The Queue: Full circle

Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A feature for all of Blizzard’s games! Have a question for the Blizzard Watch staff? Leave it in the comments!

It was a good run, Illidan. I didn’t exactly care for you during the expansion, but you turned into a pretty fascinating character at the end there. And while I also didn’t exactly care for Tyrande and Malfurion’s reactions during that final quest you sent me on, I liked the last part of the chain. There was something nice about seeing the three of you sitting together. Just a little window into your lives, echoes of the past that linger on. I think Legion did you justice, buddy. Enjoy…uh…well, whatever it is you’re doing up there in the sky. Punching things?

Yeah, probably punching things.

I feel like I’ve answered a question similar to this one already. But hey, we have an alpha out now, which we didn’t have before. The short answer to your question is “we don’t know.” There’s nothing on the alpha regarding Demon Hunters — no story elements that I’ve noticed as of yet. This isn’t actually a bad thing, however — because that question of what they’re going to do? That’s the story for those guys. There’s no cut-and-dry pat solution to the problem, it’s something that I’m guessing will be up to the Illidari to figure out.

I don’t think it’s going to be a big story element in Battle for Azeroth. There are a lot of other things going on, after all — and the story of Illidan and the Illidari was pretty much a Legion-focused story. Now that Legion is over, that story shifts from “Let’s defeat the Burning Legion” to a big fat “now what” the likes of which we’ve already seen from the Forsaken and even Gilneas to a degree. But I also don’t think it’s going to be left open-ended forever. I mean, we had the Death Knights after Wrath, and they only just started popping up again and making waves story-wise in Legion. It took a few expansions, but we finally got back around to giving them another look. I feel like it’s going to be the same way for the Illidari.

As someone who also completed that rep grind back in the day…man I hope so! I think it depends on if any of the original crew from Yojamba Isle in classic are still alive. If any of them did survive and make it back to Zandalar in once piece, I’d like to think people with the legacy achievement would get some kind of recognition or something. Nothing big, mind you, but a little nod, like the remark Bolvar makes in Dragonblight to players that completed The Great Masquerade chain back in the day.

We can’t copy our main characters over to alpha right now — all we can do is premades. Unfortunately, that leaves me with no way to test it. But I’ll definitely check it out if or when I can get a character with the appropriate reputation copied over.

That situation in particular wasn’t directly addressed. However, they did mention LFR raids while they were talking about the legacy loot mode. Two points were made:

• For raids with a flexible raid size (such as Raid Finder), this will act as though there were 20 players in the raid.
• All items on the loot table will have a chance to drop, not just the ones that are designated for your spec.

One would assume that the second point means that Raid Finder will be dropping all kinds of loot, not just personal loot. But since that wasn’t directly stated, I don’t know if we can reasonably make that assumption. I’m going to hope they give us a little more clarity on what exactly they’re planning for LFR modes once they’re closer to throwing in those updates in Battle for Azeroth.

I want a wall climbing ability on my Rogue, like what Hanzo and Genji can do in Overwatch. Yes, I know this is ridiculously OP, and has all kinds of potential for breaking the game in a variety of different ways. I know that also means we’re never going to get it. But man, after all that time skulking around Suramar and using the grappling hook to get around, I can’t help but think being able to just straight-up climb a wall would be really cool. I mean, we’re assassins and thieves, it just makes sense, you know?

At the moment, the only thing we can create in the alpha is premade characters. They don’t have Artifacts — they’re set up with a set of decent green gear for leveling. Professions aren’t a thing yet either, and premades don’t start with any professions learned. Unfortunately, what this all adds up to is a big fat I don’t know — I’m sorry. But I’d say if you’re really gung-ho about fishing and you like it a lot, why not go for the Artifact? We’ve got several months at least between now and the release of Battle for Azeroth, so you might as well knock it out while you have time, if you’re looking for something to do. Even if it doesn’t really amount to anything in the next expansion, you can still have fun getting it.

I really, really, really can’t express how much I miss Burst of Speed. I loved using it to zip around — again, it was probably a little OP, but man that ability was the best. I get the totem thing though — I miss being able to plunk down totems on my Shaman, too.

Taking away Burst of Speed is understandable in some ways, but I never really got why they took away totems. I suppose there’s a convenience factor to be considered, but totems have been a part of the Shaman class since day one. I mean, you used to have to do quests to unlock them and everything. It felt weird when they took them out, and it still feels weird not to have them — I have the talent that lets me slap down totems, but it’s just not the same.

That’s it for today’s Queue — if you have any questions you’d like to see answered, be sure to leave them in the comments below!