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.

Arena First

Sloosh and Hennesy are still struggling in the 1600s but it finally happened: Druid/Warrior team downed!



Hennesy noted that I was doing unnecessary pole dancing. A Warrior or Rogue pinning me down would follow me out of his LoS so he couldn't assist me. With Nightal on my ass, I parked against the corner of the Ruins of Lordaeron's center obstacle and focused on keeping myself alive while throwing occasional instant heals when Hennesy was in range. After Pain Supression's brief respite I didn't last long, but Erwynn died seconds later. Nightal was at 40% health yet Hennesy managed to finish with 7% health. I cheered rather loudly.

The most amusing fight was when we dipped down to 1596. We were pitted against a dual Frost mage team. I threw Power Infusion on Hennesy then went into full rabbit mode. Got their pets on me in the center of the field then chain dispelled my way to a corner. Pretty sure they didn't get a single Ice Lance crit on me though I was down to 20% health once behind the pillar. Hennesy had them dead seconds later.

Ended the day 5-5 with a 1649 rating. Going to start gearing up Aenara for PvP I guess. Druids are still too powerful with Swiftmended massive heals, Nature's Swiftness of anything, ultra CC, an AoE heal that isn't affected by LoS, a HoT that heals when dispelled, and immunity to polymorph/snare. For me the biggest losses will be Mana Burn and Dispel, but I'm sure I can adjust. I don't think Hennesy is happy about playing a Warrior but it might work out.

First Step in Arathi Basin

Virulence, now 52, decided to try the Arathi Basin daily. Was a little rough as it took ten minutes for the queue to pop and when the game started, we only had four on our team. But, as usual, Horde rocked it. We held four nodes until we had over 1200 resources and Alliance never recovered. *shock* Such a good feeling.

Still pretty frail, Virulence did the usual bait thing. Dot someone up to piss them off then run back to a group. The target usually follows in hopes of insta-killing the clothie but they rarely made it. So much fun. Sadly I'm not used to playing an Undead and would forget to break fears. Yet I did remember to eat nearby corpses. *snicker*

So in less than thirty minutes Virulence had three AB tokens, 100 rep with The Defilers, another 70 silver, and over 400 honor. This is the good life.

Gearing Lock Up for PvP Domination

Virulence will be in the top of the 59 bracket within the next week so it's time to start gathering gear. Thanks to Outland pieces it's no longer necessary to plumb the depths of instances or quest mightily. Just hit the AH.

Slot	Stamina	Sorcerer	Other
Head	62, 63	59, 66	57, 62, 69, 70
Neck		68	58, 61
Shoulder	59, 65	59, 69	69
Back			55
Chest	59, 59, 62, 67	57, 63, 68
Wrist	67	63	59, 60, 64, 67, 69
Hands	59, 61	63, 68, 70
Waist	57, 58, 59, 66	59	60
Legs	57, 67, 69	63, 63	59, 60, 70
Feet	59. 69	66	63, 69
Rings	61, 63	64	60, 60
2h
1h	58, 59, 60		60, 67
Offhand
Wand	59	62	59

Virulence is heavy Affliction but will be collecting both sets in case her spec changes after feeling out the various BGs Horde-side. The Other category is for Eagle, Whale or Protection items that will serve as temporary fillers. Numbers in Bold mean the item is actually in the bank, in inventory or being worn.

And So It Begins

Tonight was Virulence's first taste of Alterac Valley. New to Horde I wasn't sure where the quests were found so the first game was naturally a win. Flew out to Tarren Mill and found the camp to the Northeast. The second game was, of course, a loss. Yet the third game was a win, so I was able to get the very handy Wand of Biting Cold.

In the third game Virulance also managed to find the gnoll caves for the Frostwolf Insignia quest. They are a lot more densely packed than the Alliance's harpies. At 51, she had no hope of soloing the quest but there were two other people working towards the banner, a 56 Warlock, Omgdots, and a 55 Paladin. We wiped once but managed to run back before respawns.

At 51 Virulence was getting singled out and owned with relative ease. Did get a few kills in though and was painfully reminded how important an instant Howl of Terror is. Still, in an hour-and-a-half she'd picked up seven AV tokens and 895 honor. Going to be so much more… soon!

Timbermaw... AGAIN

Virulence hit 49 over the weekend so it was off to Felwood for the ever-so-fun Timbermaw Hold grind. This will be the fifth character to exalted so the process is pretty well defined.

Picked up Timbermaw Ally to kill the right amount of each Deadwood Furbolg. Turned it in right away so further killing might include Deadwood Headdress Feathers as loot. Upon reaching 51 this morning, Virulence now has 121 feathers and is 220 into Friendly. So here's something else to track.

Kills are tracked for regular furbolgs (10 rep per) with a goal of reaching Revered. This will be softened by random names being killed and some of the quests being completed. Once Revered it takes 140 turn-ins of either five feathers or five Winterfall Spirit Beads to hit Exalted. This requires a total of 700 feathers or beads.

Date/Time	Faction	Progress
5:05 PM 2008-Mar-03	Friendly (220/6000)	[1778 kills to Revered, 17.3% turn-in]
5:10 PM 2008-Mar-04	Friendly (3550/6000)	[1445 kills to Revered, 30.3% turn-in]
6:11 PM 2008-Mar-07	Honored (9270/12000)	[273 kills to Revered, 72.3% turn-in]

Sunday Morning Killings

6-4
1. Penny Arcade: ?, ?, ?; -15 (1585)
2. B U R N: Eronwe, Xade, Bloodscalp; +13 ()
3. Grilled Pringles N Chees: Silenttreble, Tume, Suramar; +16 ()
4. Tobacconist: Cymraeg, Cherek, Stormscale; -17 ()
5. HuDr: Coldhart, Torekrage, Bloodscalp; +14 ()
6. Quicken: Draknov, Sassar, Feathermoon; -15 ()
7. The Other Half is Killing; Andostre, Khiva, Crushridge; +11 ()
8. We Ebayd; Onslot, Zurii, Stormscale; -17 ()
9. Not so glissy; Fyrrkynn, Unsere, Daggerspine; +15 ()
10. Not so glissy; Fyrrkynn, Unsere, Daggerspine; +13 (1618)