The Queue: Recursive cute
by Alex Ziebart 
Sep 8th 2010 at 11:00AM
This particular variation of the cute gnome picture was put together by reader Wabbajack. Playing with this picture is almost as fun as pasting Ghostcrawler's head onto various anime characters.
Zef asked:
I have a question regarding jewelcrafting tokens and Dalaran Cooking Awards. I gather we will need to farm new types of tokens/awards for the Cataclysm JC and cooking recipes? If so, is there any reason to hang on to current tokens? Basically wanting to know if I may as well start turning JC tokens in for eyes and selling them while they are still worth something. However, I would hate to do that and find out the tokens could be of worth in Cataclysm. Not so worried about Dalaran Cooking Awards; however, the same question arises. Just get what I can for them now? Not much choice, though; just Northern Spices, I guess.
I haven't done any of the new jewelcrafting dailies (because they don't exist yet), but the new cooking dailies award a brand new form of token. Dalaran currency will be used only for Dalaran-era items, and they haven't added anything new there for Cataclysm. You have no reason to stock up on those, but you have every reason to stock up on the gold you can make off of them now.
Gamer am I asked:
Is worgen both the singular and plural version of the word?
Yes.
Faryon asked:
Has Blizzard kept the Wrath of the Lich King dungeon scheme, where almost every pull is an AOE-fest and the bosses are annoyingly easy? Or have they gone back to a more Burning Crusade scheme, where the party will actually need to use some CC or off tanking to succeed?
I know I've answered this question before, but I'm answering it again because my response has changed since then. When I originally answered this question, I said that yes, it was still basically an AOE-fest, but that's not completely true anymore. They have made the 5-mans, even the early ones, much more dangerous since originally implementing them into the beta. Plus, many AOE abilities do less damage than they did previously. A lot of times, even when you're able to AOE with no fear of breaking crucial crowd control, you don't want to anymore because it's very piddly DPS and it would actually be faster to single-target things down.
Not every pull needs crowd control, but you do need it more frequently than you would in Wrath of the Lich King. I think dungeon difficulty in somewhere in between Wrath of the Lich King and The Burning Crusade. The dungeons are harder than Wrath and easier than The Burning Crusade.
I suspect that after just a tier of raiding or two, we'll all revert back to our facerolling ways.
brothejr asked:
When will the gnomes feel more love from everybody? It seems like they get the short end of the stick when it comes to classes.
Badum-tish. (Original instant rimshot site apparently had infected ads. Replaced with next best sound effect. Whoops? Sorry!)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 10)
Todd Sep 8th 2010 11:04AM
Give it time, the goblins will be the new gnomes.
Josh Sep 8th 2010 11:28AM
In a short while, perhaps around the height of the expansion, I don't think it's too tall an order to expect the Goblins to get a few low blows too. It's one or the other really, one of them had to draw the short straw.
GabeCo Sep 8th 2010 11:34AM
yea, but goblins have rocket boots and rocket launching belts, and gnomes have...+ 15 engineering. I think gnomes will always be the little guy.
Todd Sep 8th 2010 11:38AM
@GabeCo
Why do you think Blizzard gave the goblins those cool toys? Maybe because the general feeling is... meh... goblins. Could be.
Kunikenwad! Sep 8th 2010 11:40AM
@ Josh
Well played, but I find you to be a little short-sighted.
Todd Sep 8th 2010 11:43AM
Hah hah.
Eyhk Sep 8th 2010 12:04PM
Nah, gnomes will still be the runt of all jokes and be punted by Tauren to the ends of Azeroth. I'm just satisfied now that Horde will also get to feel the pain of drowning (or getting dismounted) in ankle-deep water. It'll be fun reading horde general chat in Zangarmarsh once all the new goblins level that far.
Josh Sep 8th 2010 12:08PM
@Kuni.
High class. I can't top that.
