Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Happy boys and happy girls
by Mathew McCurley 
May 4th 2011 at 11:00AM
It is no secret that most of my writing gets done against the backdrop of Europop and Europop-inspired artists. When I sit down to write articles or posts, I turn on Pandora and hit my awesome Aqua station, ready for the sweet, sweet Europop to blast in my ears. Why Europop? I don't know. For some reason, I am more productive when rocking out to fast beats.
What? You're going to listen to every second of Happy Boys and Happy Girls, and you're going to like it.
Felix_rew asked:
Did Blizzard explain why Ysera's eyes are open in Hyjal?
Yes. Usually her eyes are closed, but when her power is needed and she needs to be running on all cylinders, her eyes open and her influence is greater. Otherwise, her eyes are closed, but you can see her eyes moving under them watching the mortal races and the dream. Read more about Ysera and her Green Dragonflight.
Jirisundstrum asked:
Question for the queue: With the change to Blind in the patch notes adding yet another ability with different effects in pve and pvp, why doesn't Blizzard just accept the shift in paradigm? Players simply need different toolkits for raiding and arenas, and it seems the game is moving in that direction organically. Why fight nature Blizz?
My guess is that this is something Blizzard wants to do but will roll out very, very slowly and very specifically. Every single ability won't get the PvP/PvE treatment, but for where it makes the most sense, it will happen. Blizzard is reluctant to do it, but I think at this point in time, it's a no-brainer for PvP/PvE balance. I wish that it would have been a design aspect earlier, but at least the dual-purpose abilities are finally happening.
Having Blind as a regular CC option is great because now a rogue is doubly important for a good amount of Cataclysm dungeon content. Good call, Blizz.
Gauldrin asked:
Why do worgen have a cast time when they transform to their mount mode? They arent really changing into anything but dropping on all fours. Also why cant they pick herbs while in that mode? Druids can pick herbs while shapeshifted and insta-transform.
The worgen ability Running Wild is a type of ground mount with the ground mount standard cast time. It just has a unique animation fitting the worgen race. Druids, on the other hand, get the benefit of a flight form that is instant-cast. The class has a "mount" advantage, not a race advantage. In keeping with the race's relatively balanced nature, instant-cast ground mounts in places like battlegrounds, Tol Barad, and other ground mount-specific areas would favor worgen too heavily.
Worden asked:
Alright, since this is for asking questions. I was looking to start(after putting together some ach. first.) getting into heroics. I always hear about Gear and item level and DPS. How do you get these unbelievable levels of gear and strength. Can it be done soloing or camping at the AH? Or is it Raid gear that you have to hope!? that someone will let you join in if you don't meet their minimum levels? I'm just curious because I don't know.
Any help would be fine, and folks seem nicer here than on the normal forums
Here's my main strategy for gearing up alts to get ready for heroics. At level 84, you go straight to Twilight Highlands. The gear differential is just plain higher than the stuff you get in Uldum, and the end rewards for long quest chains are ilevel 333 blues, which are pretty great. Also, at 84 and 85, you want to queue for dungeons and have on a reputation tabard that has some good revered and exalted gear for you. Running level-85 non-heroic dungeons will grant you reputation based on the tabard you have on.
A combination of level 85 dungeon ilevel 333 gear, as well as blue rewards from quests in Twilight Highlands and reputation gear from friendly and above, will get you into heroics faster than you know it!
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 3 of 10)
fallemwarrior May 4th 2011 11:41AM
isnt it 218 gear?
Drack May 4th 2011 11:48AM
3. Either of the PvP meta titles (Battlemaster and Justicar/Conqueror)
2. Bloodsail Admiral
1. The Insane
The PvP meta titles take forever and a day to get. The first (Battlemaster) just has so many achievments behind it that require a lot of time and skill (I.e. 100 victories in BG X or win 1600 points to 0 in AB). And the Justicar? Heck, AV is fine but exalted with WSG and AB? That'll happen in about ten years.
