The Queue: Wrap me up, baby
by Alex Ziebart 
Jan 14th 2009 at 4:00PM
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.In the comments of yesterday's edition of The Queue, Gilgamesh mentioned that you're actually able to attack the projection of Mr. Bigglesworth in Wintergarde Keep, or at least, you could for a long time. It's inspired me to... tell a little story.
Once upon a time, The Queue was Ask a Beta Tester. We were still in the midst of exploring Northrend before every Joe and Jane could waltz in there, and I was a puny level 71 traipsing all over the world and taking in its beauty. Ohh! Dragons! Ooo! Yetis! Oh look, hehe, there's a kitty on the projector! Let's click on it!
Oh no! Oh nooo! It's attacking me! Oh gosh, it's just a critter, I can just 1-shot it. Unfortunately for me, it was level 80, and I was a level 71 caster. It resisted absolutely everything. I ran around Wintergarde flailing my arms in horrified desperation, hoping and praying it would leash and leave me be. Unfortunately, it did not, but I had healing spells and managed to weather its furious paws until my Prot Paladin friend showed up to tank it for me. Not my proudest moment, that's for sure.
Kyle asked...
What is the gear progression for someone just leveling to 60 for the first time. Are the early tiers still viable? Or have they all been rendered moot by the expansions?
Should I rely on quest reward gear until I'm able to raid Naxx or should get the earlier tiers along the way?
You absolutely do not need to worry about tier gear before level 80. It's all been made moot and obsolete by the expansions, like you said. If you really want to get that gear, it's available, but the effort isn't worth the reward. You can use quest gear straight to level 80.
I highly recommend doing some dungeons between level 70 and 80, though. If you've never done any dungeons at all on the way to 80, leaping straight into Naxx is not recommended. You'll want to get a little bit of gear first. Naxx is pretty simple nowadays, but not so easy that you want to go in without any gear or experience at all.
taintedverse asked...
Does Blizzard have any plans to expand the "RP Clothes" portion of the game? More low level armor/weapon/fluff models for us RPers to use. What's your opinion on the subject?
Well, we certainly don't know what goes on in Blizzard's head, so I don't know what they plan on adding in the future. They're adding stuff all of the time, though. There's already a huge, huge variety of armor of various levels that you can mix and match to fit your character's style/personality, and they add vanity items pretty often, too. Not a ton of them, but it's there.
My favorite recent addition is the Wound Dressing and Antiseptic-Soaked Dressing from Dalaran, that were added in Wrath. It's perfect for the 'oh noes I'm injured' RP that we've all had at least once, and typically far more often than that. There are a ton of RP props out there as far as items go, and they add more all of the time. You just need to look for them. PvE items certainly aren't banned from being used in RP.
Mark asked...
Recently I saw an astonishing message come up: "Dalaran is under attack." How is that possible? It's a sanctuary, you can't attack anyone/guards even if you wanted to, right?
It's possible to sneak into the opposite factions' sides of Dalaran, and both factions have a single NPC you can kill in the area you use to queue up for Battlegrounds. The Horde Warbringer and the Alliance Brigadier General are still flagged for PvP, and the hidden Sanctuary buff doesn't protect them. As long as they don't get too close to the fellas that'll portal them out of there, they can kill the guy over and over without any repercussions. Kind of annoying, and I fear I've doomed every server in the world to it happening endlessly now that I've mentioned it here.
I apologize in advance.
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, The Queue, Expansions, RP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
petaeater Jan 14th 2009 4:09PM
Great now everyone will try to kill those guys.
Posi Jan 14th 2009 5:11PM
If I am correct, only Horde can sneak by LOS and attack the flagged NPC. Also, if players do this the run the risk of being warned by a GM to stop and if they continue they will receive a ban.
AyaJulia Jan 14th 2009 5:16PM
@Posi: No. I'm Horde and also saw the "Dalaran is under attack" message recently. You don't see the message when the other faction's NPCs are being attacked, only when the other faction is attacking yours. Therefore you're incorrect about only Horde being able to sneak through.
Aubrecia Jan 14th 2009 6:10PM
@Posi: Definitely not. I've not only seen the message, but I've seen the Warbringer die right as I came out from a PVP daily to turn it in. Killed by a nelf priest, no less.
Justin Jan 14th 2009 6:28PM
@Posi Just guessing (and maybe more-so my opinion) here but if Blizzard left them Flagged then kill away... Annoying or not. There should be no expectation of a ban for that.
Thander Jan 15th 2009 12:08PM
@Justin
I haven't heard Blizzard say anything yet, but it is against the rules to kill the NPC if Blizzard have announced it being a bug.
Exploiting bugs is against the rules.
Gilgamesh Jan 14th 2009 4:14PM
woot i was useful
Robert M Jan 14th 2009 5:06PM
I'm sure there are differing opinions on the validity of that statement, but anyway.
This is a question I guess more for Christian Belt, but I figured what the hell.
Does frostfire benefit from empowered frostbolt the way it does empowered fire? If it doesn't, does that mean it's not likely to scale as well as your nuke as if you specced into fire? The tooltip only says frostbolt where the empowered fire says fire and frostfire.
