Journey into the Firelands

Now that patch 4.2 is finally here, it’s time to check out what we can do from the get-go and scout the various questlines that are available (which can be quite confusing). I will update this post depending on additional information I can find as the dailies in Firelands progress.

Dragonwrath

The starting questline for the Epic staff is to be found in Stormwind or Orgrimmar, near the Mage trainers. This emissary of the Bronze Dragonflight will send you on a legendary meeting at the Caverns of Time. That assumes you have killed the required normal raid bosses (Cho’gall, Nefarion, Al’aqir) to prove your legendary worthiness. I am not sure whether it’s an end/or deal here. When you’ve killed all three you certainly have access to the quest. Otherwise, you will have to wait for your raidgroup to enter the Firelands raid and kill one of the Molten Giants to receive the drop that starts the quest.

This mob happens to be the first thing you see when you zone in, right at the stairs. This is good. What is also good is that the Eternal Embers required for the quest definitely drop from the bosses – when I checked the map, the bosses had the quest log marker on it.

Edit: It also seems that the bosses could drop 1-2 of these, possibly an additional one in Heroic modes.

Journey to save Thrall

Another questline that you can start begins at the Earthen Ring ambassador of choice at the portals in Stormwind and Orgrimmar. You are sent to witness the ritual of the Earthen Ring and Cenarion Circle to heal the world tree. Things, of course, do not go as planned and a certain fallen Druid makes his entry to show off his manga-villain makeover as a follower of fire and brimstone. Booyah. This leads to a world-spanning journey as you free Thrall from the…thrall…of the Elemental forces that are tearing him apart.

Note: be very careful with the targeting, or skip this questline until a week or so, when most of the other people completed it. All the people on PvP means you have to click by hand, making it very hard to target something and kill it – and if you don’t the quest won’t advance. Very annoying. I got PvP-enabled at some point by accident as I had a tab-target-brainfart, but only two people tried to attack me. And since two of my Mindflays killed each of them, I think they didn’t know what they were doing.

Note to self: Shadowpriest PvP guide, get on with it.

The war effort in Hyjal

The last and main questline to follow sends you to Hyjal to assist the Druids in their assault on the forces of Ragnaros. This leads to the dailies in the firelands and the tokens needed to buy all the shiny new gear. This does require you to finish most of the Hyjal starting quest where you’ve saved all the ancients. If you didn’t, the quest starts at the Hero’s Call/Warchief’s Command board and will require you to finish the four major questlines involving Goldrinn, Aessina, Aviana and Tortolla before continuing on.

It’s a good thing you get clear directions, and from a story point of view it makes sense to have completed the quests that save the Ancients before you can actually assist them in the fight in Hyjal. Still, it’s a shame that this means Alts (who likely skipped half of Hyjal) will need to be run through these quests anyway just to get here. While good for the money purse and reputation on your alt, it can be tedious to do for the third and fourth time.

The introduction quest and the first dailies give you 12 Marks of the World Tree – you will need 20 to advance to the next stage of the dailies. This means 2-3 days before Stage 2 becomes available.

Edit: Now that people were complaining that their 3rd and 4th alts couldn’t join in time, it now takes only 1 day to reach stage 2. I am not sure what this adds to the game, but I can see people who were clueless missing a few days.

Firelands raid

From  a cursory inspection (I was in there for five minutes or so) the raid looks awesome. It’s one of those wide-open raid zone like the Halion encounter zone, with the central area leading up to Ragnaros’ fortress. It’s very well defined, the theme is great and the trash and bosses look very much like a “whole”. Of course, any raid that has “fire” as its theme is not going to be missing its target.

Conclusion

It took me about half an hour to run through the basic content – until more dailies and events unlock it’s going to be a bit meager and definitely not a running start. The questline involving Thrall will be worth it, if only because of the 365 cloak that’s dangled in front of you at the end of it all. If you didn’t have a hard-mode cloak, this is definitely an upgrade with its Haste and Crit.

