Welfare Legendary

[alucardtnuoc]

I thought the point of a legendary was not the means of which it was acquired, but by the adventure of which your character took to get it.... pretty sure that's what a blue said but no idea how I would find it the source.

[judgementofantonidas]

Just ignore the special snowflakes saying that. You got yours, means you worked hard for it.

lol @ special snowflake being applied as a term concerning players who think things should take effort.

don't you know snow flakes melt in the heat?

[melodramocracy]

On top of the points I listed a few pages earlier, it's also worth noting that, for example, primordial saronites dropped from ICC whether you were on the quest or not. They were even tradable / sellable.

On the MoP legendary, you aren't going to get any sigils or secrets dropping unless you're actually on that part of the quest. Which adds greatly to the slow pacing of it.

And rest assured, if you couldn't acquire the pieces for this legendary via LFR, normal mode raiders would be screaming to high heaven about how much of a grind this is, and how much of a waste of time it is, and Blizz please change the drop rates, and on and on. But since it's do-able via lfr, it's suddenly welfare and terrible. How childish.

Really, the only thing lame about this legendary is that it's a cloak. :P

[BobAwesome]

I'd like to see just how many people actually have the cloak, there's a way to query the achievements for that number right?

[arnoldr45]

I don't really care that OP attained it, that wouldn't affect my gameplay in the slightest. I would consider it welfare though, everyone should have one right? Considering how easy it is.... I mean come on, it's LEGENDARY. Remember what Blizzard did to epics in Wrath? Back in BC if you had blues you could still be a pro player. I don't know how many times i"ve seen people say since than "lol....dude even has blues on, what a scrub"

Reading this kind of shit really makes me glad I quit this expansion, but also makes me sad knowing I probably won't return to it because of this kind of garbage. Blizzard needs to pull a Diablo III and replace some people...

[Tapaj]

Does that term bother you at all? I mean after all the work you put in. It took some people almost an entire year to achieve that final cloak. I took me 6 months and someone called it a welfare legendary. How could they. I'm a little fired up about that term. Never have I worked hard for something in a video game before. Does it bother you when its referred to as welfare?

You shouldn't give a fuck about what people say about a video game; truly.

[judgementofantonidas]

I was under an impression that most guilds didnt handed their legendaries based on DKP. It was predetermined who will get it even before it dropped. And that was the part of it. You had to be prominent enough from some reason that the guild would be OK to give this item to you and not someone else. Also considering RNG and other factors, there were not so many of them around. Glaives were gated by low drop rate. Things like Atiesh or Shadowmourne were time gated (you could only get as much required components per week). MoP cloak is the 1st legendary that *anyone* can get as long as he stay subscribed and played since the release of MoP. The most common pre-MoP legendary (Glaives) was still way way less common than the cloak already is.

Yeah. All the "old legendaries were not hard because" posters seem to overlook the fact that if you sucked you wouldn't retain your raid slot.

[Deleted]

The true legendary of this expansion is Warlock green fire

[melodramocracy]

I'd like to see just how many people actually have the cloak, there's a way to query the achievements for that number right?

Don't you read these forums? EVERYONE has it. People here say so, so it must be true.

This can only mean that I have misplaced mine, or accidentally deleted it. Huh.

[felcommander]

It's referred to as that by the people that quit the game every 3 weeks and won't be getting one.

This.

Personally I have 11 max level toons and will only be getting the cloak on one of them (my main) dispite the fact that all my toons are 500 ilvl +. Its simply too much work to do 10 more times, between the time, the trillium bars, the rep ect its a lot of work.

If it was truely a welfare legendary I'd be getting it on all 11 toons.

[khalltusk]

Yeah. All the "old legendaries were not hard because" posters seem to overlook the fact that if you sucked you wouldn't retain your raid slot.

40man raids (aside the ones at the very cutting edge) had a lot of bad players in as the raids generally were not that difficult. TBC with 25mans bang on it was a lot easier to see who was not pulling their weight. Also depends on the guild I guess as well. My old Vanilla guild had several priests who had to pay someone to do their benediction quests.... the fail!

[Allarius]

And rest assured, if you couldn't acquire the pieces for this legendary via LFR, normal mode raiders would be screaming to high heaven about how much of a grind this is, and how much of a waste of time it is, and Blizz please change the drop rates, and on and on. But since it's do-able via lfr, it's suddenly welfare and terrible. How childish.

