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Spiritual Guidance: Dinosaur Pirate Explosion Carnival (or, why Shadow Orbs is lame)

Filed under: Mind-Spike, class-help, dinosaur-pirate-explosion-carnival, featured, guide, guide-to-priests, preist-info, priest-guide, priest-talents, shadow, shadow-orb, shadow-priest, talent, talents, world-of-warcraft-class-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, wow-class-guide, wow-class-help, wow-guide, wow-priest, wow-priest-info, wow-priests, wow-talent-guide — WoW.com @ 10:00 pm

After a vicious, brutal campaign, the primary election between light-side Spiritual Guidance writer Dawn Moore and the shadow-specced Fox Van Allen (your host for today's article, of course) has come to a close. Fox had built a strong lead in the polls right up until this weekend, when a confused cadre of Tea Party activists misread Dawn's fondness for Earl Grey as tacit support for a right-wing economic agenda. Stupid democracy -- it just never seems to work.

Being an international superstar, I'm constantly accosted by fans. They walk up to me on the street and they ask, "Fox, what's the best part about working for WoW.com?" There's an awful lot I like about writing, of course. I love that I have groupies. I love that I get to write about priests, internet dragons and magic, and then name my column something ridiculous, random and ill-fitting like "Eight simple rules for dating my teenaged shadow priest." I love that I can actually help people play the game better.

But what's the best part? The groupies. Yeah, hands down. The groupies.

The second best part, though -- I'm free to write whatever the heck I want about World of Warcraft and Blizzard. I don't have to toe a company line. When Blizzard gets it wrong, I can say they've gotten it wrong. A few weeks ago, I wrote a column called The four best things about Cataclysm for shadow priests. I touched on things like Shadowy Apparition and Paralysis, two new talents that I'm loving while leveling in the beta. "But Fox," you ask, "what about those great new Shadow Orbs? You left those off your list!" That's right, I did. I left them off because Shadow Orbs represent one of Blizzard's misses.

Continue reading Spiritual Guidance: Dinosaur Pirate Explosion Carnival (or, why Shadow Orbs is lame)

Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance, Cataclysm

Spiritual Guidance: Dinosaur Pirate Explosion Carnival (or, why Shadow Orbs is lame) originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: Rogue glyphs in the Cataclysm beta

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we discuss the new glyph system and talk about which glyphs look good so far.

Back in the day, before Wrath was even released, I had incorrectly speculated that there would be three tiers of glyphs in the expansion. It was my very first post on WoW.com, and my mistake was clearly pointed out to me by some of the helpful commenters. It turns out that I was actually right -- it just took Blizzard a few years to get around to adding the extra tier of glyphs.

There are now three types of glyph: prime, major and minor. Prime glyphs aren't necessarily fun; they just buff us. Major glyphs are sort of the utility glyphs that give us a measurable benefit, but they're not necessarily mandatory. Minor glyphs are just for fun things that make our lives easier. Luckily for us, many of the new Cataclysm glyphs are available on the beta, complete with the shiny new glyph interface. While scribes may be complaining about their business models going out the window, I'm busy drooling over some of the new glyph options we have available.

Continue reading Encrypted Text: Rogue glyphs in the Cataclysm beta

Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text

Encrypted Text: Rogue glyphs in the Cataclysm beta originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Totem Talk: Restoration glyphs

Filed under: RestoGlyph, Restoration Glyph, RestorationGlyph, Shaman Glyph, ShamanGlyph, class-help, featured, glyph, glyphs, guide, guide-to-shamans, resto, resto glyph, restoration, restoration-shaman, shaman-guide, shaman-info, shaman-talents, talent, talents, world-of-warcraft-class-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, wow-class-guide, wow-class-help, wow-guide, wow-shaman, wow-shaman-info, wow-talent-guide — WoW.com @ 1:00 am

Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration will show you how, brought to you by Joe Perez, otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and the For The Lore podcast

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Last week, we went over some blue posts about healing and restoration shaman, as well as a small discussion of the difference in Healing Waves. We also had news of a new beta build last week, and with that build came the news of brand new glyphs for many or the classes like rogues and shaman, as well as the new glyph system.

Some of the glyphs we use regularly have been updated, as well as some people may not have really given much thought to using. There has even been a return of some that were scrapped in the Wrath of the Lich King beta phases prior to its release. Some of these may offer game-changing, play-altering effects to our mechanics, while others just add a fun flavor to our classes. So what can we look forward to with restoration shaman glyphs in Cataclysm? That is exactly what I would like to talk about this week.

