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Busy Warlocking

2010-04-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

I've been distracted from my Priest levelling project in the past couple of weeks due to my main(s) suddenly requiring a lot of attention. I was steadily raiding ICC with my guild, 3 nights per week, and my main ( a druid tank) was well-geared enough that I don't really need to worry about emblems anymore, so outside of raid time I can work on my priest.

However, we had some big changes recently - attendance at raids slowed down to the point where we didn't have a steady 10-man group (we have never really got into 25mans) and our guild leader decided to step down, due to getting a new job and having less time to spend online. I wasn't ready to step into the guild leader shoes myself, as I know how much work it takes and I admire anyone who can do it. So we decided to merge with another guild who are also struggling with raid signs. It was my guild who disappeared, as we all took the other guild's name, and I was sad to see it go. It happened a few days before my 2-year anniversary of joining my guild, so there was a tear in my eye, but it was for the best.

The merge has gone well so far, and our new guildies have been very welcoming. The big advantage is that it doesn't feel like our family has gone, we've just grown. A number of us are excited to be doing 25-man raids again. The downside though is that there wasn't any room for my main in raids - I'm a feral druid tank, and there are more than enough tanks in the guild already.

So...... I've applied, and been accepted, as a raider on my warlock. I do love playing my warlock, but I have very limited experience of raiding with her. I spent some time grinding enough badges for T9 and did some reading up on the 3.3 changes. I got a place in the 25-man group, and I was very pleased when I was doing pretty respectible dps! I'm towards the bottom of the meter, but I'm not too far behind the others. I'm playing affliction spec, as I tried destro before and didn't really enjoy it. I guess I found it a bit repetitive. I love the way that affliction damage builds up, and instead of a repeated rotation, it's a group of debuffs that you need to manage. If you can juggle all your spells and keep them all stacked on your target, then the damage just adds up and up... I also enjoy the challenge of trying to keep a crit-buffed corruption on the target, especially on fights with adds, and I'm starting to improve at this.

However! After a recent discussion with the other locks in the guild, it was noticed that we don't have a regular demonology lock in raids, and it was decided that this is something we should have. There are quite a few warlocks in the guild, and a couple of them have demo offspec, but none of them wants to use it as a main spec. I'm not sure why this is, but I assumed that it was because it's as boring as I found destro to be. I haven't played as demonology since level 70 though, so I wasn't sure. I offered to get a demo offspec, and take my turn being the miserable lock in the corner, giving a buff to everyone else, while the affli locks destroy the target. With my badge level gear however, I pointed out that there wouldn't be much point in me being the Demonic Pact giver until I'd upgraded my gear.

That was until we had a raid this week where we had two warlocks, neither with demo spec, and no elemental shaman. I realised I needed to suck it up and go get demo spec now - my meager offering will be better than nothing. So having only just started to feel like I'm mastering affliction spec, I'm now reading up on demonology spec and spending time with the target dummy again.

The first thing I noticed is that it's more complex than I thought - in fact I had a hard time getting the hang of it. I decided a new addon might be called for to help me monitor Molten Core and Decimation. I've started using Sexycooldowns to help me as affliction, and I really recommend this. However, I need something that notifies me when Molten Core procs (as opposed to when it's about to fall off) so I'm going to give Power Auras a go, as recommended in Optecs great video here. I'm also going to try a new addon for tracking how effective Demonic Pact is - this will be especially useful due to my low gear level as I'm not sure whether I'll really be any more effective than a totem of wrath (when there's on available). The addon is here: DemoPact

So now that I'm raiding each week in 25-man ICC, I have a basic set of emblem gear, and I'm happy with one spec and learning another, my thoughts are turning to potential gear upgrades I might get in ICC. I've browsed wowhead like a child browses a toy catalogue before Christmas, eagerly eyeing the shiny items. There's just one problem though - and that's hit rating.

I'm off for now to try and piece together a suit of armor with just the right amount of hit. More on gearing next time.

Patient Priest: Sinking...

2010-04-08T06:46:00.000-07:00

The Patient Priest has been playing in Sunken Temple, which proved a frustrating experience. I think I'd just like to move on and put it behind me - especially the incident where I unwittingly persuaded my party to commit suicide..... I still wince when I think about that one.

My priest is now approaching level 50 and Outlands is on the horizon. However, as eager as I am to progress to BC content, with it's better gear and xp, I'm still interested in running as many of Azeroth's dungeons as I can. I don't have much experience of the level 50-60 dungeons as I started playing WoW during BC, so with my first chars I just pushed on to join my guildies in Outlands.

Having now tried to run them on my priest I can say that it was unfortunately the worst part of the dungeon levelling so far, and would even recommend that players do plenty of quests in the level 50's and get to the Outlands dungeons as these are more suitable for the levelling player. I do like the high level Azeroth dungeons - I think they're interesting and fun, and certainly have an "epic" feel to them - but they are long, very long, difficult and complicated, and if you're just there for the xp then you might not have the patience for them.

I remember when I did Sunken Temple with my first ever character (a warlock), and it seemed like a really tough, high level instance. I was nervous going in there. However, on my priest at level 47, it wasn't very tough to heal. The mobs went down pretty easily, but the dungeon is still long and labyrithine, and it requires a dedicated group to complete it. The worst thing about this instance is the run back from the graveyard. It's long and underwater and most people don't know the way. In the five runs that I did, not a single person made it back from the graveyard - they either waited for a rez or quit. Even if you do make it inside, it's a maze in there. On one attempt, the group was in progress when I arrived. I was running up and down staircases trying to find them, but there seemed to be mobs in every direction. In this situation, the only thing you can do is get the others to teleport out and re-enter, then start from the beginning. If the group splits up, you will quickly lose each other, as it's hard to tell from the mini-map just which level you're on. Thankfully Blizzard now improved things by making new group members zone in where the party leader is standing - great idea.

Here's how I recommend you approach Sunken Temple:
The basic route is to run up the staircase ahead and to the left, then complete a circuit of the mini-bosses around the top tier. Jump down into the main room, kill everything in there (so it doesn't aggro when you engage the boss) then kill the Troll Prophet, then the Dragon Eranikus - and you're done and you'll get your bag! There's another few bosses to kill, but these need to be summoned, and it's complicated so no-one bothered.

Some things to note - the dragonkin cast "sleep" which can be dispelled, and it's dangerous when it gets cast on the healer. The Prophet boss uses a mind control, which can't be dispelled, so be ready to use crowd control.

The first group I had ran around aimlessly for a while, killed the odd patrol as we went round and round in circles. The tank was inexperienced and didn't know what he was doing (no Righteous Fury again, despite me asking him several times to use it) and he eventually quit without saying anything. The group then fell apart.

The second group had more success - there was only the last boss left and we succeeded in finding him and killing him. I then told the group that there was another boss downstairs, and as the group was in a killing mood we went to the hole in the central room, and one by one they jumped down, with me assuring them this was the way... obviously I was talking out of my backside as they each fell to their deaths. I was genuinely mortified, and offered to levitate down there and rez them - this would mean a trip to the AH to get reagents though (I now have the glyph) but they told me not to worry about it and excused themselves and left.... I can't believe how nice they were but I guess they saw it wasn't deliberate. I've now done some reading and found that the correct way to get to this boss is to take the staircase immediately on your right at the entrance, which leads to the stone statues that you use to summon the extra boss.

I then had two more successful runs, the only hiccups being a warlock that frequently attemped suicide via Lifetap and a wipe on the troll boss due to not clearing enough and aggro'ing lots of mobs, which then came rushing at us. The tank couldn't pick them up as he was mc'd. Thankfully our 2 mages survived and expertly kited everything to death. The paladin tank rezzed me and the other dps so we didn't have to corpse run.

