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Spiritual Guidance: The four best things about Cataclysm for shadow priests
Each and every Wednesday, Fox Van Allen assumes control of Spiritual Guidance in the name of shadow priests everywhere. Except for when Fox is virulently ill. In those cases, he dopes himself up on cough syrup, curls up on a couch with a box of tissues and spends Wednesday watching The Neverending Story. So, yeah, hey Saturday. What's up? Better late than never, right? In between the fevered dreams, cough syrup benders and The Golden Girls marathons associated with my most recent cold this week, I resolved to pen the greatest Spiritual Guidance article of all time. After all, Hemingway's genius came from the bottom of a bottle. Perhaps then it would stand to reason that the true genius of Fox Van Allen would come from the bottom of a bottle of CVS Nighttime Cold and Flu. Alas, that was not to be the case. In my hastily written Twitter screed, "The best things about Cata for spriets (sic)," I praised Blizzard for the way it made quests smell in Hyjal. The third best thing about Cataclysm was, "wait hold on no no no wait." Cold medication is serious business, kids. That's why they keep the good stuff behind the counter. Thankfully, the cold has finally lifted (mostly). Thinking with a more sober mind, I've come to the realization that the idea of a "favorite things" list is a decent one (sup, Oprah?); it's just that my execution was a bit off earlier in the week. After the break: My real picks for the "best" changes to shadow priests (so far) in Cataclysm and a chance for you to chime in on your favorites as well.
TheoryCraft 101: Caster haste
TheoryCraft101 is here to introduce the more hardcore aspects of theorycrafting in a more casual approach. Do you need to know how quickly you can get that spell to cast? We've got your answers right here! Welcome back once again to another installment of TheoryCraft 101. Past TheoryCraft 101 articles have already covered aspects of spellpower and melee hit; this week we are going to be discussing the ins and outs of caster haste. Haste, unlike other mechanics within the game, is a rather flat system. Haste is universal. There isn't a long list of exceptions, as you find with spellpower; every spell's cast time is changed by haste in the exact same way. Although boring, there is something beautiful in the simplicity of haste. The stat is so clean, the rules so set, that it is actually easy to predict. For how simple the mechanic is theoretically, it is far more convoluted in practice. Haste is an odd stat in that it is the only DPS stat people stack that doesn't directly increase the damage potential of their spells. A hasted Fireball will do exactly the same amount of damage as an unhasted Fireball; it will merely do it faster. For this reason, haste is something of a fickle mistress. Haste is beautiful in that is holds no RNG variables in theory. 1% haste is always 1% haste; a spell's cast time will always be changed by the exact same amount without fail.
Totem Talk: Hasteybaby
Axes, maces, lightning, Windfury, and wolves. It can mean only one thing: enhancement. Rich Maloy lives it and loves it. His main spec is enhance. His off-spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance at Big Hit Box, pens the enhance side of Totem Talk and leads the guild Big Crits (Week 2 now out, Week 3 coming!) as the enhancement shaman Stoneybaby. Haste. It's the killer stat for enhancement shamans in end-game raiding. In the beginning of the expansion, the killer stat seemed to be attack power, and it continued to maintain dominance through Ulduar. Around ToC (i245) level of gearing, we could choose between AP stacking and haste stacking. Personally I tended toward AP stacking until midway through ToGC, when I ran some sims and realized haste will be the killer stat for Stoneybaby going forward. Why is that? Let's take a look at haste and how it affects our damage output. For starters, let's use the ICC equivalent of Patchwerk (at least for melee), Deathbringer Saurfang. This is a fight where we get to stand in one place and only focus on our rotation while the ranged go crazy with picking up, slowing, DPSing and evading angry blood beasts. While the healers frantically watch the marks, the paladins call out the bubble rotation and the tanks scream at the ranged about Saurfang's ever-increasing blood power.
