Ad nauseum

Our raid leader described the new Wyrmrest Temple raid, Ruby Sanctum, as “Naxxramas difficulty with Icecrown heroic loot”. We all cheered and ran in. Then we spent the next two hours wiping.

The problems started in phase two. We’d consistently lose two or three dps to the cutter beams. Our dps must have the lowest IQ of all raiders because I don’t understand how you can fail to stay in the right place when the tank is rotating the boss for you. Hunters were the worst. And like true hunters, they always had an excuse ready.

At the phase three transition, someone always got smacked before the tank turned up. They only had one job, and they were constantly late for it.

And that was the point where it usually went tits up. The debuffs became a huge pain. Dps stopped watching them and didn’t move, and healers got sloppy with dispels (myself included, on shaman duty). With a good chunk of dps dead already, the remaining dps was invariably imbalanced. And again, this goes back to the their IQs, but really how hard is it to watch a big number at the top of your screen and stop casting for a bit if it goes the wrong way?

One thing of practical value I have to share from this catastrophe is that grid doesn’t seem to like the phase three debuffs. It displayed the phase one and two debuffs just fine, but then got sloppy. I didn’t even realise I wasn’t seeing them to start with. It was only after a few wipes when I and the other healers started swapping notes that we realised something was amiss. So we had to add the debuffs manually. That seemed to do the trick — not that it spurred the dps into moving any quicker when they got them.

Two hours of dying to a pink dragon is pretty demoralising. But then we disbanded and I got drafted into a 10-man heroic Saurfang attempt where I proceeded to get my ass handed to me for another two hours. We usually cocked up around the 40 per cent mark during an add phase — either a dps would die to the adds, or someone would die to a mark while we were busy trying to keep the dps alive. There’s just no coming back from a death in that fight.

I usually like fights like this: with two piece tier 10, all you have to do is riptide, faceheal x3 and keep earth shield up. It’s the bomb. But Saurfang is shaman kryptonite, especially on 10-man where you can’t even rely on a decent-sized melee group to soak up the chains. Ancestral awakening comes into its own, but it’s really no substitute for my face-shaped “I Win” chain heal button.

Four hours of dying and nothing to show for it except a huge hole in my bank balance. Sometimes, I really wonder if this game is a productive use of my time, you know?

The utility paradox

Why bring a shadow priest? I play in mid-range casual guilds and have never had to justify my spot beyond personal, competent performance (or lack of). But if you're a top-end raider, this question matters.

that's why the recent Cataclysm news is a cause for anxiety. Shadow priests (and boomkins) are losing a key debuff (misery), and replenishment is being toned down, but the hybrid tax, which keeps theoretical peak hybrid dps a short way below that of the 'pure' classes, is still very much a reality.

The fewer reasons you have to pick a specific class, the more you are going to pick purely on dps potential. So what happens if shadow priests have nothing unique or significant to add, but do five per cent less damage than a mage?

Blizzard's raid philosophy of 'bring the player, not the class' rightly demands that no one class or spec should be invaluable to a raid. This is both a pragmatic decision (10-man raids just can't fill every hole) and an idealistic one (it shouldn't matter what classes you and your mates rolled when you go raiding).

So here then is the paradox: in attempting to ensure hybrids are not special snowflakes that raids can't do without, Blizzard is in danger of ensuring raids only take pure dps.

You could argue five per cent isn't a lot. Perhaps you could even make that up in skill and gear at some levels of raiding, but then the same is also true in reverse. And to be sure, the tax on hybrid dps is lower now than at any time in WoW's history — but so too is the range of tools and buffs that hybrids bring. As Euripedes eloquently observes, utility is no longer the sole preserve of hybrids.

The only remaining argument for maintaining a hybrid tax is the base flexibility of the classes to switch between dps and healing or tanking, but this is a misleading argument. I think to suggest that raids take hybrids over pure dps for their ability to rescue raids at a clutch is rather far from the norm. Even then, if the damage playing field was completely even, I would argue that most raids would chose the utility that pure classes bring over the theoretical flexibility of a hybrid.

