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 net widens

They block all gaming sites and forums, they block every blog with its own domain, they block proxy servers, they have now even started blocking Google's cached content (my previous 'back door' to wowwiki and the like). It's like they own me. How am I supposed to keep a blog at work now?

Just about the only thing I have left is Google itself — my email, reader, and (inexplicably) Blogger. So I can keep writing about... nothing in particular. God even knows when that axe will fall. It will be a sad day for slackers independent journalists when they start blocking email :(

Clearly I'm not going to start blogging at home. That's playing time, that is.

Anybody got any ideas? I'm considering a netbook so I can blog on my (considerable) commute, I'm just not sure whether:

a) netbooks are a con and I should spend the very reasonable extra it would take to get a full spec laptop (from what I can see, laptops start at only £100 or so more than netbooks)

b) the hefty mobile broadband contracts are worth it - I'm looking at a monthly fee of £30 for 3 Gb and have no idea how much surfing I can do on that or even if the speed is acceptable

If you have any experience to share or advice to offer, please let me know.

Construct: the alternative bosses

Blob
Blob is the gelatinous guardian of the construct wing. The jelly of doom lurks beneath a grate in the second chamber where it ambushes unsuspecting solo adventurers as they skip back from a wipe or a failed Pipe attempt (see third boss).

Hit points: couple of thousand

Special moves:

• Wobble. Stackable debuff that causes deep despair in the affected raider. Each stack increases the likelihood of tears. Persists through death.
• Tunnel vision: aura that prevents raiders from realising they should all wait at the beginning and run back together.

Strategy: because of the effect of tunnel vision, Blob is incredibly difficult to fight. You will keep running and dying, picking up additional stacks of wobble, and may develop the urge to quit the raid. Don't give up. If you ignore him and don't react, Blob will eventually bore of you and leave you alone. This usually happens somewhere between the fourth and seventh ambush. Wobble wears off once you pass the grate safely. It's ok to cry.

Slimes
Slimes are the obsessive-compulsive spawn of Blob, driven by their neuroses to move endlessly in parallel lines across your only path to Pipe. This is a deceptively simply fight. Slimes are not capable of deviating from their tormented ritual, all you have to do is avoid them.

Hit points: n/a

Special moves:

• Lag aura. Random instant cast aura of infinite range that freezes all internet traffic long enough to lure hapless raiders to certain doom.
• Moron: curse of complacency that reduces intelligence by 110% and causes affected targets to bounce into the path of an oncoming slime.

Strategy: for this fight you need a paladin. They should bubble and run through all three lines of slime as quickly as possible. The raid should follow only when the paladin has cleared the third line, so she can resurrect everyone at the far side.

NB: Lag aura and moron may render this strategy ineffective.

Pipe
Pipe lies in wait at the top of the ramp from Grobbulus. The most fiendish of all bosses, Pipe can lay waste even to skilled groups without leaving his inanimate form. This is an environmental fight — Pipe himself, along with the platform approaching him, contains at least 17 violations of the health and safety code, including missing railings and floor markings. These won't in themselves kill you, but any one of them can send you plummeting into Blob's lair below, forcing you to repeat the first two bosses. If you can traverse this gauntlet of dangers, you will prevail.

Hit points: n/a

Special moves:

• Liquid hazard. Places random pools of slippery liquid on the ground without one of those yellow warning signs. Causes players to slip off Pipe into Blob's lair.
• Freeze frame: reduces frame rate of affected raiders to 1 and increases the spill rate of liquid hazards.

Strategy: there are two ways to approach this fight. If your guild includes an engineer, you can construct a rudimentary hand rail and mark our liquid hazards with flares. But for many guilds, this method is too slow. The alternative is to set your movement speed to walk, turn off all distractions — Vent chatter is especially dangerous — and creep forward, one tiny step at a time, making lots of painful adjustments to your trajectory to compensate for freeze frame. If you have a warlock, make sure they drop a wardrobe of summoning on the platform before they start, so you can summon people back to avoid a second Slimes run.

Coming soon: the Thaddius mini-boss, Jump.

Phase 1

So I've set out the aims and arguments of the mind flay campaign in a separate post. Now I'd really appreciate your feedback before I throw it to the forum lions. Please check I've got my facts right, and please tell me what you think of the arguments I put forward for changing the spell — and the ideas. I particularly want to know what you think if you PVP as a shadow priest, given that any increase in range will most likely come at the cost of the snare. How would you feel if you had to glyph for the snare? Are you happy with the spell as it is? Who here (go on, be honest) thinks it's fine as it is?

About Stretch!

Stretch! is the campaign for a baseline 30-yard range on the shadow priest spell mind flay.

