Blizzard did the wrong thing with Ulduar-10 emblems
by Eliah Hecht 
Apr 10th 2009 at 1:00PM
As we posted yesterday, it has been made very clear at this point that Emblems of Valor are the emblems that are going to drop in the 10-man version of Ulduar, while the 25-man version will drop the entirely new Emblems of Conquest. Nothing is being added to the EoV vendors aside from the relics that drop in Naxx-25.
In other words, 10-man raids are basically getting glossed over, and 25-man raiders are getting all the new shinies.
Where 25-man raiders get an entirely new quartermaster with access to gear on par with normal-mode Uld-25 drops (ilvl 226), as well as two of their tier 8.5 tokens, we get recycled EoV gear that was originally meant for Naxx-25 raiders. This is gear that is half a tier worse than the gear that drops in Uld-10 normal mode (ilvl 213 vs 219), and there is no way for us to buy our tier 8.0 gear with emblems, at all.
Add this to the fact that Val'anyr (the new legendary healer mace) is a 25-man exclusive, and I'm one annoyed raider. They have been saying all along that they want 10-man and 25-man to be separate progression paths. I'm starting to think it's no coincidence that they left out "but equal;" it's becoming more and more apparent that 10-man progression is meant to be significantly worse than 25-man progression.
The major argument that Blizz has been giving against putting T8.0 gear for purchase by EoVs is that they don't want 25-man guilds stockpiling hundreds of emblems in order to rush out and buy stuff on the 3.1 release - they want to depart from the Burning Crusade model of badge farming. That seems like a good idea to me, but the thing to do would have been to introduce a new kind of emblem just for Uld-10, with trading-down to EoVs. Let's call them Emblems of Awesome, or EoAs for short.
10-man raiders would then get their EoAs out of Uld-10, which they could use to buy T8.0 pieces, just like 25-man raiders buy their pieces with EoCs. Ideally there would also be some new pieces on the EoA vendor, with the appropriate ilvl, 219. And if Uld-10 raiders wanted to go buy some EoV stuff, they could trade their EoAs down to EoVs (and then again down to EoHs in case they needed heirlooms or something).
But no, they didn't do this. They recycled the EoV stuff, and decided that it was fine to make us rely on boss drops for tier gear, and to get gear 6 ilvls lower than our drops in exchange for our badges. I'm very disappointed. I was really hoping that in Wrath 10- and 25-mans would be on an equal footing, but once again it seems that only the largest groups are considered first-class raiders. Shame.
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 14)
Jimbob Apr 10th 2009 1:05PM
ZOMG FIRST
Jason Apr 10th 2009 1:09PM
Double your failure, double our fun.
shiloh Apr 10th 2009 1:05PM
I concur.
Memzer Apr 10th 2009 1:24PM
I disagree.
"In other words, 10-man raids are basically getting glossed over, and 25-man raiders are getting all the new shinies."
Blizzard have stressed that 10 man Ulduar will be a lot easier than the 25 man version. Blizzard have also said that 10 man hard man loot will be better than Ulduar 25 man normal loot.
I fail to see a problem with Blizzard rewarding better gear for harder content.
Kakistocracy Apr 10th 2009 1:32PM
They also stressed that Nax 25 would be harder than Nax 10, and we all saw how that worked out (and before that, they said that the real difference would be the number of people you need to bring).
Manatank Apr 10th 2009 1:38PM
"In other words, 10-man raids are basically getting glossed over, and 25-man raiders are getting all the new shinies."
Except that true 10-man raiders haven't had access to the valor badge loot gear yet, so it will be new to them.
I think this qq is pathetic.
mediumsizedrob Apr 10th 2009 2:02PM
The ironic thing is that they're making it a lot more impressive to get a full set of 10 man gear since you won't be getting it with tokens, you'll have to rely on drops like the old days. That takes a lot more dedication and time in most cases.
As for rewarding better gear for harder content, I believe the difference in difficulty is what many people are complaining about. 10 man raids don't want easier content, they just don't want to have to deal with a bunch of people who they wouldn't be spending time with if it wasn't for purple pixels.
Arkeband Apr 10th 2009 2:05PM
@Manatank:
Exactly. OP, read the above statement. If you were getting badges of valor, you were already running 25-man content, so there should be no reason you can't run 25-man content in 3.1. This article is chock full of dumb.
Ted Apr 10th 2009 2:08PM
You know what? 10 man raiding is not casual, it's just scaled down. It's for people that don't need a jerk screaming "moar dots" in their ears through vent and would rather talk with everyone on skype (which maxes out at 10 people).
It's for smaller groups and honestly, it's crap that there isn't an equal, but lower, path for people that honestly prefer the smaller 10 man format. Drop Valy'nar shards at 40% the rate of the 25 man.
Create a ghetto Emblems, or at least throw in T8 emblems and damn the token buildup. It's a ghetto-ization of 10 man content right now.
Clevins Apr 10th 2009 2:19PM
@memzer - let's see a blue post that claims Uld-10 will be a lot easier (aside from the obvious scaling stuff to account for fewer dps in 10 than 25). You won't find it because they've never said any such thing.
