The View From Down Here

The Importance of Being Earnest

The World of Warcraft is many-faceted. It’s easy to forget what the world is like outside the confines of my raiding guild - that there are many players of varied skills and social abilities. And, as I took my first steps into the world of pugged heroics, I was plunged into a world ever-so similar but utterly different from what I was used to.

And of my first experiences of heroics, how have I found things? Let’s examine each in turn.

• Utgarde Pinnacle. Yes, my first heroic was one that I was expecting to be hard. We had a reasonably geared tank, and DPS who knew how to behave correctly (even if they ignored the expected tactics on occasion). A couple of wipes on the gauntlet, mostly due to no-one noticing the casters trying to take me out with shadowbolts, and the rest was pretty straightforward. All-in-all, a nice confidence booster.
• Caverns of Time: The Culling of Stratholme. Again, manageable once I’d got into the swing of things. Unfortunately Arthas bugged after the second boss so it was wait ages for a GM to reset or give up on it. Shame, because it was all going rather well.
• Utgarde Keep (attempt 1). Things began to fall apart here. The last pull before the first boss, with no issues up to then, I was unceremoniously booted from the group for someone’s better-geared friend. To say I was annoyed was an understatement.
• Gundrak. We opted for the kiting strategy and killed the second boss first. That wasn’t too bad except for the DPS who insisted on standing in purple goo. And then the kicker – the snake boss, which I remember being brutal back when I tanked it, was horrific. It wasn’t helped by the fact that I was getting verbal abuse from the DPS, especially the DK who thought he was a tank (he wasn’t supposed to be), pulling multiple packs at once then cussing me once he died. After a single wipe, he was off, a barrage of swear words his only goodbye, taking the other DPS with him. The tank, however, was extremely gracious in defeat and was very understanding when I told him I didn’t want to go on.

So, after taking several hours out to calm down, it was back in with:

• The Nexus. My faith in my fellow players was restored, big time. Despite having an obviously eBayed shadow priest with us (“What are Emblems of Heroism for?”) We made pretty short shrift of the place, even surviving after a bad fear on the first boss. Then, this morning:
• Utgarde Keep (attempt 2). Brought in as a subsitute healer (hey, I needed the badges) after the first boss, the place was fine, except for Ingvar the Plunderer, which we wiped on once (and almost a second time) because I didn’t know anything about tactics for the healer. I apologised, explained I’d never healed the place before, and they were very gracious about it.
• Azjol’Nerub. Almost a non-starter, we wiped a couple of times in the first boss’s packs thanks to things eating me, and we nearly called it. Again, everyone was polite and there was no insulting anyone. I’m glad we tried a third time, though, because after that we proceeded to one-shot everything.

So, then, out of seven runs, four-and-a-half were fine. 70% isn’t too bad at all for a first weekend’s healing, and it’s brought me to realise one thing - things go a lot more smoothly where there’s understanding between everyone in the run. The bad runs were directly accountable to one (or more people) who had no respect for other people and insisted on doing everything their own way. So some have found their way onto my ignore list (the abusive ones), while some of the others I’ve made a note to be cautious about. When I was struggling, and people noticed, but were polite about it, things went a lot better than when a barrage of “heal ffs” was the most polite thing said to me.

I’ve got my Idol of Lush Moss, though I haven’t been too lucky on other drops so far. Roll on next weekend, when I can get in more practice!