The more I look at it, the more the hybrid tax seems counterintuitive to, even incompatible with, the 'bring the player not the class' philosophy. Is it time the tax was finally dropped?

I brokes-ded it...

Fuck you Rotface.

The problem with loot council

I used to think the loot council method of awarding raid drops was super. That was when I was an officer and was more concerned about the success of my guild than reward and recognition for individuals. Now I am a probationary raider in another loot council guild and see the system from the other side. And I have to say, it's not as super as it used to be. I can see the flaws and cracks in the system — but more importantly, I can also see that what I thought as an officer was good for my guild may well have contributed to its collapse.

A loot council, as I mean it, is simply a group of raiders who decide between them who gets the drops. In my experience, it usually consists of whichever officers of the guild are in the raid at the time, although it doesn't have to be. Each council will have its own ideas and guidelines for making these decisions, but the primary reason for using a council over other distribution systems is to ensure that the loot is put to best use for the good of the guild. And this is where loot councils start to break down.

The problem is that the needs of the guild are constantly in flux, making it very difficult to write up a clear and consistent set of rules — one day a guild may want to reward a player for their commitment, another they may want to better equip a tank or healer for an upcoming challenge, sometimes they may need to use loot to keep key players loyal. Every drop, every day, is different; a loot council will often have to contradict past decisions to achieve present aims. And this is compounded by the fact that different players may be making the decisions from day-to-day, possibly creating even greater inconsistency in the process.

For the player base, this can be confusing and frustrating. It is demotivating to miss out on upgrades week after week when there is no apparent pattern to the awards. It's even harder when loot council decisions are made in private and not explained afterwards (as they invariably are). This lack of transparency is easily avoided with some clear guidelines on a forum or in the guild information, but these are often necessarily vague to allow for every eventuality.

Loot council principles also lead easily to bad decisions. Loot councils may take current items into account when assessing an upgrade — something which you can't control easily with other systems — but that doesn't always mean the right person gets the item. I have seen items with spirit go to shamen and paladins over cloth and leather users, items with agility go to death knights over hunters and rogues, and items with mp5 go to dps over healers. While the individual benefited from an upgrade, people who could have benefited more lost out, and as long as a player is sporting a sub-optimal piece of itemisation, they will be on the lookout to replace it as soon as the next opportunity arises. In the long-run, this is not the best use of gear for any guild.

To be fair, not all loot councils allow players to roll on sub-optimal gear, or would necessarily award it over more suitable players. But the system encourages council members to make these mistakes by its very aims — almost anything can be justified for the good of the guild. Such a selfless act is easy to defend and player may feel churlish to challenge. In loot arguments, "good of the guild" is the trump card and needs no further explanation.

In the end, a loot council is a self-consciously biased court that casts judgement on players without the right to reply: X raids more than Y, N is a better player than M and so on. These judgements are rarely scientific but based on personal opinion and knowledge — and are therefore open to both conscious and unconscious influence. How do you know X raids more than Y? Or that N is better than M? You just think it, or you have the evidence to back it up? How long have these comparisons held true, and what makes you think they will remain so?

Of course, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Many players on loot councils make good decisions on loot every day, and it contributes effectively to the progress of many guilds through challenging new content. But I'm not talking about players, I'm talking about the system, and this one, I have come to realise, is fraught with pitfalls to catch even the best guilds out.

A sure sign that you have fallen for them is a rising turnover or falling signup. Chances are, the people leaving or not showing up are the same ones not getting loot. Here, the loot council can easily lull you into a false sense of security. You naturally value the players receiving the loot over the ones who aren't (that's why they got the loot), so you may well think the missing faces are expendable. Until, that is, you realise you can't field a 25-man raid without them. And before you know it, your two ten-man teams are one, and even that becomes a struggle.

