thought that was the case

and when do badges from instances go bye bye? will it be patch 4, or not until cata?

I need to read up on what's coming out when

It seems that badges will go bye bye as soon as patch 4.0.1 is released. All existing items will have their currency switched, so you can use the justice points to buy stuff that you would have to buy with frost badges now. Although, that would be a waste imo.

FWIW, it took me about 5 or 6 hours to get to level 82.5.

I completed every quest in Hyjal and dinged 82. Then I did one run of Blackrock Caverns and like 5 quests in Deepholm and I'm about halfway through 82.

Hyjal is comparable to what zone?

Howling Fjord or Hellfire if I understand it right.

siiick, i'll be 85 in a few days on my main hopefully.

You have two choices at level 80.

You can go to Vashj, or Hyjal.

I absolutely unequivocally REFUSE to go to Vashj because it's an underwater zone. I actually haven't even been there to judge it for myself, but I'm told it's an underwater zone, and I despise being submerged in WoW. Endless breathing or not, you move slow as hell and controls are clumsy. I have attempted to go check it out, but the boats don't seem to work in SW, and I think that's the only way to get there.

But yeah, they split people up between 2 zones to start.

Hyjal has some neat quests.

So I've got a tank and I want to get him some more ICC exposure before the expansion is up. He's got plenty of frost badges, and he's geared well enough, but I want to buy the 264 tanking chest. Are you saying that I would be wasting my frost badges on buying this thing because when they are converted to justice I will be spending my cata currency?

I would have to assume justice points or whatever won't really be worth anything come Cata, because why would you be able to accumulate points now for things that will help you when you're 85?

Pretty much, yes. As soon as patch 4.0.1 comes out, all of your current Frost and Triumph badges will be converted to Justice Points. Any level 80 raids or heroics that you do from then on will earn you Justice Points instead of badges. As soon as the patch drops, anything that you can currently purchase from Frost or Triumph badges will cost you Justice Points.

I'm not saying that you will be wasting frost badges, but you will essentially be spending your cata currency. Whether you consider it a waste or not is up to you. Personally I won't be spending anymore of my badges/currency until level 85.



There are going to be two levels of currency in cata; justice and Valor points. Justice points will be rewarded from badge change-overs at the start and running heroics. Valor Points will most be rewarded from running raids and higher level content and will purchase a different iLevel gear than hero points will.

This post on mmo-champ should help explain it if I was unclear:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...ysm-Epic-Stats

It'll boil down to this:
Justice Points will be used to purchase the lower-tier gear at the time. When you first ding 85, this will most likely be the "dungeon" blue sets.

Valor points will be used to purchase the top-tier level of gear at the time. At 85, this will be T11 (probably costing a token + points) and the off-set pieces.

There will be a soft-cap on what you can earn during the initial conversion of 4000 points, which works out to be about 150 frost badges and 200 triumph badges. Anything that would put you over the soft-cap will be converted into gold.
Here's the calculator:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...nes-Blue-Posts

I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but my paladin has great gear since I'm the only holy paladin in my 25 man raid (10/12 25HM) and 100% of my gear (except trinkets) were replaced by the time I hit level 82 in the beta.

My 25m Lich King weapon was replaced by a quest green about 15 quests into Deepholm.

The most I would pay for gear upgrades at this point is a stack of frostweave. But only because I can vendor the gear upgrade for 2 or 3 gold more than I can sell the stack of frostweave.

Cliffs: DO NOT WASTE RESOURCES ON WOTLK GEAR.

Is Val'anyr going to be useful at all in the first few raids for Cata?

This seems very backwards. Why give people a reason to not buy better gear in Wrath. I don't want to feel like I should hold out on upgrading because I'll be shooting myself in the foot for when I first ding 85 and can't buy a new item just because I bought an upgrade 5 levels ago.

They said that they are introducing some kind of cap on the amount of points that you can get. Maybe you should have enough time between 80 and 85 to reach this soft cap. Kind of like if you casually level from 70 to 80, you can hit 80 with enough triumph badges to immediately pick up a couple T9 pieces or 245s.

On a side note, I do like that it looks like getting an epic item will be a slightly more prestigious event. I have no problem with heroic rewards being blue and raid items being purple.

I can see both sides of this. On the one hand, you're giving people a leg up by starting them off with some points so they can get better gear faster.

On the other hand, why would you not start everyone out at 0? That would make much more sense to me. I don't see them letting you gain pre-experience that's going to apply as soon as 4.1 comes out.

No.

Valanyr is 700ish spellpower in cata. My level 85 blue is like 1500.

The stat loss by using Valanyr is going to crush any usefulness the proc has.

Lame!

This just in: 10/25 raid lockouts are being merged in 4.0.1 for ICC and Ruby Sanctum.

Prepare to be FLOOOOOOOOOOODED with nerd tears.




I'm giggling inside at the amount of chaos this will cause if it works the way I think it will.

I'm also a tiny bit irritated, because I never finished my 10 man drake. And this would likely kill my 25 man where we're working on HM Sindy for our drakes. But in the end, I don't really care all that much because the one reason I'm doing it is to save the 5k gold.

Sod anything else, this is ****ing siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiccccccccccccccccck kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!

I can't wait for this to be implemented, even though initially reading it I thought I would hate it

Mr gimik you should check out the underwater zone. It's not like being underwater in previous WoW.

Flex raid lockout is incredibl-awesome.

@Quadstriker

I will be attending Blizzcon.

Re: Wow

Dec 7 is Cataclysm. When is the patch supposed to hit? And +1 for awesomeness of flexi-raid

Ok, I don't necessarily disagree with this, but what would a fledgling 80 do at this point? Say you get near the 4k softcap, buy gear, rebuild reserves? Does it matter if it's before the patch or after? (4.0.1 is to hit live servers this Tuesday or next, most likely this Tuesday though. FML I don't have an account to experience it on aorn!!!)

**edit**

Anyone seen info on what t9.232 gear costs after the patch?

Oh, guess i found it.

gear up with out using resources?

Honestly, I wouldn't even bother gearing up unless it's your only character

If you enjoy the game as is, then ok. But actively trying to gear up for the sole purpose of getting gear would be a waste of time imo.

i agree completely with a main, but a lot of people are using this lull to level alts, and there will be a big difference between a green 80 and one who was able to get some end game epics. I'd still only do it though if I was having fun. I wouldnt waste any time stressing anything until cata comes out

Assume it's a fresh, sole 80, not an alt. I would be very interested in getting Kingslayer before they remove it.

When you say gear up w/o using resources.. I assume you mean no gold or badges?

Aside from heroic gear and luckboxing into an overgeared toc or icc, what other options does that leave?