The Queue: Zombie goasts, leave this place
Rossi, Alex and I were talking about the DotA 2 leak that included some Half Life 2: Episode 3 strings that were most likely just Valve's trolling the fans a bit, as we have been anticipating the news of a new Half Life for some time now. There's some pretty amazing fan fiction out there, but none is as thrilling and amazing as the Half Life: Full Life Consequences series of stories featuring Gordon Freeman's brother John Freeman. Personally, I hope that Half Life 2: Episode 3 is as good as Full Life Consequences. It is time for me to live up to my name and face Full Life Consequences.
Also, I promised certain artistic friends that I would post a new art challenge in The Queue when I was given the reins, in the same vein in which Alex posted his paladin bubble art thing, which turned out to be exceedingly awesome. So, here's mine: Rossi and I are totally DPS warrior bro's Horde-side now, raiding together and generally topping charts and taking names. You should totally draw Rossi's male Tauren warrior and my female Blood Elf warrior doing their best bro-fist.
Skozz asked:
Will I be able to transmogrify my head piece into the Chef's Hat? It's blue and looks like it gives an armor bonus, but it has no specific type (Cloth, Leather, Mail, Plate).
Probably not. Chef's Hat would fall under two of the exceptions/rules for transmogrification. First, you can only transmog gear that has stats on it over just armor. Second, many "funny" or "silly" items have been excluded from transmog, including fish daggers, fishing poles, and most likely the Chef's Hat. Sad, I know.
ptay313 asked:
Two days in a row, I have killed Coren Direbrew, gotten my daily keg shaped chest, opened it and got... NOTHING! Is this an actual common occurence, or is Direbrew messing with me from beyond the grave?
For your first kill every day, Coren will drop his Keg-shaped Treasure Chest, which will always contain a small number of justice points. Sometimes the keg will contain rare items and mounts specific to the holiday. If the keg only contained these justice points, you will get the message "There is no loot." Sadly, this is lame and demoralizing. I would have much preferred the bag at least contain some Brewfest tokens or something in the bag by default.
Amanda A. asked:
Does anyone else get the impression that they swapped the vendor items and boss drops for tier 13 to reduce loot drama in LFR? A dps needing a tank ring would cause issues. A third of the raid needing a generic tier token won't.
I think the reason that the tier gear was removed from the vendors was two-fold. First, tier gear continues to be the best-looking, iconic armor from the tier that requires raiding to get. By keeping the iconic set items as part of the raids only, you give players a new incentive to try raiding and the new Raid Finder feature.
Second, by filling the valor point vendors with off set items, you don't have to itemize those items in the raid itself. The big example this tier is the fact that there are no plate shoulders for DPS classes in Firelands other than the tier shoulders off of Majordomo Staghelm. Had there been off set shoulders available from vendors, players would have been able to gear up and replace lower-ilevel items to make Firelands easier and work for their tier set pieces as a reward for completing content.
Tadiermot asked:
If you could trade places with any NPC for the day, which would you choose, and what would you do?
I would trade places with any repair vendor in the Firelands on a progression raid night. Stand around, repair some gear, and then retire.
fallemwarrior pondered:
Is it bad that when i que'ed for WSG the other day i tried to go back to our flag and purchase a Banshee's veil?
Gunblade for life.
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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 14)
Inexorability Sep 22nd 2011 12:12PM
Nina is right, although since you're a prot. warrior you can tank, so it won't be as much of a problem for you. The problem is that every death knight gets to Outland and thinks he can tank.
I once ran an Outland dungeon as a DPS with a Death Knight tank. After he couldn't hold aggro, I inspected him and saw he had taken no tanking talents whatsoever. After he yelled at me for pulling aggro (using only my judgement and auto-attack--and believe me I checked a hundred times to make sure I didn't have Righteous Fury on), I told him he might want to pick up some tanking talents, to which he replied that death knights can tank in any spec.
Jamie Sep 22nd 2011 12:27PM
Sounds like the total opposite to what I came across in Stratholme: Servant's Entrance.
Once in Dungeon Finder, a full heirlooms tank came in as DPS, after a few seconds he said "well, I have DPS spec but no DPS gear", after a mob he left. I'd have no problem letting him tank but I had no DPS spec at the time and I certainly don't know how to DPS as a warrior.
Funny how dungeon finder works, you end up with people dual specing and having no idea that one day they may be expected to use that other spec.
