Entries in Priest (12)

PTR 3.3: New Build Deployed, Patch Notes Updated

The new build brings several changes, but we still have to wait for the Halls of Reflection. The new build brings several changes, but we still have to wait for the Halls of Reflection. It looks like that little bit of extra maintenance on the PTR today wasn't just for show, as a new build of 3.3 has been deployed on the test realms. Unfortunately, this one doesn't seem to be quite as substantial as the first two, as there seem to be no new instances to run through. Part of me wonders if they'll just keep Halls of Reflection internal for the duration of the testing period in order to preserve the secrecy of whatever events might transpire there. But that doesn't mean there aren't any new or interesting changes. Here are the updated patch notes:

Druid
  • Rebirth: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
  • Gift of the Earthmother: Redesigned. This talent now increases spell haste by 2/4/6/8/10% instead of its previous effect.
Hunter
  • Call Stabled Pet: Cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
Mage
  • Improved Scorch: The debuff from this talent no longer stacks, and instead can apply the full effect from a single cast of Scorch.
Priest
  • Power Word: Shield; This spell can now be cast on non-raid/party friendly targets.
  • Improved Devouring Plague: This spell now deals 10/20/30% of its total periodic effect instantly, up from 5/10/15%.
  • Shadowform: This talent also now causes Devouring Plague, Shadow Word: Pain, and Vampiric Touch to benefit from haste. Both the period length and the duration of these spells will be reduced by haste. In addition, the mana cost has been reduced from 32% to 13% of base mana.
  • Vampiric Embrace: This ability is now provides a 30-minute buff that cannot be dispelled, instead of a target debuff.
Shaman
  • Reincarnation: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 60 minutes down to 50 minutes (Improved Reincarnation will continue to lower the cooldown by 10/20 minutes).
Warlock
  • Create Soulstone: The cooldown on this spell and duration of its buff have been lowered from 30 minutes down to 15 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
  • Decimation: Redesigned. When Shadowbolt, Incinerate or Soul Fire hit a target that is at or below 35% health, the cast time of Soul Fire is reduced by 20/40% for 8 seconds. Soul Fires cast under the effect of Decimation cost no shards.
  • Molten Core: Redesigned. Shadow spells and damage-over-time effects have a 12% chance to increase the damage done by Incinerate by 5/10/15% and Soul Fire by 4/7/10% for 12 seconds. In addition, Molten Core now has a new spell effect.
User Interface
  • Non spell-based tracking now persists through logout.
  • Any party member may mark raid targets.
  • Users will be warned when their talents are reset due to a new patch.
  • “/Settitle” command has been added.
  • Instant quest text is on by default.
  • “Tentative” status added for calendar responses.
  • Players below level 10 may not join raids.
  • Ignore list expanded to 50 to match the friends list.
  • Unit frames added for special encounters.
  • Interface element added next to the mini-map to show what dungeon you are in (ex: 10- and 25-player Heroic dungeons marked with a skull).
  • Experience earned for a quest will display in the Quest Rewards section.
  • Confirmation box added when buying stable slots.
  • Macro Changes
Symbol “@” added as a synonym for “target=”;. For example, “/cast [@focus] Flash Heal”. New macro conditionals: “vehicleui” (if the player has a vehicle UI) and “unithasvehicleui” (if the target of the macro has a vehicle UI). Character and Creature Nameplates
  • The range at which players can see nameplates has been significantly expanded.
  • You can no longer see nameplates through objects which block line of sight.
As long as you are able to peer through the doorway of a room, you will see nameplates of characters and creatures in that room. Pillars and bridges in Arenas will not hide friendly or enemy nameplates.
  • Totem nameplates can be toggled off under “PRODUCTION” settings via “Interface Options” on the test realms.
  • Instead of nameplates for large groups of players or creatures trying to sort themselves, they will now overlap. This functionality can be toggled off under “PRODUCTION” settings via “Interface Options” on the test realms.
Addon Author Changes
  • “registerForClicks” added to xml buttons.
  • “MouseIsOver” has been converted to a “C” function for increased efficiency (e.g. /dump PlayerFrame:IsMouseOver() ).
  • When an addon file is loaded, the addon name and an addon table are passed to the file through ‘…’. The same addon table is passed to every file loaded by a particular TOC file (example at the top of a Lua file: “local addonName, addonTable = …;”.
  • “motionScriptsWhileDisabled” attribute added to buttons. This allows “OnEnter”; and “OnLeave”; to fire while the button is disabled.
  • “GetFileHeight()” and “GetFileWidth()” added to Texture objects. 0 is returned if no texture file is associated with the texture.
  • You can now query for a list of completed quests with “QueryQuestsCompleted()” then wait for the “QUEST_QUERY_COMPLETE” event, and call “GetQuestsCompleted(<luatable>)”.
As you can see, several spells have been redesigned (and I'm personally pretty happy about the reduced cooldown on Rebirth), but some of the most exciting changes are coming to the User Interface. Though allowing anybody in your party to mark targets may seem like trouble waiting to happen for an unruly group, it should be quite beneficial for those that know how to control themselves. It takes some of the sweat of the tank or raid/party leader if other people can be designated to mark targets on the fly. Likewise, I'm glad that they're finally adding a "tentative" option to calender responses. I'm sure we've all had days when we weren't entirely sure we'd be able to make it to a raid or not, and just knowing that much makes organizing them a heckuva lot easier. As for the nameplates? Well, I always have them on, and while I can see a few problems with allowing them to overlap, I think it'll be much less confusing than the current setup which has them bouncing all over the place when there is a large group of mobs to deal with. That makes them extremely hard to individually target with the mouse. You go to click one and its nameplate has just jumped across the screen, and we all know that mis-targeting can, on occasion, lead to rather unfortunate consequences. As a side note, MMO-Champion has revealed that Oswald the Penguin will now once again go by his old name, Mr. Chilly. One might wonder why Blizzard did such a quick one-eighty! This new build is sure to bear more fruit as we continue to explore what it offers, so please stay tuned, and let us know what you think of the changes above!

