The Queue: A little help from our friends

My friend Matt Fossen made that picture for me. Thanks, Matt.

Yes, it’s a little weird for me to be talking to someone else named Matt. Believe it or not, all my IRL friends call me Matt. Nobody calls me Rossi.

This is The Queue. Let us answer questions together.

I would protest that I’m not that easy to manipulate and refuse to answer this question, but who are we kidding? The only way I would have been more likely to answer it would have been if you asked me in a video with you dressed up as a dinosaur.

Anyway, there are some changes. Defensive Stance is gone for Protection Warriors – the threat is just baked in for being a Prot Warrior, you don’t have to switch stances for it. Ignore Pain isn’t the same as Shield Barrier, but it fills the same role so you’ll use it when Shield Block is on cooldown or you have a lot of rage stored up. We generate rage from damage taken now (only Prot Warriors, not Arms or Fury) like in the old days, and that’s still being tinkered with.

Since we don’t have 1000 words, I’ll just stop for now and say ‘Prot will still feel mechanically more or less like what you’re used to — you use Shield Slam and Revenge to generate rage, Devastate to reset Shield Slam, Shield Block and Ignore Pain as your Active Mitigation, and while all tanks have been nerfed from live we do feel a bit more nerfed than others, in my opinion’. In general I’d like to see Protection get a buff, but it should be easy to pick up if you’re used to it right now.

Next time I’m ignoring you unless you break out that dinosaur costume.

Honestly, if they make it so I have a compelling reason to play the game, they’d have me doing something I don’t usually do on my main anymore. I log onto WoW almost every day, but it’s almost always on an alt — I don’t have anything to do on my main since with my eye situation it’s hard for me to raid reliably. (And God I miss it.)

Based on testing Night Elf, Orc, Human and Tauren Fury Warriors (all women, because I wanted to limit the differences to just race) I can say that autoattacks still appear to be racially linked. The Nelf held her weapons different and moved differently than the Orc or Human or Tauren did. But the specials — Rampage, Bloodthirst, Raging Blow, Whirlwind and so on — these are indeed the same for any member of the class. The Night Elf does the same (rather awesome) animation when doing Rampage as the Orc or Tauren.

The animations are all heavily revamped, and I think having each class do different moves is a cool thing — in the past all Forsaken in melee did the same things, for example — but it’s definitely going to take some getting used to. Once I noticed it I had a hard time not focusing on it.

Just wanted to say that I know how doubt feels — it never really goes away, but you’ve taken the step of putting yourself out there. Congratulations on that. Keep it up. It takes a lot of fortitude to let strangers judge your work like that. To show solidarity with you, here’s a site which contains a WoW story I wrote last year.

` — Yup, you sure do.

2 — Yup, they sure are.

3 — Not all Orcs who drank the Blood turned green the first time, either. Some did, but others turned bright red (we call these Chaos Orcs) and some who were exposed to more of the Blood of Magtheridon went all horribly snaggletoothed and spiky. Why the Blood of different Pit Lords affects them differently, and why they get so physically jacked up from more of it, I really can’t say with any certainty. We know that enough exposure to fel energy can literally transform you into a demon, perhaps that’s what’s happening to these orcs.

Guys, seriously, this is totally pandering and it’s absolutely going to work.

Anyway, I’ll start off by saying Draenei Male, and then I’ll give you a more Rossi answer. That is to say, a long winded cop out.

It really depends on what kind of Warrior you want to be. Aesthetically speaking Orc ladies are fantastic. Solid and powerful looking. Similarly, I’m a fan of Night Elf women (tall and slim, they make excellent Arms Warriors), Human males since the revamp (no more apeface), Draenei (either gender) for the sense of solidity and power without hunching over.

The fact is, I haven’t seen a race/gender combination that doesn’t work for Warriors. Forsaken really look good as Fury or Prot, an Orc just seems at home with an axe, or two axes. Tauren? Best looking tanks in the whole game. Gnomes are just balls of death. Get one with pigtails if you can, it’s awesome.

Seriously, what kind of answer do you want? It’s me. The only way I could love Warriors more would be if I could play a Raptor Warrior. A Raptor in Tier 6 with the Bulwark of Azzinoth and a Sun Eater would be ideal.

Okay, that’s the Queue for me today. Anne’s up on the weekend, ask her about her Hunter’s transmog. It’s pretty sweet.