Out in It

Aenara decided to finish up Dinner Impossible. Needed Strand, Eye, and AV. Lost them all, of course, but it wasn't too bad. Was actually top damage in Strand, tied for second on kills. Sort of surprising yet maybe not. Moonkin are incredibly versatile and rather annoying to face.


Look at that. Horde had the rest of the damage. *sigh* Rated BGs are going to be wonderful. So tired of the slack-ass Alliance fools in our battlegroup. At least we still own Wintergrasp. *snicker*

Argent'd

Scheme finally got done with the primary Argent Tournament grind. She was so far behind on Exodar reputation I kept her doing the dailies until she had over one hundred Valiant's Seals and almost ninety Champion's Writs. Worked out that I actually had a few too many yet she got it all done:

• Champion of the Alliance
• Champion of the Exodar
• 10 Exalted Reputations
• Exalted Champion of Stormwind
• Exalted Champion of Gnomeregan
• Exalted Champion of Darnassus
• Exalted Champion of Ironforge
• Exalted Champion of Exodar
• Exalted Champion of the Alliance
• Ambassador of the Alliance
• Exalted Argent Champion of the Alliance
• Exalted Champion of the Exodar

Thankfully I had 201 Champion's Seals so the Rogue now has both the Argent Crusader's Tabard and an Argent Pony Bridle for her squire.

Call in the Cavalry!

Did some late night PvP with the guild on Aenara. We usually win a bunch so I had to spend honor as I approached the 75k cap. Still don't want to break up my 2t10 bonus so I decided to grab a Black War Elekk and got Call in the Cavalry done. Hoping the honor grind in Cata isn't too painful as I'll need to get the other four mounts eventually.

Devastating

Damn. Encountered an Alliance Warlock with a full Wrathful set of gear, coming in at a 6135 rating: Lunaeclipse-Bloodscalp. Needless to say she did very well in Warsong Gulch.

That's a Rap

My Zul'Gurub run this morning finally involved a mount dropping.



Felt pretty good to have Martini sitting atop her new Swift Razzashi Raptor with Bloodlord Mandokir's form beneath her. It's really a fun mount with a lot of bounce. It will also be helpful in PvP, letting Martini blend with other Horde mounts.

The Armory feed does show the number of attempts it took, so I'm estimating around fifteen. I suppose that's reasonable. It does show twenty-seven Kael'thas Sunstrider kills and still no fucking bird.

Flame On!

The Midsummer Fire Festival started up today. Hate how these stupid events suck up my time; Blizzard really know how to keep me reeled in. Thankfully Martini, Aenara, and Sloosh already have it done. Dragging Decimate along as Favor does the Honor/Extinguish the flames things in the old world for the Mage ports. Followed the comments in Flame Warden of Kalimdor, getting them all done including Stealing Thunder Bluff's Flame. Going to save Stealing Orgrimmar's Flame for later when it's less popular and less active.

Only had one PvP encounter when Decimate and Favor got separated. Favor didn't have the flight path so she had to hoof it from the Exodar. Crossing the bridge to Bloodmyst Isle, some stupid cow warrior, Kuitrurah, charged my Pally in full tanking gear! Killing this pathetic Arms Warrior was easy. A Shadow Priest, Fynnlee, happened upon us as I dealt the killing blow. She did manage to get me to half health, but I ended up out running her with Pally speed.

The Lord Ahune encounter is the same once started. With the cross-realm LFG tool it was pretty easy to run on all my 80s except for tanking with Faerune. All of the adds are immune to Frost which is conveniently a Death Knight's primary form of threat. The cloak drops are mostly useless but it's any easy two Frost Emblems. The only character to get the updated Frostscythe of Lord Ahune was the Warrior. Of course.

Shadow Power

It's been almost a month since I encountered the Twin Terrors Shix-Feathermoon and Carverll-Feathermoon in Warsong Gulch. The two of them kept half the alliance idiots at the graveyard while the Horde ran flags with rapidity. They were nothing short of amazing. Poor Martini had to endure being farmed for a rez or two while figuring this menace out.

Discipline is such a strong Arena/BG spec I had lost touch with Shadow. Namely, I didn't know Dispersion is so OP now. With the glyph, they get 1/3 of their mana back and reduce damage by 90% every minute. Then there's Psychic Horror, an instant CC from huge range with a nice after-effect for melee opponents. Top it all off with the newly huge ranged Mind Flay. Shadow is definitely a force to be reckoned with.

While that's probably surmountable in 2v2s, these two worked very well together, bringing suffering to my random group. Looking over their gear it was all readily accessible emblem armor and PvE weapons/trinkets. Their specs weren't the same so I'll have to look into the variations. Actually found a very tight (20/0/51) on Amyth-Darkspear that interests me. It seems really strange not to see Shadow Power in there but it sorta makes sense when the three evil DoTs are not enhanced by it. Mind Flay is channeled, Mind Blast has a cast time and a cooldown, and Shadow Word: Death has huge cooldown with conditional back-last—all bad things.

