The Queue: Just five more minutes

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!

Shh, don’t wake the trash panda. He’s had a very long weekend of trashing houses in Drustvar and digging through garbage for interesting trinkets and things to eat. Don’t worry, another five minutes and he’ll wake up with a jolt and realize that BlizzCon is mere days away. In the meantime, let’s answer your questions, shall we?

You need to be 320 to participate in the Warfront, but hitting that isn’t too hard, if you have a little gold to spend. Make sure you drop some gold or other resources on bonus roll coins and hit up whatever world boss happens to be up for the week. Depending on where your faction is at in the Warfront cycle, killing the rares in Arathi should also net you a pile of decent gear. World Quests are an excellent source of gear — they start out low, but they’ll scale up as your item level increases. If they don’t appear to be scaling correctly, try relogging after you’ve equipped a few upgrades.

You can hit Heroic dungeons at an ilvl of 305. Heroics drop 325 gear, which will also help boost you up. If you’ve gotten Revered reputation or higher with any of the factions, be sure to check out the rep vendor — they’ll usually have a cloak you can purchase at Revered, and some kind of epic level item you can purchase at higher reputation levels. And don’t cross off hitting up the AH for upgrades! Some lower-level crafted items and trinkets can be found fairly cheaply. It won’t necessarily get you to 320 immediately, but it can boost you over 305 so you can start Heroic dungeons a little more quickly.

It’ll take you a little work, but it’s entirely possible to hit 320 in a day or so. Good luck!

You’re in luck, because some of the older reputations are fairly easy to grind out. Many of them have mounts or pets you can purchase at the end of the grind. All you have to do is purchase a faction tabard to champion that faction, and then go grind a dungeon that will net you reputation. You’ll earn bonus reputation with whomever you happen to be championing at the time.

Every racial reputation for your faction has their own rep tabard. Hitting Exalted with any of these factions will unlock the ability to purchase all their racial mounts. In addition, you can purchase tabards to help grind out reputation for an assortment of Wrath reputations, and Cataclysm reputations as well. For Wrath, grinding out Wyrmrest Accord reputation will grant you access to the Reins of the Red Drake. For Cataclysm, grinding out reputation with Ramkahen will unlock access to two camel mounts.

In addition, you might want to try your hand at grinding out reputation with Order of the Cloud Serpent in Pandaria. You can easily boost that rep by hunting for Onyx Eggs on Windward Isle, off the coast of the Jade Forest. Hitting Exalted with the Order of the Cloud Serpent has some sweet quests, a free Cloud Serpent mount at the end, and opens access to purchasing additional Cloud Serpents as well.

Keep in mind that getting reputation in Pandaria is a little easier now, with the addition of Zandalari Warbringers and Warscouts. They spawn fairly frequently, and they’ll drop Stolen Insignias for several of the Pandaria reputations, which you can use to boost your rep significantly. Each reputation has mount rewards you can purchase as well. As for those Warbringers, they also have the chance to drop mounts, so they’re worth farming regardless.

Usually if you see that happen, it means that’s a Stealth mission. Adding a set of troops to a Stealth mission will actually reduce your completion chance percentage. Of course, if this means you won’t be able to counter Cursed, that means you won’t be getting bonus loot for that mission, which is about the point where I throw my hands in the air and just ignore the mission entirely until it rots away and offers me something that will actually net me a reward. There is very little sense to the mission table as it stands, but there’s even less sense in wasting War Resources on a mission that’s been set up for automatic failure in one fashion or another.

Nope! Unfortunately, that one’s only temporary, so it doesn’t count. This is where I mention that I’m wildly disappointed in the lack of a broom mount from somewhere in Drustvar. I mean, the place is full of witches. You’d think at least one of them would drop a broom, wouldn’t you?

I’d be perfectly happy with a McCree cinematic, actually! As far as McCree’s lore goes, he was part of the Deadlock Gang up until a successful Overwatch sting operation. After that, he was approached by Gabriel Reyes and “persuaded” to join Blackwatch — really, the choice came down to “rot in prison forever, or join us,” and McCree chose the latter option.

But despite all of that, we don’t exactly know what makes McCree tick. He was part of the Deadlock Gang, but exactly how he ended up in that position hasn’t really been explored. Given how he progressed from initial cynic to a guy that genuinely wanted to make amends for his past sins via working with Overwatch, there’s more to the character than we’ve been shown. And considering how McCree eventually even began to question the dubious decision-making that Reyes was up to, I think a closer look wouldn’t just shed light on McCree — we might learn some more stuff about Reyes as well.

But hey, I also really dig new hero reveals, so I wouldn’t object to one of those either!

I would love to see anyone tackle the assorted creatures of Drustvar, whether one of the incredibly unsettling witches or one of their wicker creations. But I’m also kind of  hoping we’ll see a Tortollan or two, just because I’d like to see how someone pulls off a costume like that. Cosplayers are ridiculously talented, and their efforts never cease to amaze me — the costume contest is one of my favorite things to watch every year. Can’t wait to see what everyone’s come up with!

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!