Patch 5.4 patch notes
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The latest patch 5.4 newsThe Queue: Helena Beat
by Michael Sacco 
Sep 30th 2011 at 11:00AM
Let's do another weekend where I play new music I like for you. Here's the opening track from Foster the People's debut album Torches.
Andre asked:
My account was hacked yesterday and banned earlier today for exploitative use of the economy. I've never bought gold or powerleveling services, nor have I ever bought and account or character. I submitted a ticket to Blizz. Will I be able to get my account back?
I saw in the comments that this problem is already solved, but here's an answer for posterity. "Economy exploitation" is the blanket term used when an account is used for illicit purposes, such as selling gold or spamming ads. It's normally the result of an account compromise. Just appeal the closure through the normal channels, and you should be fine.
Bonk asked:
Do you think the designer who made the Paladin PvP S11 armour set played a little too much Darksiders and wanted to re-create War in WoW? The first thing that popped into my head when I saw the armour set was "That looks like War."
Hell no, dude. It bears maybe a passing resemblance to War, but I'll tell you what it really is: the visual aesthetic from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in armor form.
That said, of course, Joe Madureira has always had a Warcraft-y style to his work (Ludo Lullabi seems to be in that same school as well), so there's bound to be some cross-pollination here and there.
Kurash asked:
First, I promise that this is not a "Justice Point Conversion" question! However, I can't remember hearing if the current tier of Valor Point-purchasable items will once again become available for Justice Points.
So: Will items that are currently available from the Valor Point vendor become purchasable for Justice Points once the patch hits?
That's how things work now, yes.
Stephanie asked:
If a mage at level 85 conjures Mana Cake, and gives it to a level 34, will it become a Mana Cookie? Or is there no way for higher levels to produce low level vittles since spell levels went away.
It'll stay a Mana Cake, meaning the level 34 player couldn't use it. Unfortunately, mages have no way of conjuring food lower than their current tier.
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 5 of 10)
Noyou Sep 30th 2011 11:44AM
I never will understand the mindset of the majority of people who run dungeons. #1 first and foremost, let them kick you. So then it goes on their record and they get a CD for vote kicking. Only douchebags will kick you without good reason. I'm sure there are lots of healers, tanks and DPS out there that can outperform a 346 geared player with quest greens. It's a shame. There is already a lot of pressure on heals and tanks without someone calling you out after one pull.
RS Sep 30th 2011 11:57AM
Hostility, yes, a lot, yes...
I just came back as well after about 7,8 months off. Dang people are rude.
BUT I did just a have an awesome ZG run the other night, the Healer was cool, was going to run with him again, but I needed some sleep. Got ninja'd out of the bow Jindo drops...oh well that's life. Over all it kind of restored my faith in the people/game, even without getting the bow.
Right now I'd say the noise to signal ratio is about 8:1 . I try to keep a good attitude though, crappy ones ruin everything.
RS
Molly Sep 30th 2011 12:41PM
I'm not a healer, but I kept getting called a "bad dps" by a raid-geared healer in a Deadmines run yesterday because my dps was hovering around 9k with a 338 iLevel. Apparently what was fine in January *with harder content* isn't OK now. It wasn't the first time I've seen that type of hostility in non-Zul heroics, either.
Gosh, it's almost as if people are trying to gear up or something...
hicks Sep 30th 2011 1:03PM
Conversely, I've gone back to the regular heroics due to Zul'Fatigue (and disliking hour-plus runs even with no wipes), even though I'm level 361. I often get stuck with TERRIBLE dps, like a Grim Batol run with the other two dps doing 5k and 6k while I'm doing 12-13k. Do I complain? Only if they do stupid stuff that makes us wipe.
The first tier of heroics is tuned low enough that one dps doing 12k and a tank doing ~8k is really enough to get them down, it's just slow. Even if the lower-geared guys stand in bad, it just gives the healer fewer targets to worry about and we still can down the boss.
The only thing I don't like is no one ever says, "Nice dps man, you saved our butts". Do I need it? Of course not. Would it be appreciated and earn you a nice stack or four of mage food? Why yes, yes it would.
tl;dr People aren't always as nice as you'd like on both ends.
Hal Sep 30th 2011 1:22PM
Eh, the only time I'll complain is if the healer is using PvP gear to juice their ilvl.
Yes, I know that sufficiently high PvP gear will more than outweigh leveling greens or even blue 333 gear, but you can always tell how it hampers some healers. They don't have the mana regen or mana pool to heal through more than one or two pulls without a break. They have trouble keeping up the tank and the DPS through AoE damage. And even when I'm decked out in my best mitigation/avoidance gear, they still have a rough time keeping my above 50% at the start of the pull.
I've never kicked a healer for being non-raid geared. I do gripe at you if you're cheating with PvP gear, though. And I do the same to DPS who blend in PvP/Offspec gear. (I'm looking at you, frost DKs in tank gear. And you, feral druids in caster gear.)
DarkWalker Sep 30th 2011 1:26PM
The one thing I was about to start doing when I left the game was kicking anyone sporting a full set of crafted PvP gear. I was tired of being the top DPS as a tank, in full tank gear, and with my DPS stats reforged into avoidance.
If the player is sporting correct gear, above the minimum required iLvl by the LFD, with at least the cheapest lv85 gems and enchants, I don't see a problem. With that, any player that actually knows how to play should be able to properly do the content.
missemilyblack Sep 30th 2011 3:20PM
I wasn't doing heroics at all before last week, so I have nothing to compare to really, but I've had my share of hostile parties.
