In the recent WoW press tour, Watcher has announced that heroic dungeons in Warlords of Draenor will require a silver medal from the Proving Grounds in order to queue for random matchmaking. Their reasoning for the requirement is that Warlords heroics will be higher in difficulty than what we’ve been used to recently. If you enter with a pre-made group, there is no medal requirement. Warlords will also have normal mode level 100 dungeons (Mists didn’t have max level normals), which I am guessing will be similar in difficulty to Mists heroics. I am assuming item level will still have a minimum requirement, but it can probably be lower than it would need to be without the Proving Grounds medal.
There’s been quite the uproar over this, from both sides of the fence. In my opinion it is a good thing, but that’s only because it’s going to make randoms less frustrating for me. It also ensures I’m grouped with people who know the most basic principles of the game. I’m sure that I’m not the only one with horrific flashbacks of doing Cataclysm launch heroics in random groups. Good grief that was frustrating. I totally understand Proving Grounds are not something everyone wants to do, but I don’t think asking for 20 minutes worth of “tests” to be completed before you enter harder content with random people is too much to ask. You don’t even have to go anywhere, you queue right from any class trainer.
However, I don’t really think it is necessary for the requirement to be completed on every character, unless it’s a different role. For example, if you get a DPS silver on one class, then all future DPS toons are eligible. For those people who run with 10+ max level toons, re-doing the Proving Grounds over and over could get tedious.
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