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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Fus Ro Dah
by Alex Ziebart 
Nov 14th 2011 at 11:00AM
Oh jeez. Oh gosh. It's 6:30 a.m. and I haven't written The Queue yet. This is your fault, Skyrim. This is all your fault. I hate you so much. Get out of my life, Skyrim. I never want to see you again.
Wait, baby, no! I didn't mean it! Come back, please! I need you. I need you so bad.
AGuyOnTheInternet asked:
Any idea what Blizzard's plan is to get people missing expansions to be set and ready for MoP? Like a battle chest or something?
Blizzard has already bundled The Burning Crusade with the base game; The Burning Crusade effectively doesn't exist anymore. All of that content is in the bottom-level box, not branded with the Burning Crusade title at all. A couple of the Blizzard developers have mentioned in passing that they want to roll Wrath of the Lich King into the basic box as well. That will almost certainly happen at some point in the future, but when? We don't know. It could be a few months from now. It could be a couple years from now.
Personally, I'd like to see Blizzard go the route a couple of other games in the industry have gone with expansions: If you buy an expansion, you're given everything else that's been released before it. So if you were a new player who wanted to start World of Warcraft, you would just buy the Cataclysm box. With it, you'd get Wrath of the Lich King, The Burning Crusade, and vanilla WoW. When Mists of Pandaria comes out, a new player would buy the MoP box and get Cataclysm, Wrath, Burning Crusade, and vanilla all in one package.
Wrox asked:
Has there been any word of a Pilgrim's Bounty boss? I'd love to fight an epic turkey of doom. This holiday could be so much more than the week when everybody levels cooking on their alts.
No word on that, no.
I think I like Pilgrim's Bounty being low-key. This season is stacked with so many darn stress-inducing holidays in-game and out that I appreciate having a little break to just run around the world, have a little fun, skill up cooking and not give a damn about the latest mount drop or whatever.
@eicenhour asked:
Do you think Blizzard will bring back the Battle for Undercity in the future?
Definitely not. Cataclysm killed that quest dead.
@ladiciuswarrior asked:
with the removal of relics and the such do you think we will get vanity items like the book hanging from my pally figure?
I haven't heard anything about this, but it would be very awesome if Blizzard did it. Trophies is one of the things Warhammer Online did extremely well. You earned trophies by completing in-game tasks and achievements. Every character model had a set of attachment points on the hips, shoulders, and so on. You chose which trophies you wanted to display on which parts of your body. I absolutely loved it, and I'd love if Blizzard brought that to WoW.
@malytwotails asked:
Should I bake gingerbread cookies or mint chocolate chip cookies tomorrow? I promise to actually send some to Alex.
While I love gingerbread and it is the season for such things, I'm not sure any cookie could top mint chocolate chip. Go with that.
I wonder if USPS lets you send cookies to a P.O. box?
@Sabiba asked:
any suggestions to beat the prepatch boredom? Other than rolling an alt. Can't seem to get excited for anything other than raiding.
Build your transmogrification set! That's what I did. Also, don't force yourself to play if you're bored. It's alright to step away from the game and do something else to let your batteries recharge. You'll be more excited to play when patch 4.3 rolls around that way. World of Warcraft won't get mad at you for being a two-timing cheater if you play another game for a couple of weeks. Taking a break is OK.
Playing other games doesn't need to be a huge expense, either. A lot of players get nervous about playing other games because they don't want to drop $50 to $60 at a time on a brand new game they may or may not like, because that's a steep price tag when you're used to only paying $15 per month. You don't need to drop $60 on a new game. You really don't. Grab Steam and look at recent top indie games. You can get some really solid titles for around $15, sometimes as low as $5. I highly recommend Bastion for $15. It's one of the best gaming experiences I've had all year.
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 7 of 14)
razion Nov 14th 2011 11:22AM
I could definitely see pet tanking warlocks and hunters. Maybe frost mages too, as the abundance of their utility is making it hard to balance them as dps without making them the defacto-choice for raiders. I could also see tanking rogues in the form of using 2h weapons, as all the leftover 2h agility weapons left from hunters to feral and guardian druids will otherwise be treated like spellpower plate--occupied by essentially one class.
Tanking shamans is something I've longed for a long time--perhaps they could also use two-handed agility weapons? Paladins could get a dual-wielding dps tree, although I guess at that point they might be better off just putting it into Retribution (sort of like how Frost does for DKs). Maybe a holy dps tree for Priests?
