Does tree surgery count? lesser rewards is fine. Anything that is useful is fine. Potions that sell on the AH for 1 AD each is not fine. It is a slap in the face to think that something that can be farmed in the leveling zones in an hour or two is "rewarding."
I think I am qualified to speak on behalf of everyone in the game, when I say "Nobody wants to waste a lockbox key to receive a reward that you can pick up for 20 AD in the AH."
Item Level is a representation of how strong each character is. It is not perfect. It is a far better representation than Gear score was. Gear score showed the same whether a toon had level 7 enchants, or level 12 enchants. It represented boons not at all. However, it does need to be updated.
It does give you an extra chance at the best loot in the dungeon. Most areas have one item that is optimal, that many players run over and over to get. Opening the 2nd chest doubles your chances.
If you are not going to run a Set of Artifact gear (Tiamat, Lostmouth, etc) then Amulet of the Protector(i think) artifact neck peice is a good choice. It becomes a set with ant Greater belt artfact and ant cragmire artifact (lantern, Waters, or catalog)
You missed the point entirely. IN an ALLIANCE with 4000 characters (out of a theoretical possibility of 6500 characters) in 13 Guilds, (although 'grandfathered' Guilds who had 500-1000+ members may still be above the 150 accounts/Guild limit) 200 characters could donate 400 Influence/day for a daily total of 80,000…
As one of those characters, I can say, i have not had any trouble getting into any content that i was running before the mod. But I only normally run higher lvl stuff when my guild needs bodies. and I take plenty of injury kits with me :pensive:
Last I checked, a couple of weeks ago there was one. It was going for 28 million AD. I wonder how long it would take a new player to grind out 28 million AD? Supposing of course, they had the time to grind out 30k AD per day. Not all players do, you know. Edit - I had to go get my calculator, cuz math & me are NOT…
We have all seen guilds kicked from an alliance for even stupider reasons than this. There are absolutely alliances that will make the "wrong" choice an excuse.
I find it ironic that you have such distain for participation rewards, in a post that suggests it is a good idea to buy gear with glory in the Trade of Blades. The gear available for lvling toons was based on participation rewards... glory. All the sets available under lvl 70 were put in the shop when EVERY player that…
The batlescarred gear is useless. Nothing will really help against the pre-mades, that's a given... but the battlescarred gear is worse than whatever you might be wearing if you DO actually come up against another pug team.