It was a bit of a perfect storm that led to this decision.  Partly real life issues (a small child, about to go back to work, moving house) and partly gaming issues (SWTOR, LFR, MoP announcement, alts).  Basically, I felt like I had more demanding real life commitments that, whilst I could probably manage, would be more difficult to manage if I didn’t have more flexibility.  I also found myself with more things I wanted to do that were not raiding and realised I wasn’t going to be able to do everything.  Then LFR hit and finally I can ‘see’ the content, albeit with less of a challenge, in a couple of hours.  And thats enough for me for now.

What am I going to do instead?
These will probably cover the first part of the year:

WoW

1. Get my warlock to 85
2. Gear up as many chars as I can via the raid finder/PvP
3. Participate in the MoP beta (accessed via the annual pass)
4. Moar achievements!

SWTOR

1. Get a couple of characters to 50
2. Participate in an operation
3. Gear up at least one character to PvP
4. Get the hang of space battles

For the blog I have a few ideas.  I will try and post more of the Moar Achievements series (and post them a bit quicker!)  I will finish the current LFR Crib Sheets.  And I am going to write some SWTOR crib sheets.  I might write some LFR/VP level gear lists.  I will write about the MoP beta when it starts, especially about PokeWoW.  I might also try and collate some useful resources for different aspects of WoW and SWTOR.

Does anyone have any other suggestions of things you want to read from me in relation to SWTOR or WoW? I’ll respond to each suggestion made with either a post or a good reason why I can’t write it (i.e. I am the worlds worst mage, 1920s French cinema is not WoW or SWTOR related, I’ll get arrested for writing that, etc.)

Whats the difference?
The new Crib Sheet, which is the one linked on the Current Crib Sheets page, contains LFR tactics only.  I’ve been a bit conservative and the LFR tactics are possibly a little more detailed than you will need.  But LFR can be quite random and it depends on your group.  From now on, LFR tactics are the only ones I will produce Crib Sheets before.  If you want more detailed tactics I suggest heading on over to Icy Veins and watching Learn to Raid/Tankspot videos.

Why the change?
One thing that never ceases to irritate me is being in a raid and realising the people you are raiding with don’t understand how the tactics work.  You know this when someone makes the same mistake over and over.

Heres an example.  How many times does someone need to drop a ball close to the hug point on Ragnaros before they come to understand that the closer you are to those balls, the more damage they do?  There is no limit because this is something players rarely understand from doing.  You only understand it if you have bothered to read at least the encounter journal and preferably tactics.  There are some awesome guilds who can figure this out.  Also some players.  If you can, then congratulations to you.  If you can’t, and your raid wipes again because you ran in too soon, then you are letting down every player in that raid who has bothered to read the tactics and make sure they understand the fights so they can execute them better.

This isn’t just a random rant.  My crib sheets aren’t designed to explain the mechanics.  They tell you what to do and little more.  In LFR, thats enough.  If you can do what you need to, it will die.  In normal raiding, that might get you through.  But your raids will not be smooth and your progress won’t be great.  And I don’t want to contribute to that problem further by enabling people with a short cut that might let them scrape through some fights, but that will ultimately see them come up short on difficult fights.  Each guild or PuG needs to deal with this issue as they see fit.  But I don’t want to help people hide the fact that they can’t be bothered.

This should ultimately make the crib sheets better.  They will be shorter and more suited to their purpose.  They won’t be as confusing.  And they will hopefully help make raids better and not worse.

Fall of Deathwing LFR Crib Sheet – coming soon to a computer near you! 

There are four bosses in the Siege of Wymrest Temple.

Morchock [MMO Champion | Icy Veins]

• 2 tanks who should always be the closest to the boss to take the double Stomp damage.
• The raid should stand behind the boss at maximum melee range to share Stomp damage.
• 7 ranged/healers should move to each red crystal as it spawns and sit right on top of it until it explodes. Closer = less damage.  While this isn’t vital, if your health is low it might kill you.
• Every so often he will pull you all towards him and cast The Earth Consumes you which spawns some spikes (don’t get hit as these spawn as they do damage).  Hide behind them.
• Hide from the black blood in the safe spots behind the spikes.  Once the blood has spawned you can move to dps him if you have a safe spot available.  The blood will kill you even on LFR.
• He enrages at 20%.

Warlord Zon’ozz [ MMO Champion | Icy Veins]

• 1 tank should fact him away from the raid.
• Melee should hug behind the boss.  Ranged should stand further back and behind him.
• Dispel Disrupting Shadows immediately.
• Every so often a void spawns.  It can be bounced between players, making it grow larger.  A small group, including a healer, should do this.  It can be safely ignored, but more bounces will speed up the fight by making the boss take more damage during the burn phase.
• Once it hits the boss, hug.  He will do lots of AoE damage.  Pop cooldowns and burn.
• Repeat until dead.

