Archive for the 'Shadow Priests' Category

Healing is not fun.

Merry Christmas!

Hope Santa was good to you.   My mother told me long ago that Santa only comes to people who believe in him,  so since I believe in any man that delivers…

 

Yes I have been quite on the blog front, but I’m not down and out.  Just needed to find the meaning of fun again, which is kind of funny considering Wow is  a game.

I was trying to pin point the reason for my malady, and I have come to the conclusion that I am having healing issues.  I do not like healing holy at the moment.

Dislike. Detest. Hate. Abhor.

It’s been ok when I know the tank, but pug tanks, pug dps – its a pain.    Some we will be fine on  and we will even complete the dungeon,  others multi wipes on the 1st boss.

It is against the core of a healers mindset to let people stay at half health. Must fill up health bar!

It has been a great source of frustration for me, and I can never tell when its my fault,  or someone elses.

Eg if the tank dies in Grim Batol because the dps didn’t kill / cc  the Malignant trog then its my fault for not healing the tank through the damage, because otherwise the rest of the party would need to know the consequences of that trogg causing a  damage taken increase to the tank.  A tank just sees his health going down. The Dps just sees the tank dieing and them getting agro. It’s quite easily the healers fault.

“I hope your better than the last priest” says one group.

” the two druid healers before you sucked”  said another

I got into a cat fight with a dps when I suggested that ” Maybe the party was taking too much damage for the healers to heal”  the freshly dinged and cheating to 329 ilevel dps told me to ” get out of his instance” for suggesting he was bad.  it got a little heated and ” I told him to die in a fire..  oh wait  he already was.. ”  my fault for baiting, but I felt obliged to defend the healers that had come before me and suffered.  It was funny cause that dps then made an alt on my server  – to wait….  apologize – other people I know get people making alts on their servers to troll them or say nasty things. I get an apology.

I can’t see how a healer in this expansion could be lazy.  Sure we make mistakes, or bad choices.  I shouldnt have tried to cast a 2.7 sec heal when I have a  1.3 flash but panic healing is gonna run me oom.

The majority of my successes have been with friends – where I get to dps 🙂  I’m finally in better gear – with much lesser mana issues , and just really need the rep pieces now.  I’m not touching the crafted pieces because  I don’t believe that they are a significant upgrade, and in some cases of lesser stats then other pieces available, and wtf is with the +10 mastery stat gem socket bonus on the crafted dps belt, and where are the healing crafted legs. Not on the vendor.

I had planned on healing more in Cata – but I think my offspec  shall be Shadow Pvp untill I overgear the mana issues for the heroic content.

I get the choosing the right spell  for the damage being taken.  I get choosing to prioritize  targets  I get the need to balance cool downs like Chakras and serendipity,  – and balancing using mana pots and whatnot  but this mana business.  Why make the healers job even more stressful

Cata was supposed to wake dps up a little,  that you can’t just faceroll the content and frack up because the healer or tank will save you,  it hasn’t woken them up,  it’s just shifted the blame entirely on the healer.  We can’t output enough heals to cover up bad.

Of course it’s different with people you know.   The people I run with have a no pug policy – they get people they know – heroics are done with everyone on vent.

Why do I still pug? – I want the freedom to run stuff when I want to.  I like pugs, you learn new strats,  get lessons in patience, and understanding, get challenged in different ways, but it’s getting bad trying to run  them.  I don’t have the heart anymore.

 

 

The 3 P’s

Patch

The patch has really thrown me off kilter. My toons are strangers.   I have 5 80’s on 3 different realms, two  are priests so it’s was a little easier sorting the 2nd one out, but I am happy with my Shadow and 2 holy specs between them.  I reforged 2 pieces on my Shadow Priest, lost some hit for Haste, and I am at 17.8 hit now.  I only need 17%

Hunter and Mage I just went duhhhhhhhhhh  smacked around a test dummy, and went this is is too complicated.

I use Vuhdu as my Raid Frames,  all my healers click to heal, I tend to look at health bars anyway so I have ingeniously set up my mend pet on my hunter as a click on the  pet bar raid frame, I will expand on this idea of other things I can stick on there like some more pet commands. I am a bad hunter in that I don’t care about my pet’s health as often as I should. This should make more aware.

Warrior is still sitting there waiting to be logged into. She scares me the most.  The tanks I have been healing have lost their smoothness, the confidence, the control – I am sure it will all come back,  but I didn’t so much have those qualities before the world got turned upside down. So I am not ready for her again. Yet.

There were so many things missing from my bars.  Food, pots, flasks, hearth stone. Like. WHY! * hunts rounds bags to find them all again. I am still missing spaces on all my toons, and I am thinking crap – what am I missing.

I don’t like Bging at this moment. I feel weak, and even wearing 1.2 resil – getting cut down way too quickly.  I am dispelling more in BG’s for now, there seems to be more to dispel, and people are dying to easily to dispellable things. I am liking healing holy for now though as I am able to pump out heals pretty quickly,  ( as long as I am resilenced up )  mana regen seems ok  or maybe I am just dying more before I get OOM.