Bloodsail Admiral is all but impossible to get at this point. The guards all have 450k or so HP and can one shot a Frost DK. Makes me glad I got it in Wrath.
And The Insane? Well... its insane. Not only does it require the aforementioned BA title, but also getting to Exalted with the Steamwheedle Cartel (with whom you became hated with after getting the BA title) The Shan'Drelar (Or did they get removed? I can't remember) and Ravenholdt (Which requires any non-rogue to continously turn in junk boxes, which requires a rogue to get them via opening lock boxes).
loop_not_defined May 4th 2011 11:59AM
You know, Blizzard once suggested that they want to allow players to scale their level so that they could play with their lower-level friends in things like Battlegrounds and Dungeons (via LFD). They said that Heirlooms and Abilities scaling to level were partly changes towards this.
Do you think they would allow folks to attain stuff like the Herald of Titans title using a level-reduction mechanic? All the WotLK gear would still be available, but re-gearing multiple players for Ulduar just for a title would be quite a bit of work.
Pyromelter May 4th 2011 12:06PM
I would hazard a guess that The Insane and Herald of the Titans would be the hardest. Regarding Herald, refer to the wowhead page, as there are some oddities with the ilevels. Generally speaking, your max ilevel is supposed to be 226, but you can have weapons up to 232 (including ToC weapons). This is because there are ilevel 232 weapons that drop in 10man ulduar when you do hard modes on 10man, and also a bunch of armor that drops in hard modes that are ilevel 226.
Incidentally, some of those ulduar weapons still look really, really cool, I'm especially partial to the golden sword model of Aesir's Edge (drops off of 10man XT hardmode).
Issue with Herald is that you have to be level 80. So that's gonna be a rough one to get, especially if you are at 85 already. Not to mention that that fight is not easy, although per wowhead commenters, they removed the 1 hour time restriction on it.
Telwar May 4th 2011 12:44PM
Assuming you mean something attainable on an established server...and not including realm first titles. .
I would say, myself, that the three hardest titles you can get now are:
Justiciar: While AV rep isn't hard to get, WSG and AB reps are, and require you put up with people in BGs. At least along the way you'll get a lot of the achievements for...
Battlemaster: Even more achievements that require you to spend all your time in BGs. I wonder if this would be easier using rated BGs whenever possible, since you'll have a bit more control over your success that way.
Professor: Twenty rare artifacts means you have to spend a vast amount of time farming for this, flying over Kalimdor for Night Elf and Tol'vira artifacts especially. It is entirely possible for the RNG to decide not to let you find some of the rares, either. Enjoy making another cinnabar bijou!
Noyou May 4th 2011 1:17PM
Insane is probably up there.
Gladiator.
Loremaster.
And as mentioned Bloodsail admiral just because of the guards. I would say pick the one you do the least. Questing/PvP/PvE and go for that.
martingardner@gmail.com May 4th 2011 5:13PM
I guess it depends on what you mean by "hard".
If you mean hard as in time consuming it would be "the insane", "professor", and the PvP meta titles.
If you mean hard as in taking skill, it would probably currently be "dragonslayer", "blackwing's bane" and "herald of the titans", even though as mentioned, herald takes not only skill, but also has very difficult to reach requirements. (you have to convince 9 other people to stop XP at 80 and then collect sets of gear with the proper ilevel requirements, then after that, kill one of the harder bosses of wrath without the benefit of being overgeared.)
gamerunknown May 4th 2011 5:52PM
Scarab Lord's prestige is somewhat marred by the fact that it was briefly possible to start a new character on a server and there'd be about 100 scarab lords, including scarab lord DKs.
From the top of my head, Bloodthirsty, Hero of the Faction, Vicious Gladiator, The Insane, Justicar, Dragonslayer and Salty all spring to mind. Justicar alone may be more difficult than battlemaster since you need 1000 caps (333.3~ repeating perfect games) as human to get exalted with silverwing sentinels alone, whereas several of the battlemaster achievements you get on the way to veteran. Salty is very RNG dependent for one that didn't get away, which took me over 12000 fish fished or 67 hours of fishing. The competition also took 10 or more tries to win and I only got it because I disappeared on Christmas because I correctly assumed no-one would be on. My first arch achieve was on the 9th of January and I got professon on the 3rd of March...