My final run failed, as half of them were already dead when I arrived. They asked me to run to them and rez them, but I couldn't get past the respawns at the start. People started quitting and I eventually gave up.

I think Sunken Temple is a really great dungeon, but it shows the change in philosphy that Blizzard has had. It's just not made to be completed by a group of people who are short on time and patience. If you have a strong group who've been here before, it'll get you a lot of xp and it's fun. If you arrive in the dungeon and no-one knows the way, prepare yourself for a long journey. Now some people might like this - it's fun to explore and it's a challenge to solve the mysteries of the Temple, but when most eyes are on getting to level 80 asap, I think there's few people who will stop to spend much time here.

Tanks aren't irreplaceable

2010-04-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

I was in a heroic the other day on my warlock. Things were going pretty predictably - the group was fairly well-geared, and we were just burning everything down in silence. Then, someone made a mistake we had too many mobs on us, the healer got distracted and the tank went down. The rest of the group mopped the mess up, and the tank started complaining, pretty rudely. "FFS what are you doing, you morons" etc... I tried to calm him down, saying it's no big deal and there's no need to be insulting. He reponded that he was the tank and he could be as insulting as he wanted.

Now that really, really, offends me. I hate the idea that we need to suck up to tanks, that we should be afraid of offending them. My main is a tank, and I've done hundreds of heroics without being so insulting, and I told this guy so. He tried to make out that he'd just been kidding (and maybe he was) but as I didn't understand (and kiss ass like I was supposed to) he left the group, saying "good luck finding another tank".

I then felt really guilty - the rest of the group were faced with a 15 minute wait, all because I couldn't keep my big mouth shut and take abuse from the tank like a good dps. But before I could say anything, a new tank arrived - we were waiting less than a minute. We finished the instance quickly with no fuss. And I imagine the tank that left us was still hanging around waiting for his desserter debuff to wear off. You may think this is rare to get a tank so fast, but I had another tank leave a heroic without saying anything on the same day, and he too was replaced within a minute. I guess groups in progress get priority for new tanks who sign up.

I love tanking. I like the responability and control that it brings. In heroics, tanks are usually looked upon to lead the group and a good tank can carry a group more so than a good dps or even healer can. I'm sure there are a lot of tanks out there who've had to put up with abuse - I know I have sometimes. It's sad though that the shortage of tanks has led to some of them turning into primadonnas, and making many people too afraid to say anything incase they offend. That's just so sad - but of course the solution is more and more people levelling tank alts, learning just how difficult (or easy) it is to tank themselves, and taking the tanks on when they think they're irreplaceable.

Patient Priest: Zombie Trolls

2010-03-31T07:32:00.000-07:00

In the mid-level 40's I've been getting either Maraudon:Inner or Zul'Farrak as a random dungeon. I think ZF is slightly lower level, but it has the potential to be more difficult because of the large numbers of mobs and more complex boss encounters.

Zul'Farrak is a temple complex located in the Tanaris desert. It's full of trolls, witch doctors and zombies, and also lots of scarabs. The trolls are mainly in groups of 3 or 4, with some casters which need to be pulled back. This is because the trolls run when they get low on health and have a chance to pull other groups or wandering patrols. The trolls drop healing totems, which I could easily take out with a single hit from my wand, and they also cast hex, even on the tank, which should be dispelled fast.

The basilisk boss, hidden in a cave in the hills, can be a little difficult, as he spawns mobs behind you, does stuns and drops a rooting totem. My favourite encounter though is the pyramid escape, where you kill the executioner, loot his key then free the prisioners in cages awaiting sacrifice. You then need to survive wave after wave of zombie trolls, keeping the prisioners alive, and finally make it to the bottom of the pyramid and face a priest boss. You can then talk to the prisoners, who instead of thanking you will turn on you and you need to fight them. The hardest part of this whole encounter is for the tank to pick up all the mobs. Its helps to have a paladin of course. However, with higher level groups I found that we could just aoe everything down faster than it could kill us. Also, holy nova is really good here, allowing me to add a little damage and keep the whole party topped up without worrying about pulling aggro. The other bosses in this instance are pretty much tank and spank.

I've had some good fun in this place - it gives lots of exp and you can skip some bosses if you want a fast run. I've also met some very good groups...

The first group I had was a bit scary, as I was low level and worried about the large numbers of mobs we'd be pulling. I had to remind the paladin tank to use his tanking buff again... I've got so used to checking for this that I've even accidentally told a warrior to turn righteous fury on and got laughed at. Luckily we had a mage in this group who was using some old school cc and sheeping the casters, making the groups much easier to handle. The pyramid encounter went well but I had to use fade a lot as the tank was having trouble getting aggro on all of them. In later levels, I found it's easy to just rush to the bottom and pull the mobs all at once so the tank can pull while they're still grouped up. This only works if you've got some high aoe dps though.

We unfortunately had another leecher in one group - entered the instance and immediately said "brb soz" and wasn't back 15 minutes later so I vote kicked him. In another group, there was someone who was doing the scarab quest and wanted to kill absolutely everything in the instance. It's all extra exp, so I don't really mind, but unfortunately we had a rather slow tank who seemed to take ages in-between pulls deciding what he was doing. The lack of pace was quite frustrating and a couple of times people suggested we could move a little faster, but everyone stayed polite. I had an unfortunate typo on the pyramid boss though. We killed the executioner and we were waiting for someone to start the event. Someone asked who looted the key (they need to open the cages and start things) and I saw it was the tank who had received it (let's call him Arnold). I meant to type "Arnold got it" but unfortunately it came out as "Arnold go tit" which I think raised a few eyebrows. I apologised and explained and we continuted moving.

We had one group with a tank who refused to tank, so the two hunters tanked it with their pets, which worked pretty well. In the next group we had a paladin tank who was in a mad rush and managed to pull half the instance and died. I made it to the exit though, then re-entered to rez everyone. He was sorry and friendly so we continued and it was actually a fast, smooth run after that. I noticed that there were some obviously experienced players who weren't using heirlooms, and I decided to ask why. It seems that people are rolling on new servers, or doing recruit a friend with a new account, so can't send heirlooms to their new characters.

There's some nice loot in this instance: I won a hat off the pyramid boss (finally a hat, yay), and I got a carrot trinket from one of the quests to help my mount speed a little.

In amongst all these Zul'Farrak groups I had a few more runs in Maruadon:Pristine Waters. This can be very fast because most people skip half the bosses. In that case it doesn't give good exp though, so I always ask people if they want to do the others, and show them where the bosses are. I finally persuaded a group to go and kill the goblin boss, who's hiding in a cave somewhere. You can get to him if you drop down after Princess, swim through the cave and just keep on following the tunnel. I also got to kill Celebras, who's in the middle of Maraudon and not included in any of the "random" sections, because one group entered and insisted on running backwards and killing everything. I tried to tell them they were going the wrong way, and we should do the "Pristine Waters" section instead of "Purple" but I couldn't get through to them. The just ignored me and kept pulling. Eventually I decided to leave, as it would take too long to do the whole of Maraudon, and the lower sections don't give me exp anymore anyway.

