In the current state of World of Warcraft, obtaining the legendary staff, Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest, remains a time-consuming and often frustrating process for many players. Even with increased drop rates, the sheer time investment (4-6 weeks) means that only a select few can realistically get the staff before the tier ends. This issue becomes even more critical in the face of shorter raid tiers and the upcoming Dragon Soul patch, which will further limit the relevance of this iconic item.
However, this isn’t just about the staff being hard to obtain; it’s also about the problematic GDKP economy and how it affects the game’s integrity. GDKP runs have turned the legendary staff into a commodity, often being auctioned off for millions of gold. This gold then circulates in the game, impacting the broader community by encouraging gold selling and other unsavory practices. It’s time for a change—one that benefits the entire caster community and helps clean up the WoW economy.
The Problem:
Time-Consuming Process: For casual or less competitive guilds, collecting the embers and other quest materials for Dragonwrath can take weeks, or even months. When only one player can progress at a time, guilds are forced to prioritize, often leaving some players behind who never get the opportunity to finish the questline.
Short Raid Tiers: With Firelands being followed shortly by Dragon Soul, the window for obtaining the staff and having it remain relevant is narrow. Many guilds will likely transition to the next tier before multiple players have had the chance to acquire their staff.
GDKP and Gold Selling: The GDKP system has turned the legendary staff into a gold sink, with players paying millions of gold to have priority on the quest items. This artificially inflates the value of gold in the game and encourages real-world money trading, which harms the game’s community and integrity.
The Solution: Allow All Casters to Collect Legendary Materials Simultaneously
By allowing every eligible caster in a raid to collect their quest items (Seething Cinders, Smoldering Essences, etc.) simultaneously, we can tackle the core issues in several ways:
Accessibility for Casual Guilds: Instead of focusing on one player, guilds could support all of their casters at once. This would give more players a fair chance to finish their legendary questline within the raid tier’s timeframe. It ensures that the effort put into defeating bosses benefits a wider group of players, making the legendary staff more attainable for those who aren’t in high-end mythic guilds.
Removing GDKP Influence: If every caster can collect quest items at the same time, there’s no need for players to bid exorbitant amounts of gold to “buy” their way to the staff. This would remove millions of gold from the GDKP system, reducing the prevalence of gold selling and helping clean up the game’s economy.
Fitting with Shorter Tiers: Given how short raid tiers are in modern WoW, the legendary staff is only relevant for a brief window. Making it more accessible during the current tier would ensure more players actually get to use it while it’s still competitive. The current system makes it so that many players will never wield the staff before it becomes obsolete.
Potential Benefits:
Improved Guild Morale: Guilds wouldn’t have to worry about deciding who gets to collect their quest items first, which can often lead to tension or favoritism. This change would foster a more collaborative environment, where every caster feels included.
Less Incentive for Gold Selling: By eliminating GDKP’s monopoly on legendary items, this proposal could help combat the rise of third-party gold sellers. If players aren’t buying gold to win bids on legendaries, it removes a key source of demand from the gold-selling market.
Balanced Economy: With less gold flowing through GDKP runs for legendary items, it could help stabilize the game’s economy. The inflation caused by millions of gold being traded in GDKP runs has had far-reaching consequences, and this proposal could slow that trend.
Addressing Concerns:
Loss of Legendary Prestige: Some may argue that making the staff more accessible will diminish its prestige. However, the value of the staff has already been diluted in many ways due to the prevalence of GDKP runs. Allowing more players to obtain it by completing content, rather than spending gold, would maintain the integrity of what makes legendaries special.
Game Design Philosophy: Blizzard has traditionally designed legendaries to be a longer-term goal. While this makes sense in some cases, the shortened tier structure of modern WoW makes it difficult for players to complete the questline before it becomes irrelevant. Adjusting the design for these new realities would improve the player experience without fundamentally breaking the game’s design philosophy.
Conclusion:
By allowing all casters to collect their legendary materials concurrently, Blizzard could solve several major issues that are plaguing the game. Not only would this change make the legendary staff more accessible to casual and mid-tier guilds, but it would also curb the rampant gold inflation caused by GDKP runs. In a game where the economy is becoming increasingly problematic, and raid tiers are shorter than ever, now is the perfect time to rethink how legendary questlines work.
This isn’t just about making things easier—it’s about making things fairer and keeping WoW’s in-game economy healthy. Let’s give more players the chance to enjoy the thrill of wielding Dragonwrath, and reduce the toxic impact of GDKP runs in the process.
Sadly, you have put more thought into this than blizz will, is anyone working on Cata?
