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Shadow Priests have been up in arms all over the official forums recently, and it seems to have reached a bit of a breaking point. Rather than waiting for the official Priest Q&A in the developers’ Q&A series, Ghostcrawler chimed into an unofficial Q&A thread to give some insight. Since it’s unofficial, the questions asked are very direct and specific, aimed at the posters in that thread rather than the playerbase as a whole. Still, the tone is mostly the same: Don’t expect major announcements while reading the thread, it’s more a discussion on class direction and philosophy rather than patch news. That being said, there is some good news in the whole thing. Some bad news, too.

I strongly recommend reading the whole thing on the official forums, but I’m going to pull out some bits and pieces here.

The first big thing that jumped out to me was in response to a question regarding Haste and DoTs. Have they considered DoTs scaling with Haste? Ghostcrawler says… yes! It’s something they’re apparently actively discussing. That doesn’t guarantee we’ll see it, but the fact that they’re talking about it is promising.

Ghostcrawler also answers a question about dispel protection. Is it a problem? Are there plans to fix it, if so? Ghostcrawler says straight up that “the whole spell protection game needs to be overhauled.” That’s not the first time we’ve heard it, and it’s good to see they’re still of that opinion. Also, Ghostcrawler reinforces something I’ve been saying since they implemented the mechanic: The penalty for dispelling Vampiric Touch is “so low as to be silly,” and says, “that’s something we would like to boost for 3.2.” Yes! I’ve argued since day one that the Vampiric Touch protection is far, far too conservative to be useful. It might as well not exist. I eagerly await the upcoming changes, whatever they may be.

On the topic of Shadow Priest damage taking so long to ’set up’ compared to most other classes, Ghostcrawler says, “We would not want any spell that Shadow Priests felt like they could just cast instead of doing their rotation, and if the instant-damage spell was weaker than the rotation, it would likely see only situational use (though maybe that’s a fine niche).” Greg, my buddy. Greg, my pal. A situational nuke is exactly something that Shadow Priests need these days.

A spammable (emphasis on spammable, Mind Blast is definitely not able to be spammed) nuke that is lower DPS than Mind Flay but higher front-loaded damage than Flay is a tool Shadow Priests could make great use out of in Ulduar, and even other places. There are situations in Ulduar where you have a mob with health so low that by the time you roll out your full rotation to get your damage started, the mob is dead and you haven’t actually made an impact. But their health is high enough that just throwing out a Mind Blast and a Shadow Word: Death doesn’t cut it, or the mobs are coming frequently enough that those two spells are eternally on cooldown and you just get to stand around with your you-know-what in your hands trying to figure out what to do to help.

The usual solution to this problem is that Shadow Priests simply pretend there are no adds, and DPS away without a care in the world on the boss or whatever. That’s called not being a team player, and that’s the playstyle our mechanics encourage. If things are going to Hell, I would love a tool that will let me lend a hand, but I don’t really have that. I’m perfectly fine if that spell isn’t as efficient as tools other classes have, and I’m fine if that spell isn’t going to replace Mind Flay in a normal DPS rotation. It would just be nice to simply have the tool if it’s needed. Call it a quality of life issue, I suppose.

Anyway, moving on. There’s some stuff there about PvP and Diminishing Returns… but to be completely honest with all of you, I’m not going to trust myself to touch any of that. I’m intimately familiar with PvP issues that crop up in Battlegrounds like dispels and such, but I’m not going to get anywhere near primarily arena issues like who shares diminishing returns with who. If you’re interested in that sort of thing, head over to the thread and read what Ghostcrawler has to say.

Dispersion is a topic that comes up, and I might as well throw my two cents in there: Dispersion has the potential to be a very useful spell in PvE, but it’s not there. I don’t consider myself qualified to discuss it in the arena. I do have the talent (which I mention because Ghostcrawler says many Shadow Priests take it), but I am not happy with it. I take it simply because I have a compulsion to do so. It looks useful, it sounds useful, and it’s my 51 point talent! I would just feel weird if I didn’t have it. I was quite happy with it, but Ulduar broke that love.

Every boss fight in Ulduar has high damaging abilities that a Shadow Priest might want to use Dispersion through to take the load off of Healers, or simply a last minute survival tactic, like a Mage’s Ice Block. Using it in that way is certainly a sacrifice, since it cuts off our DPS due to the silence component (which I’m okay with in PvE, for the record). However… most of those things you want to ’shield wall’ through for the sake of your healers? They pierce right through Dispersion. If you don’t want the damage reduction to work in PvE, you might as well give it two rulesets like you did with Curse of Doom and pre-3.2 Exorcism. The tooltip as it stands is essentially a lie.

