The Queue: The outline of liquid

I saw a movie last night. Can you guess which one? I mean, sure, I’ve already tweeted about it, but who am I to assume you read those? I would never be mad at someone for not obsessively reading what I post on Twitter. (JK. I’ll be so super mad if you don’t read my tweets.)

Here’s The Queue!

Definitely more excited for Before the Storm. Outside of being a Christie Golden novel (which is always excellent), it tells a narrative that I think we all desperately need. And one we want!

Sure, Chronicle will fill in/expand on existing lore, but Before the Storm is new lore told very specifically as a narrative story. Plus, Sylvanas. Really, that’s all I need to be excited about a novel.

For the Mage Tower, get your item level up as high as you can (with Antorus LFR, that shouldn’t be too hard) and make sure you put some AP into your Artifact weapon if it’s for an off spec. Similarly, don’t forget the Netherlight Crucible. You’re welcome to wing it, but I would suggest at least looking over a quick written guide on Wowhead or something on YouTube to see what you should be doing.

I know I tried the Discipline one (yeah, yeah…) blind and did okay, but I was missing a pretty basic mechanic that made it much easier once I read up on it. Rest was pretty simple.

As for the Mythic +15… yeah, that’s tougher, but a few things that can help are waiting for an “easy” Affix week, waiting until right before a Mythic+ reset (although that may not be until 8.0 now), and, well, asking here or on Twitter.

Gold does help, though.

Truth is, we don’t know. I suspect that the Allied Races won’t see requirements made lenient during Battle for Azeroth at all, but will maybe see those changes made in 9.0. It seems logical that Blizzard would bundle Draenor with the Broken Isles at that point, which would mean you could skip Broken Isles entirely if you wanted.

Alternatively, we could see requirements eased with every other new Allied Race additions. I.e., Round 1 of Allied Races (Void Elves, etc.) are made easier when Round 3 (???) are released, but not when Round 2 (Zandalari) come out.

But like I said, we don’t know. I wouldn’t expect Void Elves or any of the races on the 7.3.5 PTR to have requirements completely removed until 9.0, though — if at all.

Same thing that happens with your Justice Points, obviously.

So, without doing a ton of research on the matter, I’m pretty sure we’re getting an hour-ish or less of scenario-like content to initially unlock them.

The thing I can more reliably answer is that second part. The Heritage armor sets require leveling to max-level from level 20 — which means no boosting an Allied Race and getting fancy armor. By releasing them beforehand — which, we don’t technically know if they will — it allows players to not have to choose between leveling a level-20 Allied Race when Battle launches or playing the new zones.

Releasing them early allows players to not only earn the cool armor, it also lets them gear an Allied Race and prepare it as a new main before the new continent comes out. It was the same with Demon Hunters, really.

Ugh. I love Knaifu, I do. But I hate not being able to transmog to anything but daggers. I want staves back, at the bare minimum. Maces and off-hands (or even lower priority, wants and off-hands) will be nice to have as options, since the appearances are just being wasted in my transmog tab now… but staves are what I want to use more than anything.

I assume exactly what you assume! Really, the first round of four could surprise us, but given that subsequent rounds will likely be two races at a time (like Zandalari and Dark Iron), I don’t see why Blizzard wouldn’t have them simply swap to one another. Seems easiest and most sensical.

PS: Don’t get on my about the word “sensical.” I’m using it and no one can stop me!

In general — not just for WoW, but all games — I like to make things look as good as possible…but not at the cost of good FPS. I prefer 60+ FPS as often as possible, but I realize that something like Val’Sharah is going to go below that. In that case, as long as that specific zone is 30+ consistently, I’ll keep things how they are. If my framerate starts to drop too much and too consistently, though I start picking and choosing.

In WoW, I pick ground clutter first. It seems to really affect my FPS, and the max setting is honestly too cluttered for me anyhow. After that, I’ll probably turn down anti-aliasing and then shadows if needed.

Given we merry band of adventurers took down Elisande, this one easily goes to SargerMedivh. But also, I just plain like Medivh.

I’m back again tomorrow, since Liz is out doing… something. I’m not sure what. I think it involves Criss Angel.

See you tomorrow!