Filed under: Cataclysm

Well, hey there, team! Looks like we're gonna be riding this elevator for a while. I guess now would be a great time to answer some reader questions.

Tomatketchup asked...

"In the Dungeon Finder, do you think the rewards for 70-80 still will be emblems, or will they become bags like from 1-69?"

I'm willing to bet that you'll be receiving Satchels from 70-80 instances in the Dungeon Finder once Cataclysm hits. I don't see them giving you an obsolete reward.

The latest edition of Blizzard Insider, Blizzard's very sporadic email newsletter (and no relation to our old name, WoW Insider) has been released. Issue 32 features a note that the Starcraft II: WIngs of Liberty site has been revamped, blurbs about the mobile Authenticator and the Armory app, and some calls to buy their merchandise.

More interesting for WoW fans, though, is an interview with Scott Mercer (Daelo), WoW's lead encounter designer, and Greg Street (Ghostcrawler), a crab who needs no introduction. They discussed the arc of Arthas and the Lich King from Warcraft II through World of Warcraft (congratulations again to Blood Legion on their 10-man world-first).

Please note that here there be spoilers for some details about the Arthas fight, so stay away if you want it all to be a surprise.

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.

In this edition of The Queue, we answer a couple of new questions, and a couple of questions that we've answered approximately seventeen thousand times. Okay, not that many, but it certainly feels it. Hopefully between the new and the old there's something for everyone.

cactusham asked...

"Can Horde queue up for Stockades and Deadmines, and can Alliance queue up for Ragefire Chasm and Wailing Caverns?"

• Talent trees
• New spells and abilities
• Recycled raid content

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. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

Puppies. Puppies.


Aliceness asked ...

"Where might Blizzard go in terms of (maybe) implementing a new class for the next expansion? What kind of class haven't we seen?"

One thing that has been frustrating cloth, leather, and mail wearers for quite some time is the ability for players with a higher type of armor cherry picking through their armor. In some cases, this is due to poor itemization in the intended gear range while others are abusing gear scaling and the ability to sometimes double-dip into stats. However, this will likely stop in Cataclysm for several different reasons.

Bornakk revealed on the forums that gear will start having incentives to make you wear the appropriate type of armor. This means that holy paladins who are currently rolling on cloth and mail items will have incentives to stick to plate. What are these incentives? We don't know. It could be as simple as something like the current gem socket bonus system or a little more complex like a percentage increase in a particular stat. This could even be a generic spec based set bonus that gave you something if completely geared in class appropriate armor. We won't really know until more details are released.

In a follow up to the thread we discussed recently, Ghostcrawler discusses where the buff to protection warrior DPS will come from (sorry, guys, but it sounds like a buff to Devastate to me, yay for spamming) and a whole lot more. The discussion indicates that while they're interested in single target DPS increases over AoE increases that they don't think tank DPS is that big a factor in boss fights (and to be fair, he's right, it isn't a major factor although the fact that players will overreact to minor factors and stress out their tanks over their DPS, that is) and moves on from there.

The discussion about Devastate (that it's an easy ability to adjust) is fair enough but ignores the even easier solution of simply reducing the defensive stance penalty. To be honest I'd like to hear why there's still a penalty there when abilities like Righteous Fury and Frost Presence suffer none. I find the idea that buffing defensive stance would cause big problems for PvP balance kind of absurd. Battle stance grants 15% ArP and Zerker grants 3% crit, at most people would pop into d stance when focused, like they do now anyway. But we're likely to see buffs to Devastate, so just get used to it. My suggestion? While we're buffing Devastate, also have it queue Heroic Strike for us so that's one less button to spam and I can retire my macro.

In a forum thread discussing the recent prot warrior block changes and Warbringer nerf and the state of prot warrior DPS (it's basically acknowledged as the lowest DPS among the tanks) Ghostcrawler chimes in that they intend to buff sustained prot DPS while reducing burst in PvP. However, he quickly comes back to point that at this stage in the expansion they don't want to make any sustained mechanical changes and so, don't expect one. The sustained DPS increase will come from buffs to existing abilities.

While I can understand the trepidation from prot warriors at this statement (no one is terribly excited about a buff to Devastate, not even me) it's an unfortunate but valid point he makes here. You really don't have the time to make drastic mechanical changes this far into the cycle. We might like a more drastic solution, but with Cataclysm looming on the horizon you don't really want to see too much tinkering with the base mechanics.

Still, please don't just buff Devastate. Please. I'm begging you here.

As you may recall, Blizzard announced their intent to get rid of consumable ammo in Patch 3.1, only to withdraw the change a short time later, with the promise of reimplementing it at a nebulous later date. Now, it's been more or less assumed that said later date is Cataclysm itself, or at least Patch 4.0.

