The original poster noted "Every time I get to that point in 2v2 arena where a psychic scream will let me get off 2-3 mana burns, my fear makes my target run in a perfect L, away from me and behind a pillar before I can even get off 1 cast. It's like that's the exact path they would have taken if they weren't feared."

Earlier today, WoW player Blabberwort posted on the official forums with an interesting suggestion: Create a new dungeon setting that allows players to explore dungeons on a lower level of difficulty. According to the poster, this "Tourist" setting (as opposed to "Heroic") would allow curious players to experience the content although they wouldn't be able to earn any loot from killing creatures in the dungeons. For many players, this would likely satisfy their raiding urges, since it seems that a lot of non-raiders would simply like to experience the content once or twice without the pressure to continually farm it for loot.

Prior to the expansion, I didn't have a lot of opportunities to raid and a similar idea occurred to me. At the time I thought it would be pretty cool if there was a quest for each major raid dungeon that gave the player the chance to explore it without being able to engage in combat with any of the creatures. For instance, at the end of a lengthy quest line throughout Blackrock Mountain and the surrounding zones, you're finally tasked with a reconnaissance mission into the heart of Ragnaros's lair. You'd be able to enter the zone just like normal, but when you arrived inside the Core, you'd be wearing a non-removable Dark Iron dwarf costume. All the creatures would be friendly to you and you could talk to them as you made your way through the dungeon, completing the requirements of your quest. (Check out the quest "Who Are They?" for an example of what I'm talking about.) Perhaps you'd have to deliver a message to one of the bosses or simply visit certain locations in the dungeon, but the quest would have a definite objective and ending. If you chose not to complete the quest, you could keep it in your log and continually explore the zone.

To the best of my recollection, one of the WoW developers first coined the terminology "welfare epics" at last August's Blizzcon. I've had difficulty finding the original source, but as I recall, the context of the talk had to do with the goal of the WoW designers to make all players put forth some degree of effort in obtaining quality gear. The specific gear in question was that purchased with arena points.

New arena loot was released to the clamoring masses a couple of days ago, and some of the items have arena rating requirements on them, thus setting in motion the designers' plan to avoid a proliferation of welfare epics. As per usual with changes of this magnitude, the official forums are rife with controversial topics. This time around, its the PvE players arguing with PvP players regarding the quality and accessibility of arena loot. Some of this debate spilled over into the comments on one of my own recent posts, piquing my interest in the issue even further.