Glyphing for success

Glyphs, as you know, are the products of inscription, scrolls imbued with the power to augment your spells and abilities.

 

Think of them as enchantments for your spell book. And just like enchantments, there are limits on how many you can actually have. Glyph slots are unlocked as you level, starting at level 15 all the way up to 80, leaving you with a final total of three major and three minor glyph slots.

 

Major glyphs are your key combat enhancers, while minor glyphs are largely for convenience or fun.

 

It seems to me that some classes have been gifted with a better range of glyphs than others. Certainly, the number of glyphs is largely the same per class, which works to the pure classes' advantage. Glyphs for hybrids have to cover more ground and, naturally, cannot all cater to all possible specs. But I'm a glass-half-empty guy and you are welcome to ignore that note of pessimism.

 

Regardless of your views, what it means for the purposes of this post is I can ignore a big chunk of the available priest glyphs. I've cut out most of the holy and a big chunk of the discipline glyphs before I start. If you want to see the full range, check out Wowwiki.

 

What we're left with, after my arbitrary culling, are these (the number in brackets is the level they become available):

 

Major glyphs

 

Glyph of fade (15) — increases the duration and cooldown of your fade spell by 50%

An odd choice of glyph to make available so early on, but at least at this stage you know the spell (that's more than you can say for some of the later glyphs). You may consider this for pvp for the cooldown reduction if you have shadow form, but that's all I can think of. Who would ever use this in raids? Avoid it.

 

Glyph of shadow word: pain (15) — increases the damage done by your mind flay spell by 10% when your target is afflicted with shadow word: pain

This is a mind flay glyph, not a shadow word: pain one. Silly name. Probably a hangover from when it used to reduce the sw:p mana cost. And have you noticed how you can't use it till at least level 20 when you get access to mind flay? It's a very solid glyph for both levelling and raiding, just don't get it at level 15.

 

Glyph of inner fire (15) — increases the charges on your inner fire spell by 20

How many times do you run out of charges in combat? Just recast it, doh. I suppose there's a very thin argument for using this glyph in pvp, but even there isn't it more likely to be dispelled than run out? Don't equip this glyph, please.

 

Glyph of power word: shield (15) — your power word: shield also heals the target for 20% of the damage absorbed

Even at maximum rank with an obscene amount of spell power, the healing from this glyph is pretty negligible. At level 70, it would be somewhere around 300-400, assuming the shield was used up fully. So it's disappointing to say this is the best available glyph at level 15 and a pretty strong contender for levelling in general. I can't see anyone raiding with it though, except possibly the rare discipline healer, and even then I think there are better options.

 

Glyph of psychic scream (15) — increases the duration of your psychic scream by 1 second

Oh, do I need to say anything about this glyph? Inscriptors (makes them sound like transformers, is that the right word?) please don't even waste your ink.

 

Glyph of mind control (20) — increases the duration of your mind control spell by 12 seconds

Duration is never a problem with mind control. Maybe I'd consider it if it reduced the chance of breaking early. As it stands: worthless.

 

Glyph of mind flay (20) — increases the range of your mind flay spell by 10 yards, but it no longer reduces the target's movement speed

For levelling and general grinding, I'd rather keep the snare, but going into raids the extra range would be very handy. The trouble is, that extra range is only situationally useful and it would take up a slot that could otherwise go to improving dps. Plus, I'm rather unhappy that Blizzard has chosen to patch up the long-standing issue of mind flay range with a glyph instead of addressing it properly. My instinct is to see how long I can avoid having to equip this glyph in raids.

 

Glyph of scourge imprisonment (20) — increases the chance of success for your shackle undead spell by 8%

Raid trash is, at most, one or two levels higher than you, no bosses can be shackled (or would ever need to be) so 8% is an odd number. Ignoring that for a moment, any amount of hit on shackle is a waste for shadow priests with the right talents. Healers may want it if they are called on to shackle, but I suspect even they have better things to spend the slot on.