Examples of things Dispersion does not protect against: XT-002’s Searing Light, Ignis the Furnace Master’s Slag Pot, and Kologarn’s Stone Grip. I could go deeper into Ulduar, but I don’t really think I need to do that. Already, that’s three out of the first five bosses of Ulduar that ignore Dispersion. That’s a problem.

If the PvE and PvP rulesets are intended to be the same to keep the game easy to understand, then don’t design abilities that you need to specifically design around when creating bosses. If Dispersion’s damage reduction is a dangerous PvE mechanic for Priests to have, state clearly that the damage reduction will not work in PvE. Spells should, by and large, work as their tooltips say they work. This is not true with Dispersion in PvE in all of the situations you might want to actually use it. That is the biggest problem I see with Dispersion. Other Shadow Priests may disagree with me on what the base problem is, but there’s my take.

The topic of Devouring Plague is another that grabbed my attention. Purplecadet, the person who started the thread, said, “From my understanding, there is a cooldown on Devouring Plague to keep us from putting it on multiple targets. Couldn’t you just make Devouring Plague only usable on one target at a time and remove the cooldown?”

Ghostcrawler responds, “Yes. I’m not sure many players would consider that a buff though.”

If players don’t consider that a buff, they are mad. Like, mad cow mad. There aren’t many other ways I can think to phrase that. The change described in the question would be an incredible improvement, especially in the endgame. There are endless situations in Ulduar where I sit on Devouring Plague for an incredibly long time (time is relative in battle), simply because I’m waiting for a boss to spawn an add or change phases or whatever else. Why? Because if I use Devouring Plague in that stretch of time between Devouring Plague expiring and the next phase starting, it won’t be available when I really need it. It isn’t a multiple mob issue. The issue is that I can’t utlitize the spells given to my class that my DPS is balanced around. I have to put forth a subpar performance because I literally cannot use a spell that is a notable amount of my damage, because if I do use it at the wrong time, it won’t be available when it really counts. That, quite honestly, sucks. It’s not a DPS cooldown like Icy Veins or Blade Flurry, it’s a core spell.

That was a lot of ranting, and probably a little more QQ than I would have liked! I suppose I’ll include the disclaimer that I don’t think Shadow Priests are in that bad of a spot right now. In fact, they’re probably more fun to play than they were in The Burning Crusade, at least to me. It’s nice being more competitive DPS-wise, and while we’re not the PvP powerhouses we were in Vanilla WoW, we’re not the sitting ducks we were in BC. We’re pretty good! I just don’t think that ‘pretty good’ should ever be good enough. Not for Shadow Priests, not for Priests in general, and not for any class. If Shadow Priests didn’t change at all until the next expansion, I wouldn’t stop playing my class. The situation isn’t quite so dire. I just hope for a little love in the near future.

I also want to give Ghostcrawler a quick thanks. Shadow Priests have been waiting for some feedback for a long time, and while that doesn’t mean you’re obligated to give it to us, you did. Thank you. We don’t agree on everything about the class and simply due to the nature of the game we never will, but I respect the time you took to answer the questions

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Once again, we have maintenance off the port bow. You’d almost think this is a weekly scheduled thing, eh?

This week, though, is one of those special extended maintenance weeks, with servers down from 3 AM to 11 AM Pacific. No, despite the extended maintenance, we aren’t expecting patch 3.2 yet.

In addition, other servers will be down an extra 2 hours starting at 1 AM Pacific time.

We have the full list of said servers after the break, and it’s actually a somewhat long one.

Agamaggan
Aggramar
Alexstrasza
Alleria
Argent Dawn
Arthas
Azgalor
Azshara
Baelgun
Balnazzar
Blackhand
Bleeding Hollow
Bloodhoof
Burning Blade
Burning Legion
Cho’gall
Dark Iron
Destromath
Dethecus
Detheroc
Drakkari
Durotan
Earthen Ring
Elune
Emerald Dream
Eonar
Eredar
Garona
Gilneas
Gorefiend
Gorgonnash
Greymane
Gul’dan
Hellscream
Illidan
Kael’thas
Kalecgos
Kargath
Kirin Tor
Laughing Skull
Lightninghoof
Lightning’s Blade
Llane
Lothar
Madoran
Maelstrom
Magtheridon
Malfurion
Malygos
Mannoroth
Medivh
Moonrunner
Nazjatar
Quel’Thalas
Ragnaros
Ravencrest
Sargeras
Shadowmoon
Shattered Hand
Skullcrusher
Spinebreaker
Staghelm
Stormrage
Stormreaver
Thunderhorn
Thunderlord
Trollbane
Twisting Nether
Ursin
Warsong
Whisperwind
WildHammer
Zul’jin

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We have no idea why Coridane is so against Warlocks getting made fun of in the game (he must not be a fan of our very own Warlock-hater, Christian Belt), but apparently it’s serious — serious enough for him to kick you from a raid. We do especially like that the need to assault downed Warlocks is actually a system error (”beep bop”): we would just have assumed that was normal protocol. It sure is in our raids.

