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Spiritual Guidance: Adapting to 4.0.1 priest healing
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. On Sundays, Dawn Moore covers healing for disc and holy priests and fails to play the heartstrings of young priests. Some people just aren't cut out to be teen idols like Fox Van Allen. I was hoping to be done talking about 4.0.1 (mostly because I'm sick of typing out all the little periods), but it seems there are still a few things to be said. At this point I've talked specs, talents, new abilities, glyphs, gems and reforging -- and now the last thing I seem to have missed is the part where I tell you how to play. Or at least how to adapt. Or ... something. Either way, I suspect it's one thing for me to tell you guys how to play in a theoretical sense, two or three weeks before the patch, and then another thing to tell you exactly how to play when the patch is actually out. I had one reader ask, "What abilities should I be using?" I had another ask for a flowchart. Pft! Do you think I'm funny enough to make flowcharts? Silly readers, I leave flowcharts to the pros. Anyway, I thought on this relevancy vs. redundancy idea for a while, mostly because I'm extremely paranoid that I bore you guys at every second. (Dawn puts on a silly hat. Are you not entertained!? /Paranoidparanoidparanoidparanoid ...) I eventually decided that the best thing to do was in fact leave it to the pros -- though I'm still not giving you guys flowcharts. Instead I've got our regular priesty friend Kinaesthesia on board to give a full testimony on playing holy right now, as well as a new name you guys may not know, Mr. Raegx of Vigil. Raegx approached me a few months ago, asking if I needed any help, and I stuck him in a file box. He's out now, though, so let's see what the two of them have to say.
Spiritual Guidance: Raid-ready 4.0.1 shadow priesting in 10 easy steps
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. On Wednesdays, your shadow-specced host Fox Van Allen copies Dawn Moore's latest column word for word and pastes it into Auto-Tune. After all those sour, holy-flavored notes are removed, what comes out is better than anything Jason Derulo could ever hope to achieve: priesting, perfected. If you're a regular reader of Spiritual Guidance -- and I hope you are, because it's your page views that give me my special, magical powers -- then you know how excited I've been for patch 4.0.1. I've been beating it over your head for weeks. Well, I can't tease you with it anymore, because that fabled new frontier of shadow priesting is finally here. It plays an awful lot like a new season of your favorite sitcom: entirely recognizable as that which you love, but with a few new twists. In patch 4.0.1, you create massive numbers of copies of yourself simply by moving around, your shadowfiend is on a variable timer and Betty White is your new anthropology teacher. (Change is confusing sometimes. Roll with it.) With the way everything just changed overnight, it's all too easy for a shadow priest to feel in over his head. Worry not, though -- the magnificent (though self-aggrandizing) Fox Van Allen has you covered with a comprehensive, ten-step checklist to get yourself raid re-ready for 4.0.1. New stat values, new gemming guidelines and even new enchanting info -- it's all here, and it's all after the break.
Spiritual Guidance: Reforging, gemming and GCD tactics for 4.0.1 priests
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. On Sundays, Dawn Moore covers healing for disc and holy priests while simultaneously battling her shadow priest rival, Fox Van Allen. This week, Dawn has been practicing her peacock pose so she can challenge Fox in Wii yoga. Now that Blizzard has announced when Cataclysm is being released, we finally know how long we've got left in Wrath of the Lich King to finish what we want to get done (or twiddle our thumbs and play more StarCraft 2). The past two weeks, I've talked about getting ready for patch 4.0.1, and since we've got a bit more time than I expected to cover Cataclysm healing, leveling and more before the release, I'm going to go ahead and tidy up the last of my 4.0.1 advice by updating my recommendations for priest gems, and tackling reforging. I'll be paying some specific attention to the soft haste cap and GCD (global cooldown) so you'll know how to stay min-maxed for the last two months of the expansion.
