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Spiritual Guidance: Shadow Priest 101
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. On Wednesdays, the shadow-minded Fox Van Allen takes over for the discipline-oriented Dawn Moore. Fox -- the Reagan '84 to Dawn Moore's Mondale; the communion wine to Dawn's flavorless communion wafer; the Charlie Sheen to ... that other boring guy with the fat kid. When I tell people that I write for WoW Insider, they often have a lot of questions. "What does Mike Sacco's hair really smell like?" "What's Tyler Caraway's deal?" "Can I have Dawn Moore's personal cell phone number?" I answer them all, of course (seriously, it smells like strawberries; he's overcome with Fox-induced hero worship; and no, you can't!). Today, though, I want to answer the one that comes up most often: "Do they let you write about whatever you want?" In short, yes. My employers are gracious folks, who seldom resort to physical violence against their writers. Every once in a while, though, the editorial gods issue an edict from their digital version of Mount Olympus. Three months ago, that edict was "now that Cataclysm is out, write a [your spec here] 101 article." You see, lots of World of Warcraft players are interested in reaching out and trying new specs, but are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information they need to get started. They want to know all about talents, gems, and what the spec is all about, but they don't want to sift through 50 articles to get the information. They want the Cliff Notes version. And that's precisely what the 101 series is all about. All my fellow writers here finished their Not as Cool as Shadow 101 articles back in December or so. Since I was too busy staring at my own reflection to get it done in time ... well, here it is, three months late: Shadow 101.
Spiritual Guidance: Healing Chimaeron and Atramedes as a priest
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow and decorative cross stitching (who knew he was so crafty?). Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. This week on Spiritual Guidance, we'll be returning to Blackwing Descent where, after meeting sudden and untimely deaths at the bottom of an elevator shaft, we can respawn and face our next two healing challenges: Chimaeron and Atramedes. You may recall that not long ago, we examined two other bosses in Blackwing Descent, Magmaw and the Omnotron Defense System. If you can handle those two, these bosses are just a tiny step up in difficulty and should be no match for your priestly prowess.
Spiritual Guidance: Revisiting the hybrid tax
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. And every Wednesday, Fox Van Allen takes over, encouraging priests to abandon the light in favor of the shadow. Shadow priesting: Because friends don't let friends lolsmite. When I first sat down to write, I had decided my column this week was going to be all about patch 4.1.0 and the PTR. Once I started looking through all the priest class changes, though ... well, there's not much there. That's not to say there aren't any changes. There are some tweaks to Power Word: Shield (which I do use all the time), and Inner Fire no longer has a duration (which is great). It's just that there are no changes to our damage-dealing spells in the mix. Perhaps that's a good thing. Our boomkin friends are getting a pretty ugly-looking nerf to Starsurge in patch 4.1.0, which surprised me a little bit. Admittedly, I'm no expert on balance druids, but from what I've seen on the DPS meters, their damage didn't seem stratospheric. In fact, I usually see boomkins trailing shadow priests across the board. The whole thing got me thinking. Why are boomkins being nerfed if they're not topping the meters? Is it a "hybrid tax" thing? Does the hybrid tax even still exist in Cataclysm? And what does it all mean for shadow priests in a post-4.1.0 world?
Spiritual Guidance: A first look at patch 4.1 for priests
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow while knocking back "naptime potions." Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. Earlier this week Blizzard surprised the masses by releasing an early sneak peek at patch 4.1 on the PTR. Though the patch features no major raid content, it has made some tiny changes to the priest class that could have some big impacts! Among the patch changes for priests are a nerf to Power Word: Shield, a buff to Divine Aegis, a possibly nerf to Dispel Magic, and a new animation for Holy Word: Sanctuary which I've included a video of after the break.
Spiritual Guidance: Top 10 trinkets for the pre-raiding shadow priest
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. All armor is pretty much the same. That may have always been the case, when it comes down to it, but it seems especially noticable in Cataclysm. Each armor slot has the same "stat budget," with the only differences between pieces of equipment at the same item level being the secondary stats that piece contains. Thanks to reforging, finding the right piece of armor isn't a big deal -- we can just find something close to what we need and modify it until it meets our specifications. Our two trinket slots are special, though. Trinkets don't carry around the same intellect and stamina that all other equipped pieces of armor do. It's notoriously difficult to rank which trinket is best, because they all have special "on-use" or "proc" effects that vary from piece to piece. Of course, it's those differences that make trinkets so compelling. The right trinket can make a huge impact in your DPS. For those of you who have yet to raid, there are 10 solid DPS caster trinket options -- six ilevel 346 rares and four ilevel 359 epics -- that you can choose from if you have the patience (or gold). Most have a huge spellpower proc. Some offer haste. One special little trinket offers intellect. We'll break them all down in this week's quest to answer the question, "What trinket is right for me?"