It all looks possible given my current means. Yet I've decided to level my bank/auctioneer Faerawr instead of good old Sloosh. Sloosh already has some gear and all, but I want Engineering. There's no way I'm dropping Sloosh's Tailoring or Enchanting. I'll also keep Sloosh healing in PvE, whereas Faerawr will be PvP Disc and PvP Shadow.

Funny. I remember being so disappointed when Blizzard took stun procs out of the Shadow tree. Doesn't seem to matter anymore though. Heh. See what happens!

Priestly Talents Refresh

Kevanassa found my old Priest spec notes and got riled up, contesting a few of my assertions. And it's true. I've needed to revisit it for a while. For instance: Mindflay. The novely of being Disc with Mindflay has nearly worn off. Mainly Sloosh would use it while waiting for Fear's 30-second cooldown eon. If a melee was on a fleeing Hennesy she would slow them down. With Hamstring/Crippling/Wing Clip and/or resists, it's not terribly effective. In fact, lately she would resort to Mind Control as it's amusing and effective to break their momentum, throw them off the bridge or move them away from their team mate.

So yeah. It's time to retire my Mindflay Disc spec (48/2/11) so I reviewed some other specs. Started at WoWWiki.

Disc PvP Healer (47/14/0)
A build with increased survivability. Strong buffs, including Pain Suppression and Power Infusion. Mana Burn is the strongest spell to use against opponents if you get caught in a 1v1 situation. A .5 second Mass Dispel, as well as Improved Power Word: Shield, Reflective Shield, and Healing Focus make this a very effective healing build in PvP.

Divine Fury makes no sense to me. In PvP Flash Heals are best for non-instant healing. 1.5 seconds of breathing room is hard to get as it is, but 2.5 seconds is way too long. Inspiration is also of dubious value since the significant boost on cloth is nearly as meaningless as it would be for plate. It might help Feral druids yet that's three points with a pretty narrow use. Those three points should have gone to Blessed Recovery.

How would I fix this build? Give up both DF and Inspiration along with Holy Nova in favor of five points in Mental Agility (Disc is so mana intensive, let's keep those Shields, Prayers of Mending, and Renew cheap!) and a full five points in Silent Resolve. The remaining three points are a tough call. Absolution is nice to make those dispels even cheaper along with lightening the heavy cost off Mass Dispel. The three points would also be useful in Spell Warding to trim off 6% of all spell damage. Personally I would put the final three points in Blackout. Getting a 3 second stun for spamming 23 mana rank 1 Shadow Word: Pain is godly.

The only lingering problem is Enlightenment. On the surface, simultaneously boosting Stamina, Intelligence, and Spirit sounds wondrous. Yet I've read commentary that's convinced me a 5% stat gain for five points is a nominal benefit at best, even with 2.4's changes to Spirit. It would be wise to take two of those points to max Blackout. As above, the remaining three points could go either into Absolution or Spell Warding. With the focus on Disc PvP healing, Absolution makes most sense.

PvP "Face Melter" (17/0/44)
This build is a pure PvP build. The build is only slightly viable for raiding, but in the new arena system, as well as normal PvP, it will truly "melt faces."

Beautiful. I hate losing Shadow Power's +15% crit, but this spec makes perfect sense to me. It's a pity Sloosh never seems to fill a DPS slot.

Common Disc PvP Healer (livelong build) (41/20/0)
This build seems to be the best current build for PvP priest healers as it allows you to take plenty of hits while still doing your job. This build is also the most popular among the 25th and up top rated priests in 2v2 3v3 and 5v5!

Once again a slant towards the big heals with Divine Fury and Improved Healing. While it would be wonderful to have Blessed Recovery, this much Holy makes little sense to me in BGs and even less in Arenas. These points belong back over in Disc for Improved Power Word: Shield and Reflective Shields.

I think the spec would make sense for main healing in a 5v5, yet I see it in 2v2. The 9th 2v2 rated team in my battle group and on my server is actually a Priest and a Warlock. The Priest uses a variant of the livelong build above. But they are Dwarf and Gnome while Hennesy and Sloosh are both Human. Perception doesn't compete with Stoneform and Escape Artist.

Another Priest a few slots down was pretty close to livelong yet he worked in Blessed Recovery and, of all things, Improved Inner Fire; at least he had the shields. Kevanassa mentioned playing with IIF and felt the same way I do—useless. Maybe in the buffed armor of full Vengeful (which he does have) I'd consider it, but I'm still dubious.

My Dwarf Priest is still 59 and it might be worthwhile getting him to 70 to let Sloosh retire from PVP. I would miss the lovely Spirit bonus, but it would be worth losing Feedback and Perception for Stoneform and Chastise while retaining Desperate Prayer. Alliances sucks in BGs so badly I'm not sure I'd have the patience to re-farm all the Vindicator gear. It might work if I kept him in the 59 bracket for a while though. It's less honor but there are a enough Alliance twinks for wins which would mean more tokens/honor in the long run.

Anyway. I'm going to ask Kev for some feedback around this Disc spec (51/5/5). Want to hold onto Blackout and the initial points in Holy. I like the shields and I'm going for Improved Spirit since it helps me and Hennesy (so long as it doesn't get dispelled, heh). In the interim, I have two green gems to replace and a few enchants to get done.