Katsuya Kaiba Sep 22nd 2011 1:01PM
I have to agree with the comments of LOLdks. And even as a tank, you'll run into headaches. I recently leveled a Prot Paladin and ran a bunch of BC dungeons once I got to the level and I had to roll against DK's for almost every piece of tanking gear. One time I lost the roll for tank gear twice in the same dungeon to a DK who was DPS. I also saw alot where DKs will pull a mob or two away from the group and tank it themselves and get pissy when I grab the aggro back. I never ran into these problems with fellow pallys or warriors, I dunno what it is about DKs. I would write this off as me just having a bad experience, except last year I rolled a prot warrior and had the same experience with DKs. There are some good DKs, I've raided with a couple, but they're overshadowed by the jerks.
Chetti Sep 22nd 2011 1:02PM
For your question, I managed to only quest through 2 zones in outland leveling my latest alt. I did helfire and part of zangermarsh. Its all worth seeing, if you never have, but I also used the dungeon finder because I like the outland instances.
As for the dual specced folks that zone in as said 'other spec' and not being prepared, I see the opposite opposite of that. In that I see tanks that zone in, I've seen tanks that come in and have issues with trash pulls or say the trash pulls go fine but the boss fight is tricky. The finger pointing starts the first time someone dies. Tank points at the healer (wtf dude!), healer points to the dps (where's your 40k! l2p!) and the dps give the o.O face (uhm we're TRYING but tank forgot to keep threat and I got eaten). A few pulls and lots of bitching later, tank says, hey i'm tryin but I usually dps. Then *I* have the >.< face like geez dude WHY queue as somethin you don't do. This happened throughout leveling, not just in Cata dungeons, but I have seen it a lot more in the catas.
Makes me glad I haven't been actively healing. I'm a shadow priest, dual specced disc. I'm mostly dps, I heal for guild runs because one of my guildies leveled a tank and the insta-queues having both a tank and a healer were just too good to pass up. I've enjoyed leveling healers in the past, I hadn't intended for this priest to heal, but I don't mind. I like playing a utility class because I can be helpful if the healer goes down.
Good luck with whatever you choose :)
GhostWhoWalks Sep 22nd 2011 2:30PM
I'd say stick to questing for the most part, they definitely give better exp than dungeons once you run out of rest, but try to focus on quest lines that will get you dungeon quests; then you can queue for a dungeon and get some bonus rewards out of it.
On the subject of lolDKs, as I main a Death Knight myself, I have to admit that there are many idiots out there who are drunk on their own power. Though their numbers thin out as you rise through the levels and become a minority at the level cap, the 58-70 level range is filled with DKs who are seemingly brainless. This is partially due to the fact that newly-created DKs start at a high level; for someone who mains, say, a ranged DPS, healer or agility-DPS, the prospect of being able to try out a high-level plate-wearer, having strong soloing capabilities and being able to try out tanking is much more inviting than having to level a Warrior or Paladin from scratch. Others are just new players who rush their way up to 55 so they can play the "bad guy" class and REALLY start playing.
I ran into an example of this the other day when playing my Hunter alt: a goblin DK who was gripping mobs away from the tank, using random attacks and generally making a fool of himself. When the healer asked if he knew what he was doing, he responded "Not really. Never played a melee before, pretty much just playing this by ear."
Yeah, the lolDKs are annoying, but don't let them occupy your entire impression of the class, and try to remember that their poor behavior probably isn't intentional; most of them just don't know any better.
Pyromelter Sep 22nd 2011 3:18PM
I've always liked combining questing with dungeons... like the questlines that take you into the dungeons. I've only ever done horde, so I know that the first outland dungeon gives you some pretty cool quest rewards if you do all the Thrallmar quests... if there is something similar for alliance, I'd go with that.
And when you get to the appropriate level, do all the shattrath and auchindoun quests so you can head into the 5-mans over there doing some quests too.
Eirik Sep 22nd 2011 6:41PM
I always recommend that if you're going to take an off spec, you should keep an eye out for gear for the spec. If you don't really want to USE the spec, you don't have to. But if you don't get the gear, you won't be able to when push comes to shove.
As well, it's a lot easier to get started learning a new spec if you've already collected a set of gear that will let you pretend you know what you're doing. PvP gear may be some small help towards collecting minimally useful gear.
Nina Katarina Sep 22nd 2011 11:09AM
A question I asked the Q yesterday, but it was late so I don't know if many people saw it.
The new Looking For Raid is going to be for 25-man size only. How many tanks, healers and dps slots do you think LFR will require? Most guilds run with 2 tanks, 5-8 healers, the rest dps. Will this end the reign of tank tyranny and make the healers the ones who get instaqueues?
I, for one, welcome our new spirit-stacking overlords.
Bellajtok Sep 22nd 2011 11:26AM
Well, the proportions of classes who can fill roles generally match the proportions of 25-man raids pretty closely... unless you're stacking healers. It'll depend on exactly how Blizz nerfs encounters, but if it has anything to do with removing/pushing back the enrage timer or number of adds that need to be killed, you can bet the system will prefer to stack some extra healers for fewer wipes. I am most excited for this glorious day!