I've had some really good groups recently - people who were very skilled and very friendly. And most importantly, people who were very patient with the not so skilled. We had one warrior tank who was having many problems. He could only tank one mob at a time. We had a rather hungover shaman in the group, who tried giving the warrior advice, even pointing out that the warrior should use defensive stance (I guess he can tell what stance the warrior was in from the abilities he was using) but the warrior said nothing and continued. The shaman was very philosophical about the whole thing, even when the warrior needed on a dps ring off the last boss. He was obviously a veteran of some difficult groups. In another group, and epic dagger dropped - very rare, and everyone needed and there were no arguments. I eventually got very bored of the instance - I ran it 11 times in total, and completed it 9 times. In the final group we had a hunter who was leeching for the first 10 minutes then came back before we could kick him. When I asked where his pet was he said "in the stable". By this time though we'd almost finished so just killed the last boss and it was done.

I've downloaded a new addon, which is an extension of my recount damage meter. It records guessed absorbs as well as healing, and it suggests that currently 30% of my "heals" are shields absorbing damage. I wanted to figure this out because I was reading a forum disucssion about disc priests being discriminated against because people can't actually see the healing they're doing, and think they're slacking. I haven't had anyone complain about my healing yet, and I've even had a few compliments, but there's always some people who rely on meters more than opening their eyes or simply just giving people the benefit of the doubt.

Well that's all for Zul'Farrak and Maraudon! The next instance on the list is Sunken Temple - another place full of trolls. What have people got against trolls??

Patient Priest: Maraudon and on

2010-03-31T07:23:00.000-07:00

I'm now level 43 and continuing to push my way through Maraudon. After five runs in a row in Maraudon:Orange I signed up for Purple as I didn't want to level past it (and was seriously bored of Orange).

Purple is definitely easier than Orange. It's a twisty cavern full of satyrs, demons and a few elementals. The don't do much damage and you can dispel a lot of the debuffs. We survived a massive pull in the beginning when someone cast some aoe and a horde of imps and other demons came running at us from the lower level. It's a fairly short instance. In fact I didn't realise we'd finished the first time and I though our tank was just quitting. You only need to kill one boss to get your lucky dip bag, which means that there's one boss in the middle of Maraudon who isn't covered by any of the LFG sections.

I signed up for a random and got another Maraudon:Orange run. I've realised by this time that I've had enough of this instance. I think I'm starting to lose patience too because I found the group really annoying and I'm sick of having to ask for buffs. I unfortunately had a couple of really unpleasant guys in this group. There was a warrior tank and a rogue who were RL buddies. The tank went afk for a few minutes and when the hunter asked the rogue what was happening he just gave some cocky answer that shut the hunter up. Tanks can do as they please you know. For the rest of the dungeon the warrior and rogue made fun of the hunter, criticising his dps, calling him bender and telling him he was doing stuff wrong. I eventually told them to shut up and stop being assholes and that seemed to help a bit. When we'd downed the last boss the hunter called them idiots and left. The rogue wanted to continue deeper into the harder sections of the instance but I said no thanks and teleported out of there. They were the worst people I've grouped with so far.

Continues...

I was reading a blog post on Wow.com Drama mamas this week about grouping with people who get nasty like this. It makes a good point that sometimes you have to tell these people they're going to far and quit the group - even screenshot and report them if they say something really offensive. You shouldn't let people like this ruin your game experience - get out of there, do some relaxing fishing for 15 minutes while your deserter debuff wears off, then join a new group with hopefully nicer people. I think my experience shows that most wow players are pefectly pleasant. The blog on Wow.com is here: Drama mama's

I signed for another Maraudon:Purple run because I thought I hadn't finished it all the first time, but it really is a lot shorter than I was expecting, and it was over just as fast as last time. I then did some more randoms and got sent to Zul'farak a couple of times (more about that another time) and finally I found myself in Maraudon:Inner (or pristine waters). This starts with the group falling down a waterfall and into a pool of swimming hydras. It really is a beautiful instance, with wide caverns full of rivers and waterfalls and exotic ferns. In some places there's skylights overehead and the sunlight streams in.

I had a good group, though the tank started off using the wrong weapon and I didn't want to ask him to switch in case he didn't have a tank set and he got nasty with me. I guess that previous unpleasant Orange group was still bothering me. However he soon got out a one-hand and shield and everything went smoothly. The mobs here hit noticably harder than previous instances. I was a little worried that I was a bit low level (I was 44) but the tank was level 48 and was obviously well-geared enough for the mobs. When he ran in and started attacking two giant rock monsters at once I was nervous but it was no big deal. I just stayed well back and we had no problems. The last boss is fun to do, with the knockback and huge aoe-fart she does. Unfortunately our hunter decided to melee the boss and then proceeded to try and take the spell-power dagger (but I won the roll, thankfully). He also took the cloth shoulders that dropped off the giant crocodile boss. I pointed this out and at first he insisted he could use it, but then offered to hand it over when someone else backed me up.

I got another random group for Inner straight after this, and the tank instantly starts complaining that she's done this one 20 times in row and is bored. I think if I'm still doing this instance at level 48 then I'll be bored too. She had very little patience and was not too subtle about telling the hunter off for pulling aggro. When the druid charged in and attacked the wrong mob, the tank helpfully used her macro to inform the group that " <= Evil tank, you tank what you pull" and left the druid with the mob attacking him. The druid was truly annoying though, giving us progress updates every other minute..... "4 bars til ding".... "half a bar til ding!!". The tank informed him she didn't care and I tactfully kept quiet. The feral druid and hunter both rolled on the spell dagger off the last boss, but I already have it and didn't say anything this time. I don't know whether people are just ignorant of the loot system, or just pretending to be (or pretending not to care). I don't often feel there's much point in trying to discuss it with them.

Overall I like Maraudon - when Blizzard switches Orange and Purple around it should be a nice run of dungeons to do, as it should have the right level of challenge. It would be nice to have some more quests in there though, as currently you need to spend a lot of time outside the dungeon in order to start the quests off, and I think most people don't know where the entrace to Maraudon is, they just use the teleport.

Patient Priest: Maraudon bingo

2010-03-31T07:13:00.000-07:00

I've finally levelled up to 41, out of the range for Uldaman and into the range of the Maraudon instances. Maraudon is a big instance, so it's been split into three parts; Orange, Purple and Pristine Waters (known by most of the the wow community as "Inner"). Orange is the first one on the list to try. I checked out Maraudon on Wowhead, to see how the 3 areas link together and to look for any quests I should pick up. I see there's a lot of people commenting on there that the LFG tool is problematic at level 41-42 because Scarlet Monastery is too easy, and Maraudon:Orange is too hard (it's level 42 to 46), so you're kinda stuck in the middle. This made me a bit nervous about signing up for randoms as I anticipated a wipefest as a group of 41's got overrun by level 46 mobs.

So I tried Maraudon:Orange a few times and I found the following;
The mobs are indeed a high level and it takes a long time to kill them (I helped to dps the mobs when the healing allowed)
The lashers do a nasty interrupt, so the healers should stay at max range
The first boss is very hard, casting lots of poisons and spawning adds which need to be killed fast
The lava spewer keeps spewing lava worms! They follow you for the first half of the instance, so watch out for them hitting you in the back.
The mobs root a lot, but this can be dispelled
If you die, it's a long and confusing trip back to the entrance, but stick to the right wall and you'll be fine.

After I'd already done Maraudon:Orange a few times I happened to see a news post stating that Blizzard mixed up the levels of the first two parts of Maruadon, and Purple is easier than Orange. This will be corrected shortly. They'll also stop the spewer from spawning lava continously.

It took me three tries to finally complete Maraudon:Orange. I think it's so challenging at level 41 that you need a group of committed people who have a bit of skill. It's certainly not something you can rush through and aoe down. Read further on for details of the groups, and a link on how to play PUG bingo!

