Adventures of a Dwarf Priest

Didn’t have much time on tonight but wanted to get a few things done.  I logged on and noticed it was cloth day again, man it just seemed like I did that   Still waiting on 3.1 to finish out my tailoring, I need to make Inien a bunch of the new herb bags anyways.  Then I’ll start decking myself and Inien out with 22 slot bags.

After completing my cloth run I went over to do some more questing in Zul’drak.  I’m really lagging about finishing out all of my WOTLK quests.  I’m actually quite embarrassed I haven’t got around to do it yet!  I still need to finish off a bit in Zul’Drak, Storm Peaks, and Icecrown.

I noticed the daily was VH which was short enough for me to be able to do before bed.  I had been in the LFG and got invited to a group just about the time Inien got out of his OS run.  I got him invited as we actually needed an extra DPS.  Everyone was pretty pro though we did wipe on the stupid water guy on the second spawn which means we got to start over   Everyone was running around like mad men, and when he rematerialized he ran over and crit me for over 18k, right through my shield!   I still have no idea how I the lowly Priest who had barely needed to even heal the very good DK tank, with all the DPS the mages and warlock were doing got agro WITH silent resolve but whatever…

I’ve been going back in forth in my mind about dual spec actually going back on the idea of doing it or not.  I still think I will as I would like to be able to speak with more authority on the non-healing issues of Priest.  Shadow Priests also look like they are more interesting damage dealers as like Priests they have more “tools” and don’t just cast one or two spells over and over.  I’m going to completely break with what I read though and go for something like this spec. I want to see if I can really go without meditation, especially with the improvements made to the Shadow Fiend, and the Shadow Priest reduced cool down.

People say Mediation is mandatory, that doesn’t seem quite right to me since only a few DPS specs even have access to such a talent, and there are so many more interesting talents I would rather try.  Maybe I’ll eat my words, but I want to try a go without it and see.  Maybe all the Spirit Tap talents and the improved fiend can offset the mandatoriness   I’m sure I’ll be called a Noob though if someone looks at my spec.  In general though my specs are never mainstream.  I raided with a Holy spec featuring Searing Light and Surge of Light (when it had no healing benefit).  I kind of doubt you’ll be seeing a lot of Disc Priests sporting this spec either

Or are you?

I yet again didn’t get on in time enough to do an instance (and I’m really itching to heal) but I did continue my preparation for 3.1.  I’m sure I’m not the only one too.  Of course the main focus of my preparation has been to create  a set of gear ideal for my upcoming Shadow mode.  I’ve been doing a lot of reading about Shadow Priests as well.  Like I’ve mentioned before, I’ve never been one ever, and from my play on the test server they are more complex than the two buttons I use on my mage

I started off evaluating my gear from the shadow priest sticky over on the priest forum.  The good thing I found was a lot of what I had would work great.  A few items were not ideal but certainly good until I acquire something else, my head for instance.  My weapon seemed very much out of place but luckily there was a crafted alternative. The Titansteel Guardian was suggested as the pre-raid alternative for the SP main hand.  I was intending on buying the DPS badge offhand so this will go good with that.

When I got on today I went to AH and looked up what the Titansteel Guardian was going for, and that was about 900g.  But I knew we had some BS in the guild and asked to see if anyone could make it hoping the mats would be cheaper   Thankfully someone could and they were.  I have tons of Frozen orbs so it was really just the cost of the Titansteel.  I think over all it was just 550g in mats to make and one of Sydnie’s alts made it for me (Thanks again!).

I copied over the most recent Laneer to the test server to check out some things, mostly trade skill stuff but I’ve got some things I could play with on the SP too like my Illustration of the Dragon Soul. I need to test out the new fishing daily too!  I want to buy a few of the badge items though and see how it goes with my current collected DPS gear.

I know, I know for someone who was totally against the idea of Dual Spec I sure am going through a lot of trouble for it   I figure though there is no reason to deny it, we are getting it.  I know it WILL change everything but there is no reason for it not to benefit me.  I see the opportunities it will bring, and will allow me to enjoy more of the game with less time wasted.  I don’t have much play time as it is, if I concentrate everything on Laneer then I should be better off

I was messing around on the PTR this morning while eating breakfast before work.  I setup my dual spec to be a shadow build, to go with my Disc healing build.  I decided to go try out, my heart was set to Zul’Drak so I was smacking down bad trolls.  I was amazed at how much damage I could do spec that way and I don’t even know what I’m doing.

I’m going to have to read a little on spell rotations and such because you end up with a lot more abilities as shadow than you have other wise.  The mobs were only 76 so they died a little too quick to get a real idea of my DPS.  I guess I could have tried a dummy while I was in IF   I was doing about 1200-1500 on these mobs without even knowing what I’m doing.  It makes me wonder how I come I run into so many terrible shadow priests in groups

The shadow build should definetely make my questing/grinding go much smoother!  So I’m getting kind of OK with dual spec now, though I still don’t know what the long term ramifications of this will be in the future.

Hopefully the server gets a little more stable and I can attempt to do some healing and see how the regen and rapture changes effect my mana management.  I was always careful, and had very low over healing so I’m going to guess I’ll do better than some with the changes.

Well the finally posted more details about how Dual Specs are going to work.  If you have read my rantings on the forums or here at all you’d know I don’t support the idea of Dual Specs as they have visioned them.  My main problem with them, is though you CAN change your spec now, people don’t do it often, and it is actually one of the few unique things you can have about yourself.  There is very little I can do as a Laneer the Dwarf Priest (other than being totally awesome) that can’t be copied which is the one thing I hate about WoW.

I keep hoping for something like the EQ AA system where you can actually make you TRUELY different from another.  Of course I’m digressing here on the subject

I liked the idea of Dual specs in a more limited sense.  Since 90% of the argument for it revolves around PvP I wanted a system which let you do what they said, specify a separate set of talents, glyphs and buttons for PvP and PvE.  When you go into an Arena, a Battle Ground, or PvP flagged at a WorldPvP spot you are using your PvP spec, and all other times the PvE one.  Simple, to the point dual specs.

Instead we get you can change your spec when ever you want in a city, or a device people can carry around with them.  I know most people will disagree with me but I HATE this idea. You’re going to end up with a lot of people with very diluted skills, and like I said with little individuality we had in the game out.  Right now I am a Healer, a damn good one IMHO   Of course I’ve been playing one for over 4 years, and that means I know my class well.  With this new system, you’ll have Healers, or do you have DPS?  They can be both so you don’t know, who knows which they are really good at, or maybe neither

I’ve been argued over this that most people don’t want to be tanks or healers so you won’t even see this, I guess this remains to be seen.  Then we have the complaint of the pure dps that may have a point on some level.  A Mage, Warlock, Rouge, and Hunter can really only be DPS.  It won’t do them much good in PvE they’ll be able to do the PvP specs.  They argue why tatke a Mage on a raid for example when you can take a Boomkin, who can be dual specing to Restro.  You now have presto a healer when you need an extra one, or if you loose one.  Or a tank if they have tanking gear of course.  The gear is really where this argument falls apart.  While I could dualspec a DPS build, my gear which is even closer to DPS gear now lacks hit which would hurt me.  Even worse a Paladin dualspecing to Prot would require tanking gear, to Ret requires Plate DPS gear, on top of Holy Gear.

All said and done I guess we’ll see how this changes the game.  My opinion is it changes for the worse. Given my hatred for it, I may even obstain from using it even if a DPS build for questing might be useful