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Rogue Advice and Priest Tips For Patch 3.1

Need Tips For End Of Holy Tree
Patches are always such hard work.  When I head that Secrets of Ulduar was coming this Tuesday, I instantly budgeted extra time into my game playing schedule.  The catch was that it wouldn't be used for actually playing World of Warcraft.  All the changes to the MMORPG's core mechanics meant that I would need to do a whole lot of research to perfect my toons.  Sure, I could have done some ahead of time by using the PTR information, but I hate conducting experiments based on unfinalized data.  Over the past 48+ hours, I have spent every free moment I had to check on spec, gear, gem, and enchant changes.  There was also that Dual Spec thing to consider.  Who would have thought that a game could be so overwhelming sometimes?
Rogue Tips
I know I try to be a bit general on my tips, but things are going to have to be granular for the time being.  Perhaps Hearthbourne or Pixiestixy can weigh in with specific Combat/Subtley advice, because I will be focusing on the changes to Mutilate (although some tips are applicable across the board), and what the poison loving rogues need to know to keep their DPS rocking. Let's start off with the basics, the re-tweaked Mutilate spec, which really isn't that different from pre-v3.1.  The main points of contention are the selection of Close Quarters Combat over Turn the Tables, and your Major Glyphs.  From the theorycrafting I have been privy to, CQC will lend an approximate .6% increase in damage over TtT.  A drastically simplified explanation is that CQC will always grant you 3% critical strike increase, while TtT only adds its 6% critical strike buff to combo point generating moves, under certain circumstance, and for a limited time.  The randomness of TtT's benefits happen to be its downfall. I've seen a few different setups for Glyphs, but to me, HfB, Mutilate and Rupture are the best choices for raiding rogues.  Sure, Garrote is nice, but you should be using Rupture far more frequently.  Envenom and Feint are useless since you can get that stack of poisons up in no time, and you always have Vanish.  I am tempted to give Fan of Knives a go in the future.  I do a fair amount of overall damage with my AOE spell (I hate the new graphic), so adding 20% to it may be worth it, even if FoK is incredibly situational. Outside of our spec, the most important thing to be aware of are the changes to poisons.  First off, our Deadly Poisons now generate 12% of their damage from our Attack Power, up from 8%.  The game changer for us is that poisons are no longer simply chance to apply.  As of Tuesday they are now under the procs-per-minute frequency model.  That modification nerfs the previous bread and butter of fast daggers because they can no longer apply more poisons than their slower counterparts.  Due to the change, Mutilate rogues should go back to slow main hand daggers in order to maximize the damage of Mutilate.  However, don't toss that speedy blade to a vendor just yet.  Fast daggers are still recommended in your offhand for Deadly Poison applications (Instant Poison should now be on your MH weapon) and Focused Attacks. What about gems and enchants you ask?  Assuming that you have meet the hit cap and expertise cap, you should put your gems towards agility and your enchants towards attack power.  Feel free to leave additional tips!  Pooled knowledge is a good thing.  Enjoy smashing faces.
In Need Of Priest Tips
I may come off as a bit of a know-it-all when it comes to rogues (or at least my spec), but I have been playing the class since beta.  On the flip side, I have only been seriously playing a priest since I signed up a friend for the Refer-A-Friend promotion.  My spacegoat remains at level 70, but I have slowly, very slowly, been leveling her.  With Dual Spec now available, I foresee her hitting level 80 in the near future thanks to her new achievement.  This is where you priests come in, I need help with my specs yet again.  I've settled on this Shadow-based build for leveling (obviously).  On the healing side of the tree I went with a regen-heavy Holy spec that is very close to the spec Solidsagart rolled with pre-v3.1.  The healing spec is currently for 5-man, but will need to be tweaked for raids down the road.  Any and all pointers are appreciated. On a more general note, Naxxramas was completely playable last night.  Assuming we can get Naxxramas done in two days next week, we should be venturing into Ulduar.  I've also started my Argent Tournament dailies, expect a report on that next week.  How's the patch treating you now?

