Is WoW The Game It Used To Be?

Or it the players who’ve changed?

I never reached the level cap playing vanilla WoW so missed old-school raiding, but managed to raid everything in TBC up to Felmyst in Sunwell.  However, the changes to raiding that Wrath has brought us seem to have changed the raiding experience considerably for a large number of people, myself included, and not necessarily for the better.

Last night our guild was faced with the possibility that a large number of the raiders (including several officers) are so unsatisfied with the quality of our raiding (and the lack of recruitable players on the server) that they’re facing either stopping working on 25-man hard modes (which are pretty much the only remaining measure of progression raiding) or transferring to another server with a more mature raider population in order to continue progression raiding.

Several factors have lead up to this, ranging from experienced players getting burnt-out and leaving the game, to raiders server-transferring to more progressed guilds elsewhere, to unreliable raiding performance of current raiders (myself included) and general dissatisfaction with the progression-raiding model.  While some people are afraid that we may end up disbanding or at least retiring from 25-man raiding, the officers are working on one last recruiting push to try and get enough capable raiders and see if we can still push hard-modes.

Personally I’m beginning to think that if I’m not careful, this might be the feather that broke this particular camel’s back.  WoW (and the people I play it with) is a big part of my life, but the game doesn’t have the thrill that it used to.  Raiding especially has changed, with the challenge level going from “Challenging” in TBC for everything (well, with the exception of Sunwell), to either “Faceroll” for normal fights or “Impossible” for hardmodes in the current raiding tiers.

Apparently (hearsay FTW!) Blizzard’s goal with hard-modes is that only the top 1% of players are skilled enough to complete them.  I reckon this is raising serious issues with raiding guilds, who at a rough guess comprise 5%* of the total player base, but due to the binary nature of current raid difficulty the majority of them will end up either wiping in growing frustration or possibly dropping hardmodes entirely due to their very small reward-to-effort ratio.

* – Numbers may have been completely fabricated in order to support my rant.  Take with a large grain of angry salt.

Gear no longer has any meaning more than being the (occasionally aesthetically pleasing) vessel for your various stat bonuses – some of my guildmates still keep their T6 sets in the bank, because of how much completing the set meant.  However, when they replace their T7 with T8, or T8 with T9, the set it’s replacing will get vendored without a second thought because of how little the old items mean in this age of disposable gear.

The leveling game isn’t all that bad (once you get past the archaic 1-60 grind), and Outland is still quite beautiful (well, apart from Hellfire Peninsula).  But once you hit 80, the remaining game (either self-goals like collecting pets/mounts/reputations/achievements or group goals like raiding) just isn’t that exciting anymore.  Even raiding has gone from feeling elation at having defeated boss X (so you can move onto the next boss), to feeling relief that boss Y is dead (until next week).

I suspect I’m just getting burnt out by the same-ness of the endgame (and the necessity of a month of jousting to open up the latest group of dailies is just salt in an open wound).  To be blunt, I’m running out of things to do.

So it’s time for a change.

I’m going to try something new on my priest; I’ve changed raiding spec from shadow to discipline, and that means trying something very new.  I’ve spend a metric bucket-load of gold picking up some new disc-friendly gear (including the Etched Signet of the Kirin Tor – thank you Inscription), and my talent build has passed the healing officer’s once-over, so now I just need a lot of experience (which I suspect I’ll be getting in short order).

Here’s hoping we’re able to pull the guild back together, and reclaim our place as A Guild That Doesn’t Suck.

/wave

My Own Worst Enemy

I’m sitting in vent as I write this, listening to my guild wiping progressing on the 2nd encounter in 25-man Trial of the Crusader (the not-really-PvP one).  It’s amusing to consider that last week I was grinding my teeth in silent fury because I had to wipe with them, and this week I’m sitting out and grinding my teeth in much the same way.

Welcome to Planet Irrational: Population, Me.

It’s actually quite silly when I stop and try to look rationally at my reaction; the phrase “Dog in the manger” seems quite appropriate.  But the discontent does feel quite real, for all it’s for a pretty foolish reason.  (I think dropping vent and doing something else for a few minutes while I got the worst of it out of my system was probably a good idea – I’d rather not say something on vent that would leave me guildless)

At it’s root, I think, is the thought that I’m missing out on the chance to upgrade my already pretty good gear – this is despite the fact that I haven’t been rolling on gear lately, while I try work through growing discontent with shadow-priest raiding.  (Like I said, I’m Mr. Irrrational)

(Actually, it’s probably because I complained to the caster officer about how –insert expletive here- angry the faux-PvP encounter left me, and that I never, ever, EVER want to do that fight again.  It’s embarrassing when you vent, and people actually listen to you…)

Anyway, a recent series of posts by Gevlon have been food for thought, in regards my gear-fetish and lack-lustre performance.  (This one, then this one and the latest on the theme here)  I think I’m going to try continuing to raid in my current gear (well, maybe other than my weapon, which I need to replace with a non-hit-rating one so I can juggle the rest of my gear a bit better) and pass on loot for the time being.  The reasoning for this is because I need to improve my ability, instead of just relying on gear upgrades to pull me through.

That means not just getting a better grasp on my character’s abilities, but also putting some work (and thought) into my UI and keybindings.  It also means challenging myself to do better, and not just relying on macros and panicked key-mashing.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll get something more out of this challenge than I would out of /rolling on ToC25 loot.