To be fair, many guilds have made loot council work for them. I'm not saying it's unworkable, just flawed. To avoid the pitfalls as best as possible, a guild must be absolutely transparent about the process it uses to award drops and it must be consistent and fair in applying it. I would also recommend keeping detailed and visible records of drops and decisions, so that both the council and regular raiders can monitor the system's implementation and keep a check on bias and misuse.

Of course, some of the problems here are common to other distibution methods too. There's no value judgement intended on DKP or rolling here, just some food-for-thought on one particular system.

The Goldilocks guild

I've been shopping around for guilds ever since my last one imploded. I've got a bit of a Goldilocks complex — it can't be too big or too small, it can't be too hardcore or too casual, it's got to be just right.

Which basically means the guild I'm after doesn't exist. They either don't need a shadow priest, raid too early, raid too late or too often, are too good for me, or not good enough, they're a bunch of jerks or too disorganised, or just don't have the numbers or skill to make a go of it.

The problem is compounded by the situation on my server, which seems to be haemorrhaging good Horde raiders at an alarming rate. Alliance outstrip us 5 to 1 by some accounts, and Horde feels like a faction in decline. With so much doubt, and a lot going on in my real life, I could very easily have procrastinated all year.

So last week I finally settled on a compromise: I joined a guild that doesn't need a shadow priest.

I took along my resto shammy instead and healed my first Icecrown run last night. So far, I'm really happy with the guild. The officers are friendly and mature, but also strong leaders. We started on time and finished on time, and we didn't mess around much inbetween. They run loot council, which means dishing it out was a bit drawn out, but I can live with that. They even offered me the BoE trash pants from Icecrown — on my first run with them — but I declined; I'd rather build up some goodwill first.

So we killed Marrowgar, which was fine if a bit hairy during the air phase (every time I stopped to cast he flew RIGHT AT ME). And we moved on to clear the trash before Lady Deathwhisper. We didn't engage her, just took the trash rep and moved on to ToC. (The sight of her room brought back some very unpleasant memories of Blackheart's room in Shadow Labs.)

It went well for a first run with a new guild. And I can live with healing for now, even if ultimately I'd rather be melting faces. I have a sneaky plan to switch mains if it ever looks like they can do with one less healer. We'll see. Meanwhile, there's plenty I can do to improve Merlot's gear through the Icecrown 5-mans, badges, and the odd pug. And I really need to renew my Loremaster efforts; Merlot the Patient does nothing for me.

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: ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Goddess

Queen Lana'thel. She's a blood elf. And a queen. And a vampire. Sorry, vampyr.

Have you seen her abilities? Vampiric bite, essence of the vampyr queen, shroud of sorrow. You might as well add "immune to shadow priests", we're all going to be too busy gasping in awe and reverence.

Do you think it's possible to defect to the Scourge? Does Arthas accept living recruits?

Yogg win

My guild got Yogg down in 10 man last night for the first time. I wasn't there, but I'm not too broken up about it. On all of my previous attempts, we hadn't even made it to phase three. Proudly, I've never gone mad, but I have been known to run away from the red beam. Why is it you always get linked just before you're feared?

Yogg, to an averagely skilled and experienced player like me, is tough. Phase two is hard to dps, harder still to heal. Which is very odd, because we had Anub'arak down in the second week of his release. Now I don't want to join in the chorus of complaints about the relative difficulty of content in Wrath, but c'mon. The colliseum is a higher tier of content. Can you imagine any guild farming Sunwell that couldn't kill Kael'thas convincingly?

I don't know whether Yogg is too hard or Anub'arak is too easy - but given that both these encounters have harder modes, I suspect it's a bit of both.

Either way, I'm rambling a bit now because the purpose of this post wasn't to add my voice to the chorus of elitist complainers but to share this staggeringly awesome Yogg strategy guide by Kae of the Dreambound druid blog. Words don't do it justice, you've got to go see for yourself.