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3.1 PTR Unveils Legendary Mace, New Rings, and More

Image from MMO-Champion.comMMO-Champion has been bringing the thunder this morning with tons of news that has been cascading out of the public test realm. With a build of patch 3.1 live on the PTR, players have been given the first full look at an almost overwhelming number of changes and additions to the World of Warcraft. Big, drool-worthy news for Paladins, Priests, Druids, and Shaman is that a legendary One Handed Mace looks like it will be making its way to those classes' hands eventually. The classes mentioned will have the ability to collect 40 Fragments of Val'anyr and combine them, creating Shattered Fragments of Val'anyr, which begins a quest, eventually rewarding Val'anyr, Gavel of the Ancient Kings. Here's to hoping there's a version which certain enhancement shaman might be able to use. Players have also discovered that inscribed versions of the Kirin Tor rings (the ones that cost 8000g and teleport you to Dalaran) are available for an additional 1000g. These rings will be item level 213 and require the original ring to purchase. Finally, MMO-Champion revealed that new mounts and pets are being added into WoW, including Mimiron's Head, which summons and dismisses a rideable mechanical gnome head! This thing reminds me of Bowser's clown faced aircraft from Super Mario World. A full list of the pets and mounts can be found below. New Pets

  • Spring Rabbit - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Spring Rabbit.
  • Plump Turkey - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Plump Turkey.
  • Teldrassil Sproutling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Teldrassil Sproutling.
  • Tirisfal Batling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Tirisfal batling.
  • Dun Morogh Cub - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Dun Morogh Cub.
  • Durotar Scorpion - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Durotar scorpion.
  • Alarming Clockbot - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Alarming Clockbot.
  • Elwynn Lamb - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Elwynn lamb.
  • Mulgore Hatchling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Mulgore hatchling.
  • Ammen Vale Lashling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Ammen Vale lashling.
  • Strand Crawler - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Darkspear Strand crawler.
  • Enchanted Broom - Right Click to summon and dismiss your enchanted broom.
  • Argent Squire - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Argent Crusade squire.
  • Mechanopeep - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Mechanopeep.
  • Argent Gruntling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Argent Crusade gruntling.
  • Curious Gorloc Hatchling - Right Click to call or shoo away a Curious Gorloc Hatchling.
  • Curious Wolvar Pup - Right Click to call or shoo away a Curious Wolvar Pup.
  • Gorloc Orphan - Right Click to summon and dismiss the orphan you've agreed to look after for Children's Week.
  • Wolvar Orphan - Right Click to summon and dismiss the orphan you've agreed to look after for Children's Week.
  • Murkimus the Gladiator - Right Click to summon and dismiss Murkimus the Gladiator.
  • Sen'jin Fetish - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Sen'jin fetish.
New Mounts
  • Aquatic Riding Ray - Summons and dismisses an Aquatic Riding Ray. This is an aquatic mount.
  • Swift Stormwind Steed - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Stormwind Steed. This is a very fast mount.
  • Great Azuremyst Elekk - Summons and dismisses a rideable Great Azuremyst Elekk. This is a very fast mount.
  • Swift Darnassian Mistsaber - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Darnassian Mistaber. This is a very fast mount.
  • Swift Silvermoon Hawkstrider - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Silvermoon Hawkstrider. This is a very fast mount.
  • Great Mulgore Kodo - Summons and dismisses a rideable Great Mulgore Kodo. This is a very fast mount.
  • Turbostrider - Summons and dismisses a rideable Turbostrider. This is a very fast mount.
  • Swift Ironforge Ram - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Ironforge Ram. This is a very fast mount.
  • Swift Sen'jin Raptor - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Sen'jin Raptor. This is a very fast mount.
  • Forsaken Warhorse - Summons and dismisses a rideable Forsaken Warhorse. This is a very fast mount.
  • Swift Orgrimmar Wolf - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Orgrimmar Wolf. This is a very fast mount.

