Strat Dead, Dire Maul, and the precipice of 60

Over the last two weeks Twinkleheal has been on a fast grind through the upper 50s, and it’s given me a hint of what the end game looks like. What it looks like is a bit humbling quite frankly.

At the outset of last week, I was traveling to state meetings, which gave me the chance to play on broadband for several evenings in a row. Viamedia had been running with me to grind XP, and he related to me that he’d been on his first high end instance (I forget which) as a tank, and that it had been nerve-wracking to hold aggro. I heard the comment, but didn’t know whether to chalk it up to James having to learn a different style of play, or something else.

Something else, mostly. I know James is working to figure out what the proper spec will be for Viamedia, and how that will fit into the roles he’ll play in instances. But the fact of the matter is, what I didn’t understand, and what I think maybe we all didn’t understand, was that there really is a quantum jump between, say, Zul’Farak and Sunken Temple, and Stratholme, Scholomance and Dire Maul.

I say this because Tuesday night Twink was invited to run Strat Dead with Blizzarov, Renton, Imprecora and Crymarc (Rogue, War, Lock and Hunter, all 60 – Twink was 58). I had the comfort of being on Ventrillo with Renton and Crymarc, but since Blizz was running the raid, the communication was still a bit sketchy.

To be truthful, I’m not even sure I remember all of the run – just that it was amazing and overwhelming for the speed with which things came at me. Ken tells me that Strat’s a showpiece for a priest – juggling the heals of the group, and also managing the process of shackling selected undead mobs. All I know is that things were coming out of every nook and cranny, Blizz was throwing down insane amounts of DPS, which in turn drew amazing aggro, and I let him die almost immediately. Renton was talking in my ear about the fact that he was having trouble holding aggro from all of the DPS Blizz was doing. And within a moment, we’d wiped.

It was discouraging. I was so locked into watching the health meters of the party, I didn’t even see the action, so I couldn’t have shackled a mob even if I’d know which one to take. I also realized that my standard keyboard mappings for soloing, where 2-5 on the keyboard were offensive spells and then 6 and 7 were my heals, was hurting my performance – the distance to the keys for my left hand was too far, and I was losing people because I couldn’t get the spells off quickly enough.

“You need to adapt” was what Blizzarov said to me as we ran back. It was harsh, perhaps, but it was true. I was thinking as a healer, separated from the action – 1 and 4 – instead of a member of the party with defensive AND offensive responsibilities. And as we progressed along – killed the first boss, moved on to the second – things got a little better. I did cause another wipe precisely because I didn’t follow orders and pulled a crowd – I was trying to get into line of sight to heal, even though Blizz had been quite specific about where I should stand. That wipe felt bad – I thought I knew better, and I didn’t – but the others felt like learning, even though I was learning on others’ repair bills.

Blizzarov left the group after the second boss, and Crymarc a little after that – I can’t say whether they were frustrated with the pace or shepherding a baby – but as their replacements were Datta and Gimpee, I felt better and better to be surrounded by friends I knew. Both joined in on Vent, so that only Imprecora wasn’t talking in my ear, offering directions and encouragement. We wiped several more times, but eventually, got all the way to the Baron, who’s the end boss.

He beat the crap out of us. Made us look silly, really. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen my equipment meter read at 0% - completely red. The others had a bit more gear, but not much, and we called it a night. I think I spent about three hours in the instance – a lot of it was waiting, and running back, to be sure, but still, that’s a run that now people have to do in 45 minutes to get their tier 2 armor set. The practice and the commitment to learning to play well enough to do that is daunting.

It was a humbling experience. I’d spent too much time recently playing the “Priest Tank” in Deadmines, and soloing in Felwood, where I looked competent; I was reminded that I’d become a routine expert, but only at a low level. I felt bad for the others and their repair bills, so I sent gold to all of them, thanking them and offering a token for their repair costs. I took it as a mark of the community experience, and the awareness of “everyone’s a noob sometimes,” that every one of them returned it.

Friday night, then, I was invited to Dire Maul by a group that I’d never run with – Basty, Giles and a couple others. We were all on Vent, and I came late to the run – they’d been with another lower level (!) healer who was pulling too much aggro, so they asked me to step in. I have to say, I agreed, but with some trepidation that I was going into another situation where I was going be a liability.

As it turned out however, Dire Maul isn’t quite the same as Strat. There’s more room to work, the mobs don’t seem quite as aggressive or densely packed, and I’d gone up to 59. It seemed to make a difference. We wiped several times, but we succeeded in killing the boss we needed to, and I knocked off a couple of quests from the log. I felt more competent, but still was aware that the end game is a different one than what had come before. I got a nice ring out of the run, and an upgraded wand, too, which has been helpful.

So now I’m poised to push it over the threshold. I’ve run down into Un’goro and Silithus in the last couple days; Silithus is a tough town to solo, but Un’goro’s been fun. I’m at 59.75 – five bars to go, and three of them blue. I’m waffling internally whether I want to do 60 by myself, or with a group of friends. Either way, it’s coming up. And then I’m going to run Scholomance, and go back into Strat, to get started on getting better.