Nerd Culture Podcast

Welcome to my latest WoW Yoda spec – Withering Touch.

I usually don’t like Shadow Priests much, so I had to do quite a lot of testing and research before I got a spec I was proud to include as a WoW Yoda spec. After all, I have to protect my reputation!

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bcGZZGbGdMzrdbfo:RMkbzMVz0

I know that the first thing that will come to most people’s minds are some of the talents that grant spells – those of course being Silence, Archangel and Psychic Horror. My reasons for this are due to the fact that generally a 45 second cool down for only a 3-5 second effect on a target isn’t that good, especially since priests don’t get an interrupt, so you may as well just forego it. Archangel, which you would be using for its Dark Purpose, increases damage of your non damage over time abilities, which aren’t generally used except on trash so it’s only real purpose is just a 90 second delay on just a 5% increase to your mana and a little extra damage to maybe 2 Mind Blast castings. As for Psychic Horror, yes 10 seconds without a weapon is very bad for the melee target, and 3 seconds trembling in fear is also bad, however a 2 min cooldown ruins any benefits it may have. I would much rather prefer to save the points for something a little more useful.

So, now that I have that out of the way, here is the reasoning for what I have chosen for Withering Touch! Darkness is a prerequisite to increase the amount of damage your DoT spells will do and to decrease cast time of your Mind Blast, Vampiric Touch, and Mind Flay.  With this spec, your main goal is to gather at least one Shadow Orb through Shadow Word: Pain or Mind Flay, then cast your Mind Blast to gain your 10% DoT buff. The best part about that is that you don’t need all 3 Shadow Orbs to gain the full 10% and having more than 1 Orb doesn’t increase the DoT buff increase, so only 1 orb is needed and the rest is just gravy.  So you will want to keep as many enemies as possible to have your DoTs on them.

That being said this will require a lot of mana, which I have already thought of. Masochism, Vampiric Touch, Dispersion, Mental Agility, Veiled Shadows and Glyph of Spirit Tap will all assist in either reducing your mana cost or increasing your mana production. There are also plenty of damage increasing talents to help with efficiency, which I won’t name here since there are so many.

As for the rotation, on a single target – Vampiric Touch will be your opener, followed by your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Death, followed by Mind Flay, then continue with Mind Flay and Mind Blast until your DoTs run out, in which you will want to recast them. For multi targets it is slightly different – You will want to choose a target to be your “main” target. This will be the one that will have your Vampiric Touch and  Mind Blasts will be cast on. All enemies should have Shadow Word: Pain and you hit them with a Mind Sear. And remember to move around whenever you are casting any of your instant spells, this way you have a chance to proc your Shadowy Apparitions.

All in all, this spec will take down your enemy in writhing pain and agony in no time at all!

This Retribution Paladin spec is designed to inflict pain on those who would inflict pain on you.

Your main damage dealer will be your Templar’s Verdict, which requires 3 holy power to get it to do its high amount of damage. Your best way of gaining your holy power, is to have a high Haste rating so you can gain more Crusader Strikes and Divine Storms through Sanctity of Battle.  Judgements of the Pure will give you 9% extra Haste after casting Judgement for an extra boost & Pursuit of Justice can also bring extra holy power for whenever an enemy stuns, fears, or immobilizes you.  Also, Divine Purpose will assist in helping to get extra chances of using your Templar’s Verdict by its 15% chance of gaining the temporary use of 3 holy power for about 12 secs or so.

One main thing to remember, is that if you have a potentially long fight on your hands, or perhaps have received an early Divine Purpose, I highly recommend that your 1st 3 holy power be used on an Inquisition. The reason for this, is because with Inquiry of Faith, it lasts for a total of 36 seconds where you are dealing an additional 30% more holy damage than normal, which affects all of your damage abilities. Your Zealotry and Avenging Wrath will ensure that you deal further increased damage to wail on your enemies faster and harder with your Inquisition and Templar’s Verdict as well. This spec can actually deal very good damage for AoE and Single target DPS, as long as you switch out your Seal, hence the reason for the Glyphs of Righteousness, Truth and Insight. Normally I wouldn’t have included Insight in there, but I did for the cases in which mana may have been drained or may have forgotten to use Judgement to gain the Replenishment effect from Communion. So for single target DPS, Seal of Truth should be used, with which the damage is increased from Inquisition, Inquiry of Faith, Seal of Command and Seal of the Pure with of course your Crusader Strikes and Templar’s Verdicts.  As for AoE, Seal of Righteousness should be used along with Divine Storm (if there are 4 or more enemies) and Consecration.