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Patch 3.0.9 Changes: Coming Tonight?

MMO-Champion has posted a handful of new changes that are coming, and they believe that they are coming this week. That would mean that during tomorrow morning's weekly maintenance period, we'll all have to download Patch 3.0.9. There are a few tweaks, including a bunch of changes to Arcane Mages. They're also nerfing cast time increasing debuffs and increasing rogue damage. Check out all of the changes below. Druid

  • Ferocious Bite: This ability now only uses up to 30 energy in addition to its base cost.
Hunter
  • Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
  • Serpent's Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.
Pets
  • Lava Breath now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
  • Poison Spit now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
Mage
  • Arcane Power now increases damage and mana cost by 10%, cooldown reduced to 1 minute. (Note: The spell is actually different in game and increases damage and mana costs by 20% with a 2 minutes cooldown. However it would probably be better to wait until servers are online to confirm that.)
  • Arcane Power and Presence of Mind now share a category cooldown. Arcane Power causes a 15 second cooldown. Presence of Mind, once consumed, causes a 1.5 second cooldown.
  • Arcane Flows now reduces the cooldown of Presence of Mind, Arcane Power and Invisibility by 15/30%.
  • Presence of Mind: The cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes, (down from 3.)
  • Slow (Arcane): now increases cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
  • Glyph of Arcane Missiles -- Increases the critical strike damage bonus of Arcane Missiles by 25%. (Old - Increases the range of Arcane Missiles by 5 yards.)
  • Glyph of Mana Gem -- Increases the mana recieved from using a mana gem by 40%. (Up from 10%)
  • Glyph of Arcane Blast -- Increases the damage from your Arcane Blast buff by 3%. (Down from 5%)
Paladin
  • The duration on all Seals has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.
  • Divine Plea: The amount healed by your spells is reduced by 50% (up from 20%) but the effect can no longer be dispelled.
  • Sanctified Seals: This talent no longer affects dispel resistance, but continues to affect crit chance.
  • Glyph of Holy Light -- Your Holy Light grants 10% of its heal amount to up to 5 friendly targets within 8 yards of the initial target. (Down from 20 yards, Tooltip text fix, was already hotfixed to 8 yards in game)
  • Glyph of Seal of Righteousness -- Increases the damage done by Seal of Righteousness by 10%. (Old - Reduces the cost of your Judgement spells by 10% while Seal of Righteousness is active.)
Priest
  • Inner Fire duration has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.
Rogue
  • Hunger for Blood (Assassination): Now increases damage 5% per stack, (up from 3%.)
  • Mind Numbing Poison now reduces cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
  • Mutilate damage will now do 20% increased damage against poisoned targets, down from 50%.
  • Slice and Dice: This ability now increases melee attack speed by 40%, up from 30%.
Shaman Warlock
  • Curse of Tongues: Now increases the casting time of all spells by 25% (Rank 1) and 30% (Rank 2), down from 50% and 60%.
The Obsidian Sanctum
  • Changed the color of the fissure in the Obsidian Sanctum to be more visually distinct.
User Interface
  • The "GM wishes to speak with you" alert/button, at the top of the screen, has been changed so that addons do not obscure it.
  • A clickable chat message has been added that duplicates the GM alert/button.
  • When a GM wishes to speak with you the Help Request minibar button will glow.
Bug Fixes
  • Fixed an issue where players using nVidia 3D glasses were unable to see spell cooldowns.
  • Fixed a software mouse cursor bug that was causing the mouse curser to disappear from view when over certain UI elements.
  • Fixed a player movement error in which other players were appearing to move erratically when traveling beside them.