Spiritual Guidance: Shadow priest glyph shopping for 4.0.1 and Cataclysm
Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Spiritual Guidance, your one-stop source for all the information on shadow priesting you want and need for your on-the-go lifestyle. Your host Fox Van Allen brings information on your spec of choice on a silver platter, helping you stretch your World of Warcraft knowledge to infinity and beyond. Sit back, relax and prepare to be "wowed"! I have a confession to make: I've never really found glyphs to be that sexy. I don't know why. Maybe part of it was the hassle of having to travel halfway across Stormwind to find a Lexicon of Power just to add a glyph to my character. Maybe it was the frustration of learning later that I didn't need to find a Lexicon of Power to add a glyph, and the shame that came with knowing I had wasted about 30 or 40 trips along the canals over the last year and a half. Still, sexy or not, glyphs are powerful as all hell. They provide useful benefits by increasing our DPS, eliminating the need for reagents or reducing cooldowns. There's no reason not to like these damn things. And if you already like them on the live Wrath servers, you're going to love what's coming for glyphs in Cataclysm. We're about to have even more choices to make than ever before. That may seem a bit daunting, at least at first, but don't fear -- we're going to be better shadow priests for the experience. More slots, better choices and added convenience: It's all coming in patch 4.0.1, and it's all here in today's Spiritual Guidance, just after the break.
Spiritual Guidance: Finishing Wrath raids as a 4.0.1 healing priest
Every Sunday at WoW Insider, you'll find Spiritual Guidance, a guide to healing as a discipline or holy priest. Priestess Dawn Moore will bring you the latest in news, discussion and advice for priests in the World of Warcraft while simultaneously battling her shadow priest rival, Fox Van Allen. This week Dawn is able to take a break, since Fox is busy promoting the musical tour of Foxlight, his Hannah Montana-esque alter ego. Previously on Lo -- Spiritual Guidance, I assaulted your eyeballs with monoliths of text describing what's going to be happening in patch 4.0.1. This week, in response to a couple of emails I got, I'm going to scale it all back and talk less about the nitty-gritty and more about how to apply the patch to whatever it is you're still doing in the game. Working on heroic Lich King? OK, we'll talk about that. Halion? Sure, we'll do that too. Farming Invincible? Err ... Well, I guess I could draft up some sort of farm content. ICC drinki -- An ESRB rating falls on Dawn's head. Yes, well, let's get to it, shall we?
Spiritual Guidance: Welcome to Cataclysm heroics, shadow priests
Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Spiritual Guidance, where your host Fox Van Allen takes on the darker, shadowy side of priesting. While your holy columnist Dawn Moore was busy trying to plant suggestions regarding the alleged superiority of healing, Fox was busy casting Mind Control to demonstrate the superiority of the shadows. Right now, on the live Wrath servers, shadow priesting seems to fit like a glove. That's not necessarily a result of our class and mechanics being perfect -- they're not. It's a result of their feeling familiar. We've been playing under the rules of patch 3.3 for nearly a year now and it feels natural; it feels right. We're blessed with strong damage and near unlimited mana -- provided we put in the effort to know how to make both of those a reality. It's hard to accept that 4.0.1 is bringing such major changes, especially in the realm of that once unlimited mana bar. It's gone, and it's not coming back any time soon. If you need any evidence, consider this: After slashing mana regen to the bone last week, Blizzard followed up by cutting regen even more this week in the latest beta build. (For something called a "nerf," these cuts sure hit like a Mack truck, don't they?) These changes to regen may make the 80-to-85 leveling process more tedious, but they don't necessarily make it more difficult. If the pinch is going to be felt anywhere, it's going to be in 5-man instances, heroics and raids. Since raids aren't quite available yet, I decided to queue up for some heroics instead to get as much Cataclysm endgame flavor as I could. Can our mana bars handle the stress? How weird and different are our new rotations? And how can shadow priests add much-needed value to a party above and beyond the standard DPS abilities in Cataclysm? The answers to those questions -- plus a stunning 47,306 damage crit -- are all after the break.
Spiritual Guidance: Preparing disc and holy priests for patch 4.0.1
Every Sunday at WoW Insider, you'll find Spiritual Guidance, a guide to healing as a discipline or holy priest. Priestess Dawn Moore will bring you the latest in news, discussion and advice for priests in the World of Warcraft while simultaneously battling her shadow priest rival, Fox Van Allen. This week, after contracting a team of gnomish engineers, Dawn has gone inside Fox's mind to plant an idea deep in his subconscious. The idea? Healing > DPS. Things are crazy for priests lately. New and dramatically different talent builds are appearing each week like cannonballs, mercilessly destroying everything from the previous week. This week, I was hoping to get everyone ready for the upcoming patch 4.0.1, but that's easier said than done, since build 12984 was just cannibalized by build 13033 on Thursday evening, before mutating into build 13066 on Saturday afternoon. All the same, I'm going to do my best to achieve my original goal James Stewart style, and if this all becomes irrelevant six ways before next Thursday, then it does -- and I hope you'll be patient with me while I reconstruct everything before the next storm. Cutting to the chase, I've got a talent by talent write-up to get everyone caught up on what's possibly going to go live in the next week (or three), some recommendations for talent trees, and details on glyphs.
