Nerd Culture Podcast

Conviction’s original purpose was to create a cycle of healing, dealing, and preventing damage. This cycle continues and flourishes in 5.2, so long as the Priest has a good amount of Spirit, Mastery, and Crit %.

Click here to see the spec on WoWHead

Thankfully, with the new talents there have been some new great additions to this spec. For example, Void Tendrils can remove some melee enemies from you for a few precious seconds, and while using the Holy Fire/Smite combo with Glyph of Smite (which increases Smite damage during the Holy Fire DoT effect), the Void Tendrils are healed from damage dealt due to Atonement! Also, Divine Star is a great way to deal and heal damage, as whenever it critically heals, it creates an absorption shield on those that were in its path. Also, Penance has a new added effect of giving you a cast of your Shield even if you are under the effect of Weakened Soul, along with Smite casts having a 15% chance for a free and instant Flash Heal.

Also, Atonement will still be your best friend, healing or possibly even giving you a damage prevention shield while you deal damage to your enemies. Train of Thought will also help you to throw more damage around, using Smite to reduce the cool down of Penance.

AoE can have some tense moments with this spec, but there are several spells that will help in such situations. Void Tendrils will help to keep their distance from you, and Psychic Scream will help as well once they break the roots (if they even get that chance due to the healing from Atonement). Power Word: Shield should be kept up as much as possible to help keep you healthy. If things start to get really hairy, then Pain Suppression will alleviate a good amount of the damage. Plus, as stated above, Smite will be allowing the use of free and instant Flash Heals, which also brings up Divine Aegis which creates a free shield when there is a critical hit. And Angelic Bulwark gives a player an absorption shield if they are reduced below 30% of their life for those just in case emergencies.

As for the Major Glyphs of Power Word: Shield and Reflective Shield, these help the cycle of healing, damage and prevention as well. Power Word: Shield converts 20% of the shield into a heal, so as to make sure that your health is further kept up, but be sure if possible to make use of that heal or its wasted (unless its a critical heal that procs Divine Aegis). Reflective Shield forces those that would do you harm to feel some of their own damage. All in all, this spec is very similar to where it was, but I feel it has more utility due to the addition of Void Tendrils and Divine Star, which have helped my Priest in numerous occasions and made this a very powerful spec.

Hail Storm is designed to keep your enemies in the cold, while you shatter them into tiny pieces with barrages of ice and frost. The main purpose for this spec is to keep enemies frozen or chilled at all times to allow for better targeting, damage, and survivability.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#my\N|kmozR0

This Frost spec should have an easier time with adds and group pulls due to the total of 3 Frost Nova types of attacks, being Frost Nova, Ice Ward, and your Elemental’s Freeze spell. With these, it is far easier to single out a large mob from a group, or hitting them all with Blizzard, Cone of Cold, and/or Frozen Orb.

As for the damage aspect, all of these freezing abilities allow for the use of a more powerful version of Ice Lance (4x normal damage) or Deep Freeze (5 sec stun). Also, due to Fingers of Frost (passive) your Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Blizzard, and Frozen Orb all have a chance to make your next Ice Lance or Deep Freeze act as though your enemy was frozen. Invocation will also keep damage up by 25% so long as its used every 40 seconds, easily enough time to dispatch of your foes.

Survivability will be increased not only due to the fact that you are slowing or rooting your enemies, but also due to Ice Barrier and Presence of Mind. The reason why I included Presence of Mind is due to the face that it allows for a split second reaction for a just in case situation. One such situation for me was a point when I had a few adds on me in the Jade Forest, I used Presence of Mind to cast my Frost Bomb on a mob. Yes, it may have only a 1.5 sec cast time, however, when you are near death from having fought several enemies and was interrupted by the current mob from replenishing HP and MP, an instant cast for a few second to an explosion that slows enemies is very handy. Especially when it’s followed by an Ice Barrier then Frost Nova and AoE damage galore!

GLYPHS
For Major Glyphs, I chose 2 for damage, and 1 for utility. Cone of Cold and Ice Lance increases the damage of 2 of the main 2 instant cast damage spells that will be used with Frost spec. Frost Nova is a keystone for this spec, so a reduced cool down time is very beneficial. For Minor Glyphs, Momentum is great for gaining more distance from frozen enemies, so long as you make sure there are no enemies in the area you are going. Loose Mana is not a requirement for this spec, but there may be some moments where gaining mana a little slower could be useful, especially since having Invocation, which reduced mana regeneration by 50%.

