The divine shadow

Raiding went out of the window for Merlot weeks ago, now my biggest concern is how to spec and dress to surge through Northrend like a dose of clap. I think the weeks of inactivity have gone to my head, because I'm playing with a rather wacky hybrid idea.

What I really want is a heavy spirit shadow build. It suits how I like to play — dot, wand, loot, rinse, repeat. The combination of high base regeneration and spirit tap make for a single-target grinding dynamo. Or so I like to think.

It's a great idea in theory, but there are some practical obstacles.

Gear is one problem. I have only slightly more spirit on my current raid gear than agility. In Outland, spirit is almost exclusively a healer's privilege.

Had I the foresight to collect an off-spec set of healing gear, I'd be in a much stronger position now. With the upcoming changes to spell power, healing gear is looking ideal for my needs.

Sadly, I didn't. I can run a few instances now and pick some up, but my best bet is badge gear. I have over a hundred burning a hole in my bank, which should be enough to boost my spirit for starters.

Longer term, spirit seems more prevalent in Northrend so it should work itself out as I go.

The real headaches start when I look at talents. Spirit stackers have a clear incentive to pick up twisted faith, which increases spell damage by a proportion of your spirit. But if you're stacking spirit, you also want divine spirit and its improved version. Unfortunately, you can't have both.

In a raid situation, it's a no-brainer, you take the shadow talent and hope you have a disc priest in your group. But solo, I'm not so sure. The purpose of a levelling build is not to min/max but to support solo questing and grinding. Improved divine spirit also provides mana regeneration.

The question then becomes: can I kill quickly and easily enough without the greater spell damage? If the answer is yes, being able to kill mobs continuously without drinking downtime wins out.

So you see I'm leaning slightly in favour of improved divine spirit for levelling, but there's another problem. I can't get improved divine spirit and vampiric touch at 70. Meh. The earliest I can have the two is 73.

Do I really need VT for levelling? If they hadn't changed the mana regen, I would have said yes, absolutely, without question. But now I'm not so sure. Considering you have to cast mind blast to trigger replenishment, which just isn't in my normal grinding rotation, I doubt it. And anyway, I'm planning to end up with full mana between pulls, I shouldn't need replenishment.

I might need it for damage though. I just don't know. Maybe devouring plague will be able to take its place.

So in the end, I'm facing the possibility of a hybrid build for the journey to Northrend, one with divine spirit and shadow form — what I've taken to calling the divine shadow. But it all hinges on how much damage I need to put out on the way.

I know it's not going to win any dps race, and I'll almost certainly have to respec to run instances. But you've never needed high dps to burn through world mobs anyway, and I can't help drooling at the thought of those huge spirit tap ticks.

What do you think? It's a terrible idea right? Should I suck it up and spec dispersion? Go on, you can be honest. Just try to be kind :)

Help with the rep grind

If I'm ever gonna get my hands on that gavel of unearthed secrets, I need to hit exalted with lower city. I'm not good with numbers so anything which helps me grind that rep is fine by me. This nifty calculator does just that. It takes all your Outland reputations and works out what you need to do to hit the next level.

I'm currently honoured with lower city and need 6942 rep to exalted. I see from the calculator that I need to clear shadow labyrinth 3.5 times to get there. I'd have to clear sethekk halls nearly six times for the equivalent rep, and auchenai crypts over nine which is a pitty, because I loathe lab.

The calculator rather usefully tells you how much rep is available from quests, and in which zones, although it can't tell you how many of those quests you have completed. And for factions with repeatable turn-in quests or with rep-per-kill, it shows how many turn ins or kill to the next level. (I noted rather grimly that I would have to kill about 1900 ogres to get mag'har exalted on my hunter, although I can turn in warbeads too once I've finished the grind with consortium).

One thing it doesn't do is go beyond the next rep level, which is a small shame. It just means I have to go back again after those lab/halls/crypts runs. But otherwise, a very use tool to have. Worth a side bar link even, I think.

