The Queue: Image related

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

The image above is most certainly related to a question in The Queue today. The question is ... which one!? You'll just have to read and find out! Mwahaha!

... that guy's kinda cute for a disgusting slime creature, isn't he?

Mal asked:

Is it just me or are many guilds dying lately?

I certainly don't have numbers I can provide as to how many guilds have died (or have been born) lately, but if you're experiencing that, there's probably an easy explanation for it.

One, while patch 4.2 is imminent, we've had largely the same content for half of a year now. If you're a raider, even if you haven't beaten all there is to beat in the current tier of raiding, you've been banging away on it since Cataclysm's release. You're going to be really damn sick of that content. I, personally, have not killed Sinestra. However, my drive to get there is almost completely nonexistent. I've been seeing the walls of Blackwing Descent and Bastion of Twilight so often that if I had to be in there for another month or three, I simply would not be interested in playing the game anymore. I think I have a higher tolerance for tedium than most, so people with a threshold of, say ... four months? They're long gone.

Can you think of any other type of game where it's standard practice to kill the same things repeatedly for half a year? To break down for you how long I've been zoning into Blackwing Descent, I have 20 Magmaw kills. That's at least 20 weeks back-to-back of going into BWD. It doesn't matter if I've killed hard mode Nefarian or not -- 20 weeks of zoning into the same place is about 10 weeks too many. With how slowly Blizzard trickles out content, you're inevitably going to reach a point of burnout prior to every tier of raiding.

Two, it's summer -- at least in the United States. Even huge dorks find better things to do during summer. Either they drop raiding (or logging in) completely, or it becomes a weekly song-and-dance to figure out which of your raiders will actually show up and which of them decided to hit the beach or a barbeque or a festival. Some guilds don't want to put up with that so they just call it quits, either permanently or temporarily.

Mal also asked:

Everyone is saying that Dragonwrath is going to be bis for dps casters for this patch and maybe the whole expansion. But in this patch the tier 11 raids are being nerfed so more players can do them. So what will happen in 4.3? Will everyone be raiding the nerfed 4.2 raids for a chance at a weapon better than what 4.3 drops?

Sure. Even if Blizzard doesn't specifically nerf tier 12 content when tier 13 rolls around, the simple addition of tier 13 will go a long way toward trivializing tier 12 content. Legendaries always become easier to acquire after awhile. Val'anyr in Wrath of the Lich King was good for quite a while in the right hands, and you bet your butt it became easier to get when Trial of the Crusader loot rolled around.

Grigor asked:

Maybe this is too early to ask but I'm making my annual clothes shopping trip soon....do I need to pack shorts for Blizzcon or can I get by with just pants? Blizzcon is October after all.

Oh, dear god. Shorts, my friend. Take shorts with you. Even if you take nothing else, take at least one pair of shorts. I'm from Wisconsin, where it's usually freezing over by the time October rolls around, so my first BlizzCon was a huge shock to the system. It's still hot and humid in California in October, and you'll be doing tons of walking around in a tightly packed building full of other nerds. You want to be as cool and comfortable as possible.

Worst case scenario, it's cold and rainy. Pants still won't feel good once you get indoors. You'll get wet outside, then once you're inside ... your wet jeans will get heavy and stiff and cling to your legs. You'll sweat in your moist pants all day long, and with pant legs going all the way down to your shoes, nothing will be able to breathe or dry. You know what happens then? Crotch mildew. Do you want crotch mildew? No. You don't. Bring the freaking shorts.

If you truly and honestly never wear shorts at any other time of the year for some crazy reason, just find one decently fitting pair of shorts on discount somewhere. Hell, go to Goodwill or some other secondhand store. BlizzCon is full of people dressing up like elves, panda bears, and fish men. Nobody cares if your shorts are secondhand.

All you need is one pair. If you got sweaty and gross on day one of BlizzCon, don't even worry about it. Every hotel has a laundry room. Even teeny-tiny hotels have one washing machine. It might cost you a few quarters to get them washed, but that's no biggie. Throw them in the washing machine after BlizzCon day one, wear them again on day two, done.

After BlizzCon 2010, I spent a few extra days in California to hang with Mike Sacco and drive eels to extinction. We stayed at the Sheraton Park (which is absolutely gorgeous; I spent some time there in 2009 as well), and their washing machines were poolside outdoors. While my laundry was running, I sat by the pool ... and hunted snails. I had never seen a snail in the wild before. It was very exciting! I tweeted pictures!

Many asked:

Is patch 4.2 tomorrow?

