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The Queue: Feasting and Fishing
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Welcome back! Since yesterday's picture of Malygos was so awful, I decided to give up on his righteous beard and take a picture of his lightning breath instead. Yeah, see that up there? It hurts. It hurts a lot. Just trust me on that. Let's get into the Q&A now, eh?Goorguy asked...Why is it that tanks are always the group leaders? Why are we always expected to mark mobs? Every time I get in a group to tank for it I will always get thrown the leader. I don't really mind, but at least once I want to get in a group where someone else was willing to mark for me, instead of the other way around.
Ask A Beta Tester: Spirit, AoE, and raid loot
I'm going to start off this AABT by stealing a question that Alex actually took last time, mostly because I started laughing when I read it yesterday. I have, oh, conservatively, billions of Wrath screenshots on my hard drive at this point, but there's one I remember all too well.Marathan asks... Some time ago, there was a talk about new player character models for Wrath - and even some bugged pictures. So the question is, are they going live? Are we finally going to get improved graphics on our characters?As Alex wrote, Blizzard used one beta build to test the ease of implementing new skins and some of them...didn't turn out too well. Imagine you're me and you get a beta key. Budget a few hours of anticipatory excitement while your main copies over. She's a 70 Tauren Druid who has been with you since day one, your sole 70, and you think she's the most beautiful thing in the game even if to everyone else she's an ungainly 8-foot heifer. Now imagine booting up the Wrath beta for the first time and being horrified to see your beloved character with a Glasgow smile, like the developers had seen the Joker in The Dark Knight and thought, "Hey! We could make that work!"Holy water did nothing. Neither did crucifixes, garlic, a wooden stake, waving the Bible in the direction of the laptop, or sobbing quietly in a corner.On the plus side, here was finally something in the game to which Tauren cat form was an actual graphical improvement.
Ask a Beta Tester: Icecrown, quest rewards, and scary monsters
Good news! No corny jokes today! Just pure, delicious Ask a Beta Tester. Let's start with Actuality's question... When I first ran around TBC, the Fel Reaver scared the hell outta me. Ground shaking, crazily running everywhichwhere to get away. And the Draenei spiders still creep me out. But by and large the monsters now have a "ho hum" quality because I'm too used to them. My question is, are there any monsters in LK that will scare me or creep me out for at least a while?There are most certainly a bunch of those. There's a lot of "whoa, cool" mobs and "holy crap what the hell is that" mobs. My favorite is the geist (pictured above), and it sounds like a lot of our other readers adore that one as well. It has a very maniacal laugh when you aggro it. The Revenants are cool as hell, except for the Earth revenants which look like floating poo. I don't mean they look bad, I mean they actually look like poo. Also: Thrym in Zul'Drak. I won't tell you what he is or what he looks like, but you'll know him when you see him. Just remember the name Thrym. There's plenty of other cool/freaky models in Wrath, too many to name, so yes. There are monsters that will scare you and/or creep you out.
Skill Mastery: Berserk
Berserk, the new 51-point talent in the Druid's Feral tree is...what day is it? Thursday? They change it a lot. Anyway, the talent originally combined elements of The Beast Within with Last Stand, but they've disengaged the +health component and made it a separate talent entitled Survival Instinct. The talent that remains affects both Bear and Cat form and does the following: Mangle (Bear) will automatically hit up to 3 targets and is spammable (i.e. no cooldown) Cat form abilities cost 50% less energy Breaks Fear and makes you immune for the duration of Berserk Berserk lasts for 15 seconds and Tiger's Fury is unusable while it's active, at least in the talent's current form. But odds are pretty good you'll be too busy rolling your face across the keyboard and shouting, "Faster, pussycat! Kill! Kill!!" to notice this.
Breakfast Topic: Resurrecting old events
The upcoming patch 3.02 looks like it has a formal name now -- "Echoes of Doom," according to the EU site -- and players have wondered for a while whether Blizzard is going to bring back the Scourge Invasion event. This was an event that went live with the introduction of the original 40-man Naxxramas in patch 1.11 and saw Scourge troops appear all over Azeroth and even within major cities. It was one of Blizzard's early experiments programming world content that could be directly affected by players (in a roundabout way you can trace the underlying philosophy behind phasing to the success of events like these), and was a huge hit that's left players inquiring on the likelihood of its reappearance ever since.As a player who started after Burning Crusade launched, I have to admit I would love the chance to see this, if for no other reason than having a shot at getting my main the rather good-looking Tabard of the Argent Dawn. But, cool tabard or not, the event is pretty thematically consistent with the content being released in Wrath of the Lich King, and the 3.02 patch is expressly meant to transition players into the expansion as seamlessly as possible. You could argue that Blizzard's never going to get a more opportune or relevant time to marshal the undead NPC's, but you could counter by pointing out that redeploying content originally meant to be a unique event diminishes its impact a tad. If it were re-programmed with additional exapansion-related content? Maybe, although I get the feeling the developers may be somewhat occupied at the moment. Either way, is there any obligation on Blizzard's part to try to re-run old content for the benefit of newer players?
