by Its_Immanis - 9 years ago     show comments

Earlier today a hotfix was implemented which will increase the item level of all past, present, and future loot drops from the Blackrock Foundry raid by 5 item levels. The old item level and the subsequent new item level after the change are listed below.

LFR – 650 –> 655

LFR Tier – 655 –> 660

Normal – 665 –> 670

Heroic – 680 –> 685

Mythic – 695 –> 700

According to Community Manager Bashiok and subsequently confirmed by Watcher (Lead Game Designer Ion Hazzikostas), the reason behind this change was strictly to increase the reward available to be commensurate with the level of difficulty presented by the raid. There was some speculation that this also was a very subtle way of nerfing the current content to allow for better progression, but this claim was denied by Watcher in a follow-up post.

While nerfing the content may not have been the intent behind this change, an additional 5 item level points and the increase in item stats which go along with that increase could be the difference between defeating a boss or not for some guilds.

Blizzard is aware that, over the course of previous weeks, raiders may have been vendoring or disenchanting Blackrock Foundry items since they were a downgrade or at least not enough of an upgrade to justify trading them out. If this is the case for you or someone in your guild, Crithto has provided the link for the self-service item restoration system in his post here.

Keep in mind that this service is only available once every 30 days so if you have used it within the last month you will have to wait to restore any items you may have vendored, deleted, or disenchanted. If you are restoring an item which you have disenchanted, to expedite the restoration process you will need to have the items you received from the disenchant available in your bags so that Blizzard can swap them out.

If you are recovering an item which was sold to a vendor you will need to have the amount of gold you received from the sale of the item available as those items are returned using the in-game C.O.D. (cash on delivery) mail system.

For more information on the item level increase, you can view the original post from Bashiok or the follow-up post from Watcher using the provided links.

How much of an impact will this increase have on your guild? Will you suddenly become Old Gods among men, wreaking havoc among the bosses of Blackrock Foundry? Or will you continue to progress at a slightly faster pace than you were previously?