353s and so forth

I thought for a little about the new gear dropping from Zul G and Zul A.  They're pretty much raid quality loot, at least from my standpoint.  Anything better than 346 is raid level.  Anything AT 346 is raid-ready.  do we all agree?  great.  But why the epic gear already?  in 5-man heroics? why not give us another raid? back in Wrath, we got Naxx first, then Ulduar, then ToC and that was when we got the instance that gave us purples in normal and heroics. 

Aparently something is different this time around.  In cata, we didnt get one raid with four wings.  Instead we got three raids totaling the size of Naxx, or something like that.  it may seem like a lot, but doing all three of the current raids is not much different than doing all four wings of Naxx, then Saph+KT.  Clever of Blizz.  I always figured Naxx could have been four or five different necropolises. That would have kept raids short (and now its even shorter that you can skip straight to Sapphiron and KT without going through any of the wings).  In any case, it wasnt until we get ToC that normal heroics dropped level 219 epics.  Yes, they were all purple.  It was sort of an unreal experience going through it to gear up. Actually, people would run the normal version of the instance just farming for gear so that they can join raids in Ulduar or ToC (most people skipped Naxx at that point). 

Maybe it is the fact that there are three, albiet short, raids already out. (just think, ulduar split into three or four sections, icecrown split into four, ToC with three different versions and in each version three different bosses, stuff like that).  We now have a 5-man that will drop almost-raid loot.  this is wonderful for two types of people.  one, it is great for the raider who has been farming for a certain item to complete his 359 sets.  One item that may have been missing could be a wand, or a trinket. The time commitment to this instance would be more since the individual will have to return to this dungeon, in heroic, daily to see if his item will drop.  Although the instance may take about half the time as a raid might, he will be running it several times throughout the week to get his item.  more time played, i say, and a win for blizzard ultimately. 

Second, the new instances appeal to those who are bad.  yes, it's the ones who are reliant on gear to boost their play, instead of relying on sound tactics, paying attention, understanding your class strengths vs. a certain encounter, etc. (aka. Skill).  As i believe, having 346 in every slot makes a player more than able to participate in a raid.  Having 359s will allow the player to more easily participate in a raid.  Bosses will die faster, mana will be a little more plentiful, tanks will mitigate just a wee more and healers will be taxed less.  That's the idea.  But i do believe that there are those in the population who will irrationally say to themselves that they do not have "enough" gear to participate in raids although they are decked out in 346s. 

The process of gearing and progression is simple.  Go into a raid with your 346s, kill several bosses and equip the loot that will enchance your performance.  after several weeks of this + valor points, you'll (collectively) be ready to take on the final boss of the encounter with zero guarantee of success, but at least you'll have a shot.  But most of these people stand in bad or in front of the boss, dont know where to run during certain events in the fight, they are inefficient with mana, they dont use their cooldowns, trinkets or even some obscure abilitiy in their arsenal like an interrupt. in short, they play badly. in order to counter this bad play, they believe that they need better gear, when, in fact, they need to learn to play.

So for the two groups of people looking at these instance i am hoping there is a third group. the one that doesnt have all the time to raid (and i have very little excuse any more now that the raids are almost the size of normal dungeons. heck, think of HoO. you can call it a raid, tune it for 10/25 man and no one will know the difference), but would like to keep playing for some kind of progression can go to these two dungeons and somewhat progress.  the drops will not be as juicy as the raid drops, but you can see clearly that the drops are far superior to the blues they're currently wearing, gemmed and enchanted. 

With that, this double-edge sword just dropped yesterday (for the competent raider as well as the bafoon who blames everything on gear) in the form of Patch 4.1, more specifically Zul A and Zul G 5-mans.  These encounters will be fun, challenging and rewarding.  Let's not worry too much about the gear farming for these two instances, as i am sure i'll probably be running these instances over and over again on my alts just to get them geared up (as their gear is much more preferred over regular or heroic gear from the original cata dungeons).  Lets worry more about enjoying this game and taking up the challenge as it should be.  lets not forget that difficult content should be just that, difficult, and that there's no excuse to suck if you only have heroic-esque gear.  heck, i only have heroic gear on my dk, with two 359 rep pieces, but i do plan on kicking butt in each of the two new instances.  for me, as the guy who sees these two new instances as new do-able content (ie. not a raid) and a chance to improve on some pieces of gear, i'll enjoy maybe a month of this before i start to wonder what firelands (and its new questing zone) will be like.