After doing nothing but doing heroic after heroic for what felt like forever (and was in fact probably only two weeks) I finally got enough emblems on Anea to get my planned hunter alt some heirlooms so she could level in style.

(BTW: just pointing the bow at the level 1 wolves and having them die is awesome.  Just sayin')

In the course of the many, many, many groups that Anea was in, I was grouped with some nice people.  I was grouped with some assholes.  And I was grouped with a person or two who I wanted to hug tight and never let go of.  Sadly, these people weren't from my home server of Exodar - they were from other servers.  I could place the assholes on my ignore list all I wanted and never worry that I'd have to see them again.  However... why can we not friend great players as well, as a sort of "preferential" grouping mechanism?  Awesome Mage from HHoR?  I'd love to see him again.  The pally from a HPoS group that was such a great leader and tank?  I'd heal for him any day.  Those are just two that stood out, but there have been other people I wouldn't have minded having in my party again - and I'd like to rely on more than just random chance that I'd see them again too.

There was a baby pally tank that I ran into while on my hunter - we had quite the rough SFK run and had been sending each other tells back and forth for entertainment.  We finally finished the instance, despite fourmanning it and having the druid smacking Arugal with his staff instead of being in kitty (both times!) and just general chaos.  We had both agreed that we'd like to stay partied and queue for further instances, but the druid wouldn't drop the group - we couldn't kick him either, since we had ported out of the dungeon (something to note for future reference!)  We politely asked him to leave - he didn't.  We told him that he only had to right click his portrait and select "Leave party" - he didn't.  He logged out, but most likely exited the game rather than a normal log out, since it showed him as disconnected in party - and was therefore a member we couldn't get rid of.

The pally and I heaved sighs and /wave'd goodbye, since we were sure we couldn't see each other again since there was no friending feature.  We thought we'd try to queue immediately after we dropped party on the off-chance that we'd be thrown in the same group again.

And it worked!  An instance came up instantaneously and who was the group's tank?  My pally friend!  We probably got lucky - not because the stategy was a good one, but because of the extremely late hour and the lack of people queueing at those times.

But really... I'd love to be able to friend some of the people I meet in randoms, not just take a screenshot of their name and server for future reference.

Well.  I actually acted on my Taking Anea Back Up idea - I logged into Anea, cleared out her bags, made sure reagents were stocked and queued for some heroics.  I didn't queue random, since I was afraid of getting Tourney ones I wasn't ready for, but eventually worked my way up to Forge of Souls, then Pit of Saron. 

I started out with a little heroic Utgarde Keep and Nexus though, just to get my confidence back up.  I know that those are "easy" instances, but I was still getting my feet hooves wet and getting used to healing again.

I checked my dungeon achievements and the last time Anea got an achievement for a dungeon was Halls of Lightning just about a year ago - February 15, 2009.  There are quite a few instance achievements in February, then nothing until one lone Sarth achievement in June.  I couldn't believe that it's actually been a year since I've done anything meaningful with Anea.  Sure, I've logged in now and then to help Lus with an alt, but mostly I'd log in for holiday achievements and that's it.  It's been alts for all the rest of the time.  It's slightly depressing to know that, really.

As I stepped into Forge of Souls, I was pretty nervous - I hadn't done this instance before and I knew how ruthless the randoms had become.  Things went pretty well though.  Pit of Saron though was another story.

Right after zoning into the instance, I let everyone know I hadn't done the instance before, right up front.  Before bosses I'd ask if there was anything I needed to know.  Garfrost went fine - a close call - but fine.  Ick though proved to be a problem.

The first try I couldn't keep all the DPS up, and at one point Ick was chasing me, and I died.  The tank pulled a "uh, gotta go guys, early day tomorrow!" thing and left.  We got a new tank and the DPS died off one by one, so that it was only the tank and I - I got chased again and we died.

On the way back, the new tank said, "Wow... I've never wiped on Ick before," then I was vote kicked.

It was a little disheartening, to be honest.  Now, it isn't because I was vote kicked only - I've initiated kicks in groups before.  But it's always been because someone was being an ass or was being deliberately troublesome.  I've never vote kicked someone because they were new or learning.  I remember what it was like to be new to something and how happy I was to have people that were patient with me. 

No, it was disheartening because I was vote kicked because I "wasn't good enough".  I guess by their standards, I was being a "failpriest" because I couldn't keep up and I didn't know the instance.  I know it sucks to wipe, but I took the wipes with a grain of salt 'cause I am still getting back in the groove and perhaps my gear isn't that great (since it's been a year since I really played her!)  So, I just gritted my teeth and carried on.  But they didn't want to deal with a new priest, so it's easier to get rid of the new one and get a healer that knows what they're doing, right?

Despite that little blemish on the night, on the whole I feel good about it.  I felt like I did back at 58 when I respecced holy and healed my first instance.  My hands were sweating and I was nervous.  I had the satisfaction of seeing all my green bars full, the slight panic when things turned south and disappointment when things went to pot.  Smugness when we sprinted through instances and flashbacks of wiping again and again in Naxx when I had to fly back to Ick on the ghost mount.  Everything that healing is.  And being happy that I had my priest spells to heal with!  I may have tried out the other healing classes for variety, but I truly do love my priest spells <3

So... that's how tonight went.  Hopefully when I try Pit of Saron tomorrow, things go better.  Hope springs eternal, yes?

I am still a pretty big fan of the dungeon finder, for all the reasons that I (and just about every other WoW blogger) have listed.  However, I'm starting to see the other side of the coin.