/wave

(Amended edit:  maybe I’ll try discipline healing instead – I’ll see what the healing officer says…)

I Want Patience And I Want It Now

Like many others, I’ve been following the announcements at Blizzcon about what to expect with both Cataclysm and the much closer Icecrown patch.  All I can say is summed up in the title of this post.

Bearing in mind that what was announced was (in the case of the expansion) very much open to change between now and release (the closest they’ve come to a date has been “targeted for a 2010 release date” (as mentioned here), there’s not really anything they’ve said that I’m not interested in seeing.  Between the class changes (yay, more Dwarves!), leveling in the new old Azeroth, the new profession and Paths of the Titans, guild experience and leveling, and ranked battlegrounds, there' will not only be plenty for level 80s to do when the expansion launches but there will also be a lot of appeal to level new characters from scratch.

But that’s a long way off – and patience was never a strong suit for me.

The Icecrown information looks interesting, though, but the downside for me is having to endure the Coliseum raid for a couple more months – I’m seriously not looking forward to the hard-modes.

Icecrown Citadel – Raid

• The dungeon will have 4 different floors.
• There will be 12 "Epic" boss encounters.
• There will be an epic cinematic for defeating the Lich King.
• Waypoints from Ulduar are being used in this instance.
• Sindragosa, the ultimate Frost Wyrm is one boss in Icecrown.
• The Spire with the frozen throne on top runs through the entire instance.
• At one point you will board an airship with your faction leader, and race the opposing faction to the top of icecrown.
• There are cannons and rocketpacks and catapults to aid you in your battle with the opposing faction.
• The 3rd floor has 3 wings.
• Parts of the platform on the 4th floor with the Lich King will break apart and fall during the encounter.

Icecrown Citadel – Dungeon

• There are three different wings in this dungeon.
• You must progress through the wings linearly.
• An "epic" quest series unlocks the wings.
• 8 bosses in total

On a more personal note, I think I’ll stop with my glyph sales reports after this week’s one; I’ve proven to my satisfaction that not only is Inscription profitable, it’s consistently so.  And to be quite honest, it’s almost turning into bragging, so I think it’s time is done.

For the seven days from 17th August – 23rd August:
Total glyphs sold: 1882
Average price per glyph: 10.37g
Average sales per day: 2787.71g
Total income from the AH: 19,514g

Let’s compare that with my first report:

For the seven days from 21st June – 28th June:
Total glyphs sold: 622
Average price per glyph: 9.74g
Average sales per day: 865.86g
Total income from the AH: 6061g

I have to say, I love being fiscally self-sufficient, and the process has become a lot easier to manage compared to when I first started.  And, if I can do it, there’s little to stop anyone else from doing so.  (Other than the ability to come up with a system, to manage their time effectively, and to pony up with the gold to get stock to start with.)

Moving on, I’m looking at the possibility of un-retiring paladin Bingle from bank-alt services, and getting her to 80.  I’m also looking at the possibility of giving a Death Knight another try.  The biggest issue I’m finding is that I’m running out of character slots – 10 sounds like lots, but if you’re as serious about high-level alts as I am, they disappear pretty quickly.

I currently have 6 level 80s, one 70 bank-alt, and the 35 druid bank-alt – Snowfall, my Blood Elf hunter, has been removed from my roster in order to free up her slot, as the BE aesthetic was just too unappealing to level her any further (that darned matchstick).  That leaves 2 free slots on this server, and while I’ll have the Dwarven shaman and mage to make space for, that’s quite possibly a year off.  For now I’ve rolled my DK (I’m sure I’ll introduce you to Ninglethouse, eventually), and my current plan is to level her to 70, then decide who to take to 80 first between her and Bingle.

But errands await, and I think it’s time to put off making today’s glyphs in order to get some more PvP time on Pringle.  (I’ll probably put together a Rogue’s starter PvP gear post sometime soon)

/wave

Sometimes Self-Challenges Don’t Go As Intended

I tend to specialise with my assorted characters.  This goes from Mingle, who has the Loremaster achievement, to having one with each alchemy specialisation, to tentative plans to collect mounts on another character, and last of all to collecting pets on Ringle.

 

The pet idea came to me while I was farming the Deviate Hatchling in Wailing Chasm on Dingle.  I sent the single hatchling I found (from five partial runs) to Ringle, and the next day I logged onto Ringle and added both the Deviate hatchling and an Obsidian hatchling to her collection.  When added to the Northrend orphan she picked up the previous day, there was an immediate achievement ding and she had the achievement completed for collecting 50 pets.

Oddly enough, I was left feeling cheated for some reason, at how quickly she stumbled through that achievement (sure, it’s an illogical reaction, but logic is not really a trait I’m known for all that often), and my enthusiasm to start work on the next achievement tier has waned just a little.  I will probably get back to it at some stage (after all, with the 50-pet achievement reward pet, Ringle only needs 24 more pets to complete the 75 pet achievement), but that was an occasion when accidentally completing an achievement too quickly kind of took the fun out of it.

/wave

On Cataclysm, Commenters, And Lore Changes (Oh, And Gold)

I’ve been perusing the various comment threads of people’s posts regarding the rumours about the Cataclysm expansion, and a couple of things have come to my attention.

