The Queue: Good Monday

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

Hey, what do you know! We had a bunch of great questions for today's Queue, which is unusual for a Monday. I'm usually picking through scraps. I think that means this week will be a good week.

Necromann asked:

Do player character hitboxes differ? For example, can you hit a tauren farther away than you can hit a gnome?

I truthfully don't know if that's the case right now in Cataclysm, but yes, hitboxes were different from race to race for years, as well as their melee range. There were a few notable raid encounters in which this was a big problem, and specific races had immense advantages. As mentioned in the comments, the Lady Vashj encounter in The Burning Crusade had fen strider mobs with a small AoE fear pulse. You were supposed to kite them, and that was part of the challenge of the encounter. Tauren tanks had a large enough melee range that they could tank the mob outside of the range of the fear and wouldn't need to kite the mob.

Blackwing Lair's Firemaw made these problems a little more apparent, too. There were places gnomes could be out of line of sight of the AoE fire pulse that tauren were not. You could also lose line of sight on gnomes as a healer in places where you would have been able to heal a tauren.

There's a reason that, as a holy priest back in vanilla WoW, I wanted to murder our gnome warrior in his sleep. It wasn't just fantasy racism! He just loved tanking things behind rocks. It was a justified hate. Stop tanking behind rocks, you jerk! I hate you!

So yes, player hitboxes and melee ranges did (and potentially do) differ according to their character model.

Jason asked:

What's the grossest thing you've ever eaten?

I generally don't make a habit of putting gross things in my mouth willingly. I'm not against trying new things, but there's a line! However, I do eat a lot of "old man" things due to largely being raised by my grandpa, so my significant other would likely list things like pickled herring on crackers as gross things I've eaten. I, however, label them delicious.

I guess the first time I ate calamari I labeled it super-gross, but now I quite like it and eat it often!

Algorithmix asked:

A (nitpicking) question for the queue: After the Saurfang (jr) fight in ICC, why does Jaina Proudmoore refer to Varian has "my king"? I mean, he isn't really her king is he? He is king of Stormwind, while she is the leader of Theramore, which is independent from every human kingdom, as far as I know. And even if that were not the case, Jaina comes from Kul'Tiras, and if anything she would probably refer to their ruler (her brother I believe) as "her king".

Varian Wrynn is, at this point, the supreme leader of the Alliance as a whole. There isn't a single figure in the Alliance with more pull than he does. Dwarf loyalists would cite King Magni Bronzebeard, but he went off and got himself killed like a reckless buffoon. Ironforge has no king. The current regime in Ironforge has the Wrynn line to thank for being in power. The Gilneans may have been saved by the night elves, but look where Genn Greymane went to rally assistance: to Varian Wrynn. Theramore is a part of the Alliance, and so Varian Wrynn is most certainly her king. The dwarves of Ironforge treat him with that sort of respect, too. In the scene where Jaina calls Varian her king, Varian also commands Muradin to stand down. Muradin does so without question.

Stormwind is the seat of Alliance power and Varian Wrynn rules it. Right now, he's unquestionably the most important man in the Alliance.

Perhaps even more important to Jaina is the fact that the Wrynn dynasty is the last of humanity's line of kings. Even after the return of Genn Greymane, he's an old man with no heir. What's going down in Kul'tiras? Nobody knows, but we do know that Jaina personally killed off her father. Did her brother step up to the plate? Could he have stepped up to the plate? We don't know. It's possible Jaina ended the Proudmoore line. Varian Wrynn's line is humanity's final viable royal line, and Anduin is too young to rule. Varian is important to her and to humanity.

Plus, they're friends. Jaina cares about her friend. If I were a fanfic-writin' man, we'd be looking at Queen Jaina. Just sayin'.

Finnicks asked:

In your opinion, what's the best role for a raid leader? Healer, tank, or DPS?

I don't think it matters as long as other roles are filled with people that you trust to speak up and give good feedback. One person cannot see everything from all angles, regardless of role.

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!