More drama like this, along with downed and recruiting news, in this week’s Guildwatch. If you have tips for us, feel free to send them in — just drop us a note (please keep it short, sweet, and clear) at guildwatch@wow.com, and you might see it here next week.

DRAMA

• Apparently Wordaf ditched Lok Kosh on Shattered Halls, after picking up four (or three?) pieces of loot while raiding with them. The thread starts out slow, but stick with it, things get good later on.
• Sanctu Maleficus on Altar of Storms has recently celebrated their third anniversary, which they believe makes them the oldest active guild on the server. Congrats on three years, here’s to many more!
• This thread starts out as Arena drama — someone says Battleox and another Death Knight are super lame, and everyone else, including Frodamn, show up to pile on and talk about how much fail they are. But page 3 makes it both worthwhile and relevant to this column — as you might expect, Battleox (or at least an alt of his, or maybe even his mom — ha!) shows up in the thread saying that Frodamn is just angry over an old guild drama spat. Which makes sense, as Frodamn, a precocious 16-year-old, doesn’t much seem like a stranger to drama himself. Ah, youth!
• Quite a story from Illidan (or as our tipster calls it, Illidrama): E Thugz was a 10-man raiding guild that disbanded and had three of their members join up with Explicit, which then rolled up to Ulduar and picked up an Alliance second clear. Sounds all good, right? Lightzlol, one of the refugees, decided to start up a 10-man on his own, and that’s where the trouble starts: when one of the guild’s officers split in the middle of the run, Lightzlol reportedly replaced him with another member. The officer obviously didn’t like that very much, and after much arguing back and forth (the officers claimed Lightz was stealing the best raiders, Lightz claimed they could make another 10-man if they wanted to), Lightz /gquit before he could get /gkicked. We’re told the guildleader then /gkicked two guildies for good measure. He tells the guild they’ll be fine without them, but our tipster isn’t so sure.
• Cesium wraps up this drama better than we’d ever have room for in this small space. Unfortunately, most of the other posts in the thread got deleted, but he covers everything you need to know well enough: Natural Schoolgirls posted that they picked up the Hodir achievement, but apparently they didn’t quite do so legitimately. Insults and flame wars ensued.
• As you can see above, the guildleader of Aberration on Alleria apparently really doesn’t want your avatar doing naughty things to Warlocks. We have no idea why, but we’d sure like to know.
• From the “What goes around…” file: we reported on Harmony of Deathwing in this space a while back — they’d gotten into a feud as a transfer guild on a server, and though we agreed their GM sounded like a jerk, we had to give it to them, as they managed to get an Ulduar first on the server, even though it was after they started bragging. But another tipster comes to us with an update: apparently they’ve broken up, though we’re not told why. A few of their refugees are heading off to transfer again, this time to another Alliance server. Guess being a jerk might help you raid better, but it won’t keep your guild together.
• Nearly all the officers of Ese Loco on my old server Thunderhorn were reportedly not happy to simply be farming Naxx 25 each week and waiting for the rest of the guild to get geared up for Ulduar 25. So we hear they all split – forming a new guild called, appropriately, Gquit. Unfortunately, we hear that now, neither guild has enough raiders to get a solid 25-man run together. Guess they’re both recruiting.
• Finally, here’s a story of guild goodness instead: Erinion (from The Mythicals on EU Lightbringer) and his longtime (non-WoW playing) girlfriend apparently got hitched the other Saturday at the Bristol Zoo in England. If you’re a regular listener to our podcast, you’ll know that’s Turpster’s hometown zoo. And they had guildies planning coming to the wedding — two were flying in from Amsterdam just to be there. Pretty cool — apparently Erinion says he asked his girlfriend if they could bring laptops to try and have a midwedding raid, but she answered in the negative to that one. Hope it went well — congrats and cheers to the couple and their guildies!

