Is the Badge of justice reward system broken?

Badge of justice was introduced in the expansion last year. During the year, Blizzard staff repeatedly said that they are satisfied with the system and will expand it.

They originally drop from bosses in Outland instance with heroic difficulty.
In order to enter heroic instances, individual player requires heroic key available at revered reputation for a certain faction.
In patch 2.3, the heroic key requirement is lowered to honored reputation. In addition, all bosses in Karazhan and Zul'Amen also drop them (two badges each). Daily quests in heroic instances also give two badges as reward.
As of patch 2.4, all raid bosses drops badge of justice also.
Total number of badges dropped per instance

For a certain number of badges, one can trade in for level 70 epic items. It works like a PvE equivalent to honor points and battleground marks. Or even some kind of in-game DKP.
Before patch 2.3, one can buy weapons, shields, offhands, rings, trinkets, cloaks, relics, and Fire Resistance gear. They are item level 110/115, which are similar to heroics and tier-4 instances.
Wrist, head, foot and hand slot items, as well as additional rings, cloaks and relics are added in patch 2.3. They are item level 128/133, which are superior to tier-4 but marginally inferior to tier-5.
In patch 2.4, they can also be used to purchase new equipment similar to tier-6 levels as well as epic gems. They are item level 141/146, which are basically on a par with tier-6 items.

Is the system broken?
When Maiden drop as many badges as Vashj or Illidan, I don't know what other word is better than "broken". Insane? Crazy? Or someone in Blizzard failed to do the math?

Comparing it with the PvP system, you get a static +10 in rating for every win in arena, regardless of the opponent team's rating. Does it sound fair?

When patch 2.4 hits, it won't surprise me to see players with heroic/Karazhan gear running with their new epic weapon, which is on a par with BT/MH drops.
If the season 3 arena weapon are so good that it requires personal rating to acquire, I don't think it makes sense to let a heroic and Karazhan player get a BT-level staff.

Can that be fixed?
Talking to (ranting with) a guildmate last night, we both think that some limitations have to be there in order to stop this madness.

One suggestion is to have different types of badges. Heroic and T4 instances would be one type. T5 instance can be another type and T6 instance is the third type. Then one can buy gear of the same level as where the badges are obtained.

Another suggestion is to link them with reputation. For example, Violet Eye revered to unlock the patch 2.3 items and Ashtongue Deathsworn revered for patch 2.4 items.

Third suggestion is to simply increase the number of badges drop in tier-5 and tier-6 instances. For example, TK and SSC will be 4 badges each boss whereas MH and BT bosses will drop 6 badges each. Last bosses in raid instances will always drop 1.5 times more badges, i.e. 6 badges from Kael'thas and Vashj whereas 9 badges from Achimonde and Illidan. (Meaning that a full TK will give 18 badges, full SSC 26 badges, full MH 33 badges and full BT 57 badges.)

I love badges and I'm not against making it easier for causal players to upgrade their gear. But seriously, Illidan drops as many badges as Maiden, seriously!

How to find a (new) raiding guild

Recently, Aethel switched to another guild on another server. Here I would like to share some of my experience. It is not much different than job hunting to me. It's about matching your expectation and expertise to their need. If they have no obvious need, then it's your call to make them think they need you.

Do you want to raid? What contents do you want to see?
If you want to go raiding but you don't know about how guilds are progressing in the end-game content in your server, Wowjutsu is your answer. It records the loots from different boss kills and are rather updated.

What guild are you looking for?
Hopefully you have identified a few guilds, then you can start googling. Simply search with realm name and guild name. Most guilds have a forum or a webpage, and there you will find out approximately who they are.

Native language?
If they are written in a language you cannot understand, then that guild is off your list. If the guild speaks the same language as you, it might be good. There shouldn't be excuses of communication problem due to differences in English understanding. And people will have similar culture and values. However, the language can also be a limiting factor for progress and future recruitment.