Yor’sahj the Unsleeping [MMO Champion | Icy Veins]

• 1 tank.
• Its all about the oozes here.  There are 6 possible different coloured oozes and he will spawn 3 every so often.  You can kill one of them.  The other 2 will merge with the boss and give him certain abilities.  Its all about the combinations.
• The oozes do the following:
• Purple means every 5 heals on a target cause the target to explode and take damage.  Use big heals and avoid AoE heals. Better just to kill it.
• Green causes the raid to be digested and does minor damage.  There is no splash damage in LFR so hug.  This is almost harmless in LFR.
• Yellow increases attack speed and adds an AoE component to Void Bolt.  Hug.
• Black spawns add that cast spells on players.  Hug and AoE.
• Red damages 3/8 people at random.  Hug.
• Blue causes a mana void to appear and suck mana from every ranged caster.  Kill it and the mana comes back to those nearby.  It only steals mana once.
• In LFR mode I personally would kill Purple > Yellow > Red > Black.  Again, Green is completely harmless!!!!!!  If you can’t manage to AoE the adds, then killing Black before red might be a good idea.
• You can hug for every ooze combination.  Only Blue requires you to move (to dps the mana void).

Hagara the Storm Binder [MMO Champion | Icy Veins]

• This is a 3 phase fight.  There is a ‘main phase’ and then 2 other ‘special phases’ – an Ice Phase and a Lightning Phase.  During special phases she is immune to all damage.
• Focused Assault does a lot of damage to the 1 tank so be ready with extra healing.  She doesn’t move while channeling it so move back away from her.  Move towards the edge so by the time a special phase comes, you are on the edge.
• In the main phase hug up.  Dispell Shattered Ice and have a ranged ‘tank’ Ice Lance.
• Ice Phase:
• She covers most of the platform in a big bubble.  Get out of it and hug at a Binding Crystal.  Stay there until the walls have spawned.
• She casts four walls of icy spikes that rotate clockwise around the platform.  Group and move around between them, paying attention at all times.
• Binding Crystals appear that you need to dps while running round and round.  Destroy all four to end the phase and go back to normal.  Don’t risk getting hit by a wall to do more damage.
• Lightning Phase:
• Kill adds near one of the Lightning Conductors so it overloads.  It will cause someone to be Electrocuted.
• Create a chain of people to spread Lightning between Lightning Conductors to overload them.  Some healing is needed here.
• Repeat Main > Special > Main > Other Special until dead.

Behold as the mighty yet elegant Morrighan smites the weepy Deathwing with the holy powers of penance, aided by the fierce and resourceful “crib sheets!!”

Happy Holidays dear Morrighan (and readers)!! I hope you have the very best of Winter Veils, and a happy new year filled with much smiting of weepy bosses atop infant bedding!

(Check out my own gift to Ringo of Flinthammer Hall as well as all the other bloggers involved in the Furtive Father Winter fun and games over at Blog Azeroth.)

You can get the following achievements from the Darkmoon Faire

• Come One, Come All! – Attend the Darkmoon Faire
• Fairgoer’s Feast – Consume one of every Darkmoon food and drink
• Faire Favors – Complete at least 6 profession-based quests
• I Was Promised a Pony – Ride  a Darkmoon Pony
• Step Right Up – Play 5 different Darkmoon games
• Blastenheimer Bullseye – Score a bullseye when launched from the Darkmoon Cannon
• Quick Shot – Score a Quick Shot at the Shooting Gallery
• Taking the Show on the Road – Launch off Darkmoon Fireworks in every friendly capital city
• Darkmoon Dungeoneer – Turn in 5 dungeon Darkmoon Artifacts
• Darkmoon Defender – Turn in 3 BG Darkmoon Artifacts
• Darkmoon Despoiler – Turn in all 9 Darkmoon Artifacts
• Darkmoon Duelist – Win the Darkmoon Deathmatch and recieve a Pit Fighter trinket
• Darkmoon Dominator - Win the Darkmoon Deathmatch 12 times and recieve a Master Pit Fighter trinket

You can also obtain the following pets and mounts:

• Darkmoon Dancing Bear (mount) - 180 Darkmoon Tokens
• Swift Forest Strider (mount) - 180 Darkmoon Tokens
• Darkmoon Balloon (pet) – 90 Darkmoon Tokens
• Darkmoon Cub (pet) - 90 Darkmoon Tokens
• Darkmoon Monkey (pet) – 90 Darkmoon Tokens
• Darkmoon Tonk (pet) – 90 Darkmoon Tokens
• Darkmoon Turtle (pet) - 90 Darkmoon Tokens
• Darkmoon Zepplin (pet) – 90 Darkmoon Tokens
• Sea Pony (pet)  - Fishing on Darkmoon Island