I am curious as to how the raid encounters will play out – I may have more to report on that once our raid goes there tomorrow.

Dragonwrath and you – possibly

When the first announcement was made that there would be a legendary item in patch 4.2 – and that it would be a caster weapon – the forums have been filled with (troll) posts claiming that the staff would be best for one class or another. Of course, usually the person who makes the statement happens to belong to this class.

Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest – a Legendary staff with a history shrouded in secrecy which can be obtained by those who brave the dangers of the Firelord’s minions. We already know quite a few things about it, so let’s put them all together and see if we have  shot at gaining ourselves a Legendary as well.

The basics: stats

459 Intellect, 779 Stamina, 366 Hit, 252 Haste, 2973 Spellpower, 3 red sockets (with a +30 Int bonus) and a special ability called Wrath of Tarecgosa that allows it to duplicate spells as they deal damage.

Whew, that’s quite a lot of stats. Of course, this is the completed staff – the actual Legendary item. Before you can hold it, you will be using its lesser forms in preparation of completing all quests and challenges, just like Shadow’s Edge and Shadowmourne.

The proc is confirmed to be DoT-friendly. This is good news for us, because it removes the debate about whether or not we should be denied even going for the Legendary just because we’re not Arcane Mages, basically. It’s also tuned so that Warlocks, who receive a lot of damage from pets, will have a higher proc chance. It also will not have an internal cooldown, meaning that casting big and slow spells is not unduly benefited by it.

Do note however, that as of the time of writing, the damage proc is Arcane damage. And, it looks like the proc will deal damage equal to the spell/tick that procced it, but will not duplicate any secondary benefits (like VT healing from Mind Blast, Shadowy Apparitions through SW:P, Shadowfiend cooldown reduction through Mindflay crits, and so on).

How do I get my hands on it?

The games begin when you are awarded with the Branch of Nordrassil as a result from questlines starting with you killing a Molten Lord in the Firelands and visiting a Bronze Dragonflight emissary in Orgrimmar/Stormwind. Some basic information that was released can be found on MMO-Champion, I don’t intend to spoil all of the questline here for those who want to be surprised. I am reproducing the questlines order (as they are known), courtesy of Resentful on MMO-CHampion:

0 – Kill a molten lord in the Firelands
1 – http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29129 First quest in Org/SW
2 – http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29134 Speak to Anachronos at COT
3 – http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29135 25 Eternal Embers + 3 sands of time
4 – http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29193 Go to Coldarra in Borean Tundra
5- http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29194 Meet Tarecgosa
6 – http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29225 speak to Kalec in Hyjal
7 – http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29234 Branch of Hyjal
8 – http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29239 take branch to Anachronos
9 – http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29240 Talk to Kalec at Coldarra
10 – http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29269 – Bond with tarecgosa’s essence
11 – http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29270 25 Seething Cinders
12 – http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29285 – Talk to Kalec at coldarra again
13 – http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29307 250 Soul flame Essences + Heart of flame (drop from Ragnaros)
14 – http://ptr.wowhead.com/quest=29312 – Legendary staff complete.

It’s otherwise quite comparable to the Shadowmourne questline – the 25 Eternal Embers are drops in the Firelands raids, and if they are BoE, start stockpiling money to buy them when they are released on the market.

Comparison lesser stages with regular gear

It’s quite possible to make a comparison between the various stages of Dragonwrath and comparable items obtainable from raids. To make the match as close as possible, I’ve taken the Smoldering Censer of Purity as a base to compare to, because it is a Spirit/Haste staff, which to us is the same as a Hit/Haste staff. In addition, I’ve added Sho’Ravon, since there’s no other iLevel 404 staff – I think this one’s a drop from Heroic Ragnaros.

As you can see, the “normal” staves dropping in Firelands scale a little better with Intellect – until Dragonwrath. Even then, Sho’ravon actually wins out in straight Intellect. Don’t be fooled however – the lost Intellect is recovered in the socket bonus for all red sockets – and there’s more of them on the growing Legendary.

