In need of some direction

Path of the Titans has gone the way of the... er... Titans. Instead, we'll be getting another layer of glyphs. Warning: old-style Misery rant ahead.

TLDR: if you’re going to add more glyphs to the game, you’d better make sure you know exactly what they are for, and are clearly differentiated from all the other aspects of class enhancements and customisation. Right now, I just don’t see that they are.

I never had Path of the Titans, so I won’t miss it. I never understood it either, so I’m not going to mourn its passing. But it did at least have the feel of something interesting and unique.

With its passing, we are going to get... medium glyphs instead.

/cast doubletake

What was that? More glyphs? Glyphs that aren’t major or minor but are... medium? Seriously? Somebody kick the copywriter and see if he’s dead.

Glyphs already lack a clear purpose, do we really need to go around making it worse? Rohan of Blessing of Kings said it best when he pointed out how many glyphs are virtually indistinguishable from talents, or even enchantments and gems.

Glyph of shadow, for example, is not an interesting glyph. It provides a small, passive boost to damage. It requires no thought whatsoever. There aren’t even any viable alternatives. It is basically just a quick and dirty way to boost shadow dps.

The glyph selections for all classes are padded out largely with glyphs that function in exactly the same way, either boosting the numbers of a specific spell or talent for an overall improvement in performance. In other words, as Rohan said, they are talents.

Inscription was not always supposed to work this way. Once upon a time, it was conceived as a profession which enabled players to change the way their spells worked. Glyph of mind flay worked like this, extending the range of the spell at the expense of its snare. That was just stupid and I’m not advocating a return to the days of our borked range, but you get the point: you had to make a decision, and it had far-reaching implications for how you played your class.

We’ve got some serious differentiation problem between major glyphs, talents, and enchants. (Oh and look, set bonuses do exactly the same thing.) And then we’ve got these annoyingly dull minor glyphs which at best save you a bit of gold on regents but mostly seem to just save you mana when buffing. Woot. Now we’re getting a whole bunch more that do... what exactly? Well, apparently medium glyphs are supposed to introduce the “fun factor” to abilities.

STOP RIGHT THERE.

Here’s a truism about life in general. If you need to tell people something is fun, chances are it probably isn’t.

I am now more certain than ever that Blizzard does not understand the purpose of its own profession. If it is, indeed, to enable players to customise their own spellbooks then they have to get much, MUCH smarter at designing glyphs. Shadow has only six viable end-game raiding glyphs and none have any impact on how we play. Even allowing for the fact that we are a hybrid class with other purposes, you can see how a good chunk of priest glyphs were thought up on a Friday afternoon by the work experience kid (see glyph of shackle, fade, inner fire etc).

I agree with Rohan that the original concept for glyphs was much stronger than it is now, so let’s go back to that. Let’s have glyphs that really do present us with some tough choices. If I want my shadow word: pain to hit harder, what am I willing to give up for that? Will the glyph double its mana cost, so I can’t tab spam? Will it reduce the spell’s dispel resistance, so I can’t take it in pvp? I’m clearly not a game designer, but I bet Blizzard’s combined talent could come up with the goods if they put their minds to it.

If we manage to get to even that point, where there are more interesting glyphs than there are slots (a huge leap from today for some classes), glyphs can’t just be about boosting dps, or healing, or reducing damage, because then you’re just adding talents. And another layer of glyphs is not going to alleviate the best-in-slot problem, it’s just going to aggravate it. Instead of three mandatory glyphs, we’ll just have six. Or eight, or however many new slots we get.

And I really don’t want to see on-use glyphs either. They’d just become ghetto trinkets.

I’m not saying it’s easy to design a system like this – theorycrafters will always attempt to assign relative values for raiding. You’ll always end up with one glyph that’s supposed to do more dps than another. And I think this was Blizzard’s problem from the start.

But you know how not to fix it? Add yet more of the bloody things.

If you can't create something with a clear, unique purpose, what exactly is the point of it? If you switched off glyphs tomorrow, would anyone care? Would anyone even notice?

The third glyph

For raiding, the glyph of shadow and glyph of mind flay are no-brainers. But since the third glyph slot was opened up with the base range increase of mind flay, options for the third slot are a little less cut-and-dry.

We have four key contenders. None will do a great deal for your dps, but there's probably a good argument for any one of them. This is just my view...

Glyph of shadow word: pain
This glyph returns one per cent of base mana each time shadow word pain ticks, which for priests at level 80 means 38.63 mana every three seconds (rounded up or down).

