The Queue: Fun with textures

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.

So Ner'zhul's looking kinda pasty there, huh? The trials and tribulations of a beta test, folks.

Anyone else excited/interested in Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition? I'm thinking I'll pick it up soon. From what I saw of the playtest, it preserves some elements of 4th edition I liked while bringing back elements of 3rd edition I liked, but it's been a while since I looked at it. I'm thinking either fighter or barbarian (if they retained that class).

ErinKinsella asks:
Q4tQ so ive always wanted to try tanking on my druid but its seems the current state of the game and its player base has little time for new or learning players which seems odd seeing as tanks are in high demand so how do i overcome the negative attitude of the players to LEARN to play that role

The absolutely easiest way is to get four friends to come with you and do the dungeons as a group. That way, you'll have people you know to help you. There's a lot to learn about tanking - survival mechanics and even threat mechanics, yes, but also how to pull properly (a skill which has many applications), how to lead a group, how to gauge your healer and watch their mana, how to deal with DPS pulling threat through jumping the gun - a group of friends can make this much less of an ordeal.

Failing that, you may have to endure a lot of bad groups. The LFD feature of the dungeon finder is a positive boon for letting players get groups, but it does nothing to ensure that the composition of said groups isn't toxic. However, you can (and I often have) gotten some good people through dungeon finder. And if nothing else, running LFD can really help you develop a thicker skin. Ultimately, the players who act up or act out are flotsam. In my experience telling groups up front "I'm new to this role" can get some good results - usually at least one player will step in with advice.

Also, we're about to head into a new expansion, where everyone will be relearning their classes to some extent. It's an excellent time to work on tanking, because there will be dungeons people will want to run.

RussHada asks:

My wife and I have leveled a guild all by ourselves (with the help of many alts) to level 14. But with the upcoming guild changes, do we need to worry about leveling our guild at all anymore?

There's an old saying - "Call no changes set in stone until the Beta ends." I wouldn't break my back to get the guild to 25, just keep playing like you have been.

KevinFrench asks:
QftQ: I'm in the Beta and pulled up the Dungeon Journal. Seems the new Heroic: "Upper Blackrock Spire" only has 5 bosses. The Original Has 10 bosses. This makes me wonder if they will revamp the old as well. Similar to the Scarlet Monastery. I hope they leave the classic accessible via leveling or dungeon difficulty toggle. What are you thoughts?

The original was both Upper and Lower Blackrock Spire. If you head into the mountain, you'll notice there are two instance portals now. One leads down to Lower Blackrock and the other up to the top of the Spire. What that means for LBRS as a dungeon, I couldn't tell you - the timeline for UBRS in Warlords clearly indicates that the Iron Horde under a major lore figure has invaded the mountain and is setting up their own plans for the area.

It seems likely to me that since only UBRS is listed as the Warlords dungeon that LBRS is being repurposed as the leveling dungeon, but I don't know for sure at this point.

abyssdoor asks:
I don't know who should I ask this (I don't think anyone may be able to answer) but I suddenly began to wonder:

Trolls were the last playable race to be added to "vanilla" (it was the last model made, the older model for trolls was used for zombie trolls in stranglethorn), so they weren't considered important enough to be playable until late in developement (like the gnomes for the alliance).

Let's look at today: Vol'jin is the new Warchief of the Horde. Would the game story have changed if they had decided the 4th playable race for Horde would be another one, like goblins (which were added years later) or ogres?

Well, arguing that they weren't important seems kind of specious to me - someone is always going to be last. That's how it happens. But clearly, had trolls not been introduced as a playable race at some point (let's be honest, if they weren't in vanilla they'd have come in shortly thereafter, they're too much a part of the Horde) we probably wouldn't have a troll warchief now. The real question is, who would have replaced them and what would the story have been? I could speculate (goblins do seem the easiest swap) but that's all it is, speculation - until I get this Dark Portal working so we can go to the dimension where Garrosh Hellscream tried to stop Blizzard from putting trolls in at launch, we'll never actually know.

DragonBotherer asks:
Q4TQ: Does anyone know if with the new character models and animations - will casters finally use their staves/wands/etc in their casting animations? or do they still holster their incredibly mighty magical weapons while wriggling their fingers?

I don't play casters much at all (elemental shaman sometimes) but I know that Ner'zhul on the beta is such a big staff user that he often uses two of them while casting. It's kind of weird, actually.

Erik4 asks:
What do you think the chances are of us seeing Taran Zhu in WoD? I ask this, because Garrosh pretty much escaped his custody while he was on trial for essentially committing terrorist actions against Pandaria. Maybe we can see a parallel with Taran and Garrosh as to Maiv and Illidan? I thought that might be a cool opportunity, seeing Taran chase around Garrosh in the zones.

While I have seen a few pandaren as Alliance helping me build and maintain my garrison, I haven't seen hide nor hair of Taran Zhu. We saw him hunt down the Sha in the Townlong Steppes, so we know he's got a vengeful nature, but he's also a fairly typically isolationist pandaren, so I wouldn't hold my breath expecting him to make an appearance in Warlords.

And that's the Queue for today. I'm covering it tomorrow as well. So I'll see you again tomorrow.

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!