Age limit?
The age limit can usually be found in the recruitment related threads.
There are both advantages and disadvantages.
Younger people would progress faster, raid more often but might also risk more drama and sudden quit.
Older people is more or less the opposite. However, age and maturity do not have direct relation. Read on the forum, talk to some people in that guild and go instances with them usually tells you more.

Causal or hardcore?
If you can find any links for DKP site or raiding schedule, you can see if they are active. Else Wowjutsu's loot-date would also give a hint.

Are they recruiting?
Looking further in the recruitment thread (most have), you will find the recruitment requirement and status.
If there is a vacancy for your class and your spec, that's a good news.
Most guilds accept unsolicited application, meaning that if your application is exceptional, they will consider it even they are full on that spot.

Do a brief check on Wowarmoy page and see if they have more than enough of your class. Some classes such as warlocks are extremely good grinding alts. If a guild has 10 warlocks, it doesn't directly translate to 10 warlock raiders. You will need to check/guess the ranks. The lowest rank is usually alts or new recruits. But which ranks are the active raiders? It's a guess. Most guilds have a rank for alts, so look for the highest rank with non-70s and then all the rank upward can be counted as active members.

Apply?
If you want to apply, always use their application template (if there's any). It will give a bad impression if they suspect you copy-and-paste another application. Also, some people (like me) consider it impolite and non-dedicated if one applys to many guilds at the same time.
If you have questions about anything about the guild, don't be shy and PM the officers. They are usually happy to help and answer. And you can get to feel how the guild is as well.

An extra point about finding a new realm, Wowjutsu is also a good place to start. I also recommend check it on Warcraft Census. It has some quite good statistics about the realms such as population, activity and alliance-to-horde ratio. Since I'm not a fan of ganking, I'd like a realm with more alliance than horde so I will be less-likely ganked (theorectically).

Patch 2.4: Instance

The breaking news:

- The Sunwell Isle is now available for play. This area includes a new quest hub and 5-player and 25-player instances.
New instances are always exciting. My friend has tried out in the 5-man Magister's Terrace and it wasn't that hard, except for last boss aka Prince Kael'thas.

Other breaking news:

- Free entry to Mount Hyjal and Black Temple.
- Players can fight Lady Vashj and Prince Kael'thas now.
- A new title "Hand of A'dal" will be given to players who have completed the attunement quests for MH and BT.
This is a nerf on the raiding and it will encourage more causal raiding. It will help a lot of SSC/TK guilds to move on to MH and BT. Since majority of WoW subscribers are not hardcore raiders, this will probably keep many players happy and so are Blizzards' accountants.

Now the quests are just for the faction ring and/or the title.

I'm not excited of the above changes but these two are my favorites:

- Added Shattrath Flask of Pure Death and Shattrath Flask of Blinding Light to the reputation flask vendors in Shattrath.
Nice nice nice, but why does it take so long time for the alchemist in Shattrah to discover the recipe of these two flasks?

- Gems obtained through Heroic difficulty instances are no longer Unique-equipped.
This one I love. I no longer need to let the gem take a bag slot and wait for an upgrade to socket it. ^o^

- All 25- player raid bosses that drop set tokens will now drop an additional token!
So instead of 2x Hero, it will drop 3x Hero? I'm just kidding. It would be even better if they set it to drop one of each every time. The randomness of the game sometimes are just too buggy.

- Badges of Justice have been added to all raid bosses who did not previously have them!
Sweet, this can be a good motivation for farm raids. I can't wait for new badges reward items.

- Loot dropped by Doomlord Kazzak and Doomwalker has been changed to Bind on Equip.
I guess these items will be very expensive on AH, if I would be lucky enough to spot them on AH.

- Nether Vortex are no longer Bind on Pickup and can now be purchased from G’eras for 15 Badges of Justice!
- Primal Nether are no longer Bind on Pickup!
15 badges for vortex and 10 badges for nether, this will make it easier to let people get the BoE crafted gear. They only need to find a crafter. Will we see vortexs or nethers on AH? I think so, and I guess Primal Nether will cost around 80g, similar to what crafters are usually charging now. Since Nether Vortex costs 0.5 times more badges than nether, I guess it would be around 120g each.