Spiritual Guidance: Has mana regen become collateral damage in patch 4.0.1?
Spiritual Guidance's shadow-specced Wednesday correspondant Fox Van Allen recently got his performance evaluation here at WoW Insider, and it wasn't pretty. While his ability to recall distant pop culture references and melt faces has been deemed "adequate," his people skills "need improvement." Action item: "Stop ganking Dawn Moore in the hallways." Salary action taken: "Convert salary from U.S. dollars to old America Online CDs." If you're a regular reader of WoW Insider, you may have noticed an interesting trend about patch 4.0.1 and the upcoming class changes it brings: Almost everyone's freaking out. It's bad enough that almost every other class columnist on here is telling it's readers not to panic. It's as if we're running some kind of Douglas Adams convention around here. You won't hear all that from me, though. And it's not just because I'm too cool for books. It's because shadow priests aren't panicking, for the most part. There are disappointments here and there -- mostly regarding the mastery mechanic and the (currently) low value of the mastery stat -- but otherwise, things are pretty decent in this neck of the woods. So decent, in fact, that there's someone complaining on the beta forums that shadow priests are probably so overpowered because Blizzard reps all play shadow priests. (I LOLed.) But that's not to say we don't have our concerns. My latest concern is mana regen. While our damage has actually been buffed in some of the latest beta patches (most recently, Dark Archangel has been buffed from 3 percent per stack up to 4 percent), our mana regen continues to get hit with nerfs. Granted, Blizzard is really trying to aim for healers, but with most holy and disc nerfs to regen affecting our abilities too, are shadow priests becoming collateral damage?
Spiritual Guidance: Priest changes in build 12984 and Life Grip video
Every Sunday at WoW Insider, you'll find Spiritual Guidance, a guide to healing as a discipline or holy priest. Priestess Dawn Moore will bring you the latest in news, discussion and advice for priests in the World of Warcraft while simultaneously battling her shadow priest rival, Fox Van Allen. This week, Dawn has been training an infantry of super-perceptive aerial assault sheep to counter the Dark Shrine she spotted Fox warping into WoW Insider HQ earlier. The latest build for the Cataclysm beta was the big news yesterday, thanks to ol' B at MMO-Champion. The news hit sometime in the night while most priests were nestled all snug in their beds, but High Priest Matticus and I were up late drinking chocolate malts and playing wall ball, so we got a head start on the information ... which we promptly used to write about pets and shaman. Last week, I said I'd be finishing my Cataclysm roundup this weekend, but since there were quite a few changes in this latest beta build (which I'm guessing will affect the release of patch 4.0.1), I think it's better if we discuss the details of the changes before we try to summarize them. There was also a super-exciting (though entirely superficial) change with this patch as well ... Leap of Faith, also known as "Life Grip," got a brand new animation! Check out the video after the jump.
Spiritual Guidance: The shadow priest's guide to World of Warcraft patch 4.0.1
Welcome to Wednesday's shadow priest edition of Spiritual Guidance, hosted by Fox Van Allen. We bloggers are all about search engine optimization. As such, there are going to be some changes around here: Shadowfiends will be referred to as "Lady Gaga meat dresses," and Dawn Moore will be henceforth referred to as "NY Jets reporter Inez Sainz." Fox Van Allen will, of course, remain Fox Van Allen -- he's as optimized as he's ever going to get. I spent hours riding a seahorse in Vashj'ir last night. I love a good video game cliché, and there's no video game cliché quite like the underwater level. The environment is beautiful and immersive, but those beautiful aqua blues and sea greens couldn't distract me from a fundamental truth about the new expansion that I was constantly experiencing: Shadow priesting is a lot more fun in Cataclysm. Period. There are more options. More abilities. And yes, even more DPS. For those of you who want to get the ball rolling on these new abilities in Cataclysm, there's good news: Patch 4.0.1 is currently available for testing on the public test realm. It's not the full release of the game, but the new patch will cover almost all the changes that are going to be made to our spec for the new expansion. And better yet, the patch's appearance on the PTR signals that all these changes to the shadow priesting way of life are just around the corner. (And not, like, how we keep saying Cataclysm is around the corner, despite its being months away. I mean legit around the corner. For reals, no take-backs.) The way you play the game, whether it's soloing mobs or raiding Icecrown, is about to change significantly. Are you ready? Follow me after the break, where I'll explain what patch 4.0.1 is, what it is not and what to do once it hits.
