speccing shadow, or how i tried to learn face-melting

For a couple of months, I specced shadow on my priest. Now, the last time I was shadow was back in Burning Crusade-era, around level 61. I played around with holy and discipline specs since then, but I never put anything into shadow, nor did I even think about it ("Me, spec shadow? That's crazy talk!") That is, until my boyfriend hit 80 on his druid, Grimcow, and wanted to give resto a try.

He is lucky he is cute.

First, I went with a 14/0/57 build. Since I hadn't been shadow for, oh, about 19 levels (I'm not even going to try and convert that into real-world time), I suppose you could say I was pretty rusty at it. And by "pretty rusty" I mean I "completely forgot how to play shadow". This was reflected in my DPS. which was, in a word, embarrassing...

But after doing "extensive research" (read: perusing Elitist Jerks forums while at work) I was able to find out how to improve my shoddy DPS: keep your debuffs up, use spells once their cooldown is up. Simple enough, right? Well, let's just say I still need to work on it.

This was the rotation that I tried to follow:

• Opening: Vampiric Touch --> Devouring Plague --> Mind Blast --> Shadow Word: Death --> Shadow Word: Pain --> Vampiric Embrace --> Mind Flay.
• From here, refresh your debuffs in this order:

1. Vampiric Touch
2. Devouring Plague
3. Mind Blast
4. Vampiric Embrace
5. Mind Flay

• And cast Shadow Word: Death ONLY when you have to move or when you're waiting for Mind Blast to come off its cooldown and still don't need to refresh debuffs.

LET ME TELL YOU, INTERNETS, juggling DOTs is harder than staring at health bars for an hour straight. And although I haven't yet fully grasped the intricacies of melting faces, I can at least say I had fun and I would try shadow out again. It's definitely something I'd like to get better at, at least.

Before Illythia went back to the priest trainer to spec discipline, she and Grimcow decided to pay a visit to an old friend...Onyxia.

I finally got to see what it was like tanking a big angry dragon.

And twenty minutes later, we kicked her to the curb and made off with some Tier 2 helms. But why doesn't the priest stuff ever drop?

When she was done sulking, Illythia picked up Onyxia's ginormous head, somehow stuffed it into her backpack (don't ask her how), and returned to Orgrimmar.

And then, for the first time ever on any of my characters:

Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer, baby!


Next post: PVP DISCIPLINE. HELL. YES.

from northrend with love

So far, my opinion on Wrath of the Lich King: EPIC. Yes, Blizz did a remarkably awesome job with the new expansion. Currently my priest is sitting at 72 but I'm in no hurry to level. I'm taking my time soaking up the scenery, reading the quest logs, and just enjoying the game in general. Everything just feels so different from Burning Crusade, and although that expansion was great this one just blows it out of the water entirely.

Anyway, picspam!

November 23, 2008 was WoW's 4th Anniversary. I hope everyone logged on to get their cute-as-a-button polar bear cub!

Anyone else catch this reference to American Gothic? (Found in the Vengeance Landing Inn.)

Of course, I couldn't resist hopping on the death knight bandwagon. Originally my death knight was going to be a draenei on the same server as my druid, but I couldn't wait until I leveled Mayari to 55 so I went and deleted my level 13 blood elf paladin, Thalestris, and remade her into a knight of chaos and destruction. The val'kyr are amazingly badass - I love their character design.

A couple weeks ago, some alliance raid killed our beloved Thrall. /cry So a large group of young death knights was stuck waiting forever for him to respawn so that he could tell the guards to stop spitting and throwing rotten fruit at us, dammit.

This is the sole reason I want to level tailoring on my mage. This right here. Also, is it weird that every time I look at screenshots of magic carpets, I get "A Whole New World" stuck in my head? Please tell me I am not alone here. (Taken during the quest "Magic Carpet Ride" in Borean Tundra.)

The battle tanks are also an freaking epic addition to the game. I mean, seriously...who doesn't want to single-handedly obliterate a large number of Scourge minions with a Horde Tank of Death?

I don't think I need a caption to explain how great this is.

This was my first jaunt into Azjol-Nerub. Have I mentioned that I hate spiders? Because I really do. And seeing this badboy up on my screen did not improve my opinion of them. At first sight, I actually scooted my chair away from my desk and "eep"-ed out loud. Good job giving me the creepy-crawlies, Blizz.

Speaking of instances, I'm still trying to figure out the mechanics of healing and mana conservation, post-downranking era. I've been having to drink a lot more often now, even after trash pulls. You can imagine that this gets annoying fast. The instances themselves are not difficult to heal, however, though I have had a few times (in Utgarde Keep, for one) when I almost had a heart attack healing my death knight tank friend, who took quite large damage spikes far too often - leaving me OOM and slightly shaken.

So far, my favorite boss fight has to be Grand Magus Telestra from the Nexus. Circle of Healing is love in this encounter, particularly when she casts Gravity Well. Take that, you silly mage!

One more, because the scenery in this game is absolutely gorgeous: Howling Fjord.