Didax Sep 22nd 2011 11:31AM
The decision to make LFR 25-man only I think was specifically designed to address just this problem. With only 1 tank for every 5-6 DPS required to make a group, DPS queue times will be better.
I have a feeling that you're right regarding healers being the most needed role in LFR.
5-mans require 1 tank for every 1 healer.
Using your guesses for role distribution, LFR will require 1 tank for every 3 or 4 healers.
If the pool of players queuing for LFD share roughly the same distribution as players who will queue for LFR, then healers will be in the shortest supply.
Bellajtok Sep 22nd 2011 11:31AM
But yeah, the days of tank overlordship are definitely gone when LFR hits. The number of tanks is going to be enough to meet a quota of two tanks per raid. Even if it's a bit short, the Call to Arms will probably be enough to pull plenty of tanks in to meet the problem.
Puntable Sep 22nd 2011 11:37AM
I'm sure it will err on the side of more tanks and healers. Almost all tanks and healers have a dps spec, so the raid leader can opt for more dps after the raid is formed.
Of course, by default the raid leader will be one of the tanks, so they can fight over who wants to be raid leader and therefore get to pick who switches to dps. Hmm. I wonder if the hardest part of LFR will be deciding which of the 25 people is most suited to lead the raid? Or will it be so nerfed that you can just zerg it with no communication at all?
Suzaku Sep 22nd 2011 12:14PM
Man, I gotta be honest. Waiting in a queue for 24 party members sounds awful. As DPS, it already takes about 15~20 minutes to find just 4 of them.
And the innevitable parade of... "X did not accept the raid invite, you have been returned to the front of the raid queue."
vocenoctum Sep 22nd 2011 12:33PM
I think there's still a lot of the LFR system we just don't know about, I can't imagine it's going to encompass the entire raid in one piece, so do they make each boss it's own piece?
How do you kick people?
Random or pick a raid, bonus valor for random? valor per boss?
Will they remove the valor from random dungeons to compensate or with the cap does it matter?
Puntable Sep 22nd 2011 12:38PM
That's a good point Suzaku. Hopefully they will let the the other 24 enter the raid and then re-queue the one missing person. You will of course have people leaving the raid constantly. Hopefully they will not allow people leave in the middle of boss fights. When someone leaves a 5-man group everyone in the group has to click buttons to re-queue for the missing person. Hopefully in a raid, it will automatically fill the missing spots.
Grovinofdarkhour Sep 22nd 2011 4:12PM
25 only? Wow, that brings up a lot of issues.
Hopefully it will add you to the group as soon as you queue and give you the green button to zone in when ready, as opposed to the natural extension of the current LFG (requiring 25 simultaneous check-ins in order to insta-port everyone).
I also wonder whether they should give everyone invite privileges - you could fill the group quicker, but it might do more harm than good.
Will it require that no one queueing be saved to any boss in that raid?
How large a group will be able to queue? If 24 of us form up for a raid, will we get more loot for taking on 1 stranger?
Will a 10-man be able to join the LFR 25 queue while in a different 10-man? ("Hey guys, let's go to BWD 10, and see how far we get before the queue for Throne 25 pops.")
This is just the tip of the iceberg...
Noyou Sep 22nd 2011 4:37PM
25 man only? That kind of seems like it's set up to fail. As far as wanting an insta-queue, it's a raid. I'm pretty sure the queue is going to be fairly lengthy, maybe not in the beginning. Is it 25 man because they will be running a 10-man difficulty but with more people? If this is their plan, won't that make the majority of the people running it used to easy fights or being carried in their raid? Interesting questions.
Skarn Sep 22nd 2011 6:49PM
"Is it 25 man because they will be running a 10-man difficulty but with more people?"
Just a nitpicky note: There is no "10-man difficulty." There's Normal or Heroic. The LFR raid tool will be another difficulty level automatically set on "Easy." I think they're currently calling it "LFR" difficulty.
I'm guessing the goal of "only 25" is to help queue times. Well, help DPS queue times. For the exact same amount of tanks, a 25-man raid will take 12-13 more DPS than a 10-man. DPS is obviously the far more abundant resource with the longer queue times, so this would theoretically cut those in half or better. There are obviously other issues, but I think most of those would exist regardless of raid size. They may be aggravated in a larger raid though. We're waiting on Blizzard to release more info on how all of this is going to work.
fallemwarrior Sep 22nd 2011 11:09AM
Seems like a lot of WoW insider employees play LoL, maybe you guys should do a short LoL Insider column as well :)
Shammytime Sep 22nd 2011 12:16PM
shhh LoLinsider was going to be next years April Fools gig