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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Horsepower
by Michael Sacco 
Nov 12th 2011 at 12:00PM
This track leads off Justice's new album. It's ... a little different than the last album.
The Dewd asked:
Just to clarify, because I have to make sure...Blizzard is not setting up the raid finder with a "run the raid until YOU get loot" system, right? You will see loot drops the first time you kill a boss every week and if you don't win anything, you either have to do the regular or heroic versions - but you can still go back and get more time in on the boss or help friends or whatever, right?
Correct. You'll see loot the first time you kill a boss in Raid Finder. You will not see loot on any Raid Finder attempt at the same boss after that until weekly resets. You're welcome to run the raid as many times as you like in Raid Finder difficulty, but you only see loot once.
ejunk asked:
another LFR clarification: do you get valor points (assuming that's what they drop...) every time you kill a boss in a week?
You only get VP for clearing each wing of the Dragon Soul raid (250 VP x 2 wings of 4 bosses), but only up to a cap of 500. This means you could either run the same wing twice or clear both wings, but no matter what, your VP from Raid Finder stops at 500. Individual bosses do not grant VP.
Samuel asked:
Somebody in yesterday's comments made a good point about the possibility of having Holy Pallies wear intellect mail. That would eliminate the one-spec armor, and also contribute to the balance of armor types.
Blizzard has mentioned this before, but the response was one I think is pretty fair: "We've built paladins in lore to be a plate-wearing class, and wearing mail just doesn't feel right for them aesthetically." You can make great arguments for, say, rogues using axes, an addition made in Wrath, but paladins in mail? Good luck.
cloudhopper013 asked:
Wandering around Stormwind and browsing the forums, the other alliance members who are incredibly adamant about the "Horde bias" theory are starting to bug me. I don't mean to say that the Alliance didn't get the short end of the stick this expansion when it came to story development - we definitely did. But what bothers me is that that's not what these people focus on. One of the huge issues they like to throw about is the fact that many alliance settlements got razed, while the Horde seemed to only get more, and they cite this as damning evidence, especially in lite of the Theramore event coming up in the pre-MoP patch.
But isn't it true that the Alliance's cities, towns, and leveling areas and content vastly outnumbered the Horde's in the Old World? Looking at the count now, it seems to be much more balanced at last. Why is it that I never see this fact brought up when people discuss the Horde bias theories, specifically when the whole "towns destroyed" thing is one of the biggest arguments?
Simple answer to a long question: It stings much more to have something taken away from you that you already have than to never have that thing at all.
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 2 of 11)
mem0ryburn Nov 12th 2011 1:32PM
Turtles or giant foo dogs/lions would be my hope, but yaks would be my bet.
Lizenz Nov 12th 2011 1:42PM
Moose.
Velleekwitay Nov 12th 2011 1:56PM
Pandaren should get a rickshaw as a mount. But it will only work if you bought the Pandaren Monk pet to pull it along for you.
shotiechan Nov 12th 2011 3:01PM
@ Andrew:
I am kind of hoping for something like a guardian lion:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v416/shotie/pandaren_and_mount.jpg
Rousseau.Matt Nov 12th 2011 3:08PM
I don't know if this was confirmed to be the official pandaren mount, but they definitely showed an idea at blizzcon:
http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2011/october/ap08.jpg
Suzaku Nov 13th 2011 4:06AM
@Rousseau.Matt: They actually said during the art panel that it WON'T be the mount. The concept was rejected. They also said during the Q&A that they were currently planning on giving them turtle mounts (there's even a 'statue of a wise old pandaren sitting on a turtle, holding an umbrella' doodad they modeled).
@ http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v416/shotie/pandaren_and_mount.jpg
The shishi looks really nice, but god, that female pandaren is horrible. The art is good, don't get me wrong, but it really proves to me that skinny female pandaren look wrong. Almost like a woman wearing a giant panda mask on her head.
shotiechan Nov 13th 2011 3:03PM
@ Suzaku
Ironically I drew her much chubbier than most of the races in-game already appear. I've seen some MUCH better interpretations on bigger Pandaren females that I like admittedly, though this was an early drawing for me and mostly for the mount.
She's actually not all that skinny at all, she's just not super round, either.
(repost, comment fail earlier. Boo!)
Nathanyel Nov 12th 2011 12:07PM
"This track leads off Justice's new album."
Ah, new album. This must be why I am able to listen to this outside the US.
Never really liked electronic music in general, but I always liked the Justice tracks linked here.
DarkSpade Nov 12th 2011 12:11PM
Why not just have holy pallies automatically turn all strength on gear into int? Blizzard would need to make hit and expertise more common on jewelry, weapons and trinkets, but it could solve the problem.
Shyster Nov 12th 2011 12:39PM
Because that would make sense and be a relatively simple fix, can't have that now can we?
Eternauta Nov 12th 2011 12:39PM
Holy pallies being able to do a decent amount of melee DPS and healing at the same time with the same spec?
Imbalanced.
And I say this as a Pally.
SamLowry Nov 12th 2011 12:52PM
Do you mean same gear? Because the specs are obviously different.
Docseuzz Nov 12th 2011 12:52PM
Not if the holy pally gets NO AP from strength, but it crowds the + str plate field a bit - 6 specs is a lot...
Onyxis Nov 12th 2011 12:56PM
@Eternauta
I don't think darkspade means have those stats also add to int/spr in addition to what they already do (a la Twisted Faith for spriests), but more like a complete conversion - you actually lose the str/crit/hit/whatever on the gear and get an equal amount of your spellcasting stat.
Which I would like cause I really hate spell plate with a passion.
DarkSpade Nov 12th 2011 12:58PM
"Holy pallies being able to do a decent amount of melee DPS and healing at the same time with the same spec?
Imbalanced."
How does turning strength into intelligence help them do decent dps? They'd have no strength.
alzeer Nov 12th 2011 1:14PM
the only imbalance i see is the ease of gearing up 2 specs with 1 armor set
having 1 set for both ret & holy that is
Zachariahs Nov 12th 2011 1:15PM
Maybe also convert hit to spirit. Kinda the opposite of Boomkin, Elemental shammy and spriests. Idk what they would do with the expertise tho
Hal Nov 12th 2011 1:42PM
First, it's a conversion nightmare. Strength would have to do nothing for them. You'd have to convert hit into spirit and expertise into . . . well, that would be the conundrum, wouldn't it?
Second, it ignores the other slots. Do Holy pallies use Str-based two-handers? Spell weapon and shield? What about rings, necks, and trinkets? If they could double-dip like that, it means that you'd now have holy pallies legitimately rolling on more gear than before, which just exchanges the previous problem for a different one.
Finally, it's completely unintuitive. Remember, Blizzard has been trying very hard to make the game easy for new players to pick up and figure out. It's why the talent trees shrank for Cataclysm, and again for MoP. But making a system where holy pallies have to take DPS gear in order to heal, rather than caster gear, with some of it having potentially dead stats on it, does nothing but create confusion.
So, no, Holy Pallies shouldn't just use Strength Plate. Too complicated.
Rufin Nov 12th 2011 1:52PM
That can happen as soon as they take the frikkin haste off of gear so i don't have to reforge out of it every time.
Why should i have to take DK stats off, make the DKs put it on >:O
Sage Nov 12th 2011 1:56PM
Have armor become plate or mail depending on who equips it. Each would have a unique graphic of course. It could be explained by the Paladin keeping the armor intact, while he Shaman removes the outer plate and only wears the inner chain.
Anything is better than the 90% chance spell plate is going to drop off every raid boss, that we seem to have now.