And as other people have said, I think the overall aesthetic of your gear is important. I think a large part of the sentimental attachment I have to the items I listed is that they’re gorgeous looking. I’m also relieved to find that I’m not the only one who is willing to pass on upgrades for looks.

As a Paladin (tank, though spec is irrelevant), I refused to get a large majority of the T7 gear because I thought it looked awful. On the other hand, I absolutely LOVE the way the T8 gear looks. I have 3 pieces of T8 (hands, shoulders, legs) and one piece of T8.5 (chest), though the chest is covered largely by my Explorer’s tabard (which roughly matches the colour of the T8 gear).

I haven’t had helms turned on for the year I’ve been playing my Paladin. When I finally get the T8 head (lost the roll twice on Mimiron), I will turn displaying helms on. I could buy the T8.5 helm easily (I have a T8.5 helm for my offspec) but it doesn’t match the rest of the set.

I also have to confess that when Wrath was first released I wanted to level a Warrior just to have two two-handed swords strapped to my back.

On the topic of “welfare” epics, I don’t see them as a bad thing. My girlfriend hit 80 with her Priest about a week before 3.2 came out. Between the new 5 man and emblems, it took her about two weeks to gear up to a standard that it took me months of running Naxx and then Ulduar to reach.

But i am strongly opposed to giving out these welfare epics. Not because i want people to grind but for an other reason.

To be able to do nax 10 without others boosting your ass off you need a raid formed with people who have run a large amount of heroics. Its simply impossible to do in just dinged quest gear greens. ( that is if there aren’t players around with a full nax 25 or higher gear set equiped ) The players that have aquired the apropriate gear have aquired something else while doing so. Namely experience. New 80′s are not uncommon mostly players who have 0 experience. In leveling they hardly did any instances due to lack of players around. They are used to solo content and have no clue about what their character should be able to do. I’ve experienced many times silly things like paladins not knowing they could cleanse. Mages that do not realise the result of a frostblock after they just started a pull. And tons of other annoying things you really don’t want to have in your raid.

I’m all against an elitist aproach to this but i feel they have it right in the way that noobs shouldn’t have the best of gear. And by noobs i don’t mean it condescending but rather in regards to knowledge of their character, and playing skills. Before we had these welfare epics you could be pretty sure that someone wearing a tier set had at least some raid experience. He’d know what was going on in a 10 or 25 man. Had some grasp of the requirement to follow a boss strategy. And is somewhat able to execute those strategy / tactics. Granted the ones that got boosted through won’t know much, but at least they had to go through some of the things.

With the current welfare epics the only good thing around is that at least now all the players wearing those have 5 man experience, something that was even in nax lacking in a minority of players. I’m without doubt that we will still see a ton of players with no other instance experience besides the entry ones though since they offer the most badges in the shortest time.

Another downside to the new system is that it is in complete contradiction to the stated goal of the developers. They insist they want everyone to see all content. Giving out gear levels so new players can pretty much get to the lateste end content while running heroics does not at all make players see everything. I’m pretty sure that most players that are now just dinging 80 will never bother to see naxxramas or malygos inside. The gear they are able to get from badges outstrips the gear dropping there by far. Its easier to obtain aswell. In dropping these epics the developers are making everyone that can catch up in time see all the stuff they have just made. All the previous stuff is simply skipped. If their goal was “we want all players to experience how cool the very latest endgame is” they might achieve that. If it is as they state to have all players see all content they’re missing the mark by a mile. Players will simply skip going to sarth or at least skip out the hardmodes there. They will not run naxxramas since it is simply to harder to form a 10 man from a pug, and the gear dropping there is outstripped by the badge stuff they can get from heroics. After cataclysm hits nax, sarth, maly and maybe even ulduar will be dead. I’m pretty sure the trial instances will stick around since they are ultra fast raids. But all in all players will definately not see all the content. Just ask yourself, how many of you guys went to the lvl 60 raids? You were able to just as the new players are able to go to nax. But as soon as the lvl cap is raised the easier instances will be dead. And even in the comming year with the badge gear they will be insanely easy. I’m sure that is fun for a majority that after all is more interested in free epix then in performing well. But to a “i hope” large part of the player base its not that much fun. It is to be honest the reason that even though badge gear means upgrades for me, i’m not grinding heroics. They already are to easy and boring. Getting the badge gear will make naxx 25 boring aswell. It will ruin my experience of sarth 3d that i still pray my guild will get to sometime.

