The Queue: Cup of worlds

I’m not typically a sports person — I can get into a game pretty well, especially in person — but I don’t usually make it a habit to tune into a whole lot of live sporting events. The World Cup is absolutely an exception to that.

I don’t necessarily follow any particular player or team or anything like that, but I still love watching the games happen live and letting myself get invested in the action. (Sometimes, I’ll arbitrarily pick a side to root for, just to spice it up, too.) In any case, I’m writing this as Spain takes on Costa Rica, with Japan having upset Germany not long before. So, to anyone else who shares my joy of watching the World Cup, cheers, friends!

And to everyone in general… let’s Queue.

I know it kinda doesn’t matter anymore, but I still want my Priest to be Horde… which makes things tough, because Void Elves would be a very good pick.

I think I’d probably end up going Blood Elf in the end and then just… making it look Void-y.

A few folks pointed this out, but it’s not something I’d thought about in a minute: The Portal rooms in both Orgrimmar and Stormwind have kinda made the need for a direct Hearthstone a bit less necessary.

Now, if you want to make your existing Hearthstone look more like your Covenant, that can definitely be done… :P

• Tirisfal is starter-adjacent, but it definitely holds a special place in my heart. If not Tirisfal, Suramar (…the version of it that’s not also a starting area).
• Void Elf >:)
• Demon Hunter

Does it make sense? Not really. But I’m waking up in a Nightborne city, as a Void Elf, playing a class played exclusively by other Elves. I like that level of chaos.

Alternatively, if you wanna completely throw me off:

• Vashj’ir
• Mechagnome
• Hunter

…I’d be so h*cked.

Must be something in the air lately — within the last week, I’ve ordered pizza from two separate places, only to wind up with zero pizza at the end of the night. In the first instance, we ordered and didn’t find out for a while that the order had been canceled; in the second, we reached two hours waiting and then called only to find out the order “didn’t go through” (even though they read the order back to me). Still waiting for the charge to get refunded on that last one.

Anyhow, if anyone plans to order pizza, y’all have been warned.

You were clearly not asking me this, but I’m going to answer all the same! Partially because I think it’s fascinating, but also partially because Disc. is the off-spec I dabble in here and there at the end of an expansion.

For me, Disc. is that nice “off-spec that feels familiar-ish” — as a Shadow main, I still feel like doing damage is a goal, but there are just some extra buttons I have to press in between that damage to make sure people stay alive. But if you’re a healing Priest? Theoretically, it should come down to preference. Holy is a more traditional, reactionary healer, with a pretty big toolkit and a lot of ways to heal different group sizes. Disc. is more about preventing damage and doling out your own in the meantime. In a lot of instances, it just comes down to which spec has the highest throughput, though.

So if you’re struggling to understand why you’d pick Disc. over Holy… well, don’t look at it in terms of numbers. Look at it in terms of the playstyle you want. If the playstyle you want ends up being un-fun because you can’t do the healing you want, it could be numbers, it could be that you’re missing an element that changes a major portion of the rotation, or it could just be that your group needs more communication on how to approach pulls.

Also mentioned in the replies, but Disc. works pretty well in PVP, so it fills that healing niche nicely for Priests too.

I don’t mean this in an in-your-face way or anything like that — genuinely, I feel like that’s the goal Blizzard had with the talents! I don’t get the feeling that everyone feels that way about their spec, but it’s cool to hear it’s working for Elemental like that!

I’m still playing with Shadow a bit. I ran a dungeon the other night and realized I’d specced into Mind Spike, which made Mind Flay feel kind of… unnecessary? But I have no idea if I’m doing anything wrong there. Regardless, it was cool to feel like I was playing a totally different version of Shadow than the one I’d been used to, while also knowing the spec exists for the old one if I want it there.

New talent system ain’t perfect, but there are moments where it does succeed in providing unique, divergent pathways within one spec.

Only if you want to! I personally am a packrat and like to hold onto one-time things just so I have ’em there to look at later on.

But functionally? If Blizz ever DID decide to reuse them, they’d likely change the amounts you get so holding onto them didn’t provide any advantage. (Alternatively, they’ll use Super Scourgestones or something that are similar but still unique — they did this with pre-Naxx Scourgestones compared to Shadowlands ones.)

Apologies if this has already had some bites, but I wanted to signal boost this in case anyone was looking for this or you still needed takers!

That’s our Queue for today! I hope you all have a great week, whether you’re in holiday territory or not. I, for one, am thankful for all that Yogg provides me.

Y’all are all right too, though 💜