I'm sure you all know that recently a new boss has been added to the Vault of Archavon instance going by the name of Emalon the Storm Watcher. He's a tier higher than Archavon, meaning he drops Tier 8 in 10 man, and 8.5 in 25 man. He also drops whatever the new PvP gear is, but I don't PvP often enough to know what that's called :X
Now Vault of Archavon in general I've always had an issue with. The main problem was simply this: It doesn't make sense. A ton of issues arise when you actually think about VoA.
Let's talk about Archavon specifically for a second. As long as you control Wintergrasp you can fight him once a week, and your faction WILL control Wintergrasp at least once a week. Now, Archavon is an incredibly easy boss. I know it, you know it, we all know it. An incredibly easy boss that drops great loot. Tier 7 and 7.5 and whatever that PvP gear is. Blizzard said that if you had trouble getting a piece or 2 of your tier gear that they would allow you to buy it with badges, so that kicks that excuse out of the running as to why his loot is so great.
Now let's focus on Emalon, the tier 8 boss. He's harder than Archavon. What I want to emphasize there is hardER. He is not Hard, he's in fact VERY easy if both sides of your brain are working, and Blizzard thinks that he should have the same level of loot that Ulduar has? Ulduar IS Hard, it's finely tuned, sure there are some nerfs here and there but all in all it's challenging. It just absolutely does not make sense for players to be able to recieve loot because they can't clear the harder content that drops it.
Basically Blizzard is awarding players for being bad at the game. I'm sorry, but it's true. What they're saying is "Oh you can't clear this 14 boss dungeon that's great in design and tuned correectly? Oh well here ya go then, you can have the loot anyway."
All this applies to PvP gear as well. I never PvP, and honestly I'm bad at it, but I could easily walk into VoA and grab some gear that I really don't deserve. I'm sure all that gear has rating requirements that I wouldn't dream of meeting. That's what it boils down to, Emalon and Archavon are Blizzards way of giving players gear that they don't deserve.
In the end, I hope Blizzard gets their head together before Icecrown. They say they want everyone to be able to see the content they release, yet they release content and then give away all the reasons for seeing it anyway. Heres a thought: Make real raids (such as Ulduar) on a higher tier level than VoA. That way players can still be content because they get purples, but players that have actually cleared the hard content will have their own, better set of gear. You could say they've done this with 10 and 25 mans, but they haven't. 25 mans aren't harder they just require more people. You could also say they've done this with Hard modes, and that's a closer step toward it, but it isn't a higher tier of armor, it's just some extra epics. Tier gear should be the end all be all of armor in this game and it's being handed out like free samples at Walmart.
My final thoughts: Sunwell was a real achievement, and I hope to God that in the end of Wrath Blizzard won't be handing out gear from Arthas like they do with their current content.
All About Arthas Menethil
7 months ago
5 comments:
Very very true! Everyone and thier grandmother can get geared out in these instances. And now that Ulduar has been nerfed some I don't see them making things harder. Rather I see them dumbing things down which they honestly should not. L2P or gtfo I say. Well done on the post!
I disagree with the part about Ulduar being "hard", on easymode I fully expect pugs on my server to be clearing most if not all (apart from the final boss) within the next couple of months.
However, I actually like the idea of Vault of Archavon. All kinds of people play WoW and I'm not convinced that gear should just be given to those who have the ability to raid at the top levels. For example, not everyone can meet the average raid time, not everyone can commit for x number of hours per night.
Also compare the scale of the loot, in a full clear of Ulduar its likely every person in the raid will get one item per reset, on the other hand you could farm VoA in pugs for the next three months and get nothing (our guild for example only gets mage legs :p).
The way I see it, someone who plays for 1 hour a day getting a piece of tier 8.5 doesn't negatively effect my gameplay at all so why should I be upset or angry or feel my hard won loot is diminished.
@ Harpysnest
I agree to some extent, I do believe that players that aren't able to put the same amount of time into the game should have some way of getting loot. I just personally believe that it should be in some way less in quality than what the top end guilds are getting. Even if it's just slightly inferior.
My real point is that as of now theres the same ammount of reward for dedicating an hour or so to an easy raid boss and dedicating a lot more time to a much larger instance.
"same ammount of reward for dedicating an hour or so to an easy raid boss and dedicating a lot more time to a much larger instance."
Disagree, the real reward is killing the boss. Its struggling from 95 percent wipes whilst you discover exactly what happens when you stand in that cloud down to the 50 percent, 3 percent and then that moment when something that seems impossible a few hours ago is dead on the floor. Its watching your raid group get better, faster and quicker clears each week whilst having fun.
Gear is just the icing on the cake and I don't mind some one else having a chunk of frosting because there is plenty of actual cake to go around. Also it is lesser gear, as far as I know there is no 232/239 item level stuff available from VoA (too lazy to check). I think you just have to look at the hardmode loot as being the special stuff that sets hardcore raiders apart from everyone else.
But the other thing to consider is the speed of delivery. Someone who raids to a decent level, i.e. a guild capable of killing Yogg, will have full 226+ item level stuff way before the guy trying to get epics from VoA and given some of the whining my guildmates have done about PuG Emalon on their alts, I'm not convinced its always easy :D
Then you have to consider the BoE Ulduar drops. Our AH has at least 15 examples up atm and its only week 3 (we get seem to get 2-3 items per reset for example). In a way BoE stuff is worse than VoA because they don't even need to enter an instance to grab some pretty nice items.
I think if I was a hardcore arena player I would have more of an issue as I think handing out arena gear so easily rather makes a mockery of the ladder system.
But in conclusion if I consider my items from the last 3 weeks of raiding:
3 x VoA = 0. Not a single holy priest PvE item to be seen. Something like 4 mage PvE legs though.
3 resets of Ulduar = 6 brand new items.
So I'm going to argue that the gear reward is there. In 6 months time I still may have seen nothing I want/can use from VoA, but I can guarantee because of the way the token system/limited loot tables work I will have a pile of Ulduar loot.
Interesting discussion though and I know several of my guildmates loathe the concept of VoA for the reasons you outline.
Yes, I suppose we all have different opinions ^^ I favor gear while others favor the experience :) Without different opinions the world would be plain :D
Post a Comment