Useful macros in SSC and TK

After clearing both The Serpentshrine Cavern and The Eye in Tempest Keep, here is my little collection of useful macro for some bosses.

Leotheras the Blind
As a healer, the inner demon isn't really easy to kill. With the 30% damage on all healing items, it does help a bit. However, it is useful to let your healing squad knows that you are taken out of the fight and you plus your target needs some help. Channel 6 is my raiding healing channel and I usually heal the warlock tank. On one click, I send the message to the channel, get Barkskin up and equip my pew-pew weapon in order to nuke the demon faster. Barkskin is useful since the demon does mostly melee damage and no spell interruption means the demon dies faster.

#showtooltip
/6 ='.'= Aethel has inner demon. ='.'= Assist on warlock.
/cast barkskin
/equip Merciless Gladiator's War Staff
/equip Idol of the Avenger
/cancelform
/stopcasting

Lady Vashj
To fight her highness, the macros are mostly about the tainted cores. When I was moonkin and need to take care of tainted cores, I use the first macro to help me to save time in targeting and get full out asap, plus a fast whisper to the runner for grabbing a core or assist killing the water elementals at my location. The second one is a standard one for the core throwing, with a little touch of roleplaying.

#showtooltip
/tar tainted
/cast Moonfire
/w _____ Tainted one at NE.

#showtooltip
/use Tainted Core
/s %t, catch the tainted core!
/script SendChatMessage("!!! YOU HAVE THE CORE !!!", "WHISPER", "Common", UnitName("target"))

High Astromancer Solarian
Another standard macro for healers, but this time is mostly for paladins. I found that druids' HoT are great to top up the fall damage of the bomb carriers. Catch them before they go out of range and throw a lifebloom and a rejuvenation, then they will be in full health when they get back.

/tar High Astromancer Solarian
/assist
/cast Flash of Light

Kael'thas Sunstrider
The legendary weapon are very attractive, yet camouflage. Cosmic infuser, the healing mace, is tiny and very difficult to spot. Tanks use target macro to grab their weapon fast to tank it. Healer can use the macro to find and loot it. And even better, EQUIP it. It saves you time opening your inventory and locating it. Sometimes, I also pick up a staff and use the aura, so it is embedded in the macro too. Ideally, one could bind a spell in a macro with /use 16, which 16 is the main hand slot.

/tar cosmic
/equip [button:2] Cosmic Infuser
/equip Staff of Disintegration
/use Staff of Disintegration

Kael'thas Sunstrider no longer lives

Yes! Finally after a few months of striving back in shape. Genesis has finally managed to kill Kael'thas Sunstrider!! "Say cheezz!"

Of course, we have to tell A'dal. Our own little gnome mage was the honorary messager.

And then a "shadow" of Kael'thas appeared and continued the lengthy talking before he was dead. (The blood elves are really a chatty race. 5% of the phase 1 is Kael'thas talking.)

And then it's party party dancing around the big flame in Shattrath!!

SmartBuff

Randy Deluxe on The Instance, my favorite WoW-podcast, asked for a good buffing addon. Within one week he received lots of tips and a segment reply from Patrik. He recommended SmartBuffand I downloaded it immediately to try.
With PallyPower, Ise the tankadin can "bless" the entire battleground players. And now with SmartBuff, Aethel can also buff the entire battleground players with Mark of the wild. Before that, some random lucky players can get the buff, but now everyone in range can have that.
Also for raiding, I can buff the recently ressed players without scratching my head to remember who was dead.
There is some delay in detecting group buff, however I hope I can work around it when I'm more familiar with it.
PallyPower is still better in quick managing blessings since it shows time-left and who miss my blessings.
Except for paladins, this is a great mod!

Zul'Aman: server third clear

Zul'jin is defeated. I went only to kill the last boss but he was fun fight. Then we went to use the Amani Hex Stick and a guildie got a frog Mojo and he in some way was changed to a frog while riding on his netherdrake. That's cute.

Solarian has fallen. Beware, Kael'thas.