I’ve recently found myself in between a rock and a hard place ( or real life and Guild raids) and I haven’t had the time to even blink at a Uld25 run invite – let alone worry about gearing up in uld drops.

However I found there is some nice huntery yummies that drop in H ToC and even though they’re not T9 they’re a decent bridge between naxx and 25uld and the best thing is it only takes 15mins to run!

Only a limited number of items drop in H ToC so when you get something huntery it feels really good, you still get emblems but still you don’t need to feel like a emblem grind slave to have so new shinnies.

Mix them with some emblem/drop items and you’ll feel a bit better

There are a couple of epics I keep in my bank, mostly ranged weapons. My first epic bow, the very bizarre one dropping from the last boss of the slave pen if I’m not mistaken, with living fishes on it… I kept my Nesingwary, because it was a gift from a guildie. I kept my KT10′s gun, it took me so much time to loot it. I kept every epic ranged weapon I looted. I tend to do the same with my 2H weapons too… Terrok’s Quill, Arcanite reaper (that one is carried in my bags at all times…), the staff from Cyanigosa…

It don’t buy a lot of items with badges, because I do many raids and can find equivalents or even better there. The only piece of gear I bought with emblems and I quite love is my Mirror Truth. I like the name and it was my first epic trinket. The others, I don’t care… They are just pixels.

The main difference between looted pieces and badges pieces is there : bagdes pieces needed time and 4 other people playing averagely, looted pieces needed time, sweat, efforts, teamplay, gameplay and luck… That’s why people were so upset when they enabled any normal T9 pieces to be gained by badges you can have by doing the daily heroic dungeon quest.
Personnaly, I don’t care, because for me, gear is not the reward for the efforts I put in raids (achievments do that more). I like it because it says to myself “you see you can do it !”, but it’s more a tool to go further for me.
And anyway, raiders will have them much earlier : The raid drops loads of triumph badges… In 25-man yesterday, I recieved 9. And hardmodes will be the only way to get upgrades and thats fair. It’s fair because people who cannot raid very often like you will be able to stay nearly at the same gear level than their guildies raiding more often.

But back to the subject : yes I love my hard earned gear pieces and will hate to replace them with badges… Special soft point for ranged and 2H weapons… You’re not crazy Pike !

On a side note… I’m glad your experience with Figure Prints was better than mine.

http://huntsmanslodge.com/135/garwulf-down-send-help.htm

I always wanted that gun too and never got it. That was the thee ranged weapon to have for BM until that damn x-bow was introduced.

I bet it’s still in your bank. I know I still have all of my rank 10 PvP pieces from back when we still had the ladder system. No way I’m ever deleting that stuff.

Also don’t worry about not being in the high end gear for ulduar 25, it helps but really isn’t necessary. Besides don’t worry about embarrassing yourself infront of the rose, we’re cool about stuff.

If you wanted to see BJ/TK/Hyjal in BC, you had to grind heroics/kara for badges & T4, then kara, then gruuls/mags for T5 before you had the chance to survive in the end game raids.

This way there is reduced need to grind naxx > ulduar > ToC before setting foot in icecrown.

My main is a Tankadin.
And as a pally tank, 90% of my gear is still from raid drops anyways.
Ive spent the majority of my badges on my Ret offset, or heirloom pieces for my hunter(s) or warlock.