 

Glyph of shadow (25) — while in shadow form, your spell critical strikes increase your spell power by 10% of your spirit for 10 seconds

Can that level really be right? You can't get shadow form till 40! Oh well. It's not a great glyph for levelling but then very few are. When it comes to raiding, this is one of the best options. I'm assuming (hoping, praying) that it stacks with improved spirit tap, boosting mana regen as well as spell power. Igore me, I'm an idiot.

 

Glyph of shadow word: death (62) — targets below 35% health take an additional 5% damage from your shadow word: death spell

According to theorycrafters, shadow word: death will make up negligible amounts of damage in Wrath raids, but this is one of only three glyphs that actually boosts shadow dps. It's a strong contender for your third raid slot, if only because the alternatives are so weak.

 

So having said all that, here are my top picks.

• At 15 (first major slot) — glyph of power word: shield (upgrading to glyph of shadow word: pain when you pick up mind flay)
• At 30 (second major slot) — glyph of shadow word: pain and glyph of power word: shield (replacing the shield glyph with glyph of shadow at 40 or glyph of shadow word: death at 62 if you like)
• At 80 (third major slot and assuming a switch to raid spec) — glyph of shadow word: pain, glyph of shadow, glyph of shadow word: death (or possibly glyph of mind flay if your healers insist on it)

Minor glyphs

• Glyph of fortitude (15)  — reduces the mana cost of your fortitude and prayer of fortitude spells by 50%
• Glyph of fading (15) — reduces the mana cost of your fade spell by 30%
• Glyph of shackle undead (20) — increases the range of your shackle undead spell by 5 yards
• Glyph of shadow protection (30) — iincreases the duration of Prayer of Shadow Protection by 10 minutes
• Glyph of levitate (34) — your levitate spell no longer requires a reagent
• Glyph of shadowfiend (66) — receive 5% of your maximum mana when your shadowfiend dies from damage

Well, they're none of them game breaking so take your pick. My personal favourite is glyph of levitate, which I'd recommend snapping up at level 34 when you learn the spell. I'll probably take shackle undead and shadowfiend for raiding, but I think every priest will be different.

Death is too good for him

Or how to survive the attack of an undead arsehole

 

It's frightening how much events in WoW affect my real-life moods. A good instance can put a smile on my face and a bounce in my step, but all it takes is one brief encounter with an asshat to send me into a seething, impotent rage for days.

 

This can not be healthy, and raises all sorts of uncomfortable questions, like 'just how seriously am I taking this game?' On the other hand, it can't be co-incidence that I immerse myself in a fantasy world for large chunks of my life. When the kind of senseless, selfish, vindictive behaviour that I deplore in real life starts invading that world, is it any wonder I react badly?

 

Yesterday I was on my shaman alt, Golan. There's a quest in Borean Tundra that asks you to summon some evil ghost bloke out of the mist and kill him. He sails in off the sea with a small crew and sends all four of them, one at a time, to kill you, before finally coming after you himself.

 

I'm stood there waiting for the first trash mob when an undead priest turns up. Note: same faction. This priest just stands there while I fight the trash. I think maybe he's waiting for his turn to summon the boss. I also think, darkly, that he might be planning to steal the kill, but I shake this off as unworthy.

 

But sure enough, when the trash is cleared and I roll up my first ball of thunder for the boss, the prick drops a shadow word: death. He kills, he loots, he runs off in that mocking waddle the undead have.

 

There was no possible way he misunderstood the situation, nor was he under the impression the mob was his. He didn't fail to see me, and he wasn't momentarily blinded by faction-based competition. He was just a twat.

 

At this point, he has already won. My anger has no recourse, my utter frustration no productive vent. I whisper obscenities, knowing even as I type that it will only amuse him. I am humiliated. I obsess for the rest of the day about how he is laughing and jeering at my poor, lumbering tauren.

 

It didn't have to be like that. For the cost of a polite whisper, we could have grouped and got the kill together. Or he could have waited patiently for his turn. He made a conscious decision to be a jerk. Or, more likely, he didn't even have to try.