I quest when I level.  It's almost exclusively what I do - this whole "multiple dungeons a day" thing is only a recent happening with the dungeon finder.  I work my way through areas and do just about every quest I can see until it's time to move on to bigger, better, (prettier) areas.  There are certain zones that I will drop every quest I have in an old zone to run start - Stranglethorn Vale is one of these zones, Zangarmarsh and Nagrand two others.  I've been looking forward to Dragonblight so I can finally see what Wrathgate is all about and then Storm Peaks later. 

However... since I've been so busy with the dungeons, I've gained lots of experience in level but I find myself behind in quests.  I've not moved through them as I ought to have.  There's been hardly any quest progression!  I only just tonight got the three quests for the Nexus, even though I've run it at least 6 times already.  And those quest rewards would've been GREAT for me had I gotten them when I first started running the Nexus. 

It's not just about the quest rewards, either.  Even though I've been having fun (most of the time) in the PuGs, I've been feeling a little... uneasy, shall we say.  While I was writing yesterday's post about finding "the one" for my main, I started to feel worried, thinking that this was the start of an upheaval and change of mains.  But, I think I've pinpointed what the issue is.  I'm not questing as I am wont to do, so I don't feel the smooth progression through chains and zones that I usually do.  It's surprising how much I favor structure like that in my leveling.  I just need to get back into my questing groove.

I did hit 73 early this morning in a Nexus PuG that probably has been my favorite thus far.  Our bear tank lagged out so we were going to wait for another tank, but I stepped up and offered to tank to save time so we only had to wait a few seconds for a DPS to port in.  The group was quick and efficient, I was moving at a nice pace, tanking well and having fun.  I jumped off a platform and totally missed the landing and died from falling too fast - and the group laughed at it.  That was a nice bit of comic relief - jokes were made.  I just had a great time on that run <3

So, you remember that post that I wrote about the new LFG tool?  This one?  Oh, and maybe some of you on twitter remember this particular tweet:

The Elitists:  Don't think I'd hear this EVER: RT @anea: off to PuG more! :D

Apparently some minor God of Fate was listening and decided to have a little fun, because ever since I gushed about how awesome the system is and how I love it... I've just had the most terrible luck with PuGs.

I didn't even want to write about it, since I felt it would diminish what I said earlier, but I just can't take it any more.  I told myself that of course bad PuGs are in order, I just have to roll with the punches.  And I do know that sometimes PuGs will break up and things will be hard - but the thing is I seem to be the only person in the group willing to work on something and try again.  Everyone wants to ditch the party at the first sign of trouble.

The first Bad PuG I had I think I've managed to block out because I can't remember it clearly (or I've just had so many that they're all running together, I'm not sure) but it was in Shadow Labs.  But, have no doubt that our corpses littered the floor like soda cans at a subway station and the mobs had strung our guts around the place like garlands.  Just dying again and again and again and again and again.  For no good reason!  The tank just needed to understand that if we know the mobs fear... why don't let's pull them into the hallway so that when we do get feared, we'll only be feared in the hallway and not pull the other mobs?  People left soon after (not that I can blame them in that instance.)

The second through perhaps fifth Bad PuG were simple issues that could've been fixed but at the first sign of trouble (either a Close Call or a wipe) people were dropping (party) like flies.  Now, I don't know about you, but I think it's so much easier to work on a problem than drop party and wait another half hour for a group to be fully assembled and have all the people accept an invitation to the dungeon.  It just takes too long. 

I know now that heirlooms are out, people are flying through levels and are all hot to trot to get to 80 and endgame and I know that everyone said that Wrath was so easy right when it came out, but did eveyone really forget how to learn something and work on it - even though it requies a few wipes?  One PuG in Utgarde Keep the first time through, we wiped twice on the second boss.  Twice we tried and failed.  Someone got pissed and left - while waiting for a new group member I went to look the boss up on wowhead and relayed the strats to everyone.  I expected everyone to say, "Ok, got it, let's try it again!"  But one pally said, "We shouldn't need to look up strats, my guild never did." and it just infuriated me that he's being so pompous about it - if he really knew this dungeon so well that he "didn't need strats" why didn't he contribute an idea to ways to approach the boss?  And strats are not a bad thing at all - if there are certain ways to do a fight that make sense and make it easier or even just possible in the first place, why not utilize that?

I tried to put myself in the other people's shoes.  The snotty paladin critiquing everyone and their gear/spec/life?  He would rather breeze through an instance with zero trouble rather than work on it.  Probably because his main is in a great guild who can do just that and he's gotten used to it. 

Ok, so maybe I didn't put myself in everyone's shoes, but the poor tank struggling to get things done in the last PuG I did?  I could imagine that being me in a little over half a level and I felt a little scared.

I told myself that I'd try out tanking when I got to 70 - I have gear in the bank, I have a new shiny weapon, I have the gold to facilitate dual specs... I just need to do it.  Thanks to a helpful link from @bossypally, I've found an article that doesn't badmouth frost the entire way through.  Yes, I want to tank Frost.  I'm not entertaining tanking as Unholy or Blood, thank you for asking.  I've got a spec planned out, I just need to put the plan in motion.

However, I've never tanked before (besides that one night in Zul'Farrak on the warrior) and it's still kinda scary.  As I'm getting closer to 70, I'm seeing all the things that scared me before (the whole being in charge thing, marking, taking the blame if we wipe) and I wonder if I'm ready.  I'm sure that after some trial and error I'll get things figured out - I just need to keep a clear head the first few times.  However, I'm remembering how everyone will leave when things seem shaky and I wonder how I'll ever keep a group together for me to try tanking in the first place!

The other issue that I'm slightly worried about is that I've not been through these dungeons in a long time.  I very vaguely remember Utgarde Keep, which is the only place the daily random has sent me so far.  I know that I could look them up on wowhead or somesuch, but I think it's best to learn them by doing.  After seeing how ruthless groups can be...  *gulp*  The combined idiocy of battlegroups can be rather daunting.