by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

The biggest news to come out in the past few weeks has been the +5 iLvl increase to all Blackrock Foundry gear. This makes the gear drops much more rewarding and helps guilds progress by making everyone stronger.

We have to try and analyze where we were coming from in order to properly understand this change: Highmaul has been out for almost four months now and guilds have been clearing and mastering it for quite some time. From what Blizzard devs have said, if you’re coming from doing normal Highmaul then normal BRF should be challenging. The same can be said about heroic and mythic modes.

This leaves guilds at the heroic level in a very awkward position. Because you were clearing Highmaul in heroic, your item level was likely around 670 with a some Warforged drops and a couple of mythic pieces from garrison missions. You were not going to kill many heroic bosses for the first couple of weeks so your gear upgrades would be slower.

The best way to practice bosses is going into normal mode, because all the mechanics stay the same but are more forgiving. The problem with this is that the gear drops from normal are lower than any heroic Highmaul gear you already have, and because BRF drops tier gear, you probably ended up replacing your 670s for 665s. In the end you know that the results will be better because of set bonuses, but you still feel bad for dropping in item level.

From this perspective it makes a lot of sense that Blizzard would buff the item levels. For most mid-tier guilds, which I’m guessing covers a good amount of the player base, this makes their progression path much smoother. For exmaple, with my guild it was very painful to have to spend time farming heroic Highmaul in order to keep getting gear but not really progressing into new fights. When you are raiding only six to nine hours a week, every minute spent on learning and practicing new fights is valuable.

However, this change does bring some problems and concerns. First of all, the buff to LFR BRF gear makes running Highmaul normal mode almost pointless. I really liked having the option to join a pug on an alt to get them geared through normal Highmaul, but now it is harder to find groups and I can get very similar gear just from doing my weekly LFR.

This same problem also occurs at the mythic level. Guilds that are well-progressed in heroic BRF are geared at the same level as mythic Highmaul. Progression should be about killing harder bosses, and I am sure that mythic Highmaul is more challenging than heroic BRF but there is no reward incentive to go there.

Overall, I think that the change to the item level helps a lot of guilds that were struggling with BRF. It is not only the passive buff, but the feeling that you are getting an adequate reward for your efforts. The fights for this expansion so far have been very well-designed and well-tuned; in the end, that is what really matters when raiding.

What are your opinions on the item level changes? How is this affecting you and your guild? I would love to read your thoughts in the comments.