ROTATION
Try to make sure Ice Barrier stays up at all times along with your Invocation bonus (if you are level 90 that is). Your go to spell will always be Frostbolt. It places up to 3 stacks of vulnerability for a total of 15% to a few of your main spells, and that of your Water Elemental as well.  After you have your stacks, or if you feel your enemy is too close, feel free to use Freeze from your Elemental, or go for Frost Nova. I recommend keeping Ice Ward for just in case situations. Then when they are covered in ice, you can go for a Deep Freeze, or If that’s on cool down, go straight for a barrage of Ice Lance and Cone of Cold. Also, be sure to use Ice Lance whenever you have a proc from your Fingers of Frost (or Deep Freeze if necessary). As for groups, be sure to put in a Frost Bomb as early as possible. Then try to get the group of enemies clustered together, so you can freeze them with one of your 3 options from above, then Blink and us Frozen Orb and Blizzard.

Stick it to ’em is a Marksman spec for Hunters. This spec allows the hunter to wail on their foe(s) from the safety of any distance farther away than melee… which is exactly where all hunter’s should stay.

The main talents to assist in keeping enemies away from you are Binding Shot and Narrow Escape. These will hold your enemies in a certain area to allow for heavy AoE such as Lynx Rush, Multishot and Barrage. Thrill of the Hunt is a great passive for these situations for you to really throw more damage around, no matter if you are hitting a single target or a group. To further assist with survivability, Aspect of the Iron Hawk is also added in for those few situations where you may have an enemy slip through the cracks and get to harm you. Under these situations, be sure to remember your Disengage 1st, then your traps if your Disengage happens to be on cool down.

As for the major glyphs, I have selected Distracting Shot, Chimera Shot and Mending.  Distracting Shot and Mending are there to help keep you and your pet alive and well, keeping threat on the pet, and healing it over time. Chimera Shot will be the Hunter’s own form of mending.

Minor glyphs of course are always just for fun, but in some cases there can be a few for each class that can be of a lot of assistance.  Two examples of this are shown in Revive Pet and Tame Beast. Revive Pet is not frequently used, but is for those just in case scenarios where you may have gotten your pet killed and need to revive while you are still under attack.  (Don’t forget traps and Binding Shot for this emergency 1st before you start to revive). Tame Beast allows the taming to go a little faster so you can get back to questing, or whatever you were originally doing. As for Glyph of Fetch… pure entertainment… but I guess if your enemy dies in a spot where you are unable to loot, it could come in handy.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hx]n|chMMzq

NCP is proud to welcome back the much loved WoW Yoda – with an Enhancement Shaman spec that will sledge your enemy into the ground!

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhZfIhcs0hRG

This is once again an open ended spec because there are so many options of what you, yes you, want to do with those left over 6 points.  However, before I get ahead of myself, let’s build the ground work for this spec before we get to those juicy extra points.

The Enhancement Shaman is first and foremost a melee combatant… or so they say! Even though you may be melee, you have no, “charge” skill to get into combat fast and start wailing on your enemy.  Instead you have the better option of bringing them to you, in a not so quick method as the Death Knight, but far more punishing. The reason why I say this, is because you can set down a Searing Totem and Flame Shock the enemy, which will start your Searing Flames DoT effect and also get you ready for a delightful Lava Lash due to the Improved Lava Lash talent. If you can, try to avoid lava lashing until you have the full 5 stacks. Also, while the enemy is walking/running to you, feel free to set down an Earthbond Totem to hopefully slow them to a crawl while they try to get to you, and then finally give them some Lightning Bolts until they finally make it to you. This is where the magic really happens!

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Here is my latest WoW Yoda spec for all the Rogue fans out there – Blood Spatter.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#ff0fZZfhcfdu0MGo:mVM0kdmcz

This spec is designed to make your enemy bleed out all of their hit points as quickly as possible.

Start off with either your Ambush or your Garrotte (if the enemy is a caster), followed by using your Hemorrhage to force the enemy to bleed more, and for a higher percentage of their health. After that, you will want to use your Rupture when you have five combo points. Following your Rupture, you will want to continue using your Hemorrhage on the enemy and at five combo points, use Execute, this way your Serrated Blades refreshes for the full duration of your Rupture. With Coup de Grace and Glyph of Eviscerate, a ton of damage will be dealt.

However, if you have the luck of having a tank with you, or a PvP opponent that seems to enjoy presenting their back to your blades, then you will want to use your Backstab instead of Hemorrhage (except 1 time, because you always want to use Hemorrhage at least once to gain the 30% extra bleed damage).

Also, to improve your survivability (as you all know I like to do whenever possible), I have included Quickening and Deadly Momentum. The reason why Preparation wasn’t included, is because I personally would rather use 1 talent point where it could be used better than reducing 2 cool downs that are already very small, and 1 other cool down that doesn’t need to occur more often than its cool down allows already.

Poisons differ, depending on if you are doing PvP, instances, or PvE. For PvP, I would recommend using Crippling and either Deadly or Mind Numbing to help survivability. For instances, I would suggest Instant and a Deadly. Lastly, for PvE, you could easily go with two Instants, since enemies should die fast enough that Deadly won’t have time to do its damage fast enough.

Have fun and make your enemies bleed!