 

The most frustrating thing about anti-social behaviour in WoW is the lack of consequences. Blizzard's very good at tackling some kinds of behaviour, but is not interested in petty squabbles over mobs. The kid screws me and moves on, smug in the knowledge that I am, at this very moment, weeping with frustration and powerless to retaliate. He's clearly the kind of guy who tortures cats for fun and would probably be out mugging grannys if he weren't so scared of what his mum would say.

 

I am reminded of a poem, the details of which are now sadly lost to my beer-addled memory. But the gist of it was this: a man is walking along a cold road at night. A car pulls alongside and the driver asks the man 'would you like a lift'. And when the man answers 'yes please' the driver takes off, laughing, and leaving the man shouting down curses on the driver, his family, the government and god. But if the man could laugh and wave and shout 'good luck' instead of abuse, wouldn't he feel better? Would you?

 

I would gladly wave that miserable, vindictive son-of-a-bitch priest good luck if I thought it would make me feel better. But I'd sooner hack his account and sell his character for 10 coppers to a gold farmer. I'd sooner sell him to the gold farmer.

 

With distance, I know these are futile, unproductive fantasies. They serve to fuel the fire of my fury while denying me the kind of closure they are intended to deliver. In the end, maybe I really am better off waving and wishing him good luck.

Rough guide to shadow talents

Work is hectic at the moment and the blog is having to take a back seat — which is a shame because some of the guides are out of date or just plain wrong and there are many, many great blogs I need to profile and add to my blog roll. I'll get around to it eventually.

In the meantime, there's a small chance some hapless young priest might stumble upon this blog in search of help and advice. What would happen to that bewildered adventurer if they saw me now? They would leave disappointed, confused, rudderless. That's a burden I'm not willing to bear.

So here, like a prophylactic for ignorance, is Merlot's rough guide to shadow talents — for pve, that is. While I could hazard a guess about pvp, I'd be talking out of my meta socket.

We're all pretty focused on levelling right now, so I've scored each talent out of five for its usefulness while levelling as well as raiding — five is most useful, one is pretty much useless.

What really struck me as I played around with my own talents and wrote this guide is how bottom-heavy shadow feels for levelling. To move on up the tree you really need to pick up talents that are of limited or questionable use for everyday grinding and questing. That's why I haven't bothered posting a levelling build yet — there are so many optional talents it really comes down to what works best for your play style.

If you're one of those bewildered adventurers searching for meaning in a strange new world, remember to check the comments where my more experienced readers will undoubtedly have exposed my horrendous errors.

Tier 1	Ranks	Level rating	Raid rating
Spirit tap	3	5	2
Improved spirit tap	2	1	5
Blackout	5	3	1

Spirit tap is the star of any priest levelling build but it's only of situational use in a raid. Shame then that it's a prerequisite for improved spirit tap, as you'll need this in raids. Conversely, improved spirit tap is not much use for levelling — whether you crit a lot or not, the benefit is small on short fights and spirit tap will overwrite it when the mob dies.

Blackout's really not needed while levelling, but it definitely makes it easier. In raids, I'd avoid it: bosses are immune and tanks won't thank you if it procs while they're trying to move trash.

Tier 2	Ranks	Level rating	Raid rating
Shadow affinity	3	1	5
Improved shadow word: pain	2	5	5
Shadow focus	3	3	5

For levelling, you don't need shadow affinity. To be honest, I don't even know if you need this talent in raids anymore, given shadow form's innate threat reduction. But I'll assume in a full raid build and geared properly it will come in very handy. No doubt we'll be hearing more about this from theorycrafters if it is indeed an issue.

Improved shadow word: pain is a no-brainer. More damage = good.

Shadow focus is one of those optional talents for levelling. Remember you need 4% spell hit to eliminate resists on equal-level mobs — well, between this and misery further down the tree, you're going to have 6%, enough for mobs two levels higher. That's not taking any hit you may have from gear into account. But you'll need 17% hit for raid bosses, so you won't want to skip this as you enter Naxx.

