Patch 3.3: Emblems of Triumph to be the new base emblems
by Matt Low 
Oct 7th 2009 at 1:00PM
The floor is being raised again. Bornakk has stated that for the time being, the intent is to have everything that drops Emblems of Conquest drop Emblems of Triumph in patch 3.3. This will certainly players allow easier access to tier 9 level gear. Players who may not be at the upper tier of raiding will still gain access to the gear and weapons that will offer them a fighting chance against Arthas. Along with this change, quests like the heroic daily will drop the all new Emblem of Frost which will be the highest level emblem in the game. There are two other methods to obtain these emblems. The obvious route will be to take down Icecrown's raid bosses. The final method is to complete the new weekly raid quests that offer 10 Emblems as a reward for defeating a certain raid boss.
Hooray for accessibility!
Again, be advised that things may change and these aren't finalized.
Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 11)
Hendrata Oct 7th 2009 1:07PM
I have a petition. Please let the heroic daily rewards 4 emblems at at time but on a 48hr cooldown. As it is right now, 2 emblems per day is nice but that sorta forces us to log on daily, LFG, tolerate crap from PUG, and that's like 1 hr per day.
I know many of you will say "if you don't want to run it you don't have to" but that's beside the point. Having to run one dungeon per day is too straining, while having to run two dungeons every 2 days gives you more leeway in case RL stuff happens. I understand that this is the motivation behind the weekly raid quests, but still the heroic dailies will be a chore.
Jafari Oct 7th 2009 1:14PM
I would be satisfied if they'd just let you turn in two heroic dungeon quests a day. That way you can do yesterdays, and then pick up todays.
Or at least make the quests reset at the same time as the dungeons. It's annoying to wake up on Saturday all ready for the daily heroic, only to have already run it friday night and then have to wait for the lunchtime reset.
Rugus Oct 7th 2009 1:12PM
/vote
On my server (Shadowsong EU) we had UP 4 days in a row. I already hate grinding dailies in epic gear (annoying and not remunerative at all)... but doing the same instance 4 times in 4 days is dumb. I hate being forced to run heroics to collect emblems.
kami Oct 7th 2009 2:05PM
You aren't forced to run them, Rugus.
Gerik Oct 7th 2009 3:13PM
How about they change the heroic daily so that it gives you 500 emblems, but put it on a 6000 hour cooldown? Same thing, right?!? It's sooo annoying to have to play WoW, I'd much rather play it for only one hour every 250 days and be able to buy all the rewards at once.
SamLowry Oct 7th 2009 6:46PM
Well, I think it's easy to see who the teabaggers are on this board. Don't fall off the edge of the Earth, dudes.
I hate PvP as much as Rugus hates grinding daily heroics, but since I don't even have the time to do heroics, doing the WG quests once a week is the only way I can get purple gear. Once the Cataclysm changes to crafting come about, I hope we'll be able to change those resilience stats into something more useful.
SamLowry Oct 7th 2009 8:07PM
Though it's amusing enough to see Jafari voted up and Hendrata voted down for making the same exact suggestion, seeing Gerik's childish response voted up is a real knee-slapper. Looks like Gore Vidal's recent comments about this nation's increasing stupidity was spot on the mark.
Hendrata Oct 8th 2009 1:07AM
Not necessarily nation's increasing stupidity, but just the internet user's....
Majorfalcon Oct 13th 2009 8:37AM
Garok's response isnt childish. Its a parody of the first response that through absurdism teaches us just how stupid OP's request is. Thats why it is voted up.
Elmo Oct 7th 2009 1:07PM
Why does this have to be this complicated? they could have just introduced a new Badge of Justice at the start of WotLK and be done with it.
we started completely different but end up with the same system as in BC...
Treason Oct 7th 2009 2:29PM
Actually this is different than with BOJs. With the old style emblems, you could stockpile emblems. With the new scheme where you change types, it means that you have to play all the dungeons/whatevers again after the patch that upgrades the types.
I think the new system is much healthier for the game.
Eternauta Oct 7th 2009 3:02PM
Skill is way better than gear.
I can't stress this enough.
I has been extensively proved by Gevlon the Greedy Goblin (search in this blog: blue ulduar)
His guild cleared Ulduar 10 in FULL ILVL 200 BLUES.
Not even welfare epics, BLUES.
(enchanted a gemmed properly of course; but without using epic gems nor enchants that required abyss crystal).
Tankadin Oct 7th 2009 3:25PM
"I think the new system is much healthier for the game."
How is it healthier? I've had a red drake since 03-04-2009. Do you think I want to run these shitberg old instances for the edge it gives in current raid content? I don't.
Eternauta Oct 7th 2009 3:07PM
Sorry, it was a reply to the commenter below!
Damn WoW.com comment system >:(
Agerath Oct 7th 2009 8:41PM
Eternauta:
U10 is not even remotely challenging any more for people whose heads are screwed on straight.
Same goes for ToC10; the normal mode is laughable. People are clearing it before even getting to keepers in Ulduar.
Something is seriously wrong with the current system of raiding. You should not be able to clear the TOP TIER OF RAIDING CONTENT (it may not be heroic, but it's T9) in ilvl200s and in a couple of hours. T9 SHOULD NOT BE EASIER THAN T8!