Yeah for saving 5k on already having 310 flying – I had my Ulduar and ICC drakes on my main,

I am working on getting my 4k justice points,  1k to go and I dragged a poor friend through Heroics last night who was confused why I would be needing so many ‘badges’. I am hoping it will give me some advantage come Cata since they will still be rewarding JP points for the normal 80-85 runs.

Pugging

It burns. I am hurting.  I am tired of my soul being separated from my body after dying from the most stupidest things. I haven’t finished a TOC on Proudmoore yet.  ( insert random things pugs do to fail ) I think most issues could have been resolved with better communication and a little more patience. I would rather 2 extra min highlighting important parts of a fight,  then a wipe. I don’t care if you have your achievement.  It probably means you got it dead on the floor anyway.  Though vent as a communication channel in a bad pug is as bad as no vent in a bad pug.  Very hard to take a RL in ICC serious when he is stoned.  Though he did offer to let me take over RL  if I ” kept talking”  This was kind of funny because the girl who told the raid  that she was ” Blonde – hot – with a great butt” got less attention then me who congratulated someone on getting Trauma.  Next time I take it over. I swear if it means we actually get further I will raid lead. No more interjecting with small suggestions like kill the spikes – or waiting for the RL to finish slurring his so-called strat.  Lets see who I can pee off by being a pushy bossy chick because at this rate I don’t think I could  make it any worse.

I have a baby resto druid I am leveling through LFG. Lobie LFG’s are a bit like a DND dungeon – it doesn’t matter what your role is,  if you rolled a higher initiative then the tank you go first. I offered to stop healing a pesky tanking mage  – tank said to let him pull, so I worked twice as hard keeping the mage and the tank up. Thankfully the mage had to stop occasionally for mana. Another tank in stockades asked for a little patience because this was new to him.  He got it, and he learned from the experience.

A rogue critiqued my healing ” Why did I die”  he asked ‘ Maybe it was the 6 mobs you agro’d running ahead.”  I said ” Maybe it was cause I got no heals”  he said. So I told him ” I can’t heal through stupidit”  ” You can’t spell”

/sigh ( I was typing too fast!) It doesn’t matter what you say or even if you are right, it’s how you spell it!

I like my druid. Maybe because she’s a lobie, I get to learn her slowly.  I think too much time has passed between playing my mage and hunter regularly, so I don’t know them at all. Losing most of my buttons off my bars  didn’t help.  Since when do mages have mana gems? ( Jokes. Kinda. I sorta did forget.)

I did a  couple of gnomer  runs and taught the first group where to jump.   2nd party didn’t need instruction they just did it, and of course, mage and hunter pets were not dismissed and we wiped.

Releasing before combat ends in some instances means for what ever reason, intended or not that you  rez at the graveyard with hardly any health.  This seems like a lot of potential fun   nuisance on a pvp realm.

Priesting

I might be going holy in Cata.  I love shadow, and I will always have an offspec, but I always feel more wanted as holy. I know I should play what  I have the most fun playing,  but fun is  also seeing content, it’s killing things, it’s not dying, and half my problems and stress as a dps disappear when stuff like killing adds is no longer my problem at all, and if the DPS don’t get the healers out of things like spikes then they die, and being just another dps isn’t special. Especially when dps now seems so much more just that  they are damage dealers.  They just damage with different pictures on different buttons, where as a healer you enable people to do damage no matter what picture is on their buttons.

It’s not as often a healer links their metres to boast. Mostly because less people care about healer epeen,  ( though I know healers do also have egos) and stuff like overheals, and dispels can be linked as counterarguments anyway. Everyone else is being distracted by their DPS epeen.

I have been playing Shadow ever since I left my first kara guild, and I learned that the Shadow /Disc spec I was in was bad for my dps, and I upset them by saying – “I’m not spec’d right – I don’t want to be your spirit buff ho anymore” I have casually raided as holy, but I haven’t changed my mains as people do,  but I love the priest class.   It’s under my skin.  Maybe it is time to change to heals.

Getting Dressed now takes 6 Buffs.

Shadow Form in the Victorian times

Firstly there will always be something to complain about.  Nerf – Buff – Change  you will never please everyone  all the time.

One of the changes to Shadow Priests in  3.3  was making Vampiric Embrace a buff.

  • Vampiric Embrace: This talent 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.
  • I now had a justification to set up Power aura’s for my priest.  I could set it for inner fire, and now the Vampiric Embrace buff. To make sure I had it on me all the time.

    Remember in Bg’s in the good old days before they had the mana-free buff period. I would lose half my mana before stepping out of the graveyard – sure  I can fit in the more mana expensive ones when rebuffing after a death in a bg,  however,

    Now It takes 6 buffs with global cooldowns to get out of that graveyard.