The first group I had ended pretty quickly. There was no talking, no buffs, no response when I asked for buffs, just a wall of silence from the tanks and dps. I guess the group didn't speak English. I threatened to leave, and I guess the group must have realised something was up because two of the dps left after we killed one mob and I followed them. I had heard how difficult this instance was going to be, and I didn't want to even attempt it with a tank who didn't use tanking buffs.

The next group did slightly better. We had a tank who was enthusiastic and serious about tanking. Perhaps a little too serious.... He typed angrily in chat "who doesn't understand skull????" when someone didn't attack the marked target. The rogue told him to chill and then started criticising him and telling him he didn't know what he was doing, which I thought was harsh 'cause the warrior was actually doing a good job of tanking. After a few minutes of angry exchanges, the warrior quit saying the rogue had "crushed his fun". Rogue says lol. So we wait for another tank and I'm rather annoyed at the rogue but don't say anything. I teleported out because I was low on mana drinks, and in the meantime a patrol comes along and kills the rest of the group. The rogue tells the shammy he sucks for not healing. The groups then breaks apart.

I'd like to note the hunter that was in this group, who said absolutely nothing but treated us to a selection of lovely emotes from her cat. Such as "hunter's pet stretches herself elegantly, then gently nuzzles her master leg". Charming indeed, but completely unhelpful when the group is having problems and you remain silent apart from cat emotes. I was half tempted to sarcastically add "Priest's patience wears thin, as the hunter stands motionless while her pet coughs hairballs up onto the carpet" but I figured it was unnecessary, and would have been rather catty of me...

Finally, on my third attempt, I found myself in what turned out to be a successful group. We were all level 41-42. We had a very good druid tank, who I think had done it before, and she gave us good directions. She even persuaded the group to kite the green slimes instead of standing and taking the poison in the face. I noted that she wasn't using any heirlooms, but with sense and skill like that I would assume this wasn't her first character. Are there a lot of people rolling characters on new servers or something? I'm seeing a lot of people without heirlooms. Anyway, we had 1 wipe on the first boss due to the fact that we didn't handle the adds properly (I think we were a bit surprised by them, and I got aggro by landing a heal just as they arrived) and I wasn't able to keep everyone up while they were being eaten by poison. This is my first wipe in 15 instances, so I'm a bit disappointed, but I was expecting to find Maraudon hard. One of the dps left and was replaced by a level 44 rogue, and the increased damage was enough to kill the boss second time around. The next boss was much easier - he takes some time to kill but he hits like a pansy (and he looks like one).

Well my luck seemed to have changed with groups and I had another excellent group after this, including a very good paladin tank. I must confess that I messed up a bit in this group - I was reading my quest log trying to figure out how to complete some quests (my advice is don't bother as they seem to start outside the instance) and I wasn't paying attention. The paladin had to bubble and heal herself twice because I was either not looking or accidentally spamming heals onto myself. I'm grateful to that group for putting up with such a noob healer.

And finally, here's something fun to do while pugging (if you can afford to not concentrate on what you're doing); PUG bingo!

Cruce posted some card on the forums here:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22048447148&postId=220463235221&sid=1

Every time you experience one of the things on the card you tick it off, and the first person to complete the card shouts "bingo!".

Have fun!

Patient Priest: Level 40 & Neverdied

2010-03-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

I'd like to give my congratulations to Neverdied the mage, who made it to level 80 with no deaths! He also did no quests, used no mounts and some other restrictions too. I think a frost mage was a good choice of character for this challange, as they seem to be able to get themselves out of sticky situations. I also think that the "no quests" restriction made this slightly easier in some way - sure it would take longer because he isn't getting the xp from quests, but I think you're less likely to die if you're not risking your neck to escort an npc somewhere or pick up quest items that are swarming with mobs. You can take things steady and at your own pace.

He says he did it because he wanted to add a new dimension to the game because he was taking a break from raiding. I'm reminded of Shaiya, where they have an "ultimate mode" setting which gives your character extra stats but also means that the charcter is deleted if it ever dies (unless you get someone to rezz you within 2 minutes). I can see why some people want this kind of challenge but I don't think I would be so dedicated as to do this - when my priest first died at level 20 I wasn't tempted to delete her and start again.

You can see Neverdied's youtube video here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeNaWYvKzb8

And so onto more dungeons! And dinging level 40...

I did another Uldaman run and weirdly was in a group with the same annoying mage as last time - still no buffs! I know the way in Uldaman now and I'm starting to like it. However, there are a couple of things that annoy me that Blizzard really needs to fix:
1. You need to be level 40 to take the quest at the end. Why not 38 when you can easily complete the instance at this level?
2. You need to create a staff to summon the second boss, but this requires a rod and a medallion - if two different people from different servers pick these items up then you can't trade between servers and you can't summon the boss!

While we're on the subject of annoying bugs, I think Blizzard needs to fix it so you can see everyone by the summoning stone outside ICC.

I was over level 39 at this point and I decided that I would grind to level 40 before I did another dungeon, so I could complete the Uldaman quests if I went there again. So I went to STV and did a couple of quests. Levelling seems to go really fast at this point, even without heirlooms.

So my record at level 40 is;
25 dungeons entered, 23 dungeons completed, 4 wipes and 10 deaths.

I think this shows that the pugging experience isn't as painful as some people think it will be - the LFG tool has really improved things. You just need to be a little patient with people - sure there is the occaisional mistake but I've had a lot more good experiences than bad.

I did another Uldaman run and finally completed all the quests. We even managed to summon the second boss (for those that don't know, you just need to make sure that the person that opens the box and takes the medallion is someone who already has the staff). We had a druid tank who was very good but it's noticable that druids need more healing then paladins and warriors - I wonder if this will change in higher levels. My main is a druid tank and I'm actually starting to understand that my guild healers need to spend more mana to keep me up than other tanks! I'm going to make sure I keep my armor stacked high to compensate.

We had a leecher in this run unfortunately - someone who joined the group then just went afk at the start to leech xp. We couldn't kick him and replace him for 15 minutes, so we had to 4-man the first parts. Annoying, but not too much of a problem. I hope I don't come across many of these though.

And finally, I got put into a random group for Scarlet Monastery Cathedral! This is an instance that I haven't been looking forward to. It requires a tank who knows how to pull carefully, and a group that is disciplined enough to clear everything steadily until only the boss is left. I was sure we were going to have at least one wipe here, but the whole thing went very well and we cleared it with little trouble. The tank did an excellent job, despite the mage who kept ninja pulling. We had a rogue to said "lol!!" to everything, though I don't know what he found so funny. I certainly wasn't laughing when he ninja'd the healing mace off the last boss.

I had some fun though and I'm really starting to love my disc spec - we had some runners in the last part who were heading for the boss before we were ready, and on two occasions I was able to nuke down stray mobs with my holy fire before they could reach the boss and cause us to be overrun. Depending on how much healing the group requires, and how my mana regen is doing, I can actually be part healer, part damage dealer. I'm getting braver now, and if the tank is being kept alive by my sheild, I'll start killing mobs instead of just waiting until they need me to heal again.

I'm up to level 41 now, and I've hit a difficult part in the dungeon levelling process - the horror that is Maraudon. I've now completed 12 dungeons in a row with no deaths or wipes, but I'm sure that must be about to change.

Patient Priest: Fun with pigs and trogs

2010-03-31T06:31:00.000-07:00

This week I have been mostly killing pigs..... and skeletons.

