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Spiritual Guidance: Spring cleaning your talent tree
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life. Electric word, life. It means forever and that's a mighty long time. But I'm here to tell you -- there's something else. The World of Warcraft. A world of never-ending gnome corpses. You can always see the shadows, day or night. So when you call up that Spiritual Guidance columnist in Beverly Hills -- you know the one, Dr. Fox Van Allen -- instead of asking him how much of your time is left, ask him how much of your mind, baby. Cause he's going to flay it into effing oblivion every Wednesday. Ladies and gentlemen, my first car ever was my grandmother's old 1986 Ford Taurus. It had a digital speedometer and a pretty kicking tape deck. I even got the sample cassette tape that came with the car. I spent some of the best years of my life cruising the Garden State while listening to Neil Diamond's Heartlight and the theme to Cats. (Before you judge, most of you were listening to Sugar Ray and the theme to Friends instead at the time.) What in the hell does that have to deal with shadow priesting? The car was the right fit for me a decade ago, but it's just not right for me anymore. In Warcraft, just as in life, the right choices change over time. I mean, what the hell am I going to do without an iPod connection in my car? And Ford Tauruses -- do they still even make those? When I applied for a new raid team a few months ago, I went to my class trainer and put together a pretty good build for my shadow priest. It worked great then for the content I was working on. After re-examining my build, I realize that times have changed, and so should my talent tree. Psychic Horror was a great ability during Trial of the Grand Crusader progression. It's useless in Icecrown. And it's not the only talent that has outlived its usefulness. Shifting around a few points can have a very noticeable effect on your DPS, mana regen, and survivability. The price to respec varies -- it could cost you as much as 50 gold depending on how many times you've done it recently. Still, when you compare that to the amount you spend twice that on a single epic gem and even more on high-end enchants, respecing gives you one of the best returns on investment in the game.
Spiritual Guidance: Priesting the Lich King
Every Sunday, while Fox Van Allen is still passed out in a cloud of his own Dispersion, Dawn Moore picks up Spiritual Guidance and gives it a warm bath to wash off all the residue from Wednesday. After a hot meal, a glass of apple cider and a cookie, the column is back to its old self. Joint custody allowing, Spiritual Guidance will help healing priests master discipline and holy. I feel like such an elitist jerk this week. You see, the other day I made my weekly trip over to WoW Progress to scope out the growing list of guilds that have killed the Lich King on 25-man heroic mode. At the time, I was trying to distract myself from the fact that I had no clue what to write for this week's Spiritual Guidance. With that in my mind, as I looked over the list of guilds that just barely spanned two pages, a thought popped into my mind: I wonder how many guilds have killed Lich King on any difficulty? I hopped over to look at 10-man progression and found only about 30% of the guilds listed on the site had defeated Arthas. The percentages surprised me; that meant the majority of raiders haven't defeated the Lich King yet. So suddenly I felt like a jerk. For weeks now, I had disregarded writing a priest guide to healing the Lich King because I thought no one would want one. Maybe I'm just oblivious? Whatever it is, I guess my perception was off; probably has something to do with the cancer I'm getting from bubble spam. (Everything causes cancer these days, after all.) Anyway, now that I'm remembering that some people don't rush through the game like I do, I figured I'd better get to it. So ahem ... This week I will be talking about how to heal the Lich King as a priest!
Spiritual Guidance: Ghostly aspects of our shadowy hatepower
Every Wednesday, Fox Van Allen climbs atop the Shandor Building to summon Vinz Clortho, the keymaster, and Zuul, the gatekeeper. Once gathered, all three sit down at a computer keyboard and take control of Spiritual Guidance. Subcreatures! Fox the Van Allen, Van Allen the destructor, Foxus Van Allenarian, the traveler has come. Choose and perish. My not-so-gentle Spiritual Guidance readers, I have a confession to make. I'm filled with hate. I hate cats. I hate Hummel figurines. I hate trifling gnome Wilfred Fizzlebang. I hate the taste of whatever brand ketchup they use at McDonalds. Lots and lots of hate. Oh, if only there were a way to channel this magnificent ... shadowy hatepower. Ask and ye shall receive, my brethren! Not from me, mind you -- from Blizzard. (I mostly just give out shadow priesting knowledge with the occasional nod to pop culture.) This week, Spiritual Guidance is tackling the changes to the shadow priest spec that currently exist within the Cataclysm alpha. If you're adamant on being surprised and don't want anything spoiled, I recommend you stop reading now and instead invest your time in the following YouTube video. I feel it provides a respectable alternative. But if you want to take your loathing for the formulaic CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men and channel it into a spiritual agent of death, and you just can't wait until later this year to find out how ... follow me past the break.
