The Queue: Finding treasure where there's no treasure to be found
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.
Another day, another Queue. Forgive the awful quality of the screenshot above, I tried to show off Malygos' righteous beard but the guy doesn't sit still, even if you ask him nicely. He's a crabby son of a lich sometimes. Well, let's forget about him and dig into today's questions. As always, if you have a question for The Queue, leave it in the comments section below and we'll get to it in a future edition.
Magebleck asked...
As a mage, my main weapon is almost always a Staff with some good stats to it. Since Wrath of the Lich King has come out I have read several places that there are now some really well speced staffs that are "Bind to Account", such as the Dignified Headmaster's Charge and the Grand Staff of Jordan. I understand that their stats scale with level, but how does one go about aquiering these new "BtA" items?
There are a couple of different ways to acquire Bind to Account (or 'Heirloom') items. The Grand Staff of Jordan is a slightly PvP-tilted staff you get via Stone Keeper's Shards. The Dignified Headmaster's Charge is pure PvE and is acquired via Emblems of Heroism. Keep an eye on the site today or tomorrow, and we'll have many more details on how, exactly, you get these items.
Semaj asked...
A quick question for you all. What has happened to the random chests that always used to randomly pop up? I have been in 5 different zones now and have not seen one treasure chest. I used to think that my dwarven racial talent was profitable but not anymore. Am I just missing them?
Yeah, as some other readers mentioned, chests are largely extinct. They were too easy to cheese, so they couldn't put awesome, worthwhile stuff in them. Without cool stuff in them, they were sort of pointless. I think other old school players will agree with me when I say the chests in the Plaguelands were the dumbest crap in the world. You would clear 6-7 undead to get at one and you'd get four silver, some heavy leather, and level 30 mana potions.
In places where chests were worthwhile, players would just set up a circuit to farm them specifically. Way back, my home server had a gold farmer with the name Magicbox. He would run laps around Winterspring just to loot chests, and vendor/auction the contents. It was... bizarre. As another interesting anecdote, Magicbox's player was actually kind of nice. I don't like saying it because he was a freaking gold farmer, they're supposed to be a blight and all, but he'd actually stop, ni hao it up, and help you out with a quest or two as long as you let him have the nearby chest(s). It was interesting, seeing a friendly gold farmer and not some supreme cutthroat you-or-me kind of guy, though that' wholly irrelevant to your question.
They've taken the emphasis off of chests, and more on rare spawns. You can get some seriously cool stuff off of rare mobs these days, including mounts. As for your racial, one of my guildies was yapping the other day about it showing quest items on your minimap. If it shows quest items, it should still be useful for that. I'm not sure if it does or not though, I don't play Dwarves, they smell. Maybe some of our readers can confirm or deny that? What's the word, guys?
Stave asked...
What helm is that that's being worn in the picture?
The picture I used for yesterday's edition of The Queue is actually an NPC in Storm Peaks. To keep the explanation short, it's an icy lookin' version of the vrykul. You'll learn about them as a quest. You can find similar items in the game (most of the blue helms have horns of some sort) but that particular helm is baked onto the NPC.
nisticus asked...
What do you guys feel about the level 80 DK population issue?
I haven't noticed an abnormal number level 80 Death Knights compared to other classes. They're just new, so you might notice them more. I could be wrong too, I haven't looked at any recent population numbers, but I honestly haven't noticed a massive influx of them. There are a ton of low level ones, but most of them don't go all the way to 80. I don't really see it as a problem either way. If people are having fun playing them, that's fantastic. Especially if they know how to tank when needed and aren't a bunch of brainless, one-armed marmosets when you put them in the lead.
Llothtank asked...
Are you guys going to do any more "well fed buff" columns? I'm sure I'm not the only one who plays WoW who loves to cook, and those recipes were always easy and tasty. Would love to see more specially with all the new recipes in Wrath.
We don't do them as a weekly thing anymore, but I'm sure you'll see it if something comes to us. Their frequency is dependant on a member of our staff feeling both hungry and creative at the same time, and generally the former overpowers the latter. I could take a picture of my ramen that's on the stove right now and label it Northern Stew, but that's not very interesting. I'm pretty hungry, though. I wonder if it's done yet...