I raid normal with some heroic progession(We're not world first by any means. Only 2 nights a week, sometimes 1 depending on schedules) and I would be all for removing it from LFR. I'm not really sure why being a normal mode raider would mean they'd be upset if they removed it from LFR.

[arnoldr45]

Lol what I was about to say.

But really, this guy thinks hes a special flower since he got it

We're all special snowflakes in God...er, Blizzards eyes aren't we? *twirls around and sings* "the hills are alive with the sound of music"

I think it's actually an American condition, a lot of places in society you see a lot of rewards for mediocrity. Kids being celebrated for passing the 3rd grade, getting a "winners ribbon" for 15th place, the "special" olympics. It's part of our society as much as it shames me, Blizzard is an American company so it makes sense that kind of thinking will seep into their product.

[MasterHamster]

Legendaries that come with nothing but an abysmal RNG chance is clearly more legendary than one that spans an entire expansion.

[Deleted]

I don't really get where this mentality comes from. Let's compare the cloak to the other legendaries, shall we.
(I'd like to add that I've been around since day one, I'm talking simply from my own experience here.)
Some will agree with me and some won't, I'm just providing my view on legendary items.

Classic
Thunderfury/Sulfuras - MC was one of the easiest, least diverse raids ever released by blizzard. Bindings/Eye was purely luck based and required additional luck in farming mats. While BWL was a slight step up in difficulty from MC, it still wasn't that hard. Sure, took a lot of people to farm for one person. Some guilds got none, some got over ten legendaries, and this had nothing to do with how good a guild was.

Were obtaining one of these items a display of true skill and dedication? No, simply some luck and the ability to play the game a few times a week.

Ateish - Naxxramas. Naxxramas 40 was probably the relatively hardest raid ever designed in this game. And why relatively? Well, this game has been around for a long time and so have we, the players. We've been learning and getting better for 9 years now, requiering more and more challenging content. Note that this is speculation from my part, and with that, strictly my own point of view. If players with todays experience and "training" would get a crack at old Naxx 40 with the same conditions as we had back then, they would probably clear it a lot faster. I'm not saying that the raid was easy, I'm simply saying we where lesser experienced players.
This does, however, not change the fact that it was really challenging back then. Resulting in getting the legendary staff really hard. In addition to the instance getting removed due to the remake in WotLK, this makes it the most rare legendary item to date.

Were obtaining this item a display of true skill and dedication? Yes and yes, simple as that. Not the player specifically, but the guild as a whole.

The Burning Crusade
Glaives - Black Temple, the hardest part about this instance was to actually get attuned by killing Kael'thas. A requirement later removed resulting in a lot of guilds plowing through the instance within a few weeks. Obtaining these beautiful weapons was purely luck based, no additional farm required. The minor step up in difficulty from obtaining the classic legendaries was countered by no farm required and one of 25 people getting it instead of one of 40.

Were obtaining one of these items a display of true skill and dedication? No, simply some luck and the ability to play the game a few times a week.

Bow - Sunwell Plateau. Here we have a raid that was actually challenging and, in my opinion, compareable with todays heroic mode raids. However, again, for guilds able to clear sunwell, another luck based legendary. Some of the best guilds in the world didn't get a single bow while far lesser dedicated ones had several drops.

Were obtaining one of these items a display of true skill and dedication? Yes, but by no means a fairly distributed legendary item.

Wrath of the Lich King
Healing mace - Ulduar. Here's where it starts to get better. A raiding guild contributes with farming several fragments towards building a legendary weapon. Having a high amount of building blocks, if you will, results in a more even pace towards obtaining the item.

Were obtaining one of these items a display of true skill and dedication? No, doable in a fairly easy raid environment but at least close to no luck required (ofc you could be insanely unlucky and not get shards for a great part of the kills, but eventually you would have your mace).

Shadowmourne - ICC. Pretty much the same thing as the mace from ulduar, with the addition of higher drop chance from heroic bosses. A great little addition in my opinion, higher reward at higher difficulty but still doable on normal.

Were obtaining this item a display of true skill and dedication? Skill, not at all. However, heroic raiding guilds obtained this legendary at double the rate of normal mode guilds, resulting in twice as many items.

Cataclysm
Caster staff - Firelands. Same principle as with shadowmourne with the addition of being obtainable in 10-mans since the lockout merge of 10-/25-man raids. Higher reward came with higher difficulty. Again, I find this to be a good system.

Daggers - Dragon Soul. Same as with staff from firelands.

