The Queue: It was all a dream

While looking for a picture of Vanessa VanCleef to use as a header image today, I stumbled across what I’m using today. I remember vividly when I first used it. People were so mad.

I regret nothing.

While I didn’t like Reforging, I like Warlords‘ gear dynamic even less. Maybe I’m odd, but I prefer the “ideal” item being nonexistent to jumping through a bunch of hoops to get it. Reforging let you make things semi-ideal, but it was a hassle to reforge every single piece of gear whenever you got a single new piece. And to hit your breakpoints on haste, crit, whatever — you had to do just that. Reforge absolutely everything when you got one piece of gear.

The Warlords dynamic, though — the ideal piece of gear exists, but it’s random. Reroll things forever and ever. Random on top of random. At least with Reforging, you had control.

Personally, I’d like to see both go away. Static gear. If the perfect gear doesn’t exist, you work with what you have. No biggie.

As for the fourth spec thing … I can’t see that happening. Druids got a 4th spec because they did all along, except the same talents applied to both bear and cat forms to limited success. How do you balance a tanking spec and a DPS spec using the same stats and talents? The game’s history suggests you can’t. They split it because they unfortunately built the class to have four different playstyles from the onset. Adding a fourth spec to every other class would be a tremendous undertaking. It would be like adding multiple new classes. And could you do it for every class? Some mages would appreciate a healing spec, for example. But I’d guess most wouldn’t like that. And what about warriors? What’s the fourth way warriors could smash people in the face with big weapons?

I know someone answered this for you in the comments yesterday, but you aren’t the first to ask it, so I’ll answer anyway. That isn’t Maiev Shadowsong. People look at that character and assume it’s her because of the armor — everyone associates that armor with Maiev — but the armor is what Wardens wear. Maiev is a Warden, but the Warden that acts as Khadgar’s bodyguard is Cordana Felsong.

I’d love for that to be true. My adoration of Vanessa VanCleef is well-known by this point, but I genuinely believe she was one of the most compelling Alliance villains in ages. Perhaps in all of World of Warcraft. It’d be great to see her weasel out of defeat in the final moments to regroup and try again.

I also love the conspiracy theory that everything that has happened since Cataclysm has been a fever dream caused by her poison and one day we’ll wake up in Deadmines, all of Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor having been imaginary.

They’re stat boosts. There’s just as much reason to use them as potions, food, flasks, and so forth. If you’re a mostly solo player, you probably won’t use any of those items. If you’re a raider, you will (or should) use them religiously.