Spiritual Guidance: Cataclysm beta roundup for priests, pt. 1
Everyone knows that each Sunday they can expect the healing priest edition of Spiritual Guidance from Dawn Moore. What you probably don't know is that on Mondays, Dawn and her shadowy nemesis, Fox Van Allen, put aside their differences and hog-pool to the Orgrimmar Shadowfiend Shelter, a home for displaced shadowfiends. Each year, thousands of shadowfiends are orphaned, but some survive because of players like you. These shadowfiends need you today; reroll now! Information about what's going on in the Cataclysm beta has been a little bit dodgy for priests here at Spiritual Guidance the past couple of months. That's largely in part to the fact that I haven't had access to the beta. Now, thanks to my new favorite people at NowGamer, I have a beta key. This means no more guesses and speculations on how things work. The timing couldn't have been better either, since as of yesterday evening, the PTR for patch 4.0 became available for players to download. This means before long we'll be seeing the 31-point talent trees on live realms, and that means Cataclysm can't be too far off either. Exciting, don't you think? So now, because discussion of beta has been going on for 6 months and changing every week, now seems like the best time to get everyone up to date and clarify any information that was unclear, mistaken, or just plain forgotten from the past few months. I have compiled a big, two part list of changes for healing priests that look like they're going to go live, so if you've been avoiding reading up on what's going on in the beta, the next two weeks of Spiritual Guidance are going to be articles you want to read. I've also got some video for you guys at the end! Let's go!
Spiritual Guidance: Dinosaur Pirate Explosion Carnival (or, why Shadow Orbs is lame)
After a vicious, brutal campaign, the primary election between light-side Spiritual Guidance writer Dawn Moore and the shadow-specced Fox Van Allen (your host for today's article, of course) has come to a close. Fox had built a strong lead in the polls right up until this weekend, when a confused cadre of Tea Party activists misread Dawn's fondness for Earl Grey as tacit support for a right-wing economic agenda. Stupid democracy -- it just never seems to work. Being an international superstar, I'm constantly accosted by fans. They walk up to me on the street and they ask, "Fox, what's the best part about working for WoW.com?" There's an awful lot I like about writing, of course. I love that I have groupies. I love that I get to write about priests, internet dragons and magic, and then name my column something ridiculous, random and ill-fitting like "Eight simple rules for dating my teenaged shadow priest." I love that I can actually help people play the game better. But what's the best part? The groupies. Yeah, hands down. The groupies. The second best part, though -- I'm free to write whatever the heck I want about World of Warcraft and Blizzard. I don't have to toe a company line. When Blizzard gets it wrong, I can say they've gotten it wrong. A few weeks ago, I wrote a column called The four best things about Cataclysm for shadow priests. I touched on things like Shadowy Apparition and Paralysis, two new talents that I'm loving while leveling in the beta. "But Fox," you ask, "what about those great new Shadow Orbs? You left those off your list!" That's right, I did. I left them off because Shadow Orbs represent one of Blizzard's misses.
Spiritual Guidance: Shield spam and Divine Aegis, a theorycrafting story
In the beginning there were priests. Then Blizzard said "Let there be other classes!" Things have been a lot more complicated ever since. Fortunately, there is Spiritual Guidance, WoW.com's bi-weekly guide for priests. On Sundays you can enjoy discussion on discipline, holy, and healing in the company of Dawn Moore. We don't have cookies here, but only because we call them biscuits, and serve them with tea, sandwiches, and scones. Did you want one lump, or two? A couple of months ago I found myself talking to a non-priest about the gems I had slotted on my character. He was of the understanding that disc priests wanted nothing but crit, and thought it was strange that I had gemmed straight spellpower on all my gear. Figuring he was behind on the times, I happily explained to him that I was using the standard gem set up for shield spamming disc priests, which works around the premise that if the majority of what we do is cast shields, then we should stack as much spellpower as possible in order to make our most used spell (Power Word: Shield) absorb more. This is the standard practice advised to shield spammers throughout the priest community, and I've advised it here on Spiritual Guidance before as well. The non-priest still didn't understand though. He kept insisting "but crit ..." which inclined me to gently stroke back his hair and say "there there, poor little confused non-priest, it's all right." I allowed him his dignity though, and instead went on with my explanation. I told him that alternative stats like crit and haste didn't do much for shield spamming since Power Word: Shield can't crit, and Borrowed Time removes the necessity for haste since the talent carries us down to the 1 second GCD soft cap whenever we cast Power Word: Shield. The non-priest still didn't understand, so I explained to him that a disc priest's primary interest in crit was Divine Aegis, a talent which applies a second shield whenever one of your spells crits. "But shields don't crit," I reiterated. "The heal from the Glyph of Power Word: Shield can, but that would only add say ... 500 extra absorption from Divine Aegis. The spellpower is still better." As I typed out those last words, they boomeranged back and hit me square in the face. Startled, I peeled the sans serif off my nose and and reexamined the limp letters in my hands. Suddenly I wondered, "is that really true?"