Tier 3	Ranks	Level rating	Raid rating
Improved psychic scream	2	1	1
Improved mind blast	5	2	5

Improved psychic scream is a waste of points in any pve context; take this talent only if you want silence as it's a prerequisite.

Improved mindblast isn't terribly useful when levelling, but it is needed for raiding — the only question is how many points you should spend. Four points is probably enough here, unless you're factoring in a lot of haste.

Tier 4	Ranks	Level rating	Raid rating
Veiled shadows	2	1	4
Shadow reach	2	5	5
Shadow weaving	3	3	5

Veiled shadows isn't terribly useful for levelling, but the reduced cooldown on your shadow fiend will be important in long raid encounters.

Similarly, shadow weaving isn't that important for levelling (you probably won't have time to benefit from a full stack, even if the mob is alive long enough to build it up) but it's a cornerstone of your raid dps.

Reach is almost mandatory with mind flay. Always take this.

Tier 5	Ranks	Level rating	Raid rating
Silence	1	3	2
Vampiric embrace	1	5	2
Improved vampiric embrace	2	5	3
Focused mind	3	3	5

Silence is nice to have while levelling but you can easily survive without it, while in raids there are generally better options for interrupting caster trash and, as usual, bosses are immune. But I still like having it.

Since the nerf, I'm not sure how useful vampiric embrace is to raids, even in its improved form. But solo, it's still a wonderful spell and I'll never leave home without it.

Focused mind is easily skippable for levelling but it's important for your longevity in raids.

Tier 6	Ranks	Level rating	Raid rating
Mind melt	2	3	5
Darkness	5	5	5

I don't think you're going to notice a 4% increased chance to crit while levelling, but I'd pick this talent up anyway for want of better options. For raiding it's a boost, no matter how small.

Darkness, again, is a no-brainer.

Tier 7	Ranks	Level rating	Raid rating
Shadow form	1	5	5
Shadow power	5	5	5

No ambiguity here, no doubt — pick up your shadowy purple goodness and finally join the ranks of casters who enjoy double-damage crits. It's about time.

Tier 8	Ranks	Level rating	Raid rating
Improved shadow form	2	5	3
Misery	3	4	5

The tooltip for improved shadow form must have been written by the work experience kid because it is grammatically — and therefore literally — wrong. What this talent actually does, in addition to the snare removal, is give shadow form 70% passive pushback reduction, and for that it is rather useful for levelling. Now you can more-or-less melt faces at point blank. What little pushback that remains will gimp you a little, but in two levels I've had no problems at all. So much so, that I rarely even bother to fear-flay any more. In BC raids I hardly ever wished for pushback protection, but I think it became more important in later content. That's why I've given it a rather non-committal 3 rating for raiding, but I'm sure someone will put me straight if I'm underestimating it.

Misery's great in any situation for the 15% spell power bonus; the hit may or may not be useful to you and your raid, but it comes as a package so make use of it if you can.

Tier 9	Ranks	Level rating	Raid rating
Psychic horror	2	1	1
Vampiric touch	1	5	5
Pain and suffering	3	2	5

Psychic horror is in the improved psychic scream category: worthless for pve. It may even be worthless for pvp. Regardless, don't waste your points.

Vampiric touch is essential for any shadow build. It's now our most powerful dot (I think...) as well as triggering the rather underwhelming replenishment buff. What can I say, rain is as good as a river if your thirsty.

Pain and suffering doesn't really do much for levelling builds but you will be grateful for it in raids.

Tier 10	Ranks	Level rating	Raid rating
Twisted faith	5	5	5

My favourite new talent is a dps win in virtually every situation, even though the spirit-to-spell power conversion is a bit lacklustre. For Merlot, at level 72, it equates to about 30 spell power or less than 3% of my total bonus spell power, but I assume that will get better as I collect raid gear designed around it. I love spirit and love having an excuse to gear for it. It works with spirit tap and improved spirit tap too, for an extra boost. The mind blast and mind flay boost is the best bit — shadow word: pain should almost always be up.