Dragonwrath Stage 1 and 2 are lower on Hit than the Censer has Spirit, but considering we gain a lot more Haste in return, this is a small “sacrifice” – none at all, to be sure.

How do we benefit?

Compared to even Heroic-level staves, we would see a marked increase in Intellect (93) and Haste (23) with only a marginal decrease in Hit (17). The closest comparison in iLevel, Sho’ravon, has Crit and Mastery and thus better replaced with a main- and offhand combo.

The proc, while possibly still changing, allows for out damaging spells/DoT ticks to be copied as Arcane damage. And while we don’t receive damage bonuses on it (they are already included in the copied spell) and are unlikely to have Wrath of Tarecgosa trigger secondary effects, it’s a massive jump in power compared to another staff. It is superior without the proc, and mind-boggling with.

Why? because it’s a straight DPS increase with all other gear increases. If we cast faster, we have more chances to proc. With higher crit and mastery, the procs increase damage. Without the internal cooldown, I wouldn’t be surprised if our DPS was increased by the same percentage as the proc chance – because we damage mobs all the time, even multiple mobs. Mind Sear copies, anyone?

Preparations

First off, there’s no real need to rush off and kill a Molten Lord right as the patch hits. Likely it’s a mad dash as all manner of casters try to get them, there will be lag, ninja-ing and much ado in /general. Wait it out, do the other quests and events in the Firelands instead.

Second, start making money – lots of it. Even if your guild is going to down bosses and obtain Eternal Embers, you aren’t likely to be the first choice unless you have been of exemplary behavior and are a solid rock foundation in your raid. Make sure that your guild understands that the staff is equally useful to you as any other caster, but be prepared that guild politics or others being more present/active/longer around are going to get first pick.

The only real hurdle is the Embers, and they are likely to be BoE and buyable for Valor points. Because they are also used for upgrades of Valor gear, and craftables (not to mention other guilds’ own legendaries) expect prices to be astronomical. But every one Ember you can get your hands on outside of your guild’s raiding is one you save. And your guild will appreciate the effort.

Conclusion

You will want, I will want it. We will sell our souls so hard we’d get the honorary Warlock award. But being smart, you’ll want to save up money to buy Eternal Embers on the AH, and spend your Valor points on it. Do you raid with alts? Then you have more chances, and you have more Valor points to spend.

Start the questline, embark on the journey of a lifetime and don’t stop until you hold that monster in your pixxelated hands!

Edit: It appears that there might be a spanner in the works – if datamining and conjecture is to be believed, Living Embers are required for the crafting, and Eternal Embers for the legendary. This is a likely change meant to stop non-raiders from getting them, I’d say they drop from bosses in the Firelands raid only, once you are on the quest.

Tiny Tips for the Zandalari Heroics, part 2

After re-visiting our first Troll raid resurrected from the dead, it’s now time to spend some love and attention to Zul’aman, source of Troll-shaped doohickees and bear-run angst. Most of you who have run this place before will notice not much of anything has changed – in fact, it has become easier in many cases. Again I will be going over the most notable loot for us Shadowpriests, and some tips and tactics regarding the encounters.

Zul’aman

Once home of the renegade Troll warlord Zul’jin, this secret Amani fortress now hides the bulk of Daakara’s  minions and serves as the headquarters of the Zandalari war effort.

Notable loot

Shimmerclaw Band (Ring) – Dropped by Halazzi. One of the few decent items to be found on the bosses, hit and haste make for a good combo to boost your (pre-) raiding kit.
Soul Drain Signet (Ring) – Dropped by Hexlord Malacrass, and due to its Spirit has the same value as the Shimmerclaw Band.

Yes, as you might expect the good loot is rather slim here. Most of the stuff found in Zul’aman is Crit/Mastery or Spirit/Crit, which is great for a healing offspec, but a little less useful for us. Even with the increase in value of Mastery, getting a good portion of Haste is very important.

