A tale of 2 Pallies

Once upon a time, in a land far-far away, but that millions of people visited every day, there was a Paladin.

The Paladin had goals. He had things in life that he strived for. He looked at others, and thought to himself 'I want to be like them'.
So he trudged his way up through the levels, until he reached 70. And when he got there, he threw away his tanking gear, that had supported him well up to that point, and began collecting healing gear.

He knew that to get in to groups, he would need to provide something that others couldn't. And at that time, that was healing. There just weren't very many healers around.

He completed long quest chains for some pieces, for others he entered heroic dungeons, to collect random drops, and badges that he could trade for entry-level gear.
Before long he had picked up enough kit, and invested enough time in perfecting his healing, to enter Karazahn. While there he had a great time. Sometimes it went well, other times it didn't. But it didn't matter, it was alot of fun, and for every boss that was killed he would receive random loot, and even more badges. but these could be exchanged for very high level equipment.
The Paladin thought this was awesome, and he could hopefully move on to bigger and better things, which he had no hope of doing without first mastering Karazahn. He didn't make it very far past Karazahn, but he wasn't too bothered. He still felt that he'd achieved enough to sleep at night. And finally, he retired happily.


12 months later, another Paladin was born. This one had similar dreams of glory, so he set off on his mission to reach level 80. Hoping one day to be good enough to enter raids, and experience all the adventures a young-man could want.
But when he got to 80, things weren't quite what he expected.
He also began to complete heroic dungeons, to gather his gear. In this case he didn't forsake his tanking, since it was still highly sought after in most groups.
At first the dungeons were difficult. He felt like he'd been there before, and knew all of the encounters, but being toe-to-toe from the mobs was much different to standing at the back of the crowd and shooting at them.
But before long the Paladin had mastered his art, and along the way he'd collected lots of nice equipment too.
The badges that were dropped by the bosses in the dungeons also provided him with a few extra nice pieces. Until he reached the point where those badges weren't worth very much to him anymore.

So off he went, all psyched up to enter the dreaded citadel of Naxxramas. Only, he found, nobody else was going there. Naxx was no longer a challenge, since the gear that he'd collected from doing heroics was equivalent or better than the stuff dropped in Naxx.
But he wasn't detered, he dipped his toe into the lava pools of Sartharion, and found it no problem, so he set his sights on the mighty gates of Ulduar, confident that he would eventually master it, and then be able to proceed to enter the Trial of the Crusader. Where, one day, he might be found worthy enough to face Arthas himself.

But.... It turns out that the emblems / badges dropped in Ulduar are exactly the same ones that are dropped in the heroics. So he was going to have to rely and nothing but random drops to provide enough equipment to allow him to reach the next level of uberness... ... ... Bugger.

Ulduar was hard, it was difficult. He was sure it would be a lot of fun to do, but the rewards weren't going to be very worthwhile.
But if he stayed doing nothing but daily heroics between now and the time of Arthas's arrival, he'd be one of the best geared Tanks in the land.
The reward for completing those daily challenges was 2 emblems of Triumph. And the only other way to obtain them was in the higher level dungeons.

The Paladin, being good at maths, sat down and thought it through:

'If I go to Ulduar, and I'm lucky, I could get some more emblems of conquest, and the chance to roll on some random loot. But I'd probably die alot, and waste alot of time. And I can only repeat it once per week.'

'But, if I just spent the same amount of time doing heroics, I'll earn tons of emblems of conquest. Probably enough to buy a full set of healing gear. Loads of cash from quest rewards and mob drops. AND if I do the daily challenge at the same time, I'll also pick up 2 Emblems of Triumph every day too.'


So did the Pally go to Ulduar?

Of course he did. But why?



The same reason a man does many things in his life................ Because his freinds were doing it.