Heroic badges in Kara and Zul'Aman
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 2nd 2007 at 4:00PM
Dan mentioned it in a quick note earlier this morning, but this is such a big piece of news, to my mind, that it deserves an even bigger mention: in patch 2.3, Heroic badges will drop from bosses in Karazhan and Zul'Aman.That's a gigantic change. We can only guess that it'll work the same way that Heroic instance bosses do now-- every member of the raid will get to grab their own Badge of Honor for each and every boss kill. And that is big-- currently, the badges are only available from bosses in Heroic mode dungeons, which means the only way to get them is to run Heroics.
Of course, whether Heroics or Karazhan are harder for you depends on your experience and your raid, but my sense of the general consensus is that most guilds are already farming Karazhan, while Heroics are only being run by small groups of really experienced players just to get the badges. And when you don't need to get the badges from Heroics any more, what reason is there to go in there?
There is the Primal Nether (one drops from the last boss of every Heroic), and there is the extra Heroic loot (although as far as I know, Zul'Aman and Kara loot are usually better than dropped loot in Heroics), as well as the fun of running a challenging instance with four of your closest friends.
But the badges were what made Heroic instances really important and necessary to run, and when badges are dropping like candy in the 10 man raids, my guess is that it'll be a lot harder to find a worthwhile party for the Heroic instances. Blizzard still has a chance to balance it-- there will be, apparently, a lot more items for badges in 2.3, so the bigger supply could be matched by a bigger demand. But when you can run Karazhan with 10 people, get a bunch of epic loot, and pick up 10 badges for each person (or 12 or 13, depending on if the animal bosses, Midnight, or the Chess Event drop a badge), I'm guessing that a lot of people won't be as willing to suffer the trials of Heroic Shadow Labs or Heroic Arcatraz.
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Sylythn Oct 2nd 2007 4:04PM
Running a Kara raid 3 days a week and doing 25-mans 2 days a week really doesn't leave me much time to farm badges...so I'm very happy with this change. At least it'll feel like I'm still getting upgrades out of Kara.
nate Oct 2nd 2007 4:49PM
Also, putting together a PUG or guild group to run a Heroic is probably easier than putting together one for Kara.
gundamxzero Oct 2nd 2007 4:11PM
This is an awesome change. most of us that raid kara dont have time to run heroics. On top of that I dont run heroic groups outside the guild anyways so who cares if its harder, PuGs suck anyways.
duanpablo Oct 2nd 2007 4:12PM
Try being on a low pop server in najzatar and finding groups for heroics now. If less players need to go then it will be harder for casual players to get them. I guess I can just keep doing daily quests everyday till it feels like a job. I just think that it gave players more of a reason to run heroics. Now it wont. Even with more loot. Also Blizzard has done nothing for our server najzatar and the economy stinks and we loose people everyday. Please HELP!
iamabanana Oct 2nd 2007 4:15PM
I'm curious as to whether they'll be adding additional rewards for heroic badges. I mean I've spent 91 badges already, have another 15 or so in the bank, and I'm out of things to buy. I suppose I can buy the +FR gear, but it just doesn't seem worth it to me.
deviationer Oct 2nd 2007 4:16PM
I view the heroics as something for people who don't want to raid or can't because of real life things
deviationer Oct 2nd 2007 4:17PM
there for giving it to the raiders is nice, nice it will help fill those few pieces of gear that you can't get in kara or just won't freaking drop
navalpha Oct 2nd 2007 4:22PM
This is truely awesome news.
I'm in a hardcore raiding guild and as soon as the raids are over,poeple PVP or go farm. They never wanna do heroics. So with so many craftables needing Primal Nethers, this is going to drop prices a lot and its a good thing. A free nether every time i do a full kara in 2 hours? yes please!
Cascade Oct 2nd 2007 4:23PM
Kara is once a week for 9 or 10 badges (dunno about chess). Heroics are daily, H-mech is 5 badges in about 70 min.
