Let’s take a look at one of the the Discipline priest’s most beloved of all spells, Power Word: Shield. For brevity’s sake, we’re going to affectionately call it “Bubble”.

What with the newfangled patch coming out and twiddling with our talent trees just in time for Ulduar, I thought it might be a good idea to take a step back and revisit our good friend, the Bubble.

What happens when you cast bubble?

• 1) The Target of the spell is placed in a protective bubble, preventing X amount of damage.
• 2) The Target gets a debuff called “Weakened Soul” which prevents you from casting another bubble on them for a short time.
• 3) The Target is immune to pushback effects while casting (a handy trick to use when, for example, your druid friend begins to cast Tranquility – he might just get the whole of the channeled spell off even if he attracts the attention of a few mobs).

That’s all pretty tame, right? Everyone gets those goodies, Discipline priest or no.

Still, OUR bubble is a smidge shinier than most.

Let’s see what goodies we get. Talents are italicized.

• 4) If our Bubble is completely absorbed or dispelled, we get mana back AND we give mana/rage/energy/runic power. Booya. – Rapture
• 5) We get a 25% boost to spell haste on our next spell after using the Bubble, AND the amount absorbed is increased based on our spellpower (that’s 40%, folks) – Borrowed Time
• 6) Our crit chance is increased on any target with the Weakened Soul debuff – Renewed Hope
• 7) Our shields absorb more damage – Twin Disciplines and Improved Power Word: Shield and Focused Power and Improved Inner Fire and ANY other talent that boosts spellpower.
• We can use our Bubble more often, and it’s cheaper - Soul Warding
  
• 8 ) Mana cost of the shield is lowered – Mental Agility
• 9) Decreased possibility of dispell (this talent has other uses that make it viable – not just for pvp) – Pain Suppression
• 10) Threat Gain from the shield is lowered and it is less likely to be be dispelled (Bubble already has a natural low threat associated with it, and the only mobs that are going to dispell it are other players – PVP or skip this talent as a recommendation ) – Silent Resolve
• 11) Reflects some of the absorbed damage back to the attacker (only works if you cast it on yourself. Again, PVP or skip as a recommendation) – Reflective Shield

Oh, and let us not forget, we can Glyph it to make it even stronger.

What does the glyph do?

• 12) Glyph of Power Word: Shield – Target gets a crittable heal for 20% of the amount that the shield can absorb.

There you have it, folks! Ten(ish) incredible reasons to cast Bubble. I probably missed something – feel free to chime in with a comment!

Remember: Cast early. Cast often.

This is the companion post to Tuesday’s “Frivolity and Fun” post.

Where that one was lighthearted and not game-altering, THIS post asks the same question but with a more serious turn.

If you could sit down with a Blizzard developer for an hour over coffee, what things would you bring to their attention as being broken or needing attention? And taking that a step further, how would you recommend they be fixed? Lets have some fun with this shall we?!

Examples

• Totem Poles for shaman. Instead of littering the floor with wasted mana and cast time, let a shaman carry a totem pole (like the flag carrier in WSG) on their back. The totems would still cost the same amount of mana and still require the (imo stupid) global cooldown for each cast, but at least they can carry the totems WITH them from fight to fight.
• Consecrate(d Ground) for Holy Paladins. A deep Holy talent that would allow a a healing Paladin to “lob”  a consecration effect. Add a Glyph of Consecrated Ground that lets consecrate heal for x amount of damage it would do and presto! many happy paladins with an AOE HoT.
• Understudy for Rogues. Basically a Ninja in training, this would be a full fledged pet for rogues of all specs. Each Understudy would have skills similar to the rogue and would be propped up by whichever tree the rogue was spec’d for. For example, a combat rogue would have skill that boosted Sinister Strike – the Understudy would get that same boost. Their damage output would not be on par with say, hunter pets, but they would scale with the rogues gear and change to match the rogue in every visual aspect. Put it on a long cooldown like the Mage’s Mirror Image spell. **Kwane note: I was actually thinking this would be more like a standard pet, but with the same amount of hitpoints the rogue had, just lesser damage output…like built in multi-boxing 2 rogues***
• Absorb Demon for Warlocks. This talent makes the warlock always appear in a hybrid demon from usage until death, with the visual aspect of the warlock. changing depending on which demon was absorbed. This would negate some of the talents bolstering the pets, but absorbing the demon would give the warlock a good portion of the demons health, armor, and int – and access to the demon’s abilities.
• Master of Nature for Druids. Druids gain the ability to create or summon various creatures, dependent upon spec. Restoration druids would be capable of growing saplings that emit a constant low level HoT but cannot move, Balance druids summon Crazed Moonkin that spam moonfire until oom then melee until they randomly vanish. Feral druids summon cubs that spam bleed effects, that boost dps/threat and make waaay to much noise and are hated by the raid for it. All druids can spawn a flock of crows that boost group/raid movement speed temporarily.