    Fort,  Spirit, Shadow Protection, Shadow Form, Inner fire, and now Vampiric embrace.  This seems like an excessive lot of time to get dressed after dying.

    Of course I don’t need to wear all those buffs  I am sure I could neglect a few layers of ‘clothing’  but the buffs are what give us that little extra survivability – they make up our identity as a spec and a class.

    Mages have the issue somewhat – but what other class and spec has  6 buffs to put on before doing anything?

    Ulduar Cheat Sheet for Shadow Priests.

    Clipboard01

    Disclaimer:  This what I do.  Some people will do things differently,  but these are some of the things that you may not have thought of doing.  First  rule is  do what your instructed to do by your raid leader. eg if you are told to kill adds –  kill the adds.  Don’t just DPS the boss ” I can’t dps the add’s because it lowers my dps onthe boss” I quote someone from a raid I have been in.  That’s just lazy.   Second rule:  Do as much damage as possible using all your tools – this means.  LOVE your mindsear.  Use it where practical.

    Flame Leviathon :

    Hostile entities detected. Threat assessment protocol active. Primary target engaged. Time minus thirty seconds to re-evaluation

     Besides using the Vehicles and standard strats for the Vehicles.  Shadow Priests are good choices to get thrown up on on top of the Leviathon.  We can sheild – which reduces the push back from the damage you get up there, we can also Shield/heal the other person taking down the turrets with us. Any healing hybrid  dps will  work.   I’ve had to spend less time taking down turrets and healing/shielding  some of my more squish- er counterparts like mages.  If your counterpart is in the same group as yourself, your VE healing not only helps you, but them as well. I do like it when there is another class up there with me that can look after their own health.    When you get thrown  off shield yourself, and start hoping that someone picks you up rather quickly or leviathon will one shot you.    Marking the people getting thrown up, and the Vehicles they belong to works very well in getting you back on the horse.  Call out where you will land so the bikes can pick you up faster.   Worse case and no one comes to rescue you,  dispersion will help you survive for an extra 6 seconds,  which can be just enough time to get rescued.

    Ignis

    Insolent whelps! Your blood will temper the weapons used to reclaim this world!

    This is a pretty standard fight for Shadow Priests.  Be extra careful about flame jets, and stop casting.  Unlike other classes,  if we get spell locked,   that’s all our offensive spells in Shadow form.  Its a waste of time and mana dropping Shadow and trying to Smite as Holy – the spell lock will be over  but its still a significant period of time ( 8 secs)  so don’t get spell locked.  If I get slagged pot I make it a habit to hit Disperse to reduce my Damage.  I trust my healers to heal my through it, but you should be helping yourself where possible.  This was especially useful when were learning Ignis because  healing assignments and load hadn’t been quite worked out, and Dispersion ensured I survived.

    Razorscale

    Expedition Engineer yells:Ready to move out, keep those dwarves off of our backs!”

    Watchers need to die first, then Guardians,   ( Sentinels require Immediate attention if they come up – as per strats) but there is nothing stopping you from dotting as much as possible, and when you can mindsear for max damage.  Use a Guardian as your target so you are damaging the watchers. 

    When Razorscale comes down  make sure you use your fiend.  You should be at that point where you should be using it anyway,  but save it for Razorscale.  The cool down should come up about the same time as the 2nd landing of Razorscale where you need to get his health low enough for a permanent landing. As extra DPS the fiend is quite useful – I think the most damage I ever got out of it was during a Heroism for about 48k damage. For a little thing with a short life it can pack a punch.   So even if you don’t need mana,  if there is no massive mana drain going on.  Use it every opportunity.

    XT-002

    “New toys? For me? I promise I won’t break them this time! “

    We have had quite a few shots at Heartbreaker on XT – trying to Max dpsonthe heart which I find difficult to do without all my dots up, and those precious seconds in global cool downs means less DPS. When we were chasing Heartbreaker I played around with adding Shadow Word death back into my Spell rotation trying to push out as much damage as possible.  It didn’t make a huge difference,  but with the lash-back damage being reduced  when your pushing the timer  it can be easier to use it as an instant cast  then trying to fit one more Mind blast in.  Make sure if you are attempting heartbreaker  use Wild Magic Pots, and make sure you use your fiend again.    Having Devouring Plague recast-able has come in handy because I don’t need to wait for a cool down to put it on the heart when it comes out. 

    If you are doing it normal,  then I still find the heart  the best time to use the fiend because its up long enough for the fiend to get a good work out . 

    When the waves of adds come  – Shadow Priest AOE is very useful especially combined with any slowing effects from hunters and mages.   pew pew pew.   Do it from a distance so that you don’t get hit by a bomb.  

    Assembly Of Iron

    ‘You will not defeat the Assembly of Iron so easily, invaders!”