Ask a Beta Tester: Raids, rare mobs, and more raids
We've had a lot of class-specific questions lately (especially Hunters) here on Ask a Beta Tester, but since I don't play every class, I can't answer all of those. However, I've forwarded some of them on to our motley crew of bloggers, so we'll hopefully be able to answer you soon. Until then, let's get started on some other things, shall we?Robert M asked a pair of questions...Is there going to a difference in the number of badges the same boss drops in the 10 man and the 25 man?There isn't a difference in the number, no. However, there is a difference in the type of badge. The 10 and 25 man loot is tiered, and the 10 and 25 man badge loot is tiered in a similar way. The badge loot you can get from grinding 10-mans is not the same as grinding 25-mans.Will you be saved to a raid in the 10 man and not be able to do the 25 man that week? it seems like a 25 man geared toon could help the guild in the 10 if its a slow week or some of the raid members have a RL issue.The 10 and 25 man raids have separate raid IDs, so doing them both in one week won't be an issue.Read on for more answers to your questions!
PvE winners and losers in patch 3.0
I'm putting together a class-by-class prediction post on how the changes we'll see in patch 3.0 and beyond will wind up affecting PvE gameplay in Wrath, but it's probably a bit premature to make specific guesses while talents and skills are still being overhauled in the beta. Still, I think a few general trends (at least for 3.0) are pretty clear.I'm calling it now; Paladins will fare best, but Shamans will be the hardest hit by the upcoming changes, especially with respect to raiding. I think this change is driven in no small part by Blizzard's realization that Sunwell-level raid guilds are hugely dependent on the party-specific buffs like totems and Heroism/Bloodlust that Shamans bring. The problem is that Shamans are still the least-played class, which has left raiding guilds desperate for a high-end population of Shamans that simply does not exist (especially Alliance-side). Making Shaman totems and Heroism/Bloodlust buff the entire raid (but heavily nerfing how often the raid can benefit from the latter) means the days of stacking Shamans (or trying to) are effectively over.Paladin changes, especially for holy and retribution, are equally driven by Blizzard's experience with Sunwell. With absolutely breathtaking amounts of raid damage occurring, encounters were disproportionately weighted in favor of: a). healers with more raid-healing capacity, like resto Shamans and CoH Priests (something we heard from SK Gaming months ago) and b). DPS who brought raid-wide DPS buffs to kill the boss as fast as possible (e.g. Retribution Paladins on Brutallus and M'uru). Given the new skills I'm seeing on other healing specs, I'll make another prediction; prepare to see that same level of raid damage rear its ugly head in Naxxramas again.I'll be launching a more extensive prediction post once talents and skills are finalized for Wrath, and then I'd like to do a follow-up post at some point after guilds start conquering level 80 raid content to see whether they were any good.
Naxx-10 loot discovered
The ten-man version of Naxxramas was enabled in last night's beta patch, including loot. And thanks to insomniac beta testers and to MMO-Champion, we now get to see a whole bunch of that loot, including class sets, which is what I'm most interested in at the moment. The class sets aren't quite finished yet – their names are things like "Naxxramas 10 Rogue Set," and there aren't any set bonuses – but it's still interesting to see what sort of stats Blizz is planning on giving us. Some observations: The item level on all this stuff is 200; Kil'jaeden's drops are ilvl 164. Given that two tiers are typically about 14 ilvls apart, this implies that when we see Naxx-25 loot it will probably be ilvl 214 or so. I know that we've got spell power now, and no +healing, but it still took me a few minutes to figure out why I couldn't find a healing weapon. Melee one-handed weapons are doing 143 DPS; by comparison, Hand of the Deceiver, from Kil'jaeden, does 114 (the highest currently available in a one-handed weaopn). I don't like to see items with shield block on them that aren't shields (Deflection Band, Waistguard of the Tutor), since only half of the tanks can use them. There's an oddly large amount of crit rating on the Priest healing set. Is this a consequence of some change I haven't quite digested yet? Anyway, this all looks good; go look at the items yourself at MMO-Champion. I can't wait to see what they're going to do with tokens, and to see some of the Naxx-25 stuff start to drop.
