One stat to rule them all

My prot paladin is my main, but my second character to 70 was my priest. Shadowpriest gearing is quite unusual, but gearing her up changed my way of thinking when looking at gear for my other characters... for better or for worse.

All characters depend on a variety of stats. A certain amount of stamina is needed for every character, since so many fights feature party- or raid-wide damage. Intellect is important for any caster. Hit, crit and spellhit are usually important, although the weight you give them will depend on your class.

Shadowpriests are a bit different. All of a shadowpriest's dps and utility are dependant on one thing - the amount of damage the priest does. So, once you are hit capped (which is particularly easy for a Draenei with talents, although this is changing in Wrath), the most important stat to stack is spelldamage (although haste can be better at high gear levels).

This led to my shadowpriest buying up level 70 'of shadow wrath' greens on the AH... and wearing them for quite a while. They may have no other stats... but the sheer volume of shadow damage on a green boe belt (+60) or bracers (+45) is hard to ignore. I certainly don't have any epic items for the same slots that rival those. I don't usually wear them, since it really is nice to actually have some health... but I still carry them with me.

This way of thinking carried over to my other characters too. When gemming and enchanting for my paladin, I'm a bit of an effective health nut - I'm one of those paladins with stamina gems in every socket. I know the differing schools of thought on gearing for effective health or avoidance (and I do have a backup avoidance set), but... I tend to trust in Murphy's Law a bit, and assume that my avoidance just won't cut it when I need it most, regardless of what my dodge chance is.

Besides, prot paladins have better stamina -> health scaling than anyone else in the game (well, Taurens aside), so why not play to my strength?

Wrath Beta opt-in

Apart from the people who win beta passes in competitions or get them by attending conventions, all the people who participate in Blizzard betas are picked randomly. For the next expansion, though, they aren't just picking randomly from anyone who has an account - they only want to pick people who are really interested in beta testing, so they are making a list that they will pick randomly from.

You can opt in to this list here.

This doesn't mean that you'll definitely get to beta test the expansion - only that you are on the list they are picking from. I guess your likelihood of being picked depends on how many people opt in.

As for whether you want to beta test the expansion or not, that's another issue entirely. I'm not sure that I do, but I'll opt in just in case!