The Queue: I’m just being sensible

I see you all giving me that judgmental stare, but I am only concerned about safety. This ship could go down any second now, and this murloc floatie could save my life. Really you should be wearing one yourself! Hmph.

I suppose we’ll move on to questions, while I quietly question all of your fashion choices.

Absolutely none.

When the pre-patch went live my old bag add-on wasn’t working, so I installed BetterBags, which displays the content of your bags in a specific order (which you can configure). At first it made me a little twitchy not to be able to move things around, but frankly it does so much of the heavy lifting that I would do (dragging and dropping icons, not remembering where I’d put things, not remembering what things even were) by sorting and displaying them in categories. I’ve configured it a bit to my liking and will probably need to do some more work on it as we progress through TWW.

But honestly, I’m happy not to have to hunt for things so much. Now everything is just there. Hearthstones are grouped together in a category. Gear is grouped into categories. Consumables are grouped into a category. BetterBags take the wheel: no more inventory management for me.

I’m generally looking forward to exploring a new part of the world, as well as a new raid to play through with friends — we’ve been on a long break after we decided we were done with Awakened raids and achievements. I miss the social activity more than anything, I think.

I won’t be playing a Paladin this expansion. My guild doesn’t need the healer and while I’ve tried to be flexible and swap when I’m not needed I really don’t enjoy playing Retribution. It’s in a great place right now, but it just doesn’t hold my attention when I’m playing. All there is to do is press the same four or five buttons in sequence. I get bored. I lose focus. I don’t play it very well.

It’s fine to play casually, when soloing, but for three hours at a stretch on a raid night when I need to be playing well and putting out good DPS? I just can’t.

Finding something I want to play is an ongoing challenge. I’m the kind of person who finds one thing I like doing and does it. I don’t play alts very much, and I don’t play any of them in a serious way. When I found out my guild didn’t need me healing, I had exactly two level 70 characters, one of which was wearing 385 Primal Invasion gear from early Dragonflight.

And the problem I have with Retribution is a problem I’m going to have with a lot of DPS classes, I think, and it’s hard to tell without playing them for a time in some more semi-serious content. (Before you ask, I did consider Windwalker, Red, but we’re already going to have two Windwalkers and I fear the competition.) I’m likely to go Augmentation Evoker due to its novel playstyle, and managing/monitoring buffs is something I’m already used to doing (albeit in a different context). And, really, I’d hoped one of the Paladin hero specs would lean into the support role and make all of our blessings shine, where as currently they’re highly situational things that you have to have keybound because when you need them you really need them, but you might really need them once a week.

I’ve been playing and enjoying an Arcane Mage, also, but I’m wary of playing a pure DPS class — if I don’t enjoy it all I can do is swap to another DPS spec. With Evoker I’ll have a healing spec (though I haven’t taken the time to learn it yet), and it will be easier to have a geared healer (as opposed to trying to keep my Holydin up to par without raiding). I like healing, and I’ve been doing it practically full-time in game since I rolled my Paladin in Burning Crusade.

It’s kind of funny because I have been “meh” on playing a dragon since they were first announced. They’re… fine, I suppose, but I was never interested in them or that charge-up playstyle. (Which is extra weird since guides seem to recommend only casting rank 1 empowered spells in most situations. Why have them, then?) And here I am, with a dearth of options, playing a dumb dragon that breaks all of my transmog. Ugh!

I still might go with the Mage. The fact that we’re less than two weeks to launch and I don’t even know what I’m playing gives you an idea of how much I’m struggling here.

Considering my experience with current fan-favorite Retribution, yeah, I definitely sometimes have very different reactions to a class than my fellows.

But even though Warlocks have a reputation for being tough, they also set themselves on fire in order to move faster. I say the result is a mixed bag.

Red already pointed out that a lot of hero specs have this same problem, for better or worse. (And Mountain Thane, in particular, feels geared towards Dwarf Warriors, specifically. A particularly egregious example.) I’ll leave that at that.

But honestly I don’t think Herald of the Sun is much of a stretch. Even if it isn’t something that most Paladins talk about — even in the Horde, Blood Elves and Zandalari don’t go on about the sun — the sun is the most obvious, tangible source of light there is. It seems like a natural connection, which could easily lead to a sect of Paladins that associates the Light with the sun.

Blizzard could have put in a bit more effort to give some of these stronger story ties, or to add them. But thematically, I think this one isn’t a hard stretch.

Nope.

Player characters just aren’t allowed to look that cool, I’m afraid.

Even though I have some extreme reservations, I still have to say Dragon Age. Even if it’s disappointing, I’ve been waiting for this game for a decade and I want to know what it’s like. Where’s the story going? Who are all of the new characters? What’s Tevinter like? WHERE IS MY BFF DORIAN? Things like that.

I’m also going to play Diablo 4, because of course I am, and I’m sure the single-player campaign will be a solid experience… but even knowing that I’m kind of burned out on the endless grind of these five seasons, and even a rad new plotline doesn’t have me super hyped. (Also, much like my disinterest in Evokers, I’m not at all interested in the Spiritborn.)

And that’s all I have for you today, my friends. Thank you for all of the questions, and I will see you in the comments for afternoon chatter.