The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Shadow Word: Death!
by Zasp
My oh my. Sorry about the lack of posts for the last 2 weeks. A lot has happened, my Priest hit 70 last week… Thursday or was it Wednesday night? I don’t remember, so much of it’s a blur.
My played time to 60 was 4 Days, 15 hours. For my first “pure” caster I think that’s a pretty good time and it was pure old quest grinding. I did two instances as I leveled SM and ZF one run each just to get the experience from all the quests.
I hit 70 in 2 Days, 19 Hours for a total played time of 7 Days, 10 hours. Quickest 70 yet for me. Means I’m getting better at it or something! I had a lot fun with leveling the priest. Even more fun at 62 when I got Shadow Word: Death. I dunno why I like the spell so much but, everything about it is fun to me. It hits like a truck and the casting animation is cool, and while it can save durability if needed, I rarely died. I think I maybe kicked the bucket around 10 to 15 times and I know a couple of those were to drowning. Wee for paying attention.
It took me about 4 hours to get to 375 Tailoring and then I had a lot of the gear so many Shadow Priests take months to accumulate. Full Frozen Shadowweave, The Spellstrike Set, Belt of Blasting and Bracers of Nimble Thought. Started my honor grind Friday to get the Season 2 Gavel and Off-Hand, took me till Monday to get both. I quickly slapped a Soulfrost Enchant on the weapon because I’m not one to skimp and 14 Shadow Damage is 14 Shadow Damage. Man, DPSing as a Shadow Priest is a lot fun and I enjoy being a Mana Battery!
Monday, the EgoCrew did a normal Magister’s Terrace and got me some more gear. Gloves, Ring and Cloak all on the same run. I swear that instance loves me. I get all the loot I want there so quick! Here’s hoping I can get Timbal’s my first couple runs in Heroic mode.
Then later I got invited to a guild that was recruiting a Shadow Priest for their T6 runs and understood I just had rerolled. They had just finally killed Kalegos in Sunwell but didn’t have the time to get serious attempts on Brutallus, and from what I understand, he one shotted the tank the first time he ran in. I really hope to see some of Sunwell and the rest of Black Temple before Wrath of the Lich King hits.
Anyways in Hyjal, we did Rage Winterchill and I promptly died to Ice Bolt due to low life of my current gear, and not having my PvP trinket yet. No big deal, I wasn’t the only one to die to it. Also got to experience Anetheron. I took a Carrion Swarm to the face! And again I bit the dust. It happens especially to me as I have NO stamina. Nothing to new here as I’ve experienced all of Hyjal on a Rogue just not a caster. Looking forward to it none the less.
The Hammer of Judgment dropped of trash, so in two days I did two Soulfrost Enchants in one day. That was fun. And to think I use to think Mongoose was expensive. I don’t like being handed gear but they could really use a Shadow Priest and I love running out of Internet fires.
Tuesday I got to see Black Temple for the first time in several months. Did the first 6 Bosses, 3 of them being new for me. I was worried about my HP pool on Najentus, as a min of 8.5k life is recommended for the fight, I’m not quite there. However, Power Word: Shield gave me a decent buffer to make sure I didn’t die.
Supremus, was fun as a caster even if the fight was a lot longer then it needed to be. The off-tank wasn’t building enough rage quick enough and didn’t get high enough on threat. This lead to the melee taking all the Hateful Strikes thus dropping a lot of our DPS. Was fun none the less, all the melee were giving the off-tank crap and it got kind of close at the end, but it was a one shot.
Shade of Akama was easy mode and nothing new. I helped DPS the channelers down and collected loots.
Teron Gorefiend was fun. All the spell push-back makes my damage output suffer a bit, but I have yet to learn the tricks to maximize my it on fights like this. I got Shadow of Death’d which I was dreading, because I’ve heard its easy to mess up the constructs. Well I did it so quick I thought I lost track of one of em, just turned out I killed it super quick. Anyone thats played the flash game online, its about 100 times easier then that so if you can do that don’t sweat it.
BloodBoil and Reliquary of Souls we’re pretty fun but very sensitive DPS fights, so I had to watch my threat like a hawk. They we’re a bit worried about my HP on Bloodboil but I didn’t get Fel Raged so it was a non factor.
Overall, 0 Deaths on bosses in BT and felt my DPS was average, still finding my way on this toon, but it has been a lot of fun. Hope to see Illidan and the rest of BT as soon as I can. I’ve missed running out of internet fires quite a bit, especially with a guild that doesn’t tolerate people messing up repeatedly and doesn’t slack off.
Expect more posts from me now that I have stuff to ramble on about.
I leave ya with a pic of Genuflect.
August 20th, 2008
SW:D is a fun freaking spell.
And grats on that hammer! It dropped twice before I could get one - the first time the master looter couldn’t get to it before the next wave and then it despawned.
August 20th, 2008
You reroll a lot, eh?
Best of luck with the squishy side.
Also, FYI, OT’s don’t have to generate any threat at all on Supremus - his hateful strike hits the non-mt target in melee range with the highest current HP. If your melee got gibbed either the OT ran out of range, didn’t get heals, or your Melee pack way too much stam.
Tell ‘em to click off Fort next time!