And that’s just for starters!

What would YOU suggest?

Sarth25 with 9, everyone standing at the end.

Healers! *chest thump*

Respect!!

Sizzling hot topic for you folks, courtesy both Kwane and Vonya!

A Brief History Of Numbers

These days, the numbers 10 and 25 are cropping up more and more often in general chat, on blogs, and on the official forums.

Wrath made 10 man guilds viable throughout end-game, giving access to all the same content that the larger 25 man guilds have access to. Everyone’s either advertising that they’re filling out their ten-man raids, or pushing to get enough people to do 25 man raids.

Content

From a content standpoint, there are minor differences between the same encounter depending on whether you’re doing it on “heroic” (25-man), or “regular” (10-man). The bosses have more health and, in a very few cases, a couple more tricks up their sleeves, but (correct me if I’m wrong) are otherwise identical.

Reward

From a reward standpoint, 10-man Naxx loot is always level 200 gear, with OS and Malygos offering level 213 gear. Level 213, incidentally, is the level of the loot obtained via 25-man raiding, while the 25 man versions of OS and Malygos offer level 226 gear.

Assumption

The implication is that the 25-man raids are more difficult, and thus deserve a better reward, than their 10-man counterparts.

That, my friends, is the assumption I wish to challenge.

Are 25-man raids harder? Are they really more difficult?

Try to Focus

One could argue (and I would not disagree) that finding 25 people capable of staying focused and not falling asleep, watching sports, or just flat out not paying attention is more difficult than finding 10.

However, my assumption is that gear rewards are given based on content difficulty, not on recruitment or managerial difficulty. I’m sure many of you may have noticed that just finding five people who aren’t window-lickers to scrape together a heroic can prove difficult enough on its own. Anyone reading Hannelore’s posts should have little question about THAT.

Difficulty

Is the ACTUAL CONTENT of the 25 man raids more difficult to complete?

What’s the most difficult encounter in the game? You will find almost unanimous agreement that 10 man Obsidian Sanctum with all three drakes up is the answer.

NOT 25-man Obsidian Sanctum with three drakes up.

10-man Sapphiron is an incredible challenge. 25-man Sapphiron? I’ve heard it’s a LOT easier. Split your team and thus healers to each side as Hildi mentioned in a recent comment on this site.

In a 10-man? We run two healers in our team and the hybrids help out. Spreading too thin means our healing shaman (exactly 1/2 of our healing team) becomes weaker in this encounter, so its simply not as viable an option. 

I am willing to concede small exceptions like the Heigan charge dance are possibly harder by nature of having more people in an area, cluttering up the screen.

Why?

So why is this? Why is 10 man more difficult?

What does it mean for a 10-man raid to loose 1 person of ANY role on Sapphiron? 10% of the raid is gone! Were you incredibly unlucky and that person was 1/3 to 50% of your healing? Or worse yet was it the MT? Was it 1/5-1/6th the dps team? Might not sound like a lot there, but when time to healer OOM is everything, every fraction of a % of the boss’s hp 1 dps brings down can mean the world – Especially in a 10 man!!

What happens when you lose one person in a 25 man encounter? Two? Five? TEN? At what point do you wipe a 25-man fight? How many people can you lose, compared to a 10-man, before the loss is inevitable?

The Kicker

So then why is the loot rewarded blatantly a tier below that of the 25 man raids?

Effort vs Reward is gone I assume. I love the concept of Obsidian Sanctum and that leaving up drakes is more rewarding – you get better and more loot for leaving up drakes than you do for simply killing them.

But the 10 man version of this is widely considered the most difficult thing the game currently currently has to offer, and what do those 10 people get for conquering this?

Gear equavalent to naxx-25 ez-mode bosses. NOT equivalent to the end bosses of NAXX-25, but on par with that any retard that can accept an invite is likely to get, all the while drooling down his shirt.