There seem to be a few categories* into most of the commenters seem to fit (although some manage to fit into more than one), and here’s what they look like from my perspective.  (Consider my tongue planted ever so slightly in cheek while you read this)

• The Lore Lawyers – These people are very much fixated on what currently exists in-game (and sometimes in previous games such as Warcraft 3), and refuse to entertain the possibility of anything that hasn’t been seen already.  They can use their knowledge to both support and refute any rumoured changes (sometimes simultaneously).  Can end world hunger if they use their powers for good.
• The Druid Denialists – A sub-category of Lore Lawyers, they may be much more open-minded about most things, with the exception of non-Night Elf and non-Tauren druids, which Blizzard would obviously never do.
• The True Believers – If it’s on the internet, it must be true.  They take the rumours as gospel, and have a lot of posts containing “ZOMG!!ZOMG!!”
• The Imagineers – A sub-category of True Believers, they love what they’ve read, and then they take the ball and run with it.  Posts which expand on the rumours with a lot of wild speculation (sometimes reading like a fan-boy’s wish-list) can usually be traced back to them.
• The Pessimists – Another sub-category of True Believers, they can usually be recognised by their “-Change X- sounds awesome, but Blizz will ruin it like everything else they do” posts.  Firm believers that every silver lining has a cloud.
• The Skeptics – They may admit that the rumours look interesting, but they don’t believe anything until it’s confirmed officially.  Possibly the most boring to read (Kidding! I’m kidding!), but they help keep the True Believers grounded.
• The Denialists – A sub-category of the Skeptics.  While they may say the rumours look interesting, they don’t believe Blizzard would ever make changes so sweeping to a game as established as WoW.  If the rumoured changes are confirmed, may still not believe them until they’re actually playing the expansion.
• The Logisticians – A sub-category of Denialists (which makes them a sub-sub-category of the Skeptics, I guess), they believe the reason Blizzard would never make the rumoured changes is due to technical issues.  (“Instance full”, anyone?)
• The Politely Hopeful – With no visible sign of hyperbole, they just say “It sounds good, and I can’t wait for official information at Blizzcon.”  (Probably your favourite category if you’re an over-worked forum moderator)

I’m sure any number of my more literary readers could add more categories (and probably more amusingly).

Personally, I’m somewhere between a True Believer (my inner fanboy is going “ZOMG! Dwarf Shamans and Mages!”) and Politely Hopeful (a new, old Azeroth sounds verrrry interesting).

One thing that I think gets missed by a lot of the people who’re saying Blizzard would never do “X” because of existing lore, is that it’s Blizzard’s sandbox and they can do anything they want with it.  If they disagree, I’d suggest taking a good look at the Draenei, pre- and post-TBC.  Ret-con much?

Do they want Space Goats arriving on Azeroth to bring Shamanism to the Alliance?  Done.  Elves joining the Horde, giving them Paladins?  Done.  Compared to that, are Troll Druids and Gnome Priests really all that outlandish?

Anyway, on a completely unrelated matter, as it’s the start of a new week it’s time to gloat over sum up my glyph sales for the week just finished.

For the seven days from 10rd August – 16th August:
Total glyphs sold: 2073
Average price per glyph: 8.84g
Average sales per day: 2616g
Total income from the AH: 18,312g

The irritating undercutter who was listing glyphs at a flat 3g/ea has been and gone, and been replaced by another merchant who sits in the AH and undercuts almost immediately upon my posting.  I have a contingency plan for this situation, but time will tell if it’s actually needed.

Needless to say, I’m kind of overwhelmed by the sheer volume of gold that’s passing through my hands currently (even after taking into account the expense of restocking).  The only down-side is the amount of time it takes to mill herbs and make inks – thank heavens for updates to Skillet and Panda.

I invested a few thousand in retraining Bingle in the noble arts of Transmutation-Specialised Alchemy last night – about 3.5k in mats and training to 450, and 1k for a Tome of Cold Weather Flight so she could get to Dalaran for the epic-gem transmute quest.  I don’t think I’ll be making the training costs back from transmutes any time soon, but on the positive side it gives me an additional transmute cooldown to play with (and completes the trio of specialists, with Elixir-specced Kringle and Potion-specced Fingle).

As I mentioned in my previous post, Pringle is now a happy little level 80 rogue (and is still nursing a hangover of world-shaking dimensions, but Dwarves are used to that – it’s the reason they’re stereotypically so dour).  I’m looking at gearing him up for PvP, and in the crafted gear he’s wearing so far, my experience is that rogues are ridiculously squishy.  Seriously. you’d think he was wearing cloth.  Or possibly was naked.  Rogue PvP is nothing like the fun of disc priest PvP, at least in his beginner-gear.

Also, in the mail today (the RL mail, not in-game) my Authenticators arrived.  Yes, I’m practicing an additional layer of account-protection (and it was pretty painless to setup).  I’ve taped it to the keyboard, as it’s not something you want to lose.

Well, my chores await (not least of which is milling my fingers to the bone), so it’s time to go fake productivity.

/wave

* – There are two types of people in the world.  Those who divide the people of the world into two types, and those who do not.

I Can Has More Dwarves?

I’m hoping the leaked information on MMO-Champion regarding the next expansion is accurate…  Goblins and Worgen are nifty and all, but I’m hanging on for the dwarf shamans and mages!  Yes!  More Dwarf classes!  (WTB more character slots – 10 might not be enough…)

And speaking of characters, meet my newest level 80.

