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Blinded Iraq war vet raids with a little helpVaneras clarifies Ulduar emblems
by Eliah Hecht 
Apr 9th 2009 at 6:00PM
There has been a certain amount of confusion about what exactly is going on with emblems in Ulduar. We've known for a while that Emblems of Valor, which currently drop from 25-man Naxxramas, are going to drop in 10-man Ulduar, and that Ulduar-25 is going to drop a new badge: Emblem of Conquest. However, there were some rumors that the EoVs from Uld-10 would be a different "color" than the EoVs from Naxx-25, enabling purchase of some gear for the new EoVs that would not be buyable with the Naxx-25 EoVs. There have also been various theories about whether Tier 8 tokens would be buyable with emblems, like some of the T7 tokens are now.
Vaneras has gone and clarified these questions and more, in a FAQ post on the European forums. I'll try to distill the information that I found useful into a few bullet points.
- The EoVs in Uld-10 are the same as the ones from Naxx-25, and let you buy the same rewards.
- Relics from Naxx-25 are being added to the EoV quartermasters; nothing else is being added to them at this time.
- Tier 8.5 gear tokens (chest and helm) will be buyable with EoCs (from Uld-25). Tier 8.0 gear tokens will not be buyable in any way.
- There will be a new EoC quartermaster with the two 8.5 tokens and additional ilvl 226 gear for purchase.
The justification for T8.0 not being buyable for tokens is that they didn't want current Naxx-25 raiders stockpiling huge numbers of EoVs to buy stuff on the 3.1 release. This does make some sense, although there are other routes they could have gone with it. Anyway, it's good to have clarification.
Filed under: Items, News items, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Blake Apr 9th 2009 6:07PM
The problem is, we don't even need to farm Naxx25, we already have too many emblems of Valor and nothing to spend them on. Maybe classes with more specs have them, but as a mage, and with the two pieces of Tier 8.5 dropping during normal runs, there's absolutely nothing of interest for Valor badges.
His only suggestion in that thread was to convert Valor to Heroism at a 1:1 ratio and sell the Frozen Orbs. Maybe if there were a bracer market, the emblems would be worth something, but no one's spending with 3.1 coming out so soon.
Viper007Bond Apr 9th 2009 9:25PM
Buy the BoE bracers for 60 BoV and sell them on the AH. I've sold multiple ones of them -- they go for 2000-3000g on my server each.
Kassu Apr 10th 2009 4:09AM
This is complete BS.
Emblems of Valour are totally useless if you have your 7.5 shoulders and legs. Now we have a scenario in which you are running a T8 dungeon and using its emblems to buy T7.5 gear.
They should have added 2 new token types. Everyone running Ulduar-10, including my guild, is totally ******.
Sarlack Apr 9th 2009 6:07PM
The first question I have is:
Will we be able to turn in 1 EoC to get 1 EoV!?!
*face palm*
sephirah Apr 9th 2009 7:02PM
Items you can buy with EoC from the vendor in dalaran:
runed orb
necks
belts
gloves
legs
deadly pvp gear
head and chest T8.5 tokens
EoV
romiress Apr 9th 2009 6:08PM
Perfect timing!
I'm going to go convert my valor emblems to heroism so I can finally get my wooly mammoth!
James Apr 9th 2009 6:17PM
sweet, ten man raiders get boned in the ass because we can't find 15 more skilled players to raid with on any given night.
way to make every single small but skilled guild feel completely worthless.
looks like my guild will be merging soon
/sigh
Falcom Apr 9th 2009 6:25PM
ulduar 10 will still drop i219 gear, which is an upgrade from naxx25 gear. Just nothing to gain from emblems.
sephirah Apr 9th 2009 6:43PM
Do you realize that in a 10 men raid you've 1 out of 10 chance of winning a roll for a tier token and in a 25 men only 1 out of 25 so you'll probably get your T8 faster than someone who do only 25 men?
Oh wait, a day isn't complete for the average WoW player if he doesn't QQ about something...
rosencratz Apr 9th 2009 6:44PM
.... but if your a ten man raider then surely you have the tier 7.25 gear to buy for the EoV's you get from Ulduar 10 right? as well as all the other good EoV gear to be purchased there.... because you only do ten mans. So how are you getting boned?
I don't get the problem. upgrades aren't upgrades because they're not the best upgrades possible?
epsilon343 Apr 9th 2009 8:39PM
Agreed. Not only can I not get my foot in the door by using the EoVs that I'll be grabbing from Ulduar-10 to buy a few T8 tokens, my guild is getting shit on because I don't want to herd cats and run 25 mans.
