The Queue: It’s never just you

Welcome to The Queue, Blizzard Watch’s column that discusses all of Blizzard’s games. You ask the questions and we answer them.

I haven’t gotten to play my leveling stream DK in a while. So here’s a picture from when she was a gnome.

Back in the day, the actual Thrash Blade was awesomesauce. You can see folks discussing the weapon in this old comment thread on the Thrash Blade. To quote a comment from 2011 —

For those that don’t know, the extra attack isn’t really an extra attack. It’s a duplication of whatever attack caused the proc. Played around with this a lot, on a bunch of different weapons with thrash effects, and its always the same. Any melee ability, up to and including, auto attacks, poison procs, melee class abilities, shield slam, SHIELD SPIKES!, fiery enchant procs, EXECUTE and virtually anything else that involves bashing an enemy in melee can and will be duplicated if a thrash effect procs because of it. Even hand of justice trinket behaves the same way. Apparently, all melee range effects assume you’re using your main hand, so as long it’s in your main hand it works. DOES NOT work for ranged. Though I’ve only tested the hierloom and hand of justice on my hunter, so who knows, one of the others might have a loop hole in their script.

Items tested with include Blinkstrike, Thrash Blade, Thrash Blade (hierloom), Flurry Axe, Ironfoe, and Hand of justice, on my Fury/Prot warrior.

There’s no reason I can think of that the proc shouldn’t behave in the same manner. If it does, then the heirloom is probably slightly better for a Rogue or Warrior than another weapon, because it can duplicate any and all of your special attacks. So instead of just getting an extra attack, you can get an extra Bloodthirst or Raging Blow or Execute or some Rogue ability (I don’t play Rogues much).

If I were you I’d give it a try. Assuming it procs as often as it once did, and in the same way it did, it’s an excellent weapon. If they’ve drastically altered the proc chance or what it does (perhaps when they introduced PPM mechanics) then it will likely be less good.

You are never going to be the only person who hated anything.

Whatever it is, whatever the general consensus about a thing is, there will be those who disagree with it. For example, I don’t think Wrath of the Lich King was all that, and the more people try and convince me it was the best WoW has ever been, the more I remember actually playing in Wrath — the more others push the view of Wrath as the best expansion ever the less I can even think of anything to like about it.

I happened to like 5.1, and thought it was a nice departure from the reputation grinds that preceded it. I liked that it wasn’t exactly locked to daily quests in the same way as the previous patch had been, and that you could actually unlock new story several times in a week instead of once a week like we see with the Garrison Campaign. But there’s plenty of people who didn’t like it. It’s not just you.

It’s never just you. Ever. So many people have played WoW over the years (over 100 million unique accounts and that was back in 2014) that no matter what opinion you have, you’re almost certainly not going to be the only one. Some people loved Cataclysm. Some people love Warlords.

It will never just be you. You will never be the only one.

I’ve written about Garrisons at length. If you’re dying to know all my thoughts about them, that post is pretty much exactly that. If you want a TL:DR of my thoughts on Garrisons:

1. I thought Garrisons were extremely well integrated into the leveling experience. They worked well as a home base you ventured forth to explore Draenor from, and I felt like they were extremely fitting in that context.
2. I like just hanging out in my Garrison and watching the NPC’s, especially my various followers. I think that’s really cool.
3. I like how the Alliance Garrison looks. The Horde one… I’m not a big fan of Frostfire, sorry.

The part of me that loved raiding would be all over this idea, but I recognize several problems to overcome with it.

1. Raids tend to drop a ton of gear, and all that gear would have to be updated and made to scale just as Timewalking dungeon gear does.
2. Tier sets, especially token based ones. They might actually be easier to upgrade, but imagine Timewalking Icecrown Citadel? With three sets of gear (normal, Sanctified, and Heroic Sanctified) per role? That could be a gigantic pain.
3. Timewalking Molten Core is going to be a lot easier than Timewalking Siege of Orgrimmar. Raid mechanics have definitely gotten more complex over the years. Just saying.

Still, I’m all for it, I would love to be able to run Blackwing Lair for a max level Untamed Blade.

Okay, that’s The Queue for Tuesday. I’ll see you guys Friday.