The Queue: 2.13.88

No, that’s not a song title or lyrics.

Not long after I turned 18, I lost my sister, who was 22 at the time. Today is (would have been?) her birthday — specifically, her 30th. Don’t worry, though, it’s been long enough that I’m not, like, super sad or down or anything today. But given today is my day to Queue, it seemed wrong not to do something to honor her memory (even if that just ended up being a small handful of things).

I still don’t quite know what to say when people ask me if I’m the oldest sibling… but that’s as sad or pensive as I want to be here. This is The Queue! We take some Qs and we give ’em some As! So let’s get to it.

As far as pre-purchasing goes, yeah, Allied Races are all we’re getting. But I’m also pretty sure the most we’ve gotten in that past for pre-ordering are Demon Hunters early.

Now, if you’re referring to pre-Battle for Azeroth events in general, there are definitely more coming. We still have to deal with that whole thing going on in Silithus thanks to One Stabby Boi, we’re getting a new battleground at some point, we need to see how our Artifacts ultimately go away, and we’ve been told we’ll be able to experience the Battle at Undercity in-game before the expansion launches. There’s plenty in the pipeline before Battle comes out, but Blizzard’s taking its time releasing them. Oh, and when they are released, they won’t be pre-order things — like all pre-expansion events, everyone’ll be able to do ’em.

I actually didn’t romance more than a couple folks in the Mass Effect series, but Liara was definitely my favorite. I know lots of people like Garrus, but he’s always struck me as more of a “super cool space-cop buddy” sort of type than a romantic partner.

Similarly, I don’t have an answer for every class because I barely play anything outside of my Priest, buuuuuut…. It’s a toss-up between Calia Menethil (for world-domination reasons) and Mariella Ward (for she’s-a-Scarlet-Priest reasons). Both would be cool.

Indeed, I have! My biggest observations in terms of lowbie Shadow leveling are…

• Void Eruption hits like a truck full of more trucks. For a long time, it’ll one-shot mobs. At level 60+ (I’m 64 right now), it’ll still do half of an enemy’s health or more.
• It feels weird not having Shadow Word: Death, but that’s because I’m so used to using it on my max-level Priest.
• I’ve had no trouble surviving, especially if I can cast Void Eruption.

All in all, it’s very solid leveling as Shadow right now. Void Eruption is OP af, but it’s not something you can use every pull, and those non-Void Eruption pulls still proceed at a decent pace. Not too fast, not too slow.

I didn’t actually see a question here, but I wanted to make sure you were rewarded with a #MitchCoin for proper name-Mitching. Keep up the good work, sport!

I’m not sure half-Elves have a big enough population that they could be made a playable race. What I would prefer is Blizzard add more options in the character-creation screen for things like you mentioned above. Allied Races can still be their own thing, but more baseline customization wouldn’t kill either.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t realize it even had its own visual (I’ve only been playing a Shadow Priest as my Void Elf toon). I think that says something about whether or not it should be made more noticeable/unique…

No, I don’t think removing AotC would benefit the casual raid community. As was pointed out in the comments, there’s always going to be something that people use to judge other players’ abilities and “skill.” AotC is an easy signpost, but there’s still plenty more to use (item-level, where your gear is from, how you gem/enchant, etc.) Even if you managed to find a group without any of those checks in place, I think overall AotC teams would be less willing to invite people — because why take the blind risk?

None of this is to say I agree with the approach, necessarily — but it’s how players are.

Oh, and having AotC is actually really nice for guilds, even if they don’t do carries. All of my teams have aimed for AotC, with anything beyond that just a bonus. Having that achievement pop up when you finally down an end boss is just… it’s nice.

Not that I recall. In fact, one of the things I’ve always appreciated about the Heroes holidays is they seem to go on for quite a bit longer than WoW or Overwatch’s. It’s entirely possible Blizzard goofed for a bit, but I did not catch it if they did.

T’paartos!!!!

That’s all for today. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, which could mean anything from happiness to sadness to bitterness to complete and utter neutrality. But let it be known: I love you all <3