Almost always when a major patch with a new tier of raid content is released Blizzard will reset your valor points.  While you do not outright loose the points you have earned, they are typically downgraded to justice points.  

With patch 5.2 looming large on the horizon, it had been Blizzards plan to do just that once again.  However, this time due to an outcry from the player base, something different is happening, you will get to keep your valor this time around.

For those of you that do not follow the official forums religiously, the post discussing this can be found in the next section below.  After you read Blizzards post and reasoning for the change of heart, check out some potential other reasons in my editorial on the topic.  Is Blizzard going soft or are there other reasons for this change?  Is keeping your points a good thing or bad, find out below.

Blizzard Announces Valor Change


After reading your feedback and locking ourselves in dim, fluorescent-lit rooms for much deliberation, we have decided that we are NOT going to convert Valor to Justice and Justice to gold when 5.2 ships. Current Valor items will continue to require Valor in 5.2, and will be offered at a discount as listed in the PTR patch notes. Given that PvE and PvP currencies function quite a bit differently, Conquest will still convert to Honor and Honor to gold as previously discussed.

We’re making the Valor change for a couple of reasons, but primarily because we think a down-conversion under the new Mists endgame progression model just feels mean. We traditionally viewed this conversion process with each patch as a necessary evil to discourage hoarding—it’s not fun to feel like you can’t spend your Valor in the weeks before a new patch because you have to be ready to buy everything up. However, we have a Valor cap now to prevent excessive hoarding, many of the Valor rewards in 5.2 require raiding to acquire (for example, many of the ilevel-522 rewards are tied to Shado-Pan Assault reputation, which you’ll only gain rep with by raiding in the Throne of Thunder), and the LFR version has an ilvl-480 requirement, meaning you can’t hoard Valor on a brand new 90 and jump straight to the best stuff. All of these factors being considered, it doesn’t make good sense to take Valor away from players in this context. Down-conversions may occur for future patch releases depending on the circumstances, but for 5.2 it’s safe and snuggly where it is.

In addition, we’re making a change to ensure that there are some gear rewards available via the Kirin Tor Offensive and Sunreaver Onslaught, the two new factions with which players can earn reputation in 5.2 without raiding. The patch was shaping up to be a real challenge for players who don’t like raiding (including LFR), as our original design meant that no new Valor rewards would be available to them without needing to run Throne of Thunder. You can expect to see the Valor rewards on the Kirin Tor Offensive and Sunreaver Onslaught quartermasters updated on the 5.2 public test realms in the near future. These rewards are ilevel 496 and will only accommodate a few slots, as they aren’t intended to be very attractive to raiders (including those running LFR), but should give non-raiders something to shoot for in 5.2.

If you’ve already made plans and sank your Valor, don’t fret! As of this announcement, and even if you have 0 Valor currently, you still have enough time to cap out at 3000 Valor before patch 5.2 goes live. (It’s math!)

We’d love to hear your feedback about this change, and how you’re planning to earn, save, and spend Valor before the patch releases.

While Blizzard does a great job of explaining the issues and explaining their reasoning for this u-turn decision.  I can’t help but wonder if it is the complete reason or if there were other issues playing in.

While I applaud the fact that Blizzard appears to be listening and reacting to player concerns and comments far more than they used to I can’t help but wonder.

I wondering if declining subscriber numbers plays into that, and since they got complaints about this, they are trying to keep existing players happier than they have in the past.

With that in mind let’s look at some of the good and bad points regarding resetting valor with a patch.

Pro’s and Con’s of Resetting Valor

So is not having a valor reset good or bad?  At this point you may be asking “Is he daft? Of course its good”, isn’t it? 

Every time a major patch happens that resets valor points, player’s tend to get upset, after all they worked hard for those points.  However, keep in mind that saving them to have the most points possible going into the new patch is what lead to the reset system to begin with. 

If a new patch is all about new challenges and earning new gear to be able to deal with those challenges, then walking into a patch with enough points to purchase 1 or 2 major upgrades right lessens that challenge. 

It also means that as soon as a patch is on the horizon, it becomes more important to horde valor points than to get an upgrade with them, this seems counter-intuitive to me, and even ridiculous if you viewed your character as a real life adventurer.  Think about it, if you where a knight and were going to go slay a mighty dragon, would you save your gold for a new sword once you got back from the fight in case there were better ones available, or would you buy the best you could get to increase your chances of actually surviving the current fight?  I know that I would want to live first, and if I survived, worry about getting better gear later.

Also being able to save points, will generally only really help the player that raids all the time and has maxed out everything already.  This means that on week one of the new patch, the players that are ahead, get further ahead, instantly.  While I am all for hard work rewarding people, I always liked that a new major patch meant a new reset to keep things a little more even.

Sure, those players will get ahead of everyone else rather quickly again, but it does level the playing field a little.  Think of the uproar is the winner in the Super Bowl each year automatically started the next season with a 7 point lead in every game they played.  Would that be well received, or fair?

A point to consider here as well is that the old items are not going to be downgraded to justice points but will still cost valor points, just far less than before.  This means that it is not going to be significantly easier for players that are getting new characters or alts going into to raiding geared up.  Sure you will be able to get some of the old valor gear cheaper than in the past which will mean you can get more of it faster, the issue is that it will already be behind the gear curve to really help.

While Blizzard has said that the points were going to drop and the items were to stay valor items anyway, is that true, or just PR spin now that we keep valor.  Personally, I would almost rather the items drop to justice, and we do the reset on valor.

There is a point as well to consider regarding the old valor gear staying as valor items.  That is that the new gear, while better will only be able to be purchased by those already in the new raid regardless of having the valor to purchase it or not.  That is because the reputation required to purchase it, is only gained in the ne Thunder King raid.  This means that while everyone may be excited to start earning that new gear, you will need to purchase enough of the old to get to the ilevel 480 LFR gear requirement to actually raid before you can get any of it.  This means that the price drop of those items should really help players get to the required 480 faster than they would normally have been able to.

Another small comment in Blizzards post that you may have missed, but that gives us a little info is the “Don’t Fret!  Even if you have 0 valor currently you have time to cap out at 3,000 before 5.2 goes live.”  What this means is that all of our expectations that Patch 5.2 would go live on February 26th is wrong.  Even if you count the week that this comment went live (Feb 13th) that means you would get to the 19th, 26th, and then March 5th before the earliest that the patch would be live.  If they were not counting the current week then it would not be until March 12th.

Comments

The Messiah has his say, and pointed out several good and bad things about keeping or not keeping valor through a major patch.  What are your thoughts?  Let us know by commenting below.


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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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