Wiping Like a Boss

Wiping on bosses has been a way of life for me over the past 5 years. I started raiding in the summer of 20065 and while my first steps were being boosted by a top guild that didn't last long and I was soon wiping on early bosses in Blackwing Lair. We wiped for many weeks on Vaelastrasz (boss no2) and then many weeks on the 4th boss, Firemaw. No one complained as all 40 members knew what to do we just needed the practice to get the fight down.

MoP Talents for Priests

As promised yesterday here are my thoughts on the new priest talents. There are still many unanswered questions and what follows is my gut reactions and hopefully I won't have dissed as perfectly good talent or praised something unjustly


Level 15: Crowd control

• Void Tendrils: Roots with a 30 second cooldown good for running away from stuff and PvP;
• Psyfiend: A pet that pyschic screams every 2 seconds another PvP focused one imho but if a glyph stops the runing away could be great in PvE too;
• Psychic Scream: the old faithful, will be sad to lose it but Psyfiend could be too useful;

Level 30: Movement Speed

• Body and Soul: Speed Bubble - great for all healers and maybe Shadow too;
• Path of the Devout: 25% speed buff while levitating. Why? Running across water will be great but can see no other benefit;
• Phantasm: 3 second run speed buff when fading, also removes movement impairing effects - a PvP talent for those that don't love speed bubble;

Level 45: Self Buffs/Utility

• From Darkness, Comes Light: 6% chance for a free flash heal or a Shadow Orb free Mind Blast - looks like a great shadow option (assuming that Mind Blast has no CD and just requires a Shadow Orb). A waste for any healer;
• Divine Star: A boomerang version of Holy Nova, could be useful when you know you're going to be incapacitated and maybe PvP;
• Archangel: Healing/DPS boost-Looks like the clear cut winner to me and a great boost to Holy priests, I wonder if Atonement will work for them too?;

Level 60: Saving Thine Own Ass

• Desperate Prayer: 30% self heal always nice even for Shadow priests;
• Angelic Bulwark: 30% stronger self shield - could be sweet when levelling not sure on its raiding utility unless we going to see lots of ICC type aura damage;
• Final Prayer: 20% HP auto shield when you HP drops below 30% with 90 second CD. Will it stop a death if the blow takes you from 31% to death? Could be useful for all and maybe more powerful the Desperate Prayer especially for Shadow priests;

Level 75: More Self Buffs

• Twist of Fate: Improved healing on targets at 25% HP or less - they should get that low but useful when they do. My thoughts are this is more PvP than PvE;
• Power Infusion: Haste and mana cost reduction for the target, my money is this will be the best for all flavours of priest;
• Serendipity/Mind Melt: Haste and mana cost reduction for healers and faster (including instacast) Mind Blast for Shadow. a great choice for healers and a good one for shadow;

Level 90: Cross Healing

• Vow of Unity: A cross between Beacon of Light and Hand of Sacrifice the pallies have a useful option but maybe too risky;
• Void Shift: Swap health with your target a great choice for that tank/flag carrier who is about to die and taking a beating while you're at full HP and have no incoming damage;
• Vampiric Dominance: 15% heals to 3 nearby players. If this is in addition to Vampiric Embrace Shadow Priests are going to be even more useful but it looks like a great talent choice for healers especially in 5/10 man groups;

BlizzCon 2011 Fallout Day 1

Must admit I haven't planned this post so apologies in advance for the ramble....

Well we got Pandas.Mists of Pandaria will be the next expansion. I love that and am now praying that Blizz give us at least 1 more slot on the character selection screen cos I already have my 10 character slots filled with 1 of each class all at a level where I'll not be deleting 1 (although if pushed I probably would evict one to get a Pandaren Monk on the roster. Am really surprised they don't get druids as a class option though as it seems a really good fit for the race. Warriors, hunters, rogues (a bizarre choice but hey), priests, shaman, mages and of course monks are the classes so far.

Priesting 101: Enchanting Your Gear

Following on from my guide on Gemming Your Gear, I thought I would move on to enchanting, the other more "traditional" way of improving the stats on your character and their gear. If you're not an enchanter there are 2 ways of getting an item enchanted, the traditional way was to find an enchanter, give them the required materials (either bought from the auction house or acquired through using the disenchant option during dungeon runs), "trade" the item in the "not to be traded" slot let them use their profession spell to enchant your item and you're done (although I'd always offer a tip even if they don't ask). However, since Wrath of the Lich King, it has been possible to enchant vellums into scrolls which can be sold on the Auction House so it may be worth buying a scroll from there and selling your materials. To transfer the enchant from the scroll simply right click the vellum and left click on the item you want enchanted. Simples! as the cool kids say now.

