Random Instances with Strangers

Lately I have been working on my getting my Gnome priest geared and ready to raid which means one thing...a lot of random instances. Sometimes I run with guildees who make the run much funner then it normally would but more often than not they are either pvping, in their own instances, or they secretly hate my priest because he is such a sexy gnome and they can't stand to be reminded that they are ugly and not Gnomes. That is my theory and I am sticking to it. Well when no one wants to run with me I do what I have been doing since Vanilla WoW...I pug an instance run. Some of you reading this are probably cringing at the thought of the looking for dungeon tool and there are times I can't blame you.

During my healing adventures I have run quick and painless instances and I have run horrible, disgusting, tear inducing instances. Now I have never healed on a priest in all the time that I have had a priest except for when I was spriesting it up and the real healer died forcing me to pop out of shadow and toss heals like my life depended on it...which more often than not it did. But that was on my human priest who has been shadow since day 1 of his existence. My Gnome priest was created to be a healer specifically. Why did I make another priest instead of just dual speccing my current priest? Well...I think Gnomes are awesome and if I can't have a Gnome Paladin, I might as well have a Gnome priest. 

Pugs and Not Healing them

So a guildee brought this blog post to my attention and after reading it and giggling a little bit I started thinking about all the pugs I've had to heal since the LFD tool was introduced. As a healer or tank you hold all the power in the group and sometimes...that power can corrupt! I think all tanks and healers that have had to pug runs have a list of people they either don't heal or intentionally let pull agro so they will die. Now please don't read this as I'm bad and let everyone die because I hate people and puppies and all that is good including pie. I LOVE PIE! And rightfully so, it is a wonder food after all.

Shaman healing is more then just chain healing.

Flashback to the night The Burning Crusade was released, I had just gotten home from Walmart and installed the expansion while taunting my guild mates in vent who hadn't gotten the game yet. I decided to make a shaman and run him around Stormwind instead of leveling him just because I could and because everyone else who had a shaman was busy actually leveling in the starting zone for the Draenei. Clearly being the first shaman in SW, Westfall, Redridge, and Darkshire was more important then actually leveling. I leveled as enhancement until 60 when I switched him to resto and raided for the rest of the expansion as a chain healing shaman. With this new expansion and dual specializations I decided to level my shammy to 80 as elemental and switch to resto for raiding. Now with the introduction of the Icecrown Citadel raid, I've had the luck of being able to get into several ICC pugs and been even luckier to get gear from these instances. Now as a resto shaman player, I see so many other shaman doing things that just make me shake my head and wonder why they are doing it wrong.

So I think this entry will be half rant about nub shamans and half helpful tips to reduce these bad habits people form. Will it work??? Don't know, but I suppose we'll see.