. one of the first things I’ve done was to get a 2piece t8 tier for my warlock because it was almost a primary reason why I leveled her to 80 (of course I’ve ended up falling in love with playing her too, but originally, it was all about looking like Apothecary Putress /hide)
But I understand where you are coming from. its the reason why I have a bank guild with 4 overflowing tabs and all my personal banks have no extra space in them. the memories that I’m holding on to go all the way back to when I was still leveling and princes bow has a special place in my collection 😛
I finally last night scraped up the last five badges required to replace my Engineering goggles with the T8 helm. They were hard to give up for a number of reasons.
First, because they were *my* goggles. *I* ground Engineering to 440, *I* mined the titanium that went into them, they had “Made by Magli” stamped on ’em, for crying out loud. For similar reasons, I hated to give up my Nessingwary 9000 when the Golemheart Longbow dropped in Ulduar, but the DPS boost was hard to pass up.
Second, because they were the piece of gear I’d used the longest. I spent a lot of time and money leveling Engineering so I could wear them as soon as possible. I think I was level 78 when I finally made them.
Third, because they were an item that only Engineers could use. I don’t want to get all Rilgon here, but I liked the fact that I was using something that no other profession could. Yeah, I’m shallow. Which brings me to…
Fourth, because I’m sorry, but that helmet’s just darn ugly. I don’t like helmets in general–I spent a long time choosing my character’s hair color and style when I created her–but that one makes me look like a Stormtrooper wearing a gas mask. Not to mention the T8 colors don’t match any of my gear (which is mostly Ulduar-10 brown and black) or with my guild tabard (red and gold)…I’m sorry, Blizzard, but I’ll be turning helmet graphics off for this one.
Your figurine is awesome. WSR is the only TBC weapon I’ve kept in bank. I think it’s still the best looking gun in game.
I’m not against the badge system, at all. It has only been a recent thing that my guild is raiding on a regular basis. For months I was the lone alt-dps for another guild on my server. More than once a Tier Piece would drop, and I wouldn’t be able to roll (because I agreed to a rule about only guild members rolling on Tier items). I got nothing from Naxx for quite a while, but I did get badges. I attained both my helm and chest thru those, and I totally felt like I earned them.
However, I find myself dragging my feet on the new badge gear. I have enough for 2-3 items, but I haven’t spent any badges yet.
Here is my dirty secret – I’ve always wanted a matching set of (rp) armor, and it took me this long for it to happen! That’s right, my little Tier 7 pieces all match, and I like it! /shame
I’m not purchasing the badge gear because of how it might adversely affect the aesthetics of my character. I know, tis a sad thing.
As one guildie called me: “Zwingli the Dapper”
Be Well,
Z
“Zwingli the Dapper”
I would give my left nut for the ability to define your own title. I’d take “Magli the Gunsmith” in a heartbeat.
Clra2 said “I think Blizzard wants to help people get geared for Icecrown because Arthas is such an important character in lore and they want people to see him.”
Nail on head there. That’s it exactly. Blizzard realised that in TBC only a minority of players actually got to see how the big story of the expansion resolved, got to see and defeat the big players and had any closure to the events of the Burning Crusade.
Blizz put a lot of work into that story and content and they clearly said afterwards that they did not do all that work for the smallest portion of the player base (paraphrased of course).
They learned from that and set out to deliberately make Wrath more accessible and for it to be possible for far more people to take part right through to the very end. So the sudden increase in good gear availability is a strong move towards that goal.
For an MMO with millions upon millions of players, this is the right path to take.
Pike, I totally agree with you on the attachment to gear, I still have Terokk’s Quill in my bags (as well as a bunch of 60 and 70 epics in my bank), man was that a story lol.
Even the gear I got in 10 man Naxx with my sadly departed raid group is sitting in my bank. I refuse to DE it out of respect/though/story that they have along with them. (/nod Stealthwolf /salute Members of the ‘Midnight Crew’)
…WTB Bigger Bags…or player housing 😛
I’m practical about what I wear to raids. I’m a healer and the life of the raid and tank depends on my having top-notch gear. I ground out the two pieces of badge T8 to get the four piece bonus in under a week. It’s not that I’m not fond of gear I get the hard way; it just doesn’t seem fair to my raid to not equip major upgrades.
My sentimental side is in the bank. There’s a bag of “souvenirs” from raid boss fights. The offhand from Kael, my first piece of T6, the dress off the ZA bear boss that I wore for the rest of BC, the hat I got from Naj’entus, my Violet signet, my Medallion of Karabor. There are other bits and pieces, never as much as I’d like because of my druidy shortage of bag space.
Yeah its got less lore. Yes the items feel soulless. But it is needed if blizz wants more people to see icecrown.
If you wanted to see BJ/TK/Hyjal in BC, you had to grind heroics/kara for badges & T4, then kara, then gruuls/mags for T5 before you had the chance to survive in the end game raids.
This way there is reduced need to grind naxx > ulduar > ToC before setting foot in icecrown.
My main is a Tankadin.