Tier 11	Ranks	Level rating	Raid rating
Dispersion	1	2	3

And after my favourite new talent, comes my most disappointing.If you are this high in the tree — and really, if you're dps, you've no reason not to be — you might as well pick it up. But don't expect it to change your life.

While levelling, it may, at a push, save your life, but six seconds is a very short time in which to extricate yourself from danger and it is more than likely only going to delay the inevitable. Remember, those are six seconds during which you cannot shield, heal yourself or fear. My experience of it in solo combat so far is that it's simply a frustration. I don't even generally need the mana.

In raids, it is situationally useful. Before the expansion, I popped it in Kara when Nightbane feared me into charred earth and I popped it when Illhoof sacrified me. It was too short for both situations, but it was better than nothing. It will likely be used like this in Northrend too — our challenge will be to time our mana needs around specific boss effects to ensure we get the most out of both the damage reduction and mana regeneration, otherwise it just becomes a mana pot with a silence. Not what any of us hoped for our top tier talent, but I've been over that enough times to know when to quit moaning. No honestly, I have.

* PS, if you think the tables look weird, they are. Blogger hates me.

This season's must-have accessory...

The shadow wolf suit: proving that face melters look good in anything. Spirit wolves are so last season.

Sit back and enjoy the ride

Damn the eyes of everyone at Amazon for cocking up my order, and bless the mercurial mail man who positively leaped along his route this morning to deliver my expansion pack. May all his children marry millionaires and live like gods.

 

I'm sitting now at work tapping my fingers and watching the minutes drag by till I can skip home to install it. Most of my guild mates have got two-days hard start on me. I make little squeaky noises of anxiety when I think about having to catch them up.

 

Which is silly. It's easy to get swept up in the excitement and race for 80, but this time I'm determined not to let it overtake me. I'm going to suck up all the rich experiences that a strange new world will bring, immerse myself in the storyline, stop now and then for no other reason than to look at the scenery.

 

Coriel of Blessing of Kings has switched off instant quest text, which allows just enough time to read the text and let it sink in as it scrolls along. Otherwise, don't you have a tendency to skip straight to the summary? It's a brilliant idea and the first thing I'll be doing when I hit Northrend.

 

The Burning Crusade story passed me by; I'm determined not to make the same mistake with Wrath.

More pain and suffering

I was still struggling with pain and suffering despite some helpful comments on my last post so decided there was nothing for it but to do some tests of my own. What I discovered was that shadow word: pain does indeed recalculate it's value at the time of refreshing via mind flay, it just forgets about shadow weaving.

Of course, this wasn't a scientific test. There's so much to take into account, my brain whimpered to a halt before I even got going. But I think I did enough to at least understand how the spell is interacting with mind flay.

First of all, I established the various possible values for shadow word: pain. I took off all my gear that conferred temporary spellpower buffs and was left with this.

• With zero buffs and debuffs, shadow word: pain ticks for 563 or 564
• With shadow weaving fully stacked at the point of casting, shadow word: pain ticks for 619 or 620, a difference of 56, the expected 10% buff from shadow weaving.
• With one trinket active, buffing spellpower by 158 to 1135, but with no shadow weaving, shadow word: pain ticks for 608.
• With both shadow weaving fully stacked and the same 158 spellpower trinket active, shadow word: pain ticked for 668 or 669.

Test 1
This was just to prove in my own mind that everyone was right about shadow weaving. I knew they would be, but was just being thorough.

> Cast sw:P — ticks for 564
> Cast mind flay to stack shadow weaving — spell continues to tick consistently for 564
> Cast mind flay again at full stack of shadow weaving — spell continues to tick for 564

So you were right. Shadow weaving isn't counted when mind flay refreshes sw:p.

Test 2
Just to be vaguely scientific, I then made sure it refreshed properly if it was cast after shadow weaving was stacked.

> Cast mind flay to full stack shadow weaving
> Cast sw:p — ticks for 620
> Wait a bit, cast mind flay — sw:p refreshes and continues to tick for 620

Interestingly, when I allowed shadow weaving to fall off, but cast mind flay before sw:p ended (it's a small window, but it could happen), sw:p continued to tick for 620.