Heroic? Pfft.

We cleared naxx-10 with 8 people.

We get nothing more than an extra mini-ding for this, acheivements and gear on par with gear in heroics. Heroics, I might add, that SOOOO many already complain are way too easy…us included.

What’s the point?

Are we screaming and railing? Are we crying and rending our clothing? Are we threatening to leave the game until this travesty is addressed?

No. All we’re doing is rattling some cages, asking people to think about this.

Running a ten-man raid instead of a 25 man raid is a CHOICE for us. We know this, and moreover, we knew that the gear rewards would be smaller for it. We could choose to recruit and fill another 15 or so slots, and we’d probably rock the content, but we choose the smaller, more controlled setting of a 10-man environment.

But we’d like 10-man raiding to stop being treated with the same condescending viewpoint as pugging Karazhan became at the end of Burning Crusade.

We’re not biding our time until we can 25-man and be considered “grown-ups” in the world of raiding. We shouldn’t be considered second-class citizens because we do 10-man content instead of aiming for the “big leagues” of 25-man raiding.

25-man raiding is hard. So is 10-man raiding – and I believe there is strong argument that 10-man raiding is possibly even MORE difficult than 25-man raiding.

Reward the content, not the numbers. That’s all we’re asking.

You know how Alchemy has specializations, right? Potion, Elixer, Transmutation – when performing the Alchemy of their chosen specialization, Alchemists have the possibility of creating extras!

Two mana potions for the price of one! Or, more impressively, two Earthstorm Diamonds for the price of one!

Regardless of my current bordering-on-psychotic-hatred of the current proc rate, I do think that specializations are a good thing for Professions in World of Warcraft.

I’d LOVE to see Cooking Specializations.

Oh, sure, you could go with the obvious. Meat versus Fish, extra procs just like Alchemy. Maybe you could give some uber healing recipe for the fish-chefs, and a super-melee recipe for the meat-chefs.

But that’s all so very ho-hum. Boring. Predictable, even.

I submit to you that we can do better! We are the Warcrafters! We demand creativity! We will not settle for a tired, recolored, repeat of the same old thing we’ve been looking at for ages! (*coff*ArmorRecolors*coff*)

No!

And in that spirit, I bring to you…Condiment Specialization.

You – the proud, the brave, the saucier – you have eschewed the obvious and more celebrated route of cookery. Instead of cooking the main dish – painstakingly breading every Golden Fish Stick, lovingly spicing every Hot Talbuk Steak, and agonizingly de-clawing hundreds of Spicy Crawdads.

No.

No, instead, you take those marvels of modern cuisine and make them better!

You thought that Hot Talbuk Steak was spicy before, wait until you add a little Harpy Hot-Mustard Heartburn! Guaranteed to add an extra +3 to your melee hit, as soon as you stop crying from the pain.

Your Golden Fish Sticks a little limp and unappetizing? Add a little Chimera Ketchup to give you an extra +2 MP5!

And let us not forget our beloved tanks. One can only eat so many Spicy Crawdads before getting bored with them. Why not add a healthy dollop of Goblin Guacamole Gas Gust! You’ll get a bonus to your dodge, although we do recommend turning the mob and tanking facing the raid, to keep from applying a rather nasty debuff to your compatriots.

Join the few, the proud, the Condiment Specialization Chefs! Augment existing foods with exciting spices and sauces!

I’ll tell you where!

Ego has been detained by “Work”. Said entity has been demanding much more of her time lately and sadly, the Ego Corp has not yet formulated a successful strategy for removing this burden from Ego’s shoulders.

Another raid upon the “Work” creature is tentatively scheduled to occur in the next few days. Hopefully soon after you readers will again be able to read the exploits of Tayt.

Until then.

Who are you? You have most likely been here before. Read an article or two. More likely than not came here for insight on the priest class or perhaps it was mere chance, a mis-click from another blog you read.

I, unlike Ego, tend to be a lurker. I hide and read, rarely posting anything anyway (as my dearth of posts here likely shows) but tend to read just about anything I can get my hands on when the topic interests me.

Is that you? Let us know! Take this as an invitation to, maybe just this once or maybe again after many times, sign in, leave a comment, say hello or tell us a story.

We are glad we have your eyes and ears. Glad you stop and visit and very glad those visits are enjoyable to you!

