At long last I have finally been able to complete my Tier 1 set for transmogrification. It was something I started work on when I heard about Transmogging back in August and being the proud owner of Benediction gained during Vanilla Molten Core days I have chosen this as one of the sets I'll use for my healing gear. Although I must admit I have cheated a bit because Garr still refuses to drop my Circlet of Prophecy so I have used the Crown of the Hallowed which is identical and is a quest reward from a priest class quest, Twilight Scheming, in Blackrock Depths.

The only sad thing for me right now is the fact that there are so few staves in the game for a healer that I can't actually show off my Benediction lollipop while in combat. Although I will admit I do equip it while in Stormwind and not in combat in the open world (I have even been known to heal 5 mans with it). So currently I'm disguising my mace with a Aurastone Hammer simply because it dropped from Garr this week and is a "period" accessory to match my outfit and if anyone out there can suggest a mace that matches/compliments the old Prohecy set I'll be eternally grateful.

Anyway, for those that may be interested on obtaining the Vestments of Prophecy here is a brief how to guide:

All 8 pieces drop in Molten Core so get yourself attuned to Molten Core, its easily soloable for anyone past level 65, even us Holy Priests.

Once attuned grab a friend to form a raid group with so you can enter Molten Core. They don't need to join you inside but if they want to it just makes it faster and more fun! If you can't find a friend get yourself a free trial account and level a character to level 10 (you can't join a raid pre-level 10), open up WoW 2 times and form a raid group with your trial account (if you have a low spec PC I would recommend disabling all addons on the trial account and also running the window at the smallest setting possible and keeping it minimized).

Now you're inside work your way around avoiding as much trash as possible and kill the bosses. The set has 8 pieces but the wrists and leg oieces aren't visible so unless you're a compulsive completionist you only need six pieces and the waist is a BoE which drops from trash so you may be lucky and find that on the auction house. The items you need are:

Head – Circlet of Prophecy – drop from Garr

Shoulders – Mantle of Prophecy – drop from Sulfuron Harbinger

Chest – Robes of Prophecy – drop from Golemagg the Incinerator

Gloves – Gloves of Prophecy – drop from Gehennas

Feet – Boots of Prophecy – drop from Shazzrah

Waist – Girdle of Prophecy – BoE drop from random trash mobs

Wrists – Vambraces of Prophecy – BoE drop from random trash mobs

Legs – Pants of Prophecy – drop from Magmadar

If you're unfamiliar with Molten Core don't panic it will just take a bit longer to find your way through there, its a maze so be warned! But to assist you on your travels I have included a map, free of charge,because you're worth it :)

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I'll be honest, I was very skeptical of the newly introduced Looking For Raid (LFR) tool before it was launched. and had immediately tagged it Looking For Retard because of the dumbed down version of fights that was promised (threatend?) by Blizzard. 2 weeks on I've now actually experienced the LFR version of Dragon Soul, and now feel a bit more qualified to offer some real feedback on it.

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Welcome to the third and final guide to the new 5 man dungeons in 4.3. The Hour of Twilight is a 3 boss instance which is also another Thrall escort quest instance just like Old Hillsbrad, will this guy ever do something without me there to help? This time we take Thrall to Dragonblight.

Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

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Welcome to my second guide to the new 5 man dungeons in 4.3, The Well of Eternity a short NPC led dungeon with 4 bosses and 3 encounters and during the instance you'll be transformed into a Night Elf. As you'd expect with it being centred around a major lore event you'll get to meet and assist major lore figures.

Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

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Welcome to the first of my guides to the new 5 man dungeons in 4.3, End Time. a 3 boss dungeon with a twist as the first 2 encounters are selected from a possible 4 scenarios based around heroes/heroine of the Alliance and Horde, namely Jaina Proudmoore, Tyrande Whisperwind, Sylvanas Windrunner and Baine Bloodhoof and each takes place in one of the Drgaonshrines found in Dragonblight.

Even if you're not a healer you can get some benefit from reading as you'll understand how you can help out your healer at key times during the encounters.

