Are we still calling them "welfare" epics?

by myrrh

I still don't get it. Why is, like, military-grade, alliance-issue gear still seen as, like, "welfare epics". "Welfare epics"! As if! The last time I checked out what "welfare" meant, like, it would be the gray and white stuff the Turners give to guys without jobs and stuff, mostly, or what King Magni doles out to veterans with missin' limbs. "Welfare"! By Malorne's leafy horns! Does anyone know how wicked hard it is to, like, get these things?

And referring to those cowards and mercenaries afking and not contributing in a fight on the battlegrounds and still getting such groovy gear will not make getting this stuff easier. Adventuring raiders are just hopping mad that they have to put up with the perils (and costs) of their trade to get (can I say it?) their gambled loot and they think afkers can get something "just as good" for no effort.

Don't get me wrong, I'm with the adventurers here in that I hate the cowards and the mercenaries as well but, like, don't lump us in with them. For a lot of us, like, really, adventuring just isn't an option. At all. Us guys and gals who want to get bitchin' gear, for sure, we have to sign up for our tour of duty with the Alliance. We're not powerful enough to go to Outland and fight the Illidari or the Burnin' Legion, right? And you'd never willingly go down the bowels of the Molten Core or liquidate Onyxia with us because there's nothin' in it for you anymore, am I right? (My mum would go with me, she says, for sure... except that her peers are eggin' her about the coming invasion of Northrend next month. My mum and I just don't seem to be in the same place at the same time, no matter what we do. I see her sisters, for sure... but it's not the same.)

The thing is, like, it's not welfare! Even my mum who mostly gets some totally bitchin' stuff from her arena battles has to, like, earn every piece she gets. Fighting on the battlegrounds or the arenas, I mean, they're like, so personally taxing. Mano y mano, one-on-one, person-versus-person... that's mondo stressful, man! And you can't just, like, "pull it off" (even the cowards and the mercenaries have to keep a straight face when they, like, queue up to the gigantic dwarfy battlemaster to get their medals and stuff; and as an aside, that "dwarf" battlemaster is as tall as me so, like, you try staring him down). I was totally fabulous in Warsong for a while, but because I haven't fought in, like, two months I can't just wade in there and be fabulous again.

My old nelf says she gets a better chance to get more gear by just adventurin' with others in a dungeon on farm; eventually, you'll get something if you know it's down there. And if one uses the same set of rules for the sort of loot people throw dice on from raiding some old guardian's tower, one can claim that those are "welfare" too; but I'm not stupid enough to call it that. Even I know that Attumen can kill so easily the unskilled. But, in the end, there's nothing like military gear for, like, military purposes. They're more resilient, for one. Nothing is more resilient than the old army issue.

So it's totally not "welfare" epics. Whichever WoW God of the Freezing Storm who called it that was probably, like, just joking. I mean, he can't be serious. More like "insurance" epics... yeah... and the hours spent on our tours of duty is merely the premium we pay until with, like, enough honor and medals to our name,it matures in one piece of wicked armor. I divide my time now with the Sentinels and the League, mostly, and so far they have done good by me.