Dude, Where's my Attunements?

"Hey Sam, you're super-casual, you must be glad there's no attunements in Wrath, right?"

Well, Imaginary-Voice-in-my-Head, you are absolutely wrong.

Sure, it's great to jump right in to any content I please. But, what if I don't belong there? What if I'm not ready? Attunements are the game's way of saying "You don't belong here. Go home, noob."

I know I'm not the only one who thinks it's ridiculous that after reaching Level 80, many players seem to have 2 immediate goals: train new skills and join a Heroic. Not always in that order, either. Sorry, but that's just not going to work in most situations. I'm a Highly Intelligent Individual, and recognize this. Many players are not. That, dear I-V-i-m-H, is why attunements are a GOOD thing, when implemented properly.

Let's examine some attunements over the ages of WoW.

Scarlet Monastery: Clear the Library to obtain the key to unlock the last two wings. Fine. Show you can complete the easier parts of the instance before moving on to tougher ones.

Blackrock Spire: Obtain the key from the 5-man (10 back when I was running it) wing to access the 10-man wing (15 back then). Cool, same as SM. Run all the way out to Swamp of Freaking Sorrows to fight a dragon? Completely unnecessary. Bliz should have left off the second half.

Onyxia: Completing a nice quest chain with lots of lore is fine. Having to run Blackrock Depths multiple times is NOT.

Molten Core: Spend 5 minutes in BRD. Honestly, I felt this one should have been tougher. Way too many people who didn't belong there dragged down their Guilds and took raid spots from people who could have actually contributed.

Burning Crusade Heroics: Earn Revered with the corresponding faction and buy a key. This was ridiculous. The only way to get to Revered was to run the regular instances MANY times. Attunements should not be grinds. So, Bliz changed the rep requirement to Honored. This made it too EASY. Anyone who can do some quests could get Honored, and plenty of undergeared players caused problems. I'll explain my idea for Heroic Attunements later.

Karazhan: I actually liked this attunement. A couple quick quests, then run three normal instances, only ONE of which was required to get to the end. Finally, complete Black Morass. That can all be done in a couple of hours with a half-decent group. I feel this showed that a player had progressed far enough in the game to earn the right to start raiding. Perhaps the last part was a bit much, but only because it's too much running around.

Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern: These were excessively complicated. Heroics, Heroics and more Heroics. THEN kill Gruul and Magtheridon. I think it would have been fine to prove that you can handle one tier of raid content before moving on to the next.

Mount Hyjal & Black Temple.: Hyjal requiring Vashj and Kael kills is fine by me. BT was a mess. clearing SSC and TK should have been enough.

Granted, I'm no raider. I never had to do most of this past Onyxia and MC. However, I hate the thought of doing something I KNOW I'm not ready for just because it's there. However, I also understand that this isn't just a game, it's a business. The more people can access, the more likely they'll keep paying their subscription fees. To me, attunements are merely a moral issue. I want to EARN my way to higher content. To others, they're just hoops to jump through, trying to keep you playing longer. When they dropped attunements in BC, I watched people try raiding TK when they couldn't handle Gruul or Mag. It wasn't pretty.

So, what attunements would I consider fair? Easy to do, but still challenging enough to prove you deserve it?

Heroics: Complete the highest-level wing of the instance to earn the Heroic key. For example, clearing Occulus ONCE on Normal mode would unlock Heroic Nexus and Heroic Occulus. I don't think that's asking too much. Show you can handle the instance normally before you ramp up the difficulty. Show you've at least attempted to upgrade your gear.

Naxxramas and Beyond: Honestly, I'm okay with entry-level raids not having tough attunements. Perhaps just a small questline with some lore, ending in a 5-man group quest. However, I don't think it's asking too much to kill Kel'Thuzad before you're allowed to enter Ulduar.

I know I'm going to upset some people with this. Admittedly, it's not really my aspect of the game. However, as someone who works hard to earn the small status he has, I don't think it's asking too much for others to at least TRY.






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