Were obtaining one of these items a display of true skill and dedication? Skill, not at all. However, heroic raiding guilds obtained this legendary at a higher rate than normal mode guilds, resulting in more items. 25 man raids also got it at a higher rate than 10 man to compensate for more players.

Mists of Pandaria
Cloak - Pandaria. Finally, after all my ranting, we've arrived at the legendary cloak. I've, like I said earlier, been around since day one of this game. I've farmed all the legendaries during my time with the game (for others that is, I've myself been playing a few different chars during theese years to suit my guilds needs, resulting in never playing a class suited for a legendary at the time).

Never have I worked for so long to complete a legendary item as I have with the cloak. While being obtainable by every player out there, it's by far no welfare item.
After Ateish and Thori'dal, it's the legendary that are the least welfare of them all imo. Those two are the only legendaries to date, where you knew that the wielder was indeed a great player and part of a great guild. The rest was, simply put, welfare. Rare, but welfare.

Now, to all of you who think you've accomplished something great by obtaining some of the other legendaries than just Ateish and Thori'dal while being current content, think again.

Am I clouded by the fact that I've been working so hard for so long only to see every legendary item go to another player? No, I'm not in it for the items. I play for the experience, and to be able to say that I've been part of obtaining every legendary in the game is a pretty cool feat in my book. To help your fellow guildies and friends get their legendaries can be just as exciting as getting them yourself.

So, what defines a legendary? Rarity? Avaliability? The amount of luck, skill and commitment required to obtain them have varied so much over the years that we can no longer define them together. That's no longer fair.

English is not my native language and I'm not going to read this wall of text over again after writing it as much as you guys won't read it twice so I'd like to apologize in advance for typos and other fuck ups.

[Nemah]

The true legendary of this expansion is Warlock green fire

....except it's also basically free to anyone with a pulse and 510ish gear now as well.

[Aucald]

I think the Legendary questline for the MoP cloak was an interesting exercise in how to do Legendary items - complete with both benefits and flaws in its execution. I'm not one to say "I'm an elite raider so only *I* and others like me deserve a Legendary," as I find that entitled mentality to be both childish and blind to a wide swath of the playerbase. That being said the MoP Legendary does feel a bit too open as it was something that with time and decent RNG was pretty much a sure thing. I liked the aspect that it was self-paced and independent of one's raiding team and guild for the most part - it didn't put a raid leader (which is me in my particular guild) in the quandary of having to decide who gets the Legendary in a certain tier, having to perform the brutal calculus of who is most deserving and dealing with the inevitable fallout.

I think the perfect idea would have been a combination of the current Legendary collection quests for pacing and a series of trials not unlike the Warlock Green fire effects questline and/or the Proving Grounds. You could even toss in a unique boss-level mob to throw in the guild-assistance flavor without necessarily making it too much of a hurdle for more casually oriented guilds or raiding teams. In essence, I liked that it could be equally achievable by anyone interested in it without having to arbitrarily decide the haves and have-nots but I do wish it had a bit more challenge to it so that it felt like a true achievement.

[arnoldr45]

--SNIP--

Is the sky blue?
simply put, no

See? I can do it to.

Please don't quote giant posts to post a very small reply.

[Fenixdown]

Welfare recipients wait for their checks in the mail. It doesn't take them much effort or work to get a pay day. Just time.

You are waiting for your cloak. It didn't take you much effort or work to get your item. Just time.

That's the connection, and I agree with it 100%.

By that token, nearly every legendary in the game is "welfare". I mean, are you going to sit here and tell me it took lots of "effort" to clear Molten Core each week when you were in Tier 2 and above gear? Or Firelands? Dragon Soul? Black Temple once Sunwell came out?

Furthermore, who are you to say I didn't put much effort into getting my cloak? I did normal and heroic raiding to complete my quests. I don't see how that's welfare at all.

Maybe your cloak is welfare, but I actually did earn mine. And I'm quite proud of that fact. You can sit there and call it names and act like a spoiled brat who stops caring about his favorite toy when someone else has it. I'll happily go through normal and heroic Siege with my cape, which I even planned my transmog around to fit it, and just snicker every time I hear you call it "welfare". Because you don't have a clue at all, and it shows in your ignorant comments about the subject.

[Farora]

No, simply some luck and the ability to play the game a few times a week.

Haha... I don't know how to reply to that.

You realise that EVERYTHING in the whole fucking game requires the ability to play the game a few times a week?