I will neither confirm nor deny the arrival of patch 4.2 tomorrow. However, I will request that you lay the patch 4.2 questions on thick in the comments today. For ... you know. Reasons.
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! Tags: blizzcon, facebookfeed, featured, guide, nefarian, patch-4.2, qa, question-and-answer, sinestra, world-of-warcraft-patch-4.2, wow-answers, wow-daily-answers, wow-daily-questions, wow-guide, wow-patch, wow-patch-4.2, wow-patch-4.2-news, wow-patch-news, wow-player-questions, wow-q-and-a, wow-questions

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Queue

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Tuesday Morning Post: By patch day be purged edition

Last week, Ahune busted our instance servers. This week, Ragnaros gets the chance to do the same as we fully expect patch 4.2 to go live as of this writing. Now mind you, I'm not saying servers will crash, but hey -- might as well be prepared, right? Yes, I know that's the wrong raid boss's catch phrase, but I used my only "by fire be purged" joke for the title.

As you might expect, downtime is currently scheduled for 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. Pacific time, so even if everything goes smoothly, you'll still have plenty of time to read up on patch 4.2 before the servers come up. I recommend starting with Mat's excellent patch 4.2 roundup. Then you can check after the break for a quick roundup of all the other good stuff from the past seven days. Don't stop once that's done with, though; we'll have plenty more piping hot patch 4.2 news and info for you in the coming days and weeks.

Hot news and features

Class news and guides
Dungeons, items, professions, PVP, and more Odds and ends
The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!
Tags: downtime, extended-downtime, extended-maintenance, maintenance, patch, patch-day, realm-downtime, realm-maintenance, roundup, scheduled-downtime, scheduled-maintenance, server-downtime, server-maintenance, server-status, tuesday, tuesday-downtime, tuesday-maintenance, tuesday-morning, tuesday-morning-post

Filed under: Realm Status, News items

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WoW Moviewatch: How to Tell if Your BG Will Fail

Using similar themes to his classic How to Tell if Your Guild is Bad, Wowcrendor has turned his critical eye to the world of battlegrounds. How to Tell if Your BG Will Fail looks at those clear signs your PVP match is in trouble before the gates even open.

Using time-tested scientific method, we experimented with Wowcrendor's theory. Sadly, after a small handfull of Arathi Basin tests, it seems that Wowcrendor is right. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.
Tags: guide-to-machinima, machinima, movies, world-of-warcraft-movies, world-of-warcraft-videos, wow-created-movies, wow-fan-movies, wow-guide, wow-machinima, wow-machinima-guide, wow-movie-guide, wow-movies, wow-video-guide, wow-videos

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

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Breakfast Topic: Initiate epic character reboot procedure in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

Standing outside the Caverns of Time, ready to go forth and disrupt your past. What would you do if you could do it all over again? Looking back with what you know now about the game compared to what you knew then, would you make the same choices? I started playing during The Burning Crusade but before a lot of the experience cutting from 0 to 60. I started with a druid on a normal realm because, being a newb, I thought "normal" meant you could get away with doing a little bit of everything, PVP or RP, whenever the mood struck.

Boy, was I wrong.

Personally, then, I would keep my character choices as they were (yay, druids!), but I would roll on a different server type (changing from normal to RP). Why not just reroll or pay to move now to a RP server? Because I'd have to spend $250 to move my entire crafter's network or cave in and finally rely on the AH with only one toon -- and then I'd miss my gadget-wielding maniac warlock gnome, and the rest of my army of alts would sit abandoned, collecting dust. Lonely. Not to mention the friends and family I'd leave behind.

What about your faction of choice? Horde vs. Alliance was a practical choice for me, since that's where my friend was who introduced me to the game.

So if you had that giant reset button and could slap your past self on the back of the head before doing something you regretted, what would you do? Or would you do nothing? Tags: facebookfeed, game-discussion, gamer-discussion, world-of-warcraft-discussion, world-of-warcraft-topics, wow-discussion, wow-hot-topics, wow-issues, wow-topics

Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts

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Encrypted Text: Blade Flurry is broken

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article topics you'd like to see covered!

Whenever I think of the current state of combat, I recall rogue blogger Aldriana's insightful post from when the Blade Flurry change was first announced. Blade Flurry has always been the spec's signature ability, but now it's transcended into its only ability. Combat rogues currently fluctuate between "just ahead of subtlety" and "best in the game" based on whether or not Blade Flurry works on a particular encounter. Blade Flurry makes or breaks combat rogues, making it incredibly unbalanced.

Combat rogues are lucky that Magmaw and Halfus are relatively easy heroic encounters, because doing six-digit DPS on Sinestra would've certainly drawn the developer's attention. At one point in time, Blade Flurry was simply an extra perk of the combat tree. You could pick up some extra damage if there was something nearby to cleave, but it rarely decided your outcome. Even on ideal Blade Flurry fights like the Twin Val'kyr, combat rogues weren't that overpowering. The new BF design is impossible to balance against.

