I'm going to ignore the start of the night which included me being annoyed by being told one thing by the guild leader and something else by the raid leader. Suffice it to say, I'm not putting any more effort into trying to get into any raids with the guild for now. I'll PuG them or find a new guild until some people get their acts together.
So. On to happier things. I decided that I'd pull Paci out, my druid from a long time ago out to mess around with. I started out by finding that I had left her dead somewhere. Don't ask me where, I haven't a clue. I ended up finding the spirit dude and then hearthed home...to *dramatic drumroll*....Exodar of all places. Again, don't ask me. I must have just randomly taken boats and ended up there. Considering my level, I decided to go to Ashenvale to start questing there and maybe doing some LFG stuff.
Opening the LFG I had a choice, Tank, DPS, or Healer. Here is the reason I started Paci way back when. Druid is the ultimate hybrid class. It can do any of the three jobs well if you just build for it. Looking at what I had built so far in my talent tree proved that I have no idea what I'm doing. There are things in every different section of the talent tree. OK, that's no help. Well, let's see now I thought to myself since I can't use the tree I was going down to decide, let's look at what I have already. DPS will have a long wait, and I can do that on Mich for more badges. Tank or Healer then. Normally Tank is Ihasz my paladin, or to be honest, I can do Healer on Ihasz too. OK, process of elimination didn't work. So I click all 3 off saying I can do any and join the queue. Immediately I am picked up, not for Tank or Healer like I expected but as DPS. What to say about that run. Fast? Easy? Boring? Yes each of those would sum up the run through for me. I did learn that in cat form I build up points like you would as a rogue. That was good I guess.
Since the run took about ten minutes, and was no challenge to me I decided to remove the DPS check and queue again. This time I got picked up as a Tank. OK, this'll be fine I think since I've done it with Ihasz before and begin the run through the Keep. Was this one Fast? East? Boring? No. None of the above. I quickly learned that Paladin tanking and Druid tanking are completely different. I also learned I HATE Druid tanking. I don't think I ever figured out how to effectively keep up threat for multiple trash mobs. Never found an effective AoE DoT that I could use, and honestly if it hadn't been for the great healing of some random person I probably would have either been kicked from the party or spent a lot of time running back from the graveyard.
After what seemed like a month of tanking, we finally finished and I was told nice try before the party left me standing in the Keep alone, sad and crying. After my fit of self-pity at my failure was over I pulled my bootstraps up and opened the LFG queue again. OK, DPS: Nope, Boring, Stays unclicked, Tank: NO WAY! unclick away! Leaving me with the healer option. Saying a prayer to the WoW gods that I don't totally suck at this too, I join queue.
Within a couple of minutes I had the pop up for healing. Sure I say and get myself ready. Stormwind Stockades. OK, this is an instance that EVERYONE with a friend that's level 80 on the Alliance side has been run through. In fact, I have been run through it on multiple characters multiple times. Also, I've soloed it on my level 80 character at least a million times. Why you ask? It's got 3 things going for it. 1. It's short. 2. It's full of things that drop cloth (used in a lot of quests to gain reputation), 3. It's got lots of low level green items (Great if you are low level and need gear, also great if you are leveling enchanting, because you can use them to practice on). Thinking that at least I know this one, I'm safe...again, we begin.
First, it is way harder when you don't have someone 60 levels higher than the average mob destroying everything for you. Second, it is way longer when you don't have said level 80 person with you. Other than that, I learned a few useful things. 1. I'm a pretty good druid healer. Playing a priest on FFXI for a while helped me out a good bit, as I learned things like the right spell for the right time. 2. The default UI for WoW was not made for a healer to be successful. 3. People can be very forgiving at times, which is good. I caused a couple of wipes because instead of healing the person being hit, I kept healing myself.
At some point during the run, the tank began sending me tells. I found out that he was a priest healer on his other character and he really suggested me downloading the add on HealBot. After the run, I did download it, and logged back in. After a bit of monkeying around to figure out how it worked, I ran another dungeon and found I had entered a little bit of heaven. Healbot was exactly what I needed to be successful. No more healing the wrong person, single click heals instead of trying to target, focus, or assist first then heal, warnings when buffs were wearing on party members (though this did get annoying). This thing has it all. I do have some more work to do today to try to figure out how to make some of it easier to use, but over all I think I've found a new part time thing to do when I am not being crabby on Mich.
I loved Healbot for nearly a year and then a Priest friend suggested Vuhdo and I had to say bye bye to my old friend.
ReplyDeleteYou are the second person in less than a week that mentioned Vuhdoo and how it beats Healbot hands down. I will have to take a look into it.
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