If we assume 100 per cent uptime of shadow word: pain, it will return 772.6 mana a minute on one target, or about 64 mp5. That doesn't seem like much, but when you review your in-combat mana regen, 64 mp5 is probably a significant percentage of what you are currently running with.

I think this glyph provides a reasonable amount of mana given that it's a passive drip you can set and forget, but as a base mana effect it doesn't scale, and it's small enough to question whether it is needed at all. It's a slightly better deal if you can keep more than one shadow word: pain rolling at a time, but the boss fights in which you can do that are few and far between. So the question is, do you need the mana?

The answer may well be yes, but I would not even consider this glyph until you are running with 2/2 veiled shadows and know that a three-minute shadowfiend is not cutting the mustard.

Best for: a reliable, passive boost to mp5
Misery rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Glyph of dispersion
This glyph, generally recommended by experts, reduces the cooldown of dispersion by 45 seconds, a huge chunk for a spell that already has a short two-minute cooldown. For that, you get more mana and more chances to cheat death. Or you might just forget to use it and get no benefit at all.

As an active ability that silences you for six seconds, the mileage of dispersion already varies wildly by fight to fight, and by player to player. Most players are naturally reluctant to cast it while they could otherwise be doing damage. So it becomes a useful mana pot while on the move and something to help you get out of trouble and give your healers a break when required.

On mana alone, the glyph is far more effective than the glyph of shadow word: pain, but only if it's used. With a mana pool of 20k, popping dispersion every one minute 15 seconds will net you 5760 mana per minute (480 mp5). But even unglyphed, dispersion provides a potential of 3600 mana per minute (300 mp5). Managed effectively, a talented shadowfiend and an unglyphed dispersion should be enough to keep you going under any circumstances.

Where this glyph really shines is in its damage reduction, and this again is something very hard to quantify. You're not going to need it every one minute 15 seconds like clockwork. Some boss effects even bypass dispersion (and one of these days I'm determined to find out which ones and tell you about them!) And in many situations, your healers are going to be on the ball and ready to keep you up no matter what. But it's a safety net for stupidity if you should find yourself in a tight spot, and with a shorter cooldown there is more room for error in popping it at the wrong time.

Best for: survivability, maximum control
Misery rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Glyph of shadow word: death
With this glyph, targets below 35 per cent health take an additional 10 per cent damage from the spell. It's a poor comparison to most other execute-style abilities in the game, but it's the best we have. So is it any good?

Well, no, I don't think so. In a five-minute fight, assuming no movement or interruptions to casting, you would be able to cast shadow word: death a maximum of eight times during the execute window — and that in itself does not allow for a much quicker burn below 35 per cent, which with mages and locks and shammies kicking around you can almost guarantee. Even on an eight minute fight, you're looking at only 14 or so opportunities.

But all things considered, this is the only option for the third slot that's going to boost your dps, and for some min-maxers that might be the most important consideration. If shadow word: death is something you cast frequently anyway, give it a go.

Best for: min-maxers
Misery rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Glyph of mind sear
This glyph increases the radius of mind sear by five yards. It certainly sounds like it would make spamming our killer aoe a little easier, but the conditions under which you would gain any benefit from this glyph seem so specific I'm not sure where I could use it. You need a boss fight which includes packs of four or more mobs that need dpsing down and which are close enough to be in range of the glyphed spell but not quite close enough for it unglyphed.

Well, to be fair, it doesn't have to be a boss fight, you might want to use it on trash. But who would choose a glyph for trash over one for bosses?

The glyph was introduced in a recent patch to rectify a clear dearth of glyph choices for shadow priests. Most of us were still gimped by the glyph of mind flay at the time and discounted it. Sadly, I'm not sure it's strong enough even now to justify the slot, but it might fill a very specific niche for a small number of shades. the best argument I can think of for equipping this glyph is if you were to swap it in and out like consumables where required — which is a perfectly valid strategy if you have access to cheap glyphs, but I usually have enough to think about before bosses without making sure I'm sporting the right glyphs.

Best for: trash
Misery rating: ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

3.3 survival guide (for the extremely ill-prepared)

• Haste is the new black
• Mind flay finally hits 30
• Arthas is begging for it

The final major content patch of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion is here, opening Icecrown to raiders and setting the most intrepid among us on a collision cause with the Lich King himself.

For shadow priests, this could be the New Hope of patches. Through improvements to shadowform, vampiric touch and devouring plague will now benefit from haste, essentially increasing the speed at which the dots tick. And mind flay finally gets the base range that many of us have argued for some time it rightly deserves. A couple of glyphs have been altered to reflect the new world order.