I've found myself in Razorfen Downs groups recently. A giant mass of brambles inhabited by the quilboar and a lich who likes to create skeletal minions. I never did this instance while levelling any of my horde characters, but I've now completed it three times! It's a tough instance; it's quite long, with things occaisionally spawning on top of you, and some nasty poisons and curses that I can't get rid of. There's also a gong which spawns giant spiders when you hit it, and you can always guarantee that when you're in the middle of killing a rampaging gang of pig-people, someone will say "what does this do?" and hit the gong before you can say "NOooooooooo!!!!". However, it gives a great load of experience for a full run, some nice loot and there's some nice herbs in there.

I also had some tough groups to deal with, but I'm pleased to say I've had no wipes or deaths in here so far. We had one druid who was ninja'ing gear, and so I voted to kick him after he stole the second item cause he was just taking it too far. We tried to explain looting to him, but he didn't respond to any questions, and said he supposedly couldn't speak English. I felt a bit bad for kicking a tank, but a paladin dps stepped up to the plate and tanked the rest of the instance, and we had no real problems despite him not having a sheild.

The fun gets better after the break...

Another time we had people dc'ing and leaving, being replaced then the replacements leaving. A druid joined when we were half way through the dungeon, ran the wrong way and died, then just teleported out of there and didn't leave the group. We couldn't kick him. He didn't respond to anything we said to him. I wonder sometimes if people like this are new to the game and just don't know what they're doing. It's hard to help people when they don't talk though..... or listen. Anyway; on this occaision we managed to 3-man the second half of the instance - we had a very well-geared warrior tanking.

Unfortunately we didn't have a great tank for the third run - a paladin who didn't know what 'Righteous Fury' was, despite me trying to explain it. It was a slow group with noone talking or paying attention to anything I said (I sometimes wonder if people just ignore their chat) but we pushed on through. This makes 5 dungeons in a row with no wipes!

I was starting to get bored of Razorfen, so I was pleased when I got something new, but rather worried at the same time to find myself in Uldaman. I quite like the underground city, but I'm not a fan of the many troggs who inhabit it. This is a higher level, and I was a little nervous about it. We luckily had a level 40 warrior tank who knew what he was doing - another excellent tank. Even so, some of the groups of mobs are very large, and it was sometimes very hard to keep him up with so many troggs attacking him. And of course no-one thinks to control any mobs anymore - just group them up and aoe them down!

The rest of the group was a bit of a failure though; not one but two druids who decided stand close to the tank and melee the mobs, despite being caster spec. I asked them to stay back (or at least not to stand near the lava totems that were killing them slowly with fire) but they paid no heed. Maybe they were trying to conserve mana? I don't know, but with a mix of agility gear, caster talents and hitting stuff with a mace, there was just too much wrong to start telling them where to go right. (But druids are hybids, don't you know! Yeah maybe they can do everything, but not all at the same time...)

They weren't bad guys though - they were pretty friendly. One of them rolled for and won a melee mace from one of the bosses, but thankfully handed it over to the warrior when told to. I told him to go catform if he wanted to be melee and he gave it a go. Not sure if it was an improvement. He also manage to 'Innervate' me when cried out for it - I was very grateful. I unfortunately let the tank go down at one point. We had some mobs run away and pull another group and I just couldn't keep up the healing for long enough. The rest of the group managed to scrabble around and kill the mobs though, thanks to a handy 'Psychic Scream' from myself, scattering the mobs, and avoinding what I was sure was going to be a wipe.

Finally, special thanks go to the mage who didn't buff anyone with Arcane Intellect, despite me asking 3 times. He cast it on himself, and I even pointed out "you know you can cast that on other people?", but got no response. Was he a new player who didn't speak English? Or was he just messing with my head? Or maybe he was too drunk / stoned to notice. Whatever the reason, I didn't feel guilty when a lovely caster chestpiece dropped and I won the roll over the mage and melee druids, despite me being too low level to use it. The others were all too low level too :)

Patient Priest: Clothadin

2010-03-31T06:22:00.000-07:00

My steady ascent towards level 80 continues and I feel I'm starting to enjoy playing a priest more and more. I don't use many of my abilities - mainly my shield spell, my flash heal and the occasional renew to top people off - but I've found that's all I need in dungeons so far. I've been dispelling a lot, which is good as it means I've been learning to pay close attention to what's happening to the group. However, I've found that on some fights it uses up a lot of mana if I try to dispel everything, so I'm going to have to be a bit more selective about what I dispel. My mana regeneration is very good, but it was set back recently when I upgraded to my new level spells which cost more.

I feel like I'm levelling pretty quickly, and I'm mostly enjoying doing dungeons. It can be a little boring if you're put in the same dungeon three times in a row, but every group is different and the challenge of healing keeps it interesting. I'm not levelling quickly as some though - I don't have any heirlooms on this character, as my main is on a different server. I've chosen to level on a PvE server as I wanted the challenge of staying alive as much as possible. And there's no real challenge to stay alive when a lvl 80 enemy rogue is one-shotting you out of nowhere - that's just pointless so I'm staying away from that to concentrate on my levelling.

Continued....
I've done 4 more runs in Scarlet Monastery - three in the Armory and one in the Library. I think these dungeons are when people really start to learn to play their class. With mobs running away when they get low on health, it's easy to accidentally pull many more mobs than you planned and get swamped. It requires good pulling and positioning skills from the tank, and a bit of discipline from the dps.

We did the Library run with a rather interesting tank - a paladin wearing cloth armor! At least he was holding a shield. He was using the cloth heirlooms that give extra experience, and that stupid cloth hat I died for twice in Gnomeregan and still didn't get! He claimed that the stats on the cloth made it better than any chainmail he's found (or he just didn't want to give up the faster experience gain). He took quite a lot of damage, naturally with such low armor, but he was a good tank and I was able to keep him up. The run went well until we lost control of some mobs at the end which ran into the last room and pulled the boss, so we had a lot on our hands. I let a couple of the dps die as it was just too much to handle. When the remaining dps started yelling out for heals one of my group members helpfully stuck up for me and pointed out that I was polymorphed, and couldn't heal him while I was turned into a sheep. We completed the dungeon anyway, and I won a nice new robe off the boss.

The other runs in Scarlet Monastery all went very well, mainly due to having excellent tanks who kept the dps in line. I think I'm also getting to be quite a high level for it. I've been put into groups with some people a couple of times now, including a really good warrior tank whose name I'll remember. I wonder if I'll see them around more and we'll be in dungeons together a few more times along the way to level 80. I guess it depends on whether we all level at the same speed.

Something nice to see - on our final run in the Armory the rare tabbard dropped and noone ninja'd it! We all greed-rolled like civilised people. I didn't win though unfortunately. However, I'm feeling lucky that I've had a lot of good runs with nice people recently....

See the sexy Scarlet Crusader tabbard here - less than 2% chance to drop!
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=23192

Patient Priest: Want hat!

2010-03-31T06:17:00.000-07:00

I signed up for another Gnomeregan run. It's not my favourite instance; it's got lots of mobs close together which means lots of difficult pulls. I had a few quests left to finish though, and I still needed a hat, so I went back. We had a problem getting a tank - the first tank left, the second got stuck in a tunnel and quit, our dps warrior then put a shield on and started tanking, then another paladin tank arrived and started tanking too. So I had two tanks to try and heal, which just made things complicated. Things went fairly smoothly though until the last long tunnel, when we decided to take the middle path, which was a mistake - we twice managed to accidentally pull stuff on both sides of us, resulting in us getting overwhealmed and killed pretty quickly, twice - two more wipes to add to the total!

After the second wipe, everyone quit, despite agreeing that we should have taken the left path in the first place, and I had to admit defeat - this is the first dungeon that I haven't completed. And I still don't have any hat....

So remember guys - in Gnomer, always take the left path at the end.

More Monastery after the break...

