Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!

... Sorry, did you say something?

LOL, I thought the same thing when I saw "badgeramas"

www.badgerbadgerbadger.com for anyone outside the loop

The badge loot is pretty strong when looking at particular classes, you're kidding yourself if you say otherwise.

Consider something like the healing cloth gloves [Light-Blessed Bonds]. For a priest these gloves are better than Tier 5 and very, very close to the Tier 6 gloves [-healing for +stam & +spirit].

Unfortunately people take one look at the stats and cry for the nerf bat. What people need to realise though is that gear is only a part of the equation. Take a group of people, deck them out in badge and kara gear and send them to RoS or Archimonde. They won't last 30s.

People also need to consider how the badge loot was rolled out. The gear was initially selected so that players could use badges to filll slots in their characters gear where there was no easily obtainable alternative. The newer (and arguably stronger) badge gear was brought out to help people progress further into the end game raiding environments as the current expansion nears the end of its lifecycle.

Sure it's helping people push through SSC & TK, and yes people can PUG mags lair now (heck we have successful SSC PUGs these days), but as you're making your way through the Sunwell in your shiny Tier 6, being some of the first players in the world to experience the new content, does it really even matter?

"you cannot gear up a character from badge loot, you can get about 4 slots out of 14 or so covered"

Wrong. It all depends on your class and what sort of progression your guild is making. If you're in a smaller guild that isn't hitting 25-man instances then you can upgrade most of your gear from badges.

Well as a prot warrior working on vash/kael and the beginning bosses of t6 there are 6 (ok not 4 as I originally said) items from badges that I regularly tank in.

Several of the badge items that have come out in various patches have been upgrades to items in slots already available from badges (c.f. belt, cloak, legs).

There are also other items (c.f. azure-shield of caldera, the plate gloves) that you can get upgrades for fairly early in the 25-man progression.

While a newly 70 prot warrior could get perhaps 10 slots filled from badges and the gear is going to be at least as good as anything he'd find in kara or heroics, he's likely to have replaced half of them by the time he's stepped into Mount Hyjal.

Perhaps its different for other classes, but I would tend to believe that someone who's stepping into Sunwell or poking Illidan would only wear a handful of items from badges, perhaps 4 or less. Thus my contention that there are only a few slots that you can fill with really powerful gear from badges

Yeah like I mentioned above it's totally class/role specific. I also think there's a lot of cross-talk with loot from other locations. Typically when people start talking about loot attainability and how badge rewards are destroying the game they're really talking about the combination of badge loot, *** PvP Gear *** [S1-3 ex. 3 Shoulders & Weapons] & Karazhan epics. Regardless, as long as it's not your first character gearing up an alt at this point in the expansion is incredibly easy.

You mentioned a warrior, a tank to be specific. Tanks are by far the hardest classes to gear but today its even pretty easy to get yourself a good set of gear. From Badge Gear, Reputation Rewards & BoE Crafted Gear alone you can put yourself a set of gear together that will carry you through until about Kaz'rogal in MH and with the removal of attunment, SoA in BT.

For example:

[C]: Crafted
[B]: Badge
[R]: Rep
[P]: PvP

Head: [C] Tankatronic Goggles
Neck: [B] Brooch of Deftness
Shoulders: [P] PvP Shoulders, Any Season
Chest: [B] Chestplate of Stoicism
Waist: [B] Girdle of the Fearless
Legs: [B] Sunguard Legplates
Feet: [C] Red Havoc Boots
Wrist: [B] Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx
Hands: [B] Bonefist Gauntlets
Back: [B] Slikk’s Cloak of Placation
Finger 1: [B] Ring of the Stalwart Protector
Finger 2: [B] Ring of Unyielding Force *
Trinket 1: [B] Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600
Trinket 2: [C] Gnomish Poultryizer *
Main Hand: [C] Blazefury
Shield: [R] Sunward Crest
Ranged: [C] Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer

Probably not the best list of what you can get, most of it's off the top of my head. Shoulders are definitely going to give you a headache, but I'm getting off track - definitely enough gear here to get you through T4 & T5 content :)

For the people who claim loot is too easy to get, I think that these people should take a break and actually remember how hard it was to get a specific item pre-bc. I remember our first Azuresong Mageblade drop and all the drama that came with it [a WARLOCK got the MAGEblade, lol?!!!] as we were well into BWL before we saw it again. Now imagine you're coming into the game (or well, that you have a character just turning 70 you wish to raid with) and that you want to visit BT before WotLK. With the old loot model it just wouldn't have happened, with the new model you at least have a chance. Personally, I guess you could tell from my comments, I'm in the 'pro badges' camp. You can rest assured I will not be replacing my Tier 6 with badge gear any time soon but if it gives others a head start into the content we've all been privileged [or cursed ;)] to play through then I'm all for it.

I completely agree with this. People are looking at this without taking time into perspective. If you look at the progression of badge gear from its first implementation to now, there's plenty of time.

What badges do is allow those folks that aren't raiding up front to "catch up" so to speak. Without badge gear, there would be plenty of people left out in the cold with nothing else to do but run 5 man instances and pvp. I know I wouldn't be running kara much anymore if it wasn't for the badges.

jefeweiss said...
They need to make it so you can buy badge gear with honor now that you can buy pvp gear with badges.
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No you can't, you can buy PvP gear with tier tokens which are different from badges.

And much whining would happen then.. Remember badge gear is intended so that everybody can get those good stats.

The best they can do is making more badges drop in the harder raid cap (whether the 10-man is harder than the 25-man or the other way around remains to be seen) so you can get the rewards a bit faster.

Agreed.

Whatever token system Wrath uses, it should not be purchasable with Burning Crusade Badges of Justice.