80 Number 2 Woo HOO!

As a few folks on the server can definitely attest, I have had some significant trouble with trying to get Paci up to the 80 level. The run from 1-65 or so was really pretty easy. I had picked Paci as my second character to 80 because I wanted to do something that was really versatile and relevant. Being a Druid, I could play Paci as a tank, a healer, or a DPS.

Since my original main character (Michelinea) is a DPS, I decided to fool around with either the tank or healer route. This also made more sense to me since my entire MMO experience I have been playing as either a tank or healer. This stems from my days playing Final Fantasy XI (FFXI), where I started out as a Paladin (tank) and then later played the White Mage (Healer) for the group of people I played with on a consistent basis.

Thinking that I started as a tank and loved it in FFXI, so I would go that route instead of healer to start. This was awesome during the very early levels (Ragefire, Deadmines, etc), I was an awesome tank, mostly because at that low level you don't need a tank. No one is wimpy enough yet to worry too much about dying as long as everyone is fighting generally the same baddie mob. But then it came. I got to the Sunken Temple or Gnomergan or something. And it happened. I couldn't keep hate, and I needed to. People were dying all around me. People dropped party constantly, the new people kept dying. It was ugly. It was frustrating. It was depressing. Here I was, a guy who prided myself on my tanking ability and here I was failing miserably. Off I went to every website I could find, to read where I was screwing up. I found that for the most part I was doing what the theorycrafters were telling me to do at my level. The problem being that I was too low a level for a lot of the things that were talked about. Few people seemed to try to tank pre-80. Or if they did it, they didn't talk about it. What's the first rule of fight club....

Anyway, since I blew large boulder sized chunks as a tank,  I reworked my spec (yes, I did a spec change somewhere between level 30 and 40) and decided to try to heal. *insert choir of angels here* Yes, I healed, and healed, and healed. I was good at it, mostly because it is so easy. I never found myself stressing on whether or not people died, because they rarely did. I went from 30 to 65 without any trouble at all other than the obvious occasional douche who sometimes is in the group trying to make everyone's life miserable. Typically I spent my time ignoring them, first as a person, then if that didn't work as a healer. Its amazing how finding yourself on your back over and over as the rest of the group moves on through the instance works as an attitude changer. If I ran into a particularly ugly douche, I would make them run back. That seemed to be the perfect solution to the people you really want to be rid of.

Yes, after reading that, you have determined I'm an asshat healer. I'm sorry, I try not to be, but if you are rude, obnoxious, or hurtful to the team as a whole or individuals in particular I often take it upon myself to make your life miserable until you a. learn, or b. leave me and the other people around alone. Obviously, if you don't like it, you can leave, and some did. Yes, it sometimes backfired on me, but I don't care that much. I am not perfect, I screwed up too, and I was a jerk too. On those occasions I needed attitude adjustments, and I got them. Still do get them in fact.

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated

Thank you Mark Twain for so succinctly saying what I was thinking when I started putting together this post.

Yes, I know you dear reader must have been thinking:

"Bring out your dead!" (including Michelinea)
Well, guess what....
I'm not dead yet. I think I'll go for a walk.

Nor am I hoping to be going away any time soon. I am still alive, and playing. I just have been hammered by a lot of work over the last few months. I only hope that I am coming up at the end of it. I had thought it would have ended last month, but it didn't. I hope again now that it is the end of the time of pain.

I have played a little off and on, mostly leveling Paci up. Hopefully a better post will come soon.