And as a pally tank, 90% of my gear is still from raid drops anyways.
Ive spent the majority of my badges on my Ret offset, or heirloom pieces for my hunter(s) or warlock.
Over the last few months my hunter has been suffering from level 80 burnout. Whether it’s from doing the same instances over and over again, maybe from my gear being better than the runs my guild has scheduled thus not seeing a reason to even roll on anything, but mostly from the feeling that with the badge gear it really doesn’t matter anymore. I see the benefit of the emblem gear and letting everyone get nice stuff so they can see the raids they wouldn’t have before, but I agree with Pike, there is a difference between my “blue” cloak that dropped in H.VH and the one I bought with 40 EoH. Even farming the mats for my profession made gear felt more like earning something. Just my opinion.
I know where you’re coming from with the whole not wanting to upgrade your hard earned gear with the badge gear, in fact I’ve been quite resistant to actually upgrading my gear with the new stuff because I worked for it (I’ll be damned if I have to replace my ulduar 10 gear with badge gear!).
Also don’t worry about not being in the high end gear for ulduar 25, it helps but really isn’t necessary. Besides don’t worry about embarrassing yourself infront of the rose, we’re cool about stuff.
I agree with your post 100 percent. Although it’s nice that epics can be obtained just via time and patience, it does diminish the wow factor of looting a nice epic off of a difficult raid boss.
On a side note… I’m glad your experience with Figure Prints was better than mine.
http://huntsmanslodge.com/135/garwulf-down-send-help.htm
I always wanted that gun too and never got it. That was the thee ranged weapon to have for BM until that damn x-bow was introduced.
I bet it’s still in your bank. 😉 I know I still have all of my rank 10 PvP pieces from back when we still had the ladder system. No way I’m ever deleting that stuff.
I totally aggre with you Pike. I’m very attached to items I got in raids, especially those from very hard bosses. I got my last piece of T8.25 this Tuesday, the shoulders. There are very few people having those on my server because it’s a small server and only 4 guilds kill Yogg25. I even could be the only hunter having them. It’s the first set I ever complete. I only bought 1 piece of it, the helm, the day I looted my first piece, for the 2pc set bonus. I’m very proud of it and will keep it in my bank as long as I have enough room…
There are a couple of epics I keep in my bank, mostly ranged weapons. My first epic bow, the very bizarre one dropping from the last boss of the slave pen if I’m not mistaken, with living fishes on it… I kept my Nesingwary, because it was a gift from a guildie. I kept my KT10’s gun, it took me so much time to loot it. I kept every epic ranged weapon I looted. I tend to do the same with my 2H weapons too… Terrok’s Quill, Arcanite reaper (that one is carried in my bags at all times…), the staff from Cyanigosa…
It don’t buy a lot of items with badges, because I do many raids and can find equivalents or even better there. The only piece of gear I bought with emblems and I quite love is my Mirror Truth. I like the name and it was my first epic trinket. The others, I don’t care… They are just pixels.
The main difference between looted pieces and badges pieces is there : bagdes pieces needed time and 4 other people playing averagely, looted pieces needed time, sweat, efforts, teamplay, gameplay and luck… That’s why people were so upset when they enabled any normal T9 pieces to be gained by badges you can have by doing the daily heroic dungeon quest.
Personnaly, I don’t care, because for me, gear is not the reward for the efforts I put in raids (achievments do that more). I like it because it says to myself “you see you can do it !”, but it’s more a tool to go further for me.
And anyway, raiders will have them much earlier : The raid drops loads of triumph badges… In 25-man yesterday, I recieved 9. And hardmodes will be the only way to get upgrades and thats fair. It’s fair because people who cannot raid very often like you will be able to stay nearly at the same gear level than their guildies raiding more often.
But back to the subject : yes I love my hard earned gear pieces and will hate to replace them with badges… Special soft point for ranged and 2H weapons… You’re not crazy Pike !
If you feel that strongly why not try to accumulate H ToC items first?
I’ve recently found myself in between a rock and a hard place ( or real life and Guild raids) and I haven’t had the time to even blink at a Uld25 run invite – let alone worry about gearing up in uld drops.
However I found there is some nice huntery yummies that drop in H ToC and even though they’re not T9 they’re a decent bridge between naxx and 25uld and the best thing is it only takes 15mins to run!
Only a limited number of items drop in H ToC so when you get something huntery it feels really good, you still get emblems but still you don’t need to feel like a emblem grind slave to have so new shinnies.
Mix them with some emblem/drop items and you’ll feel a bit better 🙂
I’m in the same situation as most of you guys. I’m a guild officer of a decent social guild on my realm. Social meaning we have tons of newbie players, offliners etc. I haven’t been able to go an a 25 man with my guild ever. And i only managed to clear nax 10 in a guild run once. It took us 3 lockouts to even manage that. Since our main tank quit the game raiding is on an indefinate stop for now. Its safe to say i won’t see ulduar inside with my guild.
But i am strongly opposed to giving out these welfare epics. Not because i want people to grind but for an other reason.
