The Queue: Dinosaurs!

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 will be your host today.

It has been way too long since I nerded out about dinosaurs in an edition of the Queue. Let's all welcome Mercuriceratops gemini, a very cool looking ceratopsian dinosaur. I don't know why NBC decided to cover this as 'weird science' because there's nothing weird about it -- just a very distinctive ceratopsian with a particularly interesting frill. Hopefully, the next time we get dinosaurs in WoW (and I have hopes for Gorgrond and Farahlon)) we'll get a winged ceratopsian.

Anyway, it's time for questions, and the answers therein.

CaptainCakewalk asks:
Q4tQ: I have noticed this for many years now, from the first months of playing WoW back in TBC actually, that we don't have very many doors in Azeroth. So, it got me thinking will Garrison buildings have doors? I know this a really weird question but it's always irked me that the rest of Azeroth, especially humans and Dwarves, don't seem to understand the quality of a door. Think of the drafts up yer kilts!

So far my Horde garrison on the alpha is absolutely devoid of doors. So far as I can tell, they don't even have a fur draped across the entrance to keep out the Frostfire chill. Apparently we're all just really freaking hardy. On the one hand, I don't want to have to open a door every time I go in or out of my buildings, but you'd think a few would be around.

Brian Packer asks:
The Ability Pruning Patch Notes just keeps growing. Do you think it's getting hard to follow?

I talked about that today in a Breakfast Topic, but to address it from a different angle, I think the ability pruning is harder to grasp outside of the game than it is inside it - you can pretty easily pick up what spells you don't have because, well, you don't have them. But reading a huge chunk of red text saying "X has been removed" and "Y is now spec specific to Z" can get you all bleary eyed and confused pretty fast. Especially with changes as severe as we've seen recently to druids, shaman, monks and warriors. It can be hard to grasp it when you're just reading patch notes, I would absolutely agree with that.

Alimente asks:
With Disc losing Spirit Shell and Inner Focus, are they becoming too similar to other RNG classes? (Fire / Fury)

With the rapid changes we're seeing to classes, I would say hold off on assuming any class is going to play in a specific way. Arms just changed so dramatically that I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I know 'wait and see' isn't always a fun thing to be told, but this time you really should.

Alexey asks:
How good will Hellscream's Heirloom weapons be in WoD?

Here's an example.

This is on a level 90 orc warrior. The green axe, the Frostwolf Greataxe, is the quest item you get for completing the first few Garrison quests. For comparison, this is a quadruple-upgraded Xal'atoh in Warlords terms. The Hellscream axe will scale up. So yes, it's pretty good.

PessByNature asks:
In a lore sense, what is the most powerful item and/or weapon players can obtain?

Let me tell you a story about a pair of shoulders, found on an island without time.

Okay, okay. Honestly, once you start getting into legendary items, game logic starts trumping lore. Can we honestly say that Sulfuras is less or more powerful than Thunderfury, or the Warglaives? There's no clear cut answer to this question. The fact that we killed Rag at level 60 for the Eye to make the hammer doesn't actually matter to game lore - levels and item power are an artificial mechanic that makes us want to keep playing, and not necessarily reflected in lore terms. Deathwing wasn't necessarily weaker than Garrosh Hellscream (in fact, had the two fought, it's very likely Deathwing would have killed Garrosh in seconds) and Shadowmourne isn't necessarily weaker than the legendary rogue daggers.

All that said, my vote is for the Skull of Gul'dan. You can get it in Black Temple, and it not only transformed Illidan into a demonic form capable of killing a dreadlord, it transformed Felwood into a demon infested wasteland. Players can still get it - items like the Corrupted Ashbringer were taken out of the game, and we couldn't actually get Frostmourne or the Helm of Domination, so I'm sticking with the Skull.

Dream asks:
Q4tQ: or.. question for Rossi, have you checked out adriacraft? Draenor is looking a little bit prehistoric in some of the screenshots, like the dino thingy they have running around in Gorgrond. What else would you like to see running through Draenor?

Luckily for us all, I am indeed writing this Queue. The list of dinosaurs and dinosaur like things I would like to see in Warlords of Draenor basically consists of me opening a textbook with a bunch of dinosaurs in it and saying All of these, but I'll tell you now, things like this make me hope that Gorgrond is basically like Monster Island and we get all sorts of ridiculous Kaiju fights.

What I would really love would be a scaled up version of a gorgonopsid. Some massive, sleek, sabre toothed dragonkiller.

And that's the Queue for today. I'm back tomorrow, but I probably won't talk about dinosaurs.

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!