    Both guilds I have been in for Assembly of Iron have used the Shadow Priests as their dispellers on the tank tanking Steelbreaker for when he casts Fusion Punch.  I made the mistake of using decursive for one fight and that extra second delayed reaction time caused a tick of Fusion punch.  I then got 5 people whispering me asking me if I knew what I was doing.  Conventional or not I make the tank I’m dispelling  my Focus and stick Dispel magic on my 1 key.   When Fusion punch is about to cast you need to stop dps.  You should not be in a global cool down of casting when your dispelling  fusion punch.  It doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to do your normal dps, but when Fusion punch thats the most important thing in the world.  When its being cast I select the tank and mash my 1 button.  It works.  As for the rest of the fight  its pretty standard.  Stand in blue circles when you can.  Avoid Runes of death.   If your doing normal and get Stormcaller’s lightening tentacles too close hit disperse.   Its damage you can avoid, and healers will not even notice you did something stupid and got too close.  

    If you are doing medium mode and Runemaster Molgeim is the last alive.  When he opens up a Rune of Summoning and those little voidy  type creatures pop out  – your Mindsear is useful Aoe.  They don’t have long lives but they need to die.  It doesn’t matter how, as long as they die quick, and you can help there.

    I haven’t done hardmode with Steelbreaker the last alive,  but I imagine it will be a rather stressful fight for the dispeller. ><

    Kologarn

     “None shall pass!”

    I stand as far left as possible  ( near the right arm)  People near the door seem to get his Eyebeam just a little bit more.  This is also an excellent position for killing the right arm and the adds that Spawn under where the right arm was.   When we were doing the achievement where you took turns killing the arms I found my extreme left position hard to reach the adds under the left arm when they spawn but on normal,  right arm gets killed – left arm is last so my position puts me in an ideal position for massive use of Mindsear. ( I love my Aoe…) 

    Kill the right arm – When it’s dead as the Add tank is getting agro I throw a few  dots onto Kologarn – that gives the add tank plenty of time.  Then Mindsear to your hearts content.   Rinse repeat.  ( Fade when you can because those adds can be a little slippery.)  Throw your fiend in as much as possible ( it all helps)  

    Auriaya

    “Some things are better left alone!”

    Don’t forget your fear ward.  Regardless of what other fear mitigation is already in your raid.  There is nothing funnier then watching all your raid run off in terror ,  and your standing there alone.  My first Ulduar guild used our 3 Shadow priest’s fear ward on rotation on a rogue so that they were always able to interrupt her, but if you haven’t been directed to use it on anyone,  use it on yourself.    Try and cast it on you before you engage so you get more uses of it’s 3 min cooldown.

    My Deadly bossmods tells me just before the Swarming Guardians appear.  As soon as they appear using  Auriaya as your mindsear target  this happens…. you kill them all on the metres.  ( Except that pally.. darn him!)

    Catlady

    Rest of fight is standard.

    Mimiron

    Oh, my! I wasn’t expecting company! The workshop is such a mess! How embarrassing! <grumbles>

    Nothing to special here. Stay away from bombs & rockets!  Dps your required targets  – I find the best time to use Dispersion to get some mana back is when he  does Laser Barrage your normally moving anyway, and its extra protection..  but you should be quick enough to not get hit!  In the Last phase it doesn’t hurt to dot up each of his three sections as long as their health isn’t too low.  Keep an eye on the health levels and you can usually be aware enough to know when to switch.

    Freya

    The Conservatory must be protected!

    Do your thing.  Stand under Mushrooms.  Kill the trees  – be mindful of each of  the health levels of Ancient Water spirit, Snaplasher and Storm Lasher when they spawn.  If your not given a target I dot up all of them, then work my way through them on what ever one needs more dps.   When it comes to Detonating Lasher phase you should all be grouped up on Freya.  Target Freya to use your mindsear,  because its important that the Dentonating Lashers get dpsed as evenly and quickly as possible it wouldn’t do to have one higher in health because we all know that our target takes no damage from mindsear

    Thorim

    “I remember you… In the mountains… But you… what is this? Where am– “

    I am normally in the Arena for this fight  and you need to be so careful of agro.  Everyone should be bunched up in the circle.  Do not leave it, your pallys/Dk’s should be holding agro with their Aoe Agro  but this will only catch the ones in the centre,  you can steal agro of the mobs running in.   We single target Evokers and Champions – Have a target macro set up because you may not be able to see much, anditmakes it easier to find and dot them.   Its tempting to just Aoe the arena with mindsear.  Resist.  Your Dps may not get as high,  but you will survive longer.   If I do Aoe,  I only do it when my fade is on cooldown, and there aren’t too many mobs.  If your Aoe hits the mobs your tanks haven’t picked up then a champion will one shot you.      Once Thorim hits the ground  leave the circle and you can Aoe the remaining adds with no argo problems.  Stay out of every-ones way for the rest of the fight and  live!

    Hodir

    “You will suffer for this trespass”

    On intial agro, we free all the iceblocked npc’s, I dot a few of them then finish them up. 