How you do it

1.  Go to the Darkmoon Faire via a portal from the old location of the Darkmoon Faire (i.e. one of Goldshire, Mulgore or Shattrath, rotating each time).  There are breadcrumb quests from capital cities. [Completed: Come One, Come All!]
2. Work your way along the Faire visiting the following people:
1. Buy some Darkmoon Game Tokens from a Token vendor.
2. Buy 6 Darkmoon Fireworks from the Fireworks vendor (not just any fireworks – specifically the ones called Darkmoon Firework).
3. Buy a Darkmoon Adventurer’s Guide from the Darkmoon Faire Information kiosk.
4. Play each of the 5 Darkmoon games, completing the daily quests for these as you do them (its the quests that give you the achievement).  These award Darkmoon Tokens. There are two additional achievements for the Cannon and Shooting games (see below).  [Completed: Step Right Up]
5. Pick up all the profession based quests and complete these.  You should have two for your main professions and 4 for the secondary professions.  You may need to go back to your city to buy materials for these.  You need a skill of 75 to get the quest which awards 5 points.  If you are levelling a profession you can keep these for tough points.   You can do these once per Darkmoon Faire. [Completed: Faire Favours]
6. Visit the Darkmoon Food and Drink vendors (the Food vendor is also the Cooking quest giver) and buy and eat one of everything they have to sell. [Completed: Fairgoer's Feast]
7. Visit the petting zoo and ridy a pony there. [Completed: I Was Promised a Pony]
3. Blastenheimer’s Bullseye requires you to land in the middle of the target after being shot out of the canon.  This is tricky, but not impossible with practice.  Alternatively you can possibly get this by having someone summon you to the spot while in mid-air (you need to be walking on the water for this).  If you hit the centre and don’t get it, there are some suggestions you can try jumping. [Completed: Blastenheimer Bullseye]
4. To get quick shot you need to hit the target really fast.  You can do this by just aiming at one target and keep shooting until you get it. Or have fast reactions of course. [Completed: Quick Shot]
5. Now it comes time to leave the island.  You need to visit your 6 friendly capital cities (the 4 faction cities and Shattrath and Dalaran) and fire off those fireworks you brought. [Completed: Take the Show on the Road]
6. While you are moving around, you need to pick up 9 BoP items which you can only get with the Darkmoon Adventurer’s Guide in your bags.  These are the ‘artifacts’ in the three achievements (Dungeoneer, Defender and Despoiler).  8 of the artifacts in the Despoiler achievement are in either the Dungeoneer or the Defender.  The 3 Defender artifacts can be looted when you remove an Insignia in a Battleground.  The Dungeoneer ones come from ANY dungeon.  So they have a chance at dropping while you farm your VP in heroics, or you can farm something like Stockades to get them (not sure if this is intentional and it may be patched).  The final item, the Soothsayer’s Runes, drops from raids.  This will take a while. [Completed: Darkmoon Defender, Darkmoon Dungeoneer, Darkmoon Despoiler]
7. This leaves only two achievements and these are back on the island but are the hardest to get.  You need to win the Darkmoon Deathmatch.  You win by looting the chest in the middle of the arena that spawns once every three hours starting at 12 am.  It takes 10 seconds to open the chest.  Anyone who is not in your group can kill you once you enter the arena, including your own faction.  Lots will be trying!  A group will really help here, as will PvP gear and waking up at 3 am to do it!  One win gives you Duelist and a quest to win another 11 times and get the Dominator achievement. [Completed: Darkmoon Duelist, Darkmoon Dominator]

So I have been playing in a certain beta this weekend.  I wanted to talk about the whole WoW/MMO-that-must-not-be-named comparison and what each company really should learn from the other.

MMO-that-must-not-be-named: the review
Just to get this out of the way: I like it and I will be playing it at launch.  End of review.

Its not better than WoW; its not worse than WoW though, and thats an achievement.  Each new MMO hangs itself off of one thing thats ‘better’ than in WoW.  It might be a new class system (so complex its impossible to balance), an alternative questing system (thats just not quite working), cross-server PvP (nice idea, but shame about the rest of it) or, it might be really good storytelling.  Bioware went for storytelling.

