q-and-a
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Faction Changes Q&A
Perhaps the biggest news in the past week -- aside from 'Cataclysm', that is -- hasn't been Patch 3.2 itself but a service Blizzard has apparently been working on for some time. Paid faction changes. We received quite a number of tips about it and even saw our story make a cameo on Attack of the Show. Players have been asking for something like this for a while, and there have been incidents of entire guilds rerolling from scratch to defect.Of course, with the shocking news comes a lot of questions, so Nethaera hops on over to the forums and answered a few concerns that players had. The biggest bummer for me was that I couldn't change race within my own faction! So... let me get this straight... I can change faction and become a totally different race but I can't swap my Blood Elf Death Knight into an Orc? Blasphemy! Unfortunately Blizzard doesn't think choice of race isn't something you can regret unlike faction choice. Anyway, more answers after the jump...
Class Q&A: Mage
Second up in the class Q&A (Shamans were first) are Mages, those lovable glass cannons. Or are they? The Q&A opens with Ghostcrawler discussing public perception of the class, with a prompt of "a lot has changed since the days when the 'glass cannon' description was applied." General GC describes the mage as "the iconic caster:" deals magic damage from range. They should be versatile enough to do single-target damage, AoE damage, and crowd control, and every group should want one. (I'm noticing a trend here -- GC also described Shamans as a class every group should want. I guess every group should want all classes.) They like the different feel between the three trees is in a good place, with Frostfire possibly providing a fourth aesthetic. They have decided that "king of AoE" is no longer a good niche to put any class in, so now they're trying to give both AoE and single-target to all DPS specs (with "extra effort" to make sure mages do good AoE).
Encrypted Text: Everything but Vanish
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we talk about what's up next for the Rogue class. Hopefully, nothing!While I don't have any official numbers, I think it's easy to say that Rogues are the class that sees the most complaints from others. Crying about Death Knights has been en vogue recently, but we've still got years of threads calling for the complete and utter downfall of every assassin. While all of this negative press has resulted in a few nerfs that nobody was happy with, it seems that Blizzard has chosen to rise above the noise and ensure our slot at the top of both the DPS meters and PvP representation charts.We went through a spell as the least-played class of WotLK: a level that Rogues had never even approached previously. We were largely middle-of-the-pack in PvE and PvP, with HAT exploits and Glyphed Vigor + Overkill + Mutilate combos barely sustaining us. However, Blizzard heard our cries for a resurrection, and we were reborn in patch 3.1. With the newly minted PPM Poison mechanics adding gobs of nature damage to every spec, and the redesigned Combat tree breathing life into the raiding scene, we're sitting pretty as the #1 DPS class in both Ulduar and the arena. The question that's on my mind now: "What next?"
The Queue: Buzz buzz
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Today's edition of The Queue is a pretty short one, but it's an important one. I'm making a change to the format of this column, which will be explained in our very first question of the day. Why is it so short? When you read the answer to the question, you'll understand. I just ran out of steam after pulling that off. elstor asked... "What's with the music lately? Why did you have to start this?!" It's something we did for giggles once, people liked it, we kept doing it just for kicks. I'm pretty bored of it though! We should pick a new Whatever of the Day instead of songs. Extreme Stunt of the Day?Read this edition of The Queue while doing a kickflip out of a burning building and through the moving blades of a helicopter, then land in the middle of the ocean where you will wrestle a shark. While covered in bees.
Class Q&A: Shaman questions answered
The first answer post from the class Q&A series is up! 6:30 PM on a Tuesday night is not exactly when I expected this to drop, but I'm not complaining, and neither are most shamans, I expect. 4,400 words from the devs answering the community's questions is always nice. I've summarized the major points below; my summary may seem long, but it is only 20% of the original post. As of Wrath, the goal is for all three Shaman trees to be viable in end-game raiding, and for Shaman DPS to be not necessarily quite as high as pure classes, but close; the goal is that "no raid worth its salt would turn down" any shaman out of concerns that the class is underpowered. They do think Shamans are a bit underpowered in PvP, especially smaller Arenas, and view that as a problem. They mention particularly wanting to improve Shaman performance on 2v2s.
The Queue: The roof, the roof
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I've received a load of e-mails, tweets, whispers, and whatever else since Eliah posted this past weekend's WRUP. Yes, my garage burned down. No, nobody was hurt. No, the house didn't burn down, the siding just melted a little. No, that wasn't my car, it was my neighbor's car. Yes, my office has smelled like someone barbequeing since it happened and I can't get the smell to go away. I appreciate the concern, guys. You are all awesome. I guess I should pick a relevant Song of the Day, huh? How about Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire?Jack Spicer asked..."With each expansion Blizzard seems to be bringing underused talent specs around and making them highly desirable. In TBC, it seemed to be Feral Druids, Prot Pallies, Shadow Priests and BM Hunters. In Wrath, they really brought up Survival Hunters and Retribution Pallies.But I'm curious. From a PvE perspective, which talent trees are still universally lacking and laughable?"
