The Queue: Saurfang is a dirty liar

Welcome back to The Queue, the Q&A column for all things Blizzard related. If you have a question for the Queue, leave a comment and you may see it answered!

Every time Saurfang pops up in my garrison I get this moment of overwhelming excitement because his exclamation point is yellow, not blue, and I think he’s got something new for me to do. And then I click on him and it’s just a couple of blue exclamation points. Saurfang, you’re rotten and you fill me with disappointment.

I haven’t actually played Diablo 3 in a while now, so I didn’t get a chance to check it out beyond watching someone else doing it. However, as someone who played a heck of a lot of Diablo 2 at one point, I appreciated the event on a nostalgic level. Some people have mentioned that it’s a little repetitive, but that’s pretty much what anniversary events are — limited time things that are quick and easy to participate in, stuff that can  be repeated if you want, or done once, enjoyed, and filed away in the “remember when they did that thing” part of your brain.

I checked in with Matt Low on this one, and he said you should definitely go with Adventure Mode. On top of that, he suggested picking up Naxxaramas over Blackrock Mountain, as the neutral cards you get in Naxx (Sludge Belcher, Mad Scientistt, Haunted Creeper, Loatheb, Nerubian Egg and Zombie Chow) far outweigh the few good neutrals you get in Blackrock Mountain. Having seen how many of the Naxx cards are regularly used in gameplay, I’d have to agree with him on that one!

There’s quite a few of us that raid, actually! Most of the class writers are regular raiders on one level or another. The main editorial staff doesn’t do a lot of raiding — I used to raid regularly, but I decided to take a sanity break in Warlords of Draenor. Keep in mind I raided 6 days a week in vanilla (yes, you read that correctly), followed by 3 days a week near the end of Burning Crusade, and all the way through Wrath, Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria.

That was a lot of raiding. A lot of raiding. And it was also a lot of time that could be better spent working on other projects. So I pretty much exclusively run LFR these days. I may pick up raiding again with the next expansion, I may not — kind of depends on whether I feel like giving up some of my other project time.

I’m not actually sure where the story can go from here, logically speaking. I mean once we’ve theoretically beaten back the Burning Legion and saved Draenor, all we’re really due is the big parade, you know? But on the other hand, while we’re going to see Archimonde in Hellfire Citadel, there is the pesky matter of Kil’jaeden, who hasn’t been seen, only been spoken of and summarily dismissed as ineffective.

Unless of course he’s been quietly working with us all along to get us exactly where we need to be.

I’m pretty sure that would be an absolutely terrible idea, but I’m speaking as someone who is currently having the most fun in this expansion by leveling through all that old content with four other people. That’s a lot of quests, a lot of man hours, and a lot of content that would suddenly be shoved aside, and I don’t think Blizzard would really want to do that. Will we go back to Azeroth after this is all done? Maybe — or we may head to what we think is Azeroth, and find ourselves somewhere else instead.

I consulted with our resident Hearthstone expert Matt Low on this one, and he had the following to say:

“Alexstrasza offers you the most flexibility among the different classes in Hearthstone. She can slot into control Warrior. She can buy you extra health (or lower your opponent’s health) in Handlock. She’s also a dragon and can combo with potential dragon cards you may have acquired from the recent Blackrock Mountain adventure set. Archmage Antonidas is another solid pickup and can be the finisher in your mage deck. Stay away from Hogger. Like his Warcraft counterpart, he will bring you nothing but tears and disappointment.”

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!