The haste change will have a huge impact on how you evaluate gear, while the new glyphs will give you some more freedom in how you augment your spells, though the overall effect on your dps will probably be minimal.

Before I say more, here are the important bits from the patch notes.

• Improved Devouring Plague: This spell now deals 10/20/30% of its total periodic effect instantly, up from 5/10/15%.
• Mind Flay: The range of this ability has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
• Shadowform: This talent also now causes Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch to benefit from haste. Both the period length and the duration of these spells will be reduced by haste. In addition, the mana cost has been reduced from 32% to 13% of base mana.
• Vampiric Embrace: This ability is now provides a 30-minute buff that cannot be dispelled, instead of a target debuff and only generates healing for single-target shadow damage spells.
• Glyph of Mind Flay: This glyph now increases the damage done by Mind Flay by 10% when the target is afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain.
• Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain: The periodic damage ticks of Shadow Word: Pain now restore 1% of the priest’s base mana with this glyph.
• Glyph of Shadow: While in Shadowform, this glyph causes non-periodic spell critical strikes to increase spell power by 30%, up from 10%, of the priest’s total spirit for 10 seconds.

Haste
If talents have a budget, Blizzard has just officially blown it on shadowform. For just one frugal point, a priest can increase damage by 15 per cent, reduce incoming damage by 15 per cent, reduce threat by 30 per cent, enable their dots to crit — and now it will speed up two of their three dots through haste. It puts the crappy improved shadow word: pain to shame. (It hurt just to type that.)

This is the big one of the patch, the one you’ve probably been slipping off your seat in anticipation of for some weeks. There can be no doubt that this is going to increase shadow damage considerably. But there seems to be some lingering hesitation among more informed players than me over whether it will increase it enough. And clearly, it’s disappointing that Blizzard didn’t want to tackle shadow word: pain’s many bugs to allow it to scale properly alongside every other spell.

Plus, there’s a catch. With faster dots, not only will you have to adjust to a different rhythm, but you will be expending more mana and casting them more frequently. The glyph of shadow word: pain is intended, I think, to compensate, but more on glyphs below.

All of this means haste is much, much more attractive to shadow priests than before — which is a particular shame if, like me, you avoided haste and stacked crit instead. What a shitter. The excellent theorycrafters on shadowpriest.com suggest haste is now pretty much an even 1:1 with spellpower, although this may well change as they gain a better understanding of the mechanics and practicalities.

I really can’t compete with the brilliant folks on that site so I strongly urge you to visit this thread, take time to understand the arguments, and then apply what you’ve learned to your own gearing strategy.

Mind flay
What can I say about this except it’s been a helluva long time coming? Now that’s it’s actually happening, I’m surprised to see there is no catch whatsoever, no tradeoff for a ranged snare that once was considered too powerful to permit at a 30-yard range. The game has changed, I suppose, and I’m just glad to see Blizzard changing with it. All I can advise is to make the most of it. Without the need to glyph for an equitable range on our primary filler, we are free to select a third glyph that suits our personal needs (as slim as those pickings may be).

Vampiric embrace
Just a quick word on this change. As a self-buff, this ability has probably recovered its place on our toolbars. There’s no excuse not to always have ve ticking away now, regardless of the healing it provides. The fortunes of this spell have declined sharply in this expansion, but I have hope for a comeback in Cataclysm.

Glyphs
Hoorah for shadowform, spirit’s a little less crappy than it used to be. And good riddance to that ten-yard nonsense glyph.

With mind flay’s range extended, the glyph had to change. What do they do? They nick shadow word: pain’s glyph, something I argued all along was mislabelled anyway. So you’ll want to keep mind flay’s glyph after all.

Shadow word: pain’s glyph now restores 1 per cent of a priest’s base mana per tick of damage, which equates to approximately 64mp5. I’m not sure yet how much we will feel the mana drain of hasted dots — personally, with only 440 haste right now, I’m guessing not much to start with. But this might become a mandatory glyph for a well-geared shadow priest heading into Icecrown.

The alternatives are rather lacklustre. Dispersion might be tempting, reducing its cooldown by 45 seconds, but at only a two-minute cooldown already, I don’t see how you’ll need it. Plus, it seems counter-intuitive to pass over what amounts to a passive mana-regeneration glyph for one that requires six seconds of silence to work. No, if you really want to swap out shadow word: pain for now, shadow word: death is probably the best of them.

Icecrown
Some guy with a rasping cough will shortly be available for butt-kickings. And there are three new five-man instances collectively named the Halls of Reflection for grinding badges and some item level 232 gear, which for Merlot is mostly win. Look out particularly for the Nevermelting Ice Crystal, as well as the Shriveled Heart (which doesn't seem to be on wowhead atm). I will be boiling one puppy every hour until somebody hands them over to me.

