Patch 5.2 interview with Dave Kosak
Inside an old alt's vault
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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Twilight cultists are everywhere
by Michael Sacco 
Jul 29th 2011 at 11:00AM
Is there no one the long tendrils of the Twilight's Hammer can't touch? Not even Holiday, my friend Caitlyn's cat, could withstand their siren song. She's currently in the running to be the next elemental ascendant of catnip.
jrj_paladin asked:
I play a lvl 85 Holy pally as my main and I am as well geared as I can get without doing raids. I was told that with the last patch they said that the old raids are now pugable but I have always been very scared to do them. So how easy are the old raids compared to the what they use to be?
They're 20% easier or more, depending on the boss! Damage and abilities from the tier 11 bosses was nerfed by at least that much, in most cases. You still need to understand the way the fights work and respond to fight gimmicks appropriately, but it's considerably less punishing to you and the raid if you do mess up. Educate yourself on the fights and go with other educated people (or fast learners), and you should be fine.
Matt Krotzer asked:
"Our internal standards for those things are right around (and in some cases, greater) than those of traditional print media."
Bah... start using Oxford commas, and we'll talk.
I never stopped fighting for the Oxford comma and eventually Lisa did relent on her edict. Writers here have the option to use it or not use it, at their discretion.
Will asked:
With the advent of big Cata health pools and the move away from encounter designs that emphasize a tank's ability to soak up big hits, a lot of tanks are starting to move away from +stam gems and enchanted in favor of mastery and avoidance. My question is, has this carried over to flasks and pots? Are people still finding their raids better served by a stamina boost than by, say, the boost to threat and DPS from potting/flasking for strength?
It's going to vary from tank to tank and the gear you have. Ideally, you should keep in mind two things when you're flasking: what stats benefit you the most, and what stats you're missing. If you're low on HP, you should definitely use a stamina flask. But if your stamina looks okay for the content, you can try flasking for another stat that benefits you greatly, like mastery.
Lheim asked:
Actually, regarding the mobile version of the site - is there any way to make links to articles from it actually take you to the mobile versions as well? It ain't happening, for me.
We're looking into it.
Antagony Incorperated asked:
When I open the Auction House, all my gold is displayed in a little panel off in the bottom left of the interface. If I click on this Gold Counter, a little window opens up asking me the 'Amount to Pick Up' and how much Gold, Silver, or Copper to input. If I do, it makes a little icon parceled with what I have to assume is the money, but I cant seem to actually DO anything with it. What is this feature? What outdated purpose does it serve?
You can use that to drop money onto a person to trade it to them, just like you'd drag an item from your bag to someone else to perform the same function.
Arrohon asked:
Has the ret paladin column replaced the warlock column as the defense against the dark arts column? We were all excited for the new blogger and he seems to have disappeared after only two articles. I'm currently following Rossi as an angry guy with 2 large axes but I still like to follow ret news.
Fret not, more ret columns are on the way from Durin.
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 4 of 8)
(cutaia) Jul 29th 2011 11:35AM
The semantics aren't even remotely important. When a raid leader calls "flask up" he doesn't need to specify "flask or elixir up" and he sure as hell doesn't say, "flask up, and be sure you don't use elixirs because they don't persist through death, even if the stats they provide are much more beneficial for you."
Nina Katarina Jul 29th 2011 11:42AM
I've been STR flasking for the Alysrazor fight, makes a huge difference in getting those hatchlings down in time.
loop_not_defined Jul 29th 2011 12:12PM
"Flasking" has become a colloquialism of sorts due to the fact that, in a raid, most people are using Flasks over Elixirs. It's sort of like trademark generification. People use the word "kleenex" for tissues, even if it isn't a Kleenex brand.
MattKrotzer Jul 29th 2011 11:24AM
Ha! Oxford Commas rule. I think I was part of that discussion with Lisa, actually. I remember the tweet-versation.
Thon Jul 29th 2011 11:27AM
How do sleeping mobs work? Been wondering this today since I've seen sleeping core hounds and char hounds doing my molten front dailies. Do they aggro just like normal mobs? Reduced distance? Don't aggro to proximity at all? What does sleep do? :P
Key Jul 29th 2011 11:35AM
Let sleeping dogs lie.
tgrhwke Jul 29th 2011 11:47AM
The sleeping hounds in Molten Front only aggro if directly attacked. I jump down on two char hounds every time when going from the quest giver to the cave for the rune extinguish quest on the Shadow Warden side.
Avan Jul 29th 2011 12:26PM
@tgrhwke:
Those mobs are yellow, so they would only aggro when attacked regardless if they were asleep or not. There are sleeping mobs that are red in the Druids of the Talon area.
AudreyR Jul 29th 2011 12:31PM
For some creatures, especially those that were found throughout Vanilla, sleep is nothing more than an animation. They would aggro the same as if they were awake.
Iirc, in BC, they started adding slightly modified mechanics to some sleeping NPCs. One of the Hellfire dungeons features some sleeping orcs. It's been a while since I've grinded Thrallmar rep, but seem to remember being able to get closer to them than other awake orcs in the room.
The Dewd Jul 29th 2011 2:33PM
@AudreyR - I *think* that was Shattered Halls, possibly just before or after the gauntlet. There are orcs sleeping in hammocks there and you'd pretty much have to punch them in the face to get their attention.
Dril Jul 29th 2011 11:25AM
Q pour le Q:
I remember, way back in the "zomg WOTLK is the next expansion" days, that the DK rune system was supposed to be flexible to such an extent that, if you really wanted to, you could fill your entire rune bar with one type of rune.
I never beta-tested Wrath, so my question is: did such a feature ever make it into a public beta, or was it scrapped and replaced with the static runes we have today? And, if it did make it in, how did it play?
Tyler Caraway Jul 29th 2011 2:10PM
Never made it to Beta, possibly made it into Alpha, but I doubt it.
Alexandrian Jul 29th 2011 11:28AM
You can't flask for mastery but you can use Elixirs, as a Paladin tank i use Mastery and Armour elixirs (you can use both as Mastery counts as Battle and Armour as Guardian) in preference to a Stam flask. This is better for me until i hit block cap.
GerardthePriest Jul 29th 2011 11:31AM
Huzzah! A victory for the serial comma!
Shinae Jul 29th 2011 11:39AM
I've always used commas like that. I didn't realized there was name for it.
Series-ous comma discussion!
Mortenebra Jul 29th 2011 1:55PM
@Shinae: Why so series-ous? :D
Mal Jul 29th 2011 11:31AM
So now that Thrall has mastered all four elements, do we need to help him defeat Ragnaros before Summer's End or else all of Azeroth will be thrown out of balance?
Vector Jul 29th 2011 11:33AM
I never knew until today that there was that much debate over the usage of a specific comma. Since that's always how I've written, and I feel as though it sounds ridiculous whenever someone leaves that comma out...
OXFORD COMMAS FOREVER!
Henri Poincaré Jul 29th 2011 2:23PM
It depends on what you're used to. In many languages, that comma would look out of place, and for people who learn English as a second language (e.g., yours truly), skipping the last comma of the series before the 'and' seems quite natural. I don't feel strongly about it, just saying that linguistic intuitions about what's "natural" vary quite widely across linguistic communities even within the same language.
JonRowley Jul 29th 2011 11:37AM
What happened to the make scribes less Book of Glyph Mastery dependent? I tried to to make new glyphs the first couple of days after the patch with no luck, then I read the patch notes and noticed no mention of it.