Spiritual Guidance: Don't panic
In many of the more relaxed servers on the list of US and Oceanic reams, Spiritual Guidance by Dawn Moore has already supplanted the great PlusHeal.com as the standard repository of all healing priest knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly easier to access; and second, it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover. Last week when I entered the inner sanctum of WoW.com, his holiness, High Priest Matticus approached me hurriedly. Before I could say a word in greeting he asked me "Dawn! Have you seen the priest changes?" I stared at him curiously for a long moment, waiting for his words to make sense. "Priest changes?" I wondered; I had been in the field all day and was unaware of any official announcements regarding our shared class. A short and confusing exchange followed before I was finally provided with a link to the leaked Cataclysm talent build currently being used on alpha. If you're not interested in seeing anything unofficial you shouldn't click the link. Not long after this conversation with the high priest, I found there were also two e-mails in my inbox regarding the leaked talents. Both requested my opinion on the talents, so that is what I've decided to discuss this week.
Spiritual Guidance: Getting the most out of your emblems
In 1972, Fox Van Allen was sent to prison by a military court for a crime he didn't commit. He promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Boston underground. Today, still wanted by the government, he survives as a shadow priest columnist. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, if you find over-the-top gunfights where no one actually gets shot entertaining, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire ... Spiritual Guidance. I'm an admitted altaholic. My shadow priest will always be my first love, but since he's already a Kingslayer, I've been playing more and more with Shammyfox. She's a sassy little Draenei shaman who can Lava Burst with the best of 'em. Or, at least, with the best of 'em who have recently hit level 80. Her gear right now isn't the best, but I'd like to continue to progress her through the end game. Shadow priests are equipping different gear, of course, but the main challenge remains the same. It's not easy to figure out what to buy when to get the most value out of your emblems -- and your play time. If you hit 80 shortly after the Wrath release, you'd have run regular instances to gear up for heroics, so you could gather enough blues and purples to take on Naxx, where you'd get gear to take on Ulduar, where you'd get gear to take on Trial of the Crusader and Trial of the Grand Crusader. Yeah, yeah, grandpa, we get it. You walked through ten feet of snow 87 miles a day to get to school. The old way is passé. We bypass old raid content with emblems and supercharged heroics now -- great news for the casual player or dedicated altaholic. But how do you get the most out of those hard-earned emblems and get ICC ready without even stepping foot inside a raid instance?
Spiritual Guidance: Gear guide for fresh 80 healing priests
Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance and Dawn Moore lead priests into the light by studying the fine art of healing. Priests who walk into the light have a longer life expectancy* than those who follow the teachings of Fox Van Allen. Recent studies show that the 51-point talent Dispersion is actually an unexpected side effect of drinking spiked Honeymint Tea, partying with warlocks and cannibalizing gnomes. Well, the day has come: I finally decided to put together a gear guide for fresh level 80 healing priests. Many readers have been requesting this, and I figured I ought to stop teasing everyone with promises of it. I hope that this list, combined with the 101 guides we published in the past few months, will be enough to help my fellow fledgling priests find themselves somewhere in Azeroth. I can't have you all getting lost before you have a chance to dive into that new, shiny Cataclysm water. Before I get started, let it be known that this is not a list of any and all healing upgrades you can get after you hit 80. Instead it is a list of gear I would recommend to a healing priest who is trying to get the best gear he or she can without raiding or is trying to get enough gear to start healing in the current raiding content (Trial of the Crusader and Icecrown Citadel.) Since this is not a complete list, feel free to deviate from it when you find upgrades that work for you. A lot of items you find in heroics will be be better than the gear you are wearing from questing. Now, let's get started.
