Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: The roof, the roof
by Alex Ziebart 
Jun 9th 2009 at 1:00PM
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.
Jack Spicer asked...
"With each expansion Blizzard seems to be bringing underused talent specs around and making them highly desirable. In TBC, it seemed to be Feral Druids, Prot Pallies, Shadow Priests and BM Hunters. In Wrath, they really brought up Survival Hunters and Retribution Pallies.
But I'm curious. From a PvE perspective, which talent trees are still universally lacking and laughable?"
Oh boy, this one is going to be debated pretty viciously today, isn't it? From a purely min/maxing point of view, it's largely the very strong PvP specs that are lacking in PvE, and that's probably by design. A Shadowstep spec from Rogues isn't going to perform in PvE. A Frost spec for Mages, and I mean deep Frost and not some hybrid Frostfire thing, is pretty lacking in PvE. Both of those are strong PvP specs... usually. I think that's intended though and I'm not convinced that will change anytime soon.
I can't think of any PvE-oriented specs that are actually failing in PvE. Some specs aren't as good as they could be, but the gaps are much, much smaller than they were a couple of years ago.
Fuseitana asked...
"The Bosstiary that WoW.com featured a few days ago was really informative, I wish Blizzard would put out the same for their other raid instances. MY question is whether there is in-game lore that gives the information in the Bosstiary. IE, without it would we know that Auriaya was the archivist?"
I don't think there's any other information that says Auriaya is the archivist of Ulduar, no. Auriaya, Kologarn and the Assembly of Iron were all largely mysteries until the Bosstiary. Luckily, they're mostly in the minority. There is definitely a lot of information on the Keepers and Yogg-Saron floating around. You can figure out the roles of Ignis and Razorscale with some informed guesswork. Ignus is Generic Titanic Blacksmith #1058462. Razorscale is the only notable Proto-Drake in the place, and Thorim is missing Veranus, so you can put two and two together there. And General Vezax? Well, it's pretty obvious what he is.
Tharesar asked...
"If I create a Death Knight, play until I get all my blue gear then sell everything, send all the money to an alt and repeat again and again, will I get a reasonable amount of cash? Or is this a huge waste of time?"
A colossal waste of time. There could be worse ways to spend your time, but if your goal is to make gold you're much better off doing daily quests. Faster, significantly more profitable.
Twothing asked...
"After reading the post "Interview with a Scammer" and discovering that buying the TCG loot cards for ingame gold isn't a breech of TOS. I wanted to know can I buy time cards for ingame gold?"
No, because game time has a cash value. It costs real money to play. The item from the TCG card does not have a price attached to it. It's a free, costless bonus from buying the trading cards. You can absolutely trade in-game gold for things with no cash value. If you pay attention to the contests we run here on our site, you might notice that we don't have big, crazy legal rules attached to TCG loot giveaways. That's why. The TCG loot has no cash value, thus we don't need to worry about legal issues at all.
However, game cards do have a cash value. We pay $15/month to play WoW. If we here at WoW.com wanted to give away some game cards, we would need to get some old fashioned legal such-and-such written up because money would be involved. Gold for gametime would basically be a roundabout gold selling and buying service. The money would just come in the form of 30 days of WoW printed on plastic.
Now I wrap this up with a shout out to Oghorille of Grizzly Hills US. Hi!
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW.com 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
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 5)
JLocke Jun 9th 2009 1:35PM
can the next Queue be called "Da plane! Da plane!"? :)
Remen Jun 9th 2009 2:54PM
Too Soon
Mortur Jun 9th 2009 1:42PM
Now that the Battle.net conversion has been released for a while and
bugs have been being dealt with, do you feel that there is much
reason anymore for holding off on converting your account to
Battle.net? Have the authentication after a patch issues been going
away?
Slorbo Jun 9th 2009 1:43PM
Regarding buying items with in-game gold, it's not a question of if the item has a monetary value, it's whether it's an in-game item or not. You cannot buy a TCG card or the code on the card with gold, but once the card code has been converted to one that can be used redeemed in-game it can be purchased with in-game gold. I know it's a fine line, but that's how GMs in the Customer Service forum have explained it many times.
The rule of thumb to follow is it can only be bought with in-game gold if it can be used/entered in-game. This picture from GM Auryk lays it out pretty well: http://s162.photobucket.com/albums/t271/CSFAuryk/?action=view¤t=TCG.jpg
Avrador Jun 9th 2009 1:46PM
Question: Will they ever give all cities JC trainers? I know it was to emphasize the new races when BC came out, but it's just annoying. When it's easier for my lvl 5 alliance toon to go train in Northrend, something is probably wrong.
AyaJulia Jun 9th 2009 5:15PM
It's not "to emphasize the new races." It's to shut people who didn't buy the expansion away from learning the profession. People who don't have TBC can't be a Jewelcrafter. THAT is the point. :)
There's obviously been a slight change in philosophy since Inscription is available for all to learn, but I would definitely not blame Blizzard for leaving JC expansion-only.
