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Bornakk: Next Blizzcast to include talk on the status of badge loot in WoTLK
One of the biggest and most successful features of Burning Crusade has been the inclusion of Badges of Justice. Especially in 2.4, these badges have allowed even relatively casual players to get their hands on gear that comes close to the same stuff raiders are able to pull out of end game instances. While the system seems to have been mostly a success, there's still some question as to how it will evolve in WoTLK. The current 2.4 badge loot seems to have been created in part to allow a smoother gear transition between BC and WoTLK for both casuals and ubers, with badges dropping out of 10-man instances and the most powerful badge gear yet. But the question is, will this continue in WoTLK? Will we see badges off of Naxxramas' 10-man version (perhaps earning it the name Badgeramas)? Will we see loot purchasable from a Dalaran vendor that will be comparable to what raiders are pulling out of Icecrown Glacier? Or will they dial it back, or maybe not even include the badge loot system at all?
How many Badges of Justice do you need?
So with the new badge gear vendor showing up on the 2.4 PTR, I know a lot of people who are getting a little bit of shell shock seeing just how many Badges of Justice they'll need to get that gear. At this point, I've got two words for them: Don't Panic. You'll have plenty of time. With 2.4 likely needing at least another month or so to go live, and then at least a few more weeks before most servers do enough dailies to unlock the vendor, I'm betting on somewhere around a good 10 weeks before we're even able to spend the badges we gather. In 10 weeks, you can gather a lot of badges starting right now, and add a few more badge gaining methods when 2.4 itself goes live. Let's look at the options for collecting badges and see how much bang for your buck they give you after the jump. Hopefully, almost everyone can find themselves able to do at least one of them, and we can all look forward to fitting ourselves out when we finally make it to the Sun's Reach Armory.
For great (Badge of) Justice!
The other night my guild stepped into a heroic instance for the first time. Now this isn't great news for those of you who already spend your weekend nights huggling Gruul, but it's a great accomplishment for us. Since we all have the Coilfang Resevoir key we started with Slave Pens, and I must say it was a joy to have challenge in that instance again. It felt like I had been given the instance back, as it were. If I were to walk into Slave Pens at the normal level I would feel little interest since it's tuned for 62-64. I finally understand the method behind the heroic dungeon concept, to allow level 70 players to have fun going to those dungeons again. But what I'd really like is heroic dungeon settings for the old instances in Azeroth. Can you imagine what Van Cleef would be like at level 70? It makes me giddy just to think of it. We only got as far as the first boss, and then the trash beat us to a complete pulp before exhaustion forced us to quit. I really was surprised how the tides shift with heroics. I have a hard time reconciling trash mobs who are impossible to kill and bosses who are manageable. Either way I am excited to have such a novel experience added to our game play. Whoever came up with the concept of heroic dungeons was brilliant. I have my first Badge of Justice, now. Only 112 to go.
Ask WoW Insider: Heroic instance difficulty
Welcome once again to Ask WoW Insider, a weekly column that publishes your questions for our readers to answer. This week's question comes from Maedhras of Mannoroth, who wants to know the difficulty order of the heroic dungeons: Here's the question that has me hesitating to take my friends into heroic instances. What is the correct order of difficulty of Heroic Instances? Is it in any way related to their non-Heroic level (ie. Ramparts would be the easiest, with Arcatraz being the hardest?) (I shudder at the idea of the 2 Sentinel pull in Heroic Arcatraz). From what I've heard, the non-Heroic level is no indication, but I've been able to clear ramparts (what a scam btw, the last boss does not give a badge) and got my buttocks neatly handed to me in a Red Gift Packaging Ribbon in Steam Vaults. So what's the dealio? Also, where does Kharazan come in, difficulty wise? Which heroics do you find the easiest and most difficult? What would you suggest for players just starting out doing heroics? And relatedly, which do you find much harder than their normal counterparts, and which relatively similar? Got questions? Hit us up at ask AT wowinsider DOT com, and we may just publish yours next week.