JackOfAllGames Sep 8th 2010 12:34PM
@Eyhk
Unfortunately, that will never be. Nowadays, people have easy access to flying mounts at level 60. By the time people get to Zangarmarsh, they have their flying mounts. No one travels by ground mounts in Outland anymore. =(
Amaxe Sep 8th 2010 1:43PM
@Gabeco
Actually I did a race change on my DK from human to gnome to take advantage of the +15 Engineering [naturally this means Blizz will remove this come cataclysm]. I liked the idea of starting Cataclysm with 465 Engineering.
Maybe I should have waited, but I thought I'd be SHORT on time
(ducks)
niko Sep 8th 2010 2:19PM
I fully expect the goblins to behave all high and mighty while laying low the bodies of their sizable competition.
Don't sell them so short.
Eddy Sep 8th 2010 2:26PM
I feel like the issue with the gnomes is not so much their small stature as their fairly irritating cultural habits. They are so perky and cheerful. A goblin would never say, "My, you're a tall one!" He or she would just be pleased that your wallet is closer to their eye level.
raspybunk Sep 8th 2010 3:11PM
gnomes don't seem to actually be getting their home back, and worgen starting area is apparently temporary while goblins have an entire new area. Alliance still get the bastard children.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
LB Sep 8th 2010 7:06PM
They should just give them hunters and be done with it. Hunters who build mechanical copies of the beasts other races would tame.
PictoKong Sep 8th 2010 11:06AM
Not every pull needs crowd control, but you do need it more frequently than you would in Wrath of the Lich King.
I lol'ed...
CC? in Wrath? are you kidding me?
Arathian Sep 8th 2010 11:14AM
Halls of reflection did, and still do at some point, require cc. Having a pala or a priest (or any other cc class that could cc undead) was a gift in the waves.
freyal Sep 8th 2010 11:14AM
I used CC exactly two times in wrath.
H HOR during the waves of ghouls, as they were extra healer friendly and I didn't want to be an undead's chew toy. So I would bust out the occasional shackle undead.
Groups I was in also used them during the Hill in H POS until people figured out how to cheat the system.
(cutaia) Sep 8th 2010 11:18AM
In a pug H-PoS recently, I tried having our priest shackle a mob on each of the pulls on the way to the cave. This is what my guildies and I have always done and it's always gone swimmingly.
After this pug priest failed to correctly shackle on every single pull, he went on to berate me about how you don't need CC for those pulls. While technically accurate, a little CC can still make some Wrath dungeons easier (and a little more fun). Try fighting H-HoR in the middle of the room, for example, and actually CCing the ranged mobs. That's what we did the first time we ran it and boy was it fun. But you know people...they'd prefer to just round everything up in a boring ol' corner and cast Conscevolleyseed of Knives.
Folks like this priest, who have completely lost their ability to understand CC (if they ever had it), make me sad. I for one can't wait to have a reason to cast Repentance again.
N-train Sep 8th 2010 11:23AM
I'm kind of tired of the whole "there was no CC in Wrath argument", because I think all of us have spent so long facerolling HoS in our 277 gear that we don't remember what it was like to actually do these dungeons and heroics at level.
CC certainly wasn't nearly as required as it was in BC (mostly because everyone was complaining that there was too much in BC, so the dev team toned it down), but its not like we all went in there with quest greens and blues and started aoeing and chain pulling. CC and kill order weren't necessary most of the time, but depending on your group it meant the difference between a smooth runthrough and a miserable wipefest. Some heroics (Occ, HoL, CoS, VH come to mind) were also significantly harder on heroic than normal, where having a mage or a rouge was a godsend. Wrath was better than BC, imo, because you had it easier having a CC, but the instances were still doable without one (unlike BC).
Plus people who make this argument tend to ignore places where CC was (is still) required, like Vezax/Blood Wing trash, Faction Champs, and HoR for example.
TL/DR: There is less CC in Wrath because that's what people asked for by the end of BC, and we all need to start judging heroics and raids based on their difficulty when we don't overgear them.
Grovinofdarkhour Sep 8th 2010 11:24AM
I don't think I've put down a Freezing Trap since the Bush Administration.