Continue reading Totem Talk: Restoration glyphs

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Totem Talk: Restoration glyphs originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shifting Perspectives: Notes from bizarro world

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we squint at a series of notes scattered around our computer.

So there's a weird new bug on the beta causing people to disconnect whenever they hit a 5-man. I first realized this was happening around the time I finished a laborious sketch of what to expect in Stonecore to a group that hadn't yet seen the dungeon. I assigned group marks, went over mob abilities and gave a detailed explanation of how to handle the first boss. Around the time I finished this triumph of 5-man leadership, I noticed that everyone in the group had gone eerily silent. Moments later, they were -- to a man -- revealed to be offline.

Readers, I cried.

Crazy. But the disconnect bug is pretty common right now. As a reflection of the disjointed and surreal experience that is dungeoneering on the beta, you will find a collection of notes below that I've scribbled over the last week. I'm still not having a great time healing, but tanking's gotten better, and there's a wonderful bug with Ravage that I have thus far managed to avoid reporting in the forlorn hopes that it will stick around.

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: Notes from bizarro world

Filed under: Druid, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives

Shifting Perspectives: Notes from bizarro world originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lichborne: Death knight beta diaries, part 4: Two-handed frost and other beta minutae

Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly source for news, guides, tips and opinions on the death knight class.

In the latest beta patch, Blizzard was so kind as to bump the level cap up to 85, in addition to opening Uldum and Twilight Highlands, the last two major leveling zones in the expansion. Unfortunately, neither zone is itemized, but more on that later. In my testing this past week, I've delved in the long-dead, dormant spec of two-handed frost. The spec was officially killed off (at least in the sense of having competitive DPS) in the latter part of Wrath, when Blizzard decided to make frost the official spec of dual wielding. However, with the advent of Cataclysm, that is changing. With blood becoming a dedicated tanking tree, it left unholy as the only two-handed weapon tree. Recognizing that some players might dislike the pet-tending aspect of unholy, Blizzard decided to support two-handed weaponry in the frost tree once again.

That said, deciding to support it and succeeding at it are two different things, and in addition, there seems to be a lot of people who are still confused as to whether or not Blizzard plans to support it. You can put your mind at ease now though. Very recently, Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) confirmed that, yes, Blizzard is supporting the two-handed weapon playstyle for the frost tree.

Continue reading Lichborne: Death knight beta diaries, part 4: Two-handed frost and other beta minutae

Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

Lichborne: Death knight beta diaries, part 4: Two-handed frost and other beta minutae originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scattered Shots: Camouflage

Filed under: camouflage, cataclysm-beta-hunter, cataclysm-hunter, class-help, featured, guide, guide-to-hunters, hunter-camouflage, hunter-guide, hunter-info, hunter-talents, talent, talents, world-of-warcraft-class-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, wow-class-guide, wow-class-help, wow-guide, wow-hunter, wow-hunter-info, wow-hunters, wow-talent-guide — WoW.com @ 6:00 pm

Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim.

The level cap in the Cataclysm beta has been raised up to level 85, which means that we finally get to have a look at our badass level 85 ability: Camouflage. While it's true that this is primarily a PvP ability, it does not in any way disappoint. It looks amazing. It works even more amazingly, granting us more than we had ever imagined based only on the description.

You can only enter Camouflage while out of combat. It lasts a minute and has a 1-minute cooldown. When you're standing still, it is stealth. When you're moving, it's sweet-looking awesomeness. You can target someone moving in Camouflage, but you cannot cast any spell at him. Camouflage makes you immune to ... just about everything. You can't be tracked, your nameplate doesn't show up, you aren't affected by AoE, fears, mass dispels. If you attack, you leave Camouflage. If you take damage -- say, from a DoT ticking -- you leave Camouflage. Everything else you're are safe from, as long as you aren't fighting.

The video gives a pretty good preview both of how Camouflage looks, and how the mechanics of it work. Enjoy!

[Update: Question: would a rogue be willing to give up Stealth -- and all its associated combos and benefits -- for Camouflage? If they answer is yes, then I'll agree that this is OP, otherwise nerf the rogue first.]

[2nd Update: Please keep personal attacks out of the comments! You can disagree with someone's point without insulting the person. Instead, stick to the point.]

