Patch 5.2 interview with Dave Kosak
Inside an old alt's vault
The latest patch 5.2 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Useful
by Adam Holisky 
Dec 14th 2010 at 11:00AM
There are few things more fun for me than discovering a use for an item on my own. After leveling up alchemy to 525 over the weekend, I came across the Deepholm teleport potion and initially just glossed over it as some gimmick potion.
Until I was stuck in Uldum. Then it hit me. Use the teleport potion to head to Deepholm, and then take the portal to Stormwind. Total win. I now have exactly 2.5 bajillion of those suckers made.
Happiness is me.
Logan asked:
I'm a mage; why is everyone telling me to sheep stuff?
Crowd control is an ability you have via the sheep spell. And with Cataclysm necessitating every form of CC available... well, that's just going to be the way it is for you. You'll always be asked to sheep something. The alternative to your CCing things is endless death on trash, so count your blessings that you can prevent that.
Bart asked:
When does the new PvP season begin and where are the new level 85 PvP vendors?
It should begin today, or if not, then next week. I'm writing this the evening before, so I can't know for sure.
Does the guild perk Mount Up stack with movement increasing effects like Crusader Aura?
Nope. I wish it would, though. There are also a lot of reports it doesn't stack with my druid's flight form (yes, just my druid's). For shame!
Pink asked:
The live podcasts all had taken place during business hours. Do the hosts secretly hate all of us who have day jobs? Why not have one occur during the evening hours next time?
We don't hate you; for the hosts this is our day job, and we really need to be sure we make ourselves available to our loved ones outside of work hours. I could (and sometimes have to) spend 18 hours a day working here, but as a rule, it's really important that we establish separation. This is one of the main reasons we don't do live shows anymore, except on special occasions. It's just too hard to do a time that works for everyone and allows us to have lives.
As for last Friday's show, I'm still editing it. The live broadcast was interrupted numerous times by terrible internet connection problems, and it's taking a bit of time to make everything jibe evenly remotely good. Look for it soon.
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!Filed under: The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 6 of 14)
kobelayton Dec 14th 2010 11:59AM
I don't think there is any manner of consistency here. I was online at launch w/ a few other guild mates and we were all online for approx 20 hours. I capped for the week at 2600/6000, some 500/6000, and still others 1200/12000. I can only assume there is some sort of bug or randomness to how it is figured.
Also, if you go to your Guild Roster and look at "Activity," I have no idea how this is figured as people that have only played 1/5th the amount of time of others are top of the list for total activity.
Destiny's hand Dec 14th 2010 12:01PM
From what I can tell, it has to do with guild size and your rank within the guild. The larger the guild the more contributions you are allowed for rep and the amount gained and allowed also depends on rank. Lower ranks gain the least rep. In my guild the lowest 2 ranks gain at best 3 rep per quest.
Grovinofdarkhour Dec 14th 2010 12:07PM
Scrap what I said before. I'm throwing my vote to, "it's fucked."
Grovinofdarkhour Dec 14th 2010 12:15PM
See... this is what I'm talking about.
I had been thinking that some guilds may choose to use this as a measure of contribution to the guild, and to determine who merits reward, be it promotion or whatever.
But based on what Destiny is saying, if higher-ranking members actually get more XP than lower ranking ones for doing the exact same things, one could argue that "the fix is in."
Does Blizzard feel it's their obligation to make sure officers rep up faster, even if/when nonofficers are contributing more? Or are they worried guilds will fall apart the moment someone says "I'm at Grunt rank, and Billy's a Corporal, and I've earned three times as much guild rep as him, why aren't I a Corporal?" Do they really think they need to micromanage this?
Not to mention, what's to stop officers from promoting their alts (something we've generally allowed so you could still participate in Officer Chat when on your alts), so they get more rep for the same activities than they would otherwise, for the sole purpose of being allowed to buy the guild shinies quicker?
Like I said. Fucked.
(cutaia) Dec 14th 2010 12:24PM
Grovin,
I've had guildies come up with the rank theory, but so far I see inconsistencies with that as well.
Either way, I sure hope that's not the case, cause if so, it's a stupid idea. 1) Not all guilds use all their ranks. How do they determine what rep to give to people in a guild with 4 or 5 ranks versus a guild with all 9? 2) We have ranks for a reason. It's so we can give benefits and responsibilities to people as we see fit. Rank-based rep caps would encourage guilds to promote earlier than they otherwise would just so guildies don't get screwed out of amounts of rep for doing the same things as other folks.
nieboh Dec 14th 2010 12:40PM
Judging by the replies to this post and the utter confusion and abounding misinformation this should not just be a question for a queue but the basis for an entire artical.
