The Grind

I'm a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to WoW. Aidnan never saw level 60 before Burning Crusade came out, and didn't really set foot into Karazhan until a few months before Wrath came out - which I think was about a year ago, actually. I was all committed to being on the cutting edge of content (On the Cutting Edge of Content would make for a great news editorial column name, btw) but guild strife and the previously mentioned feeling of rogue hatred more or less stifled my desires to keep at it.

So it's fitting that I'm just now getting done with my heroic dungeon farming.

I'm not looking for gear at this point. I've done enough run-throughs on Naxx and OS that there's nothing of interest to me at the ilvl 200 range anymore. Now it's all about the emblems - which everyone still calls badges - and it's changed the game dramatically.

Everyone has PuG horror stories. My horror of pugging pretty much left me in the dust during BC - I wasn't willing to risk the pain of a bad group, and couldn't find a guild to help my behind-the-curve butt get caught up. I stuck it out in the early days of Wrath because I knew that the supply was a little richer - the good players were going to be running heroics as much as anybody else, though only for a short period of time, so I played the odds. But I can't even count the number of groups I had that left me pulling my hair out and/or cursing the 1-day reset timer on heroics, especially for the dailies. The whole experience left an awful taste in my mouth.

Things are different now, though. For one thing, my guild is much more willing to run heroics for the shits and giggles, which is awesome. But their focus is and should be on raids, which is fine. However, I still have a lot I can do on my own, and so I've been hitting up LFG much more. And it's been awesome.

The game has changed a lot with the advent of Conq badges dropping in all dungeons, as well as the Triumph badges from the daily - namely, everybody's overgeared for heroics. It doesn't really matter if they know what they're doing or not anymore. Even the most Fail DK DPS you can meet can pretty much faceroll their way to 2.5k DPS. Tanks hold threat just by standing and waving, and healers seem to have an unlimited supply of mana. As long as everyone has a basic idea of what they're doing, the heroics aren't nearly as challenging and potentially frustrating as they used to be.

I'm sure many people are lamenting the devaluation of skill in these situations. After all, if the abundance of epics leads people to gear up without ever having to learn to play, what incentive will they have? I've already seen this in my guild, where a handful of our top-geared players are under the mistaken assumption that good gear = good players. I'm sure it will bite my ass in the future, but for right now, it's making for some easy gear-ups on my part.

There is, also, a higher number of pro players in the heroic farming area. And this has led to the other element of my enjoyment lately. Between the fact that every person in the group is overgeared just by existence, and the presence of two or more experienced players, it's led to both a brisk and enjoyable series of dungeons, and more heroic achievements than I ever thought I'd see. Last night I had the fortune of receiving the following achievements:

- Volazj's Quick Demise
- Volunteer Work - although admittedly I had little to do with it as I brain farted right before an enraged Whirlwind. Ow.
- Heroic: Ahn'Kahet: The Old Kingdom and subsequently...
- Northrend Dungeon Hero as well as
- Hadronox Denied, which I got to play a vital role in. Kick ass! I even got the achievement for 250 emblems.

So between all of that craziness, and finally picking up my T8 chest piece (the head piece is next), I'm totally enjoying the PuG scene. But I think the most satisfying aspect of it is that there's an endpoint. After farming enough conquest badges - a guarnateed drop - I will eventually not need to run these things anymore. That, to me, is probably the most digestible part of the whole experience.