Of course, there’s the Minitature Voodoo Mask from Hexlord Malacrass, which is a fun trinket allowing you to summon Voodoo Gnomes. And if you manage to save all four of the prisoners, you will be awarded with a (purple) Amani War Bear.

Akil’zon

The Eagle boss is a rather straightforward encounter; he will do Chain Lightning, so stay spread. Occasionally he will call down a flock of birds to peck at people, which needs to be healed through. Now and again, a big white bird will come down and carry one person aloft; you can still DPS while grabbed, and it needs to go down as quick as possible. His most dangerous ability is his Lightning Storm; he will pull one person into the air, who will become the centerpoint of a big lightning storm dealing massive damage.

To avoid the damage, you have to stand under the person who’s now floating in the air. Once the ability is announced, you will have about three seconds to get in position. If you happen to be grabbed by the white bird at the same time (which happened to me during our first ZA run) simply DPS until the last moment, and Disperse. With a bit of luck the bird will die, allowing you to take your proper place, but even if it doesn’t you will live through it.

Nalorakk

The Bear boss is probably the easiest boss in Zul’aman. He will deal massive damage on the tank, and between phase transitions charge three times at the furthest target away from him. Simply have the ranged DPS/healer stand in a line, and take a few steps back in turn. This way you spread the debuff he applies.

In phase 2 he turns into a bear causing Bleeds on the tank – this, added to his massive damage is the most dangerous phase to be in. He also uses Deafening Roar, silencing people for 2 seconds. If you time it just right, you can get a Mass Dispel off just before the roar completes, allowing you to remove the silence. This helps a lot to keep the tank up, because a silenced healer can quickly run behind on healing.

Jan’alai

The Dragonhawk Boss is a positioning/AoE check. Every so often he will call on a few hatchers, who run to the eggs on either side of him and try to hatch Dragonhawks. It’s easiest to kill one of them, and let the other one hatch the eggs (all of them if you have faith in your tank/healer, else about half) which are then picked up by the tank and AoE’d down. They deal large amounts of fire damage and put a stacking fire debuff on the tank, so be sure to test with a small wave first before allowing more dragonhawks to spawn so you are not overwhelmed.

Jan’alai himself casts a flaming wall onto his platform, which needs to be avoided. Ocasionally he will also place bombs down on the platform, which detonate in a few seconds. If you swivel your camera up to look down on yourself, it’s easy to position yourself in the empty gaps between bombs.

At 35% he will hatch all remaining eggs, so by that time most or all eggs should have been hatched and the dragonhawks killed. This means that if your healer and/or tank are struggling, you will have to put only light DPS on Jan’alai. This boss is the biggest blocker for obtaining a successful Bear Run.

Halazzi

He will be mostly tank and spank, except for the water totems he puts down. When this happens, the tank has to move him out of its range so he will not be healed by it. Ranged and healer should stand near the totem to get its health and mana restoration.

Halazzi also puts down Corrupted Lightning Totems, which have to be killed as soon as possible. Since our only attacks effective on it are Mind Spike, Mind Blast and Shadow Word:Death (usually better used on the boss) it helps if another DPS is powerful enough to take them down. Else make up for lost DPS time by using Mind Spike on the totem and an instant-cast Mind Blast on the boss as your next action.

Every 25%, Halazzi will heal to full and call upon a Lynx spirit which attacks people at random and debuffs their armor. This can be nasty for the healer if it shreds the tank a few times. If your healing is a bit on the low side, kill the Lynx. If you are confident, ignore it and continue to DPS on Halazzi. Once they recombine again, he will return to his pre-lynx phase health minus damage you dealt during that phase.