Scattered Shots is dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. See the Scattered Shots Resource Guide for a full listing of vital and entertaining hunter guides, including how to improve your heroic DPS, understand the impact of skill vs. gear, and getting started with Beast Mastery 101 and Marksman 101.

Filed under: Hunter, (Hunter) Scattered Shots

Scattered Shots: Camouflage originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Spiritual Guidance: Shield spam and Divine Aegis, a theorycrafting story

Filed under: aegis, class-help, crit, divine-aegis, featured, guide, guide-to-priests, haste, preist-info, priest-guide, priest-talents, talent, talents, theorycraft, theorycrafting, throughput, world-of-warcraft-class-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, wow-class-guide, wow-class-help, wow-guide, wow-priest, wow-priest-info, wow-priests, wow-talent-guide, zusterke — WoW.com @ 1:00 am

In the beginning there were priests. Then Blizzard said "Let there be other classes!" Things have been a lot more complicated ever since. Fortunately, there is Spiritual Guidance, WoW.com's bi-weekly guide for priests. On Sundays you can enjoy discussion on discipline, holy, and healing in the company of Dawn Moore. We don't have cookies here, but only because we call them biscuits, and serve them with tea, sandwiches, and scones. Did you want one lump, or two?

A couple of months ago I found myself talking to a non-priest about the gems I had slotted on my character. He was of the understanding that disc priests wanted nothing but crit, and thought it was strange that I had gemmed straight spellpower on all my gear. Figuring he was behind on the times, I happily explained to him that I was using the standard gem set up for shield spamming disc priests, which works around the premise that if the majority of what we do is cast shields, then we should stack as much spellpower as possible in order to make our most used spell (Power Word: Shield) absorb more. This is the standard practice advised to shield spammers throughout the priest community, and I've advised it here on Spiritual Guidance before as well.

The non-priest still didn't understand though. He kept insisting "but crit ..." which inclined me to gently stroke back his hair and say "there there, poor little confused non-priest, it's all right." I allowed him his dignity though, and instead went on with my explanation. I told him that alternative stats like crit and haste didn't do much for shield spamming since Power Word: Shield can't crit, and Borrowed Time removes the necessity for haste since the talent carries us down to the 1 second GCD soft cap whenever we cast Power Word: Shield. The non-priest still didn't understand, so I explained to him that a disc priest's primary interest in crit was Divine Aegis, a talent which applies a second shield whenever one of your spells crits. "But shields don't crit," I reiterated. "The heal from the Glyph of Power Word: Shield can, but that would only add say ... 500 extra absorption from Divine Aegis. The spellpower is still better."

As I typed out those last words, they boomeranged back and hit me square in the face. Startled, I peeled the sans serif off my nose and and reexamined the limp letters in my hands. Suddenly I wondered, "is that really true?"

Continue reading Spiritual Guidance: Shield spam and Divine Aegis, a theorycrafting story

Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance

Spiritual Guidance: Shield spam and Divine Aegis, a theorycrafting story originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Why is the mana gone?

Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we discuss the future of mana regeneration for holy paladins.

When you play WoW on a beta server, you accept that there's going to be a lot of bugs. There's the stacking modifier that doesn't actually stop stacking, and you're left with retribution and protection paladins swinging for 5-digits with every attack. I'll admit that I felt a bit guilty when I one-shot someone with a thirty-thousand damage Avenger's Shield. There's also the programmer who accidentally misplaced the decimal in another spell, letting Crusader Aura grant us 600% mounted movement speed. Even with some of these glaring issues present, it's our job to ignore the urge to exploit and to continue working on testing balance and content. Well, it's our job to only gank a few people at the teleport NPCs and to then get moving to test balancing. Well, maybe more than a few. Well, maybe all of them.

Anyway, Blizzard unveiled its most comprehensive patch to the beta last week. It contained a ton of changes to paladins, and specifically there were a lot of holy paladin talent changes. While some of these edits are positive, like the new Denounce and Exorcism changes which FINALLY give us a spammable ranged attack, others are fairly grim. I'm talking about the complete removal of Illumination and the ruination of Divine Plea. They're both toast.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Why is the mana gone?

Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

The Light and How to Swing It: Why is the mana gone? originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Totem Talk: Enhancement beta update

Axes, maces, lightning, Windfury and wolves. It can mean only one thing: enhancement. Rich Maloy lives it and loves it. His main spec is enhance. His off-spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance, and leads the guild Big Crits (Week 13 now live!)as the enhancement shaman Stoneybaby.

