Worked on Onaara quite a bit this sunday. I had some free time while Fiance was volunteering at the Humane Society.
I've healed a few times on Onaara, Shadowfang Keep a few times and half of deadmines. I've learned that it is very possible to heal a 5man when not specced for it. I've also learned that you really need healing GEAR to heal an instance.
At this level I only have one true healing spell: Healing Wave. It has a 2 second cast time and takes a moderate amount of mana. With my mana bar just now topping over 1k I've had to really worry about overhealing and mana conservation, things I never have to worry about on Hooff. I've had to be creative, timing casts to compensate for the 2 second cast time and being very stingy about making up for DPS mistakes. I don't have a choice, I just don't have the mana to spam heals on every party member.
I've been picking up upgrades to both Resto and Enhancement from the dungeons I've been running. This include a decent staff, belt and leg pieces. I was able to heal Ragefire Chasm without much trouble. Deadmines was a bit more of a challenge but still very doable. Healing Shadowfang Keep on the other hand was an exercise in ... the best word I can use is asshattery.
Fail: Shadowfang Keep (warning, quite long)
Onaara zones into the instance, already in progress. In front of me I can see the other 4 party members, on the other side of a large portcullis. I greet the party, and start looking for a way through the obstruction. Eventually I find a small door near the portal. I make my way through the building. This being my first time in the instance I make at least two wrong turns. When I finally get within range, everyone but the tank is on the floor, and the tank is dropping fast. If this was in a heroic on my paladin, I would now regale you with how I used beacon, FoL and assorted other light-enfused tactics to bring the tank to full health in the span of a GCD or two. But it is not, so I had to sit there and cast one healing spell... the two second cast Healing Wave. When the cast bar has but a sliver left to go, the tank drops. First thing the tank says is "Where the hell is the healer?".
"Just got here" I reply.
"Oh sorry" he mutters. Normally if no "Sorry" was said I would have seriously considered leaving. From my experience, a wipe is when people start to show their true colors. I decided to stay, and see how things went. Part of me wishes I had left at that point.
As the dungeon progresses, I notice that I'm going OOM quite a bit more. I have to drink almost every pull, especially considering the tank and DPS don't give me a chance to drink before pulling the next group. Not only that, a hunter seemed to take it upon himself to keep pulling more enemies to the tank.
On our second wipe, the tank decides he/she has had enough and drops group. The group decides that the druid will tank until a new tank can be found. The druid then proceeds to "tank" in Night Elf form, with a spellpower staff. I ask her why she doesn't just go to bear form. "We can all fight." was the reply. I facepalm and proceed to tell her that NO this will not be happening and that people will die because I run out of mana. Looking back, I don't know where my bottomless reserve of patience for this group originated. Another wipe was the result of this ingenious plan. Had a tank not materialized within seconds of this wipe I would have dropped group.
The new tank, a dranei pally, was much better than the old, She could keep aggro, ( though she seemed to be adverse to throwing a consecrate down), which mean less party damage, that really helped with my mana issues.
Around this time I noticed that our old druid "tank" was needing on everything, even things that she could not equip. I asked her about it, and she said that she needed on it cause she never got anything. I told her that you only need on upgrades, everything else is greed.
Her reply was "I'm different, I'm new".
With the calm of a zen master I replied "Well now you know, so don't do it again."
She replied "ok sorry". Three minutes later she announced that she was bored and had to go, and promptly dropped group. I wish I had taken a screenshot of that epic conversation.
A new DPS was found, a mage if I remember, and we soldiered on. At this point 3/5 of the original group has been replaced, including myself. Whats left is 2 dps, a hunter and a rogue? I think.
We continue on, and get to some steps where we encounter a pack of mobs. We are doing decently until another pack of mobs comes running in and wipes the group. The (non-hunter) dps says that Onaara pulled hte other group.
I ask, "How exactly do I pull from just healing?".
Someone else says "Well, healing does produce aggro."
I reply "True enough, but unless I physically get too close to the mobs, I can't pull with healing aggro".
The tank replies, "The hunter accidentally shot the other group in the stairs, no biggie. Oh and Sham
This sparks a short argument which devolves to Sham mentioning certain vocal musings that are uttered by the pally's mother during certain sexual acts. At this point a kick-vote is triggered for Sham, and I happily vote.
We get to the final boss, and the last original member of the group, has to leave. They D/C and we decide to just 4-man the boss. The boss drops without much fanfare, loot is divided and we collectively breath a sigh of relief.
I'd like to say thank you to the Ms. Replacement Pally tank, Ms. Replacement Mage and Mr. Replacement Warrior for making sure we all get our bag of treats. Even Ms. Original Hunter, you weren't great, but compared to the other originals, you were decent.
Shameless Screen Shots:
This Onaara doing the Belf disguise quest. Always one of my favorites. Random tidbit: the first time I did this on my paladin. Some horde were actually attacking Azure Watch. I think they they were very confused to find a belf girl that they could not communicate with. Would have been epic if the disguise allowed me to communicate with them though.
At level 16, I received Ghost Wolf form. Well actually it was level 17.5 when I received the spell, having completely forgotten to train for a level and a half. Still, it beats walking around everywhere. Plus I can technically auto-attack in ghost wolf form.
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