Vacation on the Dark Side

Every once in a while, no matter how fun and smooth your life as a (insert class here) is, you feel like taking a break from it, usually to perform a different role. Tanks may decide they want to DPS, healers may feel like tanking, DPS might want to heal. Sometimes you can change your talents around to fill a different role, sometimes you can't.

My rogue is great fun. If the Cataclysm expansion came out right now I'd probably hop back on the rogue and start adventuring in the new content. But I was a little tired of DPSing, and decided I wanted to roll a priest - a class I haven't played in a long time - and I'm enjoying leveling as holy.

I asked the guild if they thought I could go from level 43 to Outland in one weekend and they laughed at me, but by the time I logged out Sunday night I was level 59 and cruising through Hellfire Peninsula. Last night I hit 60, and had the gold for my flying mount. Leveling through Outland is so much better when you can fly everywhere.

A big part of the accelerated leveling was due to grouping. I did Sunken Temple twice, Blackrock Depths about a dozen times, Uldaman and Maraudon countless times, Scarlet Monastery until I was nearly falling asleep. It was less interesting than leveling, but also less relaxing. Because when you rely on grouping for your progress... you are taking a walk on the dark side.

Everyone likes to think that they are the reasonable person in the group. You can be young, old, new, experienced, undergeared, tweaked out, doesn't matter, that is always true for every group - conflict are never your fault, it's always someone else's. And I've seen it all in the last 40 levels, anything you can possibly imagine. I don't like votekicking, but I've initiated my share. I don't like complaining, but sometimes even the most gentle soul is left with a head-spinning 'wtf??'

Why is that death knight doing terrible dps? Maybe because he's got resurrection sickness.

Why are we chain-pulling when I'm out of mana? Oh - the warlock's pet is on 'aggressive.'

Why is that hunter standing next to the boss and taking cleave damage? Because he ran out of arrows about 15 minutes ago and is melee attacking everything.

It never ends. Just when you think you've seen it all, someone shows up with their "perfectly reasonable" quirkiness and throws the whole group on its ear. The little things are easy to deal with - like druids who panic when they see the tank taking some damage and they stop doing dps to heal them (hey, that's my job - back off). When it gets more challenging is when people bring their prickly attitudes to bear on these little quirks, and a slightly inefficient run turns into a personality explosion.

Last night I had a doozy, doing Hellfire Ramparts with a death knight tank (Ramparts is tanked by DK's whether you like it or not, it's practically a law). The tank wasn't very good, but we managed. We got to the final boss and he decided that the little fire on the ground didn't look that dangerous so he decided to sit in it to keep himself warm while he tanked the boss. Unfortunately, the fire does far more damage than the boss, and armor doesn't mitigate any of it. About 20 seconds later he finally lost health faster than I could keep up with GCD's, and he died. The group wiped. Out of nowhere: "OMG HEALER YOU SUCK WTF ARE YOU DOING"

Calmly I popped open recount and linked the 23,000 damage he took from Liquid Fire, and pointed out that this was damage that he easily could have avoided.

"YOU SUCK! YOUR SO BAD I BEEN HEALED THRU THAT BEFORE"

Some things are just so awful/obscure they have no answer. Almost immediately, the DPS whispered to me to please ignore him and not leave, so we could just finish the run. I agreed, we rezzed and rebuffed.

Tank: Don't ****ing suck this time healer
Me: Don't stand in the fire this time, k?
Tank: ST*U your the worst healer ever I swear
DPS (whisper): ignore him! plz plz
Tank: btw you have shield and renew its not hard
Me: Btw, fire is red

And we proceeded to kill the boss easily. The tank decided not to stand in the fire - which reduced the healing required by about 80% - and it was a cakewalk. Won some loot, vendored it. Got some xp, yay. /Leave group, teleported out.

Then the beauty of the system - put the tank on ignore (yes, you can /ignore people from other realms) and now the LFG system will never put the two of us in the same group again. I'm sure the tank is happy about that, and I know I sure am. I took a break and stretched a little and had a glass of water before settling back in.

The next group I was in was smooth as silk and everyone was very complementary of my healing. It was a wonderful reward for tolerating the previous group, and I wished I could have added them all to my friends list.

And we all leveled happily every after.