Bornakk clarifies Achievements and Feats of Strength
Bornakk drops some serious knowledge about the difference between Achievements and Feats of Strength (both of which, apparently, are showing up as of patch 3.0). Achievements grant points, and are apparently things that you can accomplish in the game while they're given out -- if there is an achievement on the list, you can earn it. But Feats of Strength are different; not only do they not give points, but "some of them may no longer be possible to do." So Feats of Strength may include things like opening the AQ gates, and so on. The good news is that if there's an Achievement for something in the game, Blizzard will make sure that it's possible to jump through the hoops you need to do it.But the bad news is that there's really no way to know whether you'll get credit for either Achievements or Feats of Strength until the system shows up on the live realms. As we've heard, Blizzard is going to try to be as retroactive as possible -- they'll be looking at quests and maybe even equipment to determine who's killed which boss in the past. But nothing, as Bornakk says, is guaranteed -- you may get one achievement for an old boss, but you may need to redo another old boss again.There's one more great thing coming out of all of this as well -- hopefully, Achievements and Feats of Strength both will drive traffic back to the old content, and people who've never run Naxx or AQ, for example, will be able to find regular groups for "Achievement runs." Even people who've already downed the content will want to do back if their Feats of Strength don't register, so lots of people who didn't should have new chances to see it.
Ask a Beta Tester: Gold, Atiesh, and Mr. Tirion Fordring
See what I go through to get you the juiciest beta information? That's three sharks I'm fighting off, all for you! Those things are vicious... but they were clearly have not been reading the beta forums, because they had no idea how overpowered Paladins are right now. But enough chatter: time for your questions! Hoops asked.... How much gold roughly would you get from questing 70-77 (until you unlock the flying mount)? I was wondering if it would it be worth farming money beforehand or would the money from questing be enough. I'm not 77 yet, so I can't exactly address the question as asked, but I can tell you that I've made about 400g leveling from 70 to 72. That's just from questing, vendoring trash & unneeded greens -- and it includes some stupid deaths, plenty of repair bills(I blame Dalaran for many of them!) , and training a couple of professions (35g to train a primary profession to the next skill level and 100g to train a secondary profession to the next skill level). For more on money-making in Wrath -- and other questions! -- read on! But if you're the sort who wants to avoid spoilers, turn back now. We're aiming to avoid major story spoilers, but this feature is all about beta content and we can't talk about the beta without giving things away here and there.
Scholomance to be revisited?
Everybody's favorite trash bin, Scholomance, might be getting a revisit by Blizzard. Late last week, CM Wryxian posted on the WoW Europe forums asking players for their thoughts on the expansion, and since then, people have given it a general thumbs up -- while Scholo has always had issues with too much trash in too cramped quarters (in fact, it was already revamped a few times to be tuned down -- it used to be a 10 man raid equal in difficulty to UBRS), players still frequent it, and they have really enjoyed the fact that it was a branching dungeon that had some pretty cool lore associated with it -- the story of Darkmaster Gandling and his school of Necromancy (and all the hot teachers there) is a good one.Of course, what Blizzard might do with the instance, we have no idea -- at this point, it's soloable at 70, but it still does provide a great source of Argent Dawn rep, and there are actually a few epics dropping in there now. Maybe they'll revamp it like Naxx, or it'll be the first "old world" instance to be given a Heroic setting? Or maybe Blizzard is asking players what they think about the instance because they're thinking of cutting it -- in order to introduce some new leveling content in the Plaguelands. The fact that they're asking about it at all means that there must be something in store for Gandling's old school, but what that is, we have no idea.
Blizzcast episode 3: Dungeons and raids edition
The long-awaited third episode of Blizzcast, Blizzard's official podcast, has just gone live. Blizzard's US web sites are still down, but you can listen to it and read the transcript on the European site. As usual, since this is a Blizzard podcast and not a WoW-specific one, they spend some time covering the Starcraft universe as well, including an interview with Dustin Browder, SC2 lead designer, which I won't cover (good material on Zergs though). But later they brought in Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan, WoW lead designer for dungeons and raids, and here's what I found interesting in his segment: The original WoW raids were too hardcore early on; in BC they eased up on that and they hope to continue this in Wrath. Lessons learned in BC: Heroic loot needs to be definitely better than normal-mode loot Introductory raids need to be more friendly – he says "I don't want to say to casual players, but a little bit more accessible to people in general." Cites Maulgar and Mags as examples of less-than-friendly intro raids. How to itemize raid content vs. other content
Is it really OK for Arthas to be 10-mannable?