In comparison I got "Avast ye admiral" on August 31st 2009 and "The Insane" on the first of May.
http://www.wowpedia.org/Title
there's a complete list
Tarvos May 4th 2011 11:16AM
So I just got Thunderran, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker last night, but as a shaman I can't equip it. Thus I'm not getting the Feat of Strength for acquiring it, which is kind of bull in my opinion. I know Blizz won't be making Legendaries BoA, but is there a possibility that they can amend the FoS to obtaining the legendary as opposed to equipping it? My guild will get the achieve when I hit honored with them just for having Thunderran, so why can't I have it?
kingoomieiii May 4th 2011 11:34AM
Hmm, if Glaives or the Legendary Bow drop, can the raid pass it around in the 2-hour timer and give everyone the feat?
Drakkenfyre May 4th 2011 11:42AM
They already fixed that kind of thing because people were getting Achievements and cheating them.
Haris Pilton's bag, and the choppers were both giving Achievements simply for having them. So people were passing them around their guilds so everyone got it. They changed it by requiring them to equip the items.
So if they were to make an exception for Legendaries, they would have to redo the trading system, and make them BOP's that ignored the tradability of other dungeon BOP's.
Nopunin10did May 4th 2011 11:45AM
Did you petition a GM about this? It might be a bug.
Sunaseni May 4th 2011 12:18PM
They changed the achievement already from what you were asking; now the achievement even says "wielder of X". If you can't wield it, you don't get the achievement.
Good luck, hope your guild gets another binding off of Garr.
Tarvos May 4th 2011 12:31PM
I understand the logic of Blizz implementing non-tradability so people can't cheat the achievement, but Thunderran comes from an extended quest, not a lucky drop. Maybe it should be amended to "Completed the Thunderran, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker questline."
Frank-potato May 4th 2011 8:29PM
Unfortunately, and this may sound too harsh, it's your fault for lack of research. When someone is going to dedicate a lot of effort and time into something like a legendary, title, meta-achiv, mount, etc.; that person makes the proper research before beginning such endeavors. you just don't go about grinding reps, killing stuff or buying stuff without knowing if is going to work or not. You had under any circumstance to know that you could equip the weapon. No non axe wielding class would go about collecting primordial saronites to start making the shadowmourne right?
Amanda A. May 4th 2011 11:24AM
Is engineering worth it on a newish alt? (Level 60.) Without bullets it's even more stupidly time and resource-intensive to level, and its use in endgame is questionable, seeing as all the toys and tinkers except the straight stat boost fail catastrophically. But some of the tools, like scrapbots and Jeeves, are so very useful, and pvp with maxed engineering-- saronite bombs in the 65-70 bracket-- could be interesting.
Eridian May 4th 2011 11:39AM
Well the goggles you get to make are pretty awesome, and don;t need a ridiculous amount of mats to make. Plus the tinkers are pretty useful now that they stack with enchants. I use the synapse springs on cooldown and the energy belt shield whatsit can be really really useful (saved a few wipes in the past).
Plus you get to have a parachute...awesome.
And the gyrocopter...the gyrocopter!
e.friedman1992 May 4th 2011 11:42AM
I totally aggree with this question... I am lvling a new pally along with engineering and I honestly feel like 75% of the things I make are just mats to make the other 25% of things. and about 75% of that 25% is just stupid cosmetic stuff... Only thing I have ever actually got that was usefull was Flying Tiger Goggles and I had to replace them as soon as another helm dropped.
Hal May 4th 2011 11:45AM
Engineering is highly useful for any class or spec, but it is a money pit. If you have cash to burn on your main, then you'll undoubtedly find a use for Engineering. If you find yourself cash-strapped, then you'd be better off with gathering professions for your new alt.
matticus May 4th 2011 11:55AM
You misspelled roflcopter.