My two alts needed levelling up. I couldn’t get their professions any higher if I didn’t and that’s all I really have them for. It was with a heavy heart that I plunged into the world of dungeon finder to get me some much needed xp.

The reasons I’ve put it off for so long are probably the same reasons most people have alts that are languishing in the 40-to-60 region. Upper and lower Blackrock Spire and the people you encounter via pugging.

I used to heal with Pazima belive it or not. Instant queues were very handy. I knew I wasn’t going to be the greatest at healing but I wanted to try it out. (Bearing in mind I had never gone into a dungeon until I was level 83 and when I did them as achievements I could one-shot everything so I never really had to pay attention.) I went into Scarlet Monastery without any guildies as back up and had a really good group. I kept everyone alive and only faltered right at the end when I got aggro and died, but managed to keep everyone else up (my healing spec is Holy) I was whispered by one of the dps who told me “you’re a really good healer!” It boosted my confidence no end and made me belive that I possibly could be a healer. It then all went south with the next group. My then guild master came with me on a similar level mage and we went into the same dungeon. We had a tank who want willing to wait for anyone and was pulling left right and centre. He would run out of range pull everything but not keep aggro and lo and behold I want able to keep him and the group up when we were effectively getting slaughtered but as the healer, it was my fault. I should have been prepared for this as I had often seen healer bashing going on and should have expected it to be ‘my fault’ but considering I was trying my hardest at a class I was learning I could stop myself from feeling angry and hurt. The gm said nothing, probably due to his love of being top dog and left me to be verbally abused by someone who thought they were the God of WoW. The last straw came when I was called a retard for dying when I had aggro off of mobs that the tank had failed to keep control of. At that point the gm did say that was unfair as I did have aggro that I shouldn’t have but I had had enough. I quit, the gm stayed and then told me that they found a better healer who knew what they were doing. I found my trainer, activated my second spec as shadow and stayed in it, never wanting to heal again.

Fast forwarding six months, while I was in my horde phase, I started levelling a druid as melee dps and tank. I stuck with dps as I knew I couldn’t get myself into too much trouble with it. Due to being on a ‘normal’ realm, I could quest without fear of being ganked and some dungeons I missed altogether by out-levelling them. I remember being in Uldaman and the healer and the other two dps left. There was me and a warrior tank. I stood there in my kitty-kat form just waiting for the inevitable.

“Druid, can you heal?”
“I can, but I warn you, I’m not very good”
“It’s fine, I’ll pull small groups, you ready?”
“Ok”

True to his word he pulled the world smallest groups and I didn’t have to break a sweat with the two spells I had at the time. I don’t know if he was aware I didn’t even have a healing spec but nevertheless we ploughed on until weer got to a boss where we had to wait.
“You did great but I think we need to wait now :)”
I was pleased, I think I had given myself a way out clause as I didn’t have a healing spec as then if I was shit, there was the answer. There were a few dungeons like that where I had been called on to heal while the actual healer was afk or had quit. I  levelled Emava quite far and only had to heal a few, short times.

When I changed back to Alliance I missed my kitty and after a month, brought her back with me. It’s at this point I took an interest in Pazima again as Emava was level 72 and Paz was only level 58. I had levelled enchanting as far as I could on her and needed to get her actually levelled up to go any further.

After making my way through numerous Blackrock dungeons I was almost losing the will to live. I was plucked out of dungeoning hell by an old guild mate who ran me through Hellfire Ramparts and The Blood Furnace until I dinged 60. Bless him, he was greeding on the loot when I saw a ring I could use when I was level 61. I asked if I could need it (silly as he had no use for it but it’s just polite to not be a ninja) “of course you can you stupid space goat” was the reply. Sure made me laugh! I did then ninja some gloves that had gem sockets in and laughed when he saw that I had rolled need. After that I was in my own again but at least I was on new dungeons that didn’t take an age and a gold badge in orienteering from the Scouts to complete.

Off on my merry way I went, determined to make it to level 65 so I could further my enchanting and now jewelcrafting career. Queuing as dps sure didn’t make it quick but no way in hell was I queuing as a healer to make it quicker. Most of the dungeons I had seen before after running them to gather cloth and so was fairly comfortable with what I was doing. I was in The Blood Furnace again when the healer we had decided, mid way through that they needed to go to class. My heart sank, I knew what was coming. Most of my stuff didn’t have any spirit on it so if I ran out of mana I was screwed.

“Priest, can you heal?”
“I can but I’m not very good”
“It’s fine, let’s go”

With that we were off, staying in range, madly focusing on the nameplates of my pug group and being unable to loot anything, I dutifully threw the three healing spells I had at them. All was going relatively well, I had my heart in my mouth panicking at the thought of failure but we seemed to be ok. We entered a boss room and the Druid tank ran off into the room. We died. “omg I was silenced” I posted into the instance chat. “hah never mind, I’ll pull smaller groups, I didnt realise they could silence” I was in love with this little bear! Rather than bitching that I hadnt been able to keep them up he was accepting that shit happens and even though I was not prepared for healing I was giving it a shot. The rest of the dungeon we worked through slowly and steadly, we never did get a healer. Before the end boss I did get a bit worried again…

“Should I swich to Holy?”
“Nah, youre doing fine”

We survived!

Another group I went into, the healer went AFK and ended up being kicked. We had a hunter on the team and with the clever use of CC we got through most of it without needing a healer. The tank was a monk so was able to kip themselves up. Things got a bit hary when the Hunter decided to just start filling everything with bullets and got more aggro than the tank could keep off. Seeing that he was about to peg it, I shrugged off my Shadowform and started to heal without even being asked. And I did ok again, I was slowly coming around to healing but I just knew that I would be more comfortable if it was with a group comprised of just guildies.

The flip side and the one that you most frequently see happened with Chizzorz and I. We had a Pally tank called ‘Sainsburys’ (had some random letters in it like ű but can’t remember what ones exactly) while I was levelling Emava and he was shall we say, an arsehole. He was launching himself through after wanting a quick run (that’s nice but what about the rest of us?) And left Chizzorz to die and went straight onto a boss. I left him to it to go back and combat res Chiz. He was mighty pissed off to have been just left behind to die after the tank didn’t want to hang around long enough to make sure he had all the aggro. The worst bit came when he launched himself into a load of trash and we all piled in after him, he then shouted not to attack and called us all ‘retards, complete retards’ after we wiped. Chiz told him that is not our fault and he shouldn’t get so arsey as it’s just a game, I told him to give it a rest and our other dps reported him for language as she had a six year old at next to her watching. It’s people like this you find in the majority of dungeons and worse in lfr and they almost ruin it for you if you don’t remember that they clearly must have nothing better going on if they get so worked up about a level 75 dungeon.

I guess that’s why you get the Patient title, you have to be a saint to put up with it all….