Spiritual Guidance: The GearScore is a lie
In the time of ancient gods, warlords and kings, a land cried out for a hero. She was Dawn Moore, a mighty princess ... forged in the heat of battle. The power, the passion, the danger. Her courage will change the world. But she's not available on Wednesdays, so Fox Van Allen is here to take over Spiritual Guidance for her and screw with everything the light holds dear. Sorry. I regularly get email (fox-at-wow-dot-com) every now and then from the Spiritual Guidance fan club. Some send me awesome screenshots (like the great old school BC one above sent by Igantinos -- thanks!), some ask for advice, and others ask for my best roasted gnome recipes. I'm glad to help when I can. Every once in a while, though, I get an email that breaks my heart. The start was inauspicious enough: a request to analyze whether his DPS was up to par based on their GearScore. It's a pretty common request. I wrote him back with a few suggestions on improving his numbers. His gear was pretty good -- he was decked out in a lot of level 232 gear he found in the new Icecrown 5-man instances and full tier 9 -- so I didn't have much to offer there except to suggest he start looking at tier 10. I gave a little bit of gemming advice and closed with a request that he swap out his trinkets. He had Purified Lunar Dust in one slot and the even worse Talisman of Resurgence (item level 245) in the second. Now, don't get me wrong, there are worse trinkets you could go around having -- an upgrade is always an upgrade. But I was confused as to why he'd spend hard-earned emblems on them over far better gear. The answer was frustrating. He picked them up "to appease the GS-is-everything crowd."
Spiritual Guidance: The GearScore is a lie, Page 2
Let's get something straight now, though: The trinkets you can buy with emblems stink for shadow priests. Save your emblems. The item level 245 Talisman of Resurgence is one of the banes of my existence.
Spiritual Guidance: Triage
Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance shares all the insight on wielding the light as a discipline or holy priest. Priestess Dawn Moore does her best to guide innocent priests away from the shadowy influences of Fox Van Allen, propagator of gateway specs. She stands vigilantly, fighting to ensure that priests do not get lost in the dark world of demon pacts and mage hate. Remember: mages are our friends. Last week, I began my weekly column by annoying you all with information about my GearScore. This week I will be repeating this needlessly pretentious practice by telling you my other GearScore. My other GearScore, you ask? Why yes, dear readers, surely you know that elite players such as myself have multiple gear sets for all of our PvE whims. So without further ado: I have a 3390 GearScore. CUT TO: INT. BEDROOM - DAY Dawn is seen pecking away a laptop keyboard. An over-the-shoulder shot shows her computer screen just as she finishes highlighting the text "My other GearScore ..." We then see the cursor mouse over to a font styles menu where the following options are listed: Bold, Italic and Sarcasm. Dawn selects the last option. Film school flashbacks aside, this week we are going to talk about triage. If you didn't already know, triage is the act of making a priority list for who to help first in a situation where several individuals require medical attention. Triage was referenced earlier this month in a forum post where Ghostcrawler answered some scrutiny to Blizzard's suggested healing philosophy for Cataclysm. Let's look at that post and talk about what it will mean for priests. I will also explain where I was going in my GearScore sequel from above.
Spiritual Guidance: Some shadowy notes from the Twitter dev chat
Once a long-upstanding follower of the light, Spiritual Guidance woke up this morning in Deathknell with a little bit less flesh than usual and a bizarre "maggot-ish" taste in its mouth. Since the creatures from the Nether didn't seem to want the column, Fox Van Allen took it in (like he does every Wednesday), put 58 of its talent points in shadow, and corrupted it in the most beautiful way possible. Let's get something straight: I'm really excited about Cataclysm. Last week's hyperbole aside, I'm not ready to storm the gates. I'm not going to hang up my shadow priestly robes in protest (to the dismay of certain folk). I'm can guarantee you that I'll be one of those people standing out in the cold midnight air on the release date. I'll even call in sick to work the following day with a severe case of Devouring Plague. As a nice little supplement to the class changes we learned about earlier in the month, Blizzard held a #Blizzchat on Twitter this past Friday. Not a whole heck of a lot of valuable questions were answered, but it did hold some actual promising news for shadow priests and a little bit more insight on what's coming for us in Cataclysm. Yes, I said promising news. This week, we're shelving the QQ.