@manatank - don't be an idiot. The valor stuff is worse than what drops in the new raid and there's no access to T8 at all. If Blizz wants the 2 paths to be equally legit all they need to do is have separate emblems for each 10 and 25. If this keeps up the 10 man raids will always get significantly worse badge loot than the 25s where you can gear from boss drops AND buy gear at the level of the raid you're doing.
Bottom line - Blizzard is getting lazy on the details. There's no reason for not putting in a new emblem type with matching gear and vendors for Ulduar 10... they just cut corners.
rosencratz Apr 10th 2009 2:50PM
Personally I think Blizzard have done the perfectly logical thing with Emblems.
It's a shame there's no legendary item for 10-man but it's still logical. Blizzard have stressed that 10 man Ulduar WILL be easier whilst simultaneusly stressing that 10 man naxx was unintentionally harder than 25 man here and there.
We can't make demands of Blizzard with the assumption that their design process is inherantly flawed when they identify the past mistake whilst designing the future content. With this in mind, why would the easier raid require a legendary item?
Kassu Apr 10th 2009 2:56PM
Wow most of the repliers must be blind.
Nobody said anything about the gear that DROPS in Ulduar10.
The author (and me) is angry because Ulduar10 bosses will drop tokens that trade in for gear that is INFERIOR to the loot from Ulduar10.
You are running a Tier8 raid and you use the emblems to buy T7.5 gear. Ergo, this shit is broken.
Kevin Gass Apr 10th 2009 3:20PM
Wow I agree everyone is just QQ'ing. This article is just like saying Emblem of Heroism should drop in Naxx 10
hold up Apr 10th 2009 3:25PM
@Memzer
You might claim that 10 Mans are easier than 25 mans, but then you would be completely wrong, sir. Plenty of people will tell you that Sarth+3 is extremely harder on 10 man than on 25 man.
I completely agree with the poster. This is a big "Eff You" to the 10 man raiders. And I'm part of a hardcore 25 man only raiding guild that has cleared all content on hard mode. We don't even bother with 10 mans just because they are a complete waste of time now.
10 mans are basically the consolation feature for raiders who can't work on preset raid times. Either make 10 mans easier, make 25 mans harder, or give the proper loot for the proper level of skill needed to do a full clear. Since Ulduar 10 has the same iLvl as Naxx 25 then what they are saying is they should be equal in difficultly.
Blizzard did the wrong with with Ulduar 10...
Grubba Apr 10th 2009 4:25PM
After reading pages and pages of the comments on this article, I can't believe how many people completely missed the intended point.
In simplest terms, here it is: we don't want to have to buy inferior gear with our 10-man Ulduar Valor badges.
25-man Ulduar raiders will be able to buy gear equivalent to what Heroic Ulduar bosses will drop with the new badges if they have bad luck with RNG. That's one of the reasons the badge system exists. 10-man Ulduar raiders will NOT be able to do the same thing, because the gear on the Valor vendor is inferior to what will be dropping from bosses in normal Ulduar.
Implementing a new badge for Ulduar-10 would have easily prevented 25-man raiders from stockpiling Valor badges to buy tier 8 gear on the first day of the 3.1 patch, which is the only justification Blizzard has given for not making two pieces of tier 8 gear available to 10-man raiders.
@rosencratz
"Blizzard have stressed that 10 man Ulduar WILL be easier whilst simultaneusly stressing that 10 man naxx was unintentionally harder than 25 man here and there.
We can't make demands of Blizzard with the assumption that their design process is inherantly flawed when they identify the past mistake whilst designing the future content. With this in mind, why would the easier raid require a legendary item?"
You're paraphrasing Blizzard's statements to fit what you want it to fit, but it's not entirely accurate. They have NEVER "stressed" that normal Ulduar is going to be easier than heroic. They said "probably," and that's the extent of it.
You ask why we feel like we can state that their process is flawed when they acknowledge their mistakes. We can say it because they did not set out from the beginning to make 25 man Naxx easier to do than 10 man Naxx, but that's how it ended up. They have time and time again started processes with their stated goals upfront and have had to go back and readjust and readjust and readjust some more to achieve the goals they were shooting for, and in some cases, they've had to just move on and start working on the next thing without ever making it. Looking back and saying "yeah, we messed up there" does not in any way guarantee that future mistakes won't be made.
It's a ridiculously complex system, and thinking that mistakes won't be made would be foolish. They have made many in the past and, and leaving 10-man raiders to purchase inferior gear with their badges is going to be one of the items on that list.
chaos spawn Apr 10th 2009 4:30PM
the point> . you ---------> .
The issue is not that the 25man has overall higher ilvl gear, but that the badges can be used to buy gear equivalent to that of what the boss drops, making them actually useful and potentially a few BiS pieces (especially with tier tokens available). With 10man, the badge loot will be inferior to the loot that drops from bosses, making it useless except as a stopgap for filling in pieces (and even then only debatably so). Furthermore, 10man raiders won't be able to buy new tier8 tokens, making the proposition worse. This could be easily fixed in two ways, either 1)add new items for the emblems of valor that are equivalent to Uldar10 gear, or 2)use an exclusive 10man badge.