I hopped in to heal my first ZA the other day and was promptly told that my GS was too low and my gear sucked. I have an ilevel of 357, all gemmed and enchanted and properly reforged, none of it was PvP gear. Only one person died when he stood in evil fire of death. I was very confuzzled to say the least.
I guess people just get it in their heads that we should all fall out of our mums with raid gear on and dungeon strategies memorized o.O
Vortigern Oct 3rd 2011 9:29AM
@ Han
I've tanked GB with healers decked out in 346 pve gear and a few raid items (back at the start of cata) and had plenty of trouble. On the other hand I've tanked GB with healers in FULL PVP gear that healed me and the group with absolutely no effort, flawless.
SKILL is what determines and separates good from bad healers. Having a PVP set has absolutely no influence on the outcome of the dungeon if the player behind the toon is SKILLED. Raiding is another ballgame.
So please, do not judge a player ONLY by his gear (specially if he's in PVP gear). Give him a chance, more times than not he will do fine. If not ask him to leave and explain why, this "OMG ure in PVP gear noob, get out or we kick" attitude is just depressing.
Vortigern Oct 3rd 2011 10:14AM
And on LFD hostility, yes people are incredibly childish and judgemental, most times blaming the wrong guy. I tried a ZF the other day as a tank - I have no idea what my ilvl is but its enough - and on one of the pulls I did all the marking (skull for main nuke, X for second nuke) and started my rotation and suddenly the shit hit the fan and we wiped. Of course one of the dpsers started giving me grief and telling me to l2p, so I checked recount and found out that the mage was going full out on one of the mobs that I hadn't marked... I have no idea if that alone is what wiped us or if it was a mix of a bit of all of us sucking but, it happened again on other mob grps and tbh i just said "GL fellas, I have to go" and left.
Another case was a ZA i was tanking with my bro hpalla, on the boss that calls shitloads of adds and does tha fire line crap. The adds just wouldnt die and I couldn't hold aggro long enough. One of the dpsers was giving me some HEAVY grief and even started trying to tell me how to spread diseases and use DnD, which I silently took (on skype with my bro wondering wtf was happening) and I was starting to doubt my skills (which im sure are good - cataclysm dungeon hero). Long story short, we wiped enough for all dpsers to leave and a fresh bunch joined, of which a mage and a feral. Guess what? The adds dropped like flies and I held aggro fine. The rest of the dungeon was a breeze. It was a DPS problem, which looked like a tank problem.
If there was a technology that allowed you to punch your computer screen in such a way that your fist would go straight through to the face of all tards that screw up these LFD runs, i would use it.
Hopefully these new 4.3 dungeons will be short and fun cuz these ZA/ZF ones are too much.
Corath Sep 30th 2011 11:15AM
Great song in the header, Mike. That's one of my favourite songs that's out right now.
Sarahjane Sep 30th 2011 11:28AM
I liked "Pumped Up Kicks" a lot. Very ironic song, and I can't get it outta my head! Foster the People is a unique group. Not crazy about the entire album, but it's well-done.
restodr00d Sep 30th 2011 12:04PM
I like Pumped up Kids but Helena Beat is better, you should liste Waste from them too.
Molly Sep 30th 2011 12:34PM
The entire album makes me incredibly happy, though "Helena Beat," "Pumped Up Kicks" and "Waste" are the real gems. I'm going to end up listening to "Helena Beat" on repeat all day now :D
Noyou Sep 30th 2011 1:03PM
very cool song and amazing video. I wasn't sure if it was trying to be lord of the flies, zombieland, fallout or mad max. But it was still epic. The one thing that gets me in music videos though is when the singer sometimes sings. Either sing or don't sing. It just annoys me.
Diop Sep 30th 2011 1:51PM
I've literally just bought the album based on the song at the top. Thank you for this Sacco.
Xaklo Sep 30th 2011 4:28PM
While I really love their sound, upon hearing their entire album I became slightly distressed at how homogeneous it sounded. The group itself is very different from a lot of other groups out there, but at the same time, all their songs sound the same. This is probably just cause it's their first album and I'll have to wait till their second to really pass judgement on them. I'm just afraid they'll fall into that "We're different from everyone else" trap where it's almost impossible to stay different without spewing the same garbage over and over, ie: Evanescence, Metallica, Disturbed, and [up until their most recent album] Linkin Park.
Don't get me wrong, I still jammed out to their CD every day this Summer, I just want to see them grow as musicians rather than be forced by a record label to keep making the easy, popular crap.
By the way, "Life on the Nickle" blows all the other songs out of the water.
"Yet again I'm hustlin, hustling, hustling...."
Skarn Sep 30th 2011 11:35PM
I love Helena Beat! Great choice, Sacco!
On the other hand, I'm pretty tired of Pumped up Kicks. Used to enjoy it until it got really popular on the radio. :/
alykii Sep 30th 2011 11:17AM
Q for the Q. We've seen where Epic gems are coming from, but where do JC'ers get the cuts? I took a peek on the PTR and there weren't any available from the token vendor. Are these going to be world drops? Retarded faction grinds through raids (my JC doesn't raid) or yet another set of eye-gouging dailies like IQD?
Noyou Sep 30th 2011 11:49AM
There were several different icons on Wowhead that leads me to believe there will be drops and ones obtained from a vendor. There are around 80 cuts that will be available so I would be surprised if the JC vendor didn't get most of them. Some of them very well could be available from Hyjal vendors.
TimR Sep 30th 2011 11:17AM
Question regarding raid finder:
Regular Raids and Raid Finder Raids are tracked completely separate, right? Meaning, If I do a Raid Finder Raid on Wednesday and down two bosses, I won't be locked out of loot from those bosses on my regular guild raid on Thursday? I'm almost sure everything is separate, just want to confirm.