DOWNED

• DPS Harder on Windrunner was a guild that reformed after some drama, but they’ve now full cleared Naxx 10, and headed to Ulduar 10 a while ago. Good luck!
• Almost Heroes on EU Aggramar finished off both 25-man Sapphiron and Kel’thuzad. Way to go!
• Conclave on Spinebreaker has cleared Naxx 10 on only their third week raiding as a guild. Malygos is on notice for next time.
• Pango Honoratus is running mostly Ulduar 10 with some Ulduar 25 thrown in there. They’re 10/14 on 10-man, and 5/14 in 25. Nice job.
• Eminent Domain on Ysondre only has about nine regular raids, but they’ve run all of Naxx with just nine, and have just downed Leviathan, on normal and hard mode, and cleared The Antechamber as well (apparently Assembly of Iron is not easy to do with nine people). Keepers are on notice next.
• Out of the Ashes on Lothar is a Horde guild currently 9/14 in Ulduar. They’re also looking for Resto Shamans and caster DPS for the 25-man version, so if you want to join a solid core group that loves progression, hit them up.
• Fallen on Nesingwary has cleared out Ulduar in both 10 and 25-man, and are currently working on hard modes and those drakes before they disappear.
• Avis est Vox (Wyrnrest Accord-H) cleared through the Antechamber in Ulduar 10. They’re working on picking up a few more so they can head into 25-man, too.
• Shadow Sect on Laughing Skull-H managed to down Flame Leviathan in Uldaur 10 on their first serious attempt (they had a small bug on the very first time, but they finished him off second try).
• Vehemence, a casual guild from The Venture Co server, has finally cleared out Naxx 10, as well as Sarth, and are currently working on Ulduar, having put down Flame Leviathan twice already. Grats!
• Forbidden Kingdom, an Alliance guild on Misha, cleared Naxx 10 for the first time together just the other week and “got the obligatory throne group photo.” Malygos on notice for next time.
• The Dark Knights of Lore of Llane-H took out Flame Leviathan on normal 10-man mode, in a fast-paced encounter where they only had two demos left when FL was at 10%. Still finished him off, though.
• Eternity is a somewhat new guild on Shattered Halls that just reformed from a previous split. Over the weekend they went on a roll: cleared Naxx 10, OS 1D, Flame Leviathan, Razorscale, and XT-002. Maly got close — he’s on notice for next time.
• Relentless on EU Chamber of Aspects finally downed Malygos 10 after weeks of hard work and got the raid group their titles. They also downed Flame Leviathan in 10-man and are continuing to progress in Ulduar and hoping to recruit a few more loyal players to move onto 25-man content.
• Dragon Knights on Area 52-A have put down Auriaya and Ignis in 10-man Ulduar. Hodir and Freya are probably down as well, so we’ll put Thorim on notice.
• Pirates, Inc. on Quel’Thalas finally started raiding, and on their first attempt cleared the Arachnid Quarter of Naxx 10. Better late than never, they say, and we agree.
• The Red Shadows (Llane-A) just finished their first clear of Naxx. They’re casual, so even though it took them a little while, they’re happy and proud of their successful once-a-week raids.
• Savage Darkness, a casual raiding guild on Arathor, scored their first Heroic Deconstructor kill, snagging both Heroic achievements at the same time. Grats!
• Brass Monkey is a small guild of friends on Farstriders that downed Kel’Thuzad on only their second foray into Naxx. Very nice job. Onward to Malygos!
• The Inquisition on Spinebreaker cleared out Naxx 10 for the first time, and then even stepped into Ulduar and finished off the Flame Leviathan. Grats!

RECRUITING

• Divine Alliance on Mok’nathal is seeing some more folks to help them run 10- and 25-man instances in Naxx and beyond. They’re a social leveling and casual raiding guild with a focus on playing with humor, integrity and honor. If you want to socialize and do some casual raiding at all levels, they’re the place to go — tanks and healers above 50 are preferred, but anyone is welcome.
• Legends of Justice on Windrunner-A is recruiting anything and everything. They’re also a casual raiding guild and have cleared all 10-mans except Maly and Ulduar.
• La Cosa Nostra (on Icecrown) is recruiting. They’re a progression guild working through Ulduar, and are interested in almost everything. Applicants should be willing to take constructive criticism and optimize their characters for raiding. So far (when they sent this tip a while ago — they’re probably farther along by now) they’ve cleared up to Hodir in 25-man, and Vezax in 10-man. They raid four days a week, and are rolling right along.
• Arcanas Sanctum is a casual but progressive Horde guild on Ghostlands looking to fill out a couple of 10-man Ulduar groups. They have cleared Naxx, Sarth+1 and Malygos, all on both 10 and 25, apparently “many, many, MANY times. We are REALLY looking forward to seeing new content!” They’re working through Ulduar now, and could be farther than they are if they had more people — applicants should have raid experience and be geared and ready. They’re a fun bunch of folks, so be prepared to join and joke around, too.
• Twilight Harvest (Dalaran) has a core group that’s rolling through 10-man Ulduar and now seeks more members to fill out the 25-man runs – especially healers and ranged DPS. If you can be there on time, prepared and don’t mind some wipes to learn the fights, they say you can have a good time.
• Trinity on EU Nordrassil is still recruiting. They’re a mature, laid back raiding guild who are around halfway through Ulduar so far. They’re also considering a merge, especially with any smaller guilds out there who are finding difficulties raiding in the summer months.
• Chaotic Salvation of Fizzcrank is a casual raiding guild (with progression-minded raiders) currently half-way through Naxx 10 content. They’re recruiting active raiders as well as those level 75+ who are interested in raiding, while hoping to get a second 10-man group going and move into 25-man content.
• Hello Kitty Club on Akama is looking for a few good players to fill out the 25-man team in Ulduar (DPS and Healers specifically needed). They’re 12/14 in there so far, 13/14 in 10-man, and raid four nights a week, as well as doing “fun” 10-mans on the weekend. If you know how to stay out of the fire, listen to instructions, and do your job, feel free to apply on their website.
• Temple of Light on Shadowsong-A is recruiting. They’re looking for a few more to keep Ulduar 25 going.
• Dramatic Exit on Hydraxis is a new, semi-casual guild, made of of approximately 40 geared 80s and lower level toons, that has cleared out Naxx, Malygos, and Sarth, and is working their way through normal Uldar. All classes are welcome (especially tanks and healers), as long as you’re mature, friendly, and don’t mind a little wiping until they get the boss fights down.
• Insomnia of Staghelm is seeking adult raiders to strengthen their bench in preparation for end-game progress through the summer months. They’re a highly dedicated raiding guild comprised of friendly, mature and experienced players, and they’ve players enjoying all aspects of WoW including pre-made battlegrounds, heroics, achievements, raiding, etc. Plus, the guild is the home of our friends Haf and Stompalina over at Rawrcast!