If you need a bunch, you still need heroics, but for those in guilds with Kara on farm (full clear in
Scadam Oct 2nd 2007 4:24PM
I think this is a fantaastic change. I'm one of the more overgeared members of my current guild and we happen to be just clearing Kharazan. There are very few upgrades left for me in Kara, and even shards go to the guild bank, so I'm footing a flask / consumables / repair bill with nothing but rep to show for it (and that'll be exalted soon anyway).
I like helping guildies and I chose this guild to remain with friends, but it sure is nice to have something to look forward to in Kara again.
Lets face it, Kara is the most popular instance, for whatever reason and alignment of the stars, it just is. So they're making it more fun for those of us bored running it. Likely the troll instance will be its successor, so this is all good news.
hehe Oct 2nd 2007 4:24PM
How about being able to use them to buy your Tier 4 pieces, might be another alternative to getting Tier 4 gear to help with progression into 25man instances, people will still have to spend the time earning badges to get pieces that either never drop (we have yet to have the warlock tier 4 gloves drop for us off Curator) or just to speed up collection of that 5 piece set
Cascade Oct 2nd 2007 4:28PM
X cut off X
regardless of the state of heroics, if the new Zul loot is as good as TK / SSC...it will be th eplace to be. If not, its just a ZG repeat waiting to die.
Aeracura Oct 2nd 2007 4:26PM
There will be daily quests in normal ánd heroic dungeons, giving xp and gold (and maybe rep, can't remember), so that will be an incentive to run heroics.
Gimmlette Oct 2nd 2007 6:11PM
@4 Good point. If badges drop off Kara denizens, after you've spent your badges on all the stuff you want, what do you do with them? The same is true of Halaa tokens and Argent Dawn tokens. I got the one thing I wanted from each group, now what do I do with the leftover tokens? I'm the point person for the guild members going through Scholo and I enjoy PVP-ing in Halaa so I'm still getting tokens. It would be nice to be able to get something rare with the extras. Plus, in the case of the Argent Dawn, it would make that quest chain more meaningful rather than something fun. (Scholo is still my favorite instance.)
Nluvnit Oct 7th 2007 3:48PM
Actually, I look at it this way. As a Kara raider, I don't usually have much time to run Heroics as others may have. This will allow me to finally get those badges.
For others that are not Kara raiding they can still get badges from the heroics. And they won't be dropping like candy from Kara either. How many bosses? 9 off the top of my head? That's 1 more than what you'd get off of 2 mech runs? Our guild doesn't raid all night. We take 2 evenings to clear Kara for our group. I could run 3 or 4 Mechs in that time so it's not like we'll be swimming in badges.
Now I suppose for those that play all day, raid Kara, run heroics, etc. Now those types may be swimming in badges.
Subjectv Oct 2nd 2007 9:23PM
ZA loot won't be as good as TK/SSC. That would make TK and SSC useless.
Oblivion Oct 2nd 2007 4:43PM
I think there will still be a lot of people wanting/needing to run heroic instances. I'm sure there will be a lot of new gear to be purchased with badges. We've already been told the new PvP trinket is bought that way (I'm still not thrilled that I have to do PvE stuff for a my PvP trinket). Furthermore, I’m sure there are a lot of people that would rather do a quick Mech run for 3 badges than spend 3+ hours in Kara for 10 or 12 or whatever it is. A lot of people don't have time to raid, plain and simple.
Also, the inclusion of dungeon based daily quests should stimulate everyone's desires to run heroics as well.
john3103 Oct 2nd 2007 4:45PM
I kinda wish they would extend the heroic-badge idea.
Why not have a 'badge of valor' or something drop off of the prince/nightbane, that can be used to purchase better-than-heroic stuff?
The point is that waiting on completely random loot drops kinda sucks. The badge-of-justice ideas was GREAT, but give us some more options to pick and choose gear!
Dipstick Oct 2nd 2007 4:54PM
I might have to dabble in some PvE in order to fill in some missing Retribution pieces - dependent on what the new bits and pieces are of course.
Tiforix Oct 2nd 2007 5:12PM
I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Tigole said at Blizzcon that G'eras (the vendor who sells gear for badges) will have new items, especially for Moonkins.
For me it can't come soon enough.