WoW Journal 2007-05-10

Ran two instances last night, and got 70 on the second one.

First instance was Sethekk Halls which I tanked. In a normal situation I would have been peachy keen on this. Still love tanking. ^^b Unfortunately had two things which turned an otherwise fun run into one of the most annoying PUGs I've been in, in recent memory.

First off was the level 70 mage who was well geared (good +damage gear including the Greatsword of Horrid Dreams) and (I believe) fire specced... with zero aggro control. Even with BoS it was an uphill battle to keep the mob from attacking her. Oh, and did I mention she broke polymorph with Pyroblast? *bangs head on his desk*

Oh, but that's not all. The mage (Feyth I think was her name...) seemed to be in a rush and was pushing her way through. It was fast, but I barely had time to think between pulls, and even less time to get my mana back. I asked them to slow down, at which point Feyth said something along the lines of "We've got enough DPS. Heal up during fights." What she probably meant "I want to hurry through this. So let's go!" What I heard was "We only need you for the boss fights." As I've mentioned before I love tanking. I find it enjoyable. Hearing that I wasn't needed was like someone punched me in the gut. And it wouldn't have been so bad if people had been dying left and right, but they weren't. Other than on the final boss no one died at all. So they were right, which just made it hurt even worse.

Afterwards I got into a Mana-Tombs run. This time I was Mr. Healer. This was good on three fronts. I got to try out my new Avian Cloak of Feathers that I had gotten from that nightmare Sethekk halls run. Also got to test my healing capabilities as the main healer, despite being prot specced. Good to know I can do decently (only time people came close to dying was on the first boss with his AOE attacks which have always been an issue for Paladins to heal). May not be able to do as well as if I was Holy specced, but with good gear I think I'll be able to keep up. This is doubly important since, while I am aiming for being one of the main tanks of my guild for when we're raiding, there will be some bosses that you're just better off tanking with a warrior. Since a large portion of our threat comes from Holy Shield, having enemies that spend a good portion of the casting means they aren't attacking. No attacks = no blocks. Plus warriors have that spell reflect talent thingie... So on bosses like that, being up front just isn't that great a plan. Instead having me tossing heals in the back would probably be best (IMO). The final good thing was level 70 (Woot!). So now that I've finally got 70, it's time to put my nose the grindstone and make my way through quests for phat lewtz and some WoW street cred. *makes an A with his hands* Azeroth siiide, boyz! (note: I am ridiculously white... like Weird Al white).

And since I touched on it, I'll give a quasi-reply to Nibuca's post concerning being a healer. First and foremost what I'm saying is just a combination of my experiences and my opinions.What you say makes sense (really it does), but I've found it to be a lot harder than one thinks. At core, if you are called upon to be the main healer, and accept, you have three primary duties to keep in mind. First, is to keep people clean of debuffs that you can remove and are issues for them. For example, a magical silence on a rogue is not worth worrying about, but on a mage it should be removed quickly. That sort of thing. Second, is keeping everyone alive. This sounds simple, but it's a lot trickier than it seems, since Paladins have a very limited healing repertoire. You need to balance the amount healed vs. the time spent casting and be able to predict who will need what quality healing spell and how soon. Finally, you need to be cognizant of your own mana supplies. Flash of Light has good HpM (Health per Mana) but heals little overall. Holy Light has good amount of health, but has a prohibitively large mana cost. So while you could use Holy Light to keep everyone full, it would drain your mana pool far too quickly for many later fights. Now, maybe you can do everything I listed above, and still keep up with meleeing and keeping SoW on you. If so, you're a far better Paladin than I. I stretch myself thin just doing the basics I mentioned above. I'm not telling you what to do, Nibuca. What I'm really saying is don't set yourself in stone doing something one way until you've actually tried it multiple times.