Totem Talk: Haste and restoration shaman
Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration will show you how. Brought to you by Joe Perez, otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and the For The Lore podcast. Last week we talked about choosing a role for restoration and in that piece we talked about how raid healing shaman prioritize haste as their top stat. Haste is one of those stats that gained massive popularity around the time of Ulduar. Shaman were having a hard time fitting into hard mode kills as healers, and Chain Heal was slipping behind Wild Growth and Circle of Healing due to limited range between jumps and the need of many people to spread out beyond the maximum range (at the time 8 yards). Haste allowed healing shaman to use other spells to greater effect in these times, helping to close the gap somewhat. Through Trial of the Crusader and now well into Icecrown Citadel, haste has remained on top of most end game raiding shaman stat priority lists. Almost any blog you visit now will exalt the virtues of haste as the primary stat. Truth is it can be useful in many situations and there are many boss fights where haste really is king of the stats. So what do you need to know about haste? Let's take a look!
The Light and How to Swing It: The truth about Lightsworn Garb
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine the holy paladin Tier 10 set and its bonuses. As my guild and I have been conquering Icecrown Citadel, I find myself with a glut of Emblems of Frost. While my rogue is diligently saving up for some of the sweet rewards, my holy paladin can't even find a use for the new libram. While I did stop for a minute to consider picking up some off spec gear, I also couldn't bring myself to part with these hard-earned Emblems for a non-holy piece. What are we to do with all of the excess? I decided to investigate our Tier 10 4-piece bonus, considering that I was already halfway there with my two current pieces. However, I was also skeptical about how valuable the 4-piece bonus could be, considering that cast time reductions and haste interact in interesting ways. Well, there's that, and the fact that our tier set was itemized by someone who clearly enjoyed watching us squirm. With a complete lack of a haste/MP5 piece and two crit/MP5 pieces, our 4-piece bonus had better be really amazing to convince me to drop my off set pieces. Read on to find out what I decided.
Cataclysm: Stat and system changes for enhancement shaman
Breaking news: enhancement shamans get the dumb in Cataclysm. Intellect is gone! Are we becoming rogues with mana? No doubt you've read the big changes coming in Cataclysm. At this point there are a few confirmed points with the rest falling into the "confirmed they'll be changing" category. What do these changes mean for enhancement shamans? Read on.
Cataclysm: Stat and system changes for mages
I have to say, there's an awful lot in the just-announced Cataclysm stat and system changes to take in. But if you're anything like me, you're able to cope with that dense heap of information by narrowing your focus to what's really important: what does all this mean for mages? Here's the short list of specific things we need to be aware of: Stamina - Like all clothies, we'll be seeing a bunch more of it on our gear. The aim is to have our max health be similar to that of plate-wearing classes. Spirit - We won't need it anymore. It'll be a healer-only stat, and we'll be getting our mana regen some other way. In other news, there is a God. Intellect - Now grants spellpower, but will provide less mana than it does now. I assume this is to balance out our mana pools with all that extra intellect we'll be seeing on all our gear. Spellpower - Gone from most gear, the only place we'll now be seing straight-up spellpower that isn't tied directly to intellect will be on weapons, and only to distinguish caster weapons from melee weapons. Haste - Still around. Critical Strike Rating - Still around. MP5 - Gone. Spell Ranks - Gone. Every spell will now have only one rank and will scale with level. The levels at which we learn many of them will change, to fill in the gaps. Mastery - New stat that will be tied directly to your talents. Supposedly, no matter your spec or class, getting more of this will always, always make you better at whatever it is that you're best at. For me, this means getting more mastery will make my mage incrementally better at making fun of warlocks. Existing gear - All of it will change to reflect this new statistical system, but we're being assured that the gear we have now will still be good for us. I have concerns about this, though. Brief (as brief as you're going to get with me, anyway) analysis after the break.
Moonkin may receive a buff soon
Balance druid performance has been noticeably lagging in raids. While moonkin have long had a problem being too easily +haste-capped with Wrath, there's another issue on the not-too-distant horizon in the form of the "lunar +crit cap." Essentially, when a lunar eclipse procs and the player turns to the Starfire portion of the rotation, the combination of raid buffs, gear, and procs make Starfire crits all but inevitable. While this may sound like a welcome DPS increase, it does have the unhappy result of the spec seeing increasingly less benefit from the +haste and +crit that exists in abundance on Icecrown raid gear. Blizzard has known about this for a while, but the issue with Nature's Grace and the soft +haste cap isn't easily fixable without impacting both Restoration and Starfire (where the NG proc is still useful), and the +crit cap is the effect of unintended stat inflation in Wrath. Enter Zarhym on Wednesday to announce news of a possible change to the Earth and Moon talent in a future mini-patch, granting 2/4/6% spell damage to the moonkin, up from 1/2/3%. While this isn't set in stone (and Balance players are already aware that an overhaul to the Nature's Grace issue probably won't happen until the Cataclysm content patch at the earliest), it's been greeted as a decent short-term fix. It's also a means of improving the scaling of what remains the moonkin's best stat (+spellpower). Zarhym did warn that the change may not go through in this form, and we're also waiting for news on when this mini-patch will hit. Stay tuned for future announcements.
