The Queue: Benjamin Franklin created the internet to resurrect himself

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi is writing this sucker today.

I'm kidding. Sort of.

Ben is one of my personal heroes, though.

In today's Queue, I answer a bunch of tanking questions. I know -- I was as shocked as you are.

Matthew2 asked:

I finally got around to making a DK and leveling it. (I'm a tank - my first tank!!!) Having said that:

Is DPS in Blood Spec viable for 5 mans? I'm not a raider, I just want to learn my Blood spec and tank with it and dps with it in instances that I am learning about. Is it ok to use death and decay if I'm in Frost Presence when I'm DPS'ing? And I don't yet have unholy presence, so I'll pre-ask: "what spec should I be using as DPS in PvE [assuming i'm a blood dk if that matters]?

Clearly, I don't know this class yet - any good sources to learn about being a DK?

I'm not a DK myself -- well, OK, I do have one, but I haven't leveled him in Cata and I doubt I will in Mists, since I only liked the DK for the "tank or DPS in any spec" utility they had in Wrath, and when that went away, I stopped playing him. That being said, I can first refer you to Dan Whitcomb's Lichborne and then Icy Veins, both of which should get you started on your DK. (I also like Icy Veins for the transmog guides.)

Now, as to your question about DPSing as blood, well, it's not nearly as viable as it was in Wrath, but it's doable until about level 76 or 77, when the spec just really stops being competitive. As long as you're not DPSing in Blood Presence, you should be fine to use D&D; just make sure you try and let the tank hit some sort of AoE first before you go nuts.

But man, I gotta say, tanking while you level up will really help you learn to tank a lot more than DPSing in blood spec. I get wanting to see a dungeon a few times before you tank it, but dual spec is cheap, and blood is a tank spec. I really encourage you to give blood tanking a shot in new instances, it will teach you a lot more about tanking.

Nocjin asked:

How's active mitigation turning out? Annoying distraction or fun?

I've enjoyed it so far. I really feel like prot warriors at least are fairly well designed right now, and as soon as I get a chance to check out the Vengeance change, I'll let you know how threat feels in 5-mans on the beta. Hopefully it will still stay good. As of two weeks ago (the last time I tanked on the beta), protection has managed to capture the sensation that your attacks serve to provide your defense pretty well overall. I'm never really satisfied with anything (hence my general old curmudgeon status here at WoW Insider), but I do feel like they've gotten pretty close to in the black with this tanking model, and I'm interested in getting to play it live.

damien.mcmaster asked:

I have recently started playing WoW 2 months ago i am a level 79 Protection warrior, i haven't done dungeons or raids, i just realised that protection warriors are supposed to be tanks, i dont really know how to tank, can i be DPS in raids/dungeons? or would i have to change to an arms or fury warrior?

Unlike a DK, which uses a two-handed weapon to tank with, protection really isn't designed for DPSing. While you could theoretically DPS with a protection spec, you really won't be doing good DPS at all. I would recommend, if you absolutely don't want to tank, that you get an arms spec, because arms is significantly easier to gear for than fury and does better DPS until fury is in high-end raid gear. However, as many commenters pointed out, tanking on a warrior is a lot of fun, and I'd encourage you to give it a try.

Ron2 asked:

As I've noted in previous comments, I was out for most of Wrath (family illness and all that). So I gotta know, why do so many people despite Trial of the Crusader?

See, in my case it comes down to the following:

1. While I enjoyed Trial when it came out, the fact that all the encounters save the last fight took place in the same area grew wearying. One of the great things about raids is that they have an illusion of forward momentum created by, well, moving forward. Think about how much more epic it feels to move forward through cavernous hallways, ride through fire-blasted landscapes or ride on a dragon's back and then descend to the Maelstrom feels than sticking around the same wooden tournament ring for four bosses.

2. Since you could run 10, 10 heroic, 25 and 25 heroic as separate instances, I ended up running Trial of the Crusader four times a week for a while. That's a lot. It added to the weariness mentioned above.

3. I actually missed trash. No trash meant no trash epics, no weird trash pulls, no trash with crazy-hard mechanics you had to suss out. It led to a feeling of sterility. I was one of the biggest boosters for the concept of a trash-free dungeon, and I was absolutely wrong. This doesn't mean some other dungeons and raids haven't had too much trash, but TotC needed more than it had.

4. I didn't like my gimmick block set to tank heroic Anub'arak.

5. Dropping down into Azjol-Nerub to fight Anub always makes me angry that we never got the AN zone or even a more expansive AN raid. Seeing those cool art assets always made me long for a full-fledged Azjol-Nerub raid or zone, where we'd finally get to see what's going on down there now.

6. Four times a week, man. Four freaking times a week. I was not up for that.

I actually liked a lot of the boss mechanics, thought the idea of Horde and Alliance getting unique looking loot was very cool, and thought TotC was a decent concept for a raid and a nice "getting ready for the main event" type of situation -- but man, it got very repetitive very fast for me.

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!