Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is now Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus. This week, unforeseen and uncontrollable forces have delayed the column by a week and a few days. For the next few weeks, I'll be taking a look into the depths of Black Temple from a Priestly perspective starting with Naj'entus, Supremus, and Shade of Akama.

Black Temple used to be the most challenging raid instance in the game. Now that honour belongs to the Sunwell. This week, I will help guide you through the trials and tribulations enroute to Illidan. I wanted to write this column for a while but I did not feel it was appropriate since I had no Illidan kill under the belt. We killed him last week and I want to share what I've learned to Priests that are fighting and progressing their way through this milestone instance. I'm only going to list stuff that's relevant for Priests to know about.

Tank Talk is WoW Insider's new raid-tanking column, promising you an exciting and educational look at the world of getting the stuffing thrashed out of you in a 10- or 25-man raid. The column will be rotated amongst Matthew Rossi (Warrior/Paladin), Adam Holisky (Warrior), Michael Gray (Paladin), and Allison Robert (Druid). Our aim is to use this column to debate and discuss class differences, raid-tanking strategies, tips, tricks, and news concerning all things meatshieldish.

This week on Tank Talk I'd like to step outside the technical aspects of being a tank and focus more on the psychosocial side of things. In particular I want to look at what happens when a tank is introduced into a tanking corps of a new guild, how to keep current tanks around, and how to deal with all those old tanks that have been in the guild forever.

For lack of a better phrase, I'll call the time from when a tank joining the guild until their eventual status as "god of all things tank" the life span of a tank. And perhaps the most important part of a tanks life is the new part, and it's something that I've been on both sides of the coin – the one doing the inviting, and the one being invited. Each is equally exciting. When joining a new guild I had not only the opportunity to see new content and progress to new heights, but also an opportunity to improve my skill and focus my ability to tank a mean game. And when I became class lead and eventually the guild's leader, I gained an opportunity to help new tanks become acquainted with our style of game play and watch them succeed and excel within the guild.

I like to look at there being mainly fives stages of a tank's life within a guild: Recruitment, Applicant, Raider, Senior Tank, and Mentor. Let's take a look at each of these and see how people in various stages can help usher a new tank into a guild's tanking corpse while keeping the old tanks around and happy. Since this is a long subject, today I'll cover the recruitment and applicant stages in a tank's life, with the raider, senior tank, and mentor stages coming in the second installment tomorrow.

Recently the guild hit Supremus again -- or, I should say, Supremus hit us. You'd think this would be a fairly easy fight to master. Supremus has two phases: the first is a lot like Gruul except with no cave-ins, knockback, or Shatter, and during the second phase, he aggros random people and tries to reach them while moving at the approximate pace of a snail. Oh, and he sprouts volcanoes under other players that you have to avoid. These two phases alternate until he's a giant pile of rubble in Black Temple's scenic courtyard.

Yep. Easy.

We can't do it.

The guild's been farming Black Temple for months and most of the usual roster is rocking at least 3 or 4 pieces of Tier 6 -- yet the vast majority of our Supremus fights end with more than half the raid taking a dirt nap. We've reached the point where even this is still usually a one-shot, but it's more than a little disturbing. How can you one-shot Illidan with 24 people still alive...and somehow fail to steamroll the giant McLootLoot?

To be fair, it's not just raids. I've seen players break out in a cold sweat over Talon King Ikiss on heroic Sethekk (which always confused me; the great secret of the fight consists of tanking him in the doorway). Others cite Grandmaster Vorpil, the event before the second boss in Blood Furnace when you don't have a Paladin tank, or Warbringer O'mrogg on heroic Shattered Halls (actually, all of Shattered Halls can pretty much bite me. I hate tanking that place). My own personal nemesis is Vexallus on heroic Magisters' Terrace. I've even taken a group with two mages and a rogue in T5/T6 here and wiped 3 times. What gives?

Holy moly, Shamans got a ton of stuff they wanted and then some today at the WoW Dev Panel during WWI '08 today.

• Shaman CC! Hex, previously the domain of NPCs only, was confirmed as a Shaman spell -- it'll have a quick 1.5 second cast, and will turn your enemy into a frog for about 8-10 seconds. The frogged person will still be able to move around, but they won't be able to attack or cast spells. A 1 minute cooldown was mentioned, but that's in opposition to the purpose of the spell, which is supposed to be emergency only, so that may change.
  
• The devs mentioned that Shaman were suffering from "Totem spam," so a few totems will be combined -- Strength of Earth and Grace of Air will become the same totem, and the physical school news was re-confirmed.
• Perhaps the biggest Shaman complaint since launch was answered: Shaman totems will now affect the whole raid, not just the local group. That's a big one.
• Weapon enchants are being revamped for more utility. Rockbiter is out completely, and Earthliving is replacing it -- it will give a +Healing buff. Flametongue will give spell damage, and Frostbrand will "more reliably snare" opponents.