So one of the most exciting announcements from the recent flurry of news about WoTLK, at least from my point of view, is the that there will be 10-man and 25-man versions of every raid. Think about that for a moment. Yeah, that's right. That means that you and 9 other friends will be able to scale the heights of Icecrown Glacier and topple Arthas himself from his frigid throne. This has more than a few people worried.
Bornakk hints that Tier 3 might be removed from the game
With solid confirmation that Naxx will be "floating" off to Northrend (and not exist in two places at once) also comes a strong hint by Bornakk that they will be removing the ability to get Tier-3 armor pieces along with the rest of the current Naxx loot. Bornakk says that "For players who want the look and the stats of tier 3 armor at level 80, hopefully they are already farming the dungeon for them." This is a very strong indication that post WotLK, the current Tier 3 gear will be no longer available.Before today it has been pure speculation that this removal of loot would or would not happen. The only time that the WoW Insider staff can think of this happening before (save for the holiday and special events) is with a few old mount models getting changed. And that is nothing compared to entire loot tables being removed from the game. Note that the changes in patch 2.3 to old world loot were just that – changes, not removal.In many ways this removal does make since, given that the armor models will be reused in Wrath of the Lich King's version of Naxx. While there is similar looking and colored gear floating around WoW, none of it is really twenty levels apart and powerful each in their own right.However with that said, the removal of items from the game like this stirs a mixed reaction in me.
Naxx will be entry level raid dungeon in WotLK
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Naxx_will_be_entry_level_raid_dungeon_in_WotLK'; Bornakk, who apparently looks like Abe Lincoln, has revealed that Naxx will be an "entry level raid dungeon" in Wrath of the Lich King, and EU CM Vaneras adds that unlike Kael'thas (who exists in two places at once ingame), it will be moving whole hog up to Northrend -- the 40 man dungeon that we have now will no longer exist.Very interesting. Unfortunately, we're not quite clear on what "entry level" means -- it seems unlikely that Naxx would be a level 71 dungeon (or that there will be any "raid dungeons" before level 80 at all). And the fact that he uses the word "raid" definitely means it's either 10 or 25man, then, though whether it will be the new Karazhan or Gruul remains to be seen. Bornakk also says that attunement isn't solidified yet -- a lot of players are hoping that all that Argent Dawn rep doesn't go to waste, but he says it's a matter of balancing "special quest lines" with opening up content to many players.Finally, the Ashbringer gets a mention -- apparently it will be discussed in the next Blizzcast. It's great to finally be hearing some official information about Wrath of the Lich King, vague as it may be. Hopefully there's lots more to come, sooner rather than later. %Gallery-20386% Check out more information on WoW's upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, including Blizzard's recent interview about Northrend and the new creatures that infest of Northrend.
Patch 2.4: Hyjal and Black Temple attunements removed
Blizzard announced the following important four lines in their 2.4 Patch Notes: Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter Hyjal. Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter the Black Temple. Players who have completed the attunement quests for Black Temple and Hyjal will be granted the title of "Hand of A'dal". You may now fight Prince Kael'thas and Lady Vashj without first killing all the other bosses in their respective dungeons. I have to say, despite the difficulty of Vashj and Kael'Thas, I am quite surprised to find that Blizzard has removed the attunement requirements from Patch 2.4. Naxx, Blackwing Lair, and even Molten Core still require people to become attuned. Now seemingly, two of the hardest and most revered raids do not. While the removal of the attunement is obviously a way to get more people to see their new raid zone, the Sunwell Plateau, all is not golden. Many, many, many raiding guilds and players who have already made the brutal trek through Vashj and Kael will be quite upset. On the other hand players who are not yet able to, but perhaps ready for, the first few bosses of MH and BT, will undoubtedly rejoice.What are your opinions of this change? How do you think it will affect the raiding landscape?
Gearchecking the expansion
After reading yesterday that Bornakk confirmed a "gear reset" (which is not actually a reset-- more on that in a sec), reader John had an interesting thought about using current high-level instances (Hyjal and BT) to attune players for future high level instances, so that neither the gear or the content would go unused. Which is kind of happening already-- it's all but confirmed that Naxx will be repurposed in the next expansion. But that just suggested something else to me: what if, rather than worrying about a "gear reset." Blizzard actually made the current endgame mandatory for entry into Northrend? What if you couldn't move on without doing all the current content?That would ensure that you got the use you needed out of the gear you had now, and it would also make sure that everyone coming through saw everything-- your guild would have to down Archimonde to enter into the next 10 levels.Now, it's pretty clear that won't happen, because Blizzard is much, much more inclined to make things more open rather than put more requirements on their new content. But you have to admit that it would solve the problem-- either run and experience the content, or don't move on.Finally, other readers did note one more thing about the "gear reset" and that's that it's not actually a reset at all-- much of the highest level gear won't be replaced for quite a while (I was still wearing my Tier 2 helm when I hit 69, and people wearing full T6 right now likely will keep their gear even through the starting quests in WotLK). But that still doesn't change the fact that Blizzard is basically running two gear paths here-- either fight in the raids for the high-level armor now, or just pick it up later when you enter Northrend.
