The Queue: How do you make that weird U thing?
by Alex Ziebart 
Feb 20th 2009 at 4:00PM
Adam called yesterday's edition of The Queue 'the Extreme edition,' but I'm of the opinion he didn't quite follow through. So I'm posting something extreme to make up for it, which you can see in the video above. Extreme. If you don't feel it's extreme enough, feel free to post your extreme links in the comments below with your usual questions, as long as the links are safe for work (and sanity.)
Eternauta asked...
I have a question, too. I know it's pretty stupid and obvious, but here I go: Why is everybody DPS and why is it so hard to find healers or tanks?
Heh, come on over to my server. We have a glut of Tanks and Healers and I can never find any freakin' DPS for my Heroic groups. I leveled up my Prot Paladin because I wanted to do some level 80 tanking, and DPS simply do not exist on my server. It's horrible.
My server certainly isn't typical of all servers, though. I think the Tank shortage is not nearly as bad as it used to be, but there definitely is a Healer shortage on many servers. It's been that way for a very, very long time, I think. It's not just Wrath of the Lich King. Healing has always been a 'dedicated few' sort of deal, there has never been a lot of Healers. The ones that are around tend to be doing something almost nonstop, because they're so badly needed. As long as they're not awful, they never need to wait long to find a group.
My personal thought is that the next expansion is going to need a Healer Hero class like Wrath brought in a Tank. Death Knights helped the Tank shortage dramatically (when people aren't being stupid and running them off because they're not all Frost), and Healing will need the same treatment. Buff the crap out of the current Healers all you want, that won't attract players to the classes/specs more than adding in something wholly new and exciting. We're going to need new adopters, not people respeccing en masse to help the shortage.
DPSing is just less stress, and more fun for many people. Note that I said many. Not all (or even most), but many. We can hope that Dual Spec will help with this (people more willing to switch to Healing just for one instance or two) but we'll see.
aman asked...
Since Kaplan is stepping down, who is going to be the new head honcho? GC?
While Kaplan is gone from WoW, the team still has Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack. Kaplan refers to them as his partners in crime, and they really are pretty important fellows. If they add a third to regain their triumvirate, we don't really know who it would be, I don't think. I don't suspect it would be Greg Street, but there's a possibility that it could be, I suppose. He seems more of a numbers kind of guy, but he's been a Lead Designer with his previous companies, so it's possible.
Cyno01 asked...
Are they ever going to get Blizzard Authenticators back in stock?
The stock goes up and down a lot. They just sell out really, really quickly. Quickly as in within a few hours quickly. You need to check their store religiously or you can easily miss your chance. Just check frequently and hope that you get lucky.
david asked...
How did the Scourge in Duskwood get so faraway from Northrend and Lordaeron?
Actually, those Undead aren't really Scourge at all. They're simply Undead. There are many horrible things going on in that zone, from the Scythe of Elune to the corruption of Karazhan and the energies of the Nightmare seeping out through the Portal there. Oh, and that Necromancer guy, Morbent Fel. I would guess he has something to do with it!
Morbent Fel is the source of the Undead in Duskwood, primarily. If they have any ties to the Scourge, it's not an obvious one. The Dark Riders of Deadwing Pass tie into all of it somehow, but we don't actually know who they serve. It could be the Scourge, but it could also be the Legion or some other force we haven't seen yet. They could also be serving nobody in particular and were just thrown in because a nod to the Nazgûl would be cool. Who knows?
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: Fishing, Analysis / Opinion, Lore, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
AlexW573 Feb 20th 2009 4:07PM
How many reasonably geared (entry 80 raiding) people does it take for TBC 25man raids?
Shade Feb 20th 2009 4:09PM
Reasonably geared? 25.
Shade Feb 20th 2009 4:10PM
Oh wait, TBC, I read that wrong. Well...it depends, really. TBC content is a bit different than blowing through MC or BWL, however, you -can- blow through it, provided you know the tricks. I'd say minimum of 15 or so, if you're reasonably geared, 20 if things look shaky.
Koopatroopa Feb 20th 2009 4:13PM
Did you notice he said lvl 80? I would also really like to know this question.
Ichthus Feb 20th 2009 4:19PM
A decent geared prot paladin and a holy paladin can make it through 5-6 waves of the beginning of Mount Hyjal before getting overrun. You might want to bring more if you want to actually beat it.
Shade Feb 20th 2009 4:54PM
@Koopatroopa ...did you bother reading the next comment I posted, immediately after posting the first? I amended my response and answered the question.
vanye111 Feb 20th 2009 5:02PM
My guild went into BT blind two weeks ago (ie, had never been there, didn't really bother reading any strats) and got to Teron Gorefiend with only one wipe (when someone accidntally talked to Akama). We had 18 people when we started, 22 when we finished, and three of those were 70-74. We took down Doomreaver with 15 people. Great fun.
Spazmoosifer Feb 20th 2009 5:06PM
I have acutally been going back and doing quite a few TBC raids. We usually take about 15-20 people if they are all level 80.
We do take people that are in the 70s yet, so that they have the opportunity to experience the raids, gear, and get more experience with raiding. Though, I have noticed that we don't usually take more than we need to TK (everyone wants the mount).
I actually find running Karazhan rather fun with my normal 10-man (near full T7) raiding group. We can blow through there rather quickly, and actually make a good chunk of money in the process. The last time we ran it together, we had one group on Maiden, while the other was on Moroes...fun stuff.