To the edge and back

My normal blood elf elitist bravura has taken a bit of a pounding over the last few months. A perfect storm of conditions have aligned to beat the confidence stuffing right out of me.

My raid performance as shadow has, and continues to be, very lacklustre. Gear is a bit limp in several slots and we often run very melee heavy, which means I'm low on optimal raid buffs, especially in 10 mans. I make mistakes too, which contribute both to a poor performance and a general feeling of inadequacy. You can't help but wonder, when you are 2k below the top dps in your raid, and they can beat the boss with you face down on the ground for most of the fight, why you're there. I know I can play my class better, but I also believe the class is underpowered.

Unfortunately, I don't get that much time to practice. More often that not we are struggling for healers these days, so I end up healing. I never did pluck up the courage to go holy, by the way, although I went as far as to buy the gems and glyphs. I decided I loves me bubbles too much. Bu that doesn't mean I enjoy raid healing as disc any more than before. Merlot, at heart, is a hissing, remorseless, unwavering death bringer. Every time he throws a heal, a kitten dies.

I have turned instead to my shaman Golan, a tauren, an earth lover and a life giver. I love shaman healing, the mix of spells feels right, the talents and glyphs varied enough to keep shaman healing interesting and effective. When I heal as a shaman, I feel like I am pulling my weight.

It's not without its drawbacks. Nobody can keep a tank up like a disc priest; there have been times when I just couldn't put out enough heals quickly enough to keep them alive. And I've lost count of the number of times I've pushed out a chain heal on a target too far away for it to bounce. WORST. FEELING. EVER. It's a huge challenge to try and keep track of people around me and know where on grid they fit together — but it also forces me to lift my head up more than I would otherwise.

Don't worry, I'm not going to start blogging about shaman. Too many people do that too well already. It just means that Merlot's identity crisis is over. No more healing, and no more fretting over how well he heals. From now on, the only lasers I'll be firing are killer purple ones. I'm going to get better, I'm going to dish out more pain and suffering than ever before. And if anyone asks me to heal them, I'll curse them into next year. NO. MORE. MR. NICE. GUY.

Five reasons why I won't be joining your pug

If you want to guarantee that skilled, well-adjusted players avoid your raid pug like Stratholme at harvest, just tell them to queue up for a gear inspection first.

I'm not even that skilled or well-adjusted, and I wouldn't lift my skirt to you for an epic mount.

If you ever despair of the quality of applicants, please consider:

• You are offering no evidence of your own competence, while amply advertising your asshat credentials
• Gear does not guarantee success
• Gear is hardly a requirement to success, particularly in Wrath's entry-level raids
• I can't take anyone who demands gear inspections seriously
• If there wasn't something catastrophically wrong with you, you wouldn't need to pug a raid to start with, loser

Now please stop spamming trade, I can't keep up with the flame wars.

Merlot meets Sara

Four titans and ten epicly geared heroes versus some old bird in a dress: this'll be a cake walk. Shield tank, frisbee, penance blah blah. Seriously, what god looks like Anne Robinson? No respect. That reminds me of that episode of Doctor Who when... oh bugger, move from green cloud. Move, move... phew. So yea, the old bird's going down like a sack of spanners. Wonder what she'll drop? I only need three more badges for my... WHOA where the hell did THAT come from? OK OK, we can do this. Nearly full mana bar. Shield tank, frisbee. That is one UGLY tentacle. She'd seriously better not put that thing anywhere near me... DO not... I said do NOT... omg she DID. I feel violated. This bitch is going down. Shield tank, frisbee, penance... penance? Why am I not shooting gold sparks? Oh, not enough mana. That can't be right. How the... omg, I have NO mana. It just VANISHED. OK, don't panic. Cast shadowfiend. Wait, no, use hymn. OK, channelling n... omg, feared. We're screwed. Why am I RUNNING? OK, it's OK. Drop a pot, stay calm. Shit, sanity is super low, better just jump in this nice green light thingy... great, feared. Breathe, breathe. OK, shield tank, frisbee, run back to green thingy... 70, 80, 90... Thank you Freya :) Hmm, is someone shouting at me? Why would someone be shouting at me? What does that red beam do? Why is my health dropping? Can we bring the old lady back now please?