Celebrating as Dwarves celebrate everything, with a mug in hand.

/wave

Raid v3.2, or The Trial Of Wake Me When It’s Over

I think it’s kind of telling that I opted to sit out from our first 25-man kill of Lord Jaraxxus, the boss in the Trial of the Crusader who was unlocked this week, in favour of leveling skinning on an alt (yay for guides).

I was underwhelmed by the first encounter (the Northrend Beasts), and the second encounter left me equally unenthused after completing the 10-man version this afternoon.  It might just be me, but it feels like I’m being served the raiding equivalent of baked beans on toast when you really wanted a three-course meal.

Perhaps it’s the single-room thing (and it’s the same room we do the 5-man in, so we’re seeing way too often), or the difficulty (I think the more advanced raiders are expected to still be expending most of our time and effort completing Ulduar hard modes until we get access to the Trial hard modes), or maybe I’m just tired of doing the same old thing (Shadow DPS isn’t exactly rocket science, which may be why I’m beginning to lose interest).

I spent a bit of time today on Kringle with a view to replacing his Herbalism with Skinning, the one gathering profession I don’t have on a character at the moment.  He’s currently sitting in Feralas with around 230 skinning – he picked up a new pet, the rare wolf Snarler, while he was working his way around the east of Camp Mojache, out of curiousity about wolves and their hunter-buff.  (It’s pretty nifty so far – I can see the appeal for non-BM hunters)

It looks like one of my glyph competitors (the one who posted everything for 3g) has dropped out of the race, and prices have taken a leap upwards as a result.  The downside is my remaining competitors live in the AH, and undercut me pretty quickly.  But what I’m losing in sales I’m making up for with a higher mark-up, so I’m not too worried at this stage.

I’ve yet to experience the new dailies due to one little oversight on my part: you only have access to them on a character who has the Crusader title, and the only of my characters I’ve bothered to finish that particular grind with is Dingle.  Mingle is onto her third valiant faction, and I’ve forgotten which one Fingle is up to…  The problem is, the grind just isn’t fun.

Seriously, after going through it once I have zero interest in repeating it (especially now the two irritating jousting quests for commanders and their friends have lost their common elements, which combines more jousting with the added irritation of spawn-hunting to try find the commanders you need to kill).  So there is however many new dailies that I don’t have access to because I don’t want to subject myself to 25 days more jousting per character, and to be honest, I don’t really care.  I’m spending more time doing incidental things (playing the AH mostly, with the occasional heroic) than dailies, and it’s getting harder to find things to occupy myself with.

Incidentally, one of the reasons I’ve been finding excuses to not take tank Dingle back into Ulduar 10-man has been referenced by Ghostcrawler quite recently:

We aren't trying to make the fights easy necessarily, but we are trying to challenge the tanks and the raid in ways other than just pounding the tank as hard as we can such that cooldowns (from the healers even) and big heals become the only things that matter. Those are fine for some fights, just as having a tank and spank once in awhile is fine. The problem with Ulduar is that too many of the fights came down to these huge hits such that other parts of tanking (and healing) became pushed to the side. For example, nobody is as worried about being a mana sponge these days because mana isn't generally limiting and tanks can generally be destroyed in two hits.

One of the things I’ve disliked most about Ulduar has been the reliance upon healers being able to keep the bosses from 2-shotting your tank, and that doing so requires almost perfectly-timed use of cooldowns (often both on the part of tank and healers).  Sure, a good tank is required in order to get anywhere in Ulduar (thinking of encounters like the corridor trash before Thorim, or the initial trash pickup with Auriaya, or tanking the first phase of Mimiron, as opposed to the easier bosses before XT) but there’s not much wiggle-room if things fall apart: when any boss kill can turn into a wipe because of a single mis-timed cooldown, it gets a bit less '”fun” (at least, from my perspective).

If they can make Icecrown a place where you’re not reliant on cooldowns to keep the raid alive, I think it’ll be an improvement over the Ulduar model.  Admittedly it’s a fine line to draw between “the ability to recover from mishaps” and “insert faceroll here,” especially for more competent guilds, but I’d like to think Blizz can tune things a bit better in future.

I’ve also just come across the news that we’re going to get to go back to a level-adjusted version of Onyxia with patch 3.2.2 (posted here).  I think this could be quite entertaining (and it’s very much in keeping with Blizz’s apparent love of single-room boss fights of late), and it’s a pretty nifty way to celebrate WoW’s 5th anniversary.  It’ll be interesting to see what the 310% mount looks like, and the fact it’ll be a permanent upgrade to the instance is a nice touch.

Also, WoW.com apparently has insider information that confirms the rumour of Worgen and Goblins being playable races with the expansion, which makes me a happy pandaran.  It’s a pity Goblins are horde-only; my dream of a goblin bank alt will have to remain unfulfilled for now.  (sigh)

Last of all, I’ve finally gotten around to purchasing an authenticator for my account.  It’s probably a couple of weeks away from delivery, but it should add an extra layer of security to my account when it’s all set up (which will add some piece of mind, as my online assets continue to grow).

Oh, and speaking of assets, I’ve received another fan letter, I’m guessing from a competitor in the AH who fails to appreciate just how much fun I’m having.