And that’s all you’re going to get from me for now. Leave your questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to track down some answers. In the meantime, check out the full patch notes on mmo champion for a lot more, including a new interface that promises to put the fun back in pugging. (Puggifung?)

Best of luck with patching, and don’t forget to update all your addons!

Bad timing

If you are ever bored enough or autistic enough to read through every post on this blog (and I wouldn't recommend it) you'll notice a patter emerging. All announcements of any significance pertaining to shadow priests happen while I'm NOT HERE. Case in point. It's like those corny living statues that appear wherever tourists congregate - they only move when you turn your back.

So anyway, I take one tiny little holiday and all this stuff happens. Stuff I need to read more about before I decide to jump up and down and make whooping noises. But in my head I am already practicing the snoopy dance. If all it takes for Blizz to buff shadow is for me to take a holiday, I'll gladly zip off more often. Now accepting donations to the Shadow Buff Fund.

I'm sorry dear reader(s), a proper blogger would have worked through their vacation to bring you the news as it happens, along with baffling equations and a pop-up graph. You deserve better. But I promise to blog through any Shadow Buff Fund vacations, which after all probably count more as a business trip than an actual holiday anyway. For tax puposes.

I'll be back soon, post jet lag, with those whooping noises.

More on mind flay

It's been at least a week since I last complained about our appalling glyph selection, plenty of time for you all to prepare yourself mentally for the next assault. This latest bout of crabbiness was triggered by a US forum post from a player named Martya, who asked (rather optimistically, I thought):

Although I'm glad to see in 3.2.2 that you are finally getting rid of the snare reduction component on mind flay, which was a needed change, why did you only half-fix the problem?

This being the US forums, where community interaction counts for something, ghostcrawler actually responded. He could have saved himself the trouble by answering the question properly in the class Q&A, but now I'm just being snippy. Here's what he had to say:

Your weakness in one area (in this case range) is supposed to be made up for by strengths in other areas (say dots ticking while you move). If Shadow priests were at a horrible disadvantage because of their short range, then we’d likely make adjustments. But Shadow does totally reasonable dps on most fights and really high dps on a few. Most raids are thrilled to have Shadow priests. While there are things we can improve with the spec (like we can with every spec), we don't think the range is a huge liability (and you do even have a solution if you can't stand it).

And:

Let’s consider for a moment a glyph that improves your damage. Your class is balanced around the use of that glyph. Why? Because the alternative is you are balanced without that glyph, and then when you take the glyph you do more damage than everyone else. What fun! Yet if glyphs didn't improve damage (or healing or whatever) then they would feel merely cosmetic, like shirts or companion pets. With Mind Flay, you are arguing as if the glyph brings it from a negative number back up to baseline. But that doesn’t really make sense. It is making your spell better – it is a buff.

And finally:

Now, where I think there are some valid complaints are on the topic of glyph choice. For DPS specs, someone is going to prove (or strongly suggest) which glyphs provide the most DPS, and raid-focused players are going to tend to take those. It would be nice if you truly had the freedom to pick whatever glyph you wanted. But it would be nice if you truly had the freedom to pick whatever talent specs you wanted too. We'll try to improve both over time, but I don't really get the "I shouldn't have to take that glyph" arguments.

So here we have an attempt to explain the logic behind mind flay's restrictive range, a deliberate weakness which, we now learn, is an attempt to balance our otherwise overpowered class.

I admit, it sounds reasonable, but this argument really doesn't hold any water. For one thing, range isn't our weakness. Mind flay is the only one of our damage spells without a 30-yard base range. Even mind sear has a 30-yard range, and that is arguably the one spell in our arsenal that ought to have a bigger downside. This isn't a conscious design directive, no matter how convincingly ghostcrawler tries to push it. It's an anachronistic situation that has simply been allowed to fester.

And besides, just what would this idealised super spriest look like? Most raiding shadow priests use the glyph right now, and the ones that don't get very little benefit from the dregs of dps glyphs remaining to them. The fact is, if Blizzard extended the range of mind flay tomorrow, nothing would happen to shadow dps.

Our complaint with mind flay isn't really about dps (although I would argue mind flay's range has a direct correlation). At its heart, the issue is about parity. Ghostcrawler very often talks about how the designers try to avoid things that aren't much fun for the player base — things like healers having to spam non-stop, or dps only having one button to press. Well this is one of those things. It isn't very fun for shadow priests to have to choose between standing in the fire or not doing damage, or taking more time to find range on mobs than other classes. We are the only class that has to make these choices. Valid choices for dps would be choosing between high or low mana spells, long cast times or instants, high damage or survivability, raid utility or dps — all the ranged dps classes have these difficult decisions, including shadow priests.