Julie Apr 10th 2009 4:47PM
I concur as well :/
It is annoying that they finally make 10-man content available. (which is a much more manageable number for the kind of people who are attracted to WoW) Only to make 10-man content the redheaded stepchild :/
* Currently, 25-man content is easier than 10-man. 25-man has been so easy, in fact, that even if you're a casual raider you can PUG 25-man content every day of the week. (and twice on weekends, ha) That has resulted in two problems. First, you don't have a reason to run 10-mans; as its the same dungeons with worse gear, at the price of more individual effort. And second, when you get 25-man gear and then head to 10-mans, it makes the whole process pointless.
* On top of that, consider that 10-mans only drop emblems of heroism. The same badges you can farm from heroics >.< And there's not even a badge reason to do 10-man raids.
* Now in Ulduar, they are doing the same thing. They have made the rewards in 10-man not as interesting. And they have made the badges more or less worthless to gather.
This is what I think they should have done:
...Emblems of Valor should have dropped from 10-man Naxx, OS, VOA, Eye. ...Emblems of Conquest drop from 25-man Naxx, OS, VOA, Eye... The price might have needed to be raised. But the point is, you don't work toward the same i-level gear. You work toward -better- gear. So someone doing Naxx 10 would prepare themselves to run Naxx 25 or Ulduar 10. Whereas someone doing Naxx 25 would prepare themselves for Ulduar 25. (I know this is what Blizz is trying to do, but they are failing. The people doing Naxx 10 could just have skipped it. *cough* heroics. And jumped straight into Naxx 25) Then of course with Ulduar, you would release new badges for 10 and 25 man. Or else you could simply reset badges so people don't stockpile them.
epsilon343 Apr 10th 2009 4:54PM
Blizzard really dropped the ball in this whole situation. 10 man raiders are being discriminated against to such a high level that it's not even funny. We're being told that the REAL raiding is the 25 mans and the 10 man raids are just kind of there for all of us noobs who can't seem to find 15 other people to run with. Despite the fact that all 10 man content has proven to be more difficult and requires more coordination than their 25 man counterparts.
10 man raids should be a separate progression path from 25 mans, not getting the leftovers as we bump up to the next tier. Except now I can't purchase anything of a higher iLevel because Blizzard in their infinite wisdom has decided that we now need to earn all of our gear through drops from bosses while 25 man raiders can go ahead and use their new EoCs to buy new gear AND their Tier 8.5 pieces. Can I do that? Nooooope...I get to purchase the leftover iLevel213 shit from Naxx25 that I didn't run very often.
And then on here we get to see all of these 25 man raiders getting freaked out because (heresy, I know) 10 man raiders are getting the short end of the stick and hate hearing people say that their raids are much easier. I have to agree with the author of this piece, the raid progression is no longer separate but equal. Blizzard has made it quite clear that raid progression is separate and they don't have the time to work on 10 man progression with the same level of interest as the 25 man.
Manatank Apr 10th 2009 5:02PM
I'm sad that people raid for the gear instead of raiding for the raiding. All this qq is based on not getting the gear they want. Hey, did it occur to you that maybe the current valor gear is good enough to do Ulduar10? Upgrades are upgrades, and as long as the content is tuned properly, wearing 2 pieces of tier 7.5 will be sufficient.
It isn't like it won't be possible for 10 man raiders to get full T8 if they want it for set bonuses, or aesthetics. Guess what else, in some cases T7 is itemized better than T8, and wearing T7.5 will be better than wearing T8. Having two 2 piece set bonuses has always been a viable strategy as well.
I can say that I'd love as a 25 man raider to have the option to wear 2 pieces of a slightly better version of T7.5 and 2 pieces of T8.5. 10 man raiders have this option, and I don't. Maybe I should be qqing.
The bottom line is that the difference between iLevel 213 and iLevel 219 is very small (smaller than the gap between T7 and T7.5), and with gaps that small it is very possible for an item that is 213 to out perform one that is 219 if it is itemized properly.
For good or bad, Blizzard has decided to tune 10 man raiding lower than 25 man, and hence the gear requirements are lower. 25 man raiders don't just get better rewards, they NEED better rewards. If ulduar 10 doesn't need full T8, then there is nothing wrong with not making it easy to get full T8.
Why do I care? I don't want Blizzard to give in to the qq and provide my guildies a justification to drag me back to Naxx25 ever again. Do I think it is fair that I will be able to buy T8.5 with badges and 10 man raiders can't buy T8? I guess it does seem a little off. Here's the thing though, I'd much prefer Blizzard remove my option to buy T8.5 than to let valor badges buy T8.
Para Apr 10th 2009 5:03PM
Unfortunatly what most people happen to forget is that badge gear is ment to be filler gear, you get this stuff ontop of raiding its not ment to replace the actual loot from raiding blizz have said this themselves.
This is good because it means content lasts longer and we dont see things like in tbc where you could farm badges and get near top end gear for slots from badges for kara and the like. People are complaining for no reason there wont be a problem so just suck it up remember the times when there were no badges? Content is cleared from the loot from bosses not the badges calm down people and move on.