Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Cathedral picture
by Michael Sacco 
Oct 17th 2010 at 12:00PM
I'm completely out of witty intros. It's Sunday! Deal with it!
DarkSpade asked:
Was the WoW miniatures game ever officially announced as dead or is it still out there flapping in the breeze? Any chance of it coming back?
The license for the WoW Minis game was originally held by Upper Deck, a company with whom Blizzard no longer does business. Cryptozoic, who picked up the WoW TCG license, did not pick up the Minis license. I think you can probably extrapolate the status of the WoW Minis game from there.
Roht asked:
Is there going to be a Ring of Blood/Amphitheater of Anguish type of thing in Cata?
Yes: the Crucible of Carnage, located in Twilight Highlands. There's also one in Gadgetzan, available at level 46.
Blightmare asked:
I have a question about Wintergrasp's early stages, because I was looking at my Wrath box and when I opened it I was reading all the things you would be able to do in Wrath, one of which jumped out at me. "Engage in aerial dogfights with flying mounts and new gnome engineered planes". Was this in beta but they scrapped it or did it make it to Wrath but they took it out early?
Dogfights were indeed originally in Wintergrasp, but they were removed due to balance and gameplay issues. At least that's what Blizzard said.
Coincidentally, certain testers would just crash the planes into the fortress towers while yelling ... well, I'm sure you can imagine what they would be yelling. No, I'm not making that up. I'm inclined to believe that those guys singlehandedly got flying vehicles removed from the game, no matter what Blizzard says.
Sal asked:
Any chance the War Against the Nightmare will make it into the game in some form?
The major Emerald Nightmare storyline was mostly resolved in the Stormrage novel; however, the book dictates that the remnants of the Nightmare were banished to the portion of the Emerald Dream called the Rift of Aln, which coincidentally is the name of a track on the Cataclysm soundtrack. Intriguing, no?
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider 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 7 of 11)
Aubie Oct 17th 2010 12:53PM
Two hunter related questions: (1) While I'm adjusting to "focus" - the one thing that still feels off (especially for MM) is that there is no 'Viper-like' regen, or even a way to replenish with something like mana potion. I don't want to think the intent is me just standing around on auto-shot - but that's what it's been. (2) How do we turn "spirit walker" off of our spirit beasts since there isn't anything in the pet bar to toggle it?
Drakkenfyre Oct 17th 2010 1:04PM
Aspect of the Fox will generate 3 Focus every time you are hit.
And it's a Talent, but,
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=82726
Drakkenfyre Oct 17th 2010 1:07PM
And have you been using Steady Shot? Steady Shot regenerates Focus per shot.
Eros Oct 17th 2010 1:07PM
I don't have a hunter but im pretty sure you can cast steady shot to restore focus.
Tirrimas Oct 17th 2010 1:22PM
Spirit Walker is in your spellbook. It seems to be tied to the infamous pet Prowl bug of last year.
And yes, Steady Shot regens focus. It's your 'filler" shot.
Rob Oct 17th 2010 2:59PM
What i've been doing, and granted i'm not an expert. But start of fight for trash, MD to tank, Multishot, then arcane to empty. Usually on heroics the trash is dead at this point. So you move to the next mob. If not, then steady shot.
On something like a boss fight or tougher mob, i would start with aimed shot if you can, and unload serpent sting and arcane shot to zero focus, then SS up to 100, and repeat. Save your beastal wrath until 100% focus and then do arcane. But for rapid fire, i do it at 0 focus and dump steady shot.
But really i have no idea if this is effective. it may or may not be.
Artificial Oct 17th 2010 4:22PM
@Rob: You don't actually want to burn all the way down to zero with Arcane Shot. If you're BM, you want to keep enough focus around to hit Kill Command as soon as it's cooldown is up, and presumably the same applies to the "signature shot" of other specs. But other than keeping that reserve, what you describe is pretty much the right way to do it.
Qot Oct 17th 2010 1:00PM
They tried putting them in game, but they kept rolling down stairs, alone or in pairs, and over the neighbor's dog.
aspiringhobo Oct 18th 2010 2:39AM
Are the floating damage numbers really glitched right now - specifically, not showing up at all in dungeons but just as normal while soloing - or am I doing something wrong?
Omicron Oct 17th 2010 1:03PM
A friend of mine who used to play classic WoW is thinking to pick it back up with Cataclysm. He's intrigued by the Goblin/Worgen races, but doesn't have plans to go past 60 for the time being.
Now he wants to know if there was any official word on whether you can buy Cataclysm and use it stand-alone, without requiring TBC and Wrath? I reckon it's probably not possible, but he'd like something more solid of a proof than my estimates.
Lannden Oct 17th 2010 1:39PM
Probably not every other expansion has required the previous version of the game to work.
Basoiche Oct 17th 2010 2:14PM
Per the box art, yes, you must have all 3.
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100822005656/wowwiki/images/c/ca/CataclysmOfficialCover.png
waycooler Oct 17th 2010 1:04PM
Any news on the existence of the Broken Isles? They're the islands where Suramar and the Tomb of Sargeras are. I've been wanting to run around on them since playing Warcraft III, but as far as I've seen, the only thing in the middle of the ocean in Cataclysm is the Maelstrom. Perhaps as a major content patch?
Darky Oct 18th 2010 3:36AM
Me too, the name sunken temple was also use for the tomb of sargeras therefore the swamp of sorrows was a bitter disappointment.
Andrew R. Oct 17th 2010 1:11PM
Is anyone else experiencing major lag issues since the patch? Even with all my settings turned to low the game is really choppy. I have a laptop that is less than a year old. It's no gaming laptop but it runs WoW with decent settings.
MikeLive Oct 17th 2010 1:32PM
I ran the game on Ultra before 4.0.1, now to get the same FPS I'm on Fair. There's definite performance issues.
Tbah Oct 17th 2010 2:39PM
I'm having the opposite results here.
Check if you're running in DirectX 11 mode? Go to the \World of Warcraft\WTF\Config.wtf and see if you can find a line reading
SET gxApi "d3d11"
If not, add it to the end of the file. It makes a big difference, given that your GPU is DX11 compatible.
sullyXXX Oct 17th 2010 1:19PM
Question for the queue:
Why are clothies and rogues tougher than warriors in 4.0.1? And why the hell can't I crit higher than 4k?
Tbah Oct 17th 2010 2:42PM
Rejoice.
You will be buffed come Tuesday/Wednesday.
The class balance was greatly harmed by the patch and all.
James Feighan Oct 17th 2010 1:22PM
Gremlins 1 or 2?