    People like using Shadow Priests as dispellersoffreeze for this fight too, even if they don’t there is no excuse for not getting yourself out of a freeze.  It would get very confusing.   Trying to  stand near a fire, and in a white beam ect ec dispel people from freeze while trying not to get more then 2 stacks of biting cold and avoiding ice shards and flashfreeze and freeing mages after a flash freeze. I used to feel like a chicken with its head cut off.  Dps went out the window. Dots would fall off.  When they don’t make me dispel ( the hard modes trying to him down before he shatters his Cache ) Dps near a fire, and in a moonbeam as often as possible.  

    General Vezax

    “Your destruction will herald a new age of suffering!”

    I hate this fight as I am sure most classes with Mana will do.    Most of your casting is done on the remains of a Shadow Crash, but your competing with all the other classes who will want to clamour to get in as much dps as possible which increases the chances of getting another shadow crash ontopofyou, or a life drain that goes to the boss.   Only our healers are allowed to stand on the Saranite vapours,  so there is no mana regen for the dps.   ( though I did see a healer on our shadow crash the other night…  ) If you have mana at the end of the fight you are doing it wrong.  If you have it try and use it by the end of the fight  otherwise its wasted dps.  Obviously its better to Dps when on a Shadow Crash Aura  –  but if there isn’t any near you and he is about to die cast.

    Make sure you have your wand’s Shoot button handy, as you will be using it often.   Its  manafree, and  it beats you standing there doing nothing.   If you want to get more shadow Crashes I find hanging out near the warlocks helps.  They seem to get more crashes thrown at them because of their higher burst.    Avoid shielding, and if you do cop damage use your bandages  ( remember those… )  don’t forget your Fiend is melee! – You won’t get mana back, but he will do additional damage, but never enough to take argo, so use it on cooldown.

    Yogg

    Sara yells: Let hatred and rage guide your blows!

    I have a special dispel spec for this fight as I’ve talked about before  on my post Smacking Ghophers on the head so I am by actions ( and result) the main dispeller on this fight.   Its up to the raid how you want to use your Shadow priests,  but if your not dispelling,  ( or even if you are)  “More dots!”  Dot what you can.  Take down the Crushers, kill the constrictors and corrupters  ect ect ect.   Find quite moments to use your Disperse – like running to the next crusher,  or standing in a life well.   Do not use your fiendonCrushers when they are waving themselves around your fiend will die. Wait till a brain freeze then you can use your fiend on a crusher if that is your target.

    In the last phase I try and stand with my back to Yogg as much as possible, because I am dispelling alot more then DPSing.    I try as often as possible to dot up Yogg as well as the current targeted Immortant Gaurdian and keeping the dot ticking by refreshing with mindflay if I can.

    Mind Control is a Valid form of CC – I promise!

    Its annoying convincing people to let me use my Mindcontrol. I think sometimes they think I just want to muck around. I don’t think of it as reliable as a sheep or a trap, while its much like a Warlocks enslave it doesnt let the Mc’er do anything but stand there in a trance . “I’d rather you DPS” is the most common response, and are I am therefore passed over for other dpsers with better forms of CC – I do agree that given its limitations it can be a poor mans CC – but its saved hides in ZA and MT when I’ve done it.

    Depending on the situation/instance some positives can be
    1) It reduces the load off the tank if its a melee Target. ( gives the healer some breathing room)
    2) Your MC mob can try and tank another mob.
    3) It can stop them from healing other mobs therefore making them easier to kill.

    Sure its fun in a combat situation to grap someone with completely random abilities and read what they are before either throwing something, causing an AOE that breaks all the other cc’s or Blasts an enemy for a whole 300 damage. Randomly pressing buttons on your CC’d mobs spell bar does not help.

    and somtimes when it breaks you need to throw sheild up on yourself and pray to Elune that you can either re Mc or someone stun the target and try and give you a chance to drop agro. ( Try… HAHAHA )

    It does take practise – positioning and knowing what abilitys and target is best for you to use. You have limited spells to use, sometimes 2 – i think Ive seen 4 once. Some of these are fears, which can be bad  – So who picks what spells on a mob we get to play with eh ?

    Alot of the spells available to the Mindercontroller have extended cooldowns, so I end up meleeing on alot of them with casters, and find that they can melee alot more damage then cast.. eg in MgT and Botanica .  In addition they also have Mob only self buffs, so you can’t buff you, the mind controller,  and you have just buffed  the mob you have control over and that will make him harder to kill when the MC breaks. 

    Some have buffs that you can get, can be directed to buff yourself..  I will MC Ogre Shamans and get them to heal me when I’m in Shadow Form,  if farming for Basilisks I will visit the arakkoa and one of their casters gives you a Mana cost reduction spellbuff.  On the WOW Forums there is a Mind control fun thread Mind Control Funwhich gives more details on other people experiences.

