The Queue: It’s the most wonderful Queue of the Year (so far)

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope you all had a fun and safe evening last night and are in for a nice cozy relaxing day today. As always it’s a pleasure to be here writing this for you all and I’m looking forward to all the Queues of the next year!

It’s time for — The Queue!

Not yet! Mitch has been mostly leading the charge on the Rumble stuff, though the rest of the team has chipped in to help fill in some gaps.

So while there isn’t an official guide yet, I think that I can throw a few pointers at you for getting through the first few heroic zones.

• Make sure that you have a leader of each faction that has run dungeons as high as possible. That’ll make all of your minis stronger and honestly over leveling is the easiest way to beat the Heroic zones.
• Some of the Heroic mechanics are harder to deal with than others. The very first mission against the Kobold has one of the hardest Heroic modifiers out there if you don’t specifically work to counter it. His kobolds will gain 10 levels for every gold they mine, if you focus too hard on taking the tower on the right lane, and ignore that first kobold he sends — you’ll find yourself under siege by a level 50 Kobold who could solo Mythic Fyrakk without breaking a sweat.
• Don’t be afraid to tweak your army a bit even if the replacement unit isn’t as leveled. Sometimes it’s really important to have a SAFE Pilot, and other times the extra gold you can gain from an unbound Miner can make the difference.
• If you’re stuck on one mission, don’t be afraid to jump around and try others. You don’t have to do them in order, just know that each zone will get a little higher leveled and that can make a big difference.
• If you can beat a mission with all five factions you’ll get a bunch of gold, which can be a really big payday that can help you afford something pricier in the shop. Don’t forget to do your Arclight Surges either for a similar payday.
• I didn’t start any Heroic missions until I’d cleared through all of the regular zones first. I wound up being able to get through the first couple of Heroic zones fairly easily after that.

Good luck!

I like it when it’s cold enough outside that your nose hairs freeze. Or the sound of fresh snow crunching under your feet. I also like getting into a chilled bed at night and waking up in a warm and cozy bed in the morning.

Of course, most of these are things that are really nice as long as I don’t have to go and spend any real time outside in them. I love it when we have a ton of snow, I don’t love having to clear that snow off of my car every morning.

At least seven.

Even when I played a DPS spec primarily I wouldn’t leave my damage meter open in combat most of the time. It’s not something I really need to focus on when I have a boss and my rotation to worry about. It was more about the after-combat that it was important, especially for a raid leader. Then you can see where the weak points in your group are and adjust things as necessary.

For personal improvement use though, WarcraftLogs has always felt better. Details and Skada have their uses, and you can go through them quickly to past fights to see things like interrupts and damage taken/dealt but that’s harder to do in combat unless you’re really practiced.

So I guess my experience lines up pretty much with yours, and my best advice would be to just not sweat it as much. Stick to WarcraftLogs for improvement and ignore the in-game meters.

Trash can be a good destress point in Dungeons and Raids. You’ve just come through a harder fight and now you’ve got a few minutes of downtime before you go into your next big fight. It gives you a chance for cooldowns to come back, and for people who might need to pay attention to something else for a minute to have that chance. So yeah skipping trash isn’t always the most ideal.

There’s always going to be skipping in dungeons though, as speed is often people’s biggest motivator in that kind of content. Whether it’s a random group in the group finder or your Mythic team, the faster you complete it the sooner you’re into the next one.

Blizz could either design their dungeons with unskippable trash or make bosses not activate until a certain amount is cleared. But I don’t think that would be a well-received change. It limits their design a bit, and it’d make Keystones worse as now there wouldn’t be puzzles for the higher end to solve in how to clear the dungeon as fast as possible.

I think the only real way to affect change is in your own dungeons by either asking to pull the things that are being skipped, or pulling them yourself and bring them to the tank.

I don’t know! I haven’t played a narrative game with an ending all the way through to the end in a little while. I guess Starfield? I did get to NG+ on that, so I guess that counts.

I have played a lot of games that have battle passes and raided a lot though, so my first game completed in 2024 will probably be Warcraft when we get our Heroic Fyrakk kill, which I’m also going to count as beating Dragoflight season 3.

Today’s Bacardi is still recovering after last night’s festivities. He’s likely in a good mood though the chances of good luck in your Great Vaults is high!

Today’s Anna Earworm™: Raise Your Glass

Have a great rest of your day, and don’t forget to leave Anna with plenty of questions for tomorrow so that her Queue can also be wonderful!