Ghostcrawler is right in a way, mind flay's range really isn't such a huge issue for shadow priests in isolation, but he is wrong when he says it isn't valid to compare our situation to other classes. It is only in comparison that you see just how stupid it is to restrict us in this way. If the range really isn't that big a deal, why not just normalise it and allow us that parity with the rest of the ranged dps?

My only consolation from this exchange was his final comment about glyph choices. Perhaps he's finally beginning to wake up to just how insufficient our glyph range is for raiding. With or without mind flay's range issues, we do not have a fair selection of choices for raiding as it stands.

Glyphs for levelling

**Some of these glyphs are changing in patch 3.3. I'll update the guide shortly. Glyph of mindflay is now awesome, not much else to note.**

While you're busy grinding your new shadow priest to 80, I'll save you the trouble of researching glyphs and give you your options here. It won't take me long, there aren't many. Seriously, I don't know who designed the array of priest glyphs but they a) actively hate the class, b) have no clue about the class or c) are a moron. Take your pick.

We're going to do this by level, as our glyph slots open up. It's not a terribly logical arrangement but see paragraph above. Sometimes it makes sense to switch glyphs around in-between, and I'll mention those too at the appropriate level. If you're really interested, I have listed the whole gamut of priest glyphs at the bottom, along with the level they become available, so feel free to ignore me and plan your own spread.

Level 15 — one major, one minor
Congratulations, your first glyph slots! At level 15, you have access to seven major and two minor glyphs.

The selection of uninspiring major glyphs include a couple you should never consider under any circumstances (inner fire, fade), and two that you can't even use yet (shadow word: pain, smite). At this level, you will probably be shielding a lot, and the glyph of power word: shield is one of the few decent options available.

You only have access to two minor glyphs at this stage and one of them is worthless. Take the glyph of fortitude.

Level 20
When you learn inner fire, you might want to pick up the glyph of smite. The effect was changed recently from reducing pushback to increasing damage while the inner fire dot is on the target (thanks to Aaron in the comments for pointing this out). Personally, I took smite off my cast bar at 20, too irritated with the long cast time and mana drain, but even if you cast smite only once per target this glyph will do more for you than power word: shield.

Level 30 — one major
Now is the time to pick up the glyph of shadow word: pain. If you really want to, you can pick it up sooner to replace your first glyph, but as I mentioned in the levelling guide, mind flay is not instantly a great spell. It takes some time and some additional talents to really show it in its best light. It's not really worth a glyph until level 28 when you pick up rank 2 of the spell. Your best options for the second slot remain power word: shield and smite — which you choose really depends on how often you use smite.

Several additional glyphs have opened up to you by this level, but I wouldn't advise any of them for levelling at this stage. They include a number of healing glyphs, and some dubious 'utility' glyphs. Only two are true dps glyphs. The glyph of shadow, which opens up at level 20, isn't usable until at least level 40 (see what I mean about the design?) and the glyph of mind flay trades the spells snare for reach, which is a poor deal for levelling.

Level 34
In a rare moment of clarity, the designers made one glyph available at the same time as you learn the affected spell — levitate. I love the spell and I love the glyph and happily recommend you swap out the glyph of fortitude for it. It's clearly not mandatory though — light feathers aren't that expensive or hard to come by, so you may choose to keep the reagent cost instead.

Level 40
If you have spent your talent points wisely, you should now have access to shadowform. Go ahead and equip the glyph of shadow, replacing either the glyph of power word: shield or smite, whichever you've been using alongside shadow word: pain. At your level of gear, it won't provide a huge boost, but it will do more for you than any other glyph in the game after shadow word: pain. Sadly, you now have the two best glyphs for raiding; there's nowhere to go from here but downhill.

Level 50 — one minor
In the absence of any brilliant new glyphs, your best bet is to go back to fortitude. Glyph of shadow protection isn't a bad option for raiding, but I don't remember casting it often while levelling, and certainly not to the extent that the duration bothered me. Think about switching these glyphs around when you start raiding.

Level 70 — one minor
This is as good a time as any to equip the glyph of shadowfiend. It's the closest thing we've got to a mandatory minor glyph and you'll want it at 80 anyway.

Level 80 — one major
Ok, so you're not strictly levelling anymore but I'll cover off the last slot just to be thorough.

