As you have heard me whine pitifully, I have been grinding VP since 4.2 damn well came out. This is because the VP priest gear is far better than the drops in Firelands. Also, unbeknownst to me at the beginning of the expansion, we’re getting nowhere fast with bosses, hence not many drops. I felt a sense of accomplishment when I finally got over the hump of VP grinding, and I only have a few teeny pieces left to get.
Now, we’re getting nerfs. And I’m a big fan. Yay, finally going to get to see the content, and get some gear, which will make it easier to … see the content! However, if the nerfs are here, it means that 4.3 is on the way.
So, I just spent this entire tier swearing and cursing about stupid VP and spending un-fun time grinding VP (which was really the only option if I wanted to raid), and then just as I’m finished with the gross grinding, it’s time to start all over again with grinding the NEXT tier.
On the one hand, I am not enthralled about Firelands, so a new tier of content would be nice. On the other hand, I have had NO time to rest on my laurels. If the next tier is all about grinding the VP again, I might perish.
I didn’t feel this way when 4.2 hit. When Firelands emerged, I had been working on my gear, sure, we all do, but never to the point of hatred. I feel worn down by this relentless grind this patch more so than any other patch. I’ve barely scratched the surface of the molten front dailies, but the stupid repetitive things bore the shit out of me just like VP grinding does.
It feels like this last patch has been time sink for the sake of time sink, and I’m not sure I have the mental fortitude to “do what it takes” if the next patch is m0re of the same.
You might be relieved to hear that (if I’m not mistaken) tier 13 won’t be purchasable (is that a word?) for VP. However, who knows if the VP gear, which is sure to come, isn’t better?
Also, I was extremely bored with the Molten Front as well. We seem to be a minority, though. Some people just enjoy endlessly kicking turtles and hurling bears, I guess.
Yeah… I have mixed feelings about tier gear being only available from bosses. I think it depends on whether tier gear is mandatory (This tier it was, because of lack of spirit on normal gear) and how fast progression is. This patch, I felt like we needed to have reasonable amounts of 278 gear just to get past the first 2 bosses in Firelands in order to get more 278 gear (kind of like only being able to get a job when you HAVE a job…)
Well yeah…if you tried to raid fireland in 278 gear, no wonder it was hard
My tier 10 is awesome, you shut up!
I lament the ability to earn VP from multiple heroic runs in one day. Since I only played 1-2 nights a week outside of a raid, when I logged on in Wrath, I would queue up for a random heroic, get it out of the way, then be free to do anything else I wanted.
According to Blizz, they allowed you to grind more than one heroic in a day for people like me, with limited playtime. The consequence, however, was that at the beginning of 4.2, I felt like I had to grind heroics every minute that I was in game. Not fun.
I hear you. I’m all done with VP and have been for a short time.
I don’t think the next content patch will be out anytime soon for a number of reasons.
1. It’s not on the PTR yet. It’s usually on the PTR for two months – give or take before they release it.
2. Any release now or in the immediate future could collide with the Diablo 3 beta. I suspect it could collide with Diablo 3 release too but I’m guessing.
3. They’re only just starting to leak spoiler information about the content. Remember when ICC spoiler info was released and people were estimating there would be ridiculous amounts of bosses? Yeah, what we know so far is little.
I’m guessing it’ll be in the next year or in around Christmas time. Blizzard is smart enough to target the content release to impact other company releases and most certainly won’t want to collide with their own.
On the other hand, Blizzard is also pretty slow at releasing new games often having extremely long betas so they might push it out before Diablo 3. Still, I estimate another 2-3 months at least.
(BTW the nerfs were crazy. We cleared Shannox, Ryolith, Alysrazor, Beth’tilac and Baleroc in 45 minutes! (normal 10 man))
By the same token, I just cannot IMAGINE doing these same 7 bosses for 2-3 more months. At least I won’t be grinding VP…
Oh – T13 will be token drops from the raid.
Also another big feature they’re trying to fit in is the Looking For Raid which is supposed to not lock you out of the current raid but also drop a lower tier of gear than you’d see in the actual raid (bosses are much weaker by LFR too). Very weird, but kind of a neat idea.
My happiness or lack thereof (re: t-13) will be directly proportional to the ability of our team to down the bosses in an orderly fashion. Getting stonewalled a few bosses in is soul-killing.
I think the biggest problem with 4.2 was the lack of new dungeons and the LENGTH of the existing ones. Back in patch 4.3 in Wrath it took about 15 minutes a day to cap your Frost Emblems (VP equivalent) for a weekly commitment of less than 2 hours. In Cataclysm if your raid isn’t clearing Firelands each week you’re looking at up to 10 hours of grinding VP (assuming a Zul’roic worst case scenario of 90 minutes of dragging hunters in INT mail around). That’s not even counting dungeon runs where you’re saddled with a party that ultimately falls apart on you at the last boss. Then you throw dailies on top of that (dailies take me an average of an hour to complete, but Nymphy and I aren’t aiming for speed when we run them) so I’m going to call that another 6-7 hours a week and you can be looking at 17 hours of VP and dailies OUTSIDE OF RAIDING. I don’t really want to spend nearly that much time grinding the same quests and same dungeons day after day after day. By the end of Wrath I could grind out my ToC dailies in half an hour (longer if I had to travel a lot for one of the farther “fetch the magic sword” quests) for a total of less than 6 hours a week spent outside of raiding to max my daily and emblem grind. That is a HUGE difference.
I understand that Blizzard wants to take the non-raiding player into consideration and make the existing dungeons feel more “Epic,” but I think both raiders and non-raiders would have been better served with twice the number of dungeons that took half as long to clear. In Wrath I LOVED the “winding hallway with three bosses” style dungeons. Those were grindable. Have some time to kill before dinner? Run a heroic! Not quite time to head out for the bar yet? Run a heroic! Significant other is in the shower? Run TWO heroics!
All of that said, those jerks have HOOKED me with the descriptions of the 4.3 content that they just released.
Because you only get a payout if you actually FINISH, I find Zulroics an unjustifiable risk, unless with a full guild group (especially Zul’Gurub). I just cannot stomach spending almost 2 hours with strangers and then having nothing to show for it.
I have been grinding the Trolls to VP cap in the last 2 weeks on 3 toons…no guildies at all to group with…longest run i got was 75 minutes. All my group cleared the place. I even got a full pug group fail the Timed run by less than 2 minutes. Idk if i’m just the luckiest bastard on earth, but pugging as been full of win for me lately. The only random i got a crappy group and didnt finish was…Grim Batol…go figure lol.
As for VP grind, if you killed Shannox and Beth + the BH boss, thats already 360VP. That leaves 620VP to cap. Run 4 troll and you have 560 VP. Thats something like 6-7 hours of playtime.
The dailies…if you are running them for gear…you really shouldnt bother. Most of the gear from them is pretty bad and are totally not worth the huge amount of time spent grinding the dailies. If you run them because you like to run dailies…then there’s no reason to complain
I’m not running the dailies because the gear is fail. And the dailies are boring.