Angus Feb 20th 2009 5:16PM
Kael requires at least 15 well geared 80s I'd say.
1 of them pretty much has to be a prot warrior.
You need a warlock or mage to tank the mage, 2-3 tanks for the weapons, a hunter in there for the bow, and 3-5 people to grab daggers and use them on people getting the MC on them. If not for that last part, it would be possible with less. But you really need them working on it because when the wrong person gets MCed, it is very bad. A'lar needs at least 4 tanks. You just can't get around the platforms fast enough and someone needs to tank the adds.
I'd think Vashj would require about as many due to the sheer ground to cover. The rest of SSC would be fairly easy.
Kara: Got a healer and tank? Go do kara. If you have a dps, even better. If you take 10 people and 4 of them are under level 74 ( 2 were level 68) you can still kill Prince before a second infernal lands.
Grull needs 6 or so. Mage tank is still nice, normal tank, healers for both, a boomkin or 2 hunters, 1-2 warlocks and a DPS + a healer or two for the raid. Yes, 1 to 2 healers is about fine considering. Thats for HKM, for Grull, you can do it with 3 I am betting. Heck a rogue could do it with 5 at 70.
MH would need 2-3 tanks, 2-3 healers and at least 1 hunter. You'd want at least 4 dps I'd say. So 10 minimum to clear everything up to archimonde. With his enrage timer I'd say you'd like a few more than that.
BT is a whole other ball game. A lot of those fights are about juggling adds, multiple tanks, and not standing in fire. Though shadow resist is probably not needed much anymore.
Sunwell....
Someone familiar with that should better explain that. My guess is still around 20 people.
Heilig Feb 20th 2009 6:01PM
Sunwell can be done with 15, but they need to have been there before, the fights are still just a little too complex and punishing to mistakes to just try to pug it.
Tokie Feb 20th 2009 6:20PM
Just a quick note, A'lar can be done with two tanks, doing a lot of coordination. Preferably a druid to use cat form to get around faster or DK with unholy presence but any tank can do it.
Anaughtybear Feb 20th 2009 4:11PM
Just a guess, but I'd say that most places have shortage of tanks and healers due to how horrible they are to play solo. Death knights can start at 55, but priests and shaman are absolutely the least fun you can have in WoW leveling from 1-40. I've never seen the attraction to paladins either. They are so one-dimensional that you can sleep through 30 levels just by wandering around and letting mobs bounce off you. At least they made warriors fun again. DPS classes are just more pleasurable to play of you don't have a group.
Blake Feb 20th 2009 4:57PM
Priests, yes. But leveling a Shaman from 1-30 over the past couples weeks has been lots of fun for me. Of course, you level with a damage spec, so I'm 100% enhancement thus far. I wouldn't expect to level as a healy spec no matter what class you play.
Schadenfreude Feb 20th 2009 5:36PM
It sounds like shamans aren't as bad to level anymore, but I know that when I leveled my shaman back in the day, I absolutely hated every second until I got stormstrike/DW.
wujo Feb 20th 2009 6:08PM
priest to 36 right now. it borders on being painful.
Aaron A. Feb 20th 2009 6:54PM
"I'd say that most places have shortage of tanks and healers due to how horrible they are to play solo."
My thoughts exactly. A Holy/Resto specced character levels very slowly. They can't put out as much damage as other classes/specs, and may be lacking in damage mitigation talents, so each kill takes twice as long as it would for a DPS'er.
That was the Prot. Warrior's problem before 3.0; Protection was a terrible leveling/soloing spec, so Warriors only specced Prot once they'd hit the level cap. I plan the same thing with my Priest; spec Disc/Holy when I want to run instances, but Shadow the rest of the time. Around 75 I'll go for a healing build, and instance my way up to 80. When Dual Spec comes around, I think we'll see far more part-time healers, and part-time healers are good enough in many cases.
Side note:
Having played tank, DPS, and heals at one time or another, I thoroughly agree with Ziebart that DPS'ing is the least stressful, both within the instance and on your personal schedule. Not only do good tanks and heals get more invites than they can handle, but their guilds may also expect a disproportionate level of attendance from those characters.
McRaider Feb 22nd 2009 7:17AM
Leveling a prot paladin isn't that bad. You simply won't die against just about anything, and that takes away a lot of stress. Also you can take like 4+ mobs at the same time and still beat the crap out of them, but if you kill them one at a time, it's going to be horrible.
Well I did have a pocket healer with me between 20-60, but I think you can do all that alone, because we pulled around 10 mobs all the time :P
tazerface Feb 20th 2009 4:13PM
crazy aussies
Alex Feb 20th 2009 4:12PM
I have a frost dk and i want to know is it better to dw tanking swords or use a 2h weapon with stoneskin rune. it looks like using dw tanking would be better considering it would be easier to get the weapons but ive heard alot of people say that its better to use a 2h dps weapon. so which one is better and why??
Alexa Feb 20th 2009 4:37PM
I think in general death knights tank with a 2-hander because using 2 1-handers increases the number of parries a boss will have on you significantly.
As a healer, I've healed for very good DK players using both 2-handers and 2 1-handers and the difference is noticeable. The DK using a 2-hander takes much less constant and spikey damage.
From my understanding, there's no real "tanking" 2-hand weapons in the game right now for level 80s (for a while they were a blacksmithing possiblity on the 3.0.8 PTR but never materialized), but you have a large choice of 2-handers that have a ton of +stam and +str. A good beginning raiding DK tanking weapon might be the Titalsteel Destroyer if you have the cash to make one.