The Queue: I want a siege tank IRL
by Alex Ziebart 
Feb 18th 2010 at 3:30PM
Today's edition of The Queue is brought to you by my bruised ego after a half-dozen rounds of crushing defeats in StarCraft II. Seriously? Twenty mutalisks in my base while I'm still trying to figure out where my dragoon buddies went? I hate everyone and everything. Yes, even you. Especially you, Taylor. You know who you are.
Tethra asked...
"Any idea when we're going to get our Olympics pets, other than 'soon'?"
We've heard absolutely nothing about Olympics pets this year besides a (probably) goofy comment in the last Twitter dev chat. There's no guarantee we'll even get one, so I wouldn't hold my breath. If it comes, fantastic. If not, what can you do? The Spirit of Competition pet was rather specific to the country that was hosting the Olympics that year, it was a Chinese dragon. We've seen no Canadian equivalent. Of the pet, I mean. Not a Canadian dragon.
If there is a pet, it will be something very generic, but since we haven't seen one yet... I don't think one exists this year.
Beruza asked...
"Will we ever get to kill Mal'Ganis? He keeps running from us whenever we try to kill him! And I'm kinda confused... does he work for the Lich King? Or did he used to before Arthas took over?"
Since I am neither a seer nor a fortune teller, I do not know if we'll kill Mal'ganis. I can talk about his allegiances, however. Mal'ganis does not work for the Lich King, he works for the Burning Legion. The Lich King was originally the Legion's creation, placed on Azeroth to weaken the mortal races for a Legion invasion. The Lich King betrayed the Legion, only sticking with them long enough for them to guide a champion (Arthas) to him.
As soon as he had the power to pull it off, he betrayed the Burning Legion. Mal'ganis was a jailor of sorts to the Lich King once upon a time, but now he wants him dead.
Valt asked...
"Is there an addon, external program or macro that would turn my keyboard into a 'turbo' controller? You know in NES times those turbo controllers where you could press button and it would 'spam it' in reality. I ask this because I'm leveling a druid as a tank and my finger is feeling numb already from spamming swipe for hours in dungeon. And is using that against ToS?"
There are no addons that will do this, but there is hardware that will do it, as well as software. They are against the Terms of Service, so I won't be naming or linking to anything. The general rule is one keystroke per action. If you're multiboxing, it's one keystroke per action per account. So a turbo button is a no-go. If you push one button and it's executing multiple actions until you tell it to stop, that's against the rules.
One of my druid friends has actually bound Swipe not to a number key, but rather the scroll wheel on their mouse. Instead of slamming their finger on their '1' key all day long, they just roll the wheel while doing other things. It's an option you may want to consider.
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!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Elionene Feb 18th 2010 3:35PM
That's a neat trick with the scroll wheel. I might have to try that.
Lornicide Feb 18th 2010 3:39PM
/agrees
Now I just have to figure out which ability to bind.
Salty Feb 18th 2010 3:51PM
Ah, the scroll wheel! The memories of Beast Mastery raiding for all of T6 and Sunwell...
VSUReaper Feb 18th 2010 3:52PM
Welcome to tanking if you have to spam a button over and over again. HS/RS/Maul will hopefully be going the way of the dodo in Cataclysm.
Going through a keyboard every 4 months b/c I'm tank is a little stupid >.>
Ben Feb 18th 2010 3:54PM
yes, i do the save with rejuv on my druid healing ui :D
Sky Feb 18th 2010 3:57PM
I usually bind the heroic strike to scroll up and cleave to scroll down for my prot warrior
snowleopard233 Feb 18th 2010 4:06PM
I’ve got one of those seventeen buttons mouses, so most abilities are accessed by me hitting with my thumb rather than my index finger. It’s one option if you’re looking to trade out the stress of one digit to another.
kcirreda Feb 18th 2010 4:27PM
Is Alex saying that a certain keyboard's special buttons can be against the ToS?
Sehvekah Feb 18th 2010 4:48PM
Logitech has some awesome mice for this, with the M500 being an excellent(and relatively cheap) option. Why is this? There's a button on the M500(and several other Logitech mice) that changes how the scroll wheel works, switching it from line-by-line "clickly" mode, to a nearly frictionless free-spinning mode where one flick will keep it spinning for a good 5-10 seconds or more.