What a progress this week! After Vashj was slained, Genesis moved to Tempest Keep and defeated Solarian. The door to Kael'thas was opened. He and his assistants would stand too long.

Lady Vashj is slained

Lord Illidarin should be feeling the threat. As Lady Vashj, Queen was defeated by my guild - Genesis - last night, Cenarion Expedition shall gain back to the control over Coilfang Reservior. We are getting stronger. Next target is Kael'thas, Prince of Quel'thalas. She did a lot of nasty damage on us but we were well-prepared. The elementals, nagas and striders she summoned were not hard to handle. The poison which sporebats made were not that dangerous if one just pay attention into the situation.

From her dead body, I recovered Runetotem's Mantle. It has flowers growing on it. How sweet!

Ornaments of Azerothian's Crusade

From my experience in raiding, I found out that:

Gear is uncommon
Skill is rare
Tactics are epic
Focus is legendary
Patience is artifact

Therefore I made a set of jewelry which the raider would certainly love.

Next time, when someone did something really stupid, take a deep breath and let your negativity be defeated by you. Team spirit is the key in raiding. Think positive.

To create your wow items, visit http://www.wowitemcreator.com/create/item.html

Time for fun! Muhaha

Raiding sometimes can be quite stressful. But I try to keep my spirit up observing the least expected part and enjoy them.
What is more fun than being losing control and do a bunch of stuff that you have never thought of? There's a time I couldn't kill my inner demon summoned by Leotheras The Blind, I was mind-controlled and attacked my mates with hurriance, moonfire, bear form and even healed Leotheras. lol
It reminds me of "Time for fun!", Shadow Lab second boss. The key of that encounter is "hope not to kill each other", while the situation is completely out of our hands.

Karathress - A healer's perspective

This fight is not very different than other fights.
The main difference is the random damage a healer would take. A combo of shadow bolt or water bolt or multishot or spitfire has proven to be fatal.
As a druid healer, I always have HoTs on my targets so they very seldom go under 50% HP.
Therefore, the most important thing is to keep myself alive, healing up the damage taken and also overhealing the expected damage incoming.

An oom healer can bandage but a dead one definitely can't heal.

More guides on Bosskillers.

Hit rating caps

Coriel summarized "Hit rating caps for bosses" on her blog.

The most notable points are
1. High caps for mages and paladins (164), and
2. Low caps for warlocks and shadow priests (76).

When I pointed out how little spell hit rating a shadow priest would need, a guildie pointed out that Focus Power is a deep discipline PvP talents, which PvE s-priest would never go for. But still a cap of 76 is less than half of what mages and paladins would need.

Can you feel the love of driud in Zul’Aman?

I can't.

Salthem has promised that:

Itemisation across the board is due to get some love with the introduction of
further content in patch 2.3 and beyond. Balance druids are particularly getting
some better attention in Zul'Aman in 2.3.

Yet the loot tables from ZA are very disappointing. Where is “the attention”? Dan O'Halloran outlined the items for each druid spec on wowinsider but all the balance items are actually caster items. So moonkins will continue to roll against mages, shadow priest and warlocks. Sorry clothies. Bracer of White Stag (dropped by Attumen in Karazhan) will continue to be the only epic leather spell-damage drop before Black Tempel and Hyjal Summit.

As a leatherworker, I’m upset about the lack of craftable items for druids also. Leatherworking patterns dropped in T5 and T6 instances are biased. In SSC and TK, there are BoE belts and BoP boots for hunters, rogues, feral druids, enchancement and elemental shamans. In BT, there are BoE bracers and BoP shoulders for hunters, rogues, resto druids and resto shamans. The only spec which is missing in both places is, non-surprisingly, balance druids.

End with the ranting. The good news is the Badge of Justice rewards. There are the PvE rewards corresponding to PvP Honor rewards/Arena rewards. Every spec in every class can trade the badges for their desired items when they want.

Al'ar is defeated

Last night, my guild - Genesis - had defeated the Pheonix God Al'ar situated inside the Tempest Keep in Netherstorm.
Al'ar is such a graceful pheonix and its colour is so astonishing.