I must be missing something. Isn't vGrades point simply that having the purples during vanilla made you a rock star due to the difficulty of acquiring said gear vs how it is today.
I think it's something like that, but he's trying to make a point that doesn't exist. He's equating the fact that people can get any epics to what it was like to get vanilla epics; IE only the raiders had epics, whereas now most everyone can farm/somewhat raid for them.
Except, the type of gear he means has not changed in it's acquisition methods, and has in fact gotten harder. The normal mode gear that he is omgwtfbbqing about? It takes more effort now to get it than it did back then. He is upset that seeing people in epics period does not mean they are good raiders, or hardcore or whatnot; it just means they've done LFR.
But who cares about that? I know that anyone in blue schemed t15 is doing heroic; nothing has changed. Maybe the plebs of your server will think you're tough shit, but anyone worth their salt won't.
And, as mentioned, he played a druid during 40 man raiding, and received loot when it was shit. That's not impressive to me.
I assumed that he was waxing poetic about "the good ole days" but really had nothing to back it up with.
@ Asherah - People cared a lot more also because there was an actual community; you competed against people on the same server, people knew which guild was killing what, who had full t1/2 first, who opened the AQ gates, etc. If you couldn't get 40 people together, you weren't getting shit, so most raiders were always held up on high.
@ Daviv - Yea, that always struck me as humorous. We raided to take on the best baddies - loot was a byproduct and a means to an end. It was the reason we farmed the shit out of dungeons to get the last loot that might make us that much more powerful.
@ elvis - No shit, but even downranking healing touch didn't mean they suddenly became valuable. They tank healed - remember that back in vanilla only ONE rejuve could be on the target, period. Meaning if another druid healed your target, and they had more SP then you, yours was gone. Wasted mana! In the very first raids, you couldn't even downrank HT, because it took a dog's age to cast - it was akin to greater heal from priests, and back then most priests tag teamed flash healed your tanks. (Until you started downranking heal rank 4.)
Shit, druids didn't even have an out of combat rez to help speed up recovery time.
The fact still remains that they were brought along for brez and innervate for priests; you could literally have put anyone else in their shoes in a raid and it wouldn't have made a difference, unless you super relied on the brezzes or innervates. (And you wanted at least one for mark.)
Anyways, yea. Vanilla wow was great for many reasons, but if your reason is that people knew you were a badass based on what your gear looked like, then that hasn't changed in the slightest. What has changed is how everyone can acquire epic gear, and how there is virtually no sense of community on any server, so it's far less likely for someone to run by you, see your raid gear and do a double take.
Edit: Wall of text, told myself I'd go to sleep when I got the next level on my archer but instead I just started leveling my marauder.
