The Queue: The future of Rossi’s Renegades, Ashkandi and other swords of Lothar, DirecTV

It’s the Queue, where we talk about Blizzard games. You ask questions, a rotating panel of Blizzard Watch staffers (including me) answer them. Sometimes I might be writing this while listening to my old Prong albums. Can you guess what song? I bet you can.

Yeah, I know the Rossi’s Renegades thing isn’t going to actually stick. Let me have just one day, okay?

It is potentially one of his swords. It’s not the sword that got broken in the fight with Blackhand — that was the Great Royal Sword of Stormwind and that was wielded by Turalyon after his death. It’s potentially possible Turalyon still has that sword. Some think that Ashkandi was that sword because of the initials A.L. on the hilt of the sword and the name ‘Greatsword of the Brotherhood’ but we don’t actually know that for certain. If Ashkandi was the Greatsword of the Brotherhood of the Horse, then it likely belonged to Anduin Lothar, but that still doesn’t make it the Great Royal Sword of Stormwind, which was not only broken but the broken pieces held by Turalyon when he disappeared.

Also, neither of these swords is Quel’Zaram, which may not even exist in canon anymore.

In short, Lothar (like all warriors) had a lot of swords in his lifetime. Ashkandi is likely one of them, but it’s almost certainly not the most famous one.

Honestly, we don’t really know yet. It comes down to finding someone who can make the stream time on a reliable basis. As soon as we know we’ll let you know.

To my knowledge, not at this time, but I’m not an expert in mods so I figured I’d put an answer here so more knowledgeable people might come along and answer more definitively for you.

Based on my reading of the FAQ here, you will be able to buy a DirecTV Pay Per View event.

So there you go. You’ll be able to get it either way, through DirecTV or just the Virtual Ticket.

Honestly? No. No I don’t. First off, the game doesn’t assume that there are all these Ret Paladins using Ashbringer, Enhancement Shamans with Doomhammer, etc etc. There’s one, and it’s you. For terms of game story, you and you alone are wielding that artifact, and you deserve to be, because at this point you’re practically a hero of legend.

I know that for purposes of game play there are all sorts of Ret Paladins, Arms Warriors, Shadow Priests, Unholy DK’s, Arcane Mages, etc etc — but the game’s story is focused around a single character, who just happens to be whoever you’re playing at the time. Yes, occasionally we see quests that say things like ‘Gather an army, <name>’ or ‘<class>’ but that’s still you assembling said army, and it’s assumed that you’re the important one for the purpose of the story. Every player in the raid is essentially experiencing the same story from the same perspective.

So no, it doesn’t bug me any more than seeing a bunch of rogues with the legendary daggers, or everyone with a legendary cape or ring.

I don’t know if it’s mechanically gone or not, but the artifact will be 2 weapons made from the shards of Frostmourne, and that’s the expected playstyle for Frost, dual wielding. If that means you won’t enjoy your DK any more, then you have my sympathy — I know that if Fury loses Titan’s Grip for an entire expansion, I won’t be playing it, so I can understand your point.

Since there won’t be weapon drops in Legion, if you don’t want to go dual wield, I don’t see that you have an option. We do know that there will be a catch up mechanism to allow you to get an artifact for your other specialization, so if they don’t vanish out of your bags when you switch specs, and the mechanics aren’t removed, maybe you can get a 2h weapon for your Blood or Unholy spec and use it as Frost? No idea. It seems unlikely that the mechanics wouldn’t be changed as well, but I don’t know that they will or won’t at this time.

That’s The Queue for Tuesday. See y’all Friday.