If you're going straight into raiding, I urge you to seriously think about the glyph of mind flay. Yes, it is an outrageous abuse of the glyph system to solve a fundamental flaw in a spell in this way, I hate that we are effectively cheated out of a slot, but I cannot stress how beneficial the added range is. There are many raid fights where positioning for an un-glyphed mind flay is very difficult and mind flay is too important to your raid dps to risk ever being out of range. Having said that, if you are confident you can manage the range issue without a glyph, you have a couple of other options. Glyph of shadow word: death provides a kind of ghetto execute, but don't expect this spell to contribute significantly to your raid dps. Glyph of mind sear is a fantastic choice for trash, but less useful on many bosses.

If you're going to continue questing and focus on solo content for a while yet, skip mind flay for now and consider either shadow word: death or dispersion for the shorter cooldown.

Full list of major glyphs
Numbers indicate the required level.

Glyph of Fade (15)
Glyph of Inner Fire (15)
Glyph of Power Word: Shield (15)
Glyph of Psychic Scream (15)
Glyph of Renew (15)
Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain (15)
Glyph of Smite (15)
Glyph of Dispel Magic (18)
Glyph of Fear Ward (20)
Glyph of Flash Heal (20)
Glyph of Holy Nova (20)
Glyph of Mind Flay (20)
Glyph of Scourge Imprisonment (20)
Glyph of Shadow (20)
Glyph of Mind Control (30)
Glyph of Prayer of Healing (30)
Glyph of Spirit of Redemption (30)
Glyph of Lightwell (40)
Glyph of Circle of Healing (50)
Glyph of Pain Suppression (50)
Glyph of Dispersion (60)
Glyph of Guardian Spirit (60)
Glyph of Hymn of Hope (60)
Glyph of Penance (60)
Glyph of Shadow Word: Death (62)
Glyph of Mass Dispel (70)
Glyph of Mind Sear (75)

Full list of minor glyphs
Glyph of Fading (15)
Glyph of Fortitude (15)
Glyph of Levitate (34)
Glyph of Shackle Undead (20)
Glyph of Shadow Protection (30)
Glyph of Shadowfiend (70)

My silent tear for discipline

I paid 50g for the glyph of penance on patch day and it was worth every copper. Two seconds off the cooldown is awesome. Apprently too awesome, because it's getting buggered to five per cent crit instead.

There are other nerfs in the pipeline too, for holy too. I feel sad and it's not even my main spec. Spare a thought today for the discipline die-hards, will you?

Edit: panic over, the glyph nerf was all a bad dream.

3.1: out of time

It is time to draw a line under the imminent patch 3.1. I had high hopes for this patch, but those hopes have passed. I'm ready to concede that the bulk of my prayers for shadow priests have gone unanswered.

I've written and scrapped this post three times already. There is always a slim chance that it's not over yet. It is true that we do not yet have a release date. But when other bloggers start posting their 3.1 survival guides and patch reviews, you know that time is running out.

This then will be my catharsis, a purging of all false hope and tightly knotted expectations. Our aim is to jettison these poisonous ambitions and surrender to our lot in life.

It also rather handily ticks the boxes for my day-two ProBlogger challenge: write a list post. Brace for bullet points!

I shall be balanced, of course. There are some small baubles of delight dangling from the Christmas tree of disappointment. But if you'd rather just rake through my frustrations, feel free to skip to the last section.

Stuff we like

• Divine spirit will be baseline. This is a minor buff in the grand scheme of things, but it's welcome nonetheless.
• The shadowfiend has been buffed. It will return more mana, deal more damage, and take less damage from aoe spells.
• A new improved devouring plague talent will boost the damage of the spell considerably. This will inadvertently relegate shadow word: pain to a thoroughly miserably third place in our arsenal of dots. It feels very lacklustre now, but I guess we can't have it all our own way.
• Dots will be able to crit. While dots already benefited from critical strike rating, this change will ensure they benefit from things that increase your chance to crit without directly affecting that rating — such as winter's chill and improved scorch. It's a modest buff and slightly increases the value of crit over haste (I think). From what Ho Ho says in the comments, there's no buff here. I don't then understand how people are reporting an increase in dps on the test realms. Perhaps some of the other changes, such as improved devouring plague and mind meld (see below) account for it. If you know better, leave me a note please.
• Mind meld will provide additional critical strike chance to dots, transforming a mediocre talent into a glorious one.

