LFR Heroes in WoD

Forgive me for creating yet another topic on the subject of LFR come WoD. I didn't want to post in any of the other million threads because I am neither pro or against the recently revealed changes, I am not complaining, or namecalling, or threatening to unsubscribe, or stating that I've been raiding for ten years and therefore my opinion matters more. This, I think, sufficiently distances me from the conversations of most of those threads.

To my knowledge there are going to be three major differences to how LFR will function. The first is that it will scale from 10 to 25 players. I see no issue with this, as it means groups won't have to wait as long to refill after a wipe, or after a kill.

The second is that LFR will award loot more generously, particularly in combination with how bonus rolls will work in not giving the same piece of equipment twice. Again, I see no trouble with this, as it will get characters through LFR faster, and people can move on to harder content, or their alts, or whatever they enjoy.

The third change seems to be the least important to me, and yet has caused the most stress to others: LFR will no longer award tier armor or the same trinkets as normal+. I would like to stress here that I am entirely indifferent. I only ever run LFR when I'm really bored, and I get a healer satchel for queueing. I do normal and heroic raiding, but not so hardcore that maxing out my character by trying to score an LFR trinket is a worthy use of my time. So here are my unbiased thoughts.

My motto for this thread is going to be: "Different activities award different gear."

To those players that run LFR as their endgame, I ask you if you need to have tier set bonuses? Yes, they can be fun, but do you need them? The answer is clearly no. In all content up to and including LFR, you do not need set bonuses for anything, nor do you need the power that raiding trinkets provide, whereas heroic and mythic raiders really DO need them. You will still be able to improve your character by getting the LFR armor and trinkets that will be available, you just won't get the same gear (in a scaled down form) as the normal raiders do. You also won't get the same gear as heroic dungeons, or the pvp players get. Different activities award different gear.

To those players that want to be able to get the art from tier sets, I would like to point out that since the conception of LFR, the tier sets awarded by LFR have had a different color from those awarded by normal or heroic raiding. So my first point is that they're not the same art, and never have been -- different activities award different gear. My second point is that nearly all tier armor in the past couple expansions have had duplicates as normal pieces that anyone can acquire and equip. If you want to be a warlock and look like a mage with a flaming skull for a head like in Cata, you can go back and get those pieces. So it is likely that this will be the same, and there will be certain LFR pieces that look like tier, but just won't BE tier. This brings me to my third point: the raids aren't going to disappear. If you cannot or do not wish to run the raids as current content now, you can always come back later and farm old raids for transmog gear, as is always happening now.

To the normal and heroic raiders I would say that this change doesn't really GIVE you anything. If you're missing out on a trinket, your only recourse will be to hope it drops next time you down a boss. Technically you're losing an option to improve. However, what it does do is prevent anyone from forcing or expecting you to run LFR for gear. This is nice, because it completely separates the worlds of LFR raiding and normal mode raiding. You can choose to do both if you so desire, but LFR and LFR gear are for LFR players, and normal mode and normal mode gear are for raiders. Different activities award different gear, and you get what you need for what you're trying to do.

I wouldn't be opposed to them creating LFR sets so that LFR heroes can feel more powerful. I wouldn't be opposed to them making LFR items that look like tier so that LFR heroes can look like they think their class is supposed to (which I predict will happen anyway). But, I don't think it is an issue worth getting riled up about, or threatening to quit the game about. LFR will still be there if you want it. It will still permit you to progress your character, and see the story. It won't give the same gear as normal or heroic, and it never will, and it never has, so I really don't see the cause for all the fuss.