That’s it for this week’s GW! Until next week, happy raiding as always.

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I was pleasantly surprised to see the maintenance announcement for tomorrow morning available fairly early today. Most of the time, we don’t actually know whether there will be maintenance or not until pretty late in the evening. Or I’m imagining that and this is the time we see it every week, who knows!

Daytime players will be happy to hear that most realms are only getting rolling restarts. They’ll be started at 5:00 AM PDT on North American realms and 10:00 AM PDT for Oceanic realms. There are a fair number of servers being hit with a real maintenance period, but it’s only expected to take a few hours: Starting at 5:00 AM PDT and lasting until 8:00 AM PDT. Those realms are: Area 52, Arena Tournament 1, Arena Tournament 2, Auchindoun, Azuremyst, Blade’s Edge, Blood Furnace, Coilfang, Dawnbringer, Exodar, Fizzcrank, Galakrond, Ghostlands, Grizzly Hills, Shattered Halls, Terokkar, The Scryers, The Underbog, Velen, and Zangarmarsh.

If you’re not sure what those times are in your time zone, the World Clock is a pretty simple tool to help you figure it out.

As always, WoW.com will be here throughout the morning and afternoon should anything come up during maintenance. It’s not a patch day, so we can be reasonably sure nothing will come up, but you never know.

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There are a lot of things in the patch 3.2 test realm notes that jumped out at me, but the changes to the Emblem system seem like an especially big deal. The developers made it quite clear that they wanted a tiered token system in Wrath of the Lich King, they didn’t want players just farming Heroics all day and night to get the best possible gear. In patch 3.2, it looks like they’re backing off on that pretty heavily, likely an attempt to reignite interest in running Heroics. If you haven’t seen the patch notes, here are the points I’m referring to:

• Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
• Both the 10 and 25 player instances of the Crusaders’ Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
• The heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
• The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.

So taking all of this into consideration, a player could theoretically get 4 pieces of Tier 8 gear without ever setting foot into Ulduar, simply by grinding out Heroics and getting a couple of lucky drops from Emalon. To get the Tier 8 hat and gloves, you would need a combined total of 116 badges. At roughly four badges per Heroic, that’s just shy of 30 Heroics. That sounds like a lot, but when you take into consideration how people got their gear in The Burning Crusade, it really sort of… isn’t a lot at all. This is a big step away from what the developers stated they want to do, but as I said, I imagine it’s a change made in the interest of encouraging people to continue running Heroics.

Of course, Conquest badges won’t be the best of the best in patch 3.2, because we’re getting our hands on Emblems of Triumph, the new Tier 9 badges. However, they’re doing something differently here, too: Both 10man and 25man versions of the Tier 9 raids will drop the same Emblems, there is no longer a split. That means the 10man version of the raids will be able to get their hands on the same iLevel gear as the 25man version, unless there’s some crazy black magic afoot that we won’t get to see until we’re on the PTR ourselves.

Of course, Emblems aren’t even limited to the Tier 9 raids. Someone who has never stepped foot in a raid in their lives can get Tier 9 badge rewards if they’re dedicated enough. The daily dungeon quests hand out Emblems of Triumph one or two at a time depending on your chosen difficulty. Someone who has never touched a raid can eventually get Tier 9 badge loot. Heck, someone who has never touched a Heroic can get Tier 9 badge loot. It will just take awhile. If current badge loot is any indicator of the cost of Tier 9 gear, it will take them around 60 days of doing the daily to get a piece of tier gear. That’s a long enough time to justify that, I think.

