For the past few weeks I have been dual Disc spec. I know I'm crazy but I really love Disc and had embraced the Atonement spec to the full because it was simply faster to cast medium sized heals that way as well as changing it up a bit. Sure I still spent a fair proportion of time doing traditional healing but atonement buffed that.

Now being a raider there were fights when I simply didnt get a chance to lay the smack down and was needed to raid heal when our shaman and druid really insisted on a bit of the MT luvvin'. Then I was simply wasting half of my talents and was simply bubbling most and penancing the real needy while keeping Prayer of Mending bouncing around. Therefore I simply specced for the bubble botting that was so prevalent in ICC.

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I rolled a priest back in 2005 and the 1st 4 years Evlyxx was primarily a Holy priest. Shadow was my occasional "off-spec" and Discipline was this nasty kind of PVP spec that never appealed as it was neither healing nor DPS. It filled this strange place.

I knew a few priests that dabbled and then returned Holy and that was how it went. Then along came Wrath, Discipline was the revised and became a viable healing alternative spec. I stayed Holy, I liked Holy, Holy was priest healing spec. Then Blizzard did something that tempted me to try Discpline, they gave us dual specs, sure I could have gone shadow but there was this new thing I could test in raids and still heal.

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Just go my first really detailed look at the list of changes for the next patch and what a lot of changes there are. One thing is for sure, we're going to have to relearn how to manage our mana all over again just as we did when 4.0.3 and Cataclysm came.

The list of changes doesn't just affect us priests though, all of our friends are getting the same treatment too. Did Blizz get it wrong? Did those beta testers actually do any testing? Well I think the answers there are no and yes but still the changes coming in are really needed but were probably not going to get pickedup on a small scale test as Blizz perform in-house (small is relative here their testing team is nothing compared to 12 million players) and the beta testers were testing so many things that were ever changing that somethings were miss diagnosed or just not discovered.
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Power Auras was created to provide visual warnings when you gain very shorts buffs or debuffs, it allows you to draw in the centre of the screen around your character and is very customizable with many built in visual effects. Since its launch it has evolved and can now track

• Buffs/Debuffs (whatever their name)
• Debuff Types (like Magic, Curse, Poison, Disease, Silence, Stun, Crowd Control etc)
• Combo points
• Harmful area spells
• Weapon enchants
• Health
• Mana
• Rage, Runic Power or Energy thresholds
• Action cool-downs
• Aggro, PvP status
• Stance, Shape-shift form or Aura

TL; DR - its a personalised buff/debuff centre that can also help you track cooldowns to keep you alive amd maximise your DPS/TPS/HPS.

You can download it from:
Power Auras @ Curse.com
Power Auras @ WoWInterface.com

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More thoughts on the changes brought to us in 401, sorry I can't be bothered with all the dots any more, lazy? I prefer to call it efficient.

A general rule in raiding has been "move out of the fire", the "fire" has ranged from the aforementioned fire to poison, void zones and acid. It has come in many shapes, many colours and many encounters from as far back as Zul'Gurub right the way through to Icecrown Citadel. Sure there have been a few examples where the "fire" has been good to stand in, the poison from the Sons of Hakkar in Zul'Gurub, the Blue Goop (as my old guild described the Bog Giants aftermath in Serpentshrine Cavern) and the protective bubbles in Malygos
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