I then did another couple of random instances - I twice ended up in SM: Graveyard. The first time we had an excellent paladin tank - probably the best I've grouped with so far. I was also very impressed with the amount of dispelling that was happening. Usually people ignore things like poison, magic effects and curses, because they think they're not much of a problem and the healer can heal through them anyway. Either that or they're too busy spamming fireballs to pay attention to the diseases that are slowly eating away at them. So I was happy to see a couple of people in the group showing that they were aware of what was going on and they were keeping their eye out for their group members.

While waiting to get a place in a dungeon group (not that I have to wait long) I'm currently questing in Stranglethorn Vale. I usually avoid this zone as it notorious for low level questers getting killed by bored high levels. However, I'm on a PvE server so I'm immune to any such PvP action, and this is the best zone for me to get lots of herbs to improve my alchemy. I like the jungle theme, and since I haven't quested here for a long time it doesn't feel old and boring. My annoyance soon returned though when I managed to disconnect while hunting panthers and log back in to find myself dead - my ninth death but only my second while questing.

I get an invite to a Scarlet Monastery: Library Group and join to find that the dungeon is already in progress (i.e. their previous healer left half-way through for some reason). I run through the instance to join them, just as the tank runs through a corridoor, pulling as many mobs as possible, then quits the group, leaving the rest of us to die. The group falls apart after that and we all give up and leave.

My next random group ends up in SM:Armory. I'm now level 34 so I should be ready for these higher dungeons. I should also be moving up to the higher tier of "lucky dip" bags rewarded from the random dunegons, so I hope to get some shiny new rings and shoulders soon. Despite being a challenging dungeon, the run goes very smoothly, mainly thanks to a very effective, but rather fast tank. This is probably the most difficult challenge I've had so far and the first time I really feel I've done a good job in tough circumstances. The dps'ers are taking damage from the enemy mages casting flamestrike, but I manage to heal them up at the same time as keeping the tank alive. One of the group died on the final boss, but that was a rogue standing still during the whirlwind, so I didn't feel bad.

I feel I'm starting to learn the art of healing though - let's hope I'm not talking too soon...

Patient Priest: Need a tank?

2010-03-31T06:10:00.000-07:00

I've been having a lot of fun in the Wetlands in my level 20's. It's all new to me as I'm usually a Hordie. I've found this to be a great place to find herbs to level my professions, gather crocodile meat to improve my cooking skill, and kill a few murlocs and dead sailors along the way to get some quest experience and rewards.

I like my draenei. I think she looks pretty cool. I've noticed that her casting animations are all very similar though, which is a shame. I think her racial abilities are useful - the increased hit chance is very good at low levels, as there's not much +hit gear around. The extra healing spell has saved my life a couple of times too - usually when I'm out of mana.

Continued...

Something new that I haven't used before is the automatic self-targetting option. I think it was turned on for everyone during the last patch. I haven't really noticed it before, but when you're a healer it's pretty useful, but potentially problematic. While questing, I target the mob I want to kill and start casting my damage spells. If I want to heal myself I don't need to target myself (or push the alt button - the default modifyer for self-targetting) because if I use a spell that can't be cast on my target (or if I don't have anything targeted) it automatically casts it on me. Very useful! However, the problem is that I no longer get error messages if I lose my target. This will sometimes result in me healing myself when I think I'm healing someone else, because I don't realise I've acidentally de-selected someone (and don't get an error messages telling me I have).

Overall though, I like the automatic self-targetting, and I plan to keep using it. And I'm happy with my choice of draenei as race for my priest.

I've come across a lot of people who are levelling through the looking for group system - it a lot faster and more effective now. I read an interesting thread on the Warcraft Europe forums about another healer levelling through groups. The discussion evolves into a debate on whether tanks are necessary - many believe they can do the lower instances without a tank. I certainly agree that it's possible to keep a dps class alive during the low level instances - you don't need plate armor and a lot of talent points in the protection tree to survive a beating from a level 30 elite mob. However, the problem is that dps classes can't keep aggro, can't do aoe aggro, and most importantly - they can't taunt! I'm happy to heal warriors and paladins using 2-hands, I'm happy for hunters to try tanking with their pet. I'm not happy for some shaman or mage to run in there, spam a blizzard or chain lightening, then stand there and watch while most of the mobs switch to me and kill me as soon as I start healing.

Anyway, the thread is here if you're interested;

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12025293655&sid=1

Patient Priest: Kamikaze hunter

2010-03-31T05:58:00.000-07:00

Before dinging level 30 I decided to finish off the quests I have left in the dungeons at my level before I level up and I'm forced to move on.

I join a group for the Stockade. For the first time, I find myself in a group with a good druid tank! Everything goes well, despite some trigger happy dps, and the tank gets very confident towards the end, pushing on fast enough for me to get worried. At one point I'm surprised by the tank taking a ton of damage and getting close to death, despite me giving him lots of heals, only to realise that I don't have the tank selected as my target and I'm actually spamming heals onto myself. However, I manage to keep everyone up and it all ends happily with me completing all my quests and getting to level 30!

My record at level 30 is 7 dungeons complete, 5 deaths but only 1 wipe.

I decide that I should try to get people chatting more to try and make it more sociable. Too many people seem intent on rushing through and reaching maximum level. If I start chatting though, people might just continue on without waiting for me, and I'll end up behind and making mistakes.

More after the break...

I sign up for a few random dungeons and I get put into Scarlet Monastery: Graveyard three times in a row - obviously this must be the ideal dungeon for a level 30. All 3 runs went very well apart from 2 slight hiccups. I unfortunately let one of my party members die when things got a little messy and I was too busy focussing on the tank. By the time I realised that the poor guy was under fire he was too far away and I couldn't save him.

In another group we had a rather annoying hunter. We was rushing and starting attacking stuff while the tank was still sitting at the entrance getting ready. The hunter of course couldn't keep aggro while I was healing all the dps, trying to keep them alive, and I suddenly had a load of angry mobs coming running at me and kill me. The dps went down too but the paladin tank survived so I'm not gonna call this a wipe. The tank firmly told the dps not to pull before he was ready or he was going to leave. I should have followed his lead and sat with him at the entrance before he was ready to start instead of trying to save the kamikaze dps. The rest of the instance went well, despite the hunter's best efforts to get us killed on every group (he got told off for ninja pulling then feigning death, leaving us to deal with the mess). I won some nice shoulder armor off the final boss. I again couldn't teleport out because the hunter had run off and found something else to try and kill. I was wiser this time, so despite the hunter's cry of "help me!" I used my hearthstone to get out of there, leaving the hunter to die...

Patient Priest meets annoying priest

2010-03-31T05:49:00.000-07:00

My dear, patient priest has now made it to level 30 and got some nice spell and armor upgrades!

Unfortunately, the last couple of levels didn't go so well. At level 28 I signed up for some more random dungeons to get more of the extra loot rewards. The first group I found myself in was in Gnomeregan. I had a lot of quests to complete in here, so I was happy to be in for a full run. This was a fairly silent but efficient group. We had a good level 29 tank who was in protection spec! The best spec for tanking yes, but very slow for levelling with, so I assume he's planning to level mainly through dungeons like myself.

We have a couple of gnomes in the group who chat about their hairstyles and one of them asks where to find the barber. We advise him to ask a guard in one of the cities. He remarks how nice it is of us to be helpful instead of just calling him a noob.

This run went very well, right up until the last boss. He spawns lots of little bombs which rush the group and explode and unfortunately the dps and I got killed, but we killed the boss and the tank survived. The boss dropped a really nice hat which I think I won, but I got tired of waiting for someone to make their roll for it and I released and ran back in. Everyone else left the instance, but determined to get the hat I tried to take the shortcut the previous group showed me and unfortunately I got killed. I released and entered again and found that I couldn't even teleport out of the dungeon again as I was no longer in the group! I hearthed out of there, still hatless.