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Just a quick post to say right now I'm on a major WoW downer.I play WoW to raid and right now that is a real difficult thing for me to do because of the my shifts I work (0800-2000)  and my guild's raid times (2000-2300) just are not compatible as I can only make  raid 1 in 3 raids and due to rotation I'll probably be benched every 3rd available raid meaning I'm only getting to attend 22% of raids. I have tried pulling a "late night" team together but there simply isn't any interest in this in guild. 

This leaves me with a game and guild I love and not being able to play it with the people I want to play it with and as 4.3 gets closer Dragon Soul is imminent and that means getting new people will be hard because of a lack of progress. 

This means that I'm stuck with 4 options and right now the order of preference is: 

• Quit WoW and hope SWTOR/LoTRO can fill the void (even though I have 5 months subs left); 
• Join a different raid group outside my present guild that raids at or after 21:30 (which isnt something I've seen often in 6 years); 
• Be carried through content and not enjoy the raiding as I have the 2nd half of Firelands (which I hated with a passion); 
• Hit up the looking for raid version that will simply offer no challenge;

So it seems that after 6 years my schedule will finally force me out of WoW rather than boredom or a dislike of changes. I'll keep you posted on my ultimate decision.

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Real life can be a harsh mistress at times. Family life and work place demands on us all and can cause us to change our habits.

For the past 6 years, I have managed to fit raiding in around family life and fortunately found guilds that started at 20:00 my time (21:00 server) and when my son grew older and that restriction was removed I was able to join friends and raid with them at 19:00 (20:00 server) despite this being a tight squeeze as the I like spending time with the wife to eat meals and stuff before she settles in to watch the plethora of soaps she pollute her mind with.

But recent events have caused me much pain and suffering. Firstly, I went through hell in my job, I'll not bore you with the details here but long story short I suffered broken promises, no pay rises, no hope of promotion and no professional development over 3 years before I had to quit or get signed off with depression. Neither option was good but the medical route wasn't really compatible with getting a new job so I quit and took a 2 month summer break to look for a new job. After hundreds of applications and dozens of interviews I landed myself a nice job with a 8 day shift pattern. 

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To avoid upsetting anyone with PTR/beta information I hide it by adding all the juicy stuff below the "read more" link. So if you want to have content spoiled you will need to click the "read more" link further down the page. The only clue will be from the title of the post but these will, I promise, always be vague enough to not give anything away.

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It is great to see that changes are happening as a direct result of the feedback people like myself posted on the forums. One of my pet peeves, as mentioned in my Class Feedback Post, seems to have been addressed in the latest 4.3 PTR Build with the introduction of a 40 yard range on Resurrection although as Shaman and Paladins also received this fix it seems that I was wrong on us priests being the only victims.

All that remains to improve the quality of life for all res capable classes now is for the standard out of combat res to become mana efficient to allow feral druids, prot/ret pallies and enhancement shaman to res a friend out of combat without having to drink.

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Raiding is a serious side of Warcraft, in fact any MMORPG you are part of a team and your 9-39 collegues are depending on you not to waste their time. We expect, nay demand that people show up on time, come prepared by having food, potions, elixirs, and any other buffs. We expect people to have their best gear equipped, enchanted, gemmed and fully repaired. We all hope that others have learned the strategies before seeing the boss encounters "live". 

We all play our game for fun, relaxation and a break from the realities of life but sometimes we forget this fact and tempers flare when people make silly mistakes and occasionally this leads to a bit of drama when we should be having a laugh about it and use them as tension breaker during stressful periods in game.

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I was bored, the guild were closing in on "Stay Classy" I had ££s in my wallet and a 10 level 85s on Shadowsong. A lethal mix for an altaholic with a weird ass shift pattern (2 days 0700-1900, 2 nights 1900-0700 and 4 days off) that gives me too much time home alone.

I decided to ship an alt out to Agamaggan to join my other 85 alt, a warrior so that I could roll a new toon. The guild needed a Night Elf or Dwarven mage, a Night Elf death knight or a gnome warrior. The warrior was a non starter as I had 2x85 warriors already, the death knight was removed from the list as I really wanted to see some of the new revamped zones in Azeroth and that left me the mage options. Both races were new to the class and after as I already had done the dwarven starting areas since 4.0.3 I decided the NElf was the one for me.