Many things are very similar and WoW players will be able to get going pretty fast without it being too complex.  The tutorial leads you fairly well and I only had to ask a couple of questions.  A couple of things that aren’t immediately obvious:

• Advance Class specializations are PERMANENT and cannot be changed, so there are 8 classes, not 4 (i.e. if I want and Imperial Agent Sniper and an Imperial Agent Operative, which I do, that means levelling two characters);
• I say 8 because, despite the different names, each class has a mirror on the opposing side – it might look different because the trees and talents have different names, and the abilities have different graphics, but its not (I am told – I haven’t personally tested this beyond a couple of levels).

So what did the MMO-that-must-not-be-named get right?

• Excellent storytelling, and combination of storytelling and questing – its far more immersive than WoW during the leveling phase and even the dungeons are worked elegantly into the storyline;
• It makes use of that ‘conversation with options’ approach that I have never been a fan of and actually makes me a fan of it including as a key part of Flashpoints (dungeons);
• I like the crafting system – its less grindy and more flexible;
• I like the crew system – my little sidekick means that a 4 person Flashpoint can be done with just me, my husband and our crew as they are good enough to be a person (not sure about in Operations (raids)).

And where should it really have learned from WoW

• No LFD – despite all the complaints about it the most common missing feature people talked about was this (mitigated a bit by the crew system);
• Worse, you have to go physically to your dungeon AND theres no summons;
• Old-fashioned talent trees (someone in Bioware must have started banging their head against a wall when Blizz abandoned the talent tree system since this is direct copy);
• I’m not sure about the number of group quests – I know some people miss them from WoW, but on the other hand Blizzard was responding to a lot of people who wanted them gone, so I think those players will find the higher number of group quests in this difficult;
• No addons (which I don’t object to) combined with an average interface – the interface IMO is not sophisticated enough to make me not want addons.

As a final point I want to say this: none of the differences, good or bad, are game changers.  This is not a WoW killer, though WoW might lose some people to it just because, after 7 years, they want something fresh for a while.  Its not revolutionary enough to be a WoW killer (drawing heavily in Knights of the Old Republic is not revolutionary).  But I expect it to be the biggest success of any new MMO in a long time because Bioware tell amazing stories.

Please note updates will be listed at the bottom of the guide along with the date of the update.

There are four bosses in the Siege of Wymrest Temple.

Morchock [MMO Champion | Icy Veins]

• 2 tanks who should always be the closest to the boss to take the double Stomp damage.
• The raid should stand behind the boss at maximum melee range to share Stomp damage.
• 3 (10 man) or 7 (25 man) ranged should move to each red crystal as it spawns and sit right on top of it until it explodes. Closer = less damage.  Assign a group to do this including healers.
• Every so often he will pull you all towards him and cast The Earth Consumes you which spawns some spikes (don’t get hit as these spawn as they do damage).  Hide behind them.
• Hide from the black blood in the safe spots behind the spikes.  Once the blood has spawned you can move to dps him if you have a safe spot available.
• He enrages at 20%.

Warlord Zon’ozz [ MMO Champion | Icy Veins]

• 1 tank should ensure he’s facing the raid when the Void spawns, but not during any Psychic Drain (i.e. turn him a lot).  Turn him away once it has spawned.
• Melee should hug behind the boss.  Ranged should stand further back towards the edge of the pool.  Split healers between these groups.
• Dispel Disrupting Shadows freely unless the Void is up, then do it carefully to avoid killing anyone.
• Every so often a void spawns.  It will hit players and then travel back in the opposite direction.  You want to bounce it about 5 times between the ranged and melee groups.  After that, let it hit Zon’ozz.  It will stun him, remove Focused Anger stacks and increase his damage taken during phase 2 5% for every bounce you managed.  Don’t ever let it hit the edge of the room.   In LFR difficulty it will automatically hit Zon’ozz after its been bounced enough times.
• Once it hits the boss, hug.  He will do lots of AoE damage.  Pop cooldowns and burn.
• Repeat until dead.

Yor’sahj the Unsleeping [MMO Champion | Icy Veins]

• He does a stacking dot to his main target called Void Bolt.  You want 2 tanks to swap back and forth.
• Apart from that its all about the oozes here.  There are 6 possible different coloured oozes and he will spawn 3 every so often.  You can kill one of them.  The other 2 will merge with the boss and give him certain abilities.  Its all about the combinations.
• The oozes do the following:
• Purple means every 5 heals on a target cause the target to explode and take damage.  Use big heals and avoid AoE heals. Best to assign healers per group to avoid double heals.
• Green causes the raid to be digested. Spread out at least 4 yards. Less dangerous in LFR.
• Yellow increases attack speed and adds an AoE component to Void Bolt.  Hug.
• Black spawns add that cast spells on players.  Hug and AoE.
• Red damages 3/8 people at random.  Hug.
• Blue causes a mana void to appear and suck mana from every ranged caster.  Kill it and the mana comes back to those nearby.  It only steals mana once.
• In normal modes Green > Yellow > Purple is your kill order.
• In LFR mode Yellow > Purple > Black is your kill order.
• Hug unless you have Green (spread 4 yards) or Blue on Normal (get close to the Mana Void then).

