The Queue: The spirit of betrayal
by Alex Ziebart 
Dec 10th 2008 at 6:00PM
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.
Today, I'll cut the crap and not pretend to be funny, for your sake. Tomorrow, though? Tomorrow, the gloves come off. I will pretend to be absolutely hilarious until the cows come home.
matthew asked...
So I did a quest in Sholazar to kill Artruis and accidentally changed from Oracle to Frenzyheart. How exactly do I change back to oracle because I want to get the egg?
Today, I'll cut the crap and not pretend to be funny, for your sake. Tomorrow, though? Tomorrow, the gloves come off. I will pretend to be absolutely hilarious until the cows come home.
matthew asked...
So I did a quest in Sholazar to kill Artruis and accidentally changed from Oracle to Frenzyheart. How exactly do I change back to oracle because I want to get the egg?
Just go kill Artruis again the following day. Every day you get a chance to switch sides. Yes, betraying your friends is a daily quest. Sweet, huh? The egg makes it all worthwhile.
Dightkuz asked...
Why do Paladins not need Spirit?
A few reasons. The class just isn't built to utilize it. For one, none of their talents whatsoever are augmented by Spirit. That's one of the big draws for the classes that do use it. Look at a Priest's healing trees, there's Spirit everywhere. Two, their healing style doesn't allow for them to be outside of the 5 Second Rule... ever. To be honest, it's rare for any healing class to hit that these days, but it's especially true for Paladins.
Intellect is their regen stat, thanks to Illumination and how Replenishment works. The higher their Crit and Max Mana, the more they'll get out of Illumination and Replenishment. If there's no Replenishment to be found, MP5 becomes more important. Spirit is never good for them.
Llyneth asked...
I have a question: I've been working on my Cooking achievements for a while now, and am beginning to narrow down the recipes I still need for the Northrend Gourmet. Most of them are bought with Dalaran Cooking Awards, which is fine, but there's a few that aren't, although I noticed I got some of the item as quest rewards-- like Succulent Orca Stew and Kungaloosh. I haven't been able to figure out where these recipes come from. Are they drops from the Spice Bag or something?
Bug! These are recipes that were supposed to be rewarded from quests, but for some reason it ended up not working that way. For example, early on in the Wrath beta I was given the Kungaloosh recipe from a quest in Sholazar Basin. When I did the quest once it hit live, I was given 20 drinks rather than the recipe. It's a bug, and I imagine that in an upcoming patch they'll either retroactively hand out those recipes or give us a new way to acquire them. I really, really hope it's not the Spice Bags.
pietrex asked...
It is perhaps something that was asked before, but I wonder what WoW Insider think about this. I'd like to know what is the fastest class to level to 55 if I just want to make a Death Knight on a different realm. Knowing the best spec would be nice too. I know it's probably an arguable topic, but anyway...
Yeah, I'm not sure I can answer that without it being called out as a cop out. It depends on your play style. Really. Hunter can be super easy mode quick leveling, but some people (like myself) find it horribly boring and that makes it take even longer. Personally, I level Paladins faster than anything else. I'm kind of ashamed to say it, but I have three Paladins. One on the Alliance, one on the Horde, and another Alliance Paladin on another server I don't play anymore. It's very, very easy for me. Spec Prot, round up groups of mobs, swim in the XP.
Rednight asked...
With Death Knights not being able to wield shields I was just wondering what makes them so good at being a "tank"? Because having a shield provides a lot of extra defense and blocking & parrying abilities. But other than being able to wear plate, isn't having a tank with no shield sort of a bad thing?
Death Knights, like Feral Druids, have other skills/abilities that allow them to tank. Death Knights, thanks to Frost Presence, have high baseline mitigation. They have higher than normal Parry rates to boost their avoidance. They have more mitigation-based cooldowns. Things like that. Not all tanks work the same, and they don't all need shields.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column! Leave your questions in the comments and we'll do our best to answer 'em!Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Leveling, Wrath of the Lich King, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Todesritter Dec 10th 2008 6:09PM
Death Knights can tank without shields because of multiple reasons. Two of those reasons are:
1) Frost Presence: increases armor by 60% and decreases spell damage taken by 5%.
2) Death Knights gain parry from strength, although I'm not to sure what the conversion is.
