The Queue: Something about tabards

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mathew McCurley will be your host today.

Tabards tabards tabards tabards ...

Roguesan asked:

I've been doing the dailies in Tol Barad for a couple of weeks now; I reckon that spectral horse will match my mage's (eventual) tier 11 quite nicely, and hopefully by the time I manage to claw my way exalted with Baradin's Wardens, it will coincide with having managed to slap together a gear set.

My problem is this: Having been randomly browsing through the achievements list last night looking for a handful that could be worked on during the course of my day-to-day stuff, I found the one for completing 100 dailies in Tol Barad -- with the counter set at 0/100.

What gives?

A lot of the achievement counters are broken for one reason or another. Also, you cannot see how many battles of Tol Barad you've won on the achievement, which makes it a fun guessing game of when you will hit the magic 100 wins mark. Just one of those little annoying bugs, I'd guess.

Zaszh asked:

Where do you get tabards to wear while you're leveling and when should you wear them? The city ones for 1-60 ... then what in BC and Wrath? What is the tabard progression for leveling?

Many tabards that you can purchase from the particular faction's quartermaster give reputation for every mob kill in an instance. For instance, the newly implemented Orgrimmar tabard will give you reputation with Orgrimmar in dungeons from levels 1-60 and then in Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm dungeons. Instances in The Burning Crusade work a bit differently -- each dungeon has a reputation that is associated with it, earning you reputation with that faction instead of the tabard you are wearing. For instance, The Arcatraz rewards reputation with The Sha'tar.

If you don't wear a tabard in vanilla dungeons, you just don't get any reputation. If you don't wear a tabard in Burning Crusade dungeons, you still get reputation for that dungeon's associated faction. No tabard in Wrath dungeons nets you a "base" faction for your particular side -- it was the Horde Expedition for the Horde and the Alliance Vanguard for the Alliance. No tabard in Cataclysm nets you nothing in dungeons.

Breakdown:

• 1-60 dungeons Home city tabards in dungeons

• 60-70 The Burning Crusade Reputation/faction based on dungeon, not tabard-based

• 70-80 Wrath of the Lich King Home city tabards, Wrath faction tabards (Wyrmrest, Argents, etc.) in dungeons

• 80-85 Cataclysm Home city tabards, Cataclysm faction tabards (Therazane, Ramkahen, etc.) in dungeons

Kaahn Stewart asked:

Vol'jin or Zaela for Warchief?

I really hope we haven't seen the last of Zaela. She's awesome. I hope she gets as much attention as old Saurfang did and we get another cool orc leader out of Twilight Highlands. I've always seen Vol'jin as a supporting character, and he hasn't done too much to move from that place in my heart. Zaela could become a really awesome character if they give her some more story.

riley asked:

Is it possible to get the Elementium Vein right outside to the left of Ironclad Garrison? I see that vein everyday with miners trying to get it but failing.

Roll a warrior.

Tom asked:

How come Cataclysm didn't have any 78-80 starting zones?

Blizzard has stated specifically before that Cataclysm is itemized for players 80 and above. The first zones, Hyjal and Vashj'ir, are meant to be completed by characters at level 80. Pushing it down to 78 would have thrown off the leveling curve for the relatively few new zones in Cataclysm, unlike Wrath, which had more content than technically needed to get you from 68-80. And frankly, with all that Wrath content, you shouldn't have a problem getting to 80 before venturing into Cataclysm. Basically, starting from 78 in Cataclysm threw off the leveling progression.

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!