Spiritual Guidance: Understanding the recent priest changes
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. The last week has been a bit of an adventure for priests of the healing variety. Hotfix nerfs and buffs were implemented to address the overuse of Power Word: Shield in the aftermath of patch 4.0.6, and before long, everything was upside down. Discipline priests quickly found their mana pools drained for using multiple shields, even at ideal times, and in a weird twist of fate, holy priests were able to pick up the mantle as shield spammers. The community writhed and waited for new hotfixes to come. But would they be the last? Given these events, I thought it would be appropriate to explain exactly what happened this past week before moving back to our weekly boss strategies.
Spiritual Guidance: Balanced gear along the road to the shadow priest endgame
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Today is Wednesday, and for the 58th consecutive week, Wednesday is all about Fox Van Allen and his army of overpowered shadow priests. Last week was an interesting one for me here at WoW Insider. I wrote a shadow priest's guide to 4.0.6 on Monday, shortly before the patch went live. Because I knew the 4.0.6 stat weightings would be a much desired piece of information, I used SimulationCraft to try and generate some usable numbers. That led to a problem: I used the PTR 4.0.6 version of SimulationCraft to get the stat weightings. Hours before my article was published (and hours after it had been written, edited, and slotted for publishing), the folks at SimulationCraft came out with a new live 4.0.6 build of their software. The new live numbers were vastly different from the PTR numbers, and worse yet, the live numbers involved an error that incorrectly modeled hit. Long story short: I had to rewrite major sections of last week's article. And yes, that included the stat weighting. We have new, updated numbers that say for a best-in-slot shadow priest, haste is king. And that, as they say, was that. End of story. Column over. Right? Well, yes, that's the end of story ... if you're a best-in-slot, item-level 372 shadow priest with four-piece tier 11. If you're not a best-in-slot shadow priest, though, those stat weighting numbers are going to be different. Not "maybe" different -- significantly different. But just how different? Should a new 85 gem differently than an endgame raider? And how can you find out your own specific stat weightings without a degree in multi-variable calculus?
Spiritual Guidance: Playing your holy or discipline priest in patch 4.0.6
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. Patch 4.0.6 is live, which means we're taking a vacation from the raiding guides to talk about how priest healing has changed since the patch for holy and disc priests. Overall, life is great right now if you're a healing priest. There may be some people who disagree, but I think it's obvious that we've got it all right now. Our spells are strong, our cooldowns are amazing, and we have the best spell in the game, Leap of Faith (or Power Word: Barrier, if you want to be serious.) The posts complaining about priests being overpowered are at an all-time high, sweeping through the forums like a refreshing spring breeze; it's like Trial of the Crusader was just some bad dream.
Spiritual Guidance: Top 7 shadow priest questions about patch 4.0.6
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Wednesday's shadow-specced version of Spiritual Guidance was taped before a live studio audience. Shortly before patch 4.0.6 went live, I took a glance at the final version of the patch notes. There were hundreds of changes, spread out across each and every class. And yet, with all those changes, there were really only four of major consequence to the practicing shadow priest. Taken from yesterday's official patch notes: Patch 4.0.6 Official Notes The mana cost of Power Word: Shield has been increased by approximately 31%, but its effect has been increased by 208%. Mind Blast now does 18% more damage than Mind Spike. Mind Sear can now be channeled on friendly targets in addition to enemy targets. In addition, Mind Sear's damage has been increased by roughly 15%. Shadow Orbs benefit from mastery has been increased by approximately 16%. source No, shadow priests, your eyes do not deceive you -- that is indeed four consecutive buffs without a single nerf. Together (especially the last three), they add up to a solid DPS increase. That's clearly good news for us, but it doesn't tell the whole story of 4.0.6 -- there are still some yet-to-be-resolved questions. Is haste still our best secondary stat, or should we gem for something else? Do the changes mean we should now be hit-capped? How do the changes in 4.0.6 affect rotations? If you still have questions about patch 4.0.6, then today's column is for you -- it's all about answers.
Spiritual Guidance: Priest healing strategies for early Bastion of Twilight
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow and decorative cross stitching (who knew he was so crafty?). Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. Last week on Spiritual Guidance, I said we'd be spending the next few weeks examining the new raid dungeons in Cataclysm and how to heal them as a priest. This week, we'll be in The Bastion of Twilight to see the first two bosses, Halfus Wyrmbreaker and the twin dragons, Valiona and Theralion. As far as dungeons go, The Bastion of Twilight is nothing to scoff at. It is probably the hardest of the three available raid dungeons (four, if you actually count Tol Barad -- which I don't, because I have to maintain my reputation of being pretentious and aloof). Despite this, the first boss, Halfus Wyrmbreaker, is an unusually easy encounter in comparison to the others in The Bastion of Twilight, and that's why we're here today. Let's take a look at why.