To be able to do nax 10 without others boosting your ass off you need a raid formed with people who have run a large amount of heroics. Its simply impossible to do in just dinged quest gear greens. ( that is if there aren’t players around with a full nax 25 or higher gear set equiped ) The players that have aquired the apropriate gear have aquired something else while doing so. Namely experience. New 80’s are not uncommon mostly players who have 0 experience. In leveling they hardly did any instances due to lack of players around. They are used to solo content and have no clue about what their character should be able to do. I’ve experienced many times silly things like paladins not knowing they could cleanse. Mages that do not realise the result of a frostblock after they just started a pull. And tons of other annoying things you really don’t want to have in your raid.
I’m all against an elitist aproach to this but i feel they have it right in the way that noobs shouldn’t have the best of gear. And by noobs i don’t mean it condescending but rather in regards to knowledge of their character, and playing skills. Before we had these welfare epics you could be pretty sure that someone wearing a tier set had at least some raid experience. He’d know what was going on in a 10 or 25 man. Had some grasp of the requirement to follow a boss strategy. And is somewhat able to execute those strategy / tactics. Granted the ones that got boosted through won’t know much, but at least they had to go through some of the things.
With the current welfare epics the only good thing around is that at least now all the players wearing those have 5 man experience, something that was even in nax lacking in a minority of players. I’m without doubt that we will still see a ton of players with no other instance experience besides the entry ones though since they offer the most badges in the shortest time.
Another downside to the new system is that it is in complete contradiction to the stated goal of the developers. They insist they want everyone to see all content. Giving out gear levels so new players can pretty much get to the lateste end content while running heroics does not at all make players see everything. I’m pretty sure that most players that are now just dinging 80 will never bother to see naxxramas or malygos inside. The gear they are able to get from badges outstrips the gear dropping there by far. Its easier to obtain aswell. In dropping these epics the developers are making everyone that can catch up in time see all the stuff they have just made. All the previous stuff is simply skipped. If their goal was “we want all players to experience how cool the very latest endgame is” they might achieve that. If it is as they state to have all players see all content they’re missing the mark by a mile. Players will simply skip going to sarth or at least skip out the hardmodes there. They will not run naxxramas since it is simply to harder to form a 10 man from a pug, and the gear dropping there is outstripped by the badge stuff they can get from heroics. After cataclysm hits nax, sarth, maly and maybe even ulduar will be dead. I’m pretty sure the trial instances will stick around since they are ultra fast raids. But all in all players will definately not see all the content. Just ask yourself, how many of you guys went to the lvl 60 raids? You were able to just as the new players are able to go to nax. But as soon as the lvl cap is raised the easier instances will be dead. And even in the comming year with the badge gear they will be insanely easy. I’m sure that is fun for a majority that after all is more interested in free epix then in performing well. But to a “i hope” large part of the player base its not that much fun. It is to be honest the reason that even though badge gear means upgrades for me, i’m not grinding heroics. They already are to easy and boring. Getting the badge gear will make naxx 25 boring aswell. It will ruin my experience of sarth 3d that i still pray my guild will get to sometime.
I have a certain sentimental attachment to some items of gear. The Red Sword of Courage that I ran UP heroic numerous times to get, and which finally dropped on my birthday. My first, and only, world drop epic – Wapach’s Spaulders of Solidarity. My Royal Crest of Lordaeron from heroic Culling of Stratholme.
And as other people have said, I think the overall aesthetic of your gear is important. I think a large part of the sentimental attachment I have to the items I listed is that they’re gorgeous looking. I’m also relieved to find that I’m not the only one who is willing to pass on upgrades for looks.
As a Paladin (tank, though spec is irrelevant), I refused to get a large majority of the T7 gear because I thought it looked awful. On the other hand, I absolutely LOVE the way the T8 gear looks. I have 3 pieces of T8 (hands, shoulders, legs) and one piece of T8.5 (chest), though the chest is covered largely by my Explorer’s tabard (which roughly matches the colour of the T8 gear).
I haven’t had helms turned on for the year I’ve been playing my Paladin. When I finally get the T8 head (lost the roll twice on Mimiron), I will turn displaying helms on. I could buy the T8.5 helm easily (I have a T8.5 helm for my offspec) but it doesn’t match the rest of the set.
I also have to confess that when Wrath was first released I wanted to level a Warrior just to have two two-handed swords strapped to my back.
On the topic of “welfare” epics, I don’t see them as a bad thing. My girlfriend hit 80 with her Priest about a week before 3.2 came out. Between the new 5 man and emblems, it took her about two weeks to gear up to a standard that it took me months of running Naxx and then Ulduar to reach.
I totally understand the sentimental value that some items have. I vendored, then bought back, Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix many times before I let it go for good, and not before taking many screenshots of myself holding it. Thanks for posting your character’s Figureprint; I’ve thought about getting my hunter Figureprinted but wondered about the quality of the product. I noticed the colours are not very vivid. Is it worth getting otherwise?