The Queue: You should see me in a crown

And now you have! Aren’t you happy about that?

Wow, if y’all are expecting clever Queue titles, I am in trouble.

I’ve cleared Crucible on normal, but my group has made very little progress on heroic and we’re returning to Dazar’alor this week to try to down heroic Jaina.

The two fights in Crucible seem like the most complicated fights Blizzard has ever added to the game. Even having done the raid successfully, I don’t think I could explain more than 10% of the mechanics happening — I understand just enough of the basics to get by, and nothing more.

I do think tough fights are a fun challenge. When you’re in a difficult fight you really have to push yourself. You really have to think about your rotation and how to improve. You really learn every mechanic and how to deal with it, because you have to. Most fights in Dazar’alor I know my rotation before we even run in, because I’ve had to practice it until doing the right thing is just ingrained.

But… Crucible is complicated. Even the most minimalist guide (I like Questionably Epic’s) is complicated. The first encounter is two bosses, each with three abilities you have to deal with. One of them has to be tanked by a ranged player. There are things you need to stand in and things you need to avoid. There are relics that need to be activated by certain bosses in certain orders, and every relic does something very bad. There’s a mechanic that prevents healing. There are adds to manage (and regularly interrupt). There’s a shield that prevents all healing. And if one player messes up any mechanics, it usually means a wipe.

I’m glad we have interesting encounters, but this is a lot. I’m sure I’ll learn it in time, but it’s a lot.

I really have to wonder. It seems like it’s (relatively) easy to add new allied races, and even without being brand new they add a lot of color to the game.

But with them being so easy, does Blizzard have any reason to add more races? I think it depends on the next round of content. Every time we’ve gotten an allied race or a brand new race, it’s been because Blizzard had a story to tell. In the case of races, that’s usually a big, sometimes expansion-long story. So the question is really about what the next story is… and what Warcraft race might tie into it?

Ten.

Well, maybe less than ten. Five? Three? Maybe two. Two allows for plenty of classes other than priests to participate in activities. Let’s say two is a good number of priests. Three at most.

No? You disagree?

Okay, there is actually context for this. Flanageddon and I have been watching Limit raid mythic Crucible of Storms, and they were running with ten priests. Eight are shadow, and two of them are Discipline. This is just some crazy stacking… but maybe leveraging the strengths of one class is what works.

Even without official system requirements, I’m pretty sure the answer is “no.” Blizzard has translated old content to the modern game rather than polishing the original client up — so I expect the same system requirements as Battle for Azeroth, or maybe a little less because the vanilla game world wasn’t as graphically demanding.

I think a city like Suramar, which was massive and detailed, has the potential to be expanded into an even larger zone… but with just one big urban area, I honestly think we’d get bored. Sure, you could make different parts of the city look and feel different, but I think it would feel small, crowded, and even caged in. Imho, an expansion needs more variety than a single city could offer.

And that’s all for today, my Queuevian friends. Until next week, I’m signing out.