Encrypted Text: Knowing your stats
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss how a few stats interact with various rogue specs. Have you ever had a problem finding a group as a rogue? My own rogue isn't immune to this issue, and I sometimes find myself without a raid group on a Saturday night. The rogue population has been steadily growing since its sharp decline right after the launch of Wrath, and that means increased competition for the coveted melee DPS raid slots. With the plentiful bounty of Death Knights and Ret Paladins vying for the three different two-hand weapons that drop from just the first 4 bosses of ICC10 and ICC25, it can be tough finding your place. However, with hard work and good performance, most raid leaders will see the value in bringing back quality DPS. To ensure that you're on the reinvite list, doing as much damage as possible will leave the most tangible evidence of your efforts (as well as being your overarching goal). Sometimes this means doing more with less, and using the gear you have to its highest potential before you're able to reap the benefits of the great 251/264 epics that you're working towards.
Lichborne: Emblem of Frost gear for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, the Death Knight column. This week, Daniel Whitcomb is really regretting turning on his boombox in Acherus at the new year's party. By now, I assume a good portion of you have managed to get on your daily heroics at least a couple times a week, maybe even have an ICC raid or three under your belt. If so, you're starting to amass enough Emblems of Frost to maybe possibly think about buying a piece of gear. Of course, the problem with Emblem of Frost gear is that it's a little bit more expensive than, say, Emblem of Triumph gear. You're not going to get away with gearing up quite as fast, at least not until all of ICC is open and you have a good group for the place. No 25-emblem tier gear here. So that also makes it important, especially for the more casual player, to pick what you buy carefully. Let's take a look at the various options.
The Daily Quest: The real rockstar
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. "When is a rockstar tank not a rockstar?" asks the Big Bear Butt. Merrymaker Lissiel says "These types of weapons are good for all resto druids, and everyone should either be getting a staff with haste, or a main hand + off-hand haste combo." Matticus proclaims loudly and proudly, "I learned 7 important healing lessons from this one quest!" Spicytuna turns towards Blizzard and asks, "Why can't we give thumbs down to the dungeons we don't like, just as we can in WarCraft III?" "This has been a crazy year," muses Pikestaff as the hunter takes a trip down memory lane. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
Patch 3.3 PTR: Shadow Word: Pain not affected by haste
We heard a little while back from Ghostcrawler that haste would soon affect Heal-over-Time (HoT) and Damage-over-Time (DoT) spells, and sure enough, soon after that, Shadow Priests -- who use DoTs all the time -- saw a nice buff. But of course this is the PTR, and everything is subject to change, and so last weekend, Blizzard removed Shadow Word: Pain from that equation -- right now, it's not affected by haste at all. GC says that sure enough, Blizzard thought shadow priest DPS was too high with all of their DoTs given a boost, so SW:P got the boot (for now -- remember, this is all still on PTR). Misery, my go-to shadow priest, has some good insight on the change, and says that sure, if shadow priest DPS was too high, it was too high. But it's too bad that Shadow Word: Pain had to take the nerf, especially since you get it so early on in the class and it's such an iconic spell for the spec. The reason these guys are so happy about the hasted DoTs is that DoTs as cast don't really scale with your gear -- they just sort of do their damage on their own. When haste got put into the equation, shadow priests became happy that they could go after more haste to increase the DoT part of the damage. They could tailor the spec and spells the way they wanted to use them. Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Shifting Perspectives: A 3.3 miscellany
Every week, Shifting Perspectives examines issues affecting druids and those who group with them. Today we root around our inbox and herd a series of scribbled notes across our desk, trying to get what we actually know about patch 3.3 in order. Also, Zach Yonzon's PhotoShop skills for the win, but we already knew that. This week's column is going to be a little bit of a grab bag in much the same way that our patch 3.1 miscellany post was, because there have been a few changes on the PTR recently that we haven't yet discussed. Before we get any farther, I'd also like to give a shout-out to our readers and commenters on last week's column, "The disappearance of the bear." I was a little antsy over how it was going to be received (lengthy articles on what's going wrong with a spec can get derailed into QQ-fests pretty easily, and that wasn't my intent), but was heartened to see so much quality discussion. One of the things I realized after reading through the comments was that Blizzard may actually have succeeded a little too well in their quest to make tanking more attractive and fun to the average player. WoW's four tanking classes (warrior, paladin, druid, and death knight) comprise 4 of the 5 most popular classes in the game right now. As I've written previously, the druid functions as the proverbial canary in the coal mine as a harbinger of class balance concerns, and with each of the game's plate classes numbering among the most played at 80, it's impossible for this not to have an impact on druid spec choice. Anyway. For the moment, we are going to turn away from this rather depressing situation, and concern ourselves with what's going on in patch 3.3.