In a general forum post created to discuss ammo replacements, Ghostcrawler piped in to remind us that the only change announced for Cataclysm was the removal of ammo, with nothing else yet decided (or, more accurately, announced). While he did acknowledge the possibility of adding in new situational ammo, he did observe that the hassle of collecting and swapping different ammo types might grow old pretty quickly, especially for a class like the hunter that already needs to push a lot of buttons to play at peak potential, in addition to already having a pet to manage.

In a fascinating post over at Gamesindustry.biz, Blizzard COO Paul Sams takes great pains to emphasize that Blizzard will ship no game before its time (to rip off an old wine slogan): "We will not pull the rug out from under them and ship it before it's done, so people feel that when they out their heart and soul into a game, they'll be able to deliver the game they envisioned."

This is interesting to me on a couple of levels: the first is the long time between the original idea that World of Warcraft would get an expansion a year and the actual time (more than two) that it took for The Burning Crusade to ship. It seems that over time they must feel they've gotten more proficient at the development process since Wrath of the Lich King and now Cataclysm seem to be getting ready to ship even faster. You can read the excerpt from Sams at gamesindustry.biz (which requires creating a new account) as well as a full interview with Sams and executive producer Rob Pardo.

Welcome once again my friends to the lore that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside Know Your Lore.

When last we got together over the nonexistent campfire to share stories of Azeroth and Draenor and the peoples of both, our heroes were either fleeing the destruction of Stormwind or destroying Stormwind, depending on who you think of as the heroes. Once again, the 'canonical' nature of these events has shifted somewhat from the time they were first presented to now, so bear with me if you see any inconsistencies as I attempt to work several disparate accounts together. Also, wow, did a lot happen in the Second War, so please forgive anything I miss or merely allude to from the Alliance and Old Horde KYL's.

We know that following the loss of Stormwind (and by following I mean that they could probably see the buildings burning as they sailed away) the survivors, led by Anduin Lothar, sailed north for Lordaeron and the court of King Terenas Menethil. It was this journey and Lothar's arrival that led Terenas and Lothar to begin the diplomatic work that created the Alliance of Lordaeron. It's important to keep in mind that, at the time, not many people actually knew much about the orcs aside from the survivors of Stormwind. King Llane Wrynn had an adviser who knew a lot about the orcs but that ultimately ended in Stormwind's destruction as we covered last week. Still, Lothar was the one person both connected enough through his descent from the ancient Arathi bloodline and knowledgeable enough about the enemy to command the military of this new Alliance.

For a while I wasn't sure if I'd continue playing World of Warcraft into the next expansion. I was by no means planning on giving up my gaming habit, but I really felt like I was ready for something new: either another MMO or one of the latest generation consoles. Many pros and cons were weighed, and I have decided to stick with WoW for at least one more expansion. It was a difficult decision for me but in the end it was the rocks that won me over.

Yes, the rocks.

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.

Why yes, that is the most disgusting whale you've ever seen. Unless, of course, you've witnessed local authorities taking dynamite to a beached whale to get it out of the way since they couldn't move it just by pushing the thing. That is disgusting. Whale guts landing on cars a mile away? No thanks. I'll take the guy pictured above over that.

Moonkinmaniac asked...

"On the WoW calendar there's an undead whale picture. What the heck is it? Is it a rejected project for the current expansion or possibly one for Cataclysm?"

In the recent Blizzard developer chat there were several questions pertaining to player storage. They spoke about the issue with storing tabards from all of your various factions, the default backpack falling behind other bags, and being able to access the bank slots of your alts without the need to use the mail.

All three of these are long standing issues that have usually been avoided when direct questions came up, usually invoking the safe and often used "we'll see" remark. I would love to be able to replace my backpack with a Glacial Bag and gain six storage slots or clear out the bank space I'm using to store specialty tabards. Let's take a look at their responses after the break.

Coming out of the Twitter developer chat tonight was this question and following answer, given by Ghostcrawler and J. Allen Brack:

Q. With the new skins for druid forms, what is the chance that warlocks might see race/faction specific demon skins or maybe a new one?

A. When you look around, there are a lot of say imp or voidwalkers we could use. It's something we talk about quite a bit. As for new demons, I hear warlocks are going to be getting some new spells for the next expansion...

While it's not a direct confirmation that warlocks will be getting a new pet in Cataclysm, I think it's safe to read into this and maybe get a bit excited about this one. I doubt they'd mention warlocks getting "new spells" in relation to getting a new demon if such an addition to the warlock class wasn't planned.

So, new demons for warlocks? Probably. My guess is that it'll be a pet lava monster or something related to the elemental plane. Just the perfect kind of thing to pop up into the evil hands of warlocks from the sundered land in Cataclysm.

---

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.

---