Rinse and Repeat

I'd logged in this past evening with the intention of knocking out a couple of quests. Nothing special or anything, just wanted to get a bit more gold back after depleting my funds to get Artisan Riding. Anyway, Murtaugh and another Guild member were on, and after a few minutes of chatting they asked me if I wanted to do a quick random dungeon. "Sure," I said, after a quick consultation with the Boss.

(I've noticed that if I don't check in on the non-designated WoW night, she tends to get testy when I spend all evening in front of the computer. Can't say I blame her much for that.)

What shows up? Halls of Stone.

"Oh joy," I thought. A blast from the past.

You see, this dungeon was the first really bad PuG experience I had.

The only other time I ran this dungeon, I did not do well. At first, we had a DPS and a Pally both acting like the tank, and I had trouble keeping them both healed. Then, while I was trying to drink to replenish all of my mana the Pally (the true designated tank) kept running on ahead and getting himself into trouble. There's one thing about the tank running on ahead when they can do that -see Murtaugh's Kriegtrommel for an example- but quite another when the Pally isn't that overpowered.

Then, after the second set of trash mobs, the Pally turns on me and asks me if I can Heal this instance or not. After I replied that I have to keep drinking, he points out Arcane Torrent and Divine Plea, and that I should use them.

Well, duh, except that I'm replenishing 80% of my mana, not 20%.

After the first boss (the giant who turns you to stone) he runs on ahead before even letting me get a chance to get unstoned. One trash mob later and he just up and disappears, leaving the rest of the party in the lurch.

Damn, that sucked.

Yeah, I could have done some stuff better. I tried to make liberal use of Beacon of Light to keep him up and running while keeping the others going, but that was the first time I felt overwhelmed in trying to keep everyone afloat. I've had it easy keeping our regular group healed -Krieg as the tank was overpowered compared to just about anything else- and this was a real test with people who didn't have the epic gear and might not have known all the angles.

So this return to the scene of the crime was going to be interesting.

One difference was that this time I was going as DPS -I didn't bother switching to Holy Spec and running as the healer- and that I'd known enough as the Healer to help my DPS work. The simple things, like let the stinking tank get all the mobs to aggro on him before you start using your Judgements, are incredibly important. A Healer doesn't want to have to heal every little mistake, since it takes mana away from the tank.

Anyway, this run went well. I ended up biting it at the very end -quite literally the very end- but that was okay. An AoE got me, I think. About 3/4 of the way through, I asked Murtaugh how many more bosses we had, and he said one. I think he thought I was keeping an eye on the clock, but really, I had no idea. I'd never finished this damn thing before, and here I was going through it the first time on Heroic mode.

But hey, it all worked for the best; I ended up with a nice belt for my Holy Spec and a good 2H sword for Ret Spec.

(Um, my skill level for 2H Swords needs work, but other than that....)

Thanks for the run, gang, and thank goodness you guys helped me put that bad experience to rest.