Let us Sing and Dance and Ring in the New! Hail Justice Points!

Some new patch notes have come by for the 5.4 PTR, and there is some fantastic, excellent news!

All the 5.0 reputation vendor gear (as in, Mists' original VP vendors) is now:

A. Reputation-Free - no dailies if you don't want to! and...
B. Justice Point-available!

Justice Points, which this expansion have been far more useful when converted to Honor Points (because PvP gear has stuck to the Cataclysm old/current gear model,) will now allow you to purchase a full set of epics at iLevel 489 (not sure if Shieldwall/Dominance is included in this change.) Now, before you poo-poo 489 gear as you sit on your throne averaging at an iLevel of 510 or so (main and prime alt are both at about 512 as regular ToT LFR participants,) you should remember that this is not for you, but for all the new 90s and alts. Remember alts? (Ok, I've actually got plenty of alts at 90, but I'm that guy ((see: blog title.)))

Now, this is certainly not as generous a catch-up system as Cataclysm or Late-Wrath had. This stuff is two tiers behind, rather than one. Still, considering that the iLevel to queue for Siege of Orgrimmar is currently 496 (meaning that if Shieldwall/KTO/Horde equivalents thereof get downgraded to Justice, you should be able to get there pretty easily,) and as you'll still probably need to run through each of the raidfinder segments in sequence, and thus likely get some pieces out of the preceding tiers, it will be not too bad at all getting a new alt geared up.

I imagine a lot of people don't even bother running heroics anymore (I only do about one a week on my best-geared toons, which makes me sad.) Therefore, you may not realize that you actually get a pretty sizable chunk of JP from each run. Likewise with Scenarios.

The crappy 458 blues aren't going away entirely, but their price is getting slashed by, I believe, 75% - basically just if you really need that one extra item point to queue for MSV or something.

I'm very happy that Justice Points are finally getting to serve their stated purpose.

I don't know how much to read into this move, I'm very curious to see how this system evolves in the next expansion. Frankly, if you ask me, the Cataclysm currency model was the best they've used (rare to praise Cataclysm, I know, but that expansion did have its saving graces.) Philosophically, I know they are wary of "content skipping," or probably more accurately "content obsolescence" but I do think that at the end of the day, you need a way to let people catch up, and this is one of the ways you do that.

Probably too early, but I'm going to hoard JP on my lower-geared toons!