Spiritual Guidance: Priest gems for raid roles
Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance takes a step into the light to reflect on the subtleties of healing for discipline and holy priests. Your guide, Dawn Moore, enjoys bubble wrap, bubble milk tea, Bubble Bobble, watermelon bubble gum, water bubbles in space, and dolphins blowing bubble rings. She is lukewarm toward bubble spamming. I have a 6140 gear score. Don't get excited though; I just said that to rile some of you up. I loathe the concept of the gear score addon, and I actually had to look it up just to know what mine was. The real reason I bring up my gear score is to give you, my fair readers, an idea of what kind of gear I typically work with as a player. If you have no idea what that number translates to, it is full 264 item level gear with a few 277 level items sprinkled in. So for the most part I have a fantastic set of gear. If I walk into a PUG 5-man, most players will glance me over and immediately feel at ease about their fate for the next 15 to 20 minutes. This is ironic though, because despite the quality of my gear being well above average, I am currently rocking a gear set far worse for healing heroic dungeons than I was 3 tiers ago. Why, pray tell, is that? Because my guild and I have spent the last three weeks working on the heroic Lich King encounter and I've been slowly optimizing my gear for the past month in preparation for this one, single fight. How's my mana regeneration? Pathetic: I get all of my mana return not from trinkets, flasks or mustache-twirling meta gems, but from carefully timed Power Word: Shields and the Rapture trick. What about haste? Awful: my GCD isn't even close to 1 second if I cast two spells back to back. My sole purpose in the Lich King fight is to cast one spell, on as many people as possible, for about 10 minutes straight. As such, all my gear, gems, enchants, and glyphs are selected to work in this fight alone, even if it cripples me in every other aspect of the game. And it is quite crippling. I used to love spoiling myself with haste. I loved the 1 second GCD; but now, because of my gear, I find myself having to smash my buttons frantically and repeatedly in the easiest of 5-man dungeons, because my inner sense of timing is all thrown off to what I'm accustomed to. I have trouble healing Halls of Reflection! (If you could hear me, there was a cry of shame in that last sentence.) So, what are we going to talk about today? Gems. That was obvious before now, right?
Spiritual Guidance: The case of shadow priests v. Blizzard
Despite Ms. Moore's best attempt at poisoning him this past weekend, Fox Van Allen triumphantly returns, spending 13% of his base mana to drop Spiritual Guidance back into Shadowform. His holy adversary's misguided attempt at sacerdoticide failed due to two key miscalculations: (1) holy priests are laughably pathetic when it comes to causing damage over time, and (2) she failed to consider that the proverbial stick up Mr. Van Allen's ass is indeed a cleansing totem. Oh, you lucky shadow priests, you. Last Thursday afternoon, you were treated to a bonus column by yours truly providing some surface level analysis to the upcoming shadow priest changes in Cataclysm. I tried to keep things as level-headed as I could, but a tone of cautious disappointment seeped through. Those of you who follow me on Twitter saw a much uglier reaction to the changes Thursday morning. Perhaps I jumped the gun. Perhaps I was setting the bar way too high for priests when I saw how Blizzard vomited all sorts of awesome upon shamans of all stripes. I want my damn pony, and I was pissed off that I didn't get it. So, okay, emotions have cooled. I've had time to digest the changes, to compare the ponies that we were promised against the ponies that Ghostcrawler promised the other classes, if you will. There's only one thing left to do: hold Blizzard on trial for crimes of high treason against the shadow priest spec, of course. You shadow priests will make a fairly unbiased jury, don't you think? /cough
Spiritual Guidance: A new look
Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance reverts to "lovey-dovey" heal mode by the hands of priestess Dawn Moore. This week she has set aside her differences with Fox Van Allen, her dark counterpart, so that she can peacefully enjoy dumplings and fair weather. She hopes that he enjoys the fruit basket she sent him. The cyanide in the apples shouldn't be a problem for a master of darkness such as himself to digest. Right? As I alluded to in my analysis of the Cataclysm priest preview last week, I will be taking a departure from my typical column this week on Spiritual Guidance. Instead of a guide or current event, I'd like to take some time to examine the priest class with a wider perspective. My analysis from Thursday was a response to the pinpoints of Blizzard's preview; this article, on the other hand, will examine the class from a broad design perspective. My hope in doing this is to get readers thinking about our class and the game differently and, in turn, start an ongoing discussion of where it could go. Why do this? Because Cataclysm is approaching, and now is the time, if there ever was one, to suggest things we would like to see change. Blizzard is most likely to listen to strong and constructive ideas we put forth now, and I think it's valuable to get you guys in on the discussion. Now is the time to speak up!