Stuff we don't care about

• Healing stuff. We glazed over.
• PVP buffs blah blah.
• The new hymns. Both are going to be extremely difficult to use, and of almost zero value to shadow priests. This could have been a chance to put the faith back into priesting; instead, write it off as a missed opportunity. I want to say more, but I'll wait till I've had chance to try them out.
• Increases to mana regeneration talents, such as spirit tap and meditation. To all the people who think these changes are a buff: they are not. The amount of mana you regenerate while casting after the patch will be exactly the same as it is now.
• Vampiric embrace increased to five minutes and cooldown removed. Without the improving talents, this spell is almost worthless in raids — but who has the points spare to pick them up?

Stuff they forgot

• Dear Blizzard: why doesn't shadow word: pain pick up shadow weaving stacks when it is refreshed by mind flay (via the pain and suffering talent)? If this is a bug, when will you fix it? If this is not a bug, when will you wake up and realise it is stupid and needs changing? Yours etc.
• Still no baseline 30-yard range on mind flay. I have banged on about this too much already, but this is not a nice-to-have, this is not something that shadow priests should have to cope with in raids. Raiding shadow priests are at a disadvantage as long as this anachronism is allowed to fester.
• WTB decent raid-worthy glyph options. Do you know why the shadow priest community isn't up in arms about mind flay's range? Because they can glyph for it. And we're only happy to do that because there's nothing else to go in its place.
• Shadow priests are still missing an ability to ramp up damage output on bosses. No cooldowns to blow, no executes, nothing. This will become glaringly obvious as encounters in Ulduar get harder and demands on DPS increase. It's not asking for an advantage over other dps, it's asking for the same level playing field.
• Shadow is all so... sterile now, all numbers and balance and business. Where's the spirit? Where's the poetry? Give me a dark prayer, or a hymn of despair, just one core ability that proves I am a terrible, formidable priest, not just the shadow of a warlock, and I will forgive all other sins.

You know, now that it's down on paper, it doesn't look so bad. Only five things Blizzard need to do to entirely satisfy me. Not many people have it so easy :)

If we are indeed out of time now, and the patch is imminent, I will enjoy the buffs and hope that the gods of WoW may hear my prayers for the next round.

Happy patching!

A quick post on glyph choices

Listed below are what I think are the relevant glyphs for each of the three caster hybrids — shadow priests, balance druids and elemental shaman. I've excluded mages and locks to avoid unfair comparisons — they naturally have a broader base of dps glyphs to start with. And I've picked only those glyphs that I believe belong to the relevant trees for brevity — i.e. excluding all the healing and melee glyphs. I may inadvertently have missed one out or let an odd one slip through, please forgive me.

The point of this exercise is to compare how well served each spec is by their glyph selection in raiding. It is a mixed bag for sure, with some rather bum and dubious glyphs all round, but my impression is that, on balance, shaman and druids come out on top. If, after seeing this, you think shadow priests have a fair choice, please do tell me why.

To my eyes, what is already a rather poor deal for shadow priests becomes even worse when you remove the glyph of mind flay. (Yes, I'm still banging that drum.)

My argument, of course, is that you should not need a glyph to secure an acceptable range for your primary raiding nuke. But while we have one, it very neatly serves to mask this veritable drought of acceptable glyphs. If you are starving and someone gives you a mouldy piece of bread, you may be grateful. That doesn't make it a good meal.

Perceptive readers will note how glyph of flame shock increases damage, not range. That's because, as soon as this baseline 20-yard range spell became important to elemental dps, developers found room for a talent to increase its range. Funny that.

The glyph selection for raiding shadow priests is in dire need of systematic review. We know some changes are coming with the next patch, but what has been announced so far is not enough.

Glpyhs are not the only area of concern to shadow priests, but getting them right is one essential part of ensuring shadow priests remain competitive in higher content. Please make it so, Blizzard.

Shadow priests

Glyph of Fade — Increases the duration and cooldown of your Fade spell by 50%.
Glyph of Psychic Scream — Increases the duration of your Psychic Scream by 1 sec.
Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain — Increases the damage done by your Mind Flay spell by 10% when your target is afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain.
Glyph of Mind Flay — Increases the range of your Mind Flay spell by 10 yards, but it only reduces the target's movement speed by 10%.
Glyph of Mind Control — Increases the duration of your Mind Control spell by 12 sec.
Glyph of Shadow — While in Shadowform, your spell critical strikes increase your spell power by 10% of your Spirit for 10 sec.
Glyph of Shadow Word: Death — Targets below 35% health take an additional 5% damage from your Shadow Word: Death spell.

