The Ice Barbed Spear is indeed nice. I used that until I got the two-handed sword from the Ebon Blade.
In other news, I blew a bunch of cash and dual-specced my priest into shadow, and wow is it ever faster (albeit more drinking-intensive) than Disc. On the other hand, I don’t think I could hold up over a 10-minute fight in shadow form the way I did in Disc. Still, I may go over to the dark side…
It does take into account the gems on all of your armor, not just that piece.
Also, you can game the system a little to meet the requirements. If you have a meta gem that requires one red and two blues to activate it, you can use gems that have those “components” in them. For instance, two purple gems would “count” as being both a red gem and two blue gems.
(And don’t forget, you don’t need “pure” gems in the regular gem slots. Meaning, red slots can take orange or purple gems, yellow slots can take orange or green, blue slots can take green or purple.)
Finally, the slot that doesn’t care about the gem type (except that it can’t be meta) is a prismatic slot. You can find this on the high-end belt buckle, which is produced by blacksmiths and adds a gem slot to a belt.
1.) Meta sockets require meta gems.
2.) Meta gems can be socketed in any meta socket, but their stats are only activated if you meet the conditions of the colors of the other gems in your equipment.
3.) All gems in any equipment you are wearing along with the meta gem count towards the requirement.
4.) The gem color is what matters, not the socket color. (If you have a red gem in a blue socket, it counts toward a red gem requirement.)
5.) “Blended” color gems count towards both colors. Two orange gems = two red gems **and **two yellow gems, at the same time.
Were you in a party or a raid at the time? If this appeared in floating text that wasn’t in a bubble, it sounds like someone did a raid warning. Anybody in a party, or a raid leader or raid assist in a raid, can use **/rw **to send a message that pops up in dark orange text on people’s screens as well as in chat. It also makes a sort of a “boink” alert noise. Raid warnings are mainly used to draw people’s attention to things that need to be dealt with immediately. (E.g., “Roll on this item now” for looting, or “Move out of the fire already, you’re going to die.”)
Or “Get out of the green stuff!” or “Run away! You’re gonna blow!” or “Dance, fool! Dance!”
Oh, on playing a shadow priest: would a shadow-damage wand get some of the tasty bonuses I get to my shadow damage?
I just found out my partner in crime and leveling buddy is cancelling his account at the end of the next billing cycle. 8(
shinto46: Bribe him to stay? 
I started seeing this after I replaced the default chat box with the Chatter add-on. Any time my name (exactly my name) appears in the box it pops up as if it were a raid warning with my name highlighted just like you indicated in your post. Maybe the default chat box added this feature (or you’re using a chat add-on)?
Speaking of the green stuff, my husband learned yesterday that the reason that the hunter (from a previous post of mine) I’ll call She Who Stands In Poison does just that is because she plays on a crummy computer and pretty much can’t enable spell particles. I’m thinking she really needs some kind of add-on that will blare a ‘move, dammit’ message to her.
It’d have to be pretty good, though, because - though a sweet gal - she’s kind of spacey. My husband pulled out his 80 DK to get a guild group through Blood Furnace, and he had to tell her (playing her priest) that the reducing health bar on him meant he did kind of need a heal at some point. Tough, not invulnerable.
Hmph. An 80 DK in a level 60-something instance should be able to take care of his own damn healing. =)
(Solo’d the Steam Vault a bunch of times on my DK for the Cenarion Expedition rep).
Don’t think I can. He’s pretty straight on about not playing anymore. Don’t know how I will handle it just yet.
On a brighter note I just hit 80 on my 2nd character. A blood elf warlock. YAY! My main is a Night elf Hunter FWIW.
Well, he only had to ask for a heal once. 
(I’m assuming it was his DK, at least, and he’s not tank-spec’d/geared. His main is his resto shaman, and he’s got a few other lvl 80s too.) Plus she did say she needed experience healing, so heal already!
A guildie took his 80 Mage into Blood Furnace to help me and my ex through. Since I was playing Paladin, despite being 20 levels under and specced Retribution, I did my level best to heal. I think I ran out of mana more often than he did. (An 80 Mage can just barely tank a level 60 instance, but it’s a close thing.) That was intense, because Flash Heal did jack-all, so I had to spam the hell out of Holy Light and make liberal use of Lay On Hands.
So true. Death Strike? Throw up three diseases and hit a Death Strike and voila, 15% health back. And this makes me want to post the YouTube of a DK soloing Heroic Halls of Lightning. Likely much better geared than your friend, but kind of points out that heals shouldn’t really be necessary for Blood Furnace.
I kid, I kid. Anyway, the rate at which I solo’d the Steam Vault would have driven someone along for a run-through crazy. If I’d had a pocket healer I’d have grabbed more groups at once to make more efficient use of Death & Decay.
Oh, I’m positive anyone’s better geared. This is his most recent character to 80 and he hadn’t taken her into any dungeon before BF, so the gear and “tanking” experience is spotty at best.
Heh, I was really just using it as an excuse to post the video, which I use as my standard rebuttal to the “DK’s aren’t OP” line. 
Being way OP has been my husband’s proclamation. (My DK is stalled at lvl 65. Just high enough to get her inscription up through the Northrend levels, and to 449/450 atm.) I’d send him that link to needle him about needing a heal but he’d almost surely post it to our guild board, and then the teen boys who are in love with their DKs would probably start competing to see who could solo what and then brag about it.
I mean, brag more than they do already.
I’m still cracking up over all the gnome DKs on my server with names like Deathmuffin, Minideath, and Deathcutie.