So two more deaths to add to my total, but no wipes (I'm not counting that as a wipe as the tank was still up and we killed the boss). It's kinda frustrating that a seemingly good group, with players who seemed to know their job, had such a bad end - no loot and no quests complete because I didn't get enough item drops. Well that means I need to come back to Gnomeregan another time..... I want that hat!

I sign for another random immediately afterwards and I get Scarlet Monastery: Graveyard for the first time. SM:GY is a little high for my level, so I'm nervous, but at least it's a very short instance. I'm surprised to see one of the players from the group I just finished - a dps warrior. We get going and a level 30 priest in the group decides to start mind controlling everything and using it to tank mobs. It causes chaos and leaves us swamped by mobs. The tanks leaves - understandably as the priest wasn't letting him do his job.

We continue with the dps warrior tanking while searching for a replacement tank. We're lucky enough to find and kill a rare boss who drops a nice mace. The paladin then gets put back into our group as a replacement tank and says "oops, I just left this group". He sticks around for a bit before making an excuse and leaving again. We kill the final boss pretty quickly and everyone goes to leave. Unfortunately, I find I can't use my teleport, possibly because the priest and warrior have found something else to kill, meaning I'm in combat and can't teleport. I decided to try and run out, but find a patrol on my way which starts chasing me. The others just stand behind me doing nothing, and I'm killed.

Well I hope those mobs ran back and killed that priest as he was a moron. He was attacking stuff before we were ready and he was rolling "need" on random loot. His second highest damage ability was his melee attack from hitting stuff with his staff. What a pratt. I meant to put him on my ignore list but I don't know if I can do that for someone who's on a different server from me. I never told him what an idiot he was. I didn't see the point.

What did I learn this time? When the teleport function isn't working I must remember to use my hearthstone!

Patient Priest: Radiating gnomes

2010-03-31T05:39:00.000-07:00

This time I've decided to sign up for a random dungeon, mainly because I want to know what's in that sack of helpful goods that you get for completing the random dungeon that Blizzard throws you into. I've done some running around and picked up the quests for Gnomeregan and The Stockade so I can get some extra experience and money from those. I'm really enjoying levelling through dungeons, but I'm earning less gold this way and finding it harder to level my professions (currently herbing and alchemy).

So, I sign up for a random group while grinding lean wolf flanks north of Darkshire (levelling cooking is so boring this way - it was much easier on my druid when I just seemed to pick up recipes and materials naturally from the area that I was questing in). I'm put into a group for Gnomeregan, and immediately things look bad...

1. Gnomeregan is slightly high level for me (up to level 33, and I'm only 27), so this will be much more difficult than the previous dungeons
2. The group is already dead when I arrive, and greet me with "Heya, we just got pwn'ed!!"
3. I start walking towards their dead bodies to see that they're deep into the dungeon and all the mobs in the beginning have respawned, so they've obviously been in here sometime
4. Initially no-one rezzes to come help me make my way through, and someone makes a joke about casting my sheild spell on myself and running past the mobs....
5. Eventually, 2 of them rezz, including the tank, but the other two do nothing and just lie dead and wait for us to do all the work!

So the 3 of us that are alive start making our way along the instance, and I see that we can easily kill a few mobs wandering about - maybe this won't be so bad. The other two suddenly take a flying leap off a ledge though, down into the depths of the dungeon, I'm a little perturbed but glad that they know a short cut, and I jump down too. They set off running at quite a pace, and I try to follow them. I lag behind though as I see quest items that I need and stop to pick them up. I turn around to see that I'm slightly lost and there's patrols up ahead.... It gets kinda scary but I manage to hide behind corners and avoid the patrols like a pro (playing Hitman obviously taught me something) and we eventually get to the others. We rezz them, kill two groups of mobs, open a door and kill the last boss! Dungeon over, two quests complete, I receive my sack of helpful goods and open it to find a very nice necklace which is a great upgrade for me, as I didn't have any necklace yet. Helpful indeed and an easy 10 minutes work!

So the moral of the story here was, no matter how bad things look in the start, it's worth giving it the benefit of the doubt. And I see why people like paladin tanks - they have much more success keeping aggro on groups of mobs. I'm gonna have to pester those druid tanks to start spamming swipe more.

I'm so enthusiastic after this group that I decide to sign up for a group for The Stockade, eagerly eying all the quests I have in there and the experience and gold I'll get for completing them.

This time we have another druid tank, who tanks in caster form using starfire, hitting mobs with his mace and occaisionally healing himself. Do these people do just do it to take the pi**? If so, why do they stick around? We ask him to go into bearform and he changes into cat. The warrior ends up tanking and does a pretty good job despite wielding a 2-hand sword instead of a 1-hand and a shield. Things are naturally a bit chaotic, given the group setup, but we manage to kill everything and stay alive.

However, things go wrong when we get to the last boss and engage him - I didn't even realise we had reached the last boss. The druid was chain pulling stuff, using a variety of forms, and I was out of mana before he even attacked the boss. We down the boss, completing the dungeon, but a massive load of mobs spawn and overrun us - obviously we were supposed to clear the whole area before killing the boss. Anyway - this results in our first wipe, and my second death - not a happy priest! The druid and one of the dps leave, and the remaining 3 of us ressurect and kill a few more mobs in order to complete our quests.

And what did I learn from this dungeon? I probably should have voted to kick that sucky, annoying tank as he wasn't even trying. However we got what we went there for, so I guess it's all good in the end.

So my record is now level 28, 2 deaths, 1 wipe

Patient Priest in the creepy castle

2010-03-30T08:04:00.000-07:00

Today I decided to queue for Shadowfang Keep! It's a dungeon I've done a few times with my horde characters so I know it fairly well, and I know there's some nice caster drops in there. I think it's a nice instance; a creepy castle full of wizards and werewolves - the place is fun to explore.

I accept the group invite to find myself at the start with a paladin, mage, hunter and warrior. An argument starts over who's the tank, despite the paladin having the tank sign on his head. We convince the warrior he's dps, but the other group members get annoyed when they realise he's only come with a sword and shield and has no big 2-hand sword. I vote against the attempt to kick him from the group, thinking it's too soon and we should give him a chance. But after the vote goes around again I give in and let him be removed. He's replaced by another hunter. The mage then tries to trade me to enchant my weapon, but I realise I can't give him my weapon to enchant as we're on different servers and that's not allowed. After asking many times, the mage finally figures out how to trade me some water, but in all this confusion it seems the paladin tank got sick of his healer standing around trying to get water out of a mage, and he quits.

We start clearing trash using the hunters' pets as tanks, and it's not too hard to keep them up. Everything goes fairly smoothly and we're eventually joined by a druid tank - who I'm suspicious is the same druid tank who DC'd in Deadmines. Our mage also leaves and is replaced by a rogue.

We move along fairly switfly, with me managing to keep everyone and their dogs up. The druid doesn't seem keen to tank and keeps going into cat-form and just dps'ing, probably because the pets are doing a better job of tanking and there's not much point in him going bear. However, without the druid in bearform there's no-one to taunt and I'm often getting smacked by mobs. Luckily I remember to use 'Fade', and this often saves my life!

The group is fairly disorganised, but mostly effective. The druid seems to randomly switch around between forms, the hunters occaisionally disengage over my head, as if they're holding a backwards long jump competiton, I often have problems keeping everyone in line of sight, and I one point I get as low as 35 hit points left, before I manage to hide around a corner and shield myself with my last bit of mana.

