style="font-weight: bold;">Evening out the enormity
of emblems.

 

In
an attempt to simplify our lives, Blizzard has created
even more confusion than solved with the new currencies; Emblems of
Conquest
and Emblems of Triumph. Grasping this new Emblem system isn’t
so confusing, but
when they are launched in conjunction with new dungeons with varying
degrees of
loot rewards, the whole thing is a mess. To help simplify the process,
we’ve
created a handy guide to allow players a cheat sheet to understanding
the loot
levels and rewards. This is handy when trying to determine if a 5-Man
Trial of
the Crusader run will net you any upgrades.

 

I
Don’t Get iLevels

First
of all, I won’t assume everyone reading is familiar
with Item Levels. iLevels are the ranking of how one item in the game
compares
with another. A mace with an iLevel of 200 will generally be inferior
to a mace
with an iLevel of 245. Please note though, the iLevels do not rank per
class,
just against the general items in the game. These numbers used to
remain behind
the curtain, but Blizzard has become more open to announcing gear
iLevels
recently.

 

Old
Dungeons, New Dungeons, New Loot, New Emblems

We’ll
tackle these one at a time and start from the lowest
iLevels. Heroic dungeons that came out with style="">Wrath
of the Lich King will no longer
reward boss kills with Emblems of Heroism,
the new reward will be an Emblem of Conquest. Likewise, Naxxramas at
both
difficulties (10 and 25 Man) will also reward successful boss defeats
with an
Emblem of Conquest. Emblems of Conquest are now the baseline reward for
all but
a few areas of the game.

style="width: 640px; height: 208px;" alt="Emblems of Triumph"
src="/image/view/77707/preview" />

The
new end-game Emblem currency is Emblem of Triumph. These
will only be rewards for completing the daily heroic dungeon and
successfully
defeating the bosses in the Crusader’s Coliseum.

style="width: 640px; height: 264px;" alt="Emblems of Triumph"
src="/image/view/77706/preview"
v:shapes="Picture_x0020_3">

 

New Loot Heirarchy

Now
that we know how the Emblems stack up, what kind of loot
can we get and how does it compare with other loot rewards? Well,
Blizzard has
added a few more layers of iLevel gear to the top of the food chain.
Whereas the
highest level of gear in the game prior to patch 3.2 was iLevel 232
from Heroic
Ulduar (Val’anyr excepted), there are now two more levels of
gear above this.
Following shows the progression of gear now available in the game:

style="width: 640px; height: 180px;" alt="Loot Progression"
src="/image/view/77705/preview"
v:shapes="Picture_x0020_4">

 

 

[protip]For those wanting to assemble sets, the iLevel 232 set will cost 210 Emblems of Triumph and the iLevel 245 set will cost 315 Emblems of Triumph[/protip]


Heroic level 80 dungeons still yield iLevel 200 gear so for
those looking for an easy way to gather up some upgrades from questing
gear the
normal Trial of the Crusader might be worth a look.

 

The
changes aren’t difficult to understand but determining
the relevance between the new Emblems and how they fit into the new
dungeon
loot system helps players better pick out their path to progress.