More Cataclysm details for priests
Okay, I admit it, I don't understand you priests at all. You wear cloth, you sometimes heal people and even when you hurt people, you do so in a profoundly confusing way to me. At no point do you seem to actually hit anything with those staves, maces, daggers and so on that you collect. This baffles me. However, out of residual affection for the healing spells you cast and grudging (I mean it, seriously grudging) respect for your DPS, I take it upon myself to present to you the follow-up blue posts on the priest Cataclysm preview. (And every time I see Mind Spike I can't help but think "Mind bullets! That's telekinesis, Kyle!") I mean, you're a two-role hybrid, I'm a two-role hybrid ... we should stick together. So here comes some blue posts explaining Inner Fire, Mind Spike, Chakra, what happened to Misery, and if Lightwell is getting any love.
Cataclysm Class Changes: Discipline and holy priest analysis
By now I'm sure you have read the priest class preview for Cataclysm and, assuming that you have any feelings toward the priest class, felt a multitude of emotions toward it. Whether you stayed up late with the rest of us last night or swallowed it all this morning, the announcements are certainly shocking. I don't think anyone expected us to be cloth-wearing death knights in the next expansion. I will get to that later, though. If you didn't already guess from the title above, I will be providing a full assessment of the class preview for healing priests. Having already browsed at reactions on the forums, I want to assure you that I am going to stay mostly level-headed with my review. I of course do this because I'm in no way bitter about waiting 15 hours for Blizzard to give me a winky-face at 2:58 a.m. EST, saying it's still the 7th of April in Anaheim, California. Anyway, whatever your feelings on the preview have been so far, hit the jump and I promise I won't spare you any variety of perspective.
Spiritual Guidance: Compensating for the failure of others
Theorizing that one could shadow priest within his own lifetime, Dr. Fox Van Allen stepped into the Shadowform accelerator ... and vanished. He awoke to find himself the Spiritual Guidance columnist, facing mirror images that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change shadow priests for the better. His only guide on this journey is his Gnomemuncher, an observer from his own time who appears in the form of a Shadowfiend that only Fox can see and hear. And so, Dr. Van Allen finds himself leaping from column to column, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next column ... will be filled with dead gnomes. I am the most awesome shadow priest of all time. Okay, so maybe that's a severe exaggeration. Still, I'm starting to max out on my gear and I feel increasingly out of place in Northrend heroics. It's hard to run them without pulling aggro off a tank simply by virtue of being there. As time goes on, more and more of you will find yourself in a similar situation: You're exceptionally geared. You know your class and your spell priorities. You churn out rockin' DPS. You keep getting better, but the tanks and healers you're thrown into random groups with don't. The random dungeon finder relies a lot on luck. Sometimes, you wind up with a bad tank. Sometimes, you wind up with a bad healer. Worst-case scenario, both are going to stink. Unless you like running back to your corpse, these situations require you to use your brain and adjust your play.
Spiritual Guidance: Priest PvP 101
Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance returns to aid priests of the healing persuasion. Each week, disco-loving author Dawn Moore is eager to find you the answers to all your holy and discipline priest questions ... Meanwhile, in Silithus, his shadowy-ness, Fox Van Allen, should be awakening to the smell of his own garments burning. Guess he should have considered that the alchemy shop in Dalaran is owned by a gnome. Hopefully, the headache he'll have will subside fast enough for him to figure out a way to untie himself from that cultist barbecue spit. I want you to go get killed this week. In game, that is. I know that sounds out of the ordinary, but this week, I'm giving you permission to die. Not in raids, mind you, but in the fields of battle. You see, this week we're going to venture into the dark and spooky land of PvP. Granted, it's not at all that dark or spooky. The in-game lighting in battlegrounds and arena actually tends to be a lot brighter than it is in some raid environments. Getting back on track, though: you've probably noticed that Spiritual Guidance tends to be a very PvE- and raid-oriented column. Today that changes -- sort of. The focus of this week's article is to introduce primarily PvE priests to the idea of PvP as a means to improve yourself as an overall player. I don't intend to impress experienced arena junkies with the nuances of playing a priest in the 2400 bracket (mostly because I never played anywhere close to that level) I will try to give priests who have no PvP experience a good introduction to it, though. If you are already a seasoned PvP priest, I encourage you to visit the comments and share any beginner advice I miss.