I love the way I’m berated for farming too much (something I don’t bother with) and for making too much gold.  (It’d also have a little more gravity if I could believe he was concerning about my well-being, and wasn’t just complaining because I’m cutting into his AH sales)

Well, it’s time to get back to being too rich and wasting my life.  (Seriously, I’m so amused right now)

/wave

DND, Making Gold

From my experiences so far with 3.2, I’d have to describe this as the patch that both emptied and filled my wallet.  Seriously, have you seen the prices for Titanium Ore?  (I practiced some semblance of financial prudence, and only bought 20 overpriced stacks…)

Apart from the new crafting bits and pieces (which was almost entirely jewelcrafting – incidentally, it’s surprising how well Earthsiege and Skyflare diamonds have been selling), I’ve mostly been speculating in the leatherworking leg armor and tailoring spellthread markets.  It’s just a matter of keeping an eye open for cheap components to stockpile: frozen orbs, arctic fur, eternals and (oddly enough – their price has been astronomical over the weekend) iceweb spider silk.

I’m surprised that alchemists got most of the gem transmutes right away – I would have thought Blizzard would have preferred to make it more time-consuming to acquire all of them, such as making the five-transmute pre-requisite before you can learn the Cardinal Ruby transmute apply to most of the others as well.  Still, considering that it’s on a cooldown, I guess they didn’t want to limit it any further right out of the gate.

I’ve managed to pick up 21 of the new JC cuts so far (of 73 – I’ve a way to go yet) using my backlog of tokens, starting out with ones I’d need on my various toons, and I’m now taking requests from guildmates for specific cuts they need.  Buying damaged necklaces to complete and turn-in for tokens seems to be the only economic way to get more than the 1-per day from the jc daily – with titanium ore starting at 350g/stack (and dust around 30g each), they’re not really all that viable.

Glyphs have been selling like nobody’s business (apart from a substantial dip on patch-day eve), and yesterday was my biggest day yet - you wouldn’t believe how many DK glyphs I’ve sold.  Here’s how last week treated me:

For the seven days from 3rd August – 9th August:
Total glyphs sold: 2782
Average price per glyph: 5.07g
Average sales per day: 1659.92g
Total income from the AH: 11619.5g

I’ve also (finally) finished discovering all the northrend glyphs on Mingle, so now that she can make all of them I can now say with a little more accuracy that she’s a master scribe. (Yay!)

I celebrated my financial success by purchasing the BoE Northern Barrier for my warrior, which dropped in Ulduar25 last night.  (Our guild keeps everyone supplied with raiding supplies by selling un-needed BoE drops on the AH, which can be purchased by guildmembers for a discounted price – it’s nice to not have to buy your own flasks for progression raiding)

I still haven’t completed the new 5-man instance – I should really get around to that, as pretty much all my non-raiding characters could use items from there (especially tank Dingle and disc healer Fingle).  I’ve run quite a few heroics on Fingle though, and (apart from the occasional over-enthusiastic gnome tank who pulls entire rooms) I think I’ve done pretty well.  It’s also been kind of fun, but I’m not sure if it’ll translate well if I try raid-healing on Mingle (whose new disc spec is still pretty virginal); my impressions of raid-healing, especially hard modes as we’ve been doing quite often of late, is that they’re very different to the slap-dash approach I’ve been taking with 5-mans.  Time will tell, though.

Speaking of time, it’s time to get my glyphs restocked so I can go do other things.

/wave

Disc Priest PvP Gear Guide – Part Three

Putting it all together!

Now, with the assortment of gear I’ve listed in the previous parts, you should have some idea of what is available for your priest.  In this part I’m going to give you some suggestions about the easiest order in which to buy PvP items, in general terms what stats you should be aiming for, and what gems and non-PvP enchants are available to help you get there.

Item enhancements – You’re not ready until you’re enchanted
There are a number of different ways to upgrade your items, from Arcanums for your helm, Inscriptions for your shoulders, and enchants for almost everything else.  The head and shoulder enhancements require either rep with certain factions or sufficient Stone Keeper’s Shards (additional rewards from bosses defeated in heroic dungeons while your faction controls Lake Wintergrasp) to purchase the item.

Head enchant:
The two faction enchants are useful for their bonuses until you can get one of the PvP arcanums.  The first Gladiator arcanum is also useful until you can get something better, if you have sufficient rep with the Shattered Sun Offensive from the Burning Crusade expansion.  The Dominance enchant is my recommendation for a new priest (and is easier to get than the Savage Gladiator one).

• Arcanum of the Gladiator (req. Revered with the Shattered Sun Offensive – Burning Crusade faction)
• Arcanum of Blissful Mending (req. Revered with Wyrmrest Accord)
• Arcanum of Burning Mysteries (req. Revered with Kirin Tor)
• Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator (req. Exalted with Alliance Vanguard or Horde Expedition)
• Arcanum of Dominance (40 Stone Keeper’s Shards)

Shoulder enchant:
Not many options here – the Lesser inscription from Sons of Hodir is equivalent to the greater Aldor/Scryer shoulder enchants, which can be used instead if you have rep with one of those faction from TBC and don’t wish to spend time grinding Sons of Hodir rep.  The resilience on the Dominance inscription makes it the preferred enchant for this slot, although the Greater Inscription can also be useful if you want to exchange spellpower for stamina.