Spiritual Guidance: Best professions for Cataclysm shadow priests
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Each Wednesday, Fox Van Allen steps up to offer his State of the Spec address a nation of priests, preaching the superiority of the shadow spec. The holy and discipline spec response, offered by Dawn Moore, will be broadcast immediately after on a channel no one watches (like CNN or CBS). President Obama gave his State of the Union address last week. I didn't watch it, because I was too busy catching reruns of Canadian home improvement shows on HGTV. You understand. I don't follow politics. I don't even like to vote -- I just have my neighbor do it for me. As much as I tried avoiding the speech, I still caught bits and pieces of it the next morning. From what I hear, we're in a recession. Now, I'm not exactly sure what that means, per se. From what I understand, part of it is that people are having trouble finding jobs. I don't understand why, though -- jobs are plentiful in World of Warcraft. Why, they're so plentiful, everyone is encouraged to take two of them! Professions are a great way to earn money, but they also carry with them some powerful stats bonuses and profession-specific perks. Which two professions should your DPS-maximizing shadow priest choose? It's a tougher question than it sounds, and some of the top choices may surprise you.
Spiritual Guidance: Priest healing tactics for Omnotron Defense System and Magmaw
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow and shovels his way out of a snow storm that Dawn has absolutely nothing to do with (the cookies are in the mail, Christian.) Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. So at this point, you've probably restored the world pillar, been solely entrusted to protecting Hyjal by a demi-goddess, and made off with several dozen pigs (or pumpkins) from the poor farmers of your faction's capital city. You've probably also ventured into countless enemy strongholds and slain everything from wind dragons to rock monsters -- or at least had a panic attack trying to heal the guys doing the slaying. You sure are amazing, and everyone knows it (except the Guardians of Hyjal reputation vendor), so it's not surprising that about now you've been called upon by other heroes to delve deep into the deepest, darkest lairs of Azeroth so you can fulfill your destiny of spamming Prayer of Healing on groups 1 and 2. Sound good? Excellent. If you haven't guessed already, during the next few weeks, the healing side of Spiritual Guidance will be taking a tour of tier 11 raid content and discussing how to best approach it as a holy or discipline priest. If you're ready, let's get started.
Spiritual Guidance: A Monstrous Compendium for the mind-controlling shadow priest
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Each Wednesday, while Dawn Moore is busy handing out sparkle-covered hugs and cupcake-flavored shields, Fox Van Allen takes the helm of Spiritual Guidance to practice the fine art of Mind Control and all other things shadow. This week: How to get former Angels outfielder Reggie Jackson to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II, all with the push of a button. Two weeks ago, we discussed the basics of the incredibly powerful priest ability Mind Control. It's crowd control taken to the next level -- you get to turn the bad guys friendly, dish out giant gobs of damage, blow the bad guys' cooldowns, and start out every pull with an effortless enemy death. In a world of cruelly difficult heroics, Mind Control is nothing short of a game-changer. Once you get past the basics, though, Mind Control can be a challenging ability to master. With most spells, once you press a button, you're done. With Mind Control, casting the initial spell is just the beginning. Knowing your own abilities is no longer enough -- you need to know your enemies' abilities as well. Some enemies aren't worth mind-controlling. Some have unbelievably powerful abilities. With a little bit of knowledge, you'll be able to exploit every last one of those 30 seconds Mind Control gives you. What follows is what I hope you'll find to be the ultimate Mind Control resource: a list of all the mind-controllable enemies in Cataclysm heroics, complete with their special abilities you can exploit for your own personal gain. It's our own version of a Monstrous Compendium. Turn your foes into crabs! Summon a meteor! Triple your tank's health and reduce the damage he takes by 90%! And that, as they say, is just the beginning.
Spiritual Guidance: Valor point and raid gear for discipline and holy priests
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow and screams at the heavens for truth. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. Late last month, Spiritual Guidance examined the many options for discipline and holy priests who were looking to gear themselves up through normal and heroic dungeons. Now that it's been a while, I'd assume that many of you have quite a few valor points saved up from doing your heroic daily and have maybe even dived into a little raiding. That undoubtedly means you'll want a convenient list of all the things you want to keep an eye out for in raids, and possibly some recommendations on how to best spend your valor points. So that's what's on our agenda today.
