The Queue: Advanced Draenei and Dinosaurs

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.

I said yesterday that today's Queue would have a dinosaur fact, so here goes:

Have you ever heard of Antrodemus? If you're not really into dinosaurs, you may not have. It was first discovered in 1869, based on a bone found in Colorado - the locals thought the quarry it had been found in contained fossil horse hooves due to its shape. In 1870 it was described first as a member of Poekilopleuron before it was decided that it in fact belonged in a separate and heretofore unknown genus, Antrodemus. The problem was, Antrodemus was described on the basis of an extremely uncertain find - the original geologist who sent it on to be identified got it second hand, and the specimens in question wasn't very good.

Meanwhile, in 1878, Othniel Charles Marsh, one of the big two of American paleontology at the time (the other being Edward Drinker Cope, his biggest rival - the two sponsored so many expeditions to the American West looking for dinosaur bones that people began killing each other over them) described a new family of dinosaurs that would come to be called the Allosauridae. It eventually became accepted that the Antrodemus fossils were the same as Marsh's Allosaurus, and so, Antrodemus should have taken priority as a name - and for many, it did, due in part to a paper in 1920 that pointed out that the tail vertebrae of the Antrodemus were identical to Allosaurus. But in the 1970's a paper by James Madsen made the case that Marsh's work on Allosaurus was much, much better than the work done on Antrodemus and that the Antrodemus specimens didn't even have a clear discovery location. So in the end, Allosaurus became the accepted name and no one uses Antrodemus anymore.

Even for a dinosaur, animals that have been long extinct, Antrodemus ended up potentially never having existed in the first place. And now, on to the Queue.

Orkchop asks:
What Barbarian skill do you wish Warriors had? Any Warrior skills you want on your Barbarian?

I'd really like Call of the Ancients for warriors - modify it so it summons racial ancients, so if you're an orc you get three orcs, a draenei gets three draenei, etc etc. As for warrior stuff, Diablo abilities tend to have more visual flair and punch than WoW abilities, and there are various similar ones - Seismic Slam is basically Shockwave, for instance. So I'd say no, most abilities I might want, Barbarians basically have. Barb WW is basically warrior WW and Bladestorm combined, but better than either, Barb's have leap and charge abilities, it's all basically there.

jpec07 asks:
Actually, with the big squish, the brick wall of gearing probably won't be as much of an issue as it used to be.

Though I do have a question on that vein: how will old raid progressions be affected by the squish? Meaning, if I get a level 100 to run me through BT on my 70 hunter, will the gear that drops for me be good enough to carry me higher into WotLK content than it otherwise would have?

Very likely, yes. It might carry you into Cataclysm, if you look at the chart for how gear will scale in Warlords. Item power will progress in a far more linear fashion than it does now, and so, items from Black Temple may be nearly identical with items from Wrath of the Lich King. I'm sure Wrath items will be better, but how much better is what we've yet to see.

Bullshot asks:
Since the Naaru are all about balance and the draenei revere the Naaru, if the Legion is sufficiently destroyed, will the Naaru ask the draenei to stop killing more of the Legion because there must be enough Darkness in the universe for the Light to exist and have meaning?

Short answer: no.
Long answer: no, because the naaru aren't 'all about balance' - they are balance, in a way. They embody balance. They have a cycle where they are beings of Light, and then they go into a cycle where they embody shadow This is no more a philosophical decision on their part than puberty was for you. It's a fact of their lives. Furthermore, the draenei attitude towards the naaru isn't as simple as reverence - the naaru are respected, admired, and emulated to a degree, but the draenei know that the naaru live and die, and the naaru have admitted that Velen has an ability they lack in his prophetic facilities.

As I mentioned yesterday, there are draenei who are far less interested in the spiritual side of these things as well. It's just not as simple as the naaru telling the draenei when to jump and the draenei responding with a query about the height of said jump. There are specific draenei working for specific organizations led by specific naaru (like the ones in Shadowmoon Valley besieging the Black Temple) but it's not a universal thing. Draenei are no more a monolithic hive mind than orcs or trolls are.

ScottLeyes asks:
Warrior Q:

I recently leveled a Prot Warrior to level 90. She's in Timeless Isle gear (plus a couple of Valor upgrades like the 522 neck), and she's gemmed and enchanted. So she's certainly over-geared for quest/daily content in pandaria.

My question is: How the heck do Warriors survive soloing anything?

Sure, i'm used to playing a Paladin as melee, and they have tons of self-healing. But my Warrior has none - unless she's fighting a group of mobs, when she can self-heal after a kill. Against an elite or soloing a boss, how is a warrior supposed to stay alive?

The warrior level 30 talent tier is based around three self-healing abilities you can choose to help you solo. Of these talents, Enraged Regeneration might be the most useful for stuff like fighting elites on the Timeless Isle, or you can take Impending Victory to be able to use a Victory Rush-like attack during an extended combat. Second Wind can be a bit weak in current content - it's fairly easily outdamaged by anything at level 90 - but it's an amazing soloing tool for older content.

In addition, on a prot warrior, you have Shield Block and Shield Barrier. If you have either the Tier 15 or Tier 16 2 piece set bonuses, just use Shield Block and/or Barrier and one of those set bonuses will keep you alive. It's true that without those set bonuses, protection warrior self healing lags far behind other tank classes, but it's not impossible to stay alive on a prot warrior. Far from it. If you can, even the LFR tier sets give these bonuses, and they're very helpful.

That being said, for most questing up to and including elites on the Timeless Island and most bosses up to Wrath of the Lich King raids, go fury. Stuff can't kill you if it's dead.

JohnEdwards asks:
Q for the Queue: I know that the Horde will be starting WoD in Frostfire Ridge and the Alliance start in Shadowmoon valley, but will those areas have questing/leveling content exclusive to those factions, or will Horde eventually quest in Shadowmoon and Alliance eventually quest in Frostfire?

As far as I understand it, these are intended as Horde and Alliance specific zones, but there could well be quests for them for the opposite faction later. We really won't know until the Beta.

And there's your Queue for this Friday. Remember, the next time you go look at a dinosaur fossil in a museum, there's a chance a dude got cold murdered over it.

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!