Patch 3.3 PTR: Shadow Priest buffs galore in build 10571
Oh, Blizzard. Why? Why must you torment me so? I stood by Shadow Priests for so long, so very long. I debated their numbers, mechanics and playstyle until my fingers stopped functioning. I picked apart combat logs and damage/healing charts for hours and hours, trying to get the absolute most out of my talent spec. Then I just grew tired. I'm not ashamed to admit that it broke me. I'm not ashamed that I decided to switch to raiding on my Retribution Paladin last month. I'm a man, I can own up to what I've done. But your torment continues! You were waiting for just this moment to buff the unholy crap out of Shadow Priests, weren't you? You were waiting for my patience to run out.And that's enough melodrama for now. Let's actually break down the new changes on the PTR, shall we? 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. I find this one somewhat interesting, because Ghostcrawler mentioned DoTs and HoTs benefiting from Haste was likely to come in the form of a glyph for now. Shadowform is most certainly not a glyph. I'm pretty okay with this though, because Shadow Priests needed that Haste. DoTs are a little different from HoTs. I can understand the glyph for HoTs, making a Druid's Rejuvenation and the like tick faster could actually impede their ability to raid heal. DoTs, though? More damage is always good.
Ghostcrawler: Haste-y DoTs and HoTs for Priests
Nope, our good friend Tiberius isn't starting up a new ice cream company (though that would be good) -- he's posting on the forums about a new idea that Blizzard has for using Haste to affect Damage- and Heal-over-time spells. In the past, Haste hasn't been a very useful stat for spells that are instant cast and then have a HoT or DoT component -- they don't affect the initial instant casting, and once the spell is out, Haste does nothing. Until now -- Ghostcrawler says that they're thinking about making Haste actually lower the time between ticks on spells that do damage or healing over time.There is a tradeoff here -- if your ticks come faster, then the HoT or DoT component will end earlier, which means you'll be casting the spell more often. GC isn't sure (and neither are we) about how that will balance out yet -- on the one hand, it means that within a certain period of time, you will be able to do more damage or healing... but then again, you'll be spending more mana to do it. So instead of throwing this into talents, they're starting it up with glyphs. In the next patch, priests would get three glyphs that make their instant cast spells have their DoT components affected by Haste (Mind Flay's glyph is likely being moved into the base spell, and they'll use that one as an extra glyph choice). GC says if it works there, it may be spread out into talents or even base spells.Will it work? It's an interesting idea, but mana cost seems to be the toughest problem to deal with -- any time you're casting spells more often, you'll be going through more mana. But it does seem like a good way to make Haste a little more worthwhile, and especially with the stats refinement coming up in Cataclysm, Blizzard will have to even out all of the stats they can. What do you think?