    I mind control people in BG’s sometimes, the duration of the MC has been nerfed so its not as fun or effective, its hard to get the cast off without interruption and then and then when you do, avoiding any damage whatsoever so that you can actually force the person you have control over to do something like jump off a cliff.
    There isn’t much you can do to another player mindcontrolled. You have limited time and distance, and no spells. If you run them too far away they go out of range for the spell to work. They can also trinket out of it

    Most of the battle is convincing others that we can do it… but using mind control does require a bit more ‘planning’ and the understanding of the team that it may break.

    Night Elves Shadowmeld for Priests in Battlegrounds

    Ability Ambush.png

    • Shadowmeld (Racial)
    • Instant cast
    • Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until cancelled or upon moving. Night Elf Rogues and Druids with Shadowmeldare more difficult to detect while stealthed or prowling.

    Wow Insider recently talked about the usefullness of Shadow Meld in Arena.
    Advice for those with Drinking problemsand how if you can get out of combat ShadowMeld is very useful,
    Personally I’ve never been about to get out of combat in arena  so I’ve never used it for that because usually I’m dead by the time i get to use all my mana..  I have used it to confuse an another arena team,  If you can remain hidden  they can’t target you straight away, so your survival increases by 3 secs, as long as you have not entered combat. I’ve used it to hide under the bridge and sneak up behind the other team.

    Wowiki Shadowmeldsays that “You use it as a counter spell resource: as soon as you use it, spells cast made on you will be interrupted (only on PVP)” But I’m not quite sure how this works as Shadowmeld is not usable if you are in combat. You’d have to catch the spell as it was being cast, if it did work then it would useful against polymorphs in arena if it was the 1st spell cast so you weren’t in combat, and you managed to react in time. Those variables are too scarce for me for it to be viable.

    What I have found Shadowmeld useful for is if a target is running at you , and they see you as soon as they get off their mount they are going to attack. So hit Shadowmeld and you disappear, if they don’t have the ability to see hidden, or make you visible then they can’t target you.

    Shadowmeld makes great use for ‘suprise’ fears
    Its also useful for guarding flags in AB. Hug the flag pole and as a Priest or another class with a fear, eg Warriors, let them run up to the pole, and only when they start to click on the flag hit your fear.

    Shadowmeld can also be used in Eye of the storm to fool or trick the opposition into thinking a tower is an  an easy target. However, by going into stealth the ‘presence’ bar on EOS of a Node you are trying to take will stop registering that there is someone there, and can go backwards, so Only stealth at a node if your side has full control over it.

    You can use Shadowmeld in WSG if you are guarding the flag in the flag room. Its harder to time the fear in WSG because Fear only has an 8 yard range, and the opposition can pick up the flag with a single click, often I’ve found that I can’t fear them until after they have picked up the flag, and then its dot dot Mindflay trying to slow them down so others can get some attacks in. So stand in front of the flag, and as soon as they get near you fear them off.

    And in Av when Guarding a flag its useful for surprise fears.

    Its often a racial that people dismiss, and I would agree it certainly has more use at least for priests in a PVP context, if anything is good for freaking people out as the noise made when going into it sounds like a Rogues stealth.

    I’ve been doing alot more PVP hence more PVP orientated posts as I have not been raiding regularly.   I say Regularily because even though I’m officially permanently AFK  I have been pulled into several raids recently because they were down a Shadow Priest or a DPS.    Still not enough to make me change my mind, at least about 25 mans.   I might start venturing into ZA again soon, but I don’t want the guild confused that I am available for raiding again,  but if I pugged it It would be disprestful ect ect..   Its been good to actually “play” though.

    1272 + shadow and some new add ons.

    I’m sitting at 1272 +shadow Damage now.   I rejemed some gear with +9 Spell Damage Gems and Have been gradually replacing them with +12 from Badges.  I don’t want any more Badge Loot.  I want dem gems..

    I have good base +Shadow, and that Is without a single peice of loot from Hyjal or Black Temple.

    I also added Damage Metre because I had not seen a  published wws for weeks,  Damage metre told me how bad my DPS was.  We did a Kara Run, and I was being Out Dps’d  by a Holy priest that had respected shadow for kicks, ( but he was dying alot so the damage done in the end wasn’t much difference)   A lot of his gear was from off Spec rolls from ZA and fully enchanted  so he had some haste on me,  but I should have done better, 

    I think I had convinced myself that i had improved, I was getting raid invites, and my class leader had not said one single word to me.  The damage metres for the last 3 weeks of Hyjal and Black Temple were not published, so I had no idea how I was doing.   I didnt care that  I was first, I just wanted to see that that there was improvement.  Well alas,   some heroics and some advice from that Same Holy priest,  I have now installed Quartz.

