Seriously, we have LFR, Flex, Normal, Normal Warforged, Heroic, Heroic Warforged - where does it stop?
I took a break early on in ToT from just being burned out, recently some friends convinced me to come back and play, and getting geared up for the content I want to do has never been more difficult. I've taken breaks like this before and I have never, ever had this much trouble getting back into the game. All these options to make the game more casual and new exciting ways Blizzard has decided to hand out gear has done nothing but throw up extra walls for returning players.
When I left I was getting top 50 ranks fairly regularly on World of Logs. So, I come back, pick up whatever new freebies are available, and decide to start looking for normal mode pugs. Just kidding, you need full Flex gear before they'll take you. Fine, I guess. Flex seems alright, sort of like what LFR always should have been. I start trying to find Flex groups. I get laughed out of the ones that will even take me for my "pathetic" 110k dps. What the fuck? I mean, really, what the fuck? People are pulling over 200k dps now without even trying thanks to all these different flavours of gear. We started this expansion doing 50k and now top logs are over 500k.
So, here I am, used to fully clearing heroic content pre-nerf and I can't even get into a normal mode group. Not because I'm not skilled, but even with all the skills in the world I can't outplay someone with warforged normal mode weapons because they're like 50 ilvl's higher than my HEROIC EMPRESS mace. Give me a break.
Maybe all these different tiers of gear are great for some people. But for me its fucking cancer, I'm relegated to LFR for the next two months to play catch up on my gear to do any sort of interesting content. I've always been able to skip a tier, come back, and be competitive on the pick up group level with my old gear. Sure, I was never getting parses or topping meters, but I've never been a liability or a carry like I would be in any group now. What were they thinking when they made the game like this? I'm shelving WoW until WoD.
Thats my rant. Has anybody else had this issue?