Remember when epic gear was hard to get? Now it seems like everyone and their dog has a full epic set. There are many ways that players get this gear, some of it has an epic feel, some doesn't. In the last Blizzcast Blizzard came pretty close to admitting that the current system is a bit too easy, and gave some hints on how it is going to be corrected in the Wrath of the Lich King. The comments that they made though upset a whole lot of people.

So, what's the whole story, is epic gear truly epic any more? Read more about the arguments in Byron "Messiah" Mudry's editorial.

Epic Gear and How it's Earned

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Epic'ed out in PvP gear

In the beginning epic gear was only really found or earned in raids. After the Burning Crusades release though they became much more accessible. You can now earn epics though Battlegrounds, Arenas, Reputation, Crafting, Badges, Heroics and Raids.

For players that are into PvP honor can get you rewards without actually having to win anything (which is the whole welfare epic argument), and Arenas can do the same with much better rewards. Arenas however really need you to win if you want to get the rewards in any reasonable amount of time.

Reputation with certain factions can earn some very good starting epics. Very few are super powerful, but most are much better than instance blues. Crafting also can make some very powerful epics (such as the engineering helms and the tailoring sets) relatively easily.

In heroic instances you can earn epic gear as drops and collect badges that can be turned in for more epic gear. The epic gear that you can get from badges is some of the best gear you can get in the game. In most cases just slightly behind raid gear. Which brings us to the final and traditional method of earning epic gear, raiding. In a raid each boss drops epic gear that is divided among the raid players, and can be the best epic gear in the game.

How Easy it is to Get

Depending who you talk to the ease of getting any specific kind of gear varies. Traditionally though it is viewed that reputation and crafted gear is the easiest, followed by PvP gear as you never have to win anything (other than for the certain pieces that need a arena rating). Next up in the heroic and badge gear, and then raid gear being the most difficult to get.

Many players however feel that badge gear is some of the easiest gear to get, and is one that Blizzard is looking at closely in the expansion. Several of the heroic instances are very simple once you are geared, yet you still earn the same badges. You can also earn badge gear that is equivalent to almost tier 6 raid gear all from low difficulty heroic instances. While this allows players that have been unlucky with drops in a raid to get gear to help them, it gives a new player in the easiest content the same gear.

Many players love the system as it gives them a head start, while others feel it gives players too much to fast. If content is not hard because a player over gears it, they learn nothing from it and will not be ready for the next harder level of content.

Blizzards New Approach to Badge Gear

In the last Blizzcast Blizzard they discussed the whole badge loot issue. What they have stated they will be looking at is tiered badge loot. While still in a very preliminary state they are looking at a token turn in the go along with the badges.

Bornakk: Can we expect to see the return of a system similar to the Badges of Justice for the heroic 5 person and raid dungeons and if so, are there any changes or improvements really planned for this system?

Jeff Kaplan: Definitely. Heroic Badges of Justice were a new concept that we introduced with Burning Crusade and it was a concept I’m really happy with and I think it played out pretty well for the most part in Burning Crusade but we can definitely make some improvements. And we’d like to apply that same idea not just to the heroic dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King but apply it to raiding as well. I think we can do some things a little bit different or better, for example we want to come up with some way to indicate what tier you are doing content on so there is not just badge loot that serves a massive pool of content. Maybe it would require a token from different levels of content in addition to the badges or maybe there is separate currencies per tier but we’d like to come up with a way to sort of stratify the items so that way players doing higher level content have access to a different pool than players doing lower level content. And then I think we’re also going to find ways to move some of those badge type items on to reputation vendors, sort of spread them around much more, right now they are just kind of lumped on one dude in Shattrath and one dude out on the Isle of Quel’Danas but we’d like to sort of spread those guys out and have it be a more robust system where you actually go to vendors in town and you’ll see them there and reputation guys all over the world and sort of blow out the system much more than we’ve done.

This method would allow Blizzard to implement different levels of badge gear while restricting it to player at the appropriate level. They could have a turn in of 30 badges and a heroic mark for a heroic dungeon level epic, or 50 badges and a tier 8 raid mark for a raid level epic.

This proposal has many players upset though. One of the things that players liked about the current system is when the Sunwell was added, new badge gear was also added that was almost equivalent to the newest raid gear. Many players do not want to lose access to that level of gear.

Messiah's Take On It

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Badge Gear Vendor Listing

Call me a traditionalist, but I think that epic gear should be hard to get and have to be earned. I think that the current environment gives out WAY to many epics, and many of them are FAR to good for the effort that was put in to obtain them. I also feel that players are asking for the game to be far too easy if they expect top level gear from anything but the top level raids. If you remove the best gear for the raids and give it to everyone, what separates the best PvE players from the unskilled masses.

Don't get me wrong there are many skilled players that just don't have time to raid, and they should get a chance to get gear too. However that number is probably less than 25% of the players. The rest of the players are just that, players.

I think that Blizzard's new idea, has a lot of merit, especially tied with the new 10/25 man raid structure. It will allow them to hand out epic gear equivalent to the level of content you are playing against, while still handing out enough to make players happy. Since you will still be able to progress through raid type content in a smaller environment (10 player) it opens up all sorts of options for casual players.

I think players should give it a chance, as it will ensure that while everyone can get gear, it will be gear relevant to their current level. To me this is a good thing. Just like in real life, you don't hand a weekend golf hacker a set of Ping irons and Callaway drivers. Even if you can afford them you wait until you have some skill before buying them, or they are just wasted money. I think the same applies to the loot, if you can't make use of it, you shouldn't have it.


The Messiah has had his say, what’s yours?  Do you think everyone should have full epics? Do you like Blizzards new plan to limit epics to the current content level? I want to hear your comments and explanations.

Email me at: Byron Mudry - ([email protected]) or post in our forums thread!

Disclaimer: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Ten Ton Hammer network or staff.


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Byron has been playing and writing about World of Warcraft for the past ten years. He also plays pretty much ever other Blizzard game, currently focusing on Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, while still finding time to jump into Diablo III with his son.

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