The Queue: Totally incepting you right now

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column in which the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

Yeah, that's right. You're getting incepted so bad right now. The idea I'm incepting is "he's not using that term correctly at all."

Valorum asked:
I know it's hard to say because the cap is 83 right now, but is 80-85 intended to take about the same amount of time and work as 60-70 did and 70-80 did? For the beta testers, does 80-81, 81-82 and 82-83 feel like two levels at a time?

80-81 didn't take long for me; two hours, maybe. But then again, I was fully rested, and I was also rested until halfway through 81. There's no real way of avoiding it right now, since you automatically have a full rest bar when you log in. To put it into perspective, though, leveling from 82 to 83 takes 6.5 million experience; even with heavy questing in the appropriate zones, it's going to take a while. My bar barely moved when I turned in quests at 82.

Methuus asked:

All new mounts seem to have the ability to scale to your highest available riding speed. Has Bliz indicated whether old mounts will get this ability in Cataclysm? I'd love to get my Netherdrake out, but not if it's forever limited to 280% speed.

All mounts will scale to your maximum available riding speed, including ones you get prior to Cataclysm.


Matt asked:

I have seen a lot of information on all the other profession but slim to none on Leather working. What is going on there will there be any special item that will be a must need in cata?

We don't know much about several professions yet, including Leatherworking. They're not implemented in the beta yet.


Razion asked:

Hello, The Queue, couple questions for ya today!

1) Whatever happened to the whole lich class idea for WotLK? I was aware it was up on the drawing board for discussion [along with runemasters], but I don't really quite know what happened with the idea: why was it scrapped? Seeing as priests are to paladins as lichs are to death knights, is it possible we may see this gap filled at some point in the future? What's the word on liches as a playable class?

2) Has Blizzard commented on the concept of battle-magi, or were runemasters supposed to fulfill that role -- and what of them, for that matter? Why were they scrapped?

tl;dr: Why, exactly, were liches/runemasters scrapped to make way for death knights?

Put plainly, we know nearly nothing about how these classes would have worked, nor has Blizzard ever really gone into detail on the topic; we can assume that death knights were picked for a few reasons, though.

• Death knights had a thematic tie to Arthas, who was the expansion's main villain, making them instantly compelling.

• They fit the niche that Blizzard wanted to fill in Wrath: that is, plate-wearing DPS/tank.

We may never know any more about the hero classes that might have been, but who knows -- maybe the concepts for them will make a return in a future expansion. We're about due for another new class after Cataclysm, aren't we?

Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW.com 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!