Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsThe Queue: I've gone viral
by Mathew McCurley 
Feb 13th 2012 at 11:00AM
No, not the hip, internet viral. The bad viral where you throw up for a week and can't ingest solid food.
At least I got my Lovebird. Let's answer some questions.
Shulkman asked:
Is there a use for Dark Iron Residue anymore? I believe it was used for Rep with Thorium Brotherhood, but not sure if that's still current, and I can't seem to find anyone to turn it in to.
Yes, you can still use it for reputation turn-in quests Gaining Acceptance and Gaining Even More Acceptance. You have to be friendly with the Thorium Brotherhood to get these quests.
To be honest, people don't do much of the Dark Iron Residue quests any more for reputation because it's so easy to farm up some Lava Cores and Fiery Cores from the Molten Core to turn in for almost 1,000 rep a piece. Also, how many times can I type "core" in one sentence? Apparently, the answer is three.
xenothaulus asked:
Will I have the Violet Proto-Drake on all my characters, and will that mean they all get the superfast flying? Because I've already bought it on most of them anyway and have been wanting to on the rest.
We have no idea since we don't exactly know what Blizzard's policy with account-wide achievements is going to be; however, I would assume that if your character got the achievement with the epic flying+ package deluxe, then all characters would get that as well. It seems almost stupid to have the gold sink in the game at that point, right? So maybe it won't behave that way.
I still like my idea of giving all characters who purchase a mount from the pet store the highest flying available.
Touphemia asked:
Hi Queue!! I am a toddler Paladin (as in, I'm still bright eyed and fresh faced, but I'm level 57). I love prot! Flinging shields and the hammer ability and shield holy power dump... they all look and sound amazing! My concern though, is that I'm not blocking much at all. I'd love to block more often than 5%, since blocking is awesome, bit I can't seem to find any way to increase my block without mastery.... Am I missing something? Is there a stat I can enchant or stack to make me block more? It'd be nice to be able to use Reckoning and Holy Shield!
You are missing a crucial ingredient in paladin blocking -- mastery. As you get into the 80-to-85 game and start acquiring gear with mastery on it, your block will skyrocket. As for now, blocking isn't even that crucial. Remember that the game has been tuned in such a way, as Blizzard does with each expansion, that tanking is barely tanking until the later levels. Don't worry about the block, stay bright-eyed and excited, and when mastery comes, you'll be extremely happy.
Sergel asked:
What's the best bar in WoW? Persoanlly I'm fond of Ironforge's
This is easily The Grim Guzzler in Blackrock Depths, hands down. It's got a band, a succubus waitress, hilarious antics, and dark iron dwarves, everyone is welcome, and it's in one of the coolest instances in the entire game. I'll sometimes use my Mole Machine to just go and hang out in the Grim Guzzler. Best bar, easily.
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 6)
Edymnion Feb 13th 2012 1:26PM
Most of the time you see paladin tanks doing a lot more damage its because we're boosting our numbers on trash with the AoE tanking skills. Our single target boss dps is usually pretty darn low, but it averages out higher over the course of the run because of how many multiple mob trash pulls we get.
Skarn Feb 13th 2012 1:43PM
Mr. Robot's recommendations are usually "group raid progression" based. Meaning that's how you should gem/respec if you are looking to be the best in current raid content. For tanks this typically means avoiding any sort of threat boost because your raid is (probably) smart enough to not pull threat in the first few seconds.
If you are pugging 5-mans as a tank, you will probably want more threat stats like hit and expertise in order to keep aggro. All that mastery isn't going to help you if you can't keep ahold of the mobs. I don't have a high level pally, so I'm not sure what balance you should be looking for, but it definitely sounds like you need some more hit if you want to pug.
Killik Feb 13th 2012 1:54PM
Vengeance would be the key. If you're whacking a dummy or offtanking a couple of mobs then your attack power isn't going to be remotely as high.
Your damage really doesn't have to be too impressive these days anyway, since tanks' threat levels were massively boosted (500% now, I believe).
Pyromelter Feb 13th 2012 5:37PM
Toss out 2-3 hammer of wrath's with a full stack of vengeance and you're dps will get quite a nice boost at the end of an encounter (also something that you would never get to use on a training dummy).
I don't pally tank, but does the recommended rotation include hammer of wrath? Gotta use that badboy if you're looking to boost your dps as a paladin. Always major fun to toss out one of those as ret (and annoying as everything on my mage when I escape melee from a ret and they finish me off with one of those from range).
Noyou Feb 13th 2012 9:21PM
@pyro
Hammer of Wrath is a finisher. I think ret paladin's can talent it to be used more often. (with Avenging Wrath) Unless I'm on a boss, the mob usually gets dead before I can fire it off.