Blade Flurry is broken

There are a few possible balance options for Blade Flurry, but none of them are perfect. Consider the first scenario, where combat rogues do good DPS without Blade Flurry active. Once they turn it on, they'll be doing good damage to two targets, putting them way too far ahead of everyone else. In the second case, their single-target DPS is awful, but they're viable with BF activated. That's where combat rogues are today, but we're so reliant on having multiple targets to attack.

Blizzard can't design every encounter to have a convenient cleave target for us, and it hasn't. Except against Halfus and Magmaw, combat is inferior to assassination in every way, and that's not balance.

Applying penalties to Blade Flurry

The third scenario is where combat rogues have good single-target DPS, but where Blade Flurry cuts down our damage by a more significant amount than today's 15% energy penalty. If the penalty is applied to our Blade Flurry damage, such as cutting it to a percentage of our primary target damage, then the net effect is that BF is less important than it is today.

The issue with this design is that we typically want the majority of our damage on our new target (such as an important add) rather than the old target. In order to put more damage on the add, we're switching targets, which means losing Bandit's Guile and our Deadly Poison stack, which murders our DPS. One of Blade Flurry's biggest benefits is that we don't have to switch targets in order to hit the second target, preserving the advantage of the buffs/debuffs on the primary target.

The fourth scenario is where a larger penalty is applied to our damage against the primary target, with the end effect of splitting our DPS evenly between our two targets. I think this is probably the least awful choice, as it allows us to stick on our primary target while still dealing respectable damage against the secondary target.

The problem with the design is that PVE fights are so varied in their design. Some bosses and adds are designed to be killed slowly or simultaneously, making an even-split Blade Flurry ideal. Other mobs, typically adds, need to be killed swiftly, which again means a target swap. Doing 50% of our DPS against an elemental on heroic Cho'gall simply isn't enough, so we're forced to take the target swap and deal less damage against both due to the lack of debuffs and Bandit's Guile on the add.

There's a fifth scenario possible, where our primary target damage is cut to say 20% while the remaining 80% is transferred to our secondary target. We get to stay focused on our primary target, gaining the extra damage from the already-present buffs and debuffs, but we still get to do serious damage against the new add. In all honesty, 80% of our primary target damage is probably 100% of our damage if we were to switch targets and be forced to reset Bandit's Guile and wait for debuff applications that may never come. Combat rogues now have the ability to "swap targets" with little downtime. The design isn't perfect, especially since doing most of your damage to something other than your primary target isn't exactly intuitive.

Blade Flurry needs a nerf

In all of the scenarios I outlined above, Blade Flurry loses some of its potency from today. The fact is that it needs a nerf; otherwise, combat rogues are going to remain one-trick ponies. Combat rogues deal the majority of the damage as physical damage, and so today, Blade Flurry is boosting our DPS by around 60-80% while active. A DPS swing that drastic can't be allowed to stay in the game. If combat rogues were only 10% behind assassination rogues on single-target encounters and Blade Flurry only increased their damage by 20%, I think that ratio would be relatively balanced.

As it stands today, there's only one viable spec for 10 out of the 13 bosses in tier 11, and that's unacceptable. I think we've accepted as a class that subtlety is going to suck in PVE, but seeing combat down there with frost mages and beast mastery hunters isn't helping anyone. The design goal of "bring the player, not the class" is in direct contradiction with combat's current bipolar potential.

We can either wait for combat rogues to break some heroic encounter so badly that the developers are forced to nerf them, or we can hope that the Blade Flurry redesign is done proactively to ensure that the spell isn't simply nerfed into the ground.
Check back every Wednesday for the latest rogue strategies, from rogue basics and kicking your interrupts into high gear to how to handle your dual-spec rogue and how to pickpocket top tips from top-performing rogues. Tags: balancing-blade-flurry, bf, blade-flurry, blade-flurry-toggle, blade-fury, bladeflurry, class-help, cleave, combat, combat-rogue-encrypted-text, combat-spec, combat-tree, featured, guide, guide-to-rogues, halfus, magmaw, multi-target, rogue-combat-encrypted-text, rogue-guide, rogue-info, rogue-talents, talent, talents, world-of-warcraft-class-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, wow-class-guide, wow-class-help, wow-guide, wow-rogue, wow-rogue-info, wow-rogues, wow-talent-guide

Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text

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The Queue: Firelands FAQ

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mat McCurley will be your host today.

It's patch day, and with patch days come many questions. Luckily for you, we've gathered some of the most frequently asked questions about Rage of the Firelands in this handy, Queue-sized guide, so that you can embark on your patch day shenanigans without a worry in the world. Well, unless you happen to be on a PVP server; in that case, have fun doing your dailies.