It's been a few weeks since my last beta post. I feel like I'm back in grammar school at good ol' St. Louise de Marillac, "forgive me readers, it's been four weeks since my last beta post. Since then I've been mean to my guild, and I tried to kill my own priest." In game priest, in game! I can't wait to read the letters to the editor about that slip up. Oh well, at least I didn't use the word "casual."

Moving right along to important topics that everyone cares about: beta changes for enhancement shamans! Well, I suppose "everyone" excludes people that are not interested in beta spoilers. Great, two paragraphs in and I've already offended Catholics, priests, and people not interested in beta spoilers. Look on the bright side: at least I didn't use an offensive font this week!

If you are interested in the latest beta changes as they relate to enhancement shamans then please read on. Please note that beyond this point, this post will not further offend your good, wholesome middle Azerothian sensibilities.

Continue reading Totem Talk: Enhancement beta update

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Totem Talk: Enhancement beta update originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Arcane Brilliance: Mage AoE in Cataclysm, part 1

Filed under: AoE, aoe-change, aoe-dps, arcane-explosion, blizzard, cat-beta, cata-beta, cataclysm-aoe, cataclysm-aoe-change, cataclysm-beta, cataclysm-game, cataclysm-guide, cataclysm-news, class-help, cone-of-cold, curtain-of-frost, expansion, expansion-three, featured, guide, guide-to-mages, i-hate-warlocks, ice-shards, improved-cone-of-cold, mage-aoe, mage-guide, mage-info, mage-talents, next-xpac, piercing chill, talent, talents, third-expansion, wall-of-fog, world-of-warcraft-beta, world-of-warcraft-cataclysm, world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-beta, world-of-warcraft-class-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, wow-4.0, wow-4.0.2, wow-beta, wow-cataclysm, wow-cataclysm-beta, wow-class-guide, wow-class-help, wow-expansion, wow-expansion-beta, wow-guide, wow-mage, wow-mage-info, wow-mages, wow-talent-guide, wow-third-expansion — WoW.com @ 7:00 pm

It's time again for Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column known for its special five-alarm chili recipe. It's a delicate blend of three different conjured beans, spiced up with Fireballs, Scorches, and slow-cooked over a smoldering Flamestrike, loaded with lamb, bacon, and the occasional roasted monkey, glazed with a dusting of Frostfire, then lit aflame with a Pyroblast. And the secret ingredient? Warlock tears.

If there's one thing mages have been known for during the course of this fine game we all play, it's mass murder. We have at our disposal a wide array of spells that wreak havoc over a large area, perhaps more so than any other class. When it comes to killing things in large numbers, mages are remarkably adept. It's a role we embrace wholeheartedly.

AoE has evolved quite since the inception of the game. In vanilla WoW, AoE was a great way to get yourself killed in an instance, a method of attack that was mostly limited to solo farming and certain trash pulls. These days, with the ability tanks have to hold multiple mobs with relative ease, AoE has morphed into the go-to way to deal with multiple-mob pulls of all shapes and sizes. Crowd control has gone the way of Wand Specialization; it simply isn't required in most situations in Wrath.

Cataclysm is bringing with it some fairly sweeping changes to the way we utilize our AoE repertoire. The developers have stated their intention to return us to a time when we actually had to worry about things like crowd control and pull-sizes, and though we're not reverting completely, pulls on the beta certainly feel more like vanilla or Burning Crusade pulls than anything we saw in Wrath. Join me after the break and we'll go over how our AoE spells will work in this coming era.

Continue reading Arcane Brilliance: Mage AoE in Cataclysm, part 1

Filed under: Mage, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance, Cataclysm

Arcane Brilliance: Mage AoE in Cataclysm, part 1 originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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wowguidelist.com

September 8, 2010

Spiritual Guidance: Dinosaur Pirate Explosion Carnival (or, why Shadow Orbs is lame)

Encrypted Text: Rogue glyphs in the Cataclysm beta

Totem Talk: Restoration glyphs

Shifting Perspectives: Notes from bizarro world

September 7, 2010

Lichborne: Death knight beta diaries, part 4: Two-handed frost and other beta minutae

September 6, 2010

Scattered Shots: Camouflage

Spiritual Guidance: Shield spam and Divine Aegis, a theorycrafting story

September 5, 2010

The Light and How to Swing It: Why is the mana gone?

Totem Talk: Enhancement beta update

September 4, 2010

Arcane Brilliance: Mage AoE in Cataclysm, part 1