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Gaming Over The Holidays Can Be A Fruitless Endeavor

/nomnomnomnomI don't know about you guys, but I have enough turkey left in the fridge to make open-face turkey sammies for a week. Coincidentally, that is the perfect meal to eat while you are slaving away at those XP bubbles or taking down your next heroic. Quick and easy to prepare, with little need to devour it in a timely manner. Damn, I am hungry now.

I knew it was going to be fairly difficult for me to get a lot of play time in during the holiday, so I came up with a different kind of Warcraft-based goal. Rather than do a mad push to level 80 (which, I did my best at anyways) or get trampled at Walmart, I decided to try and sign up that 11,000,001st subscriber to World of Warcraft.

My brother was my first target, seeing as he is a retired hardcore raider. The numerous Priest changes, a demonstration of the differences between vanilla WoW and Wrath with my Holy alt, and general curiosity drew him towards the dark side. After playing for a bit, and seemingly having fun, he put the laptop down and walked away muttering something like “QQ in the channels and guild drama is why I left in the first place.” Damn you new Barrens Chat!

My younger cousin (who can now out bench press me...) was my secondary target. He took up gaming during the GoldenEye days, and has played most big titles since then. The little punk is by no means a hardcore gamer, but he is certainly not casual either. One would think that World of Warcraft would be on his PC gaming rig, and it was! It turns out that he had joined an Azerothian race without consulting me. Sad fact is that his friends set him up, having him roll the opposing faction so they could corpse camp him for hours as he tried to level. He didn't make it past level 20 before his experience was ruined, and has sworn off the genre entirely. I'll have to work on him further.

At this point, my hopes were dashed and the family get togethers had all past. With no more targets I sat down with little old SolidSamm to work his way towards level 80 and noticed that I had caught the attention from one of the last people I would expect, my girlfriend. “Your guy is so little” she said. “Yes,” I replied, “but he can do big things.” I quickly ran off to find the biggest mob in Dragonblight and showed her how rogues like to do it.

Perhaps, just maybe, I can suck her in? Tips, tricks, strategies and secret potions are appreciated. How many of you managed to ding level 80 over the holiday break? Or did you have alternative goals like I did?

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A Wrathful Weekend

Why Bother With Bowls?

Photograph by L. Simon.

Like many of you, I am taking my time in getting to level 80. I did not create an elaborate flowchart of areas to tackle, research the best grinding spots or enlist a friendly Priest, Paladin, Shaman and Warrior for their buffs. Last night I got a few of my guildmates to slow down and enjoy some of the content they have skipped over, bringing two level 75 players into Utgarde Keep with my newly-found old friend.

This weekend, well that was an entirely different story. With my girlfriend busy with visiting friends, I had Friday night, Saturday and most of Sunday to do with what I pleased. Naturally, I took the extra free time to tear into Northrend, although not as focused as some people. As of launch, I was still uncertain who I was going to level, my Rogue or my Priest. In the end I surprised myself and rolled a Death Knight. An enjoyable experience thus far, but it wasn't long before I jumped back to my Rogue to see Northrend.

By mid-Saturday, General Chat was full of people looking for healers for various things. Being the good samaritan that I am, I logged in and began SolidSagart's journey into Northrend. After performing the first few quests outside Valiance Keep, I realized that my professions were woefully under skilled. Not wanting to pass up dozens of skinning opportunities or trot by numerous herb nodes, I had to head back to Stormwind and went about the tedious task of skinning low level mobs and picking pointless flowers. Say what you will about my choice in professions, she is simply my gathering girl.

After logging a reasonable 20+ hours across the three characters, I feel I got a bit done. The DK is now up to level 68, SolidSamm is a bubble shy of 71 (he was the most neglected character) and SolidSagart has her professions up to snuff and is a hair shy of finally hitting 70. She started the weekend out as 67, with little rested. If only her professions were leveled beforehand, I would have been able to get her past 70, possibly even jumping ahead of the rogue.

While my WoW avatars progressed a decent amount, other parts of my life were pushed aside. As you can see in the image above, my kitchen is an absolute mess of dishes, plates and glasses. I even saved numerous articles of kitchenware from washing by abandoning them, opting to eat right out of pots and pans like any good college student would – just over my computer instead of the sink. On the brighter side of things, my ferrets, fish, snails, crayfish, and plants all made it through the weekend. They would like to thank boat rides, flights and queues for their continued existence.

