Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: There's a surprise at the end
by Alex Ziebart 
Mar 21st 2011 at 11:00AM
Today's edition of The Queue discusses the nature of the death knight, the recent lack of creepy whispers, the nature of the vrykul, and ... something special. Enjoy!
Oscar asked:
Is it me or does it feel as if the whole "caster" part of DKs was just wholly abandoned and just being confined to Death Coil and a few other abilities?
I don't think it was abandoned -- because it was never supposed to be there. Not ever. Every time death knights have found a way to make themselves into primarily spellcasters, especially with a substantial amount of ranged damage, Blizzard has specifically gone out of its way to stop it from happening. Death knights are not primarily spellcasters now, and they were never supposed to be spellcasters. They do deal a lot of spell damage, sure, but so does every melee class/spec besides warriors.
If you want more evidence that death knights aren't intended to be casters, here's a statement from Ghostcrawler on the topic from the beginning of 2010.
Pilsner asked:
Why have the archaeology keystones stopped talking to me when I loot them? I need their counsel on which of my invisible enemies to be most wary of!
That wasn't a baseline feature. It was something that Deadly Boss Mods did if you had it installed. It had a "Make Archaeology More Interesting" option that was turned on by default. The mod authors probably noticed the sheer amount of people that were utterly baffled by the keystone noises and disabled the option by default. Your friends will not be abandoning you anymore. (At least, not because of archaeology.)
Noyou asked:
When you kill certain vrykul, why do they turn into powder?
The kvaldir in particular do this, but they don't turn into powder. They turn into water. The kvaldir are vengeful spirits of the sea. If you look at their model, you'll notice bits of the sea are worked into their bodies -- they have starfish and barnacles stuck to them, they're covered in seaweed (and in fact, it looks like their hair is seaweed), and their clothing is made up of bits of loose netting from fishing nets. When you kill them, you more or less beat the sentience out of them, and they lose their ability to hold a solid form. Their body melts into a pool of water again, and the bits of the sea that were stuck to them just fall in a pile on the ground.
The legitimately living vrykul don't fall to dust/water. They leave corpses behind like anything else.
Atraja asked:
You guys keep saying that you might bring Patches of Yesteryear back but I haven't seen it yet. Is it coming back or isn't it?
Yes. Tomorrow. Except it's called WoW Archaeologist now.
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: Analysis / Opinion, The Queue, Archaeology
Reader Comments (Page 8 of 9)
Cantor Mar 21st 2011 2:00PM
"They do deal a lot of spell damage, sure, but so does every melee class/spec besides warriors."
and Feral Druids - only 2 classes in the game that deal 100%2525 physical damage.
razion Mar 21st 2011 5:28PM
And, well, rogues too, if we're gonna be picky about it.
Cantor Mar 31st 2011 9:51AM
Technically Rogues deal poison damage, while Warriors and Ferals only ever deal physical.
Grovinofdarkhour Mar 21st 2011 2:28PM
Dear The Queue,
Does every purchased Breakfast Topic end up getting used? I only ask because the one I did last year appeared on the site five days after the email telling me it had been purchased, but my newer one was purchased February 12th and hasn't appeared yet.
Thanks,
Grovin
MattKrotzer Mar 21st 2011 2:47PM
From what I recall, they got over 100 submissions during the last open call. It might be a while before either of us sees our topic used.
chaosdefined Mar 21st 2011 2:47PM
On a very rare occasion I have had a tank who's said "Does anyone need any specific bosses or can we skip some?" and when someone's piped up saying they need a boss, the tank and group have said ok. Those were amazing people and to them I salute you!
I'm trying to gear up my Paladin for tanking, which is going slowly because we keep skipping bosses that drop some gear I want, and means I come up short on JP.
I understand the bad DPS, I've experienced them myself. I usually give a groan whenever I see the "GOGOGOGO!" appear.
Just seems to be there's less and less players around who are willing to help out each other.
chaosdefined Mar 21st 2011 2:47PM
Ok, ignore that last comment, it was meant as a reply to another one. Post Fail!
Garrgamel Mar 21st 2011 3:06PM
If you need the jp or rep do the bosses don't skip them. Don't let other ppl dictate what bosses to do. If a boss drops gear you need go for it. I'm a Pally tank as well and I experienced this exact problem.