I wanted to make sure this spec had plenty of survivability, since this a Paladin after all, so I included Long Arm of the Law, Repentance and Sacred Shield – Long Arm of the Law for running away from your enemy if needed, Repentance to take one target out of the loop for 1 full minute (non-PVP of course), & Sacred Shield makes you a little harder to kill if you have been weakened. As for Auras, most people would expect to see me say Retribution here, but I’m going to shock you! Personally, I don’t really think that Retribution Aura has much use past a certain level. Sure, when it deals 16 damage to an enemy with 4 to 500 life it’s kind of useful, but doing 200 damage to an enemy with 100k life is barely a dent, even if they are using 2 very fast weapons or have the Focused Strikes ability (where they hit several times in a matter of a few seconds). For this reason, I stick with either Resistance or Devotion aura, depending on if I’m attacking a caster (which Eye for an Eye also helps with) or a melee based opponent. For your Blessing, I would generally recommend Might, since it will increase your melee Haste (which sadly does not affect your Crusader Strike/Divine Storm cool down).

Now, one very important thing about this spec is to try to keep an eye on your holy power. It is a complete waste if Templar’s Verdict is used with only 1 or 2 holy power, unless your enemy is on their last thread of life anyway. So don’t panic and use it early. Also, be sure to be ready for whenever The Art of War procs since it can potentially give you an additional Divine Purpose to follow it.

If you are ready with the correct seal and aura, you will be throwing out a ton of damage with a vengeance!

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sbhZMZfbGsdkszfd:zR0Rc00mc

Welcome to my latest Wow Yoda spec – Fiery Whim! This Fire Mage spec is all about setting as many targets ablaze as possible, and for as long as possible. This is made possible through talents such as Ignite, Blast Wave, Improved Flamestrike, Living Bomb, and Improved Fire Blast. This isn’t just about being an all area of effect talent spec either, as there is plenty of single target incandescence as well, for a well rounded Mage

Fiery Whim can cause tremendous damage over an area. I recommend starting off with using Living Bomb on 3 targets and follow up with a Blast Wave, to slow your enemies and get an additional free Flamestrike in the same spot due to Improved Flamestrike! Then continue with more Flamestrikes until your enemies get in close and hit them with either Frost Nova (for a bonus 300% chance to critically hit from Shatter), then follow with more Flamestrikes and Blastwaves, OR you could use Cone of Cold, which would have a similar effect as your Frost Nova, but with a lesser area and more damage. If you need a quick heal you could use Dragon’s Breath to disorient them all for a few seconds to use your Evocation, which with the Glyph will now heal you for 40% of your health).

Now, for single target incineration the rotation can be somewhat random, but that makes it more fun and unpredictable… just like normal fire!* However, there are a few key notes that will make enemies turn to ashes in no time at all. First, always start with a Pyroblast, if that is you are the person that gets to make the first strike. Follow that with a Fireball and continue with Scorches.  When the enemy gets close, you may chose then to use your Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, or Dragon’s Breath to keep them in one spot and continue to roast them at four hundred degrees Fahrenheit for ten minutes per pound, adding the potatoes at…  sorry, wrong type of post!  I would advise to go with Frost Nova or Cone of Cold since they offer the Shatter bonus, along with your Glyph of Fireball and Glyph of Pyroblast to ensure that your enemy is Ignited for the additional 40% damage over the four seconds. The part where this gets unpredictable, is when Hotstreak and Impact kick in.

Ensure you keep your Cone of Cold and Frost Nova at the ready, as well as Ice Block in case you just recently used your Frost spells but didn’t get the effect you wanted and now have too much unwanted attention. And don’t forget about Improved Counter Spell against enemy casters.

Also, some may wonder why I haven’t included the talents Blazing Speed or Fire Power.  The explosion damage of Fire Power is nice, but it can be difficult to target enemies with it, and for only a 3% increase for 3 talents points, it is pretty useless. As for Blazing Speed, yes it is a very interesting and useful talent, however this spec’s mobility is derived from Cone of Cold and Frost Nova, (with Blink if needed).

All in all, Fiery Whim is ready to burn away any foe that you have to cross your path.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#oMZff0bkbRRsfocbb:zocRsMmVo

*Disclaimer:  I am in no way saying that playing with fire in real life is an ideal situation and should only be used under adult supervision.