Hex Lord Malacrass

The Hexlord comes with two adds selected randomly from a few possible combinations. In general, CC them if you can, and interrupt their abilities and kill them if you can’t. Malacrass himself tosses Shadowbolt Volleys and will occasionally copy some key abilities from people in the party. For us, this means Heal, Mind Control, Mind Blast, SW:Death and Psychic Scream. Not only do we give him the nastiest abilities, we also give him the most abilities to pick from. I am not sure if your talent spec is a factor in deciding which abilities het gets, but Fear and MC combined can make life very difficult for a party.

Every minute or so, he (used to) drain the soul of all people in range, reducing their damage, healing done and health by 1% while boosting himself for the amount drained. I don’t think he actually still does this, but in the fray of the fight and the short duration, I didn’t catch it. Even if he did, he doesn’t live as long as he did in the old 10man version, and gains only 5% boosts instead of 10% boosts, so it should be considered a really soft enrage.

Either way, some of your time will be spent Dispelling, Fearing MC’d party members or helping out on the healing a bit if the healer is given the whammy by Malacrass’ stolen abilities.

Daakara

Like Zul’jin, Daakara switches phases and can gain abilities from any of the four animal bosses. However, instead of 5 phases (4 spirits + Troll) he now has 3 (2 spirits + Troll).

Troll: Whirlwinds and causes Grievous Throw, where the target must be healed up to remove the debuff
Lynx: Spawns two adds, which need to be controlled and killed quickly
Bear: Huge tank damage, can charge players, and casts Creeping Paralysis, which you can remove with Mass Dispel
Dragonhawk: Lots of fire effects to move out of
Eagle: Avoid cyclones, and casting a spell deals damage to you. Kill the Lightning Totem when it appears

As a note for the Eagle Boss, if you cast a cast-time spell (such as Mind Blast) and an Instant cast (DoTs, SW:Death) the game usually registers this as a single cast due to the short time between them. Use this to your advantage to weave in PW:Shield spells to protect you from the Zap effect.

Amani Hex Sticks

Throughout Zul’aman, mobs killed can drop Amani Hex Sticks. You can use such sticks to undo the curse on people that turned into frogs. You can find the frogs at the pond in the middle of Zul’Aman. There’s an achievement to free every single NPC, but you can also be awarded with the Mojo pet and some NPCs are also useful – they leave chests with charms or loot, and two of the NPCs are vendors.

You can find the NPCs you saved at the entrance of the dungeon.

Conclusion

While not as revamped as Zul’gurub, I found Zul’aman to be a pleasant experience as it took me straight back to the days of the Bear Runs. Sadly I didn’t manage to get one back then, but at least I have another shot at it now. Bear Runs are still tricky and strict, requiring a fast and confident tank, a very competent healer, and DPS with aggression bordering on aggro-magnets.

Rehashed content? Sure. But I am not going to discount it, at least not until I’ve run it so often it makes me cry to see the loading screen (again).

Tiny tips for the Zandalari heroics

With the new heroics here and being run like mad, I think it’s time to dig a bit into the ways that we can get those bosses down quickly and safely (for us). While I am wondering why the Zandalari suddenly dropped their anti-Hakkar, pro-player atttitudes (I mean, I did get Exalted with those guys) in my mind the bad guys here will remain the Atal’ai priests of Hakkar. Despite all the head-scratching regarding the lore, I do enjoy the new instances quite a bit more than I expected, mostly because there’s a sense of story and continuity now, rather than a straight revamp with the same (now-dead) bosses.

First up today, old-time raid favorite and time-waster to grind to Exalted with the Zandalar Tribe: Zul’gurub!

Zul’gurub

In Zul’gurub, a newly resurrected Jin’do the Hexxer, now renamed the Godbreaker, has imprisoned the spirit of Hakkar. It’s up to the heroes to defeat his Loa-empowered lieutenants, clear Zul’gurub’s infestation of trash monsters and confront him. In an uncharacteristically smart move, the players will have to free Hakker to have him eliminate Jin’do.