Hagara the Storm Binder [MMO Champion | Icy Veins]

• This is a 3 phase fight.  There is a ‘main phase’ and then 2 other ‘special phases’ – an Ice Phase and a Lightning Phase.  During special phases she is immune to all damage.
• Focused Assault does a lot of damage to the 1 tank so be ready with extra healing.  She doesn’t move while channeling it so run through her and stand the other side.
• In the main phase hug up.  Dispell Shattered Ice and have a ranged ‘tank’ Ice Lance.  Set a spot for Ice Tombs and hug to AoE them down (these are not in LFR, they do not chain and do no splash damage).
• Ice Phase:
• She covers most of the platform in a big bubble.  Get out of it but stay as close as possible.
• She casts four walls of icy spikes that rotate clockwise around the platform.  Group and move around between them, paying attention at all times.
• In normal (not LFR) she drops icicles (stay out of the marks on the ground).
• Binding Crystals appear that you need to dps while running round and round.  Destroy all four to end the phase and go back to normal.
• Lightning Phase:
• Kill adds near one of the Lightning Conductors so it overloads.  It will cause someone to be Electrocuted.
• Create a chain between the Electrocuted person and other Lightning Conductors to overload them.
• Lightning Storm randomly hits people and does a stacking debuff that makes it do more damage.  Remove the debuff once it starts getting high if you can (i.e. bubbles, CoS, etc.)
• Repeat Main > Special > Main > Other Special until dead.

Minor updates to Morchock and Zon’ozz 5/12/11.
Updated ooze kill order on Yor’sahj 7/12/11.

Just some of the ‘changes’ pointed out by MMO.

• Holy Fire is now exclusive to Discipline & Holy (so for Shadow PvP you use what?)
• Greater Heal is now exclusive to Discipline & Holy (odd, but okay).
• Prayer of Mending is now exclusive to Discipline & Holy.
• Hymn of Hope is now exclusive to Discipline (so you want to give the spec with the biggest mana issues more mana issues? But, of course, no spirit cloth to fix them with?).
• Divine Hymn is now exclusive to Holy (also seems odd given AoE healing isn’t a strong feature in Disc right now).
• Renew is now exclusive to Holy (Riiight, well I guess this makes up for the Hymn of Hope and blatant favoritism for Disc in the talent trees?).
• Heal is now exclusive to Holy (And if you didn’t think this was just a whole bunch of errors before …).
• Binding Heal is now exclusive to Holy (Yet more confirmation).

Do I think any of the above are actual changes instead of just errors?  For the sake of the priest class, I hope not.  But I am sure that some, and probably most of them, are errors.  Thats a shocking number of errors in the calculator for just one class!  If this is replicated in every class (and from what I have read, it seems it might be), then the Blizzard QA department all need a good talking to because I’d be fired for this level of incompetence being released to the public!

It also makes it hard to impossible for Blizzard to get any real feedback.  Because all the people posting are too focused on this kind of rubbish.  I can’t even give real feedback because I still don’t have the whole picture for priests.

But I don’t think it matters much, because I’ll probably change my main again next expansion.  I am woefully underwhelmed by the priest changes so far (just like I was at the end of TBC which caused my first change of main).  At the moment I’m thinking kitty …

• “FOOD FIGHT”! – ‘Pass’ food to a player who already has the 5 stack buff for that food type (or pass it 6 times to add the buff and then get the achievement).
• Pilgrim’s Paunch - Go to a table in each of your faction’s cities and eat 5 stacks of each food to get the Spirit of Sharing buff there.  Despite the name, its nothing to do with passing food.
• Pilgrim’s Progress - Complete all of the dailies at least once.  They are just to make food so get cooking.
• Terrokar Turkey Time - Defeat Talon King Ikiss while wearing a Pilgrim’s Hat and Dress/Robe/Attire.  This is the last boss in Sethekk Halls.  It can be solo’d by any level 85 on normal with ease.
• Turkey Lurkey - Blast a rogue of each race with a Turkey  Shooter.
• Now We’re Cookin’ - Cook one of everything, which you will get by simply completing each of the daily quests (another achievement).
• Pilgrim’s Peril - for this you need a PB dress.  You then visit each enemy capital while wearing it and sit at a table there.  Ironforge is particularly tricky for Horde.
• Sharing is Caring - Pass one type of each food at a table (do at the same time as getting a Spirit of Sharing, just by hitting the other button.
• The Turkinator - When you kill a Wild Turkey you get a buff that lasts 30 seconds.  Every turkey kill renews it.  Run around killing them until you get 40 stacks.