Holy v Discipline

Without meaning to, my last post seems to have hit a nerve. Who'd have thought there was such animosity between our healing brethren? I love a good cat fight so let's do it properly. Give me your reasons for going holy or going discipline. What do you bring to your raid, what are your key strengths, what are your weaknesses, and how do you overcome them? Basically, which one wins? It's the ultimate showdown, no more whispering behind each other's backs, pointing at that lolwell or scoffing at those holy nova twitches. Spirit of redemption - glorious embodiment of your faith or a great big flashing FAIL sign? Does the sight of a Tauren in a shield fill you with hope or give you the giggles? Let's get it all out in the open...

Going holy

I've decided to switch my secondary spec to a holy raiding build, ditching my beloved discipline.

I really have grown quite attached to the pew pew of pennance and the site of raiders running round in my little hamster bubbles, and I think I will miss my shields terribly, especially in 5-mans. But I've healed enough on my resto shammy to know it's a crutch I can live without.

I still believe a discipline priest brings a lot to a raid, I just don't think my guild requires one, particularly from an offspec healer. There just aren't enough fights in current raid design to justify a single-target focus for me. With so many excellent main healers in our guild, I'm only ever going to be there to provide raid support, and flash heal spam just doesn't cut it.

I think I probably have enough offspec gear to make the switch now, although it's very low on haste and will probably need regemming. And I might have to plug a few gaps with some entry-level gear. I'm going to try Wynthea's holy build, which emphasises aoe healing, instant flash heals and powerful renews.

But I don't really know how you heal as holy, so would really appreciate your advice. How do you know from looking at grid where to drop your circle of healing, how do you keep track of all the procs and buffs in holy, how do you manage your mana, and how do you pump out big single target healing when it's needed?

Any hints and tips much appreciated!

A rare occurence

I'm not cutting edge, not what you'd call an 'early adopter', so the last place I expected to find myself tonight was in 10-man Crusaders' Colliseum; I still haven't finished Ulduar. Healing as well, can you believe it?

I think it will be quite fun when I get over the shock and horror. Among the beasts encounter, only the worms are a real challenge. Positioning is very difficult, particularly as a healer with a need to stay in range of both tanks while avoiding frontal cone attacks and moving around to dispel the poison. If the worms die, you've won.

The second guy, released yesterday, is a demon that throws just about every conceivable evil shit at the lot of you: chain lightning, dots, fires, adds, even volcanoes. This is another fight where staying out of trouble and keeping in range of everyone to heal them is the biggest challenge. The add tank died on a couple of occasions because I just wasn't standing in the right place at the right time. But we got him down on our fourth attempt, which ain't bad for me :)

Interestingly, we took two tanks and four healers into the instance. I've never tackled a 10-man with more than three before, and often only two. I don't know if this is how other guilds are doing it, but it was a good move on our part. The whole raid takes significant damage throughout both encounters and with range being the issue it is I think we would have struggled a lot more just keeping everyone up.

A bridge too far

I haven't spent an awful lot of time in Ulduar yet. Partly, I don't like feeling inadequate when I see my dps hovering around mid-table or worse, and partly I feel guilty when I'm asked to heal. I'm not a good healer at the best of times; ask me to heal raid in disc and you may as well go stand in the fire.

But I've spent the last couple of nights storming the place on heroic. My guild has made most of its progress in 10-man, so this was essentially a progression run. We took Ignis out for the first time on Wednesday, and Assembly of Iron bit the dust last night. Second on damage btw, so I'm not completely useless :) Then we came to Kologarn.