We should not have to resort to 'GAME OVER! ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO BEAT THE HARD MODE?' tactics. This is not the arcade and this is not the 1980s.
The badge system will be all kinds of fucked up. Conquest is fine, because you can only get 4x tier pieces from the current system (2xT8.5, 2xT7.5) and a few off-set pieces. It's easy to spot.
Triumph, though? Everyone walking around in full T9 with T8.5 and T9-equiv off-set pieces? ToC will drop 15x in 10, 15x in 25, then 17x from Naxx 10, then say 30x from a round of heroics...Absolutely crazy! You'll be in full tier after a day's work!
And don't make me out to be some kind of elitist--I hate this word 'casuals'; a friend of mine GMs a guild full of 21+ players, all of whom have jobs, kids and real-world commitments. They raid two days a week and have cleared most current content, currently working on ToGC 25. They are very much 'casual' players--except that when they sit down, they make the most of their time and don't screw around.
Sitting at your computer 12 hours a day doing nothing but farming elementals or whatever isn't 'casual'. You shouldn't expect loot if you pour this much time into the game but spend it doing things other than raiding. If you want to do heroics, fine. Do heroics. If you want to farm elementals, fine. Do it! But don't piss and whine and expect to be handed the latest tier of raiding gear on a goddamn plate.
If you want to raid, then you need to put in an effort to become a good raider. And to those of you already firing up the ol' lightning fingers for the predictable 'it isn't a job!' response:
Look, if I wanted to be a race-car driver, I'd get my racing license and I'd pour thousands and thousands of pounds into my car, my gear, my team, and with a lot of hard work and time perhaps we'd become half-decent and maybe the rewards would pay off.
I wouldn't expect to be given the #1 trophy and a share of the spoils at the F1 because I drove to work at an average speed of 150mp/h. See what I mean?
It isn't a job, nor should you ever consider it to be so (unless you get paid for it, in which case kudos and enjoy). But my local hockey team play in an unprofessional league (read: they don't get paid) and mediocre as they are, I'm sure they'd be pretty pissed if West Popplington Under-12 Juniors were given the trophy this year because 'well, it's not fair to give the people who put in the most effort the spoils; it's not a JOB, after all....'.
Kara was very accessible, back in the day, and I don't see why people who don't have the tenacity to work their way to higher gear levels would begrudge those who had Sunwell on farm. Coming from someone who raided mainly low-level stuff in BC but is now farming the hardest content, I certainly didnt't. It gave me something to strive for and gave meaning to the 'grind'.
Now that triumph drops from the sky, though, you remove a lot of the motivation for doing the hard content and really all you have left is e-peen.
So, bref, what do we have? We have bad players being given a false sense of security by their gear, never learning how to raid properly because all of the encounters are tuned for gibbering idiots that get confused when you have to move.
We have an emblem system that encourages people farming the top tier of content to become more and more elitist as the gap between them and the 'scrubs' becomes less and less evident, and raiders bored out of their skulls staring at the same bosses over and over again for three months, churning out the content like some tick-list of 'yep...done that...next please!'.
It's totally fucked and needs a complete overhaul.
Chamual Oct 7th 2009 1:07PM
I know its about accessability but this really is welfare epics to the extreme, its like you don't have to do anything in WoW now and still get basically showered with new epics every couple of months.
There is no satisfaction in having a well gear toon anymore, you just have to take one step outside Dalaran and you have people throwing badges, emblems, tokens, and gold at you for every twig you manage to step on. There's like no challenge at all in anything in WoW anymore :\
QQ over....
Ilnara Oct 7th 2009 1:10PM
All it ever was before was 'if you had enough time'... now the instances can be geared towards skilled play, not just having an insane amount of time. Gearing up prior to these changes was no real feat of skill, it was time, we all know it, and the only people who cry about "Welfare" epics are just people who spend too much time playing this game.
Go outside dude.
Kajira Oct 7th 2009 1:12PM
"there is no satisfaction in having a well gear toon anymore"
Sorry, every time I hear this, I hear "there is less ability to be the only person with X piece of gear on in a city."
I take PLENTY of satisfaction in my well geared character. I like how the gear works, I like how the gear looks (for the most part - stupid t8 rogue helm), and I like that moment when I get it to drop / buy it and rig it for use. I don't have a need to base my satisfaction off what OTHER people are wearing as well.
The challenge you crave so much should just be shifted into your pride in your SKILL instead of your pride in your clothes, if you have to base your perception of worth on beating out others.
megamoo Oct 7th 2009 1:15PM
I feel OK concerning my main but shit my alt used to be fairly well geared and now it lags horribly since I gotta tend to my main so much. Add in some honest to god leveling on some alts and my lvl 80 alts barely see the light of day. I used to have a pretty stand up tanking war alt and its now outgeared by people who just recently hit 80.
Puh Oct 7th 2009 1:17PM
This is just how they do things.
As history shows so far, as one expansion winds down and another comes up on the horizon Blizzard makes gear more accessible to more people. In Vanilla they made PVP gear insanely easy to get. In BC they nerfed the heck out of raid instances allowing more people to experience the content.
Now, we are seeing the beginnings of this wind down/build up in Wrath. It's just following the pattern Blizzard has implemented so far in WoW.