August 20th, 2008
haha
yes! I love SW:D. But I laugh even more when a dark jedi forgets where he or she is at in fights like….Netherspite and Reliquary of Souls.
Zap, BAM. fall over dead.
“oops”.
So funny. Every. Time.
August 20th, 2008
@Ratshag
It is indeed.
Thank ye, luckily they run Free For All, so that should never happen, long as I’m alive and what not. Still eying that cloak from trash as well.
@Feist
A bit? Nyisa was a group project but the group around her fell apart before, I even got my feet wet. They’re back but she might be on hold for quite a bit.
Genuflect started as a PvP thing, Disc Priest in PvP always frustrated me when they knew how to play so I wanted to try my hands at one. But since I leveled Shadow I kinda fell in love with it, I strangely don’t miss my Rogue. And that’s never happen before. Hopefully because its not OOO shiny still. I mean I still PvP on the Rogue and do the Mana Tombs dance but I don’t wish I was on the Rogue, when I’m on the Priest type deal.
Thank ya kindly sir, hope I do a decent job at it, don’t know all the tricks but I’m pretty sure I’m pushing 1k DPS on Bosses, so with time I’ll be able to squeeze it all out but I know I’m not perfect yet. The groups I’ve been in seem to be happy with the mana I give em so I have to be doing something right :D.
Weird, the OT was in Melee Range just not getting hit. I dunno how’d he have lower life then our Melee, he’s pretty geared. But now, I know why it happened. Guess I skimmed over that part when I was worried about Teron and the new bosses I had 0 experience with.
@Hildi
Mostly because it dies in one evo.
Haha ya so far I’ve been very good at managing it. I’ve only killed myself once with it and I was trying. Smacked myself for 8400 on Curator, just to see if I could one shot myself. Everyone thought it was pretty funny
And with my life total, I didn’t even risk using death on RoS, mostly because I can’t be a mana battery when I’m dead.
August 20th, 2008
Most common way the OT gets out of melee range is dancing out of a fire at exactly the wrong moment. Used to get my rogue gibbed alot on Gruul that way when the OT went to move out of caveins. Bosses w/ Hateful strike type abilities WILL NOT chase the offtank.
1k DPS is about right fr a Spriest. In the end, you won’t push past 1500 on fights that don’t amount to “Gotta Dot ‘Em All!” (see, Illidian), until you really max gear and start stacking a lot of haste!
Best of luck clearing the rest of BT, and I hope you’ve got the mats for your SR gear banked!!
August 21st, 2008
If only equiping my Alt mage was as easy
I’m going to have to go tailoring..
But congrats on the 70 Shadow p - never go holy!
Its rather annoying that so much of the best gear available for around Mount Hyjal/BT for shadow P’s is crafted - and loot drops are poor subs ( but with more stam.. )
August 21st, 2008
Glad to see you’re successful in your ventures! Me being a bit newer to WoW and after years of insane powerleveling in EQ, I have chosen to take a slow, paced path to 70.
I’m in so very little of a rush, I’ve been playing for a year (off and on) and my max character is 45! Ok, well, I have two level 45’s and a level 20+ of every class in the game on some server or another…
Not quite a 50/50 anymore, it’s more like 25/75 % chance I’ll stick with my Priest - I too Just re-specced Shadow. Had always been discipline. It’s takin’ a bit of getting used to, but I love the abilities. Really started to see the potential with Vampiric Embrace. Although, I think I may still wind back up Discipline eventually. I want a taste of all the specs, through various ranges of the Priest’s progression.
On the way up to 70, I’ll try Holy sometime too. I may re-spec back to Disc and maybe back to Shadow… etc..
Luckily, I spend a fair amount of time on Professions now, feeding a hungry twink market along with some ‘resourcefulness’ in getting some of the more rare patterns and such from one market to another. This has netted me a very generous bank, particularly only being sub-45. What can I say? Too much Goblin influence from the time in Booty Bay at the Heutral Auction House? Perhaps.
And good luck with that Alt Mage; Zahrah - yep, I think Tailoring’s the way to go. My Priest at 32 is maxed on both that and enchanting until 35. Funny, but I’ve been using some of the mats I run across to even further post items and mats on the Auction House. With my wife still yet undecided on the Melee class she’s going to play, I have a rather large stock of Enchanting and Tailoring Materials from instance runs…
August 21st, 2008
Color me jealous, my server just is the pits for getting picked up
Since getting runs on my shadow priest is a bit of a pain I ran PVP to pick up the vindicator and veterans ring along with the guardian necklace. If your a bit on the squishy side those 3 pieces are either very good (depending on your current gear) overall or a good swap in for a fight where you expect a bit of extra damage.
Im still working out my initial spell rotation, I’m finding that it’s very much tank specific. So SWD isn’t always in the beginning rotation and I may not toss it in till the 2nd VT rotation comes up. Tanks can have a bit of problem generating enough initial agro to hold a mob for VT->SWP->VE->SWD->MB (especially if my quagmires eye procs somewhere in there). So it means skipping the VE and SWD till I refresh the VT.
You can always spot a healer that’s either over geared/bored or never worked with a shadow priest in a FSW set. If we aren’t taking damage we honestly don’t need heals
Far enough into a fight I may even toss out VE and Ill really make your life boring.