Its also good to note that on the PTR realms now, frost presence increases armor by 80% and spell damage by 15%.
Calaana Dec 10th 2008 6:20PM
I also want to add that shield is unimportant. Tanks need mitigation and avoidance, and a shield is a tool used for that job - death knights use a different tool.
You know, just like druids.
Cy Dec 10th 2008 6:24PM
The PTRs are up?
Mcdreamy Dec 11th 2008 9:10AM
Conversion is 25%, isn't it?
mike Dec 10th 2008 7:02PM
Side note: they are buffing Frost Presence to 80% more armour and 15 % spell dmg decrease.
Jessierockeron Dec 11th 2008 12:26AM
Now I know how DK's tank but what moves do DK's use to hold threat? Looking at their spells I didn't see any thing that says it creates a high amount of threat, nor did I see any spell similar to a Paladin's Righteous Fury(or w/e it is). However, if I'm wrong and I just missed something, feel free to down rank this question/comment.
Scott Baldwin Dec 11th 2008 1:14AM
Frost Presence reads:
The death knight takes on the presence of frost, increasing total health by 10%, armor contribution from items by 60%, and reducing spell damage taken by 5%. Increases threat generated. Only one Presence may be active at a time.
So, it increases the threat generation of all damage the death knight does while in this Presence. As far as I know, no other specific skills are used to increase threat generation. Of course, there's also Death Grip, which is a very useful tool for getting and holding aggro, or taunting squishy-bound mobs.
awall Dec 11th 2008 2:37AM
The tooltip for Death and Decay does say it causes a high amount of threat. Other than that, it's just using frost presence and doing damage.
mattereaterlad Dec 11th 2008 3:49AM
Dark Command is our real taunt.
Elazore Dec 11th 2008 5:04PM
4 str = 1 parry rating
Marksweep Dec 11th 2008 7:37AM
Death knights apply 25% of their strength to their parry rating via the passive blood spell Forceful Deflection.
SINisterWyvern Dec 11th 2008 7:40AM
Should also note that Rune strike is being changed to 150% of damage (down from 200%) but now does 150% threat instead of 100%. Making it the tanking staple it was meant to be.
h8rain Dec 11th 2008 8:57AM
Plate + 60%. Anyone know if that would surpass druid armor? I could see that being the same "problem" with druid before and the armor cap.
Pfooti Dec 11th 2008 10:19AM
1 point of strength = 0.25 parry rating. That parry rating is subject to diminishing returns (and is a rating, so its effectiveness scales with level)
Fenrix Dec 10th 2008 6:10PM
Any news on where the hats will be dropping for Winter Veil? I passed on them last year because they looked goofy on my character. The Achievement panel is forcing me to get one, so I was wondering if I need to consider Outlands dungeons or if they will be moving to the Northrend dungeons? The Winter Veil hats moved to the Outlands, but the Bouquet of Roses did not.
Velina Dec 10th 2008 6:29PM
I have a shadow priest I leveled to 34, then had her boosted to level 60 through Recruit-a-Friend level grants. She's now stuck in level 25-30-ish questing greens and SFK blues. I'm wondering what would be the best way to gear her. Would she be able to survive questing in Outland in her very low-level gear, or am I going to have to round up some gold for her?
Saelorn Dec 10th 2008 6:45PM
I was in a similar situation with my rogue. In my case, I just had to buy a new dagger to get my damage to the point where I could do those quests (with difficulty), but casters might have it a little easier since their gear does not greatly contribute to their damage (until you've been in Outland, and have easy access to +spellpower gear).
Keep in mind that any 58 green you get out of the auction house will be very equivalent to any of the early quest rewards, but you will need to spend gold to get your attack spells up in any case.
Chris Dec 10th 2008 6:44PM
You will most definitely need to gear her in AH greens.
I've been in your position, and trust me, you don't want to try it without the gear.
gundamxzero Dec 10th 2008 6:44PM
Make a DK, that way you can get all the money from starting quests and any BoEs you pick up along the way you can pass on to your priest.
Schadow Dec 10th 2008 6:51PM
Is she a tailor? If not, you might consider it.
Otherwise your best bet is probably enough AH greens for her to survive questing at a reasonable level, then quest rewards.