Test 3
I then wanted to see how spell power boosters such as trinkets and random procs would affect it.

> Cast mind flay to full stack shadow weaving
> Cast sw:p — ticks for 620
> Activate trinket — still ticking for 620
> Cast mind flay — sw:p refreshes and ticks for 669
> Cast mind flay while trinket is still active — mind flay refreshes and ticks for 669
> Trinket buff ends, cast mind flay — sw:p refreshes and ticks for 620

I repeated this test with my shattered sun pendent of acument equipped instead of the trinket and got the same result —the sw:p will be boosted by the extra spellpower if you refresh while the buff is active, but it will return to a lower value when you refresh after the buff has faded.

Incidentally, I am almost certain the spellstrike infusion is broke — I spammed mind flay until I was out of mana in an effort to trigger the effect, but to no avail.

So there you have it. Shadow word: pain will refresh at your current spellpower value, causing it to tick for both more and less depending on what buffs and debuffs are active. My guess is the way shadow weaving is currently working is broken and it will be fixed at some point to tie in with this mechanic.

Getting my head around pain and suffering

Someone help me out with this.

 

The talent pain and suffering, you'll remember, is the one that gives mind flay a 100% chance to refresh the duration of shadow word: pain on the target. So in theory, you'll only ever have to cast sw:p once per fight.

 

I had high hopes that this spell would make life easier for me by simplify spell rotations, particularly on long boss fights, but I'm beginning to wonder. In the dark, fur-lined recesses of my mind, I fear we have swapped the small pain of watching a dot timer with something superficially easier to use but harder to master.

 

My understanding is that each 'refresh' of shadow word: pain recalculates damage based on your spell power when you start channelling mind flay. What that tells me is that there's no point in micro-managing trinkets, buffs and debuffs to super-buff sw:p anymore — the significant factor now is when you cast mind flay.

 

If you cast sw:p before any incremental effects on your spell power (by this I primarily mean trinkets and self buffs, things you have some level of control over) it's going to tick along at it's base level quite nicely thank you very much. It might tick once or twice, say, before you get a full stack of shadow weaving. At that point, if you cast mind flay, the damage of sw:p should, if I'm right, be recalculated with the higher spell power value. Pop a trinket or two at this point, mind flay again, and sw:p's damage will be boosted again.

 

But ten seconds later, if any of those buffs wear off and you cast another mind flay, sw:p's spell power is going to be readjusted down, right?

 

If the damage is recalculated in-between mind flays, it doesn't matter when you cast sw:p so much as when you cast mind flay.

 

This thought makes my head hurt. Am I going to have to track mentally what buffs were active when I last cast mind flay, to avoid accidentally gimping the spell when I mind flay again? Does it mean that when we use trinkets to boost the spell's power we should avoid mind flay for as long as possible to get the maximum benefit?

 

Also, on a small tangent, is sw:p still our priority spell for trinkets, or does the new vampiric touch coefficient trump it?

 

So many thoughts, so few brain cells...

It may just be me but this sucks

I gave my divine shadow idea a road test in Nagraand while grinding clefthoof leather.

Admittedly, this is hardly a difficult test for a level 70 character in epic gear. Now was it particularly scientific. I just played around a bit and compared how it felt to the cookie-cutter shadow build pre-patch.

Those of you who scoffed at the idea of a shadow priest with divine spirit will be smugly pleased to know it was rather... lacklustre. Mana was, as I predicted, bountiful, but killing was slow. I had a small insight into what it must be like to solo as a healing class and have newfound respect for all my friends and colleagues who persevere at it.

Then we went to Karazhan for the murkblood boss so I respecced to a more appropriate raiding build with dispersion. And I was still unimpressed.

We went in with only six players, one of whom was level 69. That was a strong indication to me of just how out-of-balance the game is right now. My under-geared, neglected elemental shaman alt is topping 1,000 dps in heroics, and he's never stepped foot in a raid. But that's not the full story, because despite the ease of the instance and the apparent boosts to class spells and talents, Merlot still felt underwhelming.