So is this all bad? In the case of the Emblem of Conquest change, I don’t think it’s bad given the game’s current landscape. People aren’t running Heroics, and they need to be given a reason to do so. Letting them get Emblems of Conquest will give them reason to do those dungeons. I don’t think it’s the best possible solution and I hope they come up with something better for the next expansion, but for now? This is probably a good move. Wrath of the Lich King really does not encourage people to do 5-mans, so hopefully this will do it.

In the case of Emblems of Triumph, there doesn’t seem to be a 10/25 man split. I’ve already heard theories that this means there won’t be different loot for 10 and 25man raids, but it’s far too early to start screaming about that, either for it or against it. Maybe we’ll see something like 10man raids getting fewer badges than 25man raids, so it takes the 10man raid longer to get 25man equivalent gear? We don’t know, and while this change seems weird, I can’t immediately say it’s bad. My opinion could quickly change upon seeing the implementation.

Like I said, I see the Emblem of Conquest change as a quick fix, a temporary solution. You can’t get the best of the best gear with Emblems of Conquest in patch 3.2, but it’s still going to encourage the behavior they initially wanted to discourage. They absolutely need to get people running Heroics again, but is this the way to do it? Long term, I don’t think so. Short term, yeah, I can agree with it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to calculate roughly how many Heroics and Emalon kills I’ll need to get all of my alt 4-piece Tier 8. Add the seven, carry the four, divide by three…

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Wrought is an exciting new machinima created by Cranius and Legs. As the story goes, a Human warrior and a Blood Elf woman fall in love. Clearly, this relationship is scorned and forbidden by the Sindorei. The Blood Elves attack the woman, and the human is killed in a vicious ambush. The warrior returns to life as Forsaken. He learns that his lover has been imprisoned, so he flies to her rescue. I’ll leave the rest unspoken, so that I don’t spoil the story for you.

This video is absolutely amazing. Cranius and Legs managed to get the WoW models to show an incredible depth of emotion. The entire storyline is shot with such precise framing and flow that you can’t miss what’s happening. The authors have really raised the bar in narrative music videos, and I desperately hope they tackle another project together.

The music itself is by a band called “Peratus.” It fit the story well, and I really liked the song. My only disappointment in the music was at the end, when it spiralled into some harsher growling and vocal grinding. While I might just be an old fogey, I felt like that disrupted the overall harmony of the piece. Excepting that ten seconds or so, though, I really loved the song. It’s actually inspired me to try and find their albums.

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Our podcast is back on the air again today, and it’s going to be a good one: not only will Turpster and I welcome back Amanda Dean, but Eddie “Brigwyn” Carrington, our newest writer here on the site, will join us to talk about his experiences blogging and playing his Hunter. And of course we’ll chat about the most popular posts of the past week, including those mount and travel changes that are raising such a fuss, the Mountain Dew Battle-bots, and why an Authenticator (probably) can’t steer you wrong. Plus, we’ll answer your emails — we’ve gotten quite a few movie posters from Turpster’s suggestion last week, so stay tuned to hear about those (and you’ll be able to see them here on our post next Monday).

Tune in this afternoon over on the our Ustream page at Sunday, Jun 14 at 3:30 AM in your time zone (GMT+8) , or you can jump after the break to see an embedded feed. It should be a good time as always, so stop by and say hi if you’re around.

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Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

I’m not much of a Jazz person, so when I set out to counter the John Coltrane that Adam used in The Queue yesterday, I was a little worried. Fortunately, while digging through my music collection to find something useful, I remembered that I had a trump card up my sleeves. Old Betty Boop cartoons, some of the most disturbing things you will ever see in your life. All of the best ones come packed with some incredibly old school Jazz. Now, some candy for your eyes and ears: Cab Calloway’s Minnie the Moocher in a Betty Boop cartoon.

Docp asked…

“What happened to the Hunter column, Scattered Shots?”

I’m glad you asked! It just made its glorious comeback yesterday, with a brand new writer that some of you may recognize. Go give the latest Scattered Shots a read.

Binge asked…

“I’m going to let my account lapse for the summer (maybe longer). Will my armory profile and ability to comment on the official WoW forums end when my subscription expires?”

As mentioned in the comments by kalatash, you’ll immediately lose access to the forums when your account lapses. Your Armory profile won’t disappear immediately, but it will eventually become hidden if they haven’t changed anything in the last few months. When you resubscribe, both of those things will come back.