I think there's about room for nearly every class, although the balancing would be a nightmare. Four trees per class would make 44 talent specializations to balance. It would be, to say the least, difficult.
Daedalus Nov 14th 2011 11:26AM
Personally, my vote would go to shamans being the most likely; first off, shammy tanks have been asked for for ages, and secondly, it seems like something that's missing; if resto is based around water, enhancement relies on air spells, and elemental is heavy on fire, it would kind of make sense to have an earth-based spec.
But, yeah, as a warlock, I'd totally love a tanking spec.
loop_not_defined Nov 14th 2011 11:30AM
WARNING: Hand waving ahead. (I get really excited about this topic)
Death Knights: Ranged spell DPS. Think Bone Necromancers from Diablo II. Permanent "Skeletal Form".
Druids: (because if others get four, these folks should get five :P) Ranged spell DPS with no permanent form. Temporary snake form, member of revitalized Druids of the Fang (and yes, they're good people).
Hunters: Tank spec with pet "off tanking" (ala shield). Especially since they'll have melee range shooting in MoP.
Mage: Healing. Time magic reverses wounds/death.
Paladins: Ranged spell DPS. Holy, if you couldn't guess.
Priests: Uh...originally wanted a Monk spec, but that's out the window now. :P
Rogues: Shadow tanking. Rogues already partially utilize "shadow magic".
Shaman: Tank spec that uses more Earth elements than others.
Warlock: Void pet tanking. Actually uses the pet to tank.
Warrior: Stumped. Went with "Dual spec" that uses bleeds and Polearms. Still iffy on it.
loop_not_defined Nov 14th 2011 11:34AM
The problem I kept running into with a Hunter "pet tanking" spec is that you would have to create a theme that focuses on the pet. And isn't Beast Mastery.
Eventually settled on a "martial" theme. Think of guards that use dogs, like sentries.
The Dewd Nov 14th 2011 11:46AM
@loop - I always assumed that a hunter tank would be more of a hybrid of a hunter and a druid that would allow the hunter to, somehow, magically merge with their pet and tank as it. I have no idea how that would work and what would differentiate them from bear druids, though.
tibbelkrunk Nov 14th 2011 12:09PM
I envision hunter tanking (which won't happen, btw) as being a sort of teamwork between the hunter and pet to trade incoming blows.
The hunter is more dodgy and can use a redesigned Aspect of the Wild to boost their personal magic resistance, whereas the pet has higher armor and can block incoming physical attacks. A good hunter tank would be able to use Distracting Shot, Feign Death, and his pet's Taunt to manage which kind of mitigation is being maximized at different times.
Aspect of the Wild increases the hunter's threat generation and increases the hunter's magic resistance.
Aspect of the Beast increases the pet's threat generation and armor, but negates the pet's passive "Avoidance" ability.
Then you have all kinds of fun things like Intervene, Misdirection, maybe a new talent called "Bite the Hand that Bites the Hand that Feeds You".
I dunno, I think the canvas is there, but adding specs like that would just take too much development and balancing effort
Unowitz Nov 14th 2011 12:12PM
I think almost all of the classes could have an existing spec tweaked to become a tank spec. But then again, it would be kind of fun to add a fourth spec.
Rogue - Fighter tank...dual wield with swords instead of daggers, but this would be too similar to Combat though.
Mage - Frost...just needs a lot more armor from frost armor and it could become a tank. But if you wanted to add a 4th new spec, I guess it could be a healer, but this just seems weird for mages.
Hunter - Ranger...a melee spec for Hunters.
The possibilities are endless....
Pyromelter Nov 14th 2011 12:44PM
The chances of eventually seeing a 4th spec... i'd say 75/25 yes/no, if we're talking about a 20 year timeline. The reason I think that is that to end the "hybrid" debate, eventually blizz will make the 4 dps classes be able to either heal or tank, or possibly add a "support" role like a bard type role. Bard could actually be a tree for rogues if they chose to do that. If they keep the holy triad, then I would expect Mages to get a healing tree, rogues to get a tanking tree, hunters to get a tanking tree, and locks to get a healing tree.
If we are talking about 6.0 or 7.0, I really don't think we'll see a 4th spec. A 4th spec for 10 different classes would be like adding 3.33 (repeated, of course) classes to the game, and that's gotta be a lot of work.