Spiritual Guidance: The greatest Shadowfiend nerf (or maybe buff) of all time
The race to represent the Spiritual Guidance column is turning into a nail-biter. Dawn Moore, writer of the Sunday version, took an early lead due to her natural dual constituencies, holy and disc. Recently, though, Fox Van Allen, the shadow-specced author of the Wednesday column, has taken a statistically insignificant 46-44 percent lead over his rival in the polls. Some credit Fox's well-written, intelligent columns. Others point to the recent discovery of yet five more Shadowfiend-bite-riddled corpses; Dawn supporters all. "Yes we can" is so 2008 -- "... or else" is the new catchphrase for a new decade! Ladies and gentlemen of the shadow priesting jury, I am outraged. Or possibly thrilled. You see, just this past week, Blizzard has done something totally unconscionable. Or possibly ground-breakingly awesome. Of all the tools at the disposal of the shadow priest, there's one I hold in higher regard than most the others: my Shadowfiend. You see, spells like Mind Flay and Vampiric Touch -- they're all just spells. My shadowfiend is more than that. He's a pet. A friend. When I was sick and alone this past week, it was my shadowfiend who brought me a box of tissues and a remote. It was my shadowfiend that brought me a bowl of gnome noodle soup. It was my shadowfiend who rode across yellow- and blue-colored waves of sound to fight the evil dust empire that exists under my coffee table when I look down there and cross my eyes a little so things get blurry. Granted, most of that may have just been a fevered dream or cough-syrup-induced hallucination. The key point stands, however: You don't mess with my shadowfiend. This week's problem: Blizzard's been messing with our shadowfiend. Maybe. I mean, it's possible that Blizzard's been buffing it. I am incensed. Or possibly elated. We'll try out some funky, back-of-an-envelope math after the break to try and sort through exactly what's happening with our beloved shadowfiend and figure out whether or not this is cause for alarm ... or the best thing to have happened to shadow priests in the history of ever.
Spiritual Guidance: Priest PSA
On most Sundays, Spiritual Guidance by Dawn Moore is a semi-respectable guide for priests who want the latest news and thoughts on healing as a discipline or holy priest. However, due to decreased interest in priests, WoW.com has decided that starting next week Spiritual Guidance will be replaced by a new column, "One Less Lonely Elf," by Justin Bieber. The new column will cover role playing in Silvermoon City. Dawn has declined to comment. PSA stands for public service announcement (e.g. Dawn smiled with satisfaction as she stepped back to admire one of the many flyers she had spent the afternoon hanging around her guild hall. The words "Don't drink and DPS" were spelled out cheerfully across a large piece of parchment. Below, a photograph of a staggeringly uneven damage meter was pictured, followed by some informative text and statistical data.) It shouldn't be confused with PDA, which stands for public display of affection (e.g. Thanks to a heady blend of Kungaloosh and port, Fox unabashedly pushed his warlock lover against the mailbox at the south bank and moved in for a kiss. Before their lips could touch though, Fox abruptly exploded into a cloud of luminescent, purple dust. His companion glowed red with discomfort as several bystanders turned to stare. "Perhaps I shouldn't have had so much to drink," Fox considered.)
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.
Spiritual Guidance: Back to the beta
In 2015, while testing out the latest Keepers of Time expansion, Blizzard Executive Fox Van Allen accidentally ganks his past self, undoing his own existence by causing himself to reroll paladin. Now, stuck in the year 2008, Fox must find a way to undo his mistake or risk losing everything. To do this, he tracks down the only person he knows: Dawn Moore. Unfortunately, she's never heard of him, WoW.com or Spiritual Guidance, and would much rather PvP than heal. I've come to think of the Cataclysm beta as a disease. Each week it spreads further among the general populace while simultaneously mutating into a newer, stronger version of its former self. As the resident healer, it's my duty to try to control and contain the situation by applying my latest analysis, but overall the beta is a very resistant infection and my normal approaches are continually being overtaken. Still, I stand vigilant and celebrate my small victories; I will not leave you ill-informed, my fellow priests! The sound of crickets fill the silence. Yes, well then ... Shall we get started?
