The Queue: I like cake
by Adam Holisky 
Jul 15th 2010 at 11:00AM
While my colleague Anne Stickney might like a tasty pie, I prefer a succulent cake instead. Why, do you ask?
Because it's made of fluffy goodness topped with cream. So let's take a poll and show Anne that cake > pie.
| Cake | |
|---|---|
| Pie | |
| The cake is a lie |
Hal asked ...
"What's the good word these days on racial powers and features? Have the dwarves gotten something to replace Find Treasure yet?"
We haven't heard anything yet, but as Ilmyrn pointed out, there has been some discussion at Blizzard about linking it to archaeology. And remember too, Find Treasure isn't totally useless. It can help find quest items on your minimap when you're walking around the world.
Slice Sadic asked ...
"Anyone know if the announced next beta invite wave has been done yet?"
Blizzard has said it should, if everything goes right, be done by today. Don't worry or freak out if you don't get in; there'll be many waves of invites.
Pintersque asked ...
"Since quests are being revamped in the old world, are there going to be new quests that afford rep with the factions associated with the Insane in the Membrane achievement to make the slog a little less ... sloggy?"
I haven't seen any yet that would affect that achievement. But it's not really something Blizzard will likely make easier ... it's insane. But all lame puns aside, all the old factions look like they're still going to be here, so I'd assume they're at least going to keep the same level of difficulty in earning those reps.
Aeryk asked ...
"Are the new goblin and worgen racial mounts available to other races at exalted rep like all the other racial mounts? I'd love to get a goblin roadster for my undead rogue engineer."
If Blizzard follows the previous model, yes, those mounts would be available if you reach exalted with the race's faction. However, the goblin and worgen mounts are not even in the game yet, so we'll have to wait a while to know for sure.
Leo asked ...
"If you were ever banned, for say 3 hours for naming your hunter pet inappropriately, are you screwed from getting a beta key?"
If I had to guess, I'd say no. Blizzard has always said your account has to "be in good standing" to get into betas, but that likely means it just has to be paid up and not banned. They might issue some restrictions, but I do know people who've said they've been suspended from the game and were in the beta ... but they might have been lying about being suspended. You can try asking on the forums and seeing if a blue replies to you. They'd know for sure.
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: The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 10)
Elmouth Jul 15th 2010 11:04AM
Honestly both the cake and pie pics looked disgusting to me :(
Nick S Jul 15th 2010 11:21AM
Perhaps PAKE would be more to your liking?
http://www.thisiswhyyourefat.com/?p=553684256
Drakkenfyre Jul 15th 2010 11:28AM
That "cake" up there isn't even a real cake. It's from Portal.
Noyou Jul 15th 2010 11:30AM
@Elmouth
How about a sandwich that eats like a meal? a Manwhich!
prenden2 Jul 15th 2010 11:36AM
@Elmouth
I hear you, my fellow tartophile!
Prances in Underpantss Jul 15th 2010 11:46AM
Speaking of Pake, the cake shown above looks like a Pecan Pie in cake form.
We shall call it...
Pecan Pake with Cherries on Top
Actually, are those even cherries? They look pretty big.
Drakkenfyre Jul 15th 2010 12:11PM
Here is where that cake is from.
Portal spoilers.
http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=tedOzoKW3uI&feature=related
The recipe is here.
http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=JAw3V8ScLeI&feature=related
THE WICKER MAN (BWF) (GT: Dalek Prime) Jul 15th 2010 12:26PM
The whole "The cake is a lie" thing is what wrestler Mick Foley describes as a "cheap pop". :)
Drakkenfyre Jul 15th 2010 1:09PM
Let's see here. Someone posting info, and saying they want a pizza ordered for them. What are the chances this is simply someone pissed off at someone and wants to get them harassed? Guess hitting "Report post" is in order.
Drakkenfyre Jul 15th 2010 1:17PM
Before anyone wonders what the hell my post was about, this moron was going around to each story and posting someone's name and phone number asking for a pizza to be ordered, and offered gold to the first person who did.
jbodar Jul 16th 2010 12:15AM
@Wicker Man
Who listens to anyone that converses with a dirty sock puppet anyway? ;)
Rhabella Jul 15th 2010 11:05AM
What is the point of hit and/or expertise? Not what’s the point in the general sense, but what is the point in having hit caps so high and then providing talents that increase hit for you.
I thought a lot of this might be going away with the new talent trees, but after reviewing the specialization bonuses, I am curious why they would even set the hit cap where it is. Why not just lower the bosses ability to be missed and call it a day. If casters x needs 17% hit and caster y needs 14% hit but they both have talents to reduce the miss chance by 3% why not just get rid of that “fake” hit chance?
Same goes for expertise. I think, though unsure, that every melee spec had expertise bonuses except the ret paladin. Why not just roll back the expertise needed and reduce the need for talents/new specializations giving the expertise.