    I have been fighting installing more add ons, and I know I’ve had people tell me to install Quartz before,  and I wish I had listened.  It shows the spell, and the lag.. and sometimes My lag is half the cast.  I’ve only been able to test it on Mobs I’ve been farming as I’ve not raided so far this week, but my dots are going up quicker, and i’m no longer waiting for my Mindblast cast to hit my Mindflay, and while Mobs aren’t really great way of testing my Dps they are falling quicker, I look forward to testing on the next boss, which will hopefully be Hyjal tomorrow night.

    I’ve also been watching the AFK posts on our Guild Forums, gradually people are decreasing their availablity, or taking extended breaks, some of its burn out, some of its just real life prorities,   we don’t have the summer Lag that others have talked about, because its winter in Oz. * sniffles with a Cold..

    And a shiver of reality hit me.

    Why do I bother trying to improve my gear when my plums from My DPS set, healing Set, and PVP set are all going to be outclassed as soon as WOTLK comes out? For the love of the game of course……

    I didnt hit 60 untill after BC so I wasnt effected by the pre BC burn out,  but I understand it now, because like everyone else,  I will roll a death Knight, for the heck of it, and I also will be leveling at least one toon to 80 ASAP – Just to experience the new end game content, and wear new gear, So the only thing my current gear will do for me, is make those first few levels easier to get, as I’m sure the greens and the blues and the plums are going to be SO much better then what you can get for 70 now, and given that we don’t seem to be getting any more Bank Space or Slots ( there would have to be bigger bags though…   surely.. ? what am I going to do with all my other gear.  Blow it up of course… the advantage of being an enchanter.

    Enough speculating on WOTLK – I will do that when it gets here, because I think the more you worry about whats comming next, the less you appreciate what your doing now, and thats the whole idea of it isnt it? To Play….. 

    Must do some Organised Retro runs on Pre BC content….

     

    20 Things you should know about Shadow Priests.

    1.Shadow Form gives us 15% More damage, and also 15% less Physical damage taken. ( hence we don’t like dropping out of it- and specific damage edited as recommended by Dwarfpriest)
    2.We can Mind control humanoids only: and they have a chance to break it and come running straight at us, its a less reliable Crowd control in my opinion, but its still useful, so don’t discount it
    3.We can Shackle Undead only – Shackle seems to be a longer lasting cc then Mindcontrol is, and some elites are either immune or break it earlier ( like in Kara)
    4.We can Cast Fear Ward as of 2.4 in Shadow form. It protects the caster for one fear, it only lasts 3 minutes, with a 3 min cool down. It used to be a holy spell but now is a Disp trained spell and available to all priests.
    5.We have Fortitude buff ( stamina Buff) A single – (personal) or Ghetto buff doesn’t require a reagent, but a group buff requires a Candle.
    6.We have Shadow Protection buff – Provides + 70 Shadow Protection – A group Buff will require a Candle as a reagent.
    7. Spirit Buff is only available if the priest specs that far into the Discipline tree. Spirit buff increases spirit as well as damage delt as a percentage of the targets spirit.
    8. We wear cloth only and therefore have very low armour. ( hence the use of Inner fire, which gives us increased armour for 20 charges, and then after 10 mins or we have been hit 20 times it needs to be renewed.
    9. We has Vampiric embrace: VE will return to the Priest and the party for a percentage of their shadow damage as a Heal. This is known as an Agro Bomb – and causes healing agro on top of our damage agro.
    10. Vampiric Touch: This returns 5% of our shadow damage as Mana to our Party. This is Great for healers and DPS casters like Warlocks who don’t have Mana regen.
    11. Shadow fiend – is a ‘pet’ that we can release and set on a target or it will attack what ever is attacking us. The damage it deals gives Shadow Priests back Mana. It has a cool down and I use it as an emergency ‘pot’
    12 We have no Area of effect Damage spells / enough said. /cry
    13 Healing: We can still heal, but we need to drop out of Shadow. As we are not specced for healing, we arent as effective as a Holy priest, but we have most of the healing spells and we can use at will. Including a group heal that heals all party members in range, as well as a Prayer of mending heal that Jumps from player to play for 5 times when damage is taken. Healing as shadow can be very mana intensive.. but as a emergency healer most Sp’s are happy to step up.
    14 Have shadow Weaving as a talent that stacks and increases shadow damage on a target. This effect is great for Warlocks as well.
    15 We can Rez – This takes us out of shadow form, but we can rez only out of combat, and our target will rez with significantly more Health and mana then Pally rez’s
    16 We can Mana Burn. Better in PVP – but there is often the odd boss or mob where a mana burn is better then Damage, we suck the mana, and does damage.
    17 We can sheild ourselves or others: The sheild protects you for Damage done on it, or for a time period. We can cast this shield on anyone in group/raid.
    18 We can Fear a target using Pychic Scream on up to 5 enemies.
    19 We have Mass dispell – which while mana intensive, is the only dispell that can dispell a Pally Bubble and a Mage’s Iceblock ( mwhahahahahah )
    And last of all….