Spiritual Guidance: In defense (or condemnation) of Dispersion
This week your shadow priesting expert, Spiritual Guidance columnist and ace attorney Fox Van Allen, took on his hardest case yet: defending fellow columnist Dawn Moore against charges of murder! The trial was quick -- after presenting the same Rime-Covered Mace to the judge as evidence five consecutive times, Dawn was instantly declared guilty and hauled away. She was last heard muttering something about "the scent of fresh lemons ..." I have this recurring vision of a grand council of shadow priests. We sit around a gigantic conference table in a dark, shadowy dungeon somewhere. We talk shop and strategy. We share recipes for roast gnome. We discuss our plans to conquer the world. Then some joker mentions Dispersion, and the whole damn thing falls apart. "It's a waste of a 31-point talent! We're being screwed!" "Sit down, jerk, Dispersion is just fine!" An epic fistfight breaks out. And the haters wind up using Dispersion to soak up the blows. Hypocrites! Now that we know Dispersion is firmly set as our 31-point talent in Cataclysm, some old wounds are getting reopened. A lot of priests were never truly sold on Dispersion when it was first introduced, and while it's slowly gained acceptance (and more usefulness -- remember when it was garbage in Ulduar?), emotions still run high. A contingent of shadow priests loves the utility of the ability and the lore behind it. A contingent despises it for eating up the slot of some mythical perfect ability that's yet to be designed. It's the shadow priest equivalent of Roe v. Wade. And we're going to jump right in the middle of it after the break.
Spiritual Guidance: Let's talk about mana, baby
While Mr. Van Allen is getting his waistcoat pressed, Dawn Moore presents her weekly book club Spiritual Guidance, a healing guide for priests. Here you can expect some optimism, some cynicism and absolutely no Regency period clothing. So, supposedly mana is going to be an issue for healers in Cataclysm. It's the word on the street, ya know? Everyone is talking about how we're not going to be able to spam this or that, and that we'll need to make better decisions with our spell selection. "Triage" is this year's vocabulary word. That old, busted spam style of healing is out, and the new "do damage, get mana" mechanic is supposed to be the new hotness. Of course, we priests are bound to be the superstars* of the next expansion; it's all pretty exciting, don't you think? Well, maybe not everyone feels that way, but that's why we have cake and counseling. Dawn motions to the door behind her. So, in the short time I've written for WoW.com, I've noticed that the mana question is one that continually comes up. Is mana a problem? Is it not a problem? It seems like there isn't a single satisfactory answer I can give to everyone, but knowing mana might be a hurdle in the future for all of us, I figured now would be a good time to look back and ahead. So, let's talk about mana.
Spiritual Guidance: Cataclysm and the shadow priest's day of reckoning
Today's shadow-centric edition of Spiritual Guidance is brought to you by high priest of the shadows, Fox Van Allen. The holy-fearing Dawn Moore will be back to share more non-shadow wisdom ... eventually. For now, though, she's being detained by authorities in Stormwind. Apparently, they got this anonymous call about her turning traitor in Cataclysm ... In terms of whether or not the human race would go extinct, 1983 was a nail-biter. On Sunday, Sept. 26, 1983, a fluffy cloud set off the Soviet Early Warning Missile System. The system misread some data and reported that the United States had initiated nuclear war. Thankfully, a Russian technician was able to do some on-the-fly logical reasoning (the U.S. wouldn't just launch just one missile, right?) and decided to ignore that warning. And the four other erroneous warnings to follow. It was pretty much a real-life version of 99 Luftballons. Some stupid little computer error almost leveled the civilized world. Of course, the Cold War being what it was, you didn't hear about it on the nightly news. The world didn't end. Knight Rider still aired that night, right on schedule. There were an awful lot of changes to the Cataclysm shadow priest build over the past week. A few were good, a few were "OK," and one nearly led to the shadow priest world's being reduced to a pile of smoking rubble. Follow us after the break for more Cataclysm shadow priesting information. And for those of you who feel ignorance is bliss and don't want to be spoiled ... we now return you to Knight Rider, already in progress.