You probably know the fight better than I do — very heal intensive but with no enrage. So I was asked to help with the healing. I knew the fight in theory, I'd even healed it a couple of times in normal mode. But I was totally unprepared for it on heroic.

I think we made eight attempts overall, including a heartbreaking wipe at two per cent. That attempt proved to be the exception, though, as we tended to wipe about half way in.

We had two big problems:
1. Bad timing. On several occasions, everything seemed to hit us at once — the arm dies just as it releases three battered healers and adds spawn right at the moment he yells oblivion etc. You know what I mean. Invariably, we'd loose a tank while trying to patch up the raid, or a couple of healers. The more you loose, the harder it gets.
2. We probably could have weathered the first problem if people hadn't kept dragging the eye beams through groups. We'd start in a pretty standard formation but it would break down rapidly as the fight progressed. And when they weren't running through the crowd with a big blue lazer on their arse, they were stood directly in it, completely oblivious.

This was the first time I've seriously contemplated respeccing holy. Spamming prayer of healing burnt through my mana like a dose of clap, while the time locked down on the prayer's long cast times meant I was often too slow to respond to damage elsewhere. I didn't spend nearly long enough popping bubbles. I can't help but wonder if holy's tools are better suited to this fight.

I'm sure with time we'll get Kologarn beat in the end, but last night he proved too much for us — the big dumb lump of rock.

Anyone recognise these problems? What did you do to get over them?

Ghostcrawler watch part 1

If you're a Ghostcrawler watcher like me, you might have noticed this ominous message from the great man earlier this week. I know it's wrong to jump on Ghostcrawler's words (he told me so!) but it's rather hard not to when he's the only person engaged in any significant community outreach.

Discussing hybrid dps balance, he wrote:

DK and Feral dps should both be lower in 3.2 compared to 3.1. A few other specs received slight buffs, but overall we're pretty happy with the PvE dps balance. You have to look at a lot of different boss fights and break the data down in different and relatively complex ways before you can really stack rank damage done with any kind of authority. As soon as we add a new boss, it's all going to change anyway. Nobody's dps seems so low that it's a liability to bring them. The few damage-oriented specs that are low in PvE have alternative specs in other trees that work out fine. It's always going to be the kind of thing we tweak a lot -- it's a process not a destination.

This comment is the closest we've come so far to a definitive statement on shadow dps. If all pve dps is pretty well balanced, shadow must, by definition, be in reasonable shape.

Your reaction clearly is going to depend on your personal performance, and I've had plenty of feedback from shadow priests who think their dps is perfectly fine. I'm prepared to believe that my hardware is sub-standard, that my gear is not optimal, even that I'm just not that good a player. Nevertheless, I can perform better on other characters with worse gear (and I'm not THAT bad thankyouverymuch). So I stand by my belief that, on balance, shadow priests are at least at little... unfinished.

It's all a bit gloomy if you ask me. The last few Q&As have been met with a rather lukewarm reception by players who were hoping for far more than Blizzard delivered. I'm beginning to think my own expectations of our upcoming Q&A are equally unrealistic. At least I've had this warning to gird my loins for disappointment. I'm beginning to think the unthinkable — if shadow doesn't change, would I be better off raiding on a different class?

Is threat dead?

While I flex my fingers and prepare to launch into an epic wail about how inexplicably painful priest levelling is now, I thought it was worth a quick detour back to the post about shadow's floating talent points.

After much gnashing of teeth, I dropped two points into improved shadow form and one in veiled shadows.

I was a little concerned about dropping shadow affinity altogether, but threat has not been a problem. Threat, in fact, is a non-issue. I used fade maybe twice a raid before the respec, and that's still true today. I am blessed with good tanks to be fair, who are generally better geared, but I doubt skill or gear alone could compensate for such a big chunk of threat. I can happily wail on a mis-marked off-tank target and still not pull agro.

I keep Omen switched on for the sake of the tanks, but I don't need it anymore. I don't even know if it's working.

