The Queue: Combo breaker

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.

Oh, you like Anne Stickney, do you? You like how she answers a lot of questions, hmm? I'm not going to be outdone by some lore-toting, tinfoil-hat-wearing mountain dweller. It's lightning round time, fools.

As for why Ragnaros is the header image for the Queue, I just like the guy. What can I say?

Trinket asked:

I just finished watching the latest 4.2 trailer and was picturing tackling the new bosses on my Fire Mage when it occurred to me I'll literally be fighting Fire with Fire... My question is why aren't raid bosses made from fire immune to fire damage? Wouldn't it seem more appropriate that Frost would do more damage against a fire elemental boss?

The simple reason is gameplay reasons. Forcing a mage to choose a different spec for Firelands is just not fun from a gameplay perspective. Back in the vanilla days, Molten Core mobs were immune to fire damage and mages who wanted to raid went frost. I forgot if arcane was viable back then -- someone please remind me. I didn't pay attention to mages back in the olden days.

Blizzard has said many times in the past that gameplay concerns trump common sense in many instances. Fire mages should not be penalized for playing fire throughout an entire tier of raiding. Sure, it "makes sense" according to made up fantasy physics or whatever, but it's just not fun for mages. It's unnecessary clutter that people confuse with depth, kind of like resist fights.

sammyboy4 asked:

Question for the queue,
During the wrath of the lich king expansion they introduced a weekly quest which were you had to kill a random raid boss from any level 80 raid. Is it Possible that we might see this weekly quest for level 85 raids in the near future?

I think its another incentive for new players to join raid groups where they can learn boss fights and gear up faster.

The weekly raid quest has been rolled into the new raid guild challenge where you kill one raid boss per week for a big guild experience and gold reward. Much like how the dungeon dailies were removed in lieu of the daily random, the weekly raid has been eschewed for the guild challenge.

The move away from specific bosses to kill was a good move, in my opinion. I liked making a group for some of the older instances like Naxxramas or Ulduar to kill the weekly bosses, but it also felt like a chore, especially when group mates did not know the fights. Not everyone was raiding when those fights were relevant, and having to explain to a group of PUGs was not always my cup of tea, especially for some badges. I love helping people, but not in badge crunch time.

You never know, though. As we get more bosses and raid tiers, we may see the return of the weekly raid boss quest. I wouldn't be sad to see it come back -- it is a lot of fun to go back and see the older content and run the now-easier bosses. I just don't want it to feel required.

Distaris asked:

Is Deathwing still barbecuing folks?

He sure is. Just ask Alex Ziebart, who got hit three times in one day by Deathwing in the Plaguelands. Dude loves him some Plaguelands.

I don't think Deathwing is going to stop nuking zones any time soon and I still regard his presence on Azeroth as fun and unique. There are a handful of people who find it annoying so long after the release of Cataclysm and feel that the novelty has worn off, but I still get a really cool feeling and a chill when the sky goes red and we're all reminded of who is really the big bad jerk of this expansion. Sort of like when Arthas would pop up and say hello. Except Arthas was kind of a pansy, wasn't he?

RoaringRogue on Twitter asked:

What's going on with that guild transfer/renaming service? it seems like we just got an announcement, and no follow up.

Believe me, I am wondering this myself. As I sow the seeds of doubt into my Alliance brethren and corrupt their mortal souls, hopefully the guild transfer service comes at their very moment of ultimate weakness, releasing the day I can turn them all Horde. My plan is truly maniacal. MUAHAHAHA.

I've been mulling this feature over in my head and have been having trouble figuring out how the service will work and how it will be priced. I'm hoping the service is around $15-20 dollars to faction transfer the guild; $20-30 to server transfer the guild. It would be really cool if everyone in your guild who did transfer under the overall guild transfer could get a discount on the transfer to promote larger guilds from actually making the move. Wishful thinking, I know, and I can guarantee that there are huge discussions internally at Blizzard over the cost of the service and the mechanics behind it. I eagerly await these details.

Medros asked:

Which is better, a Firelands raid, or an Abyssal Maw one that completes the story of Neptulon?

While I would love to see the end of the Neptulon story since it was built up so well through Vashj'ir and the encounter in Throne of the Tides, Firelands has become something of a model raid for me in all respects. Firelands could very well be the Ulduar of Cataclysm -- the sleeper raid that did things differently and provided one of the most cohesive, lore-rich, and encounter-dense challenges to guilds.

As a player who banished Ragnaros back to the Firelands 5-6 years ago, this raid holds a special place in my heart. I've been waiting for this fight for a good long while.

Jestin asked:

Question: Cho'gall's in-game model has him covered with eyes, what's the story behind that? Was it taken from the graphic novels where he tries to rez C'thun and gradually undergoes a horrific transformation?

Cho'gall ran away to Kalimdor and hid with the Twilight's Hammer in C'thun's chamber after his defeat at the battle of the Broken Isles. The rest all happened in the WoW comics. Cho'gall was master to Garona at this time and was the mastermind behind the assassination attempt on Varian Wrynn's life. The plan was to disrupt the peace summit and get the Horde and the Alliance at each other's throats again, which is exactly what happened.

After chilling out in the presence of C'thun for so long, Cho'gall became corrupted and empowered by the Old God. He started sprouting some extra eyes. Which blink. Creepy. And, since Cho'gall was the leader of the Twilight's Hammer clan, he was the defacto leader of the brand-spanking new Twilight's Hammer cult, the latest crazy to sweep Azeroth. Death and destruction for all!

Scott reported:

OMG!

It's happened!

The "WoW-Killer" has been announced!

"Family Guy Online"

holy crap lois

all8280bcc asked:

Question for the Q: I have NPC scan and a macro to find the mysterious camel figurine. I have been searching Uldum for a week and have not even found one yet. What is the spawn rates on these things? Did they remove them?

You aren't missing anything and their spawn rate has not been lowered. The spawn rate on the Mysterious Camel Figurine is just really, really low. Just keep searching and you'll hopefully get lucky enough to run into one and get your kick ass new title and mount.

emilio asked:

I've enjoyed the last few archivist articles. My question is, are there currently any mmo's out there that have a similar feeling to old school wow? I mean the exploration, the focus in lore, the massive events like ahn qiraj, that stuff.

World of Warcraft is the spiritual successor of the grandaddy of everything we've got -- Everquest. And, not surprisingly, Everquest still has a huge following. I haven't played in years, but if you wanted to go back in time to see where this all began, check it out. I'm sure commenters can recommend other MMOs with a large exploration focus, but for me, Everquest will always be that game ever since I ran from Freeport to North Karana. Nothing can really compare to that.

The original team that made World of Warcraft were veterans of Everquest and the early MMOs like Ultima Online. In fact, many people wanted to make a better Everquest in WoW, so going back and seeing the inspiration for most of the game mechanics in WoW could be a fun archivist adventure of your own!

Also, some quick praise to Alex Ziebart for completely rocking those archivist columns. I absolutely love them.

ninjivitis asked:

Question: I recall people talking about the ability to focus more on the races you wanted to with Archeaology. Was that just talk and wishful thinking or something Blizzard actually has (or had) plans to do?

The way it works currently is that you have a much lower chance of getting dig sites for races in which you have completely all of the rare items for. Before patch 4.1 and the introduction of the new rares, I was swimming in Tol'vir dig sites (still no extra rares), but the system was working wonderfully. Blizzard has said that there is a new system in the works for picking and choosing which race you want to focus on, but we were not given any other information other than its potential existence.

I feel really bad for the next loser who has to write TOMORROW'S Queue...

Ah crap, it's me, isn't it?

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!