What'd you accomplish?  Perhaps more importantly, what didn't you accomplish?

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General Chat Discovery

As General Chat Is To Recycling

Thanks WSU.edu and Mark J. Berry

Trade Chat and General Chat are certainly odd beasts. I consider Trade Chat to be one of the most mistreated features in World of Warcraft, as it is hardly ever used for its purpose, facilitating the buying and selling of goods. More often than not I simply ignore the channel all together in an attempt to save my intelligence and sanity.

General Chat, well, that can be forgiven for its missteps into the immature comments or pointless rants. As I roam around Azeroth grinding away at one thing, or the other, I tend to watch General Chat very closely. My eyes will tune into that block of text in the lower left of my screen out of sheer boredom, hoping that a fun or exciting discussion is going on. General Chat's conversation, nine times out of ten, will be a LFG message, a looking for this or that question, or someone begging to be saved from a camper. Yet, like Pavlov's dog, I always come back for more.

While conversing in general, I try to be as helpful as possible. That can get me in trouble though. Help one newbie and you run the risk of them chatting you up for small facts or discoveries till the end of time. Worse still, other newbies bugging you. But, when you are bored, you are bored and I don't mind the distraction.

While on my Priest the other night I found that needle in the haystack gem. I was joking around in GC in Terokkar Forest when I noticed a name I recognized – although slightly modified with an accent - from my former hardcore raiding guild. After feeling each other out to see if they were who we thought they were, we each found a new addition to our 5-man instancing group for Wrath. Score! The only drawback, it seems that they decided which character I will be leveling first for me, the Priest.

What role do you play in General Chat? The helper? Wiseass? Know it all? Annoying person with tons of questions?  Player with numerous ASCII macros? Ever get anything positive out of it?

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Rogue Does It From Behind; I Die

Hmm....No One To Heal...What a weekend. I told myself that I would have to get to level 67 on my Priest, if I wanted to make sure that she was ready for Wrath. I informed my girlfriend of my goal, and although she doesn't know too much about the game (“Worlds of Warcrafts”), or exactly how it works (read, time consuming), she said it was fine. So there I was, a level 66 Priest with solid healing gear, Holy specced, itching to instance and grind, with nothing to hold me back from garnering tens of thousands of experience. Then it hit me, an Ambush from a decked out level 70 Rogue. Queue Spirit of Redemption (haven't respecced yet).

Let me lay it out for you, I absolutely suck at PvP on my Priest. My inability to defend my squishy self is mostly due to inexperience, but I doubt a Holy spec would be a good defender anyways; Discipline would seem like the better candidate. While questing in Terokkar Forest, the zone PvP objective, Spirits of Auchindoun, popped, and I jumped at the chance for some PvP, while getting another quest done. After struggling to capture towers, I spirit resurrected and attempted to ninja one that had been left alone since the start of the contests. I failed, and the Horde won the towers shortly thereafter.

I figured that I was safe from additional PvP due to my sickness, however I was wrong. As I hung out at the Refugee Camp, kiting Bonelashers into the defenders for the kill, I meet the business end of a dagger, while still under the sickness...Why the hell would he kill me? He didn't gain anything. Was it a friend on a horde account just screwing with me? Perhaps a reader who didn't agree with a blog post?

It didn't end there. The Rogue in question continued to kill me a few more times, once more while I was still sick. Being the stubborn person that I am, I simply kept going about my business, killing the Bonelashers. The Rogue must have realized my objective, because he stopped killing me and focused on the buzzards. Once they were all dead, he went back to his old habit.

Obviously, this “Champion of Naaru,” was screwing with me. I am all for a good prank and good fun, but I was supposed to be leveling! Time is becoming scarce and this backstabbing Undead Rogue halted my progress for a solid hour. I swear, this guy must have had an Alliance account, because no matter where I went in Terokkar Forest to grind, he appeared shortly after to kill me, my target mobs, or both.

Cheers to you Silith, I had a chuckle and congratulate you on your dedication to one-shotting. But please, next time have the common decency to ask if it is okay to tea bag me.