As and example…
From last nights announcement, each of the 3 lock trees have a hit bonus as do the 3 hunter trees. What’s the point in requiring a lock to have x amount of hit if they get a hit reduction but have to share gear with mages who will need more hit? Eventually that hit gets wasted. Probably not the clearest question, but I hope it makes some sense.
tatsumasa Jul 15th 2010 11:17AM
you should read the full article here http://www.wowwiki.com/Spell_hit
every caster requires the same amount of hit to never miss with their spells. there's no difference between classes in that regard. talents will essentially give you extra hit, making it so you need less on your gear. the reason those talents are there though are in case you want to push your hit rating high enough with your gear to never miss and then put those points elsewhere in your talent trees.
johnthediver Jul 15th 2010 11:37AM
Hey! What ever happened to Rhabells's rants? I miss it.
Rhabella Jul 15th 2010 12:16PM
@tatsumasa
I get what you are saying, but those hit talents also perform double duty. Meaning they actually do something in addition to increasing hit. It can be inferred, at least on some level, the talents are intended to be taken because of this. Remember the devs aren’t really big fans of alternative builds because every time one pops up, the talents almost always get “adjusted.” Look at touched by the light early in Wrath.
My guess has always been back before misses were able to be completely removed from the table, it was a way of balancing but, like separate but equal, it was determined to be inherently unequal because say an arcane mage pumping out an arcane blast with its brutally long cast time was considered more punishing than an corruption with its instant cast and loss of a GCD. Now that misses can be completely avoided, everyone should be working on the same playing fiels if you believe that classes of equal gear and skill should pump out roughly equal DPS. Unlike vanilla, or even tBC where classes were, obviously, balanced around some misses, that is no longer the case.
Why should a lock be “punished” with the need for additional hit on gear when the mage can take the passive hit and then boost his spelllpower instead? This is just an example, I know it applies to other classes or even specs within a class.
The other thing to remember is loot tables. In the Cataclysmic world of tier scaling hit, there is a chance there will be an arms race for gear, more so than now, where classes will have to evaluate 2 pieces of gear, and get them both because in the current tier, you would not need the hit, but on patch day, you better be ready to raid with the new hit requirements. I’m not opposed to gear decisions like this, but it does make for some interesting bidding choices when a piece drops.
@johnthediver
The quick answer is ADD. Too many topics, including WoW, for me to stick to such a subject focused blog.
Puntable Jul 15th 2010 12:16PM
That's a good question. I guess it is just to lower the DPS of healers? I agree it does not make much sense to keep it at this point.
tatsumasa Jul 15th 2010 12:44PM
if you look at the table under "Increasing spell hit" you'll notice that all caster classes have a talent that increases their hit, including warlocks. they are also on the top tiers so you don't have to spec far into a tree you don't want to, except for classes that would be specing far into a tree anyway (balance druids for example.)
that's an interesting theory about overall damage output taking misses into account in order to balance class dps. i've never heard that before. since blizzard makes the hit-cap known, and gives us enough of it on gear, AND allows us to make up some of it with talents, i think they're just assuming people are hit-capped when trying to do their dps balancing act. as someone with five 80s, i haven't found it any more or less difficult to reach the hit cap on any class.
Sunaseni Jul 15th 2010 12:45PM
You don't think that Blizzard doesn't know that different classes have different hit caps, and perhaps have balanced around that? A Fire Mage can bust out the same, or higher, DPS as an Arcane Mage, and he has to gear all the way to the hard cap without hit talents. This is because his spells scale faster than Arcane Mages with buffs and what little spellpower, crit, and haste is left over. Therefore, a filthy warlock with his hit talents would be able to match an Arcane Mage because his spells scale better than the Arcane mage. A Fire Mage would theoretically scale even better if it weren't for the need to worry about the hit cap.
Pyromelter Jul 15th 2010 12:50PM
The point of hit basically that blizzard doesn't want people at level, say, 35, being able to take down mobs at level 50 for huge XP bonuses. They extrapolated this to raid bosses to have an "interesting" stat for dps'ers, and yes, to also nerf healer dps.
Expertise, on the other hand, makes no sense to me. Hit allows you to hit something with more success... and expertise also allows you to hit something with more success. Redundant, confusing, and stupid. Also, there's nothing in-game that shows you what these things are (nothing that I know of). The only way to know what hit/expertise caps are is to look on websites outside the game. They should seriously just get rid of expertise, or somehow roll expertise into hit.
Rhabella Jul 15th 2010 1:14PM
@tatsumasa,
"i haven't found it any more or less difficult to reach the hit cap on any class"
Me either, but I do keep a notepad on the desk with a list of the hit caps for all my casters.
@Sunaseni,
I absolutely believe that, but in a raid where the devs themselves have said they feel like they have cluttered loot tables, even though they are happier with them now than they were in tiers prior to Wrath, this balancing hit (that is different hit for different classes, not the need for hit) for different classes seems a little contrary to a design goal of so many specs sharing gear.