The Queue: Minnie the Moocher
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.I'm not much of a Jazz person, so when I set out to counter the John Coltrane that Adam used in The Queue yesterday, I was a little worried. Fortunately, while digging through my music collection to find something useful, I remembered that I had a trump card up my sleeves. Old Betty Boop cartoons, some of the most disturbing things you will ever see in your life. All of the best ones come packed with some incredibly old school Jazz. Now, some candy for your eyes and ears: Cab Calloway's Minnie the Moocher in a Betty Boop cartoon.Docp asked..."What happened to the Hunter column, Scattered Shots?"I'm glad you asked! It just made its glorious comeback yesterday, with a brand new writer that some of you may recognize. Go give the latest Scattered Shots a read.
Blizz wants your class questions
Blizzard gets more and more communicative every week recently. I love it. They recently announced that they're seeking questions for a community question and answer series, with a separate thread for each class. They'll be going through the class threads in order, answering questions and generally being awesome (one hopes). Afterwards everything will be gathered into one big blue pile of answers and presented to the community. Nethaera is going to be the organizer of this little event, it seems. She warns us that it is "probably going to be a couple of weeks" before we start getting answers, because they want to give sufficient time for WoW players around the world to get their questions in. She also says she's going to try to get "the most prominent questions" answered, as well as questions that have been around for a long time without being addressed. This is a great time to get your class questions and concerns addressed, so if you have anything you've always wanted to ask a dev, go find the Q&A thread for your class (in your class forum) and post away.
Meet the Team: Lemuel Pew
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com?I'm a webcartoonist, I draw the weekly Massively feature, Grinders. That's pretty much the full and half of it. What is your favourite MMO?City of Heroes, hands down. I've played most of the MMOs that have come to market since EverQuest, looking for the Next Big Thing, and I didn't even realize I had found it until I was on my third year of playing City. I'm still going strong. The game has enough variety to entertain my short attention span, the gameplay, while unarguably repetitive, has a rhythm that really entertains and relaxes me, no matter what role on a team I'm playing. I never was a fan for loot ("Judge a toon not by the color of their armor, but the content of their attributes."), I blame this mostly on not growing up on Dungeons & Dragons. I'd rather spend points on stats behind the scenes than wear a hand-me-down piece of clothing from a corpse... seriously, am I the only person bothered by that?%Gallery-33889%
The Queue: Left 4 Cheesehead
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.I was horrified to find endless amounts of Wisconsin hate in the comments of yesterday's edition of The Queue. Come on, Wisconsin rules! Well, no, the few bubbles of real civilization in Wisconsin rule. Milwaukee, Madison, and maybe (maybe) the Green Bay area. Everything in between those points are like something out of a horror movie. In transit from Milwaukee to Madison, all of the passengers in the car keep their eyes squeezed shut while the driver breaks out in a cold sweat. Packers fans fling themselves at your vehicle like the undead, crying out for your blood and pounding their fists on your windows. The only thing that you can do, the only thing you want to do, is keep driving.Milwaukee, though? Totally rules.aw232 asked..."I'm starting to think that there won't be a raid included in 3.2. I've heard about a new battleground, an expansion of the argent tournament but nothing about a new raid. Is there any confirmation or denial on if there will be a new raid before Icecrown?"
The Queue: Acronymification, FWIW
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.The last few editions of The Queue had a lot about tanking, and deciding which Heroic is the best Heroic to tank your first time around. Adam said Utgarde Pinnacle was a good training ground, and his opinion was thoroughly stomped upon for being wrong. I have to say, though... Utgarde Pinnacle was my first Wrath heroic as a tank and it worked pretty well. I did a lot of tanking in The Burning Crusade so maybe I'm a little different since I already knew what I was doing, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it's made out to be. Mobs in Utgarde Pinnacle hit really hard, and it taught me to get back into the habit of using my cooldowns properly and not relying completely on my healer to keep me standing.I won't say Adam was right, but I also won't say he was wrong. Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle and Heroic CoT: Stratholme are the two dungeons that taught me the most about tanking. Teaching myself to remember to use my own cooldowns and mitigation abilities, learning how to pace a group and keep them moving, relearning how to handle different types of mobs. They were a challenge, oh yes, but that's why I learned so much from them. Easier heroics like Violet Hold didn't teach me to do much because you basically nap through the thing. Then again, I am sort of a 'trial by fire' kind of guy. I need to die a few times to figure out whether I'm capable of something or not.CallMeIrd asked.."Are they going to change or remove the School of Hard Knocks achievements? It's pretty much impossible for a lot of players to achieve."
