The Queue: Insert witty title here
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Olivia Grace (@oliviadgrace) is a little nervous about being your host today for her first Queue ever.
Dwarves are definitely the best race to level at this time of year. You're basically in a winter wonderland, surrounded by Christmas trees and adorable little elf-like creatures. No, not elves like blood elves and night elves, elves like Santa has. With little green hats.
Anyhow, rather like my fourth shaman here, while I've been doing similar things for some time, this is my first go at this particular article. Start zones have been revamped to be populated mostly with neutral mobs, lacking the aggression of those old mobs who'd bite you as soon as look at you. Just saying.
JCD1975 asked:
Do you think that we'll see old raid encounters tuned for Challenge modes / scenarios? Also, do you think that we will be able to use the LFG tool for challenge modes in the future?
Splitting your question into two parts, Draztal posted about a similar topic on the EU forums back on December 10. He said that the development team were looking at adding challenge modes to existing dungeons from older expansions, but didn't mention anything about raids. However, given that Blizzard's team are already looking back at certain dungeons, there's no reason why they shouldn't also consider raids. Perhaps, though, they could look at splitting raids up into wings for challenge modes, rather than doing, say, the whole of Black Temple or Karazhan as one huge challenge mode.
For the second half, no, I can't see that happening. The point of challenge modes, as Blizzard has said repeatedly, is that they're tuned too high for random groups to be able to do them. And with gear scaling, players aren't going to outgear them.
Revynn asked:
For someone who's looking to start PvPing, what would be the easiest class to learn on? Not the most overpowered or the most faceroll, but the most newbie friendly?
Commenters suggested hunter, which is certainly among the most overpowered at lower level, but quite a tricksy beast at max level. Hunter CC isn't always targeted and instant, like everyone else's: to trap someone you either have to get lucky, or you have to put another CC on them, like scatter shot, and place your trap in their path. Like I said, though, they can just wander onto it, if you're lucky. Other than that aspect, hunters are a lot of fun.
I would actually say paladin. Prot's Avenger's Shield is very strong in low level battlegrounds, and while they get weaker as you climb, they have good off-spec and main spec healing, not to mention several bubbles in several flavors. And if you find you're struggling in battlegrounds at certain levels, you can tank or heal your way through the dungeon finder for a while.
Talking max-level, holy is among the strongest healers in PvP right now, and ret is a respectable DPS with very chunky burst capacity, both without too much complication. They're hard to master, by which I mean to play really well, but easy to get a grip of. And prot is a fun spec for defending things, though a suboptimal flag carrier if you're taking things seriously. You won't kill anyone (probably), but they won't kill you either! I've whiled away many a happy battleground surviving various onslaughts at the gold mine in Arathi Basin.
Having said all that, it's highly subjective! Play what sounds fun.
Robert Waddell asked via twitter:
QFTQ:Why doesn't Blizz document all the changes made with a patch in the patch notes? Seems a lot of changes are un-documented.
It's likely a mix of things that cause undocumented changes. First, communication: there's probably small alterations that aren't always communicated internally, or perhaps timelines are shifted at the last minute, allowing changes to be made sooner than was anticipated. It's likely that ones that are sent over to the community team for release on the forums could be different to the ones that are actually made. While it can be frustrating to find a confusing change that isn't documented, I'd prefer Blizzard's team to fix issues that are troublesome, then document it later, than leave them until an official release can be written up. What's more, it could be the case that changes they make which are documented have a knock-on effect and cause other things to break, which in turn need fixing!
For the community team to release something, they would have to be sure of it, so it would probably take more than a couple of bug reports and a forum topic or two to allow them to add a change to the official patch notes without following internal procedures for verification, of which there are likely many.
Additionally, in the case of changes like the addition of easter eggs or hidden items, perhaps because it's more fun if they don't announce them!
Martin asked:
Q: IDK if it's Raven or SUF, but something's bugging my Consolidated Buffs thingie. Got any specific addon to handle that (Cons. Buffs)?
Using an addon to fix an addon that's bugging out is like swallowing the bird to catch the spider that you swallowed to catch the fly. Switch off all your addons, then switch them back on one by one until you find the problem, then decide whether that addon's worth the bother! Addon Control Panel is great for this.
Kenichan asked via twitter:
Who's the most annoying mob listed; Pygmies, Kobolds, Fel Orcs, Vykrul or Hozen?
I'm actually quite a fan of kobolds, they're rather sweet little rats who just want you to leave them with their candles for their dark journeys down into the mines of Azeroth. I feel bad robbing them, because you'd want a candle, too. And vrykul are pretty cool too, lumbering great norse giants. I'm going to have to say hozen are the most annoying, because aaaaagh, there's a monkey on my head! Get off, get off, get off my head you pesky monkey!
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!