Balance druids

Glyph of Entangling Roots — Increases the damage your Entangling Roots victims can take before the Entangling Roots automatically breaks by 20%
Glyph of Focus — Increases the damage done by Starfall by 20%, but decreases its radius by 50%.
Glyph of Hurricane — Your Hurricane ability now also slows the movement speed of its victims by 20%
Glyph of Insect Swarm — Increases the damage of your Insect Swarm ability by 30% but it no longer affects your victim's chance to hit
Glyph of Moonfire — Increases the periodic damage of your Moonfire ability by 75% but initial damage is decreased by 90%
Glyph of Starfall — Increases the duration of Starfall by 2 seconds
Glyph of Starfire — Your Starfire ability increases the duration of your Moonfire effect on the target by 3 seconds, up to a maximum of 9 additional seconds
Glyph of Wrath — Increases the chance you'll resist spell interruption when casting your Wrath spell by 50%

Elemental shaman

Glyph of Shocking — Reduces the global cooldown triggered by your Shock spells by 0.5 sec.
Glyph of Fire Nova Totem — Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Nova Totem by 3 seconds.
Glyph of Flame Shock — Increases the duration of your Flame Shock ability by 6 sec and it is not consumed by casting Lava Burst.
Glyph of Flametongue Weapon — Increases spell critical strike chance by 2% while Flametongue Weapon is active.
Glyph of Lightning Bolt — Increases the damage dealt by Lightning Bolt by 4%.
Glyph of Frost Shock — Increases the duration of your Frost Shock by 2 sec.
Glyph of Chain Lightning — Your Chain Lightning strikes 1 additional target.
Glyph of Elemental Mastery — Reduces the cooldown of your Elemental Mastery ability by 30 sec.
Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem — Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Elemental Totem by 10 min.
Glyph of Lava — Your Lava Burst spell gains an additional 10% of your spellpower.

The great glyph famine: a call to arms

That rumbling noise you hear is my indignation rising to boiling point. Look away now if you hate to see a grown man collapse in a raging, impotent tantrum.

So with warnings duly noted, let's cut to the nub. I'm back on glyphs again.

Did you see the list of glyphs that came with the patch notes? Huge list of new and changing glyphs for most classes. We've got a shorter cooldown for fear ward, a shorter cooldown for fade, a two-second increase to psychic scream and a 50% increase to mind control.

Enough with the cheering already, these are not good. These are silly, insulting, novelty glyphs. If glyphs were hats, these would be the ones with fake boobs on the peak or piled high with plastic fruit. These are the glyphs you would wake up wearing after your stag do. They are the Norbit of glyphs.

The notes also list a glyph of dispersion, but the effect is described as removing snares — which the spell itself was given in the very same patch notes. So this only goes to show how little faith you should taken in early test builds. But what the hell, it fills a paragraph.

The only interesting glyph to die-hard raiding shadow priests is this:

Glyph of mind sear — increases the radius of effect on mind sear by 5 yards.

Finally, a glyph we can take seriously. But not for long mind you, because of the ridiculous mind flay issue. With the need to glyph for extra range, we are effectively gimped to two slots, and the mind sear glyph just isn't good enough to nab one.

Now I have no doubt it is possible to get through raids without the glyph of mind flay. But the only real alternative to date has been the glyph of shadow word: death, which provides a very small dps boost in return for a great deal of inconvenience. There are many things in Naxx you need to out-range and many things to target at a distance, and having the key spells in your rotation require different positioning is at best a headache for you, and at worst a headache for your healers. If you can live without it I applaud you, but that would be missing the point.

Mind flay should be 30 yards baseline. It should not require a glyph. That Blizzard chooses to avoid this problem by throwing a glyph at it is insulting and frustrating.

So this is my Captain Picard moment. The line must be drawn here! I will battle and rail and grumble and spit and make a general nuisance of myself until Blizzard finally recognises the insanity of this situation and gives us a standard range.

Even if that means removing the snare because, let's face it, this is not why we use mind flay. What if, with a baseline 30 yard range, the glyph of mind flay reduced the target's movement speed but also reduced the spell's range? There, you see! A little creative thinking and I've already fixed the damn glyph!

Wake up! Deal with this now please before my blood pressure requires medication.

And while you're at it, please stop with the joke glyphs and give us something decent for that third slot. Where is our glyph of mind blast? Where is our glyph of shadow word: pain (I mean the real glyph, you know, one that actually affects the spell...)? What about vampiric touch, devouring plague, even vampiric embrace?

I want choices and I want variety and I want them in 3.1. So consider the gauntlet duly dropped. And I beg and plead of all my readers to champion this noble cause in your own indomitable ways. Go forth and harangue till we get what we want. (Isn't that how it works?) Then I can stop qqing and start writing interesting posts about all our wonderful glyph options. And I won't have to worry about my blood pressure any more.