    20. We make any Mount look cool – Whether we are flying or Riding – If we are in shadow form, so is the mount.

    Fly me to the moon - or at least the Isle..

    Vamp Embrace healing

    One of the things Ive been reading about on various blogs/forums is the extra threat from improved Vamp Embrace – I try and use it as often as possible because it heals me when i do Shadow Word Death and get damage backlash – it helps my group by working almost like a Hot on bosses that do Aoe, however some shadow Priests recommend that you lose improved vamp embrace on the talent tree because of the agro.

    But there are some fights where I shouldn’t theoretically be taking damage. Eg in the Trash in gruul’s lairso in order to reduce my argo I left VE off untill I was Using SWD – It seems to work – only got a random cleave once.

    The Gruuls fight when I was in CD we used to mark the healers so that when we are trying to get to a safe place for shatter we don’t land ontop of a healer.   VE is important for my group in this fight because of Shatter and the Rock falls. It also means Im free-er to Shadow Word Death more often because in between avoiding/taking damage you can DPS to your hearts content due to the high argo on the tank, I was managing my self preservation skills quite well in the last Gruuls fight

    Runaway from everyone and against a wall for shatter – Sheild and bandage / VE DPS / Healthstone during any Rockfall or shatter Damage.  I was sweet. The VE is good for my group,  aiding them in their self healing while the healers concentrate on the Tank  –  this worked well, untill Gruul was down to about 2% and some of the not so careful DPS had dropped off,  shatter is a dangerous one, if you are standing too close to one or multiple people the damage is amplified,   I had fallen back to a wall for Shatter protection and a mage blinks right into me. Just in time for the Shatter to hit. Luckily he died. Not Me.  I was fully healed,   but just lost 4.5 K because of his proximity.

    The argument from the raid leaders are that we should be at a level now ( or the healers at such a level) in that they do not need ‘help’ from VE and for the most is just overhealing, and I agree to a point,    but I don’t believe I should rely on a healer to heal me when I’ve just crited myself for 3k Damage on a shadow word death,  especially when VE in a Mana intensive/Tank requiring heal  encounter and its each man keeping himself up,  then VE is Very Nice.   No way is it leaving my talent tree.,

    Says My group on 1st Attempt on Tidewalker the other day” Awesome healing!  Especially after some of that Aoe.  Takes less pressure on the healers. and that os a good thing,

    A shortage of Healers

    We were going to do a raid last night,  but we didnt have enough healers on.  We had another Shadow priest who had respeced to Holy and had’nt changed back, and another healer who was in stitches ( literally) and was too ill to play.   So a 10 man was out of the question let alone a 25 man raid.  A newbie pipes up “Why don’t you recruit more healers.”  It wasn’t that the guild had a shortage of healers, it was just a shortage of healers on at that time.

    I’ve already decided that If I am ever to respec to Holy again, its going to be for a VERY good reason, and by Very it means deep Guild Loyalty, and the importance of the goal. The last time I respeced  was for 2 bosses we couldnt kill anyway with the current group makeup.  I agree there needs to be some flexibilty.  Thats why I have 1200+ healing gear.  I could never be the main healer of a serious raid with my Spec,  but even as shadow with that gear as long as I watch my mana  Im still a decent healer. I don’t need to respec, but they needed main healers..  not ‘support’ healers.  

    I had considered on several occasions going Holy once I got another toon up to ‘farm status’ and I’ve decided, Im not going to.  The hours Ive spent making Z a decent Shadow Priest,  I’d rather roll a healer. But the problem with healers is that everyone wants them,  but no one will support them.   I propose a healing  Levy for Healers.  Even with the +damage of 1/3 of healing in 2.3 I really can’t see a holy Priest knocking down mobs at anywhere near the rate a Shadow Priest can.  Yes there is a Disp Spec Priest, or a hyrid,  but I think its too much of a trade off on the other abilities, you can Heal and damage.. but you will never be great at either. 

    So what motivates people to stay healing? besides the love of healing.  Im looking at this from a being able to support ones self perspective.    Repairs are getting more expensive the better my gear is.  When I do gear up I need to spend a fortune on the best enchant/best Gem ect ect…  plus Pots ( have an Alt gearing up to fix that)

    But maybe a healer makes their money other ways Eg A Holy Priest with the right  Skills would make money off Alchemy or High Level Tailoring Items,  I make my money farming Spell food and water and Mana primals.  Im an enchanter, and Ive just dropped engineering for Tailoring,  ( but thats more for my Alts 1st Plum set when she hits 70) Questing and leveling would be a pain as holy.    

    Alot of the healer classes I know rolled their healer 2nd, their healer is not somthing they play for fun or PVP with ( hence the lack of healers in BG’s) its a tool to be used when required.  Guild applicationss are.  I’m a healer.. but My Alt comes too.

    But no healer – No tank – no Raid.  Maybe Healers should be charging for their services, and that way they will be on line more often.


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