Spiritual Guidance: The professional priest
Welcome back to Spiritual Guidance, hosted by the spectacularly dark Fox Van Allen. Though he should be preparing for his final showdown against gnome-sympathizer and lolsmiter Dawn Moore, he has chosen to instead pop a few Flasks of Vodka Tonic (with that sweet Mixology bonus) and spend all night kareoke-ing with Mike Sacco. He's not afraid of those sick 4000 damage crits that a holy priest can score with Smite! What's that? Casting smite *again*? Hard to do when your mind is flayed into pudding. We've bested Sartharion on a three-dragon run. We've looked into Sindragosa's icy maw and laughed. None of that is especially impressive if we're still living in our parents' basement cause we can't find a job. It's time to put that shadow priest of ours to work. The number one rated profession for shadow priests is being the WoW.com columnist, but since that job's already taken, the rest of you will have to settle for standard Azerothian fare. And, ideally, you're going to want the one that makes your pew pew skills look all the more impressive. When I was leveling my shadow priest, I wasn't thinking much about the end game. I grabbed a pair of professions as soon as the game would let me: Tailoring and Enchanting. They served me well through leveling. But a few months into level 80, I got to thinking -- did I make the right choice?
Spiritual Guidance: Benediction
Though temporarily bested by Sindragosa's Ice Tombs, a well-timed Renew and some gnome mages have freed Dawn Moore just in time for her to wrench back Spiritual Guidance from the shady clutches of Fox Van Allen; just as she does every Sunday. After she finishes advising her fellow healing priests on the ways of the light this week, she will be waiting for a duel in Zangarmarsh atop the highest mushroom with a Flag of Ownership and Medallion of the Horde. Bring it! I've had a lot of requests recently from readers who want a leg up on gearing out their soon to be level 80, or fresh level 80 priest for raiding. This is certainly a worthwhile topic, one I intend to get to, but not this week. We get a lot of mail at WoW.com and this past week we got an e-mail from a player named Nemikahn who wrote a WoW version of the song Sunscreen. The various staffers read through the e-mail, groaned in realization at how old they were (the original song came out in 1998) before the e-mail got lost in the jumble of BlizzCon 2010 news. I really enjoyed the rewrite though, and thought it rather timely given we are nearing the end of this expansion. Cataclysm is coming, and it's supposed to change everything we've become familiar with. So, this week my fellow priests, my guidance is this: stop and smell the flowers. WoW operates at such a hurried pace these days. Don't feel like you always have to rush off to the next raid or complete another alt. Take more screen shots, visit your favorite zones, make sure you can contact your closest friends in the game outside of it, and most of all: create Benediction. I will, of course, help you with that last part.
Spiritual Guidance: Flaying Sindragosa (and friends)
Welcome back to Fox Van Allen's twisted, shadow-ish version of Spiritual Guidance, once again rescued from the diseased, holy mind of Dawn Moore. Presumably, she's currently languishing inside one of Sindragosa's Ice Tombs. I'd totally DPS her out of there, but according to the TV, this Slap Chop thing is a limited time offer, so I've really got to move if I want to get one. Bet she wishes she had Dispersion right about now. I could have sworn there was some kind of dragon encased in ice around here. Really. What's that? They chiseled it out of ice and moved it to Icecrown Citadel? The hell? When did that happen? December, you say? Those shambling horrors must shamble fast when I'm not looking. Or maybe I was just too drunk over the holidays to notice. Anyway. This bone dragon thing, it's not evil, is it? Oh. It is. Damn. Okay, I guess we'll go kill it. But first, we'll make this stop off and heal some generic green dragon we've never even heard of before, just to keep it from turning into some boss we'll have to fight later. Shadow priests, gather round as we storm the Frostwing Halls! We'll collect some fine loot! We'll also answer -- or at least ponder -- some existential questions. "Why can you Mind Flay a block of ice when it doesn't have a mind to flay? Why can you disease it?" All this after the break.