I'm currently at 4592/6000 on my way to honored with our guild and I'm rank 3. Our guild master is only 941/6000 toward honored. She has played enough to reach level 85, while I'm about 75% of the way past 84.
If you look at the guild roster and choose "all contributors" (where it gives the top contributors) there's a whole ton of people at the exact same weekly contribution of 1,575,002 while for "lifetime" there is an enormous amount of variation.
Now, this contribution stuff probably refers to guild xp and not guild rep, but it's not very clearly labeled and all pretty confusing. (To go back to the comparison between myself and the guild leader, I have 8,309,563 lifetime while she only has 7,327,608 so I have more, but probably not enough to make up the difference in guild rep. And, top of the list for lifetime contributions with nearly twice as much as me, at 4699/6000 has just 100 more guild rep than I do.)
Bluegrass Geek Dec 14th 2010 12:55PM
My draenai DK made it partway into Friendly before finishing Vashj'ir. Guess what? 500/6000 Friendly: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/stormrage/nalaer/reputation/
From what I can tell, there was no cap originally AND you gained rep at a 1:1 ratio with XP... then Blizz put in the hard Weekly cap, and set folks to that 500/6000. Probably an internal miscommunication left a tech somewhere that put folks at 600/6000 by mistake.
So, now that we're hitting the Weekly reset and have the Reputation nerf, things will progress a bit more normally.
Eyhk Dec 14th 2010 1:41PM
I'm thinking its the achievements that were giving guild xp over the daily cap also contributing to individual guild rep?
Nopunin10did Dec 14th 2010 3:36PM
"That "Required Average ilvl" is no joke. One point shy, and you can't go in."
Do remember, however, that you can enter the instance through the front door just fine without that item level. It's only the requirement for using the LFG tool.
Riley Dec 15th 2010 5:01AM
I think it might be because the 1st actual week started after cata was turned on, so people got different amounts of rep in there before it reset
Hanak Dec 14th 2010 11:14AM
for the mages, this is a good macro:
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead]Remove Curse;[@focus,harm,nodead][@mouseover,harm,nodead][@target,harm,nodead] Polymorph
Sheeps your focus first. If no focus exists, sheeps your mouseover, if no mouseover, sheeps your target.
If you mouse over a friend, it removes any curses that might be on them.
MikeLive Dec 14th 2010 11:14AM
Question: What's up with white and green stats? On most items, primary stats (Stam/Str/Int/Agi) and Spirit appear as white, +XXX stats, while secondary stats appear as green, "Equip: increases your blahblahblah by XXX". Except I've seen several items that have secondary stats appear as white +XXX (like "+95 Hit Rating", etc). Is there any functional reason for this?
Noakh Dec 14th 2010 11:27AM
On items with randomly assigned stats ("... of the ...") all stats appear in white, for one reason or another. On items, like quest rewards, where the stats are always the same the stats follow the schema you pointed out. It's been this way since tbc, though I'm not sure why.
GerardthePriest Dec 14th 2010 11:17AM
Is there a way to use the in-game raid frames when in a 5-person instance group? With the new challenges of Cata healing, it would be really useful to be able to more easily see incoming heals, total health, etc.
(cutaia) Dec 14th 2010 11:19AM
Absolutely!
I forget where, but in your options is a "Use raid-style party frames" option. Click it and you're good to go! :D
GerardthePriest Dec 14th 2010 11:21AM
Excellent, thanks, I will look for it. I didn't notice it in the past, but then, healing a 5-man hasn't be difficult since the interface was released.
MikeLive Dec 14th 2010 11:21AM
Yep, it's in Interface under Party options. Some options are limited to raids only, though, namely rearranging the layout (it's stuck in vertically-stacked orientation, though you can move it around) and filtering out party members (which you wouldn't do in a 5-man anyway).
Bonca Dec 14th 2010 11:23AM
Its under interface, then under raid fraims. Just press escape like you are going to exit the game and interface right in that list
Lipstick Dec 14th 2010 1:38PM
The in game frames still leave a lot to be desired.
I still recommend Grid -- though VuhDo and Healbot would work too I suppose.
There are add ons which allow you to hide the blizzard party frames if you wish -- or you can just have both displayed depending on screen real-estate.
razion Dec 14th 2010 11:15AM
Say a hunter would want another way to CC--are there any hunter pets in the game that can offer a viable crowd-control tool?