0756 asked…

“Do you think that Blizzard will take the soulbinding aspect off of either Vyrkul Bones or the Fate Runes they are exchanged for in a future patch?”

I don’t see why they would. The Fate Runes are just a little bonus you get while questing in Icecrown, to make questing in Icecrown easier and more interesting. I’m pretty sure they don’t want them sold and traded or anything like that.

AyaJulia asked…

“Around Azeroth has a disclaimer at the end of each article: “Please, no more battleground scoreboards, gold seller ads, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran.” When are you going to put one in THIS column that says “Please, no more questions about pandaren”? You obviously need one.”

You’re right.

Please, people. No more questions about Pandaren. Just look around the site, you’ll find your answer.

Komorado asked…

“How many hits does the wow.com website receive everyday?”

Enough that I’ve come to learn that Alexa is pretty inaccurate when compared to internal figures. I don’t think that I’m allowed to give those numbers, though. It’s higher than what Alexa says, that’s all that I’ll say.

Hyacinthe asked…

“Why are there so many poo-related quests in WoW?”

Because everybody poops, Hyacinthe. It’s only natural.

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Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don’t want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I’m not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I’ll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply).

Nerubian Chitins are gathered by Skinners and used by Leatherworkers, and although they show up on a number of mobs, there are only a handful of areas that are actually worth farming.

They sell for around 5g a piece, and Leatherworkers consume them in bunches from one up to 40! In fact, for several levels, the chitins provide some of the best and cheapest leveling options. On the low end, they are used for leg armor enhancement kits, and on the high end, epic gear.

Azjol-Nerub
If you can get a group to run Azjol-Nerub with you a few times, with you as the only Skinner, you’ll make quite the profit. The skinnable mobs there have an average drop rate of about 25%.

In Icecrown, before you start questing…
Upon entering Icecrown, your first stop will likely be the Argent Vanguard, a mid-size outpost with several quests available to you. Before you begin these quests, or at least, before you hand in A Cold Front Approaches, start farming the mobs around the camp. Once you hand in that quest, you phase out permanently, and all of those spiders will be gone.
You will also notice that you can kite groups of mobs to the town guards for quicker killing. Just make sure to use some AoE to tag each one, or you won’t be able to loot and then skin them!

Another good spot is a little further north, around Scourgeholme. Both of these spots have high respawn rates, making them ideal.

Zul’Drak
Many of the mobs around Kolramas have a chance to drop chitins when skinned as well.

Borean Tundra
Just outside of Warsong Hold, you will find plenty of skinnable mobs with high respawn rates, that are frequently being killed by the questing Horde. This is a great place to level your Skinning, pick up some leather, and although the drop rate isn’t high, the chitins do indeed drop.

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Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a new UI and addons blog for WoW. Having some difficulty with Mimiron? Let me help!

Mimiron. He is the bane of all healers. Even the most seasoned of raiding healers struggled initially with this gnome and his toys. Perhaps the class and spec that has the a difficulty adjusting to the challenges is the Discipline Priest. Let me help you get through it with a systematic breakdown of the four boss phases and how you can cope no matter which spec you are.

Phase 1

The first phase of Mimiron is going to involve Priests using their saves. Guardian Spirit and Pain Suppression will play key roles in helping your tanks stay alive.

As Holy

Napalm Shell onto players are always a threat to the raid. I like to keep a hasted Greater Heal on standby (with Serendipity). If I’m lucky with Surge of Light procs, I’ll try to stand by and delay until the last possible moment for a target that’s hit by Napalm before the effect is consumed. I want to save the instant Flash Heal for a napalmed victim.

The emphasis here is on speed.

The raid itself will not be taking an enormous amount of damage. Instead, what ends up happening is specific players will be taking a large amount of damage quickly within a small window of time. Even though it goes against what I wrote about last week, this is not the time for Disc and Holy Priests to get into a territorial spat. If you see the opportunity to shield a victim, then do it. Tap Circle of Healing if you have to even though only one player is being affected by Napalm.

As Discipline

Chances are, you’ll be assigned to one of your tanks. But it doesn’t mean you should remain idle either. A Shield and Penance combination should be able to take and cover anyone nailed by pesky Napalms. If you’ve configured your addons to do it, they can highlight the debuff on your frames. Most of the time, your attention will be locked on to the tanks. I personally keep a visual eye on Napalms as they fly out so I can click on the player itself when it lands. 9 times out of 10, I’ll hit the player who is getting doused by it. Sometimes I’ll get unlucky and hit something else (like a Mirror Image).

Together on the tanks

If you read my Raid Rx column a few weeks ago, I wrote about different save abilities that some of the classes could use to help. This is the perfect time to practice working on that with your tanks. Here’s an example of how phase 1 saves can be handled on the main tank.

Before you ask, the purpose is to negate the effects of Plasma Burst.

