Heroic Scenarios - Valor Capping ASAP

The new heroic scenarios came out and I'd be lying if I said they were not fun.  Like anything else however, time will show if they stand the test of time.  It was fun doing them all once and a couple a second time.  Will doing them over and over still be fun?  It was fun doing them with 2 capable people.  Will it still be fun doing them with someone a little lesser on the skill scale or on my alts that I am not as good or geared on?

All questions that can not be answered now.  Everything looks different when you have the passage of time added to it so I can only make any judgements I have now based on first impression and that first impression was good.

First I would like to give a little review of the scenarios from my runs yesterday before I get into the meat of the post.   So here goes.

If I had one gripe about them it would be as simple as "no loot, really?".  Admittedly I don't think I would stop and loot while going for a timed event.  There was only one event that I was capable of finishing with a decent amount of time left, a bit over 2 minutes to be exact.  So there would have been more than a enough time to bend over and pick up a few coins and some cloth but there was also the ones I missed, didn't even come close to and the one that I made but only barely made exactly on time.

Oddly enough when I say exactly on time I mean exactly on time.  The countdown was going, 5, 4, 3, 2, crap oh crap of crap so close, 1, kill it, 0.  Bonus objective achieved.  Literally as it hit 0 the mob went down.  That was freaking great.

I doubt that will happen often, it will usually be one of the two other styles I mentioned, make it by a long shot or miss it by a long shot.  The one we made by a long shot was actually simple and straight forward.  Kill stuff.  Okay, I am a hunter, easy as pie.  The one we missed by a long shot we needed to find and rescue people.  As if the finding and making it there was not enough, I feel off a mountain.  Oops.

Let me be the first to tell you, this wastes a shit load of time.  But if you ever do it I suggest falling off the mountain I did because even if it helped us miss the timer it was well worth the fall.  I landed near a bear that apparently had the same bad luck I did, but he landed head first.  So he was buried in the snow with just his feet sticking out kicking like crazy.  I found it quite humorous.  And at least I know I can not take the short cut I was trying to take.  Damn trees make it impossible to see sometimes.

So while that did put a crimp in our timed run it was when the other two people with me died that really sealed our fate.  Luckily I am a hunter, a hunter that loves to solo stuff, so instead of starting all over again I worked the two quest type elite mobs and the 8 or so trolls all by myself.  It was fun killing them all alone and gave me a chance to practice all those little things that really make hunters the best class in the game but it was also the nail in the timer coffin. 

Perhaps if I died and we could have come back, all three of us, we might have had a prayer.  But it took me so long to solo the pack of mobs that we ran out of time.  I would say we were well short.  All my fault too.  Falling for one and then soloing those mobs instead of dying.  It is one of those cases where dying would have been the better option.

Who would have ever thought that death instead of victory would have been the right thing to do.  And that is one of the little things that make the heroic scenarios fun.

They are much harder than any non raid content available outside of challenge modes and you do not need to find the perfect group to beat them like you would the challenge modes which makes them much more accessible.  I like that.  I have still not had the chance to run any challenge modes, never the less finish them.  I am quite upset about that personally.  That alone means that these scenarios have taken a place in my heart already as something that offers a small challenge that can be done easier thanks to the smaller group requirements.

With that said, I have actually not really seen the challenge of them yet. The two people with me were well over 500 item level as am I.  We are all closer to 520 and with that these were quite easy.  Only one boss fight caused us to wipe and we wiped three times on it.

Now for the interesting thing.  Talking to some guild mates that did them, they said they did not wipe at all on it.  They also said that what we had a problem with they never noticed.  So perhaps these fights are designed to work differently depending on the group that is there?  I can't wait to mix it up and find out.  They had 1 melee which was a tank and 2 ranged in the group.  My group had three ranged.  While we both did the same fight, it was different.  Perhaps someone being in melee range changed the fight.  If this is the case I have give blizzard a round of applause.  Congratulations on making flexible content that is designed for the people doing it so that every group gets their own unique challenge.  I really can not wait to try that one again in a different group with a different make up.

Over all, time will show if these are really as fun as the first day made them feel.  Playing them on my characters that are lesser geared will show how it feels to others that do not over gear it.  Playing them on characters I am not as good on as my hunter will also give me more to think about.  So good or bad I can not say for sure just yet.

But...

And this is the big but.  But one thing that stands out bigger than anything else for me is the valor gained from them, even after doing the first one.  They are quicker than heroic dungeons and the looking for raid, they are instant queue, and they offer more reward for your effort.  If you can meet the bonus task you are getting at least 100 valor per run after the first, more on the first of course.

This means that they are the absolute best way to cap fast right now.  As long as you can get a group that can blow through them.  And that brings me to a nice point 2.

You can not queue for these without a full group.  Welcome back community.  Welcome back getting to know the people you play with.  Welcome back making people want to be social.  Welcome back pugging.  Yes, pugging. 

LF2M to cap with scenarios.

With a good crew and some bonus stages met, not even all, you can valor cap in less than 3 hours.  Some LFR runs take more than 3 hours... for 90 valor. 

Cap valor vs 90 valor.

How do you want to spend your time playing?

Is the valor reward too much for the content you are doing?  Like I said, on my lesser geared characters and the characters I am not as skilled on these could prove to be a bit of a challenge and I will not be blowing through them like I did on my hunter with a like skilled group.  But even if I have to take it slow on alts, these would still prove to be a much more time appropriate investment to capping valor.  If that is your intent at least.

If these new heroic scenarios are going to be the major focal point of valor capping for the people that want to get the maximum out of their game time there needs to be some adjustment to other random content. 

Like the LFR, lets get back to the 250 valor per run for them.  Seriously.  Unless you need gear, or rep, or quest items, from them there is no reason to run them and we all know the gear drop rate is pretty much horrible.  So, long waits, bad groups, massive repair bills, and everything else you can say that is wrong with the game for 90 valor no longer seems acceptable.  Not when you can get 100 valor in 15 minutes AND a chance at a 516 piece of gear which is better than the LFR drops anyway.  If anything people should get more valor for hazard pay for having to do the LFR.

Will the heroic scenarios continue to be added to the game, will they continue to be the best way to get valor, will they continue to have enough interest in them after they have been out for a while to make getting groups easy for them?

Are they the future for the time obsessed player that just wants to valor cap as soon as possible?

At least for now, heroic scenarios are awesome if you want to valor cap ASAP.  No doubt about that and the fact that more than a few people in my guild are already capped for the week, even ones that have not capped in months, shows that.