Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mat McCurley will be your host today.

Ow. Ow, ow, ow. The pain, oh, the pain of it all. Heroics, my friends, are hard. Trash is hard, the bosses are hard, and my spirit was jostled from its happy Wrath of the Lich King foundations. Images of Shadow Labs darted through my mind. Heroic Mechanar called to me. Remember me, it spoke, remember me and weep the tears of a thousand failed runs. You are mine, it would proclaim. You have returned to the unhappy peninsula of the soul.

No, really, heroics are hard. I expect some tuning, but on the whole, there are challenges ahead for us in Cataclysm. On the one hand, I'm excited. I like challenge! On the other hand, I will never use the dungeon finder tool again. No offense.

Let's get to some questions!

zeeduckybee asked:

What's with the red ! I've been seeing over mobs in various beta screenshots?

Sometimes, creatures have a red exclamation point over their heads, indicating that once you kill one, it automagically starts a quest to kill more of them. It is similar to the kill quests in Warhammer Online, and it totally rules.

The gnolls south of Tarren Mill, for instance, have red exclamation marks over their heads. One kill activates a quest to kill more, which works much better than the whole "Oops, I forgot to pick up the quest from the obscure Wanted! poster" problem. It's a great change.

calaf asked:

So I'm trying to buy up the heirloom gear I need before the price goes higher with the next patch. I'm planning on leveling a holy pally in Cata. My question is how important "plate specialization" is during leveling. Am I still better off going for the shammy shoulders/chest? Or should I still go for the less-than-optimized itemization with the plate stuff?

You won't be penalized for not wearing your highest armor. However, there are bonuses for wearing your preferred armor class. I'm guessing that these bonuses will only make a huge difference in heroic and endgame raiding environments. In Cataclysm, quest rewards and itemization in general is so much better anyway that you will most likely have on preferred armor pieces at all times.

Swifteye asked:

Mr. McCurley:

You said a few weeks ago you got a new kitten. My question for you is, with how trigger-happy the other editors are on the camera button when it comes to dog pets, why haven't you provided us with adorable kitten pictures yet? Not everyone is a dog fan, you know!

I have two cats, Sophie and Rocky. We found Sophie under a car about two blocks away from my apartment when she was 10 weeks old. We adopted Rocky from an adoption agency. Rocky was found in a tied-up box with his siblings and mother, left for dead on Rockaway Boulevard in Queens, so we named him Rocky. They are both amazing cats. And yes, that's Sophie in the title image with the remote.

Itanius asked:

When will we get some details on the WoW Insider meetup at BlizzCon?

I know we answered this, but I want everyone to come out! 7 p.m. at the Anabella hotel, right next to the convention center. Be there!

kokot_dreveny asked:

Why is there no tide in WoW?

Varian is an All man.

Rob asked:

What's the word on the Cataclysm heroics? Hard? Easy?

Hard.

Sithril asked:

It may have been asked already, but will WoW Insider be covering all pre-Cataclysm events in detail?

Oh my, yes. Check out the very beginnings of these events on the PTR for a small taste of what is in store for Azeroth under these cataclysmic times. As we know more, you'll know more.

Gridus Allmighty asked:

Does WoW Insider have any ideas for future hero classes, since Blizzard has announced that there will be more?

There have always been rumblings of a monk hero class, but there's nothing really definite on that front. However, a monk class would be absolutely awesome, using fist weapons and leather and such. I would be very tempted to roll an orc or dwarven monk.

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