The Queue: Picking the right horse (or hippo)

Listen, I’m not saying the Spiritborn are wrong, but they certainly aren’t right.

I know the Diablo team thinks they’re picking the most dramatic animals for the new Spiritborn class, but they’re wrong, because the correct guardian spirit is the hippo.

The hippo is a mysterious creature. It is a massive animal — only the elephant is larger — that spends most of its time lounging in the water. But hippos can’t swim. And hippos can’t float. They sort of hop through the water, hitting the bottom and bouncing back up, or just running along the riverbed.

Frankly, it’s kind of charming, this little deceit. But it’s not the only deceit.

Hippos would seem to plod around slowly, staying in the water to support their bulk and keep cool. But when they want to, they can run nearly 20 miles per hour, and it was recently discovered that they have an unusual gait that’s rather like a horse: when they move at speed, they become briefly airborne, lifting all four feet off the ground.

Also, while they seem like adorable round, chill creatures — you’ve seen all those videos of Fiona and Fritz, right? — they are not. Sure, they’re herbivores who love watermelon, but if you mess with them they will straight up murder you. They can weigh over 3000 pounds and have a bite force that’s stronger than an alligator.

Respect the hippo. It’s the kind of animal you want to have on your side. It’s the kind of deceitfully friendly, dopily round creature that you want to have tear your enemies apart with a single powerful bite. (A bite that’s eight times more powerful than a jaguar’s, by the way.)

In short, the ideal spirit guardian. In short, mistakes were made. In short, I expect Blizzard to correct this immediately or I will be forced to riot against this injustice.

Even after seeing the rest of the preview videos, I think my answer is the same: an illusionist wizard who goes all in on trickery. Illusionists don’t have to speak to cast illusion spells, so you can cast them with fewer cues. They can cast illusions 60 feet farther than any one else. They can cast illusions which are supposed to be silent that include sound. They would be masters of misdirecting, changing up battlefields to fool enemies, creating distractions to make sure people are looking the other way while they do as they will, and tricking people in social situations to think they’ve seen things they haven’t seen.

I think I would play this as who acts like they aren’t a wizard at all. A thief, a rogue, a trickster… sure, but not a wizard.

But pro-wrestler bard is an awesome take. It’s a unique way of looking at the bard class, making a bard who doesn’t necessarily act like you would expect a bard to act. That’s what I like about this concept of a deception-focused wizard: they aren’t what they are.

The best part about Xbox Game Pass is that playing games isn’t a commitment. I have played games that I downloaded, played for 15 minutes, and really didn’t vibe with, deleted, and never went back. So you can try everything. If it sounds interesting at all… give it a try! All you have to lose is download time (which makes this strategy less practical for anyone with data caps).

I’ll pick out an odd one: Pentiment, a story-driven, combat-free game illustrated in the style of a medieval manuscript. It’s beautiful, with interesting characters, complicated moral choices, and no right answers.

I expect everyone else to provide their answers in the comments as well, because I’m always looking for new games to add to my list of things I really want to play but can’t make the time for.

If they’re punching the water and the boat isn’t going anywhere, I think they’re punching wrong.

I am really glad you asked: it’s the USS Cowpens, CVL-25, an Independence-class light carrier. It was small (ish) thing, only 620 feet long… at least that’s small compared to the 820 feet of the full-sized Essex-class carriers, which were being commissioned around the same time.

Cowpens and her sisters were fundamentally stupid ships. During World War 2, the United States was badly in need of aircraft carriers, which were being sunk fast. And so the Navy began work on Independence-class carriers, which were built on narrow cruiser hulls, taking cruisers that were partially completed and slapping flight decks on top of them. The result could best be described as a kludge. The ships were top-heavy with a tendency to list even in calm weather. They were cramped, since carriers needed much more crew. And the flight deck was short and narrow, without much clearance for her largest planes.

Before setting out to the pacific, she managed to get tangled in a submarine net off Norfolk. At Wake Island, the first plane to fly off her deck in combat accidentally tumbled right into the sea in the fog. The Cowpens did not have an auspicious start, but on she sailed, through typhoons and into enemy fire. She was the first carrier in Tokyo Bay, and her sailors were the first to set foot in Japan. Cowpens wasn’t there for the beginning of the war, but she saw its end, after which she made several runs ferrying soldiers home before being decommissioned herself.

It’s a great underdog story.

And… what’s that? The name? The ship was named after the famous Battle of Cowpens in the Revolutionary War, after a drugstore owner in Cowpens, South Carolina, wrote to the president inquiring if an aircraft carrier might be named in honor of the battle. Because of that, the Battle of Cowpens took its proper place alongside the Battles of Yorktown and Saratoga.

The ship was also known, colloquially, as “The Mighty Moo,” or just “The Moo.”

You can see why she would be my favorite.

And that’s all for now, friends. Take care of yourselves, have a good weekend, and I’ll see you back here next week.