Spiritual Guidance: Shadow priest changes in patch 4.0.6
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Each Wednesday, the shadow-specced Fox Van Allen takes the helm of Spiritual Guidance, giving the world a brief respite from the not-so-evil machinations of his nemesis, Dawn Moore. On days that are not Wednesday, Fox is available for childrens' parties. I'm a big fan of where shadow priests are right now in Cataclysm. We're able to churn out highly competitive damage in just about any fight. Combine that fact with our damn near legendary survivability, and it's hard to imagine why anyone would even think about playing another class. In the interest of full disclosure, though, shadow priests aren't quite perfect. The spec has some small issues, and by now, we're all pretty familiar with what they are. Shadow priests have to suffer a terribly underpowered AoE, a limp mastery stat, and a weak Mind Blast. The good news: Blizzard game developers are taking a stab at fixing every major problem with shadow priests in the upcoming patch 4.0.6. The even better news: Shadow priests are getting some added bonuses that we didn't even ask for. That's right: The best is getting even better.
Spiritual Guidance: Patch 4.0.6 for discipline and holy priests
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow and attacks hunters. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. I could have sworn the expansion only just came out, but despite the newness of it all, there already appears to be a major patch on the way. Before you get excited, though, patch 4.0.6 won't be bringing anything too new -- it's a patch aimed at balancing a lot of little things about the game. Priests in particularly are getting a lot of tweaks, and with each passing day, the pile of changes we can look forward to in the next patch grows a little bigger. Before it becomes too much to keep up with, let's take a look at it all and examine what everything means for holy and discipline priests.
Spiritual Guidance: A guide to Mind Control for shadow priests (and tanks)
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. The shadow-specced Fox Van Allen returns every Wednesday to denounce the evils of truth and love (and healing) in an overwrought effort to extend his reach to the stars above. And yes, that makes our healing priest columnist Dawn Moore Jessie. Cast Mind Blast on targets afflicted with Vampiric Touch. Keep Shadow Word: Pain refreshed by casts of Mind Flay. Cast Shadow Word: Death as a finishing move. Rinse and repeat. I love shadow priesting, but it can get a little repetitive at times. It doesn't have to be, though -- shadow priests hands down have access to more abilities than any other class in the game. How is that possible? Through Mind Control. It opens up an entire world of new abilities to shadow priests. By controlling our enemies, we can control what they do. Sure, you've cast Devouring Plague. But have you ever cast Disease Breath? You've boosted your tank's maximum health through Power Word: Fortitude, but have you ever done it through Renegade Strength? Like some kind of shadowy blue mage, we have access to hundreds of our enemies' abilities through Mind Control. Mind Control is the most misunderstood crowd control ability in the game. It's also the most powerful, hands down. Shadow priests and tanks, take notice -- if you're not utilizing Mind Control, the way you run Cataclysm heroics is about to change forever.
Spiritual Guidance: Holy Priest 101, part 2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. As a continuation from last week, today we'll be finishing up Holy Priest 101. Last week, we examined the basics for holy priests in Cataclysm, including stats, mana regeneration, gems, glyphs, and enchants. We also took a first look at what priest talent builds are going to look like. This week, we'll touch on mana efficiency and Chakra before wrapping up with a list of tips and tricks on how to heal as a holy priest.
Spiritual Guidance: The shadow priest of 2010 ... and 2011
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. With the shadow-specced Fox Van Allen once again in control of Spiritual Guidance, it's time for some New Year's resolutions. That means three things: spending more time at the gym, eating only low-fat gnomes, and destroying his holy-specced nemesis Dawn Moore once and for all. Anyone who's read Spiritual Guidance knows I'm a sucker for nostalgia. And for someone who loves nostalgia, New Year's is the best time of the year. From Joel McHale to Joan Rivers, everyone gets a solid 30 minutes (21 minutes with commercials) to sum up an entire year in a series of tiny snippets. Why? Because it's a great way to recap a year. If you'll allow me a moment to reflect, here are a few of the things I learned in 2010: Running out of mana is not fun, no matter how much Blizzard tries to convince us otherwise. I talked about this a little around BlizzCon 2010, but it bears repeating: I have the most awesome fans. I'm talking about people like Leigh, who gave me a huge hug. And a T-shirt. And a subscription to her website. Blizzard developers don't really get shadow priests 100%, but that doesn't mean they don't love us. Don't believe that last point? Well then, today's column is for you. Shadow priests slowly evolved through 2010, transitioning from the proverbial red-headed step child of the Ulduar and ToTC days to something today that's -- dare I say -- pretty awesome. And there's some evidence that our best days aren't behind us. They're yet to come.
Spiritual Guidance: Holy Priest 101, part 1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. This week, I'll be continuing our healing priest 101 guides with a version for holy priests. If you're a new or novice priest who wants to heal as a holy priest in dungeons or raids, this is the guide for you. In Cataclysm, holy is one of the most versatile healers a player can choose. Our core ability Chakra allows us to switch between strong, single-target healing and AoE healing. Holy is an ideal spec for players who want to be able to heal in all sorts of different situations.