I wanted to name my mage Evian,as it's a play on the name Evlyxx and Ian my IRL name and with Evian being a brand of bottled water I thought it went well with the class. Sadly some paladin had already laid claim to the name but not seen fit to level it past level 3 I couldn't have it, but a cunning plan to feminise it into Eviana was hatched and a female Night Elf became the the chosen one.

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Wiping on bosses has been a way of life for me over the past 5 years. I started raiding in the summer of 20065 and while my first steps were being boosted by a top guild that didn't last long and I was soon wiping on early bosses in Blackwing Lair. We wiped for many weeks on Vaelastrasz (boss no2) and then many weeks on the 4th boss, Firemaw. No one complained as all 40 members knew what to do we just needed the practice to get the fight down.

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As promised yesterday here are my thoughts on the new priest talents. There are still many unanswered questions and what follows is my gut reactions and hopefully I won't have dissed as perfectly good talent or praised something unjustly


Level 15: Crowd control

• Void Tendrils: Roots with a 30 second cooldown good for running away from stuff and PvP;
• Psyfiend: A pet that pyschic screams every 2 seconds another PvP focused one imho but if a glyph stops the runing away could be great in PvE too;
• Psychic Scream: the old faithful, will be sad to lose it but Psyfiend could be too useful;

Level 30: Movement Speed

• Body and Soul: Speed Bubble - great for all healers and maybe Shadow too;
• Path of the Devout: 25% speed buff while levitating. Why? Running across water will be great but can see no other benefit;
• Phantasm: 3 second run speed buff when fading, also removes movement impairing effects - a PvP talent for those that don't love speed bubble;

Level 45: Self Buffs/Utility

• From Darkness, Comes Light: 6% chance for a free flash heal or a Shadow Orb free Mind Blast - looks like a great shadow option (assuming that Mind Blast has no CD and just requires a Shadow Orb). A waste for any healer;
• Divine Star: A boomerang version of Holy Nova, could be useful when you know you're going to be incapacitated and maybe PvP;
• Archangel: Healing/DPS boost-Looks like the clear cut winner to me and a great boost to Holy priests, I wonder if Atonement will work for them too?;

Level 60: Saving Thine Own Ass

• Desperate Prayer: 30% self heal always nice even for Shadow priests;
• Angelic Bulwark: 30% stronger self shield - could be sweet when levelling not sure on its raiding utility unless we going to see lots of ICC type aura damage;
• Final Prayer: 20% HP auto shield when you HP drops below 30% with 90 second CD. Will it stop a death if the blow takes you from 31% to death? Could be useful for all and maybe more powerful the Desperate Prayer especially for Shadow priests;

Level 75: More Self Buffs

• Twist of Fate: Improved healing on targets at 25% HP or less - they should get that low but useful when they do. My thoughts are this is more PvP than PvE;
• Power Infusion: Haste and mana cost reduction for the target, my money is this will be the best for all flavours of priest;
• Serendipity/Mind Melt: Haste and mana cost reduction for healers and faster (including instacast) Mind Blast for Shadow. a great choice for healers and a good one for shadow;

Level 90: Cross Healing

• Vow of Unity: A cross between Beacon of Light and Hand of Sacrifice the pallies have a useful option but maybe too risky;
• Void Shift: Swap health with your target a great choice for that tank/flag carrier who is about to die and taking a beating while you're at full HP and have no incoming damage;
• Vampiric Dominance: 15% heals to 3 nearby players. If this is in addition to Vampiric Embrace Shadow Priests are going to be even more useful but it looks like a great talent choice for healers especially in 5/10 man groups;

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Must admit I haven't planned this post so apologies in advance for the ramble....

Well we got Pandas.Mists of Pandaria will be the next expansion. I love that and am now praying that Blizz give us at least 1 more slot on the character selection screen cos I already have my 10 character slots filled with 1 of each class all at a level where I'll not be deleting 1 (although if pushed I probably would evict one to get a Pandaren Monk on the roster. Am really surprised they don't get druids as a class option though as it seems a really good fit for the race. Warriors, hunters, rogues (a bizarre choice but hey), priests, shaman, mages and of course monks are the classes so far.

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