Our mission statement
We believe shadow priests have the right to outrange environmental damage and approach positioning in raids on the same terms as other ranged classes and not have to glyph for it. That's why we want a baseline 30-yard range on mind flay. It's time to Stretch! the spell. We will work to educate the WoW community about the deficiencies of mind flay, generate ideas and debate about how it can be fixed in a fair manner, and campaign to ensure that Blizzard brings about these changes to the benefit of all shadow priests.

About mind flay
Mind flay is a spell available to priests via a tier three talent in the shadow tree. It is a three-second channelled spell that deals shadow damage each second and reduces the target's movement speed by 50%. It has a baseline range of 20 yards.

Its range can be extended by 20% through the talent shadow reach in tier four, and by 10 yards through the glyph of mind flay.

The spell accounts for approximately a third of a raiding shadow priest's damage on boss fights.

Mind flay has the shortest baseline range of all channelled spells.

Mind flay shares, with frost shock, the shortest baseline range of all single target spells with a snare component.

Mind flay is the only spell with a baseline range of 20 yards that is not instant.

The issue
Mind flay is the only offensive spell in a shadow priest's repertoire with a baseline range of 20 yards. The others — shadow word: pain, mind blast, shadow word: death, vampiric touch, devouring plague, mind sear and vampiric embrace — all share a baseline range of 30 yards.

It is a shadow priest's most efficient and effective spell, accounting for the largest single portion of a shadow priest's damage against raid bosses. Without the glyph, it creates two distinct positioning issues for shadow priests:

1. Environmental damage — it requires that shadow priests stand closer to targets than all other ranged classes, risking greater damage from boss aoe spells and centred environmental effects, or else causes shadow priests to constantly alter range at the loss of substantial dps
2. Range to target — with a shorter range to target than any other ranged class, shadow priests must move further and face greater obstacles in reaching targets in fights with adds or substantial movement

The only option to a shadow priest who wishes the same level playing field as other ranged classes is to glyph for an extra 10 yards on the spell at a reduced snare. The snare, as we shall see, is irrelevant to raiding shadow priests, but the glyph slot is one that could, and should, be available for a more appropriate use.

The logic of 20 yards
Why is there this discrepancy in the range of a shadow priest's spells? The answer is the spell's snare component. To compensate in PVP for the spell's 50% movement reducing effect, the range is kept artificially short. It is a PVP-balancing effect.

But in PVE, for raiding shadow priests, the snare is irrelevant. Bosses are immune to the effect and in almost every situation where a snare would be useful other classes are equally or better equipped to provide one. The range is always better.

In recognising this issue, Blizzard provided a glyph which brings the spell up to a standard range while lowering the amount the target's movement speed is reduced by to 10%.

We believe to provide shadow priests with a level playing field against other ranged dps, the spell's baseline range must be brought up to standard to enable raiding shadow priests to compete from the same distance and with the same access to three potential glyphs. The snare component is a secondary consideration which we propose should be tackled in other ways.

The solution
Stretch! recognises that mind flay cannot be allowed both a significant snare and standard range without compensating in other areas. We also recognise that, while range is vital for raiding shadow priests, not all priests choose to raid, and many are more concerned with PVP performance. We propose an open dialogue between the WoW community and WoW developers to arrive at a suitable compromise.

To kick off the conversation, we suggest the following ideas:

1. Make mind flay 30-yards baseline with zero or small snare. Change the glyph of mind flay to add or improve the snare at the cost of range. This effectively turns the current spell and glyph on their head, positioning the spell much more in line with PVE requirements while enabling PVP shadow priests to glyph for a snare if they so wish.
2. Make mind flay 30-yards baseline with zero or small snare. Provide PVP functionality in other ways. While it's not the aim of this campaign to propose sweeping PVP changes, we know Blizzard is in the process of doing exactly that, and we feel this is an excellent opportunity to consider mind flay in that context.
3. Make mind flay a baseline spell with zero or small snare and a 30-yard range. Provide an improved talent to give the spell added PVP functionality for shadow priests. This talent may or may not add a snare component, but the effect could be balanced within the framework of talent budgets. While some priests might feel that mind flay is a distinctly shadow spell and would regret its availability to holy and discipline priests, its inclusion in a priest's spell book would probably not prove game-breaking (mind sear is baseline too after all).

How to get involved

• Write to Blizzard
• Add your voice to forums
• Blog about it. You can link to this post or write your own.
• Tell your friends and guild mates

Comments/questions/feedback
Please show your support for Stretch! with a comment below. If you spot any mistakes in this post, please let me know and I will endeavour to correct them as soon as possible. If you have any questions or would like more information, again, please feel free leave a comment or drop me a line in person.