Yes, you can call me a corporate shill and downrate me if you want, but for those who need to spam one ability in succession then this one feature can help out considerably, and currently there's only one company offering it.
Tremelizzer Feb 18th 2010 4:59PM
@kcirreda:
http://infernix.net/wowban/
paul Feb 18th 2010 5:32PM
Back in my days as a druid tank, I had swipe as mouse down, and a swipe plus maul macro as alt+mouse down, you might consider giving that a try. It worked pretty well for me, as it was a similar movement for unlimited rage as it was for limited on rage, by just adding the alt to add a maul etc. :) It also leave your entire left hand open for better movement whilst still being able to use your mouse for turning.
Sleutel Feb 18th 2010 6:56PM
It's an old Warrior trick, too, for Heroic Strike/Cleave. On my Prot spec, I swap the two out for scroll down, and on my Fury spec, scroll down is HS and scroll up is Cleave. Before I figured that out (a long time ago now), I used to constantly click the HS or Cleave button while I hit keybinds for my other abilities with my left hand. Scrolling is much, much better.
Jack Spicer Feb 18th 2010 8:26PM
I would miss the loss of the zoom in zoom out.
keith Feb 18th 2010 8:49PM
@Jack Spicer
I was worried about losing the zoom, too, so I made zoom in or zoom out be Alt+Mouse wheel. That leaves me free to do HS for Mouse Up and Cleave for Mouse Down like a few other people have said.
@paul
When tanking (at least on my druid and warrior), I can't have Alt bound for any repetitive action, such as Swipe+Maul. In an attempt to get Maul to hit all the targets, I would be tabbing around, and I would inevitably be holding Alt down still when I hit Tab... bad news when you have a slow computer that takes 2-3 seconds to think before being able to switch back to WoW... =P
EyeKyu Feb 19th 2010 2:04AM
I have a Microsoft sidekick keyboard and has 30 programabile buttons that I use for my tanking and the good part is that you can make maccros on every button.
Wyred Feb 19th 2010 4:27AM
I do the exact same thing as Sleutel (right down to the specific binds), made it so much easier and increased my threat. It increased my threat as arms as well unfortunately, but my dps while I'm alive is awesome.
SarcasticZombie Feb 19th 2010 10:27AM
I play almost exclusively through my mousewheel. I use a microsoft sidewinder mouse, which has a very nice flat scroll wheel. So on my death knight this looks like:
Wheel Up: Icy Touch/Plague Strike castseq macro
Wheel Down: Heart Strike or Blood Strike
Middle Click: Death Strike
Sh-WU: Death Coil or Frost Strike
Sh-WD: Rune Blade, Gargoyle, Unbreakable armor
Sh-MC: Death Grip or Dark Command
Ctrl-WU: Death and Decay
Ctrl-WD: Pestilence
Ctrl-MC: Blood Boil
Alt-WU: Zoom In
Alt-WD: Zoom Out
Alt-MC: Camera Macro (sets me to raid default)
This setup allows me to develop crazy fast muscle memory with my powers; executing the core 9 powers becomes a total twitch reflex. On top of that, by turning off error spam, you can wheel a lot right before it's time to execute the power, giving you very tight rotations.
It's reflexive, when entering battle, to WU, WU, WD, Ctrl-WD, MC, Sh-UP, Sh-Up and with that I've diseased the whole pack, layered on all of my debuffs, and emptied my runic power.
It sounds crazy, but try it. Since my mouse wheel has become the driver of all of my game play, I've become better at every role that I try. Add in mouse over macros and you become a crazy good healer; I can cleanse like a beast on my pally, buff everyone in the party in moments, etc.
On top of that, moving and fighting has never been easier. For a DK DPS, this is invaluable for high-mobility raid bosses.
Vladeon Feb 18th 2010 3:35PM
I vote for a Canadian Beaver.
It'd make sense AND be awesome.
Cook Feb 18th 2010 3:45PM
I thought I had heard somewhere we might be getting a moose? Can't remember where, but a moose pet would be completely awesomesauce.
Roscoe Feb 18th 2010 3:38PM
I'd love a Canadian moose!