The Queue: The loot blues

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.

Merry No Maintenance Day, everyone! Let's not waste it and jump right into things. Chilblain asked...

When my guild does 25-mans, it's not uncommon to have 2-3 Priests, 2 Warlocks and 2-3 Mages. Nearly one third of the entire raid is all rolling on Cloth armor, yet we go entire evenings where not a single piece drops.

If Blizzard insists on the ridiculous notion that cloth should be all things to all people, have they addressed the poor drop rate in comparison to other items? Our Resto Druids and Shaman are all decked out in 213 and while our Priests are still healing in Heroic blues.

Random loot is random is pretty much all there is to it. Right in the comments yesterday, others were saying their raids have more Cloth armor than they know what to do with. Raid composition is also a factor. My raid has six people in cloth. We also have six people in Mail and seven people in Leather. They're not all using the same types of Mail or Leather, but that doesn't mean they don't need to worry about drop rates.

A third of your raid is Cloth, and they have the ability to all pull from the same pool of items, generally. Hit isn't necessary for Healers and while the other pieces may not all be ideal for whatever specs everyone is playing, they can pull from the same pool of loot.

You said that nearly one third of your raid is rolling on Cloth. Nearly one third of my raid is in Leather. Druids of various flavors and Rogues. According to the Naxxramas loot tables, there are roughly the same amount of Leather drops as Cloth drops. For the sake of discussion, let's pretend they fall into all of the necessary slots evenly (I'm not sure if they do), and are distributed evenly across the bosses. It's less likely that my Rogues will get a drop that they can theoretically use than it is for your Warlocks. That Warlock may need to equip some gear that isn't ideal, but they can still use it. I don't think the Rogue has any use for the spell power leather, unless it looks awesome and they want to build a fashion set.

Loot luck sometimes sucks, but that's really all it comes down to here. Luck. There's plenty of gear for the Cloth classes.

Neirin asked...

I've got a follow-up question about tagging. In the 3.0.8 patch notes they say that all spells that make an enemy aggressive towards you will tag them. Does that include thorns and ret aura?

No, it's more referring to things like DoTs. Buttons you push to pull mobs/start attacking them, but don't tap/do damage immediately. For example, a Mage can spam Ice Lance all day and pull as many mobs as he'd like. Currently, my Shadow Priest couldn't do that with Shadow Word: Pain. I'd cast it, and that Mage could Ice Lance it afterwards and steal the tap. I'd have to resort to using Shadow Word: Death to tap which would proceed to hit me in the face for 1800. As of patch 3.0.8, I'll be able to tap by simply landing a Shadow Word: Pain rather than landing it, then waiting for the damage to tick.

You still need to take an aggressive action (key word being 'action'), it will just tap whether it does damage or not.

Arlendor asked...

When you go kill Artruis again to switch from Oracles to Frenzyheart (or vice-versa), what rep level do you end up at?

Your reputation shifts to Honored with your new faction, and Hated with your old one.

Medros asked...

I have a question about the Culling of Stratholme instance. WoW Head shows a lot of interesting lore figures, and I was wondering if there are any major events that can be observed there, such as the precursor to Ashbringer in Old Hillsbrad, or if even zoning in begins the encounter? Any NPCs you think are worth watching out for?

There's nothing as major as the meeting in Old Hillsbrad, but there's still cool stuff to see. You just run up ahead into Stratholme instead of messing with the plague crates, and you can see the city while it's still in one piece. Just make sure nobody in there with you will start the event while you're in there, or you will die a swift death.

There's not a whole lot to see, but there are vendors you can use to repair, and there are some NPCs there that you might've met elsewhere. A certain blacksmith, for example. There's also a vendor way in the back that sells Stratholme Lilies, which you may want to pick up to impress certain nerdy gals in your life. It works! I think...

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!