Scanning through bluetracker is a great way to catch little tidbits from the CM's and developers about upcoming changes to World of Warcraft. Since the expansion is on the horizon I pay special attention to anything that might be related to the latest push onto the beta server. Recently I stumbled across some information on the boards about the new Heroic Difficulty option that will be include in all the 5 man dungeons. Selecting this option will turn an instance into a harder version of itself by adjusting mob density and levels. However, the rewards also increase so that much better level 70 rewards can be gotten from any dungeon in the Burning Crusade.
Tigole explains further by saying that the epic set tokens will drop only from Heroic Difficulty instances and that the last boss will always drop an epic. This really proves that the Blizzard development team has put a lot of thought into making all content viable for the end game. In the old world once someone hit level 60 only the three highest level instances were done with any regularity because they had the best non raid loot. With the Heroic Difficulty being in the expansion it looks like level 70s can visit any dungeon to receive level appropriate loot.
My guess on how the gear structure will work in the TBC:
Battleground (non-epic set): Buyable rewards from farming BG honor
Dungeon Loot 60-70 (non-epic): Dropped from normal difficulty bosses in dungeons
Battleground (epic set): Buyable rewards from farming BG honor. Tobold estimates 100-200hrs for complete set.
Tier-4 (epic): Tokens dropped from Heroic difficulty bosses in dungeons
Kharzhan (epic): At least equal to the Tier-4 set since its also level 70 but requires 10 people
Arena (epic set): Several Blue posts put this set equal to the highest raid instance gear
Tier-5 (epic): Raid Instances like the Black Temple should have slightly better gear then the Heroic Difficulty set
This is just a estimation of the gear tiers and I'm sure I'm not 100% correct. A lot of changes for Kharzhan and the Heroic Difficulty option are just about to be pushed so I know we'll see more information about the new Tiers soon. Still one has to be excited that you can basically choose your favorite dungeon and continue to do it for gear upgrades at level 70. I certainly hope that the old raid content will one day have this option added when the developers have some free time.
http://blue.cardplace.com/newcache/beta/1520314.htm
http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2006/11/world-of-warcraft-pvp-v20-new-honor.html
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Heroic Difficulty and the New Tiers
Posted by Relmstein at 1:25 PM
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4 comments:
I think the gear progression is going to be slightly different from what you've posted, though I could be completely wrong. I guess I anticipate:
Dungeon set 3 (from the level 70 5-mans)
Battleground set (which I believe is epic, though as non-competitive will not be close to the Arena set)
Tier 4 (with pieces dropping in Karzhan and, I'm guessing, the 'lower' 25-man content)
Arena Set (which is competitive and as such will outweigh the Battleground pieces)
Tier 5 (Black Temple and Tempest Keep)
There may also be something equivilant to a Dungeon Set 4 dropping from the Heroic Mode 5-man content. Off the top of my head I'd put that as equivilent to the Tier 4.
Tier 4 is an epic set. It is gained from the heroic 5-10 mans including Karazhan. There are multiple sets for most classes. For example, paladins can get a tanking set, a DPS set, and a healing set. Each set only has 5 pieces and requires a specific token ( like ZG, AQ and Naxx), but no other mats.
As far as I know there are no dungeon sets. You go from misc dungeon loot to tier 4. Tier 4 is the pre-raid set, much like the dungeon sets are now.
Tier 5 is gotten from the 25 man raids. Not much information is available for them yet. They have only been datamined ( tier 4 is in the beta and people are collecting them).
Its funny that Tigole said that the epic set tokens would only drop from Heroic Difficulty dungeons. He either means that Kharzhan is considered Heroic Difficulty by default or else it has another set of gear. Maybe Kharzhan will be the new ZG/AQ20?
Changed around my idea of the new tier structure based on comments
so was it from heroic mode they got it or not??
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