The Valor Dance: Dailies, Reputation, Upgrades, Trouble

Mists of Pandaria has brought us a bit of a roller coaster when it comes to our valor points and how we acquire and speed them. In Cataclysm, there were very few changes (just the move from 1 dungeon per day awarding valor to 7 per week) and we essentially just did a few heroic dungeons, killed a few raid bosses, and spent our points when we had enough. In MoP, however, the valor gear was gated behind reputation which was gated behind dailies. Valor being unspendable before doing enough dailies has been much lamented by the player base. Of course, since launch, each patch has brought a new curve ball in terms of valor. Continue to see the different valor changes so far, the problems with those changes, and what’s coming up in patch 5.3!

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Daily Thoughts: 4.2 – Are You Prepared!?

With 4.2 (theoretically) coming out tomorrow, I am pretty excited. Major content patches are always exciting times. They can breathe new life into the game and give us brand new reasons to hate warlocks. Ok, so we probably have enough reasons to hate warlocks without a patch.

So, I’ve spent the past week making sure my toons are prepared for patch 4.2. How have I done this? Well I’m glad you asked. The easiest form of individual character progression was to get all my max level toons nearly capped for justice points. When 4.2 comes around and all the wonderful valor point gear becomes purchasable with JP, I’ll have a stable of alts ready to start getting decked out in tier 11. Keep in mind, 359 will be the new 346 and you’ll be expected to be mostly set with 359 level gear in order to participate in the new raid content. You can also expect pug leaders to want higher average item level given the ease of acquiring 359 in 4.2, regardless of the massive 20% nerf to all of the regular raid bosses. Another great way to prepare yourself, as a raider at least, is to check up on the raid bosses in the common Firelands raid. WoW Insider columnist Matticus shared his impressions of Beth’tilac, Lord Rhyolith, and Alysrazor and could help give you an edge on some of the first bosses if you plan on jumping  right into raiding the new content. I’m sure a quick search around the interwebs would reveal more boss information as well.

I have also prepared myself to laugh at D-bags that try to ninja BOE’s they plan on selling.

  • If a player wins a Need roll under the Need Before Greed system on a Bind on Equip item, the item will become Soulbound to that player. The item will remain unbound if won via a Greed roll.

I’m okay with people needing bind on equip gear they intend to use, not if they intend to sell it. This change makes me all sorts of smiley.

As opposed to listing the entirely of the patch notes after the break, as I had thought about doing, follow me after the break for a direct link to Blizzard patch note blog as well as WoW Insider’s guide to 4.2.

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