You can also get:

• A pet Turkey for completing the meta.

How you do it

First some notes:

• You will find Pilgrim’s Bounty vendors and tables in Stormwind (outside the gates), Ironforge (outside the gates), Darnassus (by the entrance from Teldrassil), Exodar (outside the entrance), Orgrimmar (outside the entrance), Thunder Bluff (on the ground near one of the lifts), Undercity (in the courtyard upstairs) and Silvermoon City (outside the entrance).
• You need cooking 280 to complete this achievement.  If you don’t have it, you can get it very easily by cooking the Thanksgiving recipes (you can level to 350 from these).  Theres even a cooking trainer at each area.  You can buy all of the materials for the following from any PB vendor unless specified:

• Spice Bread Stuffing requires cooking level 1 (i.e. your learnt cooking).
• Pumpkin Pie requires cooking level 100.  You can buy Pumpkins from Undercity or Stormwind.
• Cranberry Chutney requires cooking level 160.  You can buy Cranberries at Orgrimmar or Ironforge.
• Candied Sweet Potato requires cooking level 220.  You can buy Sweet Potatoes at Thunder Bluff or Darnassus.
• Slow Roasted Turkey requires cooking level 280.  You can’t buy turkeys but can loot them from the Wild Turkey mobs you will find all over Elwynn Forest and Tirisfal Glades during this festival.

• The hat, dress (or other item) and Turkey Shooters are rewards from the daily quests.  You will need to do at least 10 dailies.  There are 5 available, so thats 2 days worth.

And this is how to do it (you may need to adapt this if you are levelling cooking too):

1. Go to Stormwind/Undercity.  Pick up the daily quest. Pick up a stock of pumpkins – 40 for the daily quests over 2 days, plus some extra if you are going to do the yellow quests too (that applies to all the food types).
2. Sit on each chair at a table and pass each food and eat 5 stacks of each food.   Also pass up to 6 stacks of one food at another player.[Completed:  Sharing is Caring, Food Fight, 1/4 Pilgrim's Paunch]
3. Time to go hunt some Wild Turkey.  If this is too difficult due to lack of turkeys, come back again at a less busy time.  Run around killing turkeys which will give you a 30 second stacking buff – each stack will renew the timer.  If you can loot them, great, but if its a bit tight don’t waste the time.  Keep killing them until you have a 40 stack buff. Either way, try and loot at least 40 too. [Completed: The Turkinator]
4. Go to Ironforge /Orgrimmar.  Eat 5 stacks of each food.  Cook and hand in turkeys and stuffing.  Pick up a stock of Cranberries. [Completed 1/4 Pilgrim's Paunch, 2/5 Pilgrim's Progress, 2/5 Now We're Cooking]
5. Go to Thunder Bluff/Darnassus.  Eat 5 stacks of each food.  Cook and hand in pumpkin pie.  Pick up a stock of Sweet Potatoes.  [Completed 1/4 Pilgrim's Paunch, 1/5 Pilgrim's Progress, 1/5 Now We're Cooking]
6. Go to Exodar/Silvermoon (use the portal from Darnassus if Alliance and go back to Undercity and use its portal if Horde).  Eat 5 stacks of each food [Completed: Pilgrim's Paunch]
7. Go back to Stormwind/Undercity.  Cook and hand in potatoes and cranberries. [Completed: Pilgrim's Progress, Now We're Cooking]
8. Do the dailies again the next day.  You should now have 8 shooters, a hat and a dress/robe.  You can do the next parts as soon as you have the items available and in any order.  I would do another round of dailies at this point to get some spare shooters, in case you miss target.
9. Visit each of the opposite faction’s cities and, wearing a robe, sit in a chair at once of their tables.  You can only use a chair when you are out of combat.  You will be rezzing and running a lot.  Doing this during quiet hours will mean you only have to contend with guards. [Completed Pilgrim's Peril]
10. You need to shoot one of each race of rogue with a Turkey Shooter.  Like other events, they need to not already have the debuff.  Remember to use /who and see where people are in general terms.  You can do the opposite faction while you are visiting capitals, at the PvP spot outside Stormwind or Orgrimmar, around starter areas (not right in them as they have quite high level guards), or in Battlegrounds. [Completed: Turkey Lurkey]
11. All that remains is to put on your hat and dress and kill Talon King Ikthiss.  He is the final boss in Setthek Halls.  Hes easily soloable on normal at level 85.  Remember to kill Anzu on the way past in case he drops the Raven Lord mount for you. [Completed: Terokkar Turkey Time, Pilgrim]

So now Blizzard have decided to go with revolution instead of evolution.

