The Queue: Dancing gifs, dinosaurs, bulky plate armor

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.

Let's talk about the Maniraptora. For one thing, the Maniraptora is a very large clade, including various subgroups, one of which is the birds - this means that the Maniraptora is the only surviving clade of dinosaurs, since all bird species are included within it. In addition to birds, the segnosaurs, the various raptor species (Dromaeosauridae) and the Oviraptorosauria were all members of the Maniraptora. It's almost certain that all members of the Maniraptora (indeed, possibly all Coelurosauria) were feathered, with body plans and bone structures we would find convincingly bird-like.

In case you are wondering this is why I'm so bloody annoyed that in 2015 we're going to have another Jurassic Park sequel with featherless raptors. Similarly, WoW raptors just irk me now. Put some damn feathers on them! They had feathers. I get that people refuse to accept that T-Rex had feathers (although it did) but the Maniraptora were even more ludicrously birdlike than that, because they literally are birds and all dinosaurs closely related to birds. If your movie has any member of the Dromaeosauridae in it, and they're not feathered, your movie is wrong. Same for games, same for any media. They had feathers.

HemttTanker asks:
Two questions: Does the 2 week timer for Highmaul follower missions start when the mission first becomes available or when the mission is attempted?

If I have a Highmaul follower mission sitting in my queue and I go kill enough raid bosses to quality for the next tier of reward, does the mission I have upgrade or does that only apply to the next one two weeks later?

As far as I'm aware it acts like any timer, it resets based on server time. If you keep that follower mission sitting in your queue and then unlock another tier of reward, it'll apply when the mission resets in two weeks. I admit that I may be misunderstanding how this timer works, but this is my current understanding.

Literally everyone in the universe put a dancing gif in the Queue yesterday
There's no question to answer here, I just thought I'd point it out. Keep in mind I have to sit down and go through all this stuff. So if the answers start getting weird, you have no one to blame but yourselves.

Chrth asks:
Question for tomorrow's Rossi Queue:
What is the biggest, bulkiest plate armor and weapon to get for a gnome warrior?

If we're talking warrior specific armor, you're not going to find much bulkier than Tier 6 Onslaught. Keep in mind, on a gnome most armor shrinks in proportions (especially the shoulders) but the helmets are exaggerated in comparison to, say, a human or orc. While for many races the shoulders provide the biggest visual heft to the set, on a gnome, it's the helmet, and Onslaught has that huge faceguard.

As for weapons, for a 2h, here's a gnome dual wielding Armageddon. It beats even Ashkandi for 'ridiculously oversized' in a gnome's hands. It would dig four foot furrows in the ground behind them when sheathed. For a 1h? I'm fond of King's Defender.

Captain Cakewalk asks:
Q4tQ: Why do Blizzard make such amazing armour / weapons and then bind them to a life of NPC use only? My favourite one is currently this: I know there are other ones which look as good / similar but I would so love to get access to this and a plethora of other pieces which I have seen on my travels.

This has bothered me for years. There's a greatsword that certain mobs in Ulduar get to use, it's awesome and I've wanted it forever, but it's a monster only model - it's not available for any player. I assume the goal is to make the NPC distinctive, so that it stands out and is memorable, but it's bothered me forever. I want that sword. Oh, I want it so very very much. It's crazy how much I want that sword.

I've longed for them to add some functionality to transmog that let us steal looks from NPC's for this very reason.

Zadji asks:
Has anyone ever rolled a race/class combination that seemed unnatural after playing it for a while? For example, when Goblins were first playable, I thought about rolling a shaman. At least twice, I got through the design screen and was about to hit the character create button and just couldn't do it. I could picture the Goblin annoying the elements but not commanding or working with them.

Short answer to play to my stereotypical image - Anything that wasn't a warrior.

Actual answer for people who get that I'm not quite that one-note - I felt exceedingly odd playing an orc mage. Just... what? Seriously, what? Book learning orcs? How does orc mage even work? Who was the first orc who said Naah, the elements are too demanding and warlock magic is too evil, what I've got a hankering for is to sit down in a library and read for a while. It doesn't help that orc mages still have the ludicrously hypertrophic build of every other orc, which is the same problem I have with human mages but even worse. Human mages look like they went to Hogwarts on a rugby scholarship, but orc mages look like NFL players shooting magic into the darkness at a LARP.

What I'm saying is, please give us body sliders.

I am not Santa
It came up, I just wanted to be clear about it.

ofb2632 asks:
Will there be a time when you will be able to either create a 'guild garrison' or combine all the garrisons of individual guildies into one major compound?

They haven't announced anything even remotely like that. I won't rule it out - its their game, they can decide to do whatever at any time - but right now, there's absolutely nothing from Blizzard about this coming.

BaronOfTheLake asks:
Technical question of sorts: If you are server transferring and faction switching a character, do you have to pay for both? Or can you get a bundle deal?

You can pay for both transactions at once and have it all available as soon as its completed, but you don't get a price discount for it (and keep in mind, I've gone Alliance to Horde and Horde to Alliance on different servers several times now), it's just for convenience.

HerrKlokbot asks:
Qftq: I've had Lantresor in my mine for two months now, or there about. Do you think it's time to let him see daylight again?

He's often telling me that he's ready for something new. Honestly, I don't actually need the extra ore or stone. Besides, he haven't actually done anything to earn my wrath - aside from being an orc, I mean - and it does feel a bit ... well ... unholy, to keep him down there, in darkness, with the Old God-worshipping air swimming miners and hungry goren.

I'm starting to get worried that the entire actual purpose of Warlords of Draenor was to get us to like and trust NPC's so much that we wouldn't be willing or able to do horrible things to them anymore, like exploit them for a minor benefit or even kill them for loot.

That's the Queue for this Friday. Here's a picture of Sasquatch. It's not a dancing gif, and for that I sincerely apologize.

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!