I’d like to remind people in this thread that the issue isn’t as simple as “Dungeon Sets 0.5 are in the game sooner”.
Two important things happen with the release of these sets.
Bosses needed for the quest chain are implemented, and their loot table has extremely strong items
With the implementation of Dungeon Sets 0.5 came a massive itemization update for dungeon drops that made a lot of items much stronger
The sets alone aren’t a massive game changer. They’re BiS only for rogues (because of the energy proc) and some pieces are decent for other classes (warlock/warrior as an example). Some sets are outright complete garbage (cough hunters cough).
Like I said above though, it isn’t the sets alone that come with the change OP suggested. There are pre-raids BiS melee necks, caster weapons, caster rings, hpal weapon and a few other pieces that would come from the bosses in the questline.
There are also a lot of buffed items from the dungeon itemization update. An example would be the Savage Gladiator Chain, which goes from a wonky mail chestpiece with 2% crit and Defense rating to an amazing warrior/hunter DPS piece with tons of strength/agility on top of keeping its 2% crit.
That being said, if Blizzard has no intention of doing progressive itemization and would rather have item stats be completely static during Classic, the whole point of the itemization differences becomes moot if items are stuck in their buffed iteration from the get-go.
Heaven forbid it should be the raiders that are at a disadvantage for a change. Why is it non-raid content that is incredibly involved expensive and difficult have to wait for raiders to get geared up to run it?
Still waiting for an answer as to how many of those items you got during vanilla.
And those bosses (I imagine you mean the baron run and the beast room boss) are insanely difficult, but will be less difficult if they are locked away until raiders get geared up. I recall someone saying that baron runs were “sold” by geared up warriors. Do you imagine that would be more common or less common if D2 quests were in earlier rather than later when said warriors are decked out in raid gear?
They can put the questline stuff in without the other parts of that specific patch you know.
Again, arguably harder to obtain than the “normal” BiS stuff.
Just as an aside, I can back up what Below said about this. My guild would sell Baron runs to people; either gold or in mats. It wasn’t common enough to be a regular money maker, but it did happen every once in awhile.
Because (and has already been explained to you) vanilla’s gear system and entire post 60 progression system revolved nearly exclusively around raiding.
Every other source of epic level gear was purposely made to be more challenging, less available, and/or even less desirable.
Asking to change that, is asking Blizzard to change a fundemental design structure of vanilla… Hence my repeated suggestions that perhaps you would be more interested in the retail game, where your desire to be a non raider can still be met with epic level gear.
This is an objectively poor question that proves the exact opposite of the point you are trying to make, because there will be significantly more people wearing it, in part because it might become a part of the raider upgrade path (meaning more people in general are going to be trying to run it), but also because simply increasing the time duration for which it is available all but guarantees that more of it will appear in game over time, especially when you admit that the raid guilds could sell the runs. Do you really think guilds won’t be capable of doing the runs in slightly weaker gear? Or especially when they’ll already be chaining the runs themselves to get their own players the loot, since moving it up on the time line would mean it’s now part of their early upgrade path?
Which, again, is a completely irrelevant fact that does NOTHING to support your argument. Naxxramas being harder than Molten Core isn’t a justification for Naxxramas to be available at launch, and it your argument fails via the same exact gap in logic.
Finally, and I hate to drop a reductionist statement on you, because there are things that are quite arguable for potential changes… but
The problem is that Blizzard has already opened that potential Pandora’s Box by saying one possible release schedule involves releasing Dire Maul at launch along with MC. The blue gear in DM is MUCH better than the blue gear available at original launch, and if people gear up in DM before going to MC it’s going to trivialize the raid to an extent - especially if they’re not going to do a gear progression and everything is going to have its 1.12 stats.