Expanding on it, if they did do that I'd expect priests to get a holy-based ranged dps tree, shaman to get a tanking tree, paladins to get a ranged dps tree, and death knights and warriors to each get another tanking tree. I can't imagine a warrior as a ranged dps or a healer, and a 3rd melee spec seems overly redundant. I'm thinking for warriors maybe like a Titan's Grip type tanking spec with a lot of self healing (like blood dk's), and for DK's, a tanking spec that allowed them to equip shields (like prot warrs).
LynMars Nov 14th 2011 11:19AM
I would like to see Pilgrim's get an update to level cooking up through Wrath. It stops in BC right now, which let players catch up to cooking skills in Wrath content. Now we're out of Northrend, though, and it'd be nice to boost those cooking skills a little higher.
Speaking of good games on Steam, any indie game localized by Carpe Fulgar is a fun time; Recettear, Chantelise and a few upcoming (besides the games being good, one of the company founders is one of our raid's tanks!). Also, Steam often has amazing sales; big name games are often up for $5 to $10 dollars for limited time offers, not just indie titles. I got both Mass Effects for really cheap one weekend (have yet to play them, oh time...)
Noyou Nov 14th 2011 11:55AM
After 350, cooking is pretty easy, You can do the cooking dailies in Dalaran, and with 10 min of fishing, you can easily get to over 400. You also get a ton of chilled meat and other stuffs to cook from mobs. I wouldn't mind updates and more recipes to the holiday though.
Pyromelter Nov 14th 2011 12:55PM
I always felt the pilgrim's cooking thing was just kind of a bone thrown to players who would never, ever, ever even consider leveling up cooking, as well as to those who have alts who don't mind doing a little cooking. You really only "need" cooking on one character, get your chefs hat and cook like a champ. It would be nice if they increased the cooking recipes a bit to get you through wrath, but I don't really feel like you would need it for any purpose (since one would imagine your main or main alt would be your main chef, and having many max level cooks is kind of pointless).
LynMars Nov 14th 2011 1:50PM
There are a lot of new characters thanks to Cata, and will be again in MoP. I know a lot of folks in my guilds rolled all new, anyway. Multiple cooks/fishers/etc can help with guild achievements. I know I just like leveling profs on my alts--especially when they suddenly become new mains...
There are folks who *don't* level fishing alongside cooking (and I can't blame them). The Dalaran dailies don't give skill points like the SW ones do--and that assumes you're in Northrend long enough, and/or killing mobs as opposed to dungeoning/pvping through it. I mean, it's not hard to level cooking through Classic and BC either, if you want to, but the holiday makes it quick and convenient, especially if you like maxing alts.
Mostly I think I'd just like more to do during the holiday, but still keep it low-key and fairly relaxing.
Boobah Nov 14th 2011 2:12PM
"You really only "need" cooking on one character, get your chefs hat and cook like a champ."
Good thing those feasts aren't Bind on Pickup. Oh, wait...
Pyromelter Nov 14th 2011 3:23PM
""You really only "need" cooking on one character, get your chefs hat and cook like a champ."
Good thing those feasts aren't Bind on Pickup. Oh, wait..."
Yes, you only need cooking on one character, and that one should be your main, because of the (stupid IMO) BOP thing of the cataclysm feasts. (GG blizz, way to nerf cooking as a way to make money on the AH). If you need food for your alts for alt raids, you can fairly easily whip up your favorite non-bop non-feast meal and mail it to your alts.
Crael Nov 14th 2011 11:22AM
A Question for the Queue:
About a week ago, I'm not sure what day exactly, Orgrimmar had an intersting blue, arcane-looking halo around the top of it. Members of the Blue Dragonflight were present flying around the top of the city, and Kalecgos (I think) Hovered over top.
Does this have something to do with the Legendary questline? Not being a caster, I haven't really researched the line much...
Daedalus Nov 14th 2011 11:26AM
Someone completed the legendary.
ravyncat Nov 14th 2011 11:27AM
Yes.
I think you see that when someone completes their Legendary staff.
Shinae Nov 14th 2011 11:45AM
That's Dragonwrath's completion. It's such a cool event. I'm glad I got to see it on my realm.
There's a screenshot here:
http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/23/ready-check-how-legendaries-destroy-pve/
Skarn Nov 14th 2011 4:05PM
The see-through dragon that hovers there is actually Tarecgosa, not Kalecgos. You'll also see a player character on her back. That's the person who finished the Staff.
Silversol Nov 14th 2011 11:22AM
Snickerdoodles.
Just because it's a fun word.