My first real Play Late experience

Ok, now I kinda get it. All of this grinding, in order to be able to run with the big dog (Balamor), finally paid off last night when I went on my first dungeon instance. And though we wiped four times before calling it an evening, it was illustrative of the power of the group.

I responded to a general tell recruiting for Blackfathom Deeps, which is located at the very north of Ashenvale, at the top end of the Zoram Strand. It's 21-26 Elite characters, and they're packed in tight. I went in with three others, all from another guild: Zyra, a 21ish warrior, Raeph, a 24 Hunter (and Fluffy, his pet), and Shadewalker, a 29 Rogue. Zyra was the leader - apparently this is an alt for her - primary is a priest, and she had lots of good hints for me as we went along.

We could have used another player - a tank, or a healer, take your pick. Either way, we ended up in a couple of situations where having another person to either protect me, or heal our Zyra, would have meant the difference between a wipe and a win. Playing with a full party in a dungeon seems to be a must.

I also learned that having a noob priest can be a death sentence for a group. My problems were really centered around dealing with the resultant aggro my healing generates in a fight, and knowing when to heal myself instead of someone else. I also failed to use my de-aggro psychic blasts effectively - too often I tried to run out of aggro, which only made it hard for the tanks to hit my attackers and take aggro back.

I also struggled to define when it was appropriate for me to attack, and when to heal. My wand/Pain combo does do consistently high DPS, but it also drags the mobs to me. I experimented with only hitting mobs with a Pain spell for the DOT, and then only healing. That seemed to work, but occasionally with single lower level opponents, I'd pitch in with wand work and let the tanks take damage until the kill was made, and then I'd heal afterward. More experimentation needed there.

That said, Zyra was complimentary of my work. She counselled me to think of myself as the most important player in the group - without the healing, (and I saw this too many times) it was just a matter of time as they dropped one by one to the enemy. I've seen the term "Squishy" for the healers, and they are wimps, but it's gratifying to see your contribution in the dungeons, where the group really relies on it.

Other things to remember:

Don't go unprepared into a dungeon without the potions already made. No alchemy ingredients in the down below, and especially if you wipe, everyone loses all the potion buffs they've got going. If it looks tough, hand out two or three copies of the most useful potion to the group members before starting, so that it's done. We spent a lot of time waiting for me to mana up, and generate potions, and ultimately, we quit the instance because areas we'd already cleared pre-wipe were beginning to repopulate.

There's an art to healing. Doing it too early wastes mana, but doing it too late brings down doom. I also need to explore the difference between a Flash Heal, that takes 2 seconds and 50 mana and regenerates 150 HP, and Heal that takes 4 seconds, 80 mana and regens 300 HP. I used Flash Heal predominently for the speed, but maybe that wasn't efficient.

Pausing for EVERYONE to loot is important. I was falling behind because I'd try to loot, and the others would be on to the next mob, which meant I'd come late, put on a Pain or two, and then try to heal. We wiped once because I wasn't paying attention that others had moved on. As a leader, communicating the "Move Out" is important for everyone.

Finally, gotta try playing a rogue at some point - all that sneaking and sapping looks dang cool.

Time spent in the dungeon - 3 hours. Bedtime at 12:30 a.m. Gracious.