Evening out the enormity of emblems. In an attempt to simplify our lives, Blizzard has created even more confusion than solved with the new currencies: Emblems of Conquest and Emblems of Triumph. Grasping this new Emblem system isn't so confusing, but when they are launched in conjunction with new dungeons with varying degrees of loot rewards, the whole thing is a mess. To help simplify the process, we've created a handy guide to allow players a cheat sheet to understanding the loot levels and rewards. This is handy when trying to determine if a 5-Man Trial of the Crusader run will net you any upgrades.
I Don't Get iLevels
First of all, I won't assume everyone reading is familiar with Item Levels. iLevels are the ranking of how one item in the game compares with another. A mace with an iLevel of 200 will generally be inferior to a mace with an iLevel of 245. Please note though, the iLevels do not rank per class, just against the general items in the game. These numbers used to remain behind the curtain, but Blizzard has become more open to announcing gear iLevels recently.
Old Dungeons, New Dungeons, New Loot, New Emblems
We'll tackle these one at a time and start from the lowest iLevels. Heroic dungeons that came out with Wrath of the Lich King will no longer reward boss kills with Emblems of Heroism; the new reward will be an Emblem of Conquest. Likewise, Naxxramas at both difficulties (10 and 25 Man) will also reward successful boss defeats with an Emblem of Conquest. Emblems of Conquest are now the baseline reward for all but a few areas of the game.
New Loot Hierarchy
Now that we know how the Emblems stack up, what kind of loot can we get and how does it compare with other loot rewards? Well, Blizzard has added a few more layers of iLevel gear to the top of the food chain. Whereas the highest level of gear in the game prior to patch 3.2 was iLevel 232 from Heroic Ulduar (Val'anyr excepted), there are now two more levels of gear above this. Heroic level 80 dungeons still yield iLevel 200 gear so for those looking for an easy way to gather up some upgrades from questing gear, the normal Trial of the Crusader might be worth a look. The changes aren't difficult to understand, but determining the relevance between the new Emblems and how they fit into the new dungeon loot system helps players better pick out their path to progress.