World events and how to run them
There's a discussion going down on the forums about what many consider to be the most exciting part of MMO games, including World of Warcraft-- world events. As many drawbacks as there were to the AQ events, no one can argue that they didn't affect everyone in the World-- everyone was able to step up and help the war effort, and even though everyone didn't fit in Silithus, everyone came across some of the invaders that spread across the world. While the Naxx event was that way as well, we haven't really seen anything else on that scale even in this, the largest MMO ever. And let's not forget that since Burning Crusade was released, we're dealing with a lot more people-- there are huge amounts of the population who have never seen a world event yet.Which makes it all the more likely that we will see a big one for Wrath of the Lich King. Bornakk says that while Blizzard realizes that a lot needs to go into creating a big world event, they've also learned a lot from Brewfest and the Hallow's End events about how to both tune the scale and get players involved. But Blizzard still wants to do a big one, and from what we heard at BlizzCon, they're going to come up with a reason for Alliance and Horde to head up to Northrend after Arthas.My guess? Arthas is going to become a threat again-- he'll invade Undercity, or bomb Darnassus, or somehow attack our world. And for the first time that I can think of since the game has started, we're going to actually lose something-- an NPC, a city (at the very least, Dalaran) or something else. For all of the fighting going on in the world of Warcraft, it hasn't yet changed that much. And I think that with the next expansion, Blizzard is looking to have Arthas shake things up a bit.
Atiesh and the new Naxx
Considering that Kel'Thuzad is basically "the boss of shipping WoW" (according to Metzen at BlizzCon), then Atiesh, the Legendary caster item that once belonged to Medivh, is the greatest item in levels 1-60. But we're at level 70 now, and when we get to level 80, Atiesh, a Legendary item, might end up looking more like a stick than anything else. So Asheen asks, knowing that Naxx is set to be "repurposed" for our trip to Northrend: will Atiesh make a return?It's a cool idea. Bornakk says, "Maybe." There are a few tangles in the plan: currently, Atiesh requires a trip to C'thun in AQ to get the base (I believe because Brann Bronzebeard put it there), which is a 40 man raid that most guilds don't want to bother with. And of course the stats would need some updating-- it's a nice staff, but not exactly a Legendary level 80 any more. And finally, the staff provides a portal to Karazhan, and at level 80, will that really be as amazing as it used to be?Bornakk also says the lore needs to be set in place, but that's a copout-- Blizzard can do whatever they want (what if the Kirin Tor decided to repurpose Atiesh and combined it with a new base that didn't need to come from AQ40?). But the biggest issue with bringing back Atiesh is that there's so many other good items that could just replace it. Medivh's staff is hardly the most important item in the game any more, and as Bornakk points out, even though Medivh had great power, it didn't necessarily all come from his staff.I can't wait to see Naxx's new purpose in WotLK, but there are too many old items floating around for Blizzard to worry about updating. I'd rather see new legendaries, and maybe even some artifacts, come out of the new Naxx and Northrend.
40 men on a raid
Kavis wonders if he's the only person who wants 40 man raids back. I'm sure he's not the only person, but I'd bet he's in the minority. Forty man raids may sound super fun in theory, but in practice they are pretty miserable-- it's hell to coordinate the schedules of 40 people on a regular basis, and then it's even worse to actually get them to line up on time and do what needs to be done. I don't know if Kavis ever actually ran Molten Core or BWL or Naxx, but while 40 man raids were fun while they lasted, 10 and 25 man raids are much, much easier on raidleaders and guildies alike.As Bornakk says, the devs love 25 man raids too-- since 40 man raids could be carried by about 25 good players anyway, it makes things much easier for everyone, in terms of individual contributions.Now, if Kavis is asking to return to the 40 man content, I'm completely down with that. BWL, AQ, and Naxx were fun to go through when you had a good group rolling (as rare as that was), and the content there shouldn't be abandoned (Naxx, we already know, is likely being repurposed in WotLK). But as for a return to the days of trying to get 40 people together for five hours on a Sunday evening? No thanks.
