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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Why are warriors so awesome?
by Adam Holisky 
Jan 11th 2010 at 2:00PM
Today has to have some special significance. If you take the month and the year and add them together and subtract 2000 you get the day. The day. It's like, the world is going to end or something, and it isn't even 2012!
Oh well, here are the last questions I'll ever answer in The Queue, because it's the end of the world as we know it (which happens to be today's reading music).
Rhornez asked...
"Why are warriors so awesome?"
Okay, obviously this is a troll comment or otherwise just a question to get people mad about their classes, but I do want to take a minute to address why I feel there are some classes which fit more into the natural archetypes of RPGs than others; and this isn't to say that a less natural class (such as a death knight) is any more or less useful than a more natural class (such as a mage).
The way I see it there are three primary roles which are mainly filled by three primary classes. In the healer role, we have the priest -- the benevolent cleric who casts their holy spells on allies, healing them back to full strength. In the tank / physical DPS role we have the stoic warrior -- standing toe-to-toe against the evils of the world. And finally in the caster / magic user role we have the mage -- holding back in the group slinging arcane mysticism at enemies.
These archetypes are present in every game, from early D&D up through the latest RPG. There are now, obviously, many iterations and permutations of these classes, but the basic facts of each of them are little different than they were in the original D&D. In WoW, paladins are a cross between priests and warriors, shamans are a cross between all three, and rogues are... well, they're just like warriors without the tanking abilities. (And don't argue about rogues tanking stuff, it's not an intended part of their kit.)
I think this discussion is interesting and helps people overall understand the game and associated game mechanics better (which is why I'm including it in The Queue). If you know what identifies a generally warrior-based class or mob, you can quickly come up with instant strategies to deal with them. This becomes particularly relevant during leveling in a new expansion where snap decisions and analysis on mob strategy can be the different between success and death. Understanding the overall archetypes, and how they can counter each other, will only help improve your game.
Healem asked...
"What happened to the 'report lag' feature that was supposed to be coming?"
If you click on the red question mark in your action bars, you'll see a button to report lag. It's in the same area you go to get in touch with a GM.
Velzak asked...
"Any word on if Patches of Yesteryear is coming back ever?"
A draft is written, I'm fact checking it, and we'll post it later this week.
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: Mage, Priest, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 7)
devilsei Jan 11th 2010 2:46PM
Here's a question for yall!
What ever happened to AFL (ask a faction leader)? The last one was sometime in december, and it promoted the next one being a "ask about gifts" dealio that would be next week, and yet we've waited a year to read it (figuratively of course)!
Drakkenfyre Jan 11th 2010 4:08PM
Tell me how you have waited a year? December was last month. You haven't waited a year until 12 months go by.
devilsei Jan 11th 2010 10:42PM
I said figuratively =P
While yes it hasn't been an actual year, we have went from 2009 to 2010, or a year ahead, which is where it came from (jokingly if I have to really add that)
Stonetitan Jan 11th 2010 2:49PM
Question for a future Queue: Where do you submit ideas for game design?
I recently had a bad experience getting an item crafted where the crafter hijacked my 10k+ worth of mats until I provided him with a very hefty sum of gold. Gave me an idea for a tradeskill crafting window, akin to a trade window. The Crafting window would allow mats to be provided, the crafter can click craft (a little icon showing the resulting item would be displayed). Gold would also be able to be exchanged in this window, just like the trade window. Should either party not click "Agree", then no items/gold have been exchanged or crafted.
With the expensive rising cost of crafting mats such as primordial saronites, I think we'd all feel a bit safer with something like this.
Cypher210 Jan 11th 2010 3:02PM
That's a great idea. I've never been the victim of a theft (or "holdup") like that, but it always crosses my mind every time I click "trade".
Drakkenfyre Jan 11th 2010 4:19PM
Open a ticket. Explain that a crafter agreed on a set price, and once he got your mats, refused to make the item or refund your mats until you gave him more. You will get your mats back, and the crafter will proabably get actioned. As long as there was a price agreed upon before you traded. And he breaks it, and keeps your mats, he will get a warning at the least.
