An idea on vendor gear.

[Skillstorm]

Just an idea that was passing through my mind about gaining the vendor gear of each patch that I though decent enough to share.

The idea was, that instead of having badges for gear and stuff, how about you get reputation points, to tie in with reputations.
What I mean is, for example take the firelands raid. Assuming a new reputation will be brought out for it, you get points aswell as the reputation gains.
In this way, an example of this in action, you start to build your reputation with this new faction and as you do you gain points. When you get to friendly you get a tabard that allows for 25% of total weekly points being able to be awarded through heroics. When you get honoured, the tabard allows for 50% of maximum weekly points, and revered 75%. Exalted would then grant 100%. The maximum total points gained would be the amount of points you could acquire through completing the entire raid of Firelands. And it would take 2 full clears to get one item from the points. This would allow for better gating into the raid and also the gear. So, at moment you would have one for Orgimmar that would get you the current justice/valor point gear.

This may seem pointless and just cluttering which they just went through an overhaul to remove, however it would mean that you don't get the same problem that a lot of people were complaining about in wrath of fresh 85's getting all the current gear with no effort, it would remove the need for regular raiders to be farming redundant content for current items, as those who are clearing the full raid of Firelands each week would already be getting the maximum point they could, and you could do it in a way so, say it takes 7 heroics to gain the maximum weekly, like it is currently, you could wear your Firelands tabard and get the maximum weekly points from 7 heroics with that tabard and then another 7 with the Orgimmar tabard if you still required the Valour gear.

It's a little unclear of an idea at the moment, but with some further discussions and ideas added it could be a good, feasible idea.

---------- Post added 2011-05-29 at 03:08 PM ----------

Just to add in, I haven't fully been keeping up with what is actually happening in the next patch so if they are already doing this, or something better then disregard this.

[MasterNewbie]

Fresh 85s will never have it "easy" getting current gear. Getting current gear requires you having to enter a current raid, since rep/valor gear takes care of about half of your slots (at least this tier). You have to raid to get a full 359 set. Likely will be the same for 372.

And yes, your idea is very unclear. What I understand from it, as you progress your rep with the new faction (and there is a new faction associated with Firelands, Avengers of Hyjal), you get a tabard which basically extends your weekly valor cap from heroics 980/1250 to 1250/1250, allowing you to get your all your weekly valor from heroics. Honestly seems pointless to me, since if you can clear Firelands you won't need to cap your heroic valor cap to get your weekly valor cap.

Unless you're suggesting removing valor points from random heroics by default and only allowing them when you have this tabard. I would strongly disagree with this as would all my alts.

Or are you talking about extending the weekly valor cap from 1250 to something higher with the tabard? I wouldn't agree with this either.

[Skillstorm]

What I mean is that you gain Reputation points rather than valor points.
So for the current valor gear it would be Orgrimmar points, and when you do the heroics with the orgrimmar tabard you get the orgrimmar points to buy the gear. Having friendly rep with orgrimmar would, for example, grant you a maximum of 250 points in a week, honoured 500 points, revered 750 points, and exalted 1000 points. And the total you could get in a week is 1000, which you would gain from clearing 12/12 in raids.

So for Firelands, what I'm implying is that you would only gain the points necessary to purchase the new badge gear when you are wearing the Avengers of Hyjal tabard in heroics, or when doing the raid. (The points from the raid do not require any rep standing, or the tabard.) Given there is a whole new branch of dailies, from what I understand, to up your standing with the new faction getting the tabard quickly for alts would not be overly difficult. Alternatively if people are going to be that lazy they could make the tabard, rep standing included for purposes of the tabard, BoA.

Also, for your point that fresh 85's will never have it easy, I can be pretty certain that anyone who played through WotLK is pretty much just waiting for it to happen. I think from what I've heard you will be able to get tier 11 from Justice points in 4.2 is that correct? Meaning we are already moving down the same path we did in Wrath.

[MasterNewbie]

I played through Wrath, never was I able to gear any character with the current gear from badges/rep alone. It was always some hodgepodge of current gear, gear from the last tier, and gear from two tiers ago (referring to alts who hit 80 in the middle of ICC). Whatever cost valor points in pre-4.2 will be costing justice points. That is, tier 11 chest, legs and gloves will cost justice points, shoulders and helm will still require the token. Heroic versions of T11 will still require heroic tokens.

What you're suggesting does sound mildly interesting, but I don't think the implementation would be worth the effort in just trying to inhibit the gearing progression of new 85s/people who can't progress far into Firelands. I am assuming that is the intent of this system. Nor do I agree with inhibiting the gear progression. Even if you include some BoA option so alts of people who get the currency can get it on their alt, the people who have just gotten their first 85 during some tier past the first tier of the expansion (so like some newbie just hit 85 a few months into Firelands) he will be screwed over, even if the rep is available from a daily quest hub.

The system would favor people who are actually doing Firelands, a fresh 85 isn't going to be doing Firelands any time soon, especially if the 372 badge gear is out of reach because of the system. They'd be left with 359/346 mix, I can't imagine many guilds would be looking for someone with 353 ilvl to help with their Firelands progression. Because of the nerfs in 4.2, T11 raids will be more accessible by pugs and stuff, but I doubt they will still get very far. With the 30% buff in ICC, I rarely found a pug who could get past twin aboms in ICC.

But basically what I see happening, new 85s get shafted with a system like this.