I've been struggling with my passion for raids for a while now. A lot of this was because my new job meant I couldn't raid as much as I wanted to and that didn't help me feeling detached from the latter half of the Firelands content. This was because my friends in Saturday Knight Fever weren't raiding at the cutting edge and as Firelands was great content and I was happy with that as we were progressing through at our pace.

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Evlyxx the Jedi Sage

....for now at least, I have decided to not renew my subscription to SWTOR. There are 2 reasons that basically all end up being money.

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2 weeks into 2012 and it is high time I set myself some goals for coming year. I already have at least 1 character of each class at max level, each profession maxed out and gear levels are high enough on all characters on my home server to enter the raid finder so the goals for the coming year are going to be no push overs.

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A bit of a cheat this post as I'm simply reproducing one of my static pages I have just updated, but I think this topic actually deserves special attention.

Power Auras Classic is one of my favourite add ons as it replaces many addons that I used in the past as it allows me to create visual and ausio alerts that I design and position for procs like "clear casting", trinket procs, buffs/debuffs, cooldowns and even equipped items (I have been known to go into battle with my Chef's Hat equipped! 

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Its been a hard few weeks in the world of raiding, seeing posts from fellow priests like Derevka and Malevica posting guides on healing heroic Dragon Soul bosses fills me with a little bit of envy as my guild are currently struggling with the holiday boss and a few interlopers who have deserted WoW for a month until their free SW:TOR month ends, keeping us at 4/8 on normal modes. But that is the price I am willing to pay for being in a small social guild with friends and having fun rather than having WoW feeling like work.

That said if you're needing a new home for 2012 and can tank, heal or DPS a bit, can raid 2 to 3 times a week (10 man raids) and are willing to join me on Shadowsong EU visit the Saturday Knight Fever website and post an application. more »

As many of you may have noticed there is a new MMO on the block and like a few of you I have decided to try out Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Now my playtime in SWTOR has been short and I've only got up to level 11 and I haven't yet got my advanced class and am missing a lot of skills/abilities but I thought I'd share my experience with you and compare it to the WoW experience to see how both games could be enhanced by a transfer of ideas.

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Christmas is the season for giving and today I have decided to give a little to my beloved guildies in return for a little bit of effort on their part.

Their task is simple reply to a post on our guild forums before the Lunar Festival starts on January 21st 2012, their reward will be a Mekgineer's Chopper. So if you'e a Saturday Knight Fever member, or would like to join us on Shadowsong EU and win this little beastie please visit the our forums. more »

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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