Lorendi Jan 11th 2010 2:58PM
Are the cataclysm zones going to be designed so that a newly formed level 80 can hop right into the new areas and start leveling to 85? because im debating weather to use this time to level another character to 80 (and try to be done before cataclysm comes out) or max out my current characters and do end game content.
Adeany Jan 11th 2010 3:07PM
If previous expansions were any indication, yes. The quests and mobs will be tuned to be accessible to fresh 80s, the same way a level 70 character can comfortably start questing in Northrend without having done any raiding in Outlands.
N-train Jan 11th 2010 3:07PM
I would imagine so, as there are new zones that start from 78, just like you could get into Borean Tundra at 68 and Outland at 58. Lvling with full heroic t10 will probably make the grind easier, but I don't see any reason why a quest blues at 80 wouldn't be good enough to start lvling to 81.
James Jan 11th 2010 3:22PM
Recruit a friend is what I meant but the iPhone likes to fix my spellings when they are correct at times. I like recruit a comrade though. Think office and work recruitment...
Jed Jan 11th 2010 3:30PM
I remember in BC that CC was a lot more important than it is now.. All the dps warriors wanting to join my party! It was down right annoying really.. they were really quite worthless on a pve stand point.. But man could they melt some face in pvp. Obviously now that there is basically no need for CC they are more than welcome into groups.. They seem to do pretty freakin well in pvp still haha.
Athinah Jan 11th 2010 3:32PM
So i'm a lord nerd, and have been through dragonblight 3 times on different toons, but i notice the other day (while turning in the heart of magic from mally) that there is now another representative with the rest of them on top of wrymrest, to my surprise it was the blue dragon of sunwell,Kalec, Does this mean he will probably be the new leader of the blue dragonflight? Or something else entirely?
Samutz Jan 11th 2010 4:15PM
For the moment, he's part of the new Quel'Delar quests:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Kalec#Forging_of_Quel.27Delar
calaf Jan 11th 2010 3:39PM
Why are there are no good tanking heirlooms? Seems like that would improve the number of tanks in the game.
rich Jan 11th 2010 4:00PM
I think the simple answer is that, on the average, characters leveled today are not going through the full dungeon experience, so it's much easier to level as a DPS build than a tank build.
But with that, I think you've hinted at one of the real reasons for the lack of tanks at end game - once you've leveled as one thing, and found it fun/easy/whatever, you don't want to switch and "relearn" the character you just grinded through to 80. Make tanks a more fun leveling build and I'm betting we'd see more tanks at end game (though, probably still not enough.
Freyr Jan 11th 2010 3:41PM
Any ideas why we have had so little Cataclysm info since Blizz con? Do you think they announced a bit early? Or that development is taking longer than expected so they dont want to let any information go untill they are fully ready to build up hype?
Rowan Jan 11th 2010 8:33PM
I think it's part of your last comment. There really is no point in releasing any information right now. We haven't even killed the ultimate "bad guy" of WotLK, Arthas. Right now, I think they want people be excited and hyped about 3.3, not 4.0.
I can assure you they have enough of Cata developed; at Blizzcon much of the new stuff was already done and they have been developing it since BC, after all (maybe even before).
I think they'll slowly release little tidbits over the next few weeks to get people excited but, not overly so as to not take away from the concluding experience of Wrath. However, it's rather obvious and I can assure you sometime between late February and early March, when Arthas is on farm, we will be bombarded with nothing but Cata. since theres nothing else. Really, that is not too far away either.
Beatphreek Jan 11th 2010 3:41PM
Why does this site randomly crash Safari on my iPhone 3GS? I've tried several different phones (3G and 3GS models) and they all randomly crash reading this website. Typically it happens when clicking on links and the new page loading, but occasionally it happens right as I load the home page. I'm assuming there's an adstream that's crashing it or something. Surely I'm not the only person that sees this happening.
Magus Jan 11th 2010 5:02PM
There are no ads on http://i.wow.com
I do get a javascript error, but it's not enough to crash any browsers I've tried it on.
Beatphreek Jan 11th 2010 5:12PM
I'll check that out, on my Blackberry I got the mobile version, but I couldn't read the comments.