Zalvi Jun 9th 2009 1:47PM
actually you can make around 20 gold in about 45 mins by doing the few Dk starting quest its good cash if you start over on another realm where you dont have a main cash cow
Amaxe Jun 9th 2009 2:14PM
Hmm, now there is a way to raise funds to play another faction. I'll think about that one to try Horde on a different server...
AishaLove Jun 9th 2009 1:48PM
that's one way to tell your neighbor to "get your god damned car out of my garage!!!"
MetalIcecrown Jun 9th 2009 1:50PM
I'm sorry, but I leveled with a deep frost mage from 1-80. This was not out of any values, or anything personal, but the snare effects were extremely useful. Fire is way less viable IMO. Even in endgame, a shatter combo beats anything fire can do.
Charizard Jun 9th 2009 2:20PM
Leveling isn't the same as raiding, FYI.
peagle Jun 9th 2009 3:21PM
@MetalIcecrown: "Endgame" implies raiding, you are clearly not raiding if you think Frost is in anyway a competitive spec to FB+TTW, FFB or Arcane.
Veliaf Jun 9th 2009 1:52PM
Alright, my questions for next time / now / whenever.
I know that, if you cast a spell that has to physically travel to reach the target (i.e. Shadow Bolt) and a SP buff (or similar) procs between the time it leaves your fingers and the time it hits the mob, the buff won't affect the damage of the spell.
My questions are:
1. If the SP buff procs during the time you're casting the spell, will it affect the spell's damage?
2. If the buff procs and you have DoTs on the mob, for example, will the ticks of the DoTs during the period the buff is active for be affected by the added SP, or will they do damage as if you had the SP you had when you cast the DoT?
3. If you start casting the spell with the buff active and the buff is lost during the casting time, does that spell still gain the extra SP?
4. If you cast the spell with the buff active and the buff is lost between the time the spell leaves your fingers and the time it reaches the mob, does the spell still gain the extra SP?
NB: I presume the answer to the 4th question is 'yes', since, as I pointed out, gaining a buff would not affect a spell you'd already released that hadn't hit, so I'm guessing losing a buff wouldn't affect it either.
Cheers,
Vel.
Nizari Jun 9th 2009 2:04PM
Spells only get the benefit of buffs that are up when the spells are cast. So if you put all your DoTs up on a target and then use a spell damage trinket, the DoTs will not get a bonus from that trinket. Likewise, a shadowbolt will not get the buff from a trinket or whatnot if the buff runs out before the shadowbolt is cast. However, this does mean that if you cast a channeled spell (drain life, arcane missiles, mind flay) while a buff is up, and the buff runs out in the middle of the channel, any damage done after the buff runs out is still getting the buff, as the spell was cast while the buff was up.
Traazu Jun 9th 2009 2:42PM
To add to Nizari's explanation, with Haste procs/trinkets you gain the lower cast time when you start the cast. So if a Haste proc/trinket wears off during a cast, the cast time will not suddenly increase.
Segrada Jun 9th 2009 3:37PM
It's an interesting mechanic actually.
For example, I raid as a shadow priest with Dying Curse and Sundial of the Exiled which both have hefty spellpower procs. When either procs (or both in the same window) I make it a point to recast Shadow Word: Pain as it is refreshed by Mind Flays because of Pain and Suffereing. When refreshed the SW:P maintains the bonus damage from the procs which have since expired.
I'm not sure if this is supposed to work in this fashion, or if it occurs with any other spells right now, but it's worth noting.
Wyred Jun 10th 2009 5:18AM
@Segrada. Not sure if it's intended or not, but this is definitely the way to play a shadow priest. In fact, if you go to Elitist Jerks there is an add-on linked and explained there called Project Greenlight. It basically does one thing, which is monitor various procs and raid buffs for SP and crit and will then tell you the best time to refresh your SW:P.
Moragny Jun 9th 2009 2:02PM
Playing your class and spec is what its about, in TBC i was mainly a frost specced mage for pvp but i could pump out high amounts of dps in 5 mans heriocs. Its like my 80 priest now, im holy when people are trying to pve disc...... It is a pvp spec LOLZ. If you play your spec right though you can do whatever you like everything has something valuable to raiding and pve imo.......
Adrian Jun 9th 2009 2:09PM
Actually, disc priests are GREAT for PvE. They are incredibly good tank healers, and can throw around shields on other people if the tank damage isn't too rough. Shields are awesome because they effectively allow preemptive healing.
For the record, I do not play a priest of any kind, I just happen to do my research rather than look at recount and say "OMG, teh disc priests HPS is soo low. they are pvp spec, gtfo."
AyaJulia Jun 9th 2009 5:13PM
Agreed with Adrian. But you won't get it until you learn how to use disc effectively and then try it for yourself.
I'm in a 25-man raiding guild as a healing priest. In 25s, I'm always Holy, almost without exception. But in our 10s that we run on off nights, while I'm almost always there, other healers are more fluid. Sometimes I end up with two pallies with me, so I'll stay Holy. Other times, I'll end up teamed up with a shaman and druid and will go Disc to cover tank heals.
Until you're the one tossing out shields on the entire raid and noticing for yourself how much difference they make in raidwide damage that would normally need to be healed through, you can't possibly get how powerful disc is. I know I didn't.