Notable loot

Each of the minibosses drops something useful to players, in the form of resources. Gub drops a barrel of fish, the Gurubashi Master Chef drops meat for cooking, Mortaxx drops a Maelstrom Crystal, Mor’lek and Kaulema drop bags of gems and ore, and the Florawing Hive Queen drops a honeycomb filled with volatiles and herbs.

For Shadowpriests specifically, there are a few pieces of very nice loot from specific bosses in the instance:

Touch of Discord (Wand) – Dropped by Bloodlord Mandokir, a very nice Haste/Crit wand.
Lost bag of Whammies (Offhand) – Dropped by Hazza’rah. While not the greatest offhand (Spirit/Crit) it is a nice step up from a lot of heroic loot due to its Intellect.
Sash of Anguish (Belt) – Dropped by High Priestess Kilnara. A good Haste/Crit belt surpassing heroic loot, and good to have for when you have enough Hit for your liking.
The Hexxer’s Mask (Head) – Dropped by Jin’do the Godbreaker. Spirit/Haste makes it an excellent head piece until you can get your Tier together, and 30 crit as a socket bonus is still not a bad deal. Also, 10 points for looks.

Tips and Tactics

High Priest Venoxis

In general, stay spread out enough that when he casts Toxic Link on people, it’s easy to run away from each other and break it. Poison spits create bubbles on the ground, which you have to stay out of. In phase 2, he creates a maze of venom and there will be three poison orbs chasing players through the maze.

Don’t touch or cross the walls, or you will take massive damage. If you find yourself hedged in, use Dispersion and quickly get to the largest free area you can find.

Bloodlord Mandokir

Bloodletting will drain 50% of your health over time, and it’s the healer’s job to heal through it. Even so, it doesn’t hurt to use PW:Shield on yourself to prevent “accidents” from killing you in this phase. Avoid the spike zones Mandokir creates, and grit your teeth when he insta-kills someone using Decapitate.

Immunity and death-avoidance abilities prevent death, but Dispersion’s not enough to save you. Luckily, chained spirits revive players. Unlucky is that he sends his raptor, Oghan, to kill the spirits. He will also deal 20% more damage after each player death as he levels up. The usual tactic is to slow and kill Oghan, but if you have high DPS burning down Mandokir is also possible.

High Priestess Kilnara

Her main attack is casting Shadow Bolts. Tears of Blood should be interrupted, and you have to get behind her if she casts Wave of Anguish (or face being stunned and damaged). Your group should also pull in groups of the panther adds, at least 4 packs before she hits 50%. At that time, she will transform into Bethekk, and call in any remaining adds.

In this phase her damage and speed goes up a lot, and the temple will start to cave in, dealing damage to everyone. This part of the fight is a DPS race. She will enter Camouflage once or twice during this phase; targeting the tank and casting Mind Sear might help in getting more damage in/getting her to reappear, but I tried it only once so cannot say if it helped. Since she wipes aggro when she disappears, casting Fade is not a luxury.

Zanzil

This fight is actually pretty easy. Zanzil casts waves of fire, which you need to avoid. He will also use one of three abilities, color-coded with the appropriate cauldron nearby. When he puts down a poison gas, click the green cauldron to get a buff to reduce Nature damage. When he calls up many skeletons, get the fire cauldron and use the AoE to burn them down (Mass Dispel after this to get rid of it). When he awakens a Berserker troll, click the blue cauldron and use a DD ability (Mind Blast, Mind Spike, SW:Death) to freeze it and DPS it down quickly while it focuses on (and follows) one of the players who has to kite it.

Jin’do the Godbreaker

In this fight, phase one consists of DPS’ing him, and getting inside the Death Zones he creates just before he casts Shadows of Hakker. Casting time is reduced in the bubble, so get out quickly after he finishes. After some time, phase two starts and everyone is drawn into the spirit world.

