Healing & Challenges

When I started playing wow two and a half years ago, my first character was a druid. She only made it to the ripe old age of 33 before being completely abandoned. My next focus was a gnome mage. I drug her to 40 through sheer willpower, determined to have a mount. She was virtually abandoned after that. The characters that followed were a variety of different experiments: priest, warrior, and then, on a whim, I rolled a human paladin for a bank alt. Specifically she was to be a cooking material bank alt, so she was named Epicure. (Why I needed so specific a bank alt when my highest character was 40, I couldn't tell you.)

Instead of running her straight to Stormwind, I played those starter quests. Then played through to level ten or so, despite my undying hatred for the human starting area. (To this day the sound of a female human character laughing still makes my teeth grind.)

I liked the paladin. For some reason I really hadn't expected to. My previous understanding of them had been a fog of seals and other confusing dynamics that seemed far too complicated for me.

Now, I was also far from a decent player. I barely understood the game, understood nothing about talents or gear or stats or the like. My druid had attempted to level as balance because those talents seemed the most interesting to me. My mage got to level 40 through a steady adherence to Arcane Missles, Arcane Missles, Arcane Missles, hope the thing was dead, Arcane Missles, sit and drink. Not the most speedy way of leveling. It was painful and miserable. The problem was I didn't have any idea just how much I didn't know, so I didn't know how badly I needed to learn much less how to go about it. I'd struggled through those months and levels with sheer brute force more than anything else.

I'd been playing for a few months before I found out a friend also played. Still, it never occurred to me to ask him for help. He came over to my server and we played together a little. Not enough for my lack of knowledge to show, not enough for his knowledge to start rubbing off! But that little pally bank alt got me to thinking about really playing a paladin. And I knew his first main had been a dwarf pally.

So I asked him about the benefit of dwarves over humans. I'd already decided I was going to get rid of the human, certainly get rid of the name Epicure if I was really intending to play her... but despite my deep dislike of the human race, their emotes, and their starting area... I wasn't quite sold on the dwarf. My characters are 99% of the time female and, well, the female dwarf choices just aren't that inspiring.

But during our discussion he volunteered to come roll a dwarf pally with me and help me figure it out a bit. So we did. And that became a duo that went all the way to 70. When we'd picked out names, we'd tossed around tons of silly options. Mothaura was one name I remember. (Like Godzilla's foe, but with the "aura" thrown in.) What we eventually settled on, though, was a pair of names I still think takes the cake: Aurathur and Guenevheal. On our old server we even had the guild "Knights of Camaloot" completely with a warlock called "Lancelock". But, despite her name, Guenevheal was never a healer. I think she started as protection but pretty quickly ended up as retribution and thus she still remains, poor unplayed thing.

Somewhere along in there we rolled draenei shaman and I don't think Qyja respeced a single time between 10 and 70. She was elemental the entire way. Those lightning bolts were addictive. And seeing a 3k bolt all the more addictive. He played enhancement so things were busy hitting him (when they weren't laying down dead) instead of slowing down my castings.

And through duoing two characters with him, I finally got all that understanding I never had for stats and specs and such. Learning the paladin and shaman with him, I had a good foundation to go seeking information about other things. Through reading BRK, I learned how to not be a huntard. After finding BRK, I found dozens of other WoW bloggers who had hundreds of other tips I've picked up and put to use. I'm still not the master trapper I'd like to be, but you won't catch my hunters with strength gear or meleeing. My baby priest alt is leveling with my friends warrior as shadow spec, but I understand mana regen and healing threat.

Another friend, who's main is a fantastically geared and ferociously deadly mage was telling me about her runs healing Karazhan on her holy pally, and I was inspired. I finally developed the itch to try healing.

But the decision to try the healing route was the easy part. Who to try it with was the difficult bit. I have the 70 pally, the 70 shammy, as well as two 70 hunters (one alliance and one horde), and an up and coming pair of druids (60 alliance, 51 horde). But none of my characters have anything particularly stellar in the way of gear. They don't get played enough at 70 to get much gear-wise. I'm an alt-aholic with a fear of PUGs and a very strong lack of confidence (can you have a strong lack?) in my abilities. I don't want to be the weak link in a group and I don't want to get stuck with asshats and ninja-jerks. So my instance experience was limited to the few rare times enough people were on in our very small guild to do something together. (A Ramparts run, an Underbog run, and a painful Durnhold run being the extent of it, I believe.) So rather than run instances and get gear... I've always just rolled another alt. It's only been the last few months - due mostly to becoming friends with a self-proclaimed 'instance rat' on my server - that I've even tagged along on things with my hunter. I'm already nervous enough about being the dummy on runs... the thought of healing was scary!

But my instance rat friend has been the most painless way I could have gotten into running instances. He and his girlfriend and guildmates have always been nothing but helpful and nice. And they were supportive about me trying healing.

Since Guenevheal's modest gear is all about crit and strength, she'd have had to venture into healing using whatever quest reward gear was still tucked in her bank. Clearly the hunters weren't going to do it. The 60 druid was a possibility but I knew it would be faster to level staying feral. But Qyja, my shaman, with her gear already heavy on intellect, mana regen, and spell crit... she was the best candidate.

I've healed less than half a dozen runs now, but already I'm far more confident in my abilities than I ever expected I'd be. It's been a huge help having supportive friends and guildmates who are more confident in me than I am. (And are willing to play guinea pig for my learning curve.)

So now, after so much time in this game, I'm starting to challenge myself to keep doing things outside my comfort zone. I'm leveling a character on my mage/pally friend's pvp server. I joined her +450 member guild. I'm pvping on Qyja for better healing legs so I can put golden spellthread on them and hopefully push my bonus healing over ~1300.

I love this game more than when I started and just as much as during the best days of duo leveling with my friend.

Engineering deaths aside, of course.