• Greater Inscription of Faith (req. Exalted with Aldor)
• Greater Inscription of the Oracle (req. Exalted with Scryers)
• Lesser Inscription of the Crag (req. Honored with Sons of Hodir)
• Greater Inscription of the Crag (req. Exalted with Sons of Hodir)
• Master’s Inscription of the Crag (req. Inscription)
• Inscription of Dominance (30 Stone Keeper’s Shards)
• Greater Inscription of the Gladiator (10,000 honor points)

Cloak enchant:
For non-tailors, there are only really two alternatives, with Spell Piercing being possibly less useful for a dedicated healer.  For a non-tailor, the greater speed enchant is probably the most useful.  If you are a tailor, however, the Darkglow mana regeneration effect makes it easy to recommend instead.

• Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed
• Enchant Cloak – Spell Piercing
• Lightweave Embroidery (req. Tailoring)
• Darkglow Embroidery (req. Tailoring)

Chest enchant:
Resilience = good.  An easy choice.

• Enchant Chest – Exceptional Resilience

Wrist enchant:
For a new priest, the spellpower enchant is an easy recommendation.  Once your character is beginning to get geared up (and if you can afford it), the stamina enchant is probably equally useful.

• Enchant Bracers – Major Stamina (expensive)
• Enchant Bracers – Superior Spellpower

Hands enchant:
For this slot, the recommendation depends on your playstyle.  The hit rating from the precision enchant is wasted on a character who purely heals, yet can be useful if you use offensive spells against your opponents.  I’d suggest using the spellpower enchant, but if you're a more offensive-style player you may find the precision enchant more useful.  I don’t PvP on an character with engineering so I can’t make experienced suggestions on either of the engineering glove enchants, but I suspect that the accelerators would be comparative to the spellpower enchant and the rocket to the precision enchant for playstyle purposes.

• Enchant Gloves – Exceptional Spellpower
• Enchant Gloves – Precision
• Hand-mounted Pyro Rocket (req. Engineering)
• Hyperspeed Accelerators (req. Engineering)

Legs enchant:
There’s only one spellthread with resilience, so the Earthen leg armor is recommended for this slot.

• Brilliant Spellthread
• Runic Spellthread
• Earthen Leg Armor
• Master’s Spellthread (req. Tailoring)
• Sanctified Spellthread (req. Tailoring)

Feet enchant:
The ability to travel fast is highly recommended for PvP, and the stamina is the cherry on top of some very appealing icing.

• Enchant Boots – Tuskarr’s Vitality

Weapon enchant:
You won’t have a PvP weapon for quite a while, so I’d recommend getting one of the cheaper weapon enchants when you’re starting out (especially if you don’t have a very good weapon).

• Enchant Weapon – Mighty Spellpower (expensive)
• Enchant Weapon – Exceptional Spellpower
• Enchant Staff – Greater Spellpower (expensive)
• Enchant Staff – Spellpower

Belt:
While it’s not an enchant, you still shouldn’t forget to get an eternal belt buckle.  Which leads me to the next section of this guide.

Gems, or Scarlet Rubies are a girls best friend
Now, although the range of gems with resilience is very broad, you only need to worry about a few of them (especially while you’re getting started).

Starter gems:
You only really need to use a small assortment of gems in order to fill your empty slots.  It’s not worth getting epic gems until you’ve picked up some high-level gear, especially with the high price of the raw gems at the time of writing.

• Mystic Dragon’s Eye (req. Jewelcrafting, limit 3 equipped)
• Kharmaa’s Grace (yellow socket, unique-equipped)
• Mystic King’s Amber (yellow socket, epic)
• Mystic Autumn’s Glow (yellow socket)
• Durable Ametrine (red socket, epic)
• Durable Monarch Topaz (red socket)
• Steady Eye of Zul (blue socket, epic)
• Steady Forest Emerald (blue socket)

Meta-gems:
Of the three I’m listing here, I’d recommend the Insightful diamond for starting out; the stun reduction and run-speed increase of the other two, while they can be useful in PvP, don’t have quite the same impact as the mana returned (especially when you’re still in crafted PvP gear)

• Insightful Earthsiege Diamond
• Tireless Skyflare Diamond
• Powerful Earthsiege Diamond

Your Stats and You!
Resilience is your friend
If you want to avoid being one- or two-shotted by every passing dps class, you’ll want to have a decent amount of resilience.  In general terms, resilience works by reducing the effect of damaging abilities against you (and since 3.2 it reduces all damage you take from other players).

Ideally you should be aiming for as much resilience as you can get, although that will take quite a bit of upgrading to get very far (considering that Fingle had only 545 in her crafted PvP gear when she started out).  800 or more is a good place to aim for, and possibly more for arena.

More Stamina = More time not dead
One of the most obvious differences between PvE and PvP gear is the very large stamina bonuses you’ll find on PvP items.  If you can reach 20k health or better, you’re in a good position.  (For comparison, Fingle started with just over 16k)

Mana – Quality instead of quantity
PvE disc priests rarely go OOM (when played correctly), thanks to the inherent mana efficiency in their talents and the mana replenishment effects available when in a raid group.  PvP on a disc priest is quite a different situation, mostly due to greatly reduced mana pools and a lack of replenishment effects (especially in arena, but also very noticeable in busy battlegrounds where you often don’t have time to stop and drink).