Your talent trees are gone.  A lot of your talents will now be base spells you are giving for picking your tree.  For example, Holy seems likely to get Chakras just for picking Holy.  The same for Spirit of Redemption.  Other spells, such as Circle of Healing, will be given to all specs.

These are replaced by Talents 2.0.  Each CLASS (not spec, class) has one tree of six tiers.  Each tier has 3 options.  You can pick one.  No backfilling.  You will be able to change your talents as easily as you change your Glyphs (i.e. out of combat for a small fee as often as you like).  Does this remove bloating?  Does this improve player choice?  Lets take a look at Priests.

Tier 1 (accessed at level 15, otherwise known as the cc tier)

Void Tendrils
Instant cast, 30 sec cd, 4800 mana
Summons Shadowy tendrils out of the ground, rooting all targets within 10 yards for 20 seconds.  Killing the tendril will cancel the effect.

Psyfiend
Instant cast, 1 min cd, 4800 mana
Summons a Psyfiend that stands in place.  The Psyfiend casts a Psychic Scream on a nearby enemy within 40 yards every 2 seconds lasting for 10 seconds, preferring anything attacking the Priest or her friends.

Psychic Scream
Instant cast, 30 sec cd, 4800 mana
The caster lets out a psychic scream, causing enemies within 8 yards to flee for 8 seconds.  Damage caused may interrupt the effect.

Now those are some interesting options.  All three sound nice.  All three sound like they would have a use.  In competitive PvP I think you would choose based on your comp.  In PvE you would choose depending on what you were doing.  I could see all three being useful.  And all three sound cool.

Tier 2 (accessed at level 30, otherwise known as the movement speed tier)

Body and Soul
When you cast PW: Shield or Leap of Faith, you increase the target’s movement speed by 60% for 4 seconds.

Path of the Devout
Increases your movement speed while Levitating by 25%

Phantasm
Any time you fade, you remove all movement impairing effects from yourself and your movement speed will be unhindered for 3 seconds.

Now Body and Soul is currently a Holy talent and Phantasm a Shadow talent.  Personally I see this one breaking down a little more simply.  PvE would take Body and Soul most of the time no matter what their spec.  The little speed boost is fabulous for getting out of trouble.  Its going to be amazing as Disc.  In PvP you would take Phantasm.  But for running around doing quests/grinding archaeology I see myself slapping on the Path of the Devout.  I suspect it might also have a situational use in PvE too.  I don’t see PvE players of any spec running with anything other than Body and Soul as default.  But I’m okay with that as I LOVE Body and Soul.

Tier 3 (accessed at level 45, the ‘BOOM’ tier)

From Darkness, Comes Light
Surge of Light (Caster form)
You have a 6% chance when you Smite, Heal, Flash Heal, Binding Heal or Greater Heal to cause your next Flash Heal to be instant cast and have no mana cost.

Surge of Darkness (Shadowform)
You have a 6% chance when you deal damage with Mind Flay to cause your next Mind Blast to be instant cast and have no Shadow Orb cost.

Divine Star
Instant, 30 sec cd, 20 yard range
Fires a Divine Star in front of you, travelling 20 yards doing damage to all enemies and healing all friendly targets in its path. After reaching its destination, it will return to you also dealing damage and healing all targets in its path.

Archangel
Archangel (Caster form)
Consumes your Evangelism, increasing your healing done by 5% for each Evangelism consumed.  30 sec cd.

Dark Archangel (Shadowform)
Consumes your Shadow Orbs, increasing the damage done by your Mind Flay, Mind Spike, Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death by 5% for each Shadow Orb consumed.  90 sec cd.

The first thing is that this tier implies both healing specs will get Evangelism.  Two of these are old talents recycled.  From Darkness, Comes Light sounds pretty awesome.  As does Archangel.  I suspect you will swap between these in PvE depending on whether you want general additional damage/healing or focused damage/healing.  Divine Star sounds odd (but cool).  I suspect it will be good in PvP because you can cast it and move on to other things.  It may also have situational uses in PvE.  I am not sure which I will run with as a default.  I will need to try them.

Tier 4 (accessed at level 60, the ‘oh, s*** tier)

Desperate Prayer
Instant, 2 min cd
Instantly heals the caster for 30% of their total health.

Angelic Bulwark
Increases the effectiveness of your own shield effects on yourself by 30%.

Final Prayer
Any time a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorption shield equal to 20% of your total health lasting for 20 sec.  This effect cannot occur more than once every 90 sec.

Another tier where all three talents are useful.  Like Tier 1, I think it will depend very much on situation and personal preference which you choose.  Along with tier 1 this goes some way to making Holy more viable in PvP.