I see melee taking hateful strikes on patch and guess that extra 30 per cent still counts for something, but for me, threat is no longer a consideration.

That point in veiled shadows is a complete waste, by the way. I'm certainly glad I didn't spec out of inner focus to max it out. To be fair, I'm not raiding Ulduar yet. Honestly, I'm not that motivated, and anyway I'm failing to put out the kind of dps my guild is looking for. But as far as pre-Ulduar raid content goes, I don't need a reduced cooldown on my shadowfiend. I've only ever had mana issues once, and that was from a really unlucky string of detonate mana targetting on Kel'Thuzad.

Now the question is, can I find a better home for that lone point?

Help with gear

That title's a call for help, not an offer.

Pretty much all my gear is now of a similar item level and relatively similar stats. I've got a surplus of it, some with more haste than crit, some with more spirit than haste, and all with varying amounts of hit and spellpower. I know the weightings, but still my head hurts.

I'm firmly of the opinion that the differences are so small as to be academic. But what the hell, I may as well get it right.

So, what do you use to help you evaluate gear? Are there any models out there like I've seen for mages? Any speadsheets that work out stat weightings for me? Any sites I should be using, or addons? Pretty please?

Win

Thank you very much for your advice and encouragement. Maybe I'm not such a priestard after all :)

Owning my mistakes

Time for some naval gazing after a disastrous attempt on the Instructor. This fight is much more appealing in theory than it is in practice. Lovely idea to give priests a novel role in a raid fight but if they wanted to tank, wouldn't they have rolled a mage? Hmm?

Razuvious should be easy.

Step 1. Mind control mob.
Step 2. Cast bone shield and taunt.
Step 3. Repeat step 2 every 40 seconds.

That looks easy, doesn't it? So what's my problem?

Mistake number 1 — not watching the channel time
This is my biggest problem. A minute feels like a lot, a minute is enough to lull me into a false sense of security. A minute is longer than my short-term memory. With the taunt switching every 20 seconds, even in ideal circumstances that means the cast will expire towards the end of only your second time tanking. And circumstances are never ideal. Damage from the knife will push back the channel, the spell will break early.

Solution: drop and recast after every switch. Even if this is overly cautious, it will minimise the risk of mind control breaking during my tank time, and that's a Good Thing.

Mistake number 2 — mistiming bone shields and taunts
Something else that should be much simpler than it is. Neither priest has voice, so we couldn't should out to each other. Trying to track cooldowns while watching the channel time and picking up dropped mind controls is easier said than done. The result? Razuvious either flattens a tank without his bone shield or runs after the dps when both taunts are on cooldown. I'm sure it's easy enough to do this without voice if you're practiced and have modest situational awareness, but I fail on both counts.

Solution: get voice. Strong preference for voice-enabled priests to tank.

Mistake number 3 — terrible positioning
Ok, the big guy is running amok and flattening the dps. Clearly something has gone wrong. He's bouncing around so fast I can't even catch up to him. And there are so many damn melee I can't even see him. But I'm going to fix this, I just have to get close enough to taunt and then... and then I run out of range and mind control breaks and it's all over.

Solution: assign positions for everything. All ranged here, all melee here. If he runs at you, suck it up. If he moves, stand still.

I have to say, this boss would be much easier if the taunt worked at range. You'd be able to position the tanks a couple of feet apart and it would be much easier to see when the switch occurs. Don't player class taunts work like that now?

Also, I hate being in melee. How do you see what you're doing? How do tanks cope when mobs break loose? Do people volunteer for this job?

On a personal note, it feels very, very shit to know your raid is wiping because you — and only you — can't get the hang of something. Tanks have a huge responsibility, and while some players respond well to the pressure, and have the reactions and the sharp mind to deal with changing circumstances, these aren't qualities that you nurture in the dps. My admiration and respect go to the players who choose this path.

I can't wait to get back to ranged.

Blizzard: never ever do this to me again.