Basically, priority here is to kill the spirits flowing in from all sides, while the tank holds a Berserker spirit. Everyone should be close to one of the chains binding Hakkar. The big Troll will Body Slam one of the players. If the player is close to a chain, it will disable the protective bubble on the chain. DPS down the chains quickly, multi-dotting the spirits and the chains.

Killing the chains is key to success, as Jin’do will be defeated when all three chains are broken. The timer here is set by increasing waves of Spirits, which need to be kept under control. Otherwise, it’s a DPS race. If multiple chains are no longer protected by a brittle barrier, keep dots on all of them and focus fire on one. The adds coming in are likely to aggro on you (due to VE healing) when they first arrive, so be sure to Fade at opportune times.

The trick here is to also keep an eye on the threat meter. It’s a pretty healing-intensive fight, so if you Fade and the healer suddenly gets a few adds on him, he might die. It’s best to get close to the tank with the adds and Fade to drop them into the tank’s immediate melee and AoE range.

Conclusion

That’s the round-up for loot and short-form tactics for Zul’gurub. Later this week I will do a similar cheat sheet for Zul’aman.

Collateral Damage

When we refer to Collateral Damage, we mean the damage that is caused as a side-effect to actions we have taken. For example, if you drive your car into the front of your local store, you don’t just wreck the front but also hurt people and, of course, the service you will receive from then on is likely to be lousy.

And at this point I can’t shake the feeling that we are a bit “collateral” at the moment, and after patch 4.1. If you’ve checked some of the messages and data discovered over at MMO-Champion, you’ll see that there are a few things (PvP balance issues, what else?) that are going to be biting us in the robes again.

• Dispel Magic can only be used on the casting priest as a baseline effect

And then in the Holy and Discipline trees:

• Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.

In other words, we Shadow Priests lose the ability to use Dispel Magic offensively, and we can’t help out our raid/party healers with it either. This means that in raids, we aren’t going to be bringing our Dispelling on anything but ourselves, which is quite a shame.

In the old days, knowing when to help the raids with a well-placed Power Word: Shield or Dispelling duty could make you stand out, could show you were more than a warlock-wannabe.

I am sure it’s all meant for PvP – but I can’t fathom what they wanted to balance out. I mean, our survivability is quite low because of the changes to VE, despite the increase in Power Word: Shield. Our damage is spikey and unreliable in PvP due to Mastery, and I don’t think Shadowpriest is a very popular spec to take into Arenas…

All priests lose the offensive Dispel, which basically limits it now to Shamans (I think) with their Purge, and sometimes the Mages if they can Spellsteal it. I can only imagine that the developers have tired of trying to balance the dispelling system, and simply said: “only Shamans can do offensive dispelling, and they can’t use Bloodlust in Arenas so it’s balanced”. That way they don’t have to balance it, since only Shamans can.

I feel a bit worried that more and more is sacrificed to the balance game, and that the game is more about “doing your role” rather than being smart and figuring out new things to do or making a difference as a person. If you combine the balancing done on classes since 3.0 (Bring the Player not the Class), 4.0 (Increased homogenization of classes, balacing of damage, Mastery used to smooth out differences) and now (Removal of dispels) all comes down to this:

“Abilities that allowed a player to stand out among his raid members other than through the accepted channels of Tank Peen/Healing meters/DPS Outputs have been removed.”

While the game has become more advanced, and the ways in which we play our roles have been greatly improved, I am getting the feeling more and more that it hardly matters who’s playing it. If you remove the “smart players die less/do more damage/heal more” argument (in other words, play with capable people), all you are left with is that they are pretty much interchangeable.

WoW has become much more easy to begin, and easy to learn – but standing out above the crowd, being truly excellent, is harder than ever. It has begun to lost its marvel, and it feels like the balancing has become a whip cracking over our backs, and fun is sacrified in the process.

But we’ll see how it pans out – it’s on the PTR, but a lot never made it past that phase before. Let’s hope that the developers keep us (you know, the third priest spec) in mind when dealing out the Black Ace of game balance.