What not to wear (part 1)

Being purple and transparent, I don't much care what my clothes look like. Still, this game does require a certain amount of fashion sense — enough to know what gear will enhance your class, spec and play style the most. A warrior with intellect or a hunter with a fiery weapon is a sad sight, like a transvestite in their mother's clothes. But figuring out what stats look best on you is the easy part. The real trick is finding the gear to match. And for shadow priests, it inevitably involves some compromise.

The basic advice for levelling priests is to balance intellect, spirit and stamina and add spell damage where you can. If you're specced shadow, you should have five points in spirit tap to reduce down-time in-between fights. With enough spirit, you will rarely need to drink at all in solo play.

As you progress through Outland, the choices become more difficult. The good news is that stamina and intellect are abundant, and this kind of gear usually comes with a smattering of spell damage. It's quite easy to build up a substantial quota of spell damage simply through quest rewards. The trouble is that spirit doesn't really feature on dps gear, so as your spell damage increases your mana efficiency will decline. Speccing into discipline for meditation will help, as will vampiric touch, but the returns from spirit tap will slowly decline and you will find yourself drinking more often in-between fights.

At 70, you face a dilemma. If you want to raid, you need to improve your spell damage. The consensus for Karazhan entry seems to be about +700 shadow damage. But this comes at a cost. The best spell damage gear provides less intellect and stamina. My own health and mana pools are lower now than when I first hit 70. Add to that the high threat caused by vampiric embrace and vampiric touch and you become incredibly squishy.

That's the price of raiding shadow. In return, you will provide more health and mana to your party, which at the end of the day is your reason for being there in the first place, so perhaps it's not a bad compromise after all.

There's one other stat that raiding shadow priests need to consider that I haven't covered here, and that's spell hit. More on that next time, along with some hints on how to gear up for raiding when you hit 70.

Primal scream

When you hit 70 you have no choice but to suspend all enjoyment of the game and go grind elementals until you are cross-eyed and dreaming about them. This is because they drop motes, which are the basis of the most evil economy known to man (or troll, or gnome etc).

Many high-level crafted items require primals — powerful elemental ingredients that are created from ten motes of the same element. And the elementals drop the motes. Occasionally. If they feel like it. On a good day. You collect ten motes, right click on the stack, and hey presto you have a primal.

If, like me, you are a tailor, you will spend mind-numbing hours nuking the little buggers for slow progress on your epic set. Ditto blacksmiths, leatherworkers and engineers.

Even if you don't need to make something, you need 5,000 gold for your flying epic mount and primals are one of the best ways to get it.

You will be competing with gold farmers, sociopaths and 12-year old boys.

The result is a world of cut-throat camping and competition that reduces even the most noble of paladins to dirty, underhand tricks. If there is a night elf hunter within firing distance you can bet the scum-sucking bastard will time an instant shot while you're casting your first spell.

If you try to buy your ingredients you will be permanently broke, begging every mage in Shattrath for water and emptying your bank for silver.

The worst thing is, I really have nothing better to do with my time. The frozen shadoweave and spellstrike sets are widely considered to be the best items out there before raids. And I'm too busy grinding primals to raid. (Is that what you call a circular argument?)

So if you see me in Nagrand with a harried, haunting look in my eye, please be kind and find another area to grind in.

The ultimate quest

When you spent mind-number hours in the yeti cave waiting for Helcular's Rod to drop (substitute any other painful grinding memory here) you at least had something to look forward to. Every kill brought you a small step closer to Outland, every dead yeti meant a skill point in skinning, and a few extra coppers towards your mount. So it was something of a disappointment to hit 70 and realise nothing much had changed. Well, the 100 gold you needed for your blood elf racing turkey has inflated to 5000, and the yetis are elementals now, but it's all sinkingly familiar. While the taunting little blue line has vanished, you have the unsettling feeling that there are unseen levels left to climb. You inspect other players at a frequency bordering on paranoia. And they always have better gear than you. You discover the armory. You read a post on the blizzard forums that says you need a minium of 600 shadow damage to get into Karazhan. You don't even know what Karazhan is. You get the feeling that there is more to this game than levelling and resolve to do some research. And you think, modestly, that others might like to follow you on your quest.