Monger Mar 21st 2011 2:51PM
Question for the Queue.... At the beginning of Cata, Blizzard was working on making larger Battlegroups the last I heard that they had at least combined 4 battlegroups together, then I never heard any more about this... So i was wondering if this is still in the works or did they scrap this due to technical problems? And if they are still doing this is going to be like US battlegroup a Europe battlegroup and so forth? It would be so cool if they could get this to work and then let us run dungeons, heroics, arenas and rated Bg's with or against our real life friends on different severs!!!!
boil.san Mar 21st 2011 2:59PM
Here is my question for the Queue…
Any chance of Blizz giving a nice new shiny set of Legendary weapons for Rogues again…? Something that, although REALLY cool and all, is not from two expansions back…?
I am thinking a sweet, sweet sword (Main Hand, 2.80 speed) & dagger (aka Main Gauche; Offhand, 1.40 speed) set, to fall into line with the 'new order' of things…
Yeah, I am a Combat Rogue…!
razion Mar 21st 2011 5:26PM
The chances seem very, very, very small. I feel they might get around to making a second (or further) set of legendary weapons for people who have already had legendary sets before ONLY after they give the people who haven't HAD obtainable legendaries yet the chance to at least get one.
boil.san Mar 21st 2011 3:04PM
AND… A reply to my own post…!
In retrospect, what I would REALLY like to see Blizz do, and what would be beneficial to ALL players, is…
Make ALL Legendary weapons; past, present & future; infinitely scalable… After all they ARE Legendary…!
That way, those sweet Warglaives would not just be a novelty item to bust out before a raid for style points, or traipse around Stormwind with to show off how l33t one is; they would actually be useful for as long as you, well, used them…!
Discuss…!
(But I would still not knock a Cata-centric Sword Main & Dagger/Main Gauche Off set of Legendaries…)
(cutaia) Mar 21st 2011 3:31PM
Then the race to world firsts would be determined by which guild has spent the most time farming old content for legendaries so that they could walk into each new raid instantly overgeared.
Blazing Rain Mar 21st 2011 4:53PM
@(cutaia) Much like the fact that guilds who can farm heroic raids now go into the next tier instantly overgeared?
(cutaia) Mar 21st 2011 5:52PM
No...not like that at all. There's a positively huge difference between doing well in normal Firelands because you've been busy killing Sinestra...and doing well in Firelands because you farm Ulduar in your spare time.
Lemons Mar 21st 2011 4:01PM
Yes! I love hearing about old patches! I look forward to the new column!
makebooms Mar 21st 2011 4:32PM
This may be thinking a little too far ahead, but how much longer do you think we have before Blizzard has to completely revamp the stats system? By the end of this expansion, it seems reasonable to think we will have tanks breaking 300,000 HPs and bosses having over 300 million HPs. At the current rate, it doesn't seem unreasonable to see the next expansion have tank HPs in the millions and bosses in the billions of hit points. By the end of this expansion, will 80k DPS be the norm? Will the next expansion call for 200k DPS? How long can this go on and if a reset does become necessary, how would Blizzard do such a thing?
Grovinofdarkhour Mar 21st 2011 5:08PM
Maybe they'll do with hit points & damage what Mexico did to the peso during their economic crisis a few years ago, and just chop 3 zeroes off of everything.
razion Mar 21st 2011 5:22PM
Bigger numbers are easier to balance AND feel more epic--and there is no inherent "rightness" with numbers being smaller, so Blizzard really has no good reason to make things smaller at this point. Their change in the health pools was to make it so players weren't killed in a few global cool-downs in PvP like we have been since the beginning of the game through Wrath. With a lot more health, it is now possible for fights to be lengthened with the result catering further towards skill, and less towards unpredicted gimmicks (also the reason for the talent tree selection being introduced) and gear.
Ace Mar 21st 2011 6:06PM
Question for the Queue:
Given the fact that, in 4.2, our Valor Points will roll down to Justice Points, do you think they will allow us to go over cap like last year?
For example, if I have 3500 JP, and 1500 VP, will it turn into 5000 JP? And then I can't earn any more until I'm back under the cap of 4000 (which would take all of 5 minutes)?
Maybe this has been asked before but I didn't see it
Thanks