A lot of Shaman concerns were answered today for sure, though perhaps not in the way players might have wanted. Will a 10 second CC be enough? It's great that totems affect the raid now, but will their range be extended to reach all of those people?

All of this information is still up in the air, of course, but it's awesome to finally see some official news on where classes are headed for Wrath of the Lich King. Stay tuned for more Wrath information, as well as any other WoW news we hear coming out of WWI.

I've recently been pondering if, and when, I should retire from raiding. Playing with 24 other people to accomplish a common goal is a wonderful thing. The teamwork and exhilaration from downing a boss for the first time is something that's hard to put into words – it's fun, challenging, frustrating, and all around a great time.

But when is it a good time to stop?

Everything eventually gets old and dies. Yes, one day our beloved WoW will no longer exist; even though that might be a couple decades from now (although I have my doubts WoW will ever truly go off-line, but that's another article). What I want to be sure happens is that I leave this activity I love so much on a high note – and not leave when it's become a pain and something that I'll look back disfavorably upon.

Right now my life allows me to raid. I have classes and WoW Insider work during the day, and at night I have time to raid for a few hours and hang out with the girlfriend and other folks as well. That strikes a good balance in life – allowing both things that I want to do by myself (WoW), and things that I want do with others (girlfriend, friends, etc...)

The thing I love most about summer is the thunder storms. Forget the constant days of 90 degree weather making my apartment bake even when the air conditioning is on, it's those storms rolling in with lightening striking a few hundred feet from me that I love. My guild-mates are going to love that too, especially when I'm raiding with them.

We've had our first couple weeks of this in game, and already I've heard "Be right back, Tornado," from some guildies living down in Kansas. Luckily everything was okay and no one got hurt, but the fact still remains – we lost our head Mage for 30 minutes, and that's 30 minutes of our life we can't have back!

While a Mage having to take a break in the middle of raids isn't a show stopper, having the main tank (my role) go offline is. I've had the unfortunate situation of having that occur a couple days ago. The computer I was raiding on wasn't plugged into my UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply), so I was disconnected from everything when we lost power for about 30 seconds. However with a bit of tinkering around, I was able to put myself in a situation that lets me stay on even when the power hiccups.

I never thought it would happen, but I'm eating my words -- Turpster, of the WoW Insider Show (and Turpstervision over on Massively) is going to ding 70 with his Shadow Priest before the expansion. And in fact, he's giving you the opportunity to not only see it, but to take him down right beforehand.

Yes, this weekend, right after our live show on WoW Radio (which starts at 3:30pm Eastern, or 8:30pm GMT), Turpster will be hanging out in the Gnome/Dwarf starting area of the European Sporeggar server, and right before he dings, he's giving you and all of the other Gnomes who show up the chance to try and take him out as a raid boss. He's even got a strategy posted, and trust me when I say he's got this all planned out as a real, chaotic, surely hilarious raid fight -- this will definitely be a sight to see. And there's loot in it, too -- if you're one of the Gnomes who drops him, you could nab a Tabard of Flame code or a few other cool prizes.

If you're on the US servers, don't worry -- Turpster has written up a quick and easy guide to get you running on the EU realms (you don't have to redownload anything, all you have to do is make an EU trial account). Should be a lot of fun, and make sure to Fraps or screenshot it if you're there. Tune in on Saturday for the WoW Insider Show live on WoW Radio, and then join us afterwards on EU Sporeggar (roll a Gnome, so Turpster looks like a really big raid boss) to take down the T and then watch him ding 70!

After the 20th Supremus kill the game can get a tad boring. There's no doubt about it. Raiders know well that you have to spice things up to keep it fun. One way to do that is to have a lively bunch of people you raid with. With them things can get "interesting" at times. The fellow officers and I in my guild have decided to make things interesting by betting on the number of people that will die during Supremus.

For some reason Supremus always manages to kill a few too many people. Not too many that we can't one-shot him, but enough that it makes you scratch your head. No one dies on Illidan, Council, etc... but Supremus? Run for the hills!

So to keep the fight interesting someone picks a number, say nine. That number is "the line." Myself and a couple others will take under the line, and a couple others will take over. If less then nine people die, each of us gets 20g. If more than nine die the other folks get 20g each.

Is betting against the raid like this a good thing?

Everyone reading this site knows that it's pretty important to read strategies for the various boss encounters in WoW. No matter if they're from Boss Killers, our own Ready Check, long threads over at Elitist Jerks, or home made modifications, studying boss fights outside of the game is essential to success.

However sometimes it's kind of hard to tell if everyone is actually spending the 15 minutes to read over and understand the strategies outside of the raid. This is particularly troublesome for the raid leaders and officers, since some of the fights can be very hard to explain without first having an understanding of where and what things look like.