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Holy Priest - Three Weeks Out

Look Ma, No ManaDuring the (incredibly short) leveling process my Priest was mostly specced Shadow, with a little bit of Discipline thrown in for good measure. Upon hitting level 60, and no longer gaining the benefits of the Refer-a-Friend program, I promptly respecced Holy. It has been three weeks since the change, and I feel that I can finally weigh in on my decision with a semblance of intelligence. In weeks past, Solidsagart has gone from level 60 to level 66, sheerly through instances (along with some dungeon-based quests). I stuck to dungeons so I could prepare myself for group healing. Not to mention the fact that the grind as Holy would totally suck. Initially, my healing ability was appaling; ADHD would kick in and I stopped paying attention, stopped looking at people's health, or decided that I was DPS again, and wasted all my mana trying to contribute to the chart. What can I say, old habits die hard. I decided that the best way to overcome my need for DPS was to stop playing my Rogue for awhile. For more than a solid week, Solidsagart was the only character I played, allowing me to hone my healing skills, and grab some respectable gear from the early Burning Crusade dungeons. Another obstacle I had was to get used to multi-target healing, rather than a single-target mindset. Thankfully, my spec has some built in utility for AoE healing. While on the topic of my spec, I have heeded some of the insights from the previous post's comments. I decided that Guardian Spirit is indeed, nearly useless (thanks Ryan) . Along those lines is Spirit of Redemption. The talent is very situational, and doesn't increase my healing unless used.  It has only made a difference once to date. So, I will be moving that SoR point and Guardian Spirit's into Holy Reach (thanks Claxo). I thought about moving two points from Searling Light to have full Inspiration (as PopeSeanPaul suggested), but decided that I wanted some DPS buff, for when I grind between instances. As a personal experiment I will be dropping Silent Resolve, moving the trio of points into Serendipity to help with mana conservation (numerous people pointed out the overheals issue). I would like to think that I do not burn too much mana off overheals, but I know I burn some. On the flip side, I have yet to pull aggro from the tank. Hopefully, I can maintain that statistic. The slightly modified spec now looks like this. I doubt I will get any raiding time in before Wrath of the Lich King, so that report will have to wait a few months. I would also like to thank the players (not Goggins) who pointed out Grid and Clique, they have been wonderful additions to my suite of addons. Groupmates have loved my "Oh, SHIT!" button. :p

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Scourge Invasion As A Testing Ground

Garrote, SnD, Mutilate, Mutilate, Envenom?I was around during the initial Scourge Invasion.  In fact, I was still playing WoW hours upon hours a day, many of them spent in raids, instances or just farming for gold.  Yet, I never really joined in on the fun of the Scourge Invasion.  I checked it out, but you wouldn't find me there day in and day out, in an attempt to stop the Necropoli from taking over.  I can't recall my reasoning, but it probably had something to do with the fact that I already had the Argent Dawn reputation that I needed for Naxxaramas.  This time around, I have been all over the invasion. This year's invasion started off with the infamous plague that turned so many of Azeroth's heroes into minions for the Scourge.  The Horde and Alliance put aside their differences, got together, and rid the lands of the threat in only a few days time.  But the plague was only an attempt by the Lich King to weaken Azeroth before sending out his Necropoli and Undead fodder. I enjoyed the plague for all that it was worth, and the continuation into the Scourge Invasion is partially what sucked me into the re-hashed event.  Invasion 2.0 is not all that different from the original pre-Naxxaramas event, if I remember correctly.  We have the areas under attack by the Necropoli, Necrotic Shards, Shadow of Dooms, Undead weapon enchants, and extra bosses in select instances. Only a few things have been added, namely rewards for participating.  Rather than receiving superior gear for our efforts, players can now select from almost Karazhan-quality gear that bump up one's Undead slaughtering capabilities.  We even have a few trinkets that summon an Argent Dawn agent or abilities to our side.  On the content side of things, players can still tackle the new Karazhan boss, Tenris Mirkblood, who seems to be the only thing remaining from the plague days gone by.  Not to mention, the only thing I have found that could really link the two events. This Rogue and Priest combo will be continuing the purging of the Undead from the Plaguelands until the event ends.  I am mainly doing it so I can try out Solidsamm's new spec, but I tend to be a sucker for summonable buddies.  So if you see a purple skull appear on your map (and are on Magtheridon), I will likely be in their base, killing their mans.  To bad the Argent Dawn reputation has been replaced by the Argent Crusade in Wrath of the Lich King and will be useless. Sadly, I haven't seen many other people partaking in the Scourge Invasion, is it just too old hat for you?  Or are you burned out from the plague - as the Lich King intended?

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