Mana was an absolute nightmare, much more than usual, even with improved divine spirit. During boss fights, and on several large pulls, I had to pot, disperse, cast hymn of hope, all while replenishment was practically a permanent buff, and still ran out of mana at an alarming rate. To get dispersion, I had to drop inner focus and meditation, which would account for a small part of the problem. Then there are my crit and spirit ratings, which are probably too low to get much benefit out of improved spirit tap. Ultimately though, this has to be a direct result of the vampiric touch nerf. Adjusting is proving much harder than I had expected. I just hope these problems are easily solved by new gear and a few more talent points.

I also noticed, or rather failed to notice, much difference in my dps. I'm absolutely sure some of this is down to human error — I moved some spells around to fit devouring plague and dispersion in and found myself hitting the wrong keys quite a lot. The devouring plague cooldown is also an issue in that it wasn't always ready when I needed it. I really don't think the spell is good enough to warrant such a long cooldown but meh.

Another problem I am having is adjusting to the utter explosion in spell noises and effects. Has anyone else noticed this? Suddenly every class is popping and beeping like Wall-e at a disco. I use sound a lot more than I realised to time my spell casting and know what's going on around me, so it's putting me right off my game.

All-in-all, my dps barely shifted from pre-patch levels. Will it improve as I get used to my key bindings? I can only hope so. I'd be interested in knowing what other shadow priests have found, so please drop me a note if you've got any tips for how to adjust.

It's a blanket... with sleeves

The crushing headaches, nausea, itching and insomnia lasted about a week, but the shaking continued unabated till Sunday. Writing was difficult and handling a keyboard was forbidden. Thankfully, I was spared the constipation. WoW withdrawal, I discovered, is not to be sniffed at.

It started two weeks ago when I left the country on business. I begged, pleaded, lied and bribed to get out of it and still failed. Then there was the family birthday I couldn't get out of. Two weeks in all. Like an orc warrior facing his enemy, I thought I was invincible, but it turns out Illidan was right — I really wasn't prepared.

Day one wasn't so bad. I opened my trusty notebook on the plane and made a few notes for the blog. By the time I arrived at the hotel, my hands were a bit restless and I was humming the loading theme: no biggy.

At work the next day I tried to mouse over a few people to see their level and class. Once or twice I appeared to lag in meetings. I felt pretty rough and decided to get an early night.

I dreamed I was fighting a crowd of angry hockey moms trying to snag the last known copy of Wrath in existence. Needless to say they were all rogues. I woke up in a cold sweat and struggled to get back to sleep.

The rest of the trip is a blur. I was near-comatose on painkillers and kept lapsing into hallucinations. At night, I watched infomercials and the Food Network. I discovered something called a Snuggie, which is apparently a blanket with sleeves. I realised it would be the perfect solution to keeping warm while raiding. The burgundy is rather clerical and I resolved to learn the pattern when I was feeling better.

Then it was time to come home and catch up with my family. Sadly, every last one of them is a soulless husk of flesh with no knowledge of the wonders of WoW. They barely own computers. I pity them.

I was consoled only by copious amounts of alcohol, which luckily my family knows lots about. It's not a super mana potion, but vodka has several redeeming qualities. If you mix it with tomato juice and squint, it almost looks like a health pot.

Or at least, that's what I told myself as I approached day twelve of my cold-turkey hell. At this point I was quite hysterical.

By the time I made it home, I was 12 pounds lighter and a good deal smellier. I had red eyes and a beard and I wanted to die.

My doctor thinks I was on the cusp of a breakthrough. Sadly, we'll never know. I threw myself upon the mercy of my laptop and dived gratefully into the womb-like warmth of Azeroth vowing never to leave home without it again.

I'm so far behind on priest changes now it's not funny — but you guys all know more than me anyway, so I don't feel too bad. And what you miss out on in class developments, you gain in handy computing accessories like the Snuggie. Aren't you glad you dropped by now?