We're just two months into Mists and I find myself very conflicted about the expansion. I love that they are putting so much effort into story, and Pandaria feels like a much more cohesive setting than the five scattered zones of Cataclysm. I also like that heroics are tuned on the easier side (though they are probably a bit too easy - HoT heroics were probably in the sweet spot.)
However, there are a few things that I don't really care for. One is probably obvious: the fact that Valor rewards are gated behind reputations. I would have far preferred that reputation gear was considered something distinct from VP gear. Now, granted, I never hit exalted with Baradin's Warders, and by the time I considered it, the gear available from it was way below what I would want. Still, I think that additional questing content at level 90 is a good idea, and I'd be happy to do it - it's just that I'd also like the option to just gear up via VP the old fashioned way.
One of the problems that arises with this system is that I always seem to either have too much VP and nothing to spend it on, or I've got plenty of rep but not enough VP to buy anything with because I spend all my time on daily quests with their relatively insubstantial 5 VP per quest (yes, I know it adds up, but very slowly.) My main and vice-main demonstrate this: Jarsus has hit revered with everyone, but has a tiny amount of VP, while Oterro is sitting on 1700 or so, but is only honored with Klaxxi and Golden Lotus.
Now, Blizzard has said time and again that we don't have to do the Rep grind. If we want, we can just run instances over and over to get our drops the old old fashioned way. The progression path they point to is that you run heroics, then step into Raid Finder (unless you've got a raiding guild, which, I fear, mine no longer is.)
This, then, introduces a new problem: Raid Finder makes tanking nearly impossible. If you are a tank, you will spend an hour or more in the Raid Finder queue. When only two people in every twenty-five is a tank, there's very little demand. Now, I'm not saying you won't get to run, but you need to set aside not only the hour or however long it takes to actually do the raid (and these are complex fights that can be relatively unforgiving: I'm looking at you, Will of the Emperor,) but also your queue time. To put it mildly, I'm disinclined to run LFR on my Tank.
I've taken my DK and made him go DPS, and he'll now be my "first run" guy, to scope out the instance before I see it on my main (5-mans, on the other hand, I think I will still see first on Jarsus.) As someone who ran all four kinds of tanks in Wrath, this is a sad day for me.
The other issue I have is that the daily gating is especially hard on alts. I resolved to wait until the double-rep bonus with 5.1 to start on those dailies with my other characters (though I'm cheating with Oterro, given his aforementioned new status.) Still, even at twice the rate, these grinds take a long time. On a plate-clad melee character, it's not a huge burden (especially the kind of self-healing killing machine that is a Death Knight) but for, say, my Mage, hitting the level cap and getting to a point where there will always be a tank to keep enemies at range is a huge boost to being an enjoyable class to play. And when you have as many toons as I do (at this point I have a Paladin, Rogue, Death Knight, Warrior, Shaman, Warlock, and Mage at 90) this kind of thing is a real pain. (Now, if each subsequent player could get another Commendation to either triple-quadruple etc or to exponentially double rep gains again, then we might be in business! If you'd done the grind on everyone but the Mage, a single Golden Lotus daily would yield 6,400 rep for him. At that rate, you'd hit exalted on the first day!)
My hope is that these issues are "early expansion issues." After all, remember how hard heroic Loken was back in 3.0? Assuming Blizzard listens really, really well to the feedback they're getting (and they should) it will hopefully be easier to catch up, gear-wise, when the next raid tier comes out. Will the current factions (and the 5.1 ones) lose relevance? Sure, it's possible. What I hope is that a few months from now, we'll be able to level up a new character, hit 90, and after a few days of dedicated dungeon running, get to a point where we don't embarrass ourselves. (100k dps? Ugh, weak!)
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