~EgoCorp

How do I get to Ironforge from Darnassus? Why can’t I mind control this npc? How did I get flagged for pvp? This trainer won’t teach me anymore, where do I continue to train first aid? Why did my first pet have bite but my new one has screech?

I know we have all seen these questions in general chat. Sometimes it’s a very simple thing that someone is looking for, knows they must be close and are simply frustrated. More often than not the question can be answered by reading quest text, looking at a talent tooltip, checking your character pane or perhaps checking the zone maps (when they fill in).

However, some of these questions do not have simple answers. And if you are like me, you like to be able to find the answers yourself, but when you are new its hard to know where to look. So where do you look?

**Before this post got too carried away and became a novel I decided it would be a series of posts. Later I will escalate the types of sites for the more power oriented. For now, the simple stuff.**

Since the inception of the MMO genre there have been sites dedicated to collecting and holding such info. While these typically have followed the pattern of being fan created then being comerciallized and eventually falling out of general use due to overflow of adds and mal-ware *cough* allakaz *cough*…ahem, in recent years there have been a few that have seemed to be able to avoid this pattern to an extent.

Wowhead is likely the most well known and is a site that I easily hit on a (nearly) daily basis. I play with specs for whatever class I am researching using their talent tool (which to me seems faster than the one provided by Blizz) or check for item drops. One great boon we have from Wowhead is the provided code for hover-over tooltips of items and spells.

Likely my personal favorite as a repository for all things WoW, including lore behind most anything there is lore provided for, is WowWiki. Researching an instance in preparation for tanking it the first time? WowWiki is the tool you want. Not always needing a walk through guide for the instance, it is always helpful to know what tricks the trash mobs have up their respective sleeves .

Last but not least in this list of the simple stuff is one that is fairly new, WoWDB. Here we have a site that is hosted by the addon site (goodness there is another topic waiting right there) Curse Gaming. And while I would like to go into a little more detail on it, the links over at wowdb are currently down or at least for me all seem to be redirecting to the front page.

In conclusion, you can either go here, here or here to find out where murloc eyes come from…or the EgoCorp will simply tell you they come from Aensu’s pants.

Well, the warlock has been semi-shelved again and again I have picked up a toon that is a class/spec combination I have attempted to play a few times in the past. This go round I have little choice but to stick with it. Also, as I started said character from scratch just last Thursday and with a whopping amount of help (read that as ‘he did most of the work’) from Aensu, said character is now level 48.

That’s right. From diapers to level 48 in 8 days.

I imagine that over the course of the next few weeks I shall choose to share my insights and convoluted thoughts on this class (yes I am purposefully keeping it a mystery for the time being). For this weeks post I shall simply leave a thank you to Vonya.

Thank you for keeping this site going strong, thank you for pushing the rest of the EgoCorp to keep blogging with you and thank you for the new avatars and sidebar images.

As a side note I think my avatar looks like Might Guy in the “Nice Guy” pose. I should totally have a word bubble so with “Yosh!” in it.

I once had a Hispanic friend who was a bit of a ladies’ man. They loved him – thought he was funny, charming, and debonair. Most of all, they always lauded over his hair. Oh how the women-folk would go on and on about his thick lustrous wavy black locks.

But had they known what I knew, I think they would have stayed away from him. You see, my friend Valdez had a secret. That fancy head of hair had been attained through preternatural means. At one time, he had almost no hair and it was obvious it bothered him greatly. He had tried all the “natural” remedies. Sought medical advice, tried every anti-balding solution on the market.

Eventually, he gave in and turned to the dark side. He visited a Voodoo priestess.

She gave him a precise list of ingredients to procure in order to cast the spell to restore his hair.

As these stories always go, shortcuts in the recipe were taken. My friend did not want to kill the yearling cockerel with his own hands and strip the meat from the bones. Instead, he stopped at the local fast food restaurant and picked up some fried chicken. He didn’t want to shear the wool from a newborn sheep, and instead chose to purchase a cashmere sweater. The list of unfortunate substitutions was long.

In the end, I suppose you could say he was lucky. He got what the spell promised – a full head of thick, gorgeous hair, if a little on the greasy side.

The Voodoo priestess, however, was covered from head to toe in a thick black goo that no amount of washings and soap could remove.

… (wait for iiiit) …

Tragically, it was a spill over from the hex on Valdez.