For the longest time Blizzard has been saying that there shouldn't be a difference between the two raiding tiers and lets guilds run 10 or 25 man content. Yet here they are, shoehorning 10 man raiders into the existing 25 man tier and hamstringing our ability to gear up.
Blizzard is CLEARLY drawing a line in the sand between the two groups and is basically forcing those who want to be on the cutting edge of gear to bump up to 25 mans. In no way am I asking to get 25 man gear in a 10 man raid, but I don't see why I have to, in all honesty, do more work to get the same gear.
This is idiotic and seems like a complete oversight on the part of Blizzard. Would it have been that hard to implement a new complete tier of tokens to the new raids instead of taking the easy way out and just creating a new one? I shouldn't be surprised, Blizzard seems to be walking around with their fingers in their ears saying "lalalalala" as they tinker with classes and kill mana regeneration...
Angus Apr 10th 2009 8:29AM
"Do you realize that in a 10 men raid you've 1 out of 10 chance of winning a roll for a tier token and in a 25 men only 1 out of 25 so you'll probably get your T8 faster than someone who do only 25 men?"
Yea, not like the 25 mans drop 2 tokens per boss. Not like my 10 man raids went 2 full weeks with only seeing the DK token and none of the others. With only 1 token and a raid comp where you won't have multiples of classes on every token it means you are pretty much losing time gearing up people.
I still don't have shoulders because the token has dropped a grand total of twice. 3 months of farming that place, seeing the shoulder token drop on Gluth multiple times and I've seen it drop twice.
My guild finally started 25 mans. We are gearing up a lot better. The fights are much easier, we can gear up weaker players and as long as you aren't brain dead enough to wipe the raid with a poison cloud the bosses go down without much effort. Seriously, it is MUCH easier in 25 man.
James is right. Not letting 10 mans have the gear available is stupid. After all, they could walk into Naxx the very first week of the game wearing 2 pieces of tier. I know people that did. They were running heroics day 3, and in tier day 5 so that 1 week after LK was released I saw server first OS and Naxx clears.
So why is it okay to allow folks to gear up in tier with heroics, but not with naxx 25?
JDM Apr 10th 2009 3:17PM
@sephirah: Something about your math is waaaay off. First of all, you don't have to roll against the entire group for your tier token - only a couple of classes are on the thing.
And, even if you -did- have to roll against everyone, the 25-man bosses drop twice as many tokens, resulting in the same or better (if 2 of your classes' tokens drop) odds of getting your gear.
The only reason a 10-man raid would get gear faster is that the content is generally easier/quicker to run - where the 25-man may take longer to progress through.
Spyker Apr 9th 2009 6:18PM
So, there's officially no point in running 5-mans any more? I wonder if Blizz has thought that through all the way...
Falcom Apr 9th 2009 6:22PM
pretty much, aside from BoA gear for leveling alts. EoH, and EoV are both pretty much pointless now it seems.
foodlion Apr 9th 2009 6:33PM
Honestly, it seems to reason that heroics should be near pointless to someone geared in i213+ gear. At that level it is hardly a challenge, but more of a faceroll. It would be counter-intuitive for Blizz to offer progression level rewards for blasting through outgeared content (see BC Quel'Danas gear).
Simply, put they are the first tier of lvl 80 progression and they should be seen as such (though i will concede that the under-tuned raids make it possible to forgo them entirely).
The only reasonable solution I can think of would be to retune them to t8 level making a 3rd difficulty setting.
rosencratz Apr 9th 2009 6:52PM
Really depends what stage of progression someone is at. EoH are still useful for those starting out in 10 mans. Even 3 months from now some guilds will only just be starting there or some players.
Meanwhile EoV will still be usefull for giving the 10 man players some 25 player iLevel gear naxx equivalents to help spruce them up for Ulduar 10 man(because as 10-man runners they'd only have 10-man naxx iLevel gear otherwise.)
The BoA and BoE items exist to give added purpose to spare emblems.
No one said tier 8 would be sold for EoV people just assumed that would happen and have gotten bitter that their risky investment hasn't awarded them with gear to faceroll through Ulduar with.
Task Apr 9th 2009 6:28PM
Sarlack, since they said there was no way they would allow EoH to EoV, I presume they won't allow 1 EoC to get 1 EoV.
Corazu Apr 9th 2009 6:49PM
EoC is above EoV...They allowed the EoV->EoH so people could still trade their valour for useful stuff after they bought everything, since EoH can buy Frozen orbs, gems, BoA stuff etc. EoC will be able to buy the new orbs, but I'd like to see them have EoC->EoV, 1:1 just like EoV->EoH is...there's nothing wrong with it really..
miked Apr 9th 2009 6:57PM
Sarlac is asking to trade down (EoC -> EoV), like you can currently with EoV -> EoH.
What you've mentioned is trading up.