You have limited choice in stats in a lot of PvP gear set items, mostly between Spirit or Crit, and for replenishment’s sake I’d suggest getting spirit gear (such as Mooncloth item sets) over crit gear (Satin item sets), at least when you’re initially gearing up.  (Non-set items often have much more variation in stats, which gives you some flexibility when combined with sockets on your gear)

You’ll notice, as you go from crafted to purchased PvP gear, that the size of your mana pool doesn’t grow excessively (indeed, it initially shrinks slightly with your first few pieces of non-crafted gear), so while the situation does improve as your gear improves you’ll still have to get used to having a lot less mana to play with.

Most of all, don’t panic!
You’ll find that your stats will increase in a fairly steady manner, because there isn’t much choice between varied stats in PvP gear the way that you often get with PvE items.  Eventually you will start personalising your stats, when you start choosing between spirit, haste, critical rating and other specific stat items, but while you’re still replacing crafted items with PvP set-items there isn’t really any way in which you can get it badly wrong.  So long as you have lots of resilience (which you will have), lots of stamina (which you will have) and enough mana (which you probably will have), you’re doing it right.

The Shopping List
I’m putting this list together based on the assumption that you’re starting gearing up a completely new level 80 who hasn’t done any instances and will need to be geared up from scratch. 

Crafted items:
Frostsavage Battlegear
Cloak of Crimson Snow
Sky Sapphire Amulet
Savage Titanium Band
Runed Mana Band

BoE items:
Titansteel Guardian (or Titansteel Spellblade)
Prison Manifest
Gwyneth’s Runed Dragonwand

That covers most of your gear slots, with the exception of trinkets.  Any spellpower or MP5 trinket will do for the time being, with probably the best easily accessible non-PvP ones being the darkmoon cards Greatness and Illusion (if you can either make or afford to buy them). 

Now for the upgrades, assuming you’re just doing battlegrounds and Wintergrasp.  Purchase the gloves and mantle first, as they’re the cheapest two set items, and the two give the two-set bonus of 50 resilience.  The gloves come first, as they give the Psychic Scream cooldown reduction.

• Hateful Gladiator’s Mooncloth Gloves
• Hateful Gladiator’s Mooncloth Mantle

The next items is the hood, which gives you a meta-socket for your Insightful Earthsiege Diamond.  Then comes either the robe to give you the four-piece bonus.  Also, don’t forget to pick up the PvP enchants for shoulders and head when you have enough stone-keeper shards, which you’ll be picking up a lot of from Wintergrasp.

• Hateful Gladiator’s Mooncloth Hood
• Hateful Gladiator’s Mooncloth Robe

(Just a tip:  If you are doing arena and buy two pieces of Hateful Gladiator and two pieces of Deadly Gladiator, when they’re all equipped you get both 2-piece bonuses for a total of +100 resilience.)

These next items can be purchased whenever you get enough Wintergrasp marks to do so.  If you don’t have any trinkets, get them first (you should get the Rune of Audacity first anyway, for its very useful on-use freedom effect).  Get the cuffs and band before the belt, boots or legs, as they provide the most benefit per mark as ilvl 226 items.

• Titan-forged Rune of Audacity (25 marks)
• Flow of Knowledge  (25 marks)
• Titan-Forged Cuffs of Salvation (15 marks)
• Titan-Forged Band of Ascendancy (15 marks)
• Titan-forged Cord of Salvation (15 marks)
• Titan-forged Slippers of Salvation  (15 marks)
• Titan-Forged Cloth Trousers of Domination (40 marks)

The following items are good purchases with the honor you’ll be picking up in Wintergrasp, especially if you do the assorted not-quite-daily dailies, but don’t have any special order in which to acquire them.

• Deadly Gladiator’s Cloak of Deliverance (38,000 honor)
• Deadly Gladiator’s Pendant of Deliverance (38,000 honor)
• Hateful Gladiator’s Band of Dominance (30,400 honor)

It make take a while to earn enough honor and marks (never let a Wintergrasp pass you by), but you’ll be well equipped for PvP from early in your progression. 

Now, I’m not a expert PvPer by any means, and I’ve yet to step into an arena, but what I’ve written should give you a head-start when it comes to assembling your gear and starting in battlegrounds and Wintergrasp.

Just remember:  Have fun!

/wave

Some links that I sourced for my guide:
http://penancepriest.blogspot.com/2009/05/getting-started-in-arenas-what-pros-are.html
http://elitistjerks.com/f38/t13983-surviving_priest/
http://www.plusheal.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2822
http://bobturkey.wordpress.com/ (not PvP orientated, but great priest info)

Disc Priest PvP Gear Guide – Part 2.5

AKA Patch 3.2 Strikes Back.  (This is just an addendum to update the previous two parts – here and here – with the new PvP items available with the patch launch.)

While the patch has gone live, Season Seven of arena has yet to begin which means we don’t have a new tier of PvP gear (yet).  However, several new items have become available from Wintergrasp for purchase with Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.

Titan-forged Cloth Leggings of Salvation (Haste - 40 Marks)
Titan-forged Cloth Trousers of Domination (Critical Strike - 40 Marks)
Titan-Forged Cuffs of Salvation (Haste - 15 Marks)
Titan-Forged Band of Ascendancy (Haste - 15 Marks)

These are very nice alternatives to the existing pants, wrists and rings available to purchase with honor points.  The leggings, with an item level of 232, are equivalent to the Furious Gladiator’s leggings (the current top tier of arena gear) and are substantially better than the ilvl 200 Deadly Gladiator’s leggings which were previously the best you could get for that slot without an arena rating.