LFR Looting

News this past week saw the announcement that loot in the new Looking For Raid versions of the Dragon Soul being introduced in 4.3 will have new loot rules. 

Whilst players will still be offered the existing options we have now of Need/Greed/Disenchant/Pass, items will now be flagged as Tank/DPS/Heals and maybe a combination of 2 for items that are not aimed squarely at one role. So if a spirit dagger drops those pesky mages/warlocks won't be able to steal our loot. The reason is such an item would be tagged as a healer item and therefore our rolls would be enhanced by adding 100 to them, so even if a mage needed and rolled 100, we only require a need roll of 1 to beat their roll as 1+100 = 101. Although at the moment its not sure if such an item would be able to be equally rolled on (and rightly so) by our shadowy cousins, shaman and those big owl type things druids morph into from time to time. Now while this is all good I really think Blizzard are missing the point here because even this system is full of flaws. 

Too Soon! You Have Nerfed Me Too Soon Exectus!

Yes finally I have had a chance to experience the nerfed content that is the Firelands raids a few times and hell they  have nerfed it hard.

Prior to the recent nerfs my beloved guild, Saturday Knight Fever, were 3 of 7 in the Firelands with Shannox, Beth'tilac and Lord Rhyiolith soundly beaten. We worked hard for them kills and learned a lot about the fights as we perfected the strategies to our groups style.. 

The day the nerf came the guys killed 3 new bosses, Alysrazor, Baleroc and Majordomo Staghelm on the first night. They breezed through the content with people that hadn't even stepped foot into Firelands until that night and we're now stuck fighting Ragnaros.

Now my issue here is that despite killing these 3 bosses for the past 3 weeks I'm not convinced that anyone has really learned the fights (myself included) as some there have been certain team combinations that have failed to kill one of the bosses therefore it seems that we're just zerging our way through and while it's good for team morale the die hard raider in me weeps tears of sadness as I am getting no personal sense of accomplishment.

As things stand now Blizzard should just place a chest full of loot and rep in by the portal and send us straight to Ragnaros, which is thankfully providing the team with a challenge, which hopefully will be beaten as soon as we can field a solid team with 2 main spec tanks.

Now I seriously hope that 4.3 is very close because if not we're going to be faced with farming Firelands on 2 nights a week and using our other raid night to gear up alts. So overall my opinion is summed up by the irelord himself, Too Soon Exectus! Lets hope that with the coming of a 3rd level of raid difficulty the nerf bat  will stay away from our raids until they are no longer current content.

The Backstory: Deadwood Days (pt 2)

Been a long while, since I posted a "Backstory", in fact just looking at the last one and its been almost 6 months, man I have been slacking more than I realised. So I guess it's time to make amends for my erroneous ways.

So just a brief recap of where I left the story, a few months into The Burning Crusade myself and a few friends set up our own raiding guild, Deadwood. We had high hopes and put a team of suitably skilled raiders together and battled through Karazhan and eventually we got 25 people and went and killed Gruul.

Transmogrification 101

With Patch 4.3, we're getting one of the most exiting cosmetic changes ever introduced into World of Warcraft, transmogrification. Fortunately, the WoW community have christened this "Mogging" because quite frankly the word transmogrification is a horrible word to say. When I first heard it I though that it was a term invented by the folks over in Irvine, CA, but apparently it's been around for a while and the earliest recorded use of the word according to the Oxford English Dictionary was way back in 1656.

Unsurprisingly the word simply means:

To change into a different shape or form, especially one that is fantastic, grotesque or bizarre.

So, technically druids transmogrify!

But of course we're not here to consider that we want to make our characters unique little snowflakes and look cool at the same time by changing the appearance of our armour to look like another piece of armour. But the big question being asked is how do I get my lovely T12 stuff to look like my uber cool piece of armour? Hopefully this quick guide will help you do just that!

Looking For Raid? Good or Bad?

Blizzard have recently published details of the Looking For Raid Tool that will be introduced into the game with the upcoming 4.3 patch, many respected commentators have already started predicting it as being a failure. But what is all the fuss about?

Cataclysm Dungeons: Healing Blackrock Caverns

Welcome to the second of my guides on healing strategies for the Cataclysm dungeons, yes I KNOW we're many months in and us veterans can do it sleep walk but many alts and new players are coming through now. My viewpoint will be from that of a priest, but much of the information will be generic to help out other healing classes also. Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

Blackrock Caverns is a medium length dungeon with 5 bosses, it is located in Blackrock Mountain and consists of tunnels created by the Twilight Hammer who are using this as a transport hub for reinforcing Ragnaros in Mount Hyjal as well as conducting experiments to turn humanoids into dragonkin.