The Queue: Tails

Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A feature for all of Blizzard’s games! Have a question for the Blizzard Watch staff? Leave it in the comments!

What’d I tell you yesterday? Floating magical cities. Dangerous.

And once again, today’s Queue is dangerously full of some spoilers for Broken Shore content. I’d suggest finishing that event before wandering in here.

Yes and no! There is in fact a bypass for the event — but it won’t be implemented until Legion comes out, as it involves completion of a short quest chain that won’t be introduced until the expansion is released. So if you’d rather not bother with the scenario on your alts right now, it’s fine — you can skip the lead-in quests and just wait until Legion to catch them up.

It’s never explicitly said. However, given Thrall’s presence and situation in the expansion itself, I’d say he left to go grieve privately, be with his family, and try to have a chat with the elements about what’s going on. He doesn’t want to be Warchief anymore. That’s not his path, and he understands that. He just doesn’t quite understand what his path actually is anymore.

As for Orgrimmar, I don’t think we’re going to see any major makeovers, at least not anytime soon. Sylvanas is kind of busy with the whole Burning Legion thing. Not a lot of time for interior decorating when an army of angry demons is breathing down your neck, you know?

No. Sylvanas is in her current situation because she is exactly what the Horde needs at this current point in time — vengeance. Vengeance for Vol’jin, vengeance for the Horde, and maybe even vengeance for herself, in some small way. After all, the Lich King was originally the Burning Legion’s creation.

And nobody does vengeance quite like the Banshee Queen.

Fun story — yes, we’re defeating the same demons over and over and over again. Fun story, the sequel — that’s because we’re not actually killing them. We can’t kill them. We can keep mowing them down and destroying their bodies and sending them back to the Twisting Nether until we’re dying of exhaustion, and they’ll just keep popping back up again, because that’s what the Burning Legion does. We aren’t fighting a winning battle with these invasions. We’re slowly wearing ourselves out, which is exactly what the Legion would like us to do. They can keep coming back. We can’t.

You know how it always seemed kind of “we should just ignore this part because it’s game design and not lore” when we went to kill a boss in a dungeon and then returned to kill it right on schedule next week? When you’re dealing with the Burning Legion, that’s a plot point. They don’t stay dead unless we eliminate them in the Twisting Nether. On the Broken Shore, you’ll see it in action — raid bosses and demonic mobs we killed years and years ago just pop right back up as if we’d never killed them at all. We’re currently making a very brave stand in the middle of an apparent no-win scenario.

There is some content to be found on the Broken Shore after Legion launches, but as of right now it’s just a few particular classes that are sent there as part of their Artifact quest chain. Chances are pretty good that we’ll revisit that location later on — since it’s the source of that portal that’s letting all the demons through, it’s in our best interests to shut it down.

As for leveling, I don’t think there’s really a recommended order. Zone stories don’t really tie into each other — think of them as chapters in a book. You can choose your own adventure, and when you get to the end of that adventure, Suramar opens up for you. But don’t be disappointed — each zone matters for its own reason. Each zone is a complete story from beginning to end, and there’s a lot of lore to be found. You just don’t have to be led through the story this time — you’re free to pick whatever zones look good to you.

Oh boy. My first level 60 character — a Night Elf Druid — dinged level 60 by endlessly beating up black dragonkin in Burning Steppes for dragonscales. I really, really, really wanted to ding 60 by completing and turning in the Blightcaller quest, but by the time I got around to it, there weren’t really a lot of people willing to go out to the Eastern Plaguelands and risk potential PVP by attacking Nathanos. I was a little sad about that one. My second level 60 — a Forsaken Priest — hit level 60 by doing just what you did, grinding giants and owlbeasts in Frostwhisper Gorge.

That’s it for today’s Queue — if you have any questions you’d like to see answered, be sure to leave them in the comments below!