The same applies to the ilvl 226 bracers (a smaller upgrade over the ilvl213 Deadly Gladiator’s Cuffs).  In the case of the ilvl 226 ring, the stats on it are arguably more useful to a disc priest than the hit rating on the otherwise equivalent Deadly Gladiator’s Band of Ascendancy.

So now you can see what new items are available (and how nice they are), and I can get back to work on finishing part three of this guide – I’m sure you can’t wait!

/wave

Patch 3.2 - Broken Addons Time!

It’s not so much that addons haven’t been updated yet, it’s more that they aren’t breaking gracefully.

And I’m feeling less than graceful myself, following a tooth extraction yesterday – I guess I’m not breaking gracefully either (although I surprised myself by coping with the extraction more gracefully than I was expecting to, being a woos of a guy, especially when it comes to dentistry).

I’m still working on the third part of my PvP gear guide, and it’s taken so long that a lot of it has been rendered outdated by the arrival of 3.2 and the new PvP items from Wintergrasp.  I might have to make a filler post (part 2.5?) to cover the few new items.

Speaking of 3.2, it’s been very much “a patch of appealing little tweaks that should have happened years ago,” at least for the most part.  Low-level mounts, check.  Character names coloured by class in chat, check.  Vendor prices listed on items when not at a vendor, check.  Item level can be displayed on item tooltips, check.  Make the Chef’s hat actually useful, check.

The epic gem transmutes have the potential to make transmute mastery profitable at last (wtb third alchemy specialist), new pets dropping from world mobs are nice (especially from old world mobs), and people have been hearing about the engineer buffs and going “That sounds awesome.” (I suspect that last of those is one of the signs of the impending end of the world)

The new raid instance has been about as underwhelming as I was expecting – having done both 10 and 25 man versions, I can safely say “Is that it?”  I’ve only managed to finish the first encounter in the 5-man instance (the tank had to leave), but that’s only managed to reinforce my dislike of jousting.

As an aside…  Night Elf druid cat form?  Awesome.  Night Elf druid bear form?  Ridiculous.  Just look at the tall hind legs and short front legs.  If I wanted a hotrod, I’d make one on my engineer.  (Mind you, I also want to make my druid roller-skates for bear form)

On the subject of “Things that don’t suck that much,” I’ve sold a ridiculous number of glyphs of the last week.  (It’ll be interesting to see how the new glyphs, Glyph of the Claw and Glyph of Command, sell this week)

For the seven days from 27th July – 2nd August:
Total glyphs sold: 2606
Average price per glyph: 4.07g
Average sales per day: 1515.35g
Total income from the AH: 10607.5g

Admittedly my average price per glyph has dropped yet again (which fortunately works against my competitors as much as against myself), but I’m still well and truly in the black overall thanks to the (substantial) increase in sales and some appealingly priced Ink of the Sea purchased in the AH last week.

For now, however, I have both Wintergrasp (if I can get in the queue) and the new battleground waiting for Fingle.

/wave

Passing Time While Waiting Impatiently

My playing has slowed down a little lately, which I think in part is due to the pre-patch anticipation starting to make itself known – it’s hard to think of a reason to spend time running heroics now, knowing that if I wait a week or two* I’ll be getting something useful in the shape of Emblems of Conquest instead of just sharding or vendoring everything that drops and stockpiling Heroism badges.

It’s kind of telling that, apart from time spent with glyphs and scheduled 25-man raids, I’m probably spending more time helping a guildmate out with farming heavy junkboxes for Ravenholdt rep (for the achievement, Insane in the Membrane) than anything else.  I’ve been exploring Lower Blackrock Spire, and I have to say, that’s a nightmare of an instance to navigate if you’re used to the almost-linear designs from Burning Crusade and Wrath – still, for all its faults, it’s not as bad as Maraudon.  Anyway, it makes a change to get out and about on Ringle – it’s been too long since I’ve spent much time being rogue-ish.

On a mostly unrelated topic, it’s easy to tell when Darkmoon Faire is coming, as the cost of herbs goes through the roof due to people who hadn’t planned ahead and are frantically trying to get enough inks and eternal lifes to make their cards (as has been happening over the weekend).  Oddly enough, Lichbloom has stayed around the same price (starting at roughly 26g per stack), but Adder’s Tongue and Icethorn have both rocketed up to 30g per stack and higher.  For a change, it’s substantially cheaper to just buy Ink of the Sea instead of buying and milling – sure, I miss the free Snowfall inks, but it’s easier (and cheaper) to start re-stocking those after prices return to more sane levels.

I’ve been letting my dailies slide a little as well – the rewards from fishing are pretty ridiculous when the RNG doesn’t like you, and I’m getting tired of travelling half-way across Northrend to get a handful of useless glass as a reward.  I’m still doing the JC quests with Pringle, though, as the tokens are well worth stocking up on in preparation for the 3.2 landrush.  I’m also trying to get Mingle and Fingle caught-up with the Tournament dailies, but it’s proving to be something of an an uphill battle; as far as irritating grinds go, the tournament is (from my perspective) one of the more tiresome (especially jousting, now I’ve done it as much as I have).

For now, though, it’s time to do dailies and mill herbs and craft glyphs.

/wave

* – My money’s on 3.2 going live this week, with next week being my backup guess.  When do you think we’re getting it?