My new Emblem-of-Conquest-farming raid group ran 10-man Naxxramas last night. I had been wondering what was more efficient for emblem farming: a 10-man raid or running two or three heroics. We ended up clearing the Arachnid, Plague, and Construct quarters in two-and-a-half hours for a total of ten emblems.

If the Trial of the Champion 5-man heroic didn’t exist, I would say that your best bet is to farm a 10-man raid. However, a decently geared group can clear the ToC rather quickly (maybe 30 minutes?), and you have a chance at epic loot from each of the three bosses. You can probably clear at least two more heroic dungeons to go along with ToC, picking up a total of 9 to 13 emblems depending on which heroics you run.

Why the Raid is Better

In a raid, you’re going to get a chance at two pieces of epic gear from each boss: item level 200 in Naxxramas or item level 213 in Ulduar. On a farming run, most of the raid should already be well-geared, so if you’re looking for a specific upgrade, you’ll have a good shot at it. It’s also a quick way to upgrade your off-spec(s), in case you’re asked to fill a different role at some point… like if your group asks you to go Holy.

Why Heroics are Better

With heroics, not only do you have an opportunity to obtain some upgrades and pick up emblems, but you’re gaining reputation. Even though Wrath of the Lich King has been out for over nine months, many players — including me — are not exalted with every WotLK faction. Running heroics can yield around 1500 reputation points per run. If you’re farming instances, chances are you don’t need any gear from the factions, but there are enchants, recipes, and even mounts that are available at exalted faction standing.

My Preference: The 10-Man Raid

When it’s all said and done, farming a raid is fun… especially as a tank. As a tank, you’re setting the pace of the raid. You get in a nice rhythm with your healers and move quickly through the trash and from boss to boss. Here are some other reasons why I prefer farming a 10-man raid:

• Staying in one place instead of bouncing around from instance to instance.
• There is less of a chance that one of your group members is locked out of a particular dungeon because everyone knows ahead of time that you’re running Naxx or Ulduar.
• The expectations and consistency of a single raid dungeon will end up producing less downtime.
• Your chances of getting an on or off-spec upgrade in a heroic is very small.
• Did I mention it’s more fun? Sure, whether or not a fun time was had is objective, but, for me, running a dungeon with a 10-man raid group composition is my favorite way to experience content in the game.

Now that we have a week of experience under our purple belts, we’ll see if we can speed up the run a bit next week. I predict that, at some point in the near future, we’ll be able to clear all of 10-man Naxxramas in a single, three-hour night.

My new weekly poll is now up :

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I personally am looking forward to the change to heroic dungeons where bosses will be dropping Emblems of Conquest, and the daily heroic quest rewards will be yielding two Emblems of Triumph.

This won’t mean that I won’t want to raid, but it offers a nice alternative for those of us that did not burn through heroic dungeons when Wrath of the Lich King was released late last year.