With the news that Patch 5.4.8 would bring with it the ability to add two more upgrades (4 ilvls each) to 5.4 gear, I laughed to myself. Why? Well, because there are several instances of Blizzard saying they won’t nerf Siege of Orgrimmar (at least not in the blanket-nerf sense of the word). The most recent one was just a month ago, back in April.
@Nathasil_WoW Correct, there’s no zonewide aura planned. We’re keeping an eye on overall progression rates in case targeted nerfs are needed
— Watcher (@WatcherDev) April 14, 2014
And yet, they’re adding up to 8 more ilvls to every piece of SoO gear, every piece of Timeless Isle gear, every piece of SoO crafted gear… Granted, as Watcher states, it’s “nothing” compared to a zone-wide 30% aura:
@Consecra It’s about an 8% “nerf” that will take effect gradually over weeks. It’s nothing compared to 30% ICC/DS.
— Watcher (@WatcherDev) May 14, 2014
But Valor upgrades are still a nerf. I went through that in this old post of mine from last September (wow, was I ever off on the timing of the expansion…) and I still maintain my opinion that it’s a nerf. That said, I am also still a fan of the fact that the onus is on the player to make their raids easier.
Anyhow, I laughed to myself at all of this and was, once again, pleased that I’m not raiding in any serious capacity at all.
That said, I had the intention to cap Valor so I could walk into 5.4.8 with 1000 or 2000 VP and upgrade the crap out of what I’m wearing. I figured we still had a week or two.
And then we were told on Monday that, OH HEY, PATCH DAY TOMORROW.
Wanna know how much Valor I had earned in the last, oh, two weeks?
Five.
That’s right. Five Valor. I did one quest for 5 Valor or something. That’s it.
So, forgetting for a while that I am no longer a progression raider, I got online and did my 200 VP Epoch Stone quest on Timeless Isle. In so doing, I also earned 50 VP from killing 20 elites on Timeless Isle.
Total VP: 255.
This was substantially less than 1000.
So I did the unthinkable. I queued up for the first couple of wings of Siege of Orgrimmar LFR. Late on a Monday night.
Wing 2 popped for me.
By some miracle, we didn’t wipe on Galakras, despite there being ZERO tower group organization.
Both tanks left shortly after that mess. And then we got some extremely talented players who were, and let’s be fair to them, total douchecanoes. One of them was the tank, the other was a DPS warrior. Both were very well-geared and knew their stuff, but oh my God. The language. The foul, foul, FOUL language, full of slurs and pejoratives!
I was going to leave, but I didn’t. I’d already put in 30 minutes of waiting for the queue, plus 20 minutes on Galakras, plus another 10 of waiting for two new tanks to show up.
Someone ninja-pulled on Iron Juggernaut and we wiped. Then we actually had a good pull and killed that. Killed Dark Shaman. Then wiped on Nazgrim because people still apparently don’t know how to kill adds… Finally got Nazgrim down, adding 90 VP to my pathetic collection, bringing me to 345 total. (Also, no Secrets through those bosses.)
My other queue popped for the first wing and I was going to take it, except I was still annoyed and I was tired and…
… and I’m not a raider.
It’s as though a lightbulb went off. Who the eff cares if I don’t max out my VP? I certainly didn’t care until faced with the fact that I could do more stuff with my VP today. Guess what? I haven’t even fully upgraded most of the gear that I’m wearing. (Part of this is because I want to get better gear before upgrading.) So, really, what the heck is the point in trying desperately to cap to get to 1000 VP before servers go down? There’s no one relying on me to “do my part”, there’s nothing driving me to do it, except my own expectations.
I declined the queue and thought about this.
Even though I haven’t raided seriously (as in, not LFR) since the end of Dragon Soul, I am still wired to try to maximize my potential. It took a lot of effort in the first place to stop VP capping even when I didn’t want to any longer. For so long, it’s just been part of my WoW life to do unpleasant tasks “because I have to!”
But I don’t “have to” any longer. (And true, strictly speaking, I never “had to”, but I felt I had a responsibility to my raid teams to do whatever I could.)
It’s going to take some time to adjust to this whole “I can do whatever I want” thing. Breaking such a long-standing old habit is definitely not as easy as one might think. Even now, I’m filled with residual “dammit, why didn’t I cap VP for three weeks prior to today?!” thoughts and I even have a bit of guilt resulting from it.
You’d think that not having played for ~17 months would have cured that right quick, but no. It’s as though my “decompression” from being a raider was just on pause until I got back into the game and NOW I’m dealing with what it’s like to not be a raider.
It’s still so very, very strange.
Thought I’d share. :)
If your goal was just to cap VR then try H-Scenarios next time.
Even if you don’t have any friends/guildees to run with online just ask in trade chat and take whoever (unless your server/faction is really really dead).
Wayyyyy more valor compared to LFR for way less time and way less frustration.
They never said they’d never nerf it, they said hey didn’t have plans to. Doesn’t mean plans won’t change.
In any case, even if you were a raider, I’d think you’d avoid LFR like the plague. As Percy suggests, there are far more efficient ways of earning valor than LFR: heroic scenarios, 5-mans, timeless isle, challenge mode runs, dailies, hunting rares. LFR is a miserable experience, and not worth the time.
Percy – While scenarios and such are certainly an option, the point of my post wasn’t “omg how to get VP?!”, it was more “wait a minute, why should I even bother to get VP?” That said, thanks for the suggestion for the future. :)
Talarian – Oh, absolutely, but what really amused me is that there is, in effect, a zone-wide nerf going into place (of about 8% as per Watcher’s tweet), it’s just not being done in the same way ICC/Firelands/DS was applied, etc. Sure, things can change and plans can be altered, but it amuses me anytime someone says VP upgrades aren’t a nerf to current content.
If I were actually a raider, I would imagine I’d come close to capping VP through, you know, raiding. ;) (Unless there were extended lockouts involved.) LFR is pretty miserable, but the fact remains that, short of joining some organized group, it’s the only way I have to get new gear. (Note that I can still improve much of my gear, but half of it is ToT stuff.) I don’t have a lot of options at the moment, but if gear weren’t an issue (as it wouldn’t be were I raiding regularly), I would certainly look at other VP-capping options. :)
I always try to get the best gear I can on my characters, even though I don’t raid any more. The good thing is, I’m under no time pressure to get it done.
That grind to get things upgraded asap so that I would not let my raid team down, is gone! So, I will upgrade my gear, but, when I feel like it.