Given these facts, asking for the D2 set to be available with the BWL release instead of between AQ and Naxx doesn’t seem so unreasonable, which is why people are making threads discussing the possibility. Personally I’m leaning toward enabling the set in accordance with the original vanilla schedule, since as far as we know the Classic servers are going to remain Classic servers indefinitely. Which would make the Saintanger’s concern irrelevant, IMO.
Lets say you are correct. Now tell me, would it be more likely to happen if .5 was in at release or if it was held off until raiders were in high end raid gear already? I contend that the longer the wait for the non-raid high end -->accessibility<-- of D2 to be put in, the “easier”* it will be for raiders to attain.
(*even with raid gear, not many raiders were able to accomplish it, but yes it would have an impact on the difficulty)
I’m not sure. The closer to launch D2 is enabled, the less geared everyone will be. On one hand, you could argue that it would mean fewer raiders would be able to power through it because of gear, but on the other hand they might be more motivated to complete the set due to not already having better pieces in each slot. The reality is that 45 minute Baron runs came down to party coordination; an organized party would make the 45 minute timer in non-raid gear, while a pug group would likely fail, even if most or all of them were wearing raid epics.
I agree 100% with this. It is also why I see no validity to raiders claiming that releasing D2 earlier than their raid gear will somehow ruin progression. I believe that the “typical” warm body who stands not in puddles or clouds raider was and is incapable of performing a successful baron run, even when in full raid gear. Some could, but arguably there is a lot of wiggle room in raiding that is simply non existent in a baron 45.
There is no connection, nor should there be consideration between D2 and raid gear/progression.
It does seem like a weak argument, especially if Blizzard decides to release Dire Maul at launch as well as the 1.12 itemization. At that point releasing D2 with BWL would seem to fall in line with releasing DM at launch and would probably have as much as or even a lesser impact.
That said, my personal preference is to release the content in stages approximating what the release order was in Vanilla. Since Classic servers are going to be static, releasing D2 around AQ (or between AQ and Naxx, like in Vanilla) would be just fine since no threat of TBC would discourage people from obtaining it.
One has to also take into consideration the vast amount of gold one would need (hmmm, epic riding or funds toward D2… ), acquiring the D1 set which can take a looooong time and depends (aside from AH purchases) on a grueling RNG, that is even before doing the long drawn out quests and accumulation of the other required items. AAAAND last but not least the giggle inducing difficulty of baron 45.
As I said in the past it needs no time gate, because the very nature of the slog to achieve the goal gates itself quite well. It is nothing like the “release” of a raid that you can literally walk into with a crowd of 39 other warm bodies with a pulse, follow a script and potentially RNG yourself a piece in one go.
This is a thing that alot of the people who are naysaying the earlier inclusion are ignoring.
Going off my server costs at the time I was starting this it cost me in the neighbourhood of 400g+ and I hadn’t even done the silithus part (which could have cost an absolute fortune if rng went against you)
You don’t actually have to acquire the whole set to trigger the chain though and that does give you time to stock up and get the pieces u need.
You don’t have to spend a penny to earn the gear from the bosses as long as there’s someone in your group that can summon the boss. Especially on Lord Valthalak in UBRS, where there are 10 players instead of 5, and much better loot to be obtained.
This is true, but knowing that the questline WILL eventually be in, people will be stocking up regardless. A lot like the War Effort turnin stuff (unless they mix that up so people cannot do that)
A very tough encounter, very expensive item gotten from a very long questline, and only accessible after someone has done the baron run successfully. Again, making it gated enough.
Having each server have a different random set of turn in items would fix the whole AQ opening event, and prevent massive stock piling that happens on private servers because people already know what to pass in before it even starts.
![:thinking:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/thinking.png?v=6" ":thinking:")
), acquiring the D1 set which can take a looooong time and depends (aside from AH purchases) on a grueling RNG, that is even before doing the long drawn out quests and accumulation of the other required items. AAAAND last but not least the giggle inducing difficulty of baron 45.![:man_shrugging:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/man_shrugging.png?v=6" ":man_shrugging:")