The Queue: Raid goes up, boss goes down
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.I was going to follow up Adam's cute cat picture with a picture of my own pets, but since my landlord doesn't let me have any, I figure you're not interested in pictures of my roomba. It's quite cute in person, but unfortunately it comes across as a bit lifeless in pictures. It's a bit camera shy.jet242 asked..."I was wondering whats the best way to make money off of copious amounts of cloth, I have around 600 pieces of Frostweave sitting in the bank."
The Queue: Rested
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Good afternoon, folks. I want to take a second to apologize for The Queue's absence the last couple of days. Patch days pretty much murder Adam and I, so we set this thing aside for a couple of days. We're much less busy now though, so it should be back on schedule!thatoneguy asked... "So is the Argent Tournament a one time thing or is it going to keep coming back? I'm kinda worried i'll miss it if I reroll with a friend."
The Queue: There are no Roombas in Azeroth
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Good afternoon, everyone. I have a very important question for all of you. Recently, I purchased a Roomba. I'm not allowed to have pets where I live, so a little robot that makes chirping noises and cleans the house for me will have to do. There's only one problem: We need to name it. My girlfriend and I each picked our preferred names. Help us decide, o readers! Name that Roomba! Oh right, and we have some of our usual Q&A after that, too.%Poll-28871%yossarian asked..."Can Death Knights use Runeforging on BoA Heirloom weapons? I'd love to level my DK with an Arcanite Reaper lookalike, but it may not be worth giving up Runeforging. If not, are there plans to "fix" this so that Runeforge enchants don't transfer along with the item?"
The Queue: Horsewhipping
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Afternoon, ladies and gents. I have a follow up from yesterday's question regarding casinos, with further information straight from Ancilorn, a Community Representative over in the EU. Hopefully he doesn't end up getting horsewhipped for a fortnight over it like the last few Blue posters that decided to write to us!Ancilorn says that, essentially, casinos that take an up front entry fee (whether it be gold or items) are against the Terms of Use and will result in action being taken on the casino owner. Casinos and competitions that do not require an upfront fee are legal and legit. Collecting an entry free is the violation here.Now we know! Thank you very much, Ancilorn. You are my hero.enthusedii asked... "When the new Arena season arrives, will the arena points I have currently be reset?"
Ask a Lore Nerd: Fallout
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week blogger and columnist Alex Ziebart answers your questions about the lore and history of the World of Warcraft. Ask your questions in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer it in a future edition. I apologize for the grim picture accompanying today's column, but I found it fitting. You know, even if it does have an artificial grain filter thrown over it to make it extra creepy. Chernobyl is creepy enough as it is without the filter, but I happened to like this particular shot. It's relevant, too! I promise!Sal asked..."Why don't the level 80 gnomes take back their home and clean up the toxic in it? We're able to run through at level 24 or so and clear the place, but a bunch of level 80's can't?"
The Queue: Casinos? In my WoW?
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.If you've been reading The Queue for awhile, you'd know that Adam Holisky and I were taking turns writing this thing each day, but he's been sparse lately. Before we get started today, I just wanted to stop and let you guys know that he's okay, he's alive, but the flooding in his hometown of Fargo has gotten pretty ridiculous. He's been documenting the Fargo Flood on his personal blog the whole way through, so if you're interested, give it a gander.If you have friends or family in the area, or simply want to lend a hand, Red Cross and the United Way have set up some resources for all of you to peruse as well. Keep the people of Fargo in your thoughts, folks. I'm sure having Blackhawks flying over your house loses its cool factor after awhile.Jack Spicer asked..."What's the best/easiest way to get starter gear for PvP at 80?"
The Queue: I love London
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.One of our questions today comes from a reader who's moving to London for a couple of months, and I just wanted to take a moment to say that I've always wanted to go there. Consider yourself very, very lucky! London has all kinds of great things I've always wanted to see, like Big Ben, Stonehenge, the Eiffel Tower, the Parthenon, and Papah?naumoku?kea. One day, hopefully, I'll get to go myself!Let's get started, hm?SithVicious asked a pair of questions..."Will Blizzard ever allow cross server chat?"
The Queue: The Scantily Clad Edition
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Hello, everybody! I'm going to jump right into things today because I'm sure at least a dozen people will want to shiv me for my answer to our first question, and I'd like to give everyone time to do that.Andrew R. asked..."Why do the females in WoW always wear such scantily clad gear? I don't see how plate armor that exposes half your upper body will do you any good when someone wants to stab you. Isn't it kind of degrading to real women who play the game?"
The Queue: Close the floodgates again, please
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Hi again, everyone! I may be covering The Queue for the rest of the week while Adam Holisky flees from a righteous flood. We usually trade off days, but he's kind of a wuss and can't take a little water, so I'll spare him the tragedy of needing to toddle through a puddle or whatever.pants asked... "I know that they are taking away the proto-drakes for the raid achievements in 3.1, but will the title "Champion of the Frozen Wastes" be gone as well for it's respective achievement?"
