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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Greatfather Winter is coming to town
by Alex Ziebart 
Dec 14th 2008 at 7:30PM
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.Welcome back! Before we start, I'd like to take a moment to remind all of you that Winter Veil starts tomorrow at 6 AM! Are you excited? I'm excited. After the next couple of days, keep an eye on WoW Insider for some great holiday guides and features. Now, let's get to the Q&A shall we?
Flint asked...
Is it possible for a level 80 hunter to solo any of the lowest level Outland instances, or will the boss fights be way too much for one person to handle by himself?
The early Outland instances are easily solo'd by most level 80 players (though not all), especially BM Hunters. You could probably solo many of the mid and high-level Burning Crusade dungeons as well, depending on your gear and pet. The gorilla pet is the pet tank to end all pet tanks, so having that will greatly improve your chances.
Shulkman asked...
Can a tailor change their BC specialization somehow in order to change their Wrath Spec so that they can make a different cloth?
You can change your specialization, but you'll need to drop a bit of gold to do it. Just head back to Shattrath where you originally learned your current specialization, and the NPCs there will let you change it for a fee.
Ragan asked...
I am a herbalist of 450 skill and I was wondering if I put the enchant gatherer on a pair of gloves will it improve the quantity of herbs in a node? Or does skill gained from enchants etc grant naything special if you're already at max skill? Thanks in advance.
It's useful in theory. It does push your skill to 455, over the cap of 450. In practice, it's pretty useless. It could make picking high end herbs easier if there were any herbs where it was actually a concern. In Classic WoW, the very high end herbs were right at the cap and thus picking them had a chance to fail. An extra 5 skill would've let you overcome that. In Wrath, only Frost Lotus nodes require 450 skill, but those are only found in Lake Wintergrasp. In a PvP zone, you want to be in your best gear possible, eh? Extra Herbalism skill doesn't cause more herbs to come from a plant or anything like that, either.
Tenchan asked...
There is a little fenced in and guarded spot in front of Orgrimmar now. It's not connected to the path to the Zep tower, and no one I asked had any idea what it's doing there. What's this little area for/involved in?
That's where the Orcs hold their weekly dance contests.
Frago asked...
Grid or Healbot?
How much time to do you want to sink into configuring your mods? Healbot is easier to use right off the bat, just install, click some buttons, and go. Grid takes a bigger time investment, but will ultimately be superior if you have the patience. Grid just has so many more options and convenient ways of displaying things that it takes a bit to wade through it all, but once you know what you like and don't like, it trumps Healbot (in my opinion).
The only thing Healbot has that Grid doesn't (I believe) is a click-to-cast feature. Most of the Healers I hang out with use Grid coupled with Clique for their click-casting. It's a great pair of mods, but again, will take more time to configure than the simpler Healbot.
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, Wrath of the Lich King, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
zappo Dec 15th 2008 9:48AM
You aren't required to use healbot that way though. You can also configure it to target on click, then use keybinds for spells. I use a mix of both, click on some spells that are instant cast, while the other spells that have cast time I have keybound. There are advantages and disadvantages to doing this of course, so it's more a matter of play style.
I really like healbot even when I'm not playing a healer. It's very compact and gives you a good idea of incoming heals, debuffs, who has agro and other things which are happening in the group.
Enma Dec 14th 2008 8:57PM
Can we get a little more coverage on the state of engineering in wrath? Having maxed it, I find the only benefit is being one of many people that can craft the tanking gun/hog however it's frustrating to know there is no lateral improvement for my profession.
Look at the differences between learned engineering recipes not learned from the trainer (i.e. only the motorcycle and scrapbot) and all recipes not learned from a trainer (228 recipes that I can find... 225 minus the engineering motorcycles and tailoring book).
Why are we engineers left out even more this expansion? Least we had a scope off Attuman in BC)
Salty Dec 15th 2008 10:20AM
Engineers can ‘skin’ mechanical mobs, which gives a chance at Volatile Blasting Triggers, used in explosives and bullets. I spend an hour or two a week and farm all the Triggers I need for bullets at the airport in Borean Tundra. Incidentally, we make the best-in-slot Ammo in the game, with the alternative being Violet Eye Reputation ammo.
I’m a miner, but any gatherer will do as a good companion to engineering. There are many more clouds than there were in BC. More zones have them, and they seem to have more spawn spots. Also, more kinds of eternals come out of clouds than they did before. I’ve gotten all but crystallized life out of cloud spawns.
We can make some pretty stellar scopes, and they’re cheaper than Attumen’s or even Biznick’s were. +40 Crit (any), +40 Haste (mm/sv), +15 dmg (cheap). Potion injectors are far better implemented this time around. You craft a 5-stack of BoE items, which combines with 4 stacks of potions. This way engineers no longer have to craft them for others, and we can sell them on the AH without investing in potions.