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=24275
cromahr Feb 14th 2012 2:23AM
Thanks so much for the replies! I guess Ill just try to queue and see what happens! =)
Ringo Flinthammer Feb 13th 2012 1:36PM
Ironforge's two bars desperately need to be brought up to expansion quality. If any bars deserve improvement, it's them.
Noyou Feb 13th 2012 4:58PM
Totally agree. It is almost depressing. I posted earlier about this, before reading your comment. At least there are some nice balconies to hang out on.
Imnick Feb 13th 2012 1:42PM
No offence but... did you read that paladin question fully?
He said he was level 57 and couldn't see a NON-MASTERY way of blocking, because mastery is not available at level 57.
He didn't miss mastery at all, in fact it was explicitly mentioned in the question, so I can't help but feel it's a little redundant to say "You're missing this" when he already told you that he can't have it.
Skarn Feb 13th 2012 1:48PM
Yeah, but Mat still answered the question correctly anyway. Mat said "As for now, blocking isn't even that crucial. ... Don't worry about the block, stay bright-eyed and excited, and when mastery comes, you'll be extremely happy."
Give him a break. He's been sick!
Also: Oddly enough, starting a comment with "no offence (sic)" is like saying "I'm about to insult you, just don't whine about it, k?" You might try being non-insulting if you want to avoid offending someone.
Amaxe Feb 13th 2012 1:58PM
Actually, I'd consider "No offense but..." to mean, "while the following comment may be interpreted as hostile, that is not my intent, so please don't think I am writing this out of hostility."
And yes, I thought it was odd that the answer focused on Mastery when the questioner was clearly looking for non-mastery ways to deal with it.
Imnick Feb 13th 2012 2:25PM
Amaxe got it, I was trying to point out that I am confused about the error, rather than telling the RPS staff that they suck.
Imnick Feb 13th 2012 2:26PM
Why did I write RPS when I meant WoW insider
Both bastions of gaming journalism I suppose, easy to get them mixed up >_>
Skarn Feb 13th 2012 3:42PM
While that's certainly the original meaning behind "no offense," it my personal, anecdotal, non-scientific experience, the phrase isn't used like that and rarely works out that way. More often it prefaces an insulting comment while trying to avoid the consequences of being insulting. Imnick wasn't that bad and really was trying to point out an error, but I'm not sure it accomplished anything since the question was answered sufficiently despite the mistake.
Personally, if I ever feel the need to preface or end a statement with "no offense" it's a red flag that maybe I really don't want to say that and should rethink it.
Imnick Feb 13th 2012 3:45PM
To be honest, I feel like your comment's accusatory nature meant that it might have been better prefixed with "no offence" itself 0:
Draelan Feb 13th 2012 2:13PM
"To be honest, people don't do much of the Dark Iron Residue quests any more for reputation because it's so easy to farm up some Lava Cores and Fiery Cores from the Molten Core to turn in for almost 1,000 rep a piece. Also, how many times can I type "core" in one sentence? Apparently, the answer is three."
Come, now, Mat! Sick or not, you can do better than that!
"These days, people farm Molten Core for Fiery Cores, Lava Cores, and Core Leather as the core of their Thorium Brotherhood rep grind after doing all the quests."
See! Five, easily! ;)
....
Core.
eakin3 Feb 13th 2012 2:54PM
Cor, blimey!
Amaxe Feb 13th 2012 9:25PM
you could have said "after doing all the core quests in the zone."
That would make it 6.
Yalina Feb 13th 2012 3:46PM
I have this fear of looking like an idiot in PUGs when I get an instance I've never been to before, so when my guild largely vanished a month after Cata, I ended up not running dungeons. A year later, I'm in mostly pvp gear or BOE epics, so I've got a decent gear level, and I'd like to see those heroics and possibly try LFR. However, now I'm afraid of doing a PUG and admitting I've never seen the content that's more than a year old. I did Heroic Stonecore last month and the tank and healer bolted when I said I'd never been there on heroic.
Could someone point me to some dungeon guides for the older heroics, like blackrock caverns or Heroic Deadmines? The Hour of Twilight dungeons are recent enough, but I'd like to read up on all the older ones so that I at least will know when to run and when to stay still.
Noyou Feb 13th 2012 5:03PM
I have that fear too. Combined with getting bored of a dungeon after running it more than a couple times (with some exception. The dungeon guild in your UI should help with general boss strategy. Of course, people are probably ignoring most stats and just expecting you to faceroll stuff. My guild is always looking for friendly adventurers if you need a home :)