The Queue: Snek 🐍

I hear sneks are all the hiss lately. Everybody’s got sneks on their brains. Sneks are hogging all the sunlight. They’re the flavor of the month, and it tastes like venom. They just keep slithering their way into every conversation.

This is the Queue, our daily Q&A column where snakes are so hot right now (ambient temperature permitting; give them twenty minutes under a warm rock or something).

Time for me to make some very specific predictions, instead of being vague.

• The Last Titan will get a presentation. We’ll see how they’ll revamp Northrend. We’ll get a few new races. Maybe we’ll get Vrykul for the Alliance, Taunka for the Horde, and Tuskarr as a neutral allied race.
• A new Diablo expansion will be announced, starting a new arc, after Mephisto’s. The next villain will be either Diablo or Baal, obviously. Or secret option c, both at the same time!
• Hearthstone will get a new class, Monk. Pandaren will be a new minion type, entering both Constructed and Battlegrounds.
• Overwatch will get an animated series. WoW will also get an animated series.

I want to believe. I WANT TO BELIEVE

I very rarely do. However, a recent game where I actually did fight all of the optional super-bosses was Metaphor: ReFantazio. And I think the main reason I did was because the fights were very well-designed: while they were still the kind of fight where you need to perfectly understand all the mechanics and prepare yourself specifically for them (as is usually the case), those fights in Metaphor allowed you to figure out as you tried. For the most part.

I think I did check out a guide at some point, but the fights still felt very doable, rather than frustrating. So that was nice!

Just want to say, this is a fantastic idea. And I mean it. If they bothered to add an actual Arachnophobia mode to the UI back in The War Within because they had a zone full of spiders, why not give the snakes from the Coiled Isle the same treatment?

I’m not saying every players need to be protected from every single creepy creature out there, but phobia of spiders and snakes are both very common. So it feels really weird and inconsistent that one can be replaceable by a UI option, but not the other.

1) Both sound awful but I’d rather take my chances with the tower. And I’m gonna guess you did… both! One in real life, the other in a game! Maybe WoW! (Are there any kayaks in the new snake zone?)

2) I know you meant the 12.1 changes, but… I haven’t tested anything, because I haven’t really been playing much WoW lately. 🥺

I did test the 12.0 class changes, extensively (very extensively, in fact). Most of the reworks we got in Midnight were pretty great; I rate the revamps that specs like Demonology Warlock, Enhancement Shaman, Unholy DK, Frost Mage, Survival Hunter, and Subtlety Rogue got very highly. Those specs were changed pretty drastically in some cases, and it was a really good job by the WoW team.

Other specs like Shadow Priest and Fury Warrior didn’t change all that much, but they didn’t need it; they were already super fun, and remained that way, or they simply got smaller adjustments that made them better, like Feral Druid.

Some other specs got changed and became slightly worse, in my opinion, even if they’re not “bad” or anything. My own main spec, Windwalker Monk, is one of those. The same is true of Destruction Warlock and Fire Mage, which are still fun, but feel a bit “lesser” than they did before, often due to losing buttons on their rotations that didn’t really get adequate replacements, or became exclusive to one another when they weren’t before.

And then there are a few that I think changed for the worse more considerably than just “slightly.” Havoc Demon Hunter losing Demon’s Bite is still unexplainable to me. No, I don’t care that “all the pros took Demon Blades;” the game is not balanced only around cutting edge raiding, that’s only a small subsection of players. Demon’s Bite and Demon Blades sat on the same talent node and offered completely opposite play experiences (passive vs. active), so it was the kind of choice where it’s a huge difference in moment-to-moment gameplay that a large subsection of players were used to, but lost access to and were forced to take the other option.

And Beast Mastery is just mind-numbingly boring now. I get that some specs are supposed to be easier to play, but man. At least add some optional talents to add a few extra buttons or mechanics!

But overall, I feel like most of the 12.0 changes were in the right direction, especially considering how the game was being changed to “no longer require WeakAuras.”

I hope you’re happy with my 12.0 answer about your 12.1 question!

To quote Ralph Wiggum, “I’m helping!”

The powerful sorceress Deis (aka Bleu) from the Breath of Fire series. Several characters in that series are half-human, half-animal, and our Deis, who’s present in most (all?) games in the series, is our spellcasting snake lady.

To quote Marge Simpson, I just think she’s neat.

This has been The Queue. Have a great, hopefully snakeless weekend, friends.

(Unless you work in a zoo, or a serpentarium, or something, and you have to go to work this weekend. For those of you caught up in those very particular exceptions, I wish you a snakeful weekend, friends.)

To quote Snake Jailbird, “Sayonara, dude!”