Another hunter then leaves and is replaced by a mage, but at this point we're far into the instance and have to wait ages for the mage to get to us, and when he's almost there he seems to go AFK!! The druid gets tired of waiting and starts pulling mobs, despite the remaining hunter continously pleading with him to stop, and eventually he pulls a trash pack and a boss, totally unnecessarily. The mage still hasn't moved his backside into the same room as us, and although we desperately try to survive the druid's rapid and moronic pulling skills I just can't keep everyone up. I'm out of mana fast, the hunter and druid die, but luckily the boss is down and I manage to kite the last two mobs around while the rogue stabs them from behind. The mage arrives just as I'm rezzing the dead, and I resist the urge to make some sarcastic comment about his timing.

We move into the last room and kill the final boss. The mage wins the caster item that drops, but I'm not really that bothered as it's kinda low level for me now. In fact, I think the instance was a bit low level as I wasn't getting any experience points from the first part.

What did I learn from this dungeon?
I think many people are signing as more that one thing so they have a better chance of getting a group. For example, I think many people are signing as tank, but hoping that they are selected as dps. And I think the warrior in this group signed as tank / dps and then was disappointed and unprepared when he was joined up as a damage dealer. This is causing confusion and arguments. I have been signing up as healer or damage, but I know I'd be bored as hell if I was in a group as a damage dealer, cause I'd be stuck at the back causing agonisingly little damage by throwing the odd disease on things. So in future I'm only signing as healer.

Deadmines and Shadowfang keep down! I'm level 27 and still only one death to my name, and no wipes while I'm healing :)

Patient Priest: The Pugging begins...

2010-03-30T07:46:00.000-07:00

And so onto my first pug with my priest. I'm level 25, so I'm just within range to do Deadmines. I've never done this dungeon before, and as I'm the max level allowed to join a pug for it I figured it should be interesting to do something new but not too difficult.

I joined the LFG (looking for group) queue for Deadmines while questing in the Wetlands, and I was impressed that I got a group in just a few minutes (I guess being a healer helps). I'm teleported to Deadmines (DM) to find a mage, a warlock, a paladin and a druid in my group, all below level 20. The druid is tank.

So we buff up and the druid starts pulling before we even have a chance to check everyone's ready. Then strangely, after the first pull the druid just leaves without warning. The mage quits immediately, probably fearing a long wait for another tank.... The remaining three of us are confused and moan about the quitters, but we're shortly joined by another druid tank and a rogue.

I'm startled when the druid immediately jumps into a pile of mobs, in caster form, and starts smacking them with his staff. I'm just about to vote to kick him from the group, seeing as he seems to be just messing about, but he switches to bear form and we get going.

The rogue does pretty good damage as he's over level 20, and things move along pretty quickly. I find that it's not hard to keep the group up, even with the rogue and paladin constantly pulling aggro, and I have plenty of time to switch targets and heal. I remember the days of early BC, when I first started heroics with my druid tank - one mistake meant a dps or healer would die, and it would result in a wipe. I guess normal dungeons are pretty forgiving and the dps can take a lot of punishment. It probably helps that I'm 5 levels above everyone else. I guess we're all used to the Northrend method of doing dungeons, because noone suggests any crowd control.

The tank doesn't seem all that skilled, but what can you expect? It might be his first time tanking, and as I know how hard it is to become a good tank, I'm very understanding. He's fine on single targets, but frequently fails to tank groups, and a few times I find mobs running towards me and starting to smack me. He doesn't react, and seems blissfully unaware that his group is getting overrun. Sometimes, he's even looking to charge the next group of trash while his party members are dseperately trying to kill an errant mob.

Anyway, I have plenty of time to react. The blizzard interface helpfully shows when a dps is high on threat and I can pre-emptively put a shield on them (I love this part of disc healing - I don't need to wait until someone takes damage before I can do something about it). I use my renew (small hot) a lot, and flash heals on anyone who takes a chunk of damage.

Unfortunately, the druid tank dc's some time after the first boss, right in the middle of a group of trash. We thankfully don't wipe - in part because the rogue and paladin don't take a lot of damage. We persuade the paladin to continue as tank while we search for a replacement, and he does a good job. However he seems keen for us to find someone else to tank (even though he's using a shield), possibly because he's only level 17.

Our third tank finally arrives a few minutes later, in the form on a level 19 warrior with rezz sickness, and only 290 hit points. However, he seems chatty and confident, and by the time he's run through the instance to meet us his rezz sickness has worn off and he sets about tanking with gusto. He does a good job of pulling back and we have no problems with the tricky pulls in the cove that's packed tightly with mobs.

We finish the instance fairly quickly, with no wipes and not even a single death! So my priest's record is now level 26 with only 1 death.

I enjoyed Deadmines - I like the pirate theme and I think the cove is definitely reminiscent of the Goonies, one of my favourite childhood films.

What did I learn from this instance?
Take more water with me
Have big, empty bags before you start
Use fade! I forgot to use it, and this probably made it harder for the tank

For those priests starting pugging or looking to improve their success, I recommend this useful guide from Wow.com!

http://www.wow.com/2009/12/21/spiritual-guidance-how-to-be-the-perfect-pickup-group-priest/#continued

Tune in next time for Shadowfang Keep!

Patient Priest, Introduction

2010-03-30T07:01:00.000-07:00

The Patient Priest is my new project - levelling a priest through Pugs! (pick-up groups for those who don't know, which means doing dungeons with random strangers, with potentially terrible or wonderful results). I'm looking forward to meeting all sorts of new people and trying to create a organised and fun dungeon group with them - should be easy!

When Patch 3.3 hit, it brought with it the new Looking for Group system. I must admit, I wasn't that interested in it initially, as I always group with guildies. Also, I've had bad experiences in pugs, as I'm sure most people have, so I generally avoid them.

However, everyone seems to be very positive about he new system, and I've used it a few times to pick up an extra dps for the daily random dungeon when my guildies were all busy. I'm very impressed with it - waiting times are short and the ability to teleport to a dungeon is great. I really think Blizzard have addressed the problems that made people reluctant to run dungeons, especially the low level ones.

Anyway, I was looking for something a bit different to do, as I'd been heavily involved in setting up and leading the new 25 man raid group in my guild. I wanted a bit of a break from the pressure and organisation involved. I also felt like doing some levelling on an alt, as it's a long time since I've levelled any low level characters.

My main is a druid tank, and my first alt is a warlock, specced affliction, for arena and the occaisional dungeon. I've only healed a couple of times on my druid, and I liked it, possibly because it's nice to have a change. One of my alts is a priest, who I created as I didn't have a healing character, and a guildy recommended it as the most interesting healer to play. I've chosen a draenei, as I'd like to experience and explore the alliance quests and towns.

I first created this character a while ago, as I wanted a challenge, and I thought I'd see how far I could get a character without dying. I decided priest would be the most difficult to try this with. I managed to reach level 20 when I started on the escort quest at the end of the draenei starting area. The npc I was escorting decided to pull two groups at once, killing us both. I was not pleased.

Anyway, now that my undying-record is broken, I don't feel such a need to be so cautious with my priest, and I've decided to level her in dungeons as a healer. I'll be starting out as discipline, as this offers a bit more versatility (and I'm sure it'll be hard, but not as boring as levelling holy).

As my priest is the opposite faction to my guild, I'll be all alone, without my friends and guildies to help. I'll be levelling on my own, with only the new friends I make along the way to keep my company. I'm prepared for some difficult experiences with pugs, but I'm looking forward to a new challenge.