What is up with item level banding? OR Should Heroic dungeons even exist?

Gameplay Dungeons, Raids and Scenarios
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Why do both Heroic dungeons and LFR require 567 ilvl to enter, but H dungeons drop worse gear? Seems to me the challenge and rewards should be equal if the requirements to enter are equal.

I think this is indicative of a bigger problem: there are too many difficulties for the content anymore and the developers are not in 100% agreement what each difficulty should be for or what they should reward anymore.

We need a clear path for progression. As others have pointed out, with changes that were made post-launch, you canā€™t run normal dungeons straight into Heroics, as the normals now will only get you to 554 ilvl. (Heroic Dungeon ilevel requirement is 567 but Normal Dungeons only drop 554 LOL) The only reason I can think of for this gap is to force players into doing Delves and World Quests before they do Heroics, but there is no reason for that requirement. It also actively makes the game less fun for some people; I do not personally like having to make a flowchart as every toon hits 80 figuring out what content I have to do in what order to minimize my ā€˜qualification timeā€™ for the next tier of content.

Between the Assembly, the 3x WQ caches, the Bountiful Delves, Heroic dungeons, LFR Iā€™m afraid that we now have too many options for gearing, especially at the start of an expansion. I know Iā€™ve already experienced decision fatigue and analysis paralysis from it several times myself this expansion - and, when that happens, I often finding myself logging off to play something more straightforward which Iā€™m certain is not the developersā€™ desired outcome.

There is such a thing as too many options or choices, and I think we may have crossed that threshold in WoW. Either Heroic dungeons need to mean something again or be retired, LFR has to be relegated to early MoP-era gearing obscurity (i.e. - no tier, powerful trinkets, or weapons) or be retired (especially with Story Mode being a thing now), or M0 needs to have a random queue as it takes forever to find people willing to run a Mythic that doesnā€™t add to their score.

Itā€™s possible we need more than one of these solutions or more than what is listed here, but it just feels like weā€™re slogging through the same content on different difficulties far more often than we should be. I understand this may not be the most popular take, but I just see this as something that is fracturing the community while not providing anything of real value to the players.

P.S. - Keep in mind that much of this is also informed by the ā€œchangesā€ we were promised going forward at the start of DFL S4 with the Heroic/Mythic re-alignment. Heroic dungeons were meant to be the ā€˜new M0ā€™ when they changed the difficulty scaling at that time and, honestly, is there anyone out there who can say they feel that way right now either in terms of difficulty or rewards? If Iā€™m not mistaken, Iā€™ve already seen several times in Heroic dungeons where a boss does not have all the mechanics that they do in Mythic. That alone disqualifies Heroics as being the ā€˜new M0ā€™.

I just want to see dungeons be a relevant and balanced challenge again, even at the lower tiers while leveling and gearing.

Cheers!

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Granted itā€™s not the answer you want but normal and heroic dungeons in general have not had any purpose in the game outside of the first 2 weeks of an expansion in an extremely long time. Gear progression right now is basically you just make a group for Mythic 0s and honestly you can basically just invite quite literally anything that signs up because you can sneeze on the dungeon and it falls over for 597 gear or you just do delves.

Delves are extremely overpowered for gearing especially considering the reward you get vs M+ lol. I have a BDK alt that Iā€™ve done literally nothing with yet because crafting plate gear is way too expensive and itā€™s 610 ilvl purely from doing delves and nothing else. +8 bountiful key delves give 603 gear which is basically equivalent up to +6 keys since itā€™s veteran track and the delvers maps give you 610 gear which is heroic track and equivalent to +8s basically for zero effort whatsoever. You can run bountifuls each day even if you donā€™t spend a key for a chance at delvers maps too.

FWIW, I do agree that itā€™s unacceptable that thereā€™s no path of progression if you wanted to take it slow and go from normal => heroic dungeons. Thatā€™s an extreme oversight that should probably be fixed.

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Oh, I know. Thatā€™s kind of the problem Iā€™m trying to address here. Rewards are not in line with the challenge of the content.

I also just made an edit with a big P.S. explaining a big part of my frustration. Essentially, it has to do with the re-scaling and re-alignment of difficulties we were promised going into DFL S4. After that change, Heroics were supposed to line up with the old M0, which would include the proper rewards and difficulty. We have seen neither. We were essentially, once again, promised a change that would make things better and more relevant and it was discarded, it seems, as soon as it became inconvenient to their other goals (i.e. - promoting the Delves ā€˜systemā€™).

P.S. - My paladin has like 587 or somesuch right now (which I admit is fairly low for what I could have attained, but itā€™s an alt right now) and I ran into someone the other day in the Brewfest dungeon who, while trading them a caster trinket I inexplicably got, commented on how good my gear was. I genuinely chuckled to myself at that, but it goes to show how far apart and wide the gearing gap is in the community right now. I personally donā€™t think thatā€™s terrifically healthy.

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I feel undergeared and no longer competitive at 617

Damage wise I do fine, but when I apply to a group it doesnt show that :pensive: