The Queue: The life of Deathwing

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky, senior editor at WoW Insider and cofounder of a new mobile gaming site, will be your host today.

Some things in WoW are bad
Legendaries can really make you mad
Those rogues just make you swear and curse.
When you're hitting on Deathwing's plate
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best ...

And ... always stay on the right side of Deathwing ...
Always look on the left side of the gunship ...

And ... scene!

DarkFinch asked:

Out of pure curiosity, can the Queue give an example of when datamining 'caused problems?'

Any time you see something appear on a datamined list and not in the patch notes or it doesn't end up on the live realms (or have any developer comment), it's a problem. A few months ago (maybe a year ago?), there was a lot of huff and puff over druid spells getting changed -- when in reality, it was just some testing being done internally. The standards for a PTR push are much, much less than a full-scale live patch, so stuff like that sneaks in occasionally.

It's all about community perception, too. The datamining problems never really affect gameplay per se but can significantly alter the community's buy-in with current patch changes.

Opposite asked:

i have been taking a break from WoW but am loving the new Tier 13 Mage set previews and this might draw me back. My question is : i have not ran any Cata instances or raids for a long long time and need to know the best way to start collecting (and what to collect) for Tier 13. i assume that i need to wait for 4.3 before i start collecting towards T13? do i need to raid or just run regular/heroic instances? do i need any T12 to upgrade or can i go straight for the T13?

Tier 13 will not be available via valor points at all. The only way you're going to get it is through running raids. Your best bet? Gear now up as best you can, then find a guild and join the fun in the next tier of raiding.

The key, though, is to start now. Put in hard work to your character, and don't expect things to be handed to you by progressed guilds.

Daedalus asked:

One big thing I noticed in the TenTonHammer interview: Ghostcrawler said that no part of tier 13 could be bought with valor points; it's all from raid bosses. That being the case, is there really any reason to still have valor points? Do you think they might just take them out completely in 4.3?

I'm sure there'll be other gear that you can get with valor points. Just because tier gear isn't available doesn't mean other non-tier pieces will be excluded. Think of things like rings, trinkets, wands, cloaks, necks, BOE shoes, etc.

Siza asked:

Are there many 10m raidgroups (like mine) that run Firelands without a rogue? Because we have a nice group that is almost touching heroic versions atm, but we don't have a rogue. The whole guild rejoices for our mage when we get a step closer to getting the staff completed, but we wonder whether we should now recruit a rogue to get that same feeling or whether it just won't be worth breaking up our raidteam for.

Rogues are one of the least-played classes right now, and I'm sure that there are lots of groups running without one.

Don't break up your raid team because of gear. My God, that's the last thing you should do. If everyone can clear the content and see things done, then why change the formula? If someone steps out and a rogue can fill in, then great. But please, do yourself a favor and don't mess with what's working for you.

Wyzim asked:

Did we EVER have a dungeon without normal mode except the revamped ones?

Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman are "revamped" with no normal mode, but that's it. All the others have some semblance of a normal mode version. It'll be interesting to see if the patch 4.3 dungeons have a normal mode. My guess is that if they do, they will offer i365 gear on normal.

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!