Was this intended by blizzard because frost offers scaling in other ways or something that happened by mistake?
-dumbass mage noob
Turtlehead Jan 14th 2009 6:17PM
Robert M:
"Does frostfire benefit from empowered frostbolt the way it does empowered fire?"
It does not.
"If it doesn't, does that mean it's not likely to scale as well as your nuke as if you specced into fire?"
It's unclear exactly what you're asking here. If it's comparing the two frostfire builds, I'd expect the LB/frostfire to scale better but it's just a hunch. It certainly does more damage. Frostfire as a spell scales very well generally.
" The tooltip only says frostbolt where the empowered fire says fire and frostfire."
Yup. It's working exactly that way.
"Was this intended by blizzard because frost offers scaling in other ways or something that happened by mistake?"
My best guess, they realized that if included on the frost talent no one would ever cast a frostbolt again. It'd be a total replacement with more damage and a snare while glyphed. Frankly, given how lousy frostbolt DPS is in Wrath (starts low and doesn't scale well), it's gotten to the point where I'd accept that odd state of affairs with open arms. :P
Greckel Jan 14th 2009 4:13PM
Hmmm... pvp you say.
adx Jan 14th 2009 4:17PM
What is the diffrence between a holy priest and a shadow priest is it just in the talent trees that you pick?
Shevaresh Jan 14th 2009 4:34PM
adx,
Yes and no. A shadow priest (spriest) is a DPS spec; Holy is healing. They are different trees, they share some gear but some is different.
Leejin Jan 14th 2009 4:27PM
Really? It's not ridiculously obvious just by saying the words Holy and Shadow?
Holy= Healing
Shadow = Damage
adx Jan 14th 2009 4:29PM
I should have quantified what i was trying to state and i was asking more about the gear between the two. is there a difference in the gear that you have to collect per spec.
Joe Jan 14th 2009 4:33PM
A Shadow Priest is DPS. A Holy Priest is healing.
With WotLK, warriors that spec Prot can also do decent DPS now. It's not uncommon for Warriors to be specced Prot while leveling.
I don't know if the same applies to Priests or not. Can a Shadow Priest heal 5-mans and 10-mans?
makkura Jan 14th 2009 4:43PM
Gear differences between shadow and holy/discipline priests is pretty small.
It's sort of the difference you'll see in gear with a holy priest vs a mage. The mage (or on this case the shadow priest) will probably be a little more Crit focused and probably have less Spirit. Holy priest gear will have less crit and more Mana Per 5 and spirit.
As to a shadow priest healing instances, it CAN be done but it's very rough. The talent focus is sort of required since healing didn't received a buff when dps did with the last major patch before WotLK.
If you're going to ask a shadow priest to heal you better have a very good tank with high hp/defense (to smooth things out) and minimal mobs that have no agg table or randomly throw damage on players.
Sort of like having an arms warrior tank, it's not TOO bad but you can tell and it makes things harder.
h8rain Jan 14th 2009 4:47PM
A shadow priest "can" heal 5 mans regular dungeon. The only problem is mana regen. Shadow spec is not returning any mana while healing. They also have to drink. A lot. Now granted, it depends on the tank and how much group damage, but a shadow can heal, but I would not recommend it.
The gear does tend to blur together. Spirit is definitely useful to healer, and shadow can take advantage of it to a point. The same goes for crit rating. About the only real difference is hit rating. Healers do not need hit rating (at least in pve), because they (generally) are never dps'ing the mob/boss.
Salacia Jan 14th 2009 4:49PM
In a pinch we can (I'm shadow), but it's as it's off-spec the party getting healed needs to be pretty damn well geared to not insta-die.
Candina@WH Jan 14th 2009 4:53PM
Holy vs Shadow Gear differential.
In my opinion (as a shadow priest)
Shadow Priests stack Spellpower, spirit, mp5, crit, haste
Holy priests stack Spellpower, MP5, Spirit, Haste, Crit (with the last three being based on taste)
As a shadow priest, crit is 'cool' now that our bread and butter can Crit, but MP5 and Spirit are much more important now that they have gimped our mana recovery ability (Vamperic Touch requires Mind blast to trigger, and returns LESS MANA than the two spells combined cost).
For Holy, Haste is nice to get off your big spells, but much of your healing (esp in 5 Mans) will be PW: Sheild and Renew (instants) and flash heal (which is fast already).
And it goes without saying, that stacking +hit as a raiding SPriest is important but completely useless for Holy Priests.
Just my 2 coppers worth.
Wyred Jan 14th 2009 7:35PM
@Candina. Sorry, but some of what you posted on holy priests is incorrect. Spirit is much more important than mp5, it's our primay stat as it gives us regen, mp5 and spellpower.
You also say that haste isn't important (in 5 mans) as you'll be using pw:shield,renew and flash heal more often than not. I agree that haste isn't that important until you're raiding, at which point you can get your holy priest advice somewhere other than wowinsider comments, but greater heal, flash heal and prayer of mending are much more important to a holy priest than pw:s and renew. They're useful, but far from our primary spells.