The rest are really just perks, like freeing up some bag slots with the pocket knife, having a cheap portable vendor, portable mailbox, repair bots.
Gnomish and Goblin engineers didn’t get much differentiation. And there’s no Teleporter yet – though there’s a setup for it in K3. I guess they wanted people to take the Band of the Kirin Tor vs. an engy trinket. I hope they add this in an upcoming patch.
Ceedees Dec 14th 2008 8:56PM
What tanking stats should I be aiming for when looking to start Wrath heroics? How about Naxx? Im talking Dodge/Block/Parry, stam, etc.
Thanks!
West Dec 15th 2008 1:19AM
what class is your tank?
James Dec 14th 2008 8:59PM
My guild was doing the For the Alliance achievement, there were 3 that couldn't do it because when we went to Org, they were in the phase quest. They said they cleared quest logs and relogged WoW, but still were phased. Any suggestions on fixing it?
Thanks
Microtonal Dec 14th 2008 9:16PM
Easy. Tell the slackers to finish the phased questline.
dawnseven Dec 15th 2008 10:15AM
I wondered about this too. My son was in a raid group last night and as they entered the city 4 of the 5 in the group got "phased out". Only the tank in the group could see the actual fight. The other 4 were standing in an empty Undercity. My son finished the Wrathgate quest chain and had the achievement for completing it. The 4 people phased out stood there (trying to figure out what the problem was) while the actual raid took down Sylvannas and he DID get the achievement when she went down even though he didn't fight, but it would be nice to know what causes this since many seem to have the problem. I thought maybe it was caused by someone in the group not having the questline done, but since their tank got in that doesn't appear to be the problem.
Hokuto Dec 14th 2008 9:41PM
Healbot is for healbots.
Debesun Dec 14th 2008 10:58PM
"Healbot healer refuses to move."
Kevin Dec 14th 2008 10:02PM
the girl in that pic has a huge rack
DeathPaladin Dec 14th 2008 11:30PM
Gnomish Breast Enlarger
Bind on Equip
Trinket
Use: Increases the target's cup size. Automatically targets you if nothing is selected.
Matt Dec 15th 2008 10:31AM
Okay, I gotta ask, where is that from and why use it for this article?
Mohrlock Dec 14th 2008 10:15PM
I've been slightly naive to tanking since the release of WotLK, honestly due to the fact I haven't felt as enthralled in playing this expansion as I did the last.
I know tanking mechanics have changed a little and just wanted to get some all-round verification on a few things...
Firstly, is it true for Prot. Warriors our new def. cap at 80 is 560 (561 for safety of course)?
Is it true that being "uncrushable" is pretty much null & void now due to how instance/heroic/raid bosses are in WotLK? ie. I've heard along the lines that there aren't any bosses with "crushing blows" in Northrend and they even removed this from many of the BC bosses too (question not a statement)...
I understand the whole parry mechanic quiet well, but honestly, what holds more value: Hit Rating vs. Expertise? I am assuming Expertise as a Boss's Parry meanss it's attack timer automatically resetting and hitting quicker which equals more damage... As opposed to Hit Rating which means you are going to miss your target less (more so on "special attacks" as opposed to white damage) thereby generating threat & rage quicker.
DeathPaladin Dec 14th 2008 11:24PM
Uncrushability is no longer an issue because a mob can now only deliver crushing blows if it is 4+ levels higher than you. High end bosses in Wrath are considered level 83. Hence, no crushing. Before, in Burning Crusade, crushing blows were delivered by a mob that was 3+ levels higher. Since bosses then were level 73, that introduced the danger of crushing blows.
Mohrlock Dec 15th 2008 1:03AM
Thank you for your clarification there Mr. Death :)
After the Shield Block nerf and (slight) Shield Wall nerf it's great to hear I can now mitigate some stats into other areas :)
AlmtyBob Dec 15th 2008 5:26PM
You need 540 defense for the 5.6% crit reduction to be un-critable. (Not to be anal but remember it's not a cap as defense is still very valuable beyond 540.)
Mohrlock Dec 15th 2008 7:47PM
Oh I know it's not a cap, I normally have 10+ points more than I need to in Defense anyways ;)
I'm pretty deep into my "tankematics" and am always juggling gear stats around to try and get a nice combination whilst keeping my needed numbers in mind :)
Thanks... it's definitely 540 tho? I was pretty sure it was 560 thanks to the pre-WotLK nerf Prot Warriors got that gimped us 20 points Def? Just double checking :)
Mohrlock Dec 14th 2008 10:17PM
I'm guessing maybe Mr. Rossi can come answer this one... and possibly slap me at the same time for not reading "Care & Feeding" to regularly in the last few weeks :P
Xioyn Dec 14th 2008 10:37PM
I have been reading in a few places that the gorilla pet is the best pet for tanking. I thought the core hound was. Am I mistaken? or is the gorilla the best non bm hunter tank?