Lichborne: What Cataclysm might mean for Death Knights
Welcome to Lichborne, the Death Knight column that dares ask the hard-hitting questions of Blizzard. Questions such as: Can I make a Worgen Death Knight now? Pretty please with sugar on top? We've now had about a week and a half to digest all the new information from BlizzCon about the Cataclysm, and while it's not a complete picture of what we can expect from the expansion, there's enough information now that we can make some pretty good educated guesses about the direction of the game and the new theorycraft of being a Death Knight. Let's take a look at we can learn from the latest information. New Races The new races definitely have some pretty awesome racials. The Worgen's plus damage racial will make them a very solid choice for a DPS Death Knight, and the sprint will be excellent for closing distance in PvP, especially when paired with Lichborne or Icebound Fortitude to avoid CC. Even the skinning racial will be nice for a leveling Death Knight who decides to take some time out to level the money making gathering tradeskills. Goblins are definitely going to be a nice little convenient race, with low buy and sell prices and a free bit of banking. Combat-wise, the Rocket Boots should be nice for closing distances or running away. As far as whether these races will end up being the "best" races for Death Knights, I don't think I can say. Part of this is because I think the idea of a "best race" is, to at least some degree, rather subjective, but also, the devs strongly hinted they'll take a look at everyone's racial abilities as they move into Cataclysm, so its certainly possible that other races will get some new or upgraded racials that will keep pace with the awesomeness that are the new races' racials.
Raid Rx: Cataclysmic stat changes for healers
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a new WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Welcome to the special Blizzcon edition! I was on the floor listening into the first set of changes being announced and I managed to catch all the healing changes. Here's what we got! Whew! What an exciting day at the convention for healers! This is just day one! Okay, let's break down all the major changes that will be affecting healers.
Phat Loot Phriday: Wisdom's Hold
Not all shields are for blocking. If you're a Shaman or a Pally, this caster shield is probably droolworthy.Name: Wisdom's Hold (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDB)Type: Epic ShieldArmor: 8130, 227 BlockAttributes: +70 Stamina, +48 Intellect, which means lots of HP and Mana for you. Improves crit strike by 40, haste by 47, and spell power by 75. Nice set of bonuses there, too. And a blue socket, with a socket bonus of +5 spell power. It's a slight upgrade over Voice of Reason, the other big caster shield near endgame, but enough of an upgrade that you want this one if you can get it. %Gallery-33600%
Lichborne: A PTR preview of 5-man Crusader's Coliseum DPS loot for Death Knights
Welcome to Lichborne, the weekly Death Knight column, with your host Daniel Whitcomb. The patch 3.2 PTR continues on apace, and with the background downloader now delivering content to the live servers, we can only hope that the release date is creeping closer. With that in mind, I am continuing our preview of the loot of the new 5-man Crusader's Coliseum loot, which is all epic all the time, and perfect for any Death Knight who just hasn't quite managed to break into the raid game. Admittedly, this loot is a bit less outright spectacular than that tank loot, if only because it has a lot of haste and armor penetration, which are less desirable for certain specs of Death Knights since we do so much of our damage with instant abilities or with frost and shadow magic which bypasses armor penetration altogether. Then again, if your rotation is heavy on Blood or Heart Strikes and Obliterates or Death Strikes, you'll still get some nice use out of the armor penetration, and as I mentioned a few weeks ago, with enough armor penetration (Although more than the amount that you'll get from this gear), armor penetration can even make Obliterate surpass Scourge Strike. So yeah. armor penetration isn't so bad unless you're losing a lot of strength to get it, but haste is sort of pretty far down on the useful scale. There's also a lack of hit rating on a lot of this gear, so you may find yourself frantically re-gemming or passing up an upgrade to keep yourself at the soft cap as well.And regardless, this is all epic gear, so the stats are all high enough that a bit of less desirable haste won't be that bad to deal with. Let's check it out.
The Daily Quest: Of Ulduar and Haste
We here at WoW Insider are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.There's a good selection of places for you to visit today for more interesting articles. Show me a Mookin raiding in Ensidia who's haste capped on himself and on his priest alt that is doing better than a survival hunter in Ulduar and not Naxxramas, please. Fel Fire thinks the problem with Ulduar is Naxxramas. Troll Huntress over at WoW Ladies has a nice Patch 3.1 Survival Hunter Raiding Primer. Kree take a good and intelligent look at how to be like an Ensidia player. BobTurkey continues to take a great look at Priest Haste Rating. Teeth and Claws has some good loot information for Druids in patch 3.1. Gray Matter talks about the Moonkin Haste Cap. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
