Next Generation Emblems

The next 3.2 patch continues to raise a lot of emotion and debate about its new features and most notably, changes. I have already given my personal and quite hot opinion on the changes to my favorite class, the death knights. If you wish to read on it, check the article Latest on Death Knights. This time, I am going to briefly touch on the changes to the emblem system, as it has generated a lot of discussion in my own guild.

The main conclusion was that the patch is very much an update for the benefit of casual players and I have to agree. This is true especially when you read the blue post on the emblem system. In simplest terms, the various emblems become mostly worthless. The only emblem that continues to have significance, is the emblem of conquest. To accompany this, Blizzard is releasing a new emblem, called Emblem of Triumph.

Any instance that now drops emblems of heroism or valor, will in the future drop emblems of conquest instead. Emblems of triumph will be available from the daily dungeon quests, both heroic and normal, and from the new instances in the upcoming Crusaders' Coliseum. Exactly what you can buy with the new EoT, nobody knows but all and all, this is a welcome update.

To me, the idea of having 3-4 different emblems is not practical by any stretch of the imagination. It creates a long road of progression, where people have to climb through all three to get to the latest gear and content. While many point out that we all had to do it, it is not quite that simple.

Yes, for anyone in a quality raiding guild, getting through the ladder is not a big issue but it is most difficult for players inhabiting the casual guilds. We have to remember, not all of us play this game like a second job and some just cannot keep up with the demands of a hard core raiding guild. Instead, they will be stuck doing the same instances over and over again, trying to get the emblems and gear to advance into the next tier and usually will be sabotaged by rest of their guild. After all, progression is a team effort and many casual guild will never advance beyond Naxx10 and perhaps Eye of Eternity.

True, it is not very fair to those who actually made that journey but life is not always fair and I would point out, the game has changed quite a bit since WotLK first came out. Those who started progression then, had it, in my eyes, easier than those who are only now getting into the raid scene and playing catch up.

In the end, I feel advanced players are only complaining about this because they feel casual gamers are getting off easy, preferring if they would be put through the same hoops as themselves when they made their progression. But me, I still continue to support my matra that the more people that experience all the content, the better. It does not burst any of my bubbles that someone will less game time gets through the same content as I did.

And also, I would remind everyone, the gear that you can get with emblems barely touches the surface of what you need to successfully navigate encounters like the last bosses of ulduar. It will still require as much dedication, practice and skill to finish them off.

Fire and Steel

There are few items in the whole of Northrend that are as hard to farm and acquire, insufficient quantities, as Eternal Fire and Relics of Ulduar. However, both play a pivotal role in the current game, and after personally spending a lot of time working out the best ways to get and use them, I figured was time to bring this to everyone.

All the eternal elements are very useful for crafting, but I believe there are three that stand out the most; shadow, earth, and fire. Most notably, they are the ingredients to titansteel bars, which are used extensively in level 80 armor pieces. The first two are however a lot more common than fire because you repeatedly receive them from ore mining and various other actions. Eternal Fire is different, for myself have only found two spots that have a decent drop rate.

Both cases involve simply killing fiery revenants, so it is all fairly straight forward. The first location is a small canyon, east of Dun Niffelem, which is the same place you will complete the Hot and Cold quest, for the Sons of Hodir faction. The downside of this spot is that the drop rate is a bit irritating and to get just Crystallized Fire for one Eternal Fire can sometimes be frustrating. However, the revenants spawn reasonably fast.

Second spot is in Wintergrasp, at the very south-east corner, beyond the Flamewatch Tower. The drop rate is much better here than it is in the Storm Peaks, though however, the respawn time is less user-friendly. Usually I simply run it through once and leave again, with enough pieces for one full piece of Eternal Fire.

For the relics of ulduar, the hunt is a lot simpler. They have a chance to drop from nearly every creature you kill in the Storm Peaks, with various rates of course. The best place I have found, is a small cave just north-west from Frosthold. The cave is full of iron dwarves, all with a quick respawn timer and high drop rate for the relics. At level 80 you can pretty much plow through the cave nonstop and in just half an hour, pick few dozen relics.

Unlike Eternal Fire, the relics are not used used for crafting, but to gain reputation with the Sons of Hodir faction. The faction is a bane to many people, primarily because they do not have a tabard that you can wear in heroics, but instead you have to simply acquire their reputation through tedious daily quests. So the ability to farm hundreds of relics, much like runecloth for the racial factions, is a pretty important shortcut.

Latest on Death Knights

By now, I think we should stop being surprised that death knights are being nerfed again, but every time they just come at us with new bewildering changes. I apologize if I seem cranky this time around but despite my efforts to try keep up a positive state of mind, I am slowly losing faith in our game designers. Since their inception death knights have been getting the boot in every patch so far and you have to wonder, are they ever going to stop nerfing the class.

The most bewildering aspect is that they are soon running out justifications for all the nerfs, as the changes take more and more ridiculous forms. Emboldened by the positive changes that we are being promised in the Crusader's Coliseum (see Tournament Review) I went out and looked up the new PTR notes to see just what is in store.

The first that nearly popped my eyes out of their sockets was the nerfing of frost presence. In the next patch, instead of a 10% health boost, we are only getting a 6% stamina increase, and I reserve the right to use the word "only" because frankly a 6% stamina increase is pants on head retarded. To outline what this actually means, lets have a show and tell.

In Durithim's proper tank gear and spec, he has an average 26 300 health without frost presence. Once I put it on, it rises to a healthy ~29 000. This is a good starting point for raids like 25-man Naxxramas. However, with a meager 6% stamina bonus that health drops to ~27 400. That is a 1.6k difference. This gets further bewildering when taking a look at other plate tanks, for whom I see no such nerf and remembering that the last big patch actually brought us a raid instance that is all about taking huge amounts of damage.

Second but surely not lesser of two evils, is the nerf of Frost Strike; which can now not only be parried, blocked, and dodged, it also deals 5% less damage than before. Icebound Fortitude's cool down has doubled and Toughness provides a one-third less armor than before. So no, life as a death knight tank is sure not going to get boring in the future. If anything our performance will only continue to drop if Blizzard goes on, incapable of restraining itself.