With the extended maintenance and hints to read the patch notes, Blizzard looks to be setting us up for a fiery Tuesday. There's a lot of fire in our future. I know that it is too soon (ha ha, get it?) to start thinking about what's coming next before we've even sunk our teeth into this new stuff, but I have a feeling that after three to four months of lots of fire, whatever is coming down the pike is going to need a hint of refreshment and a fire-lite motif. Nonetheless, I am excited for all of this new content.

Follow along below for the answers to some of the most common questions about patch 4.2 and all it entails.

What's going to happen to my valor points?

All valor points will be converted into justice points. The justice point cap, however, remains at 4,000 points. So you'll be give justice points up to the cap. If you have any valor points left over, they will be converted into currency at a rate of 47 silver per point.

Let's say you have 3,000 justice points and 1,100 valor points. Since you cannot get over 4,000 justice points, 1,000 of your valor points will be turned into justice points, and 100 will be turned into 47 silver per point.

Do I need to be attuned to the new raid instance?

No. The Firelands is immediately accessible by heading to the Sulfuron Spire in Hyjal. Grab nine or 24 of your bestest friends and head in to punch new bosses in their loot bags.

Where do I go to start the new daily quests?

The new daily quests that open up the Regrowth and the Molten Front are available at the Shrine of Malorne in the southwest portion of Hyjal.

What quest do I have to complete to open up the new dailies in Hyjal?

In order to access these new quests, you will need to have completed up to and including the quest Aessina's Miracle, in which the ancient Aessina quenches the fires consuming the western forests of Hyjal. After you complete this quest, you should be able to access the new content at the Sanctuary of Malorne.

There're only like 4 or 5 quests at the new hub! How do I get more?

You start at the Sanctuary of Malorne and have a few quests a day until you get 20 Marks of the World Tree, the new personal currency you accumulate by completing these new dailies. After 20 of them, which is a few days of dailies, you head into the Firelands and the Molten Front proper. Keep doing dailies for more Marks of the World Tree.

How do I get started on the legendary quest chain?

Players must first kill a Molten Lord inside of the Firelands or have completed any one of the achievements for the previous raid tier (clear Bastion of Twilight, Throne of the Four Winds, or Blackwing Descent) to open up the beginning quest for Dragonwrath, which sends you back to your capital city and onward to the Bronze Dragonflight.

Are there any new factions to gain rep with?

Raiders will be able to gain reputation with the Avengers of Hyjal. Reputation will be capped out early with trash kills in the instance, so many boss kills will likely be needed to reach exalted with the faction.

What are crystallized firestones, and why are people so excited about them?

Crystallized firestones are items that drop from heroic mode bosses in the Firelands and allow you to create heroic versions of items that never had heroic equivalents. For instance, items you purchase from the valor points vendors now have a heroic version that you can purchase with the regular item plus a firestone. This is great for relics, tanking guns, and other slot items that have trouble being put on loot lists because of their relatively class-specific nature.

Has the amount of hit rating gone up for bosses?

No. Blizzard originally was tossing around the idea to increase the hit rating needed to hit cap on the new bosses, but this is not the tier that that is happening. Perhaps next tier. Right now, hit ratings are staying the same.

What's the deal with all the hunter "taming challenges"?

Patch 4.2 is introducing 10 new pets for hunters to tame, including lava spiders, an obsidian cat, a metallic crab, a ghost owl, and more. Each potential tame has a gimmick or vulnerability that must be exploited before the hunter can tame the beast. These new unique taming challenges are scattered around the Regrowth and the Molten Front daily questing hubs.

Any 5-man content?

There are no new 5-man dungeons coming with patch 4.2. You can still get valor points from doing your seven weekly random Zandalari and heroic dungeons.

Does the new arena season start tomorrow?

No. The new arena and PVP season begins usually one week after the current season ends. After Season 9 ends, the numbers will be crunched and rewards will be given out, including titles and drakes, to the winners of the PVP season. This usually takes about a week. Once that is all done, PVP Season 10 will start up.
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! Tags: facebookfeed, faq, featured, firelands-faq, guide, patch-4.2, qa, question-and-answer, world-of-warcraft-patch-4.2, wow-answers, wow-daily-answers, wow-daily-questions, wow-guide, wow-patch, wow-patch-4.2, wow-patch-4.2-news, wow-patch-news, wow-player-questions, wow-q-and-a, wow-questions

Filed under: The Queue, Cataclysm

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MMO Roundup: Farewell, Star Wars Galaxies

Sometimes you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? It's not all WoW, all the time! Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all of the other MMOs around -- past, present and future. Tags: featured, massively, mmo-news, mmo-roundup, roundup, star-wars-galaxies

Filed under: MMO Roundup

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