Tier 5 (accessible at 75, the odd tier)

Twist of Fate
Increases damage and healing done to targets at or below 25% health.

Power Infusion
Instant cast, 2 min cd, 40 yard range, 5120 mana
Infuses the target with power, increasing spell casting speed by 20% and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20% Lasts 15 seconds.

Serendipity
When you heal with Binding Heal or Flash Heal, the cast time of your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing spell is reduced by 20% and mana cost reduced by 10%.  Stacks up to 2 times.  Lasts 10 seconds.

Mind Melt (Shadowform)
When you deal damage with Mind Spike, the cast time of your next Minda Blast is reduced by 50% lasting 6 seconds.  Mind Melt can stack up to two times.

So lets look at this one. Twist of Fate looks boring and like a bloat talent at first glance, but actually it isn’t.  Its useful for tank healers.  And its an execute for shadow priests.  As shadow, you only have two options as Serendipity is terrible – I have yet to find a situation where I want to use Mind Spike regularly other than quest farming.  Which you choose as Shadow depends on if you really need to focus your dps at specific times or want a boost overall.  Its an interesting tier as a healer.  I will be taking Serendipity at first, as mana is likely to be an issue.  But I can see myself changing per encounter.  Do I need to burst heal for a short time?  Is my healing not that hard but the dps need a boost?  Is this a mana intensive fight or a throughput fight?

Tier 6 (accessible at 90, the save the cheerleader tier)

Vow of Unity
Instant, 3 min cod, 40 yard range
You create a Vow of Unity with the friendly target.  Whenever you heal the target through spells and effects, you are also healed equal to 20% of the amount.  In addition, when the target is attacked, 50% of the damage is redirected to you over 6 seconds.  If your target is victim to an attack greater than 30% of their total health, the Vow of Unity effect ends.

Void Shift
Instant, 3 min cd, 40 yard range
You swap health percentage with the currently friendly target.  After this effect ends, you are instantly healed for 25% of your total health.

Vampiric Dominance
When you deal damage or healing, 15% of the amount is healed to up to 3 low health nearby allies.

I will be taking Vampiric Dominance and hoping, against all hope, that they do not design any encounters that require me to change that.  Both of the other spells are useful, I agree.  I am just hoping they are not part of a plan to have lots more rotating cooldowns to save the tank type encounters.  If they are, I’ll be changing class again.  Thats what made me change to my paladin last time.  Both of the other spells are interesting, in that you really need to plan for them.  Its just that cooldown rotations make me cry.  I also feel like these are pretty rubbish for level 90 end of tier talents.  Ohh look some more cooldowns and background healing.  Not excited.  And I imagine Shadow is even less excited.

Conclusions
Overall, it looks good.  I think 2.0 is likely to eliminate bloat and increase player choice in some ways.  It does allow you to tailor when and how you get your boosts and what exactly is boosted.  Unlike Glyphs, I can see myself swapping these around for different fights and the very fact that you can do that eliminates ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ builds.  Instead players will have to figure out what works best for them and when.  There will probably be some discussion about optimal choices in a fight, but based on the priest trees there will be no overall ‘best’ build unless Blizzard screw up and something is out of balance.

If the priest trees are representative, Blizzard have interpreted hybridization as utility.  Most talents that enhance healing or dps seem to work differently for healers or dps, so I don’t expect to see Shadow priests doing a bit of healing in high damage phases.  This system is not going to produce a true hybrid class in that sense.  Whilst I think some people would like to be able to become a true hybrid, I can see why Blizzard haven’t gone that route (balance issues, PvP issues, not forcing people who want to dps to heal, etc.).  In fact, the addition of a fourth spec to druids removes the last true hybrid option in the game.  However, Shadow priests will be able to access things like Void Shift and Vow of Unity, or provide Vampiric Dominance.  This seems to suggest at instants of strong hybridization, or sustained periods of weak hybridization, which is very much what has happened in Cataclysm (paladin utility for example was nerfed following Wrath and this is in line with that philosophy).  My one worry is that with this support for hybridization we might see things like fights requiring a cooldown rotation return, since more players will have access to these kinds of abilities.  Lets hope not (or I will need to find a class with no such cooldowns)!!!

I don’t think this system is without flaw.  In the priest trees its notable that at least two tiers contain nothing that would naturally fall within the current Shadow role and the availability of those might cause balance issues in PvP.  Tier 5 has a lot of cool stuff in it and will be the one tier I am sorry I can’t backfill, whereas I don’t really want anything from Tier 6.  Vow of Unity and Void Shift seem confusing and far too similar and I hope there are some changes there.  But overall I am optimistic.