You should feel nothing but pity for these people, imagine being so addicted to a cartoon game your pumping who knows how much real cash into chocolate coins to buy a new walking stick for your dude.
Fools and cash are easily parted
Some wealthy people protect their money, others throw it about and like to show off/waste it , it’s easy to make money off the last types
GDKP runners are doing it for a job, people are pumping so much gold into it, what a ridiculous situation to be in
Its not much different to some crack head that can’t stop buying crack from a dealer.
By your suggestion vast majority of casters would get this legendary item. Do you think that is the nature of an LEGENDARY item? I don’t think so and many others don’t either.
Since not having a legendary staff will practically make it impossible for you to parse well as soon as they start rolling out, which is one of the major sources of enjoyment for a large portion of the DPS-playerbase, yes. Screw it being legendary, 2012 is long gone and people just want to enjoy the last death throes of a 13 y.o. nostalgia-trip.
It will only lead to more people quitting as they can’t be arsed the prospect of their next shot at even footing will be when they’re snoring away while farming spine of Deathwing.
Ye, my heart just sinked sfter reading the changes. Its nothing i was hoping for. Its just shadowmourne but slower and 3 times over + the quests, extra boss…etc.
I was hoping for what you have suggested…the wuest items drops individualy and personaly. Because as it is…its jist gdkp fiesta…the staves are already sold on most of the gdkp groups where min bid started at 1 mil…ehy is that an issue?..well unfortunately releasing sod season and TWW expansion totaly deleted cataclysm from relevance and only way how to raid is gdkp or 10 man with homies…theres literaly ZERO pug groups…its not lile ICC…ffs man. I was willing to pay for extra boss kills or even the extra hussle with the quests …but god damn paying for every gathering step .im on a verge just CBA with cata anymore…
I’m sorry but you shouldn’t feel an entitlement to a legendary weapon. It’s something designed to reward the most loyal players in high performing guilds, not something players should have on 3 or 4 alts.
I agree GDKP’s have a toxic impact and the solution is banning them, not re-designing the game around them.
Mains in high end guilds who have raided heroic clears for 5 months straight and sometimes in splits will have it. That’s a fraction of the playerbase.
Most the caster roster in average guilds struggling on heroic won’t have it, unguilded people who pug every week won’t have it, casuals won’t have it, alts won’t have it, healers won’t have it, offspecs won’t have it, people who move between versions of WoW every couple of months won’t have it.
The vast majority of characters you encounter in the game or see in pugs won’t have one.
Can I ask - If your main enjoyment from the game is parsing high/out doing other players etc, Is playing a game that has so much randomness baked into it a sensible thing to do?
People have to farm for godless hours doing the same task to get an item that only THEN allows them to compete in raids etc
There must be far better games out there that allow you guys to compete straight away without having to “grind” for items.
Like chess maybe - everyone’s got the same items to begin with
Following BIS list like it’s gospel.
This has archaeology FOMO vibes written all over it.
Thou Must have this item or you can’t play as good as other people /sadface
Sure I will, as I will get it early in a 25m. However, unlike some of you people, I have no difficulties feeling empathy for other human beings who might not be as lucky.
It’s objectively a bad strategy from Blizzard for cata player retention, but I suppose that isn’t necessarily something they, or you, care much about.
As someone who’s guild did not survive the 22 weeks of solved by week 4 content I will never get a staff because I have to find a new guild and every caster wants this. On top of that with the current progression its maybe 2 staffs before Dragon Soul? This is the most broken legendary in the existence of the game and very few people are going to get it.
It begs the question as to why anyone even wants to play Cata. We all know what the broken class is and its just going to double in power in Firelands so we just get to sit on the sidelines while the main character does everything.
Yep, my previous raiding guild rerolled retail at TWW release instead. So recently I also had to become trial in a new guild and start over from scratch. I’m a healer main, so my chance of getting the staff for my dps offspec was close to zero anyway, but now it’s at absolute zero.
Raiding in a guild is a team game. You’re supposed to enjoy clearing bosses with people you like. I think it’s sad if you can’t enjoy the game just because you’re not the top dps and top parser.
Nobody should feel entitled towards or expect a legendary, it’s why they’re legendary and given only to a select few.
Valanir needed 30 pieces. You were guaranteed only 3 from Yogg and 2 from Algalon. Considering that chances of getting them were buffed in ICC when it was mandatory for healer parces and Ulduar was irrelevant, you can conclude that in dragon soul aka tier 13 something would be done for further trivialising of the legendary staff acquisition. For now measures to coincide with sped up expansion flow seem fine.
