The Game You Are Playing Is About To Change

You heard it here first, although you aren’t about to hear anything you shouldn’t already know.  Our bet is that patch 3.2 will be tomorrow, or at the very latest next week.  Actually I’m a little torn as to which I want.  We’ve been basically sitting on our thumbs for the last few weeks waiting on this one, but since I’ll be out of town for 4 days on wifi connections – urgh.

So don’t get all bent out of shape if the patch is NOT tomorrow, but IF you’ve been sitting on a huge pile of Titanium Ore (say one full guild bank tab), it’s something you need to know and act on (like tonight).  If you don’t have a huge pile of Titanium Ore it’s probably way too late to think of things like that.

But the one thing you do need to know has to do with emblems.  This one thing is going to make a huge difference for your new 80’s more than anything Blizz has ever done.  You’ll be able to gear up any level 80 doing almost exclusively heroic dungeons and be ready for anything the game has to offer in record time.  We touched on this change in the podcast, but in case you don’t listen to the thing or are new to DYS, we thought a little review was in order.

When we first hit level 80 in WotLK there was a process you had to go through to get geared enough to really do some of the harder dungeon raids like EoE and Naxx.  You simply had to go through all of the heroics to get some of the epic drops or you had little to no chance.  These days it’s a little easier since you can pug into Naxx 10 runs right off the bat and get pulled through for your epic set of gear.

But getting ready for Ulduar is another thing altogether.  Ulduar is tough enough for most guilds that it can still be relatively hard to get your full T8 set, much less T8.5, and that’s where patch 3.2 comes in.  Let’s take the information straight from the patch notes.

  • Dungeon and Raid ID Extensions
    • In order to allow for parties and raids to progress through instances at their own pace, players can now extend an instance ID on an individual basis.
    • Existing or recently expired IDs can be extended via the Social tab under Raid by clicking on Raid Info.
    • The ID of any instance to which a player is saved can be extended. Doing so will extend the instance lock period by the same amount of time as the original lock (i.e. extending an Ulduar instance ID will add 7 days, a Heroic: Halls of Lightning instance ID will add 24 hours, and a Zul’Gurub instance ID will add 3 days to the instance lock time).
    • An ID can be extended more than once.
    • An extension can be reversed on an individual basis provided the player does not do anything in the instance during the extended instance lock period that would save that player to the instance.
  • Emblem System Changes
    • Both the 10 and 25-player instances of the Crusaders’ Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
    • Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
    • The Heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Conquest.
    • The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.
    • New achievements have been added to collect various amounts of any combination of emblems.
  • 25-player raids will no longer be referred to as Heroic versions of a raid, as there is a new distinction between normal and Heroic modes for both 10 and 25 player versions of the Crusaders’ Coliseum.

    • Did you catch that?  Every boss that used to drop emblems of heroism or Valor will now be dropping emblems of Conquest, which you can turn in for T8 gear and other gear not in the T8 set (T8 equivalent).  Needless to say it’s good stuff.  Beyond that, the New Instance, Crusader’s Coliseum and the daily dungeon runs will drop the new Emblem of Triumph, which can be redeemed for T8.5 and T8.5 equivalent gear. 

    This means you can take your brand new, undergeared crap toon and be in T8+ in just a few weeks doing only heroics.  All those runs you’ve probably ignored for months since they are worthless will now be the most popular runs on the server.  This also means that getting up groups for heroics will be easier than ever.  Everyone will want to get in on them and won’t mind a crummy toon or two since they will be getting emblems from the run anyway.

    Beyond that, you can extend those Raid ID #’s.  This means that if you’re still grinding your way through Ulduar toward Yogg, and your guild can only really field a decent team a couple of night each week, you can now extend the raid so you don’t have to clear FL for the 50th time just to get further into the dungeon.  Just extend the raid and skip all the guys you whipped last week until you find yourself where you want to be.

    But, in the end, you’ll probably end up with most of the gear you need to whip Yogg by doing those old heroics.  I guess Blizz figured that the number of toons that would be ready for Icecrown Citadel was going to be pretty thin based on worldwide progression through Ulduar, so they figured a leg up was in order so that almost anyone could at least be geared enough to attempt the Citadel without it being such a pain.

    It’s a huge change, and we’re ready for it in a big way.  We’ve already got hours set aside on the guild calendar dedicated to nothing but hours of heroics to fill in the gear gaps we’ve all still got.  Plus, it’s probably the very best way to take that second toon and put them into OP status without having to spend another 2 months bashing your head into Naxx 25 just to get deep into Ulduar.  People will whine, they always do, but we like it.  It’s certainly going to put us in position to Dominate faster than ever.