• Plasma Burst 1: Holy Priest casts Guardian Spirit on the Druid tank
• Plasma Burst 2: Druid tank uses Survival Instincts
• *Warrior tank taunts phase 1 boss*
• Plasma Burst 3: Discipline Priest casts Pain Suppression on Warrior tank
• Plasma Burst 4: Warrior tank uses Shield Wall
• Plasma Burst 5: Warrior tank uses Last Stand

Most guilds have enough firepower to take out the Mark II within 4-5 Plasma Bursts.

Make sure you mind the mines in the middle. Last thing you want to do is get toasted by them after the Mark II scurries away.

Phase 2

The second phase involves a module with 2 gun turrets attached to the sides. It’s kind of like a stationary pod with arms extending out the side.

This is the Everest phase for most healers as there is an insane amount of overall raid damage being dealt here. Your tanks won’t be doing much tanking as Mimiron just seems to fire and target at will. Melee players will be eating heat waves. Rockets will be launched by Mimiron that can instantly kill players. On top of that, the raid better be prepared to run like a maniac when he starts spinning up his guns.

For 25s

Divide your ranged and healers into three separate groups. Try to maintain an equal ranged DPS and healer ratio as much as possible. The room is divided into three quadrants. Position your each group in its own section.

For 10s

Same kind of concept. You don’t have to use the third quadrant. Your raid can be equally split between two quadrants easily. I like to have 1 healer on the far left side of the raid, 1 healer on the far right, and 1 directly in the middle. This guarantees that every player can be accessible by 2 of them at any given time.

As Holy

Use everything you have at your disposal. Circle of Healing should always be on cooldown. Prayer of Healing will be your biggest asset regardless of which spec you are. This phase is like the final boss of a whack-a-mole game. Guardian Spirit is one of the few spells that can save a player from a rocket. However, I personally don’t think you should use it as they have to learn to stand out of runes anyway.

As Disc

It’s quite difficult for your healing spells to catch up. What you have to do is buy as much time as possible for the other healers around you to help you or to buy time for your spells to land. Focus on your group. They are your priority. Every time Weakened Soul falls off, refresh their Shields again. When you see out of the corner of your eye that Mimiron’s guns are pointed in your direction, drop a Prayer of Healing. By the time the spell connects, it should be able to just about heal up your entire group.

Be warned that this will torch your mana entirely. You may wish to Shadowfiend on the tail end of this phase and Hymn of Hope immediately after this phase ends.

Pro tip: If you can, try to group Arcane Mages with Incanter’s Absorption with you. They will love you for it as your Shields will power up their damage.

Phase 3

This is another staying alive phase. Junk bots and Assault bots shouldn’t present a threat to you. The biggest headache of this phase is bomb bots. Oh yes and Mimiron will be in the air taking pot shots at one person.

As Holy

There won’t be a ton of players taking damage. There’s one player tanking the Mimiron himself. Another player will be grabbing and tanking Junk bots. Lastly you’ll have a few players kiting Assault bots around the room. Not much to say here except heal at will.

As Disc

I’m assuming you’ll be healing one of the players tanking or kiting stuff specifically in this phase. Bomb blasts that go off tend to hurt. I’ve seen my share of players getting instantly nuked by them. Go beyond your role as simply a tank healer. Target the softest players in the raid (clothies or other healers) and maintain shields on them as well.

Phase 4

Whew! You made it this far! Congratulations! This is a culmination of the three previous phases combined with some abilities subtracted. Mines will still be dropped and Shock Blast will still happen. That’s done by the bottom. The middle torso still fires out the Laser Barrage and launches a pair of rockets. The head fires Plasma Balls at players.

There isn’t much of a difference here between the two healing Priests so I’ll summarize some quick pointers.

• Keep a close eye on the mines especially when the boss moves. Tanks will have a difficult time trying to keep the boss positioned appropriately due to Shock Blasts and other effects.
• Don’t have to worry about the head as much.
• Always know what direction the arms are pointed at and be prepared to bolt at a moments notice.
• Dot up and add extra DPS to whatever’s being focused. Only do it if you see a rare lull in stuff to do and if you have the mana to support it. Shadowfiend should be up at this stage roughly.

While Mimiron continues to be one of the more challenging keepers in Ulduar, there are a number of nerfs incoming.

• The flight time of Rocket Strikes has been increased, and Rocket Strikes will try to prefer players at range.
• The Leviathan Mk II component of the V-07-TR-0N will become stunned during Phase 4 when the VX-001 component begins to cast the P3Wx2 Laser Barrage ability.
• Proximity mines now deal less damage and have a lower duration. A small arming time has also been added so proximity mines will not immediately detonate on creation.

Good luck in there and good hunting!

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