Attunements, Oh Attunements, Wherefore Art Thou Attunements?

If it's one thing I hated in Vanilla and Burning Crusade, but now miss in Wrath of the Lich King, it's actually those little quests and targets known as attunements.

They blocked you from reaching a certain area of content, sure, but sometimes, as seen in the many ICC and ToC pugs, might actually be a good thing for some. They ranged from:

• Creating resistance kits
• Grinding reputation up to a certain level
• Epic quest chains
  
• Looting something from inside the raids themselves, in order to progress to the next tier of raiding.

They were a nuisance at times, but they were in fact gems! If you ask someone their favourite questline from Vanilla, chances are it's going to be the Onyxia attunement line, along with perhaps The Missing Diplomat or whatever it is the Horde can enjoy. Prospecting these gems would uncover some utterly amazing pieces of lore, and actually have some kind of progression in terms of why you're heading onto the next piece of content, at least in the latter two types of attunements.


The first one however... Meh. It was the true blockade to halting progression. Gearing up people in shadow resistance gear for Mother Shahraz was bad enough for a 25man run, the fire res kit for Ragnaros for 40 people was a nightmare. Onyxia Scale Cloaks for the 40 people against Nefarian was no walk in the park either. If you had a 300 skinner, with the skinning enchant, and Finkle's Skinner/Zulian Slicer in the raid, you'd get 3 Scales of Onyxia on a lucky week, 1 on an unlucky week. That is if all your raid members hadn't /gquit by then because of the 50 DKP minus you gave them for standing in the whelp caves. These ones I don't mind saying farewell to, although it'll stop people whining when Paragon/Nihilum/STARS get their world firsts so quickly, because they'll have to spend a week or two just getting the resistance kits required. But then it'll whiplash and kick us in the teeth when WE need to gear up for those fights.

Perhaps make "optional" bosses require resistance sets? Optional as far as not needed to be killed to reach the end boss, or even unlock heroic modes. But they could be part of the "Glory of the ... Raider" meta-achievements. That way we get the best of both worlds - casuals can work their way to the end content with only tactics on their mind, the hardcore can unlock their heroic modes and work their way to the end boss in heroic mode, and the top few on each server can work on their Glory achievements.


The second one worked - to an extent. It really was amazing the change in the quality of groups when Blizzard changed the requirements for TBC heroics from Revered down to Honored. At least with the Revered requirement you had people that had done the instance at least once in normal mode. The expensive materials to Naxxramas 40man for people that were not yet Exalted with Argent Dawn yet also worked a treat. Chances are if you were ready for Naxx, then you'd most likely be Exalted with AD anyway, with the amount of Scholo/Strat runs you'd have been running for the game before. But reputations will be reputations - long, tedious grinds unless you happen to be a champion for that faction (which, for the most part, is not available).

What did work, I felt, and what will work in Cataclysm to an extent, is "attunement" to a dungeon from the Dungeon Finder tool requires you to have found it in the world - hence groups won't be spammed with "rez plz" when people don't actually realise where the hell they've got to go. The second part of what I feel will work, will be a requirement, like in Magister's Terrace, to have completed the dungeon once in normal mode, before being allowed in heroic 5man version.


One sidenote I do have to mention however. I hate keys. It encourages laziness enough for people to assume at least one person will have the key, and you end up with 4/9/24 people spamming the trade channel "LF tank last spot! YOU MUST HAVE KEY!!" Do it as you did with Karazhan's original plan - if you're going to have a key, make everyone need it! Although epic questlines do get outdated when people don't have the patience to do them, which means that for nostalgia raids you either have to depend on a Warlock, or just wait around for people to do the attunement. When a new expansion hits, drop the attunement, but keep the quest in as optional for the Loremasters.


I don't understand why Blizzard decided to do away with attunements in Wrath. All I can assume is that they wanted people to get into the content easier, and hit the end content like a freight truck. I'm not entirely sure what their plan is for attunements, but let's take a look at how it could have been done, raidwise:

1. Entry into Naxxramas would require for example the level 80 dungeon "Proof of Demise" quests - Collect the Locket of the Deceased Queen, Ley Line Tuner, Celestial Ruby Ring and Artifact from the Nathrezim Homeworld.
2. Entry into Obsidian Sanctum requires the raider to collect an item called Loatheb's Rotting Fur, and return it to Nalice atop Wyrmrest Temple.
   
3. Entry into Eye of Eternity already has the key from Sapphiron. But make it a raidwide drop instead of just one person.
4. Entry into Ulduar requires bringing Kel'Thuzad's Phylactery (Naxx), a Scale of Sartharion (OS) and Residue of Coldarra (EoE), and bringing them to Rhonin. He in turn grants you the Favor of Dalaran, which will allow the mages in Ulduar to shut down the magical shell at the base camp.
5. Entry into the Trial of the Crusader requires raiders to collect an item ([Keepers name]'s Sanity) from one of the Keepers of Ulduar. You then hand in said item to Tirion Fordring and he'll recognise you as being able enough to participate in the Trial of the Crusader.
6. Trial of the Grand Crusader's requirement can stay as it is. Kill Anub'arak in normal mode.
7. Icecrown Citadel's entry is the same as ToGC's. Represent Anub'arak's Claw to Tirion, and he will tell you to meet him inside Icecrown Citadel for the final blow against the Lich King.
8. Icecrown Citadel's heroic mode can stay as it is, killing Lichie on normal mode.

Now before people moan at me by saying "What happens when we get a new 80, either new member or alt?" I'll just say that these bosses aren't particularly hard to reach, PUGs can reach them within a matter of hours - get the new recruit a couple of speedruns or attunement runs (no doubt people in Trade will be advertising them too) in the pre-requisites, it can be on an off-raiding night as you're already past that content. Hardcore players that are fed up of going to the old raids most likely won't need to do them, as their raiding force is tight-nit anyway, and won't have many leavers. Casuals I've noticed love to just piss around in easier content, or are much more likely to put on their nostalgia goggles.

Blizzard's plan for WotLK was for people to see all the raid content. A fair few people that were late into 80 now have the hardest time finding a group willing to go all the way through Ulduar, Naxx, go to EoE, find out how OS is without drakes up, hell, even fight Archavon in his own Vault.

Sure they get to see the end content, unlike in Vanilla/TBC, but Blizzard still worked damn hard in the other raids, just for them to rot. I see more MC and BWL runs than I do to Ulduar to fight up to Vezax or Yoggy.