We're having this problem in our guild right now. Not that big of a problem, granted, but it's still something we'd like to get better at. So last night our guild master made a map of the Kalecgos play field, detailing where everyone should stand (I know that some readers will comment that it's not necessary, but it's what works for us). In the bottom right hand corner there's a derogatory yet funny message about yours truly, something along the lines of a suggested act I can go do to/with myself. It's obvious, it's funny, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Tonight the GM will go around and ask each of the 35 or so raiders we have in the guild, "What was out of place on the strategy map I posted today?" If they can't answer correctly, they won't be raiding with us again anytime soon.

If you missed Nihilum's first live streaming raid in May -- and you probably did since they only had 1,000 spots available -- you'll want to install the plug-in ahead of time. (Note that Dyyno has been tested for XP and will run under Vista but Mac/Safari is not yet supported.) The upcoming event has a 3,000 viewer limit, but log on early so you don't miss the chance to view one of WoW's top guilds blast their way through formidable end-game content. During the live broadcast, you'll be able to interact with other viewers in the Xfire chat rooms.

Nihilum's raid will take place on on June 25, 2008, at 1:00pm Eastern Time (convert the start time into your own time zone). The entire broadcast will last 3 to 4 hours so bring your snacks and make sure your seatbacks and tray tables are in the upright and locked position. Good luck to Nihilum! I'll be watching and rooting for you.

Recently WoW Insider caught up with Neg, a restoration-specced Orc Shaman who raided with Nihilum before leaving recently for SK Gaming. An experienced player who has seen all of Blizzard's raid content, from Molten Core through Sunwell Plateau, Neg's talked to us previously about high-end raiding and what Sunwell was like on the PTR. As he's become one of a small group of raiders worldwide to finish the whole zone, we've asked him some follow-up questions about guild stability during the transition to Wrath, what Sunwell was like going live, why there are so many Shaman nowadays in high-end raiding, and the best and worst raid content on offer in WoW.

If you didn't catch our first interview with Neg, you can find that here, but read on for an inside look at the toughest raiding you'll find in the game:

This time of the year brings with it an influx of guild applications from the younger crowd. These applications are often done with zeal and lust for a summer's worth of gaming that is unappreciated by adult players. After all, school's out and what better way to enjoy the good weather than to spend it sitting in front of a computer screen?

My guild in particular has seen an increase of the 15 to 18 year old crowd applying to raid with us. Unfortunately many of these applications are not on par with what we're looking for in raider's gear and experience (we're done with the Black Temple and Mount Hyjal, and are working on the Sunwell). Everyone is also 18+ in our guild, and we'd like to keep it that way.

However, we have seen a couple of applications come our way that have stood out from the rest. While these people are young, they have shown excellent communications skills, along with solid understanding of their class and raid awareness. While we have covered applying to a guild before, I think it would be appropriate to talk for a moment about some tips for the younger crowd trying to get into a guild this summer.

My internet browsings brought me upon this YTMND page, and I thought it was funny enough to share with you all.

Endgame raiding, for those of you who don't know, can get a little predictable at times. Each class has their pre-defined roles, and each has their own unique style to them. Each raider usually carries with him or her (possibly ill) conceived notions of what players of each class are like.

For instance in my guild we usually poke fun at our Mages as being "emo mages," since they like to die a lot. Another one has lately been that I AFK tank, since when I get above 50k threat on the top DPS, there's very little chance they'll catch up to me (and on that note, they joke is on them, because as the main tank I often times do go AFK during phase two of Illidan.)

Take a look at this moderately funny YTMND take on WoW Endgame raiding. And have your volume up a little, because as my girlfriend explained, "That's Little Spanish Flea! You know, Homer sings that all the time."

I'm surprised it took this long for a tip to come in to us about this: the final gate in Sunwell Plateau is open today on the North American realms. This means all the raiding guilds who can down M'uru now have a chance to test their skills against Kil'jaeden, boss of the Burning Legion and, more than likely, the final baddie of The Burning Crusade. How long until we see the world-first Kil'jaeden kill? The gates should probably open for the European realms tomorrow, which is their maintenance day.

Not much is known for sure about the fight, since nobody's actually done it yet -- the PTR testers of patch 2.4 didn't manage to down M'uru, and if they had the gates probably wouldn't have been open -- but we do have some pretty solid speculation on what raiders might be rewarded with when they eventually do manage to drop the guy. And yes, I am very happy that I get to use that image of KJ in a top hat again.

[Thanks, Desustorm]

Our Priest column is back! Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is now Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus, and this week he's written different "If" statements to follow.

Summer is almost upon us and I hear Mount Hyjal is lovely this time of year! Honestly, I believe everyone playing right now needs to go in at least once and just experience the place. It is essentially the successor instance to Black Morass with multiple incoming waves consisting of various Undead trash. Not since Karazhan have we Priests needed to utilize our Shackle Undead extensively in another raid environment.

The latest patch has opened the raiding doors wider and allowed more players to experience some of the most complex encounters in the game. This week, I'll help walk you through Mount Hyjal and offer some advice and tips in what I consider the most punishing raid instance devised.