But You Have Full Mana!!!

This has been the battlecry of the fail dpser/tank who died because (in their opinion) I must be a horribad healer.

I would say, on average, my experience using LFD so far has been 60/40 Good/Bad. I can only imagine that it is either going to get better or worse, considering the dungeons I've been doing are the early/easy ones.

As a Paladin, my spells are limited at this level. I don't even have Flash of Light yet. I'm limited to Holy Shock, Word of Glory and Holy Light as my bread and butter, which is a long cast spell. I have no AoE (unless you count passively healing myself whenever I heal anyone else). I can't work miracles.

I'm talking about you, Paladin "Tank" in Intellect gear spamming Exorcism. I'm talking about you, crazed Hunter who refuses to wait for the tank to pull and has his pet on aggressive+growl. I'm talking about you, Druid who tried to tank in Kitty form. I'm talking about you, Balance Druid who refused to let the tank pull because you have better armor than the tank. Fine, but then switch into freaking Bear form. Don't try to tank as a Night Elf. You are squishy and will die.

It's as if by the fact of just having mana I should be able to instantly transfer all of that mana into health magically saving everyone's stupid ass. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work that way. There is no magic IWIN Healing button. If I spam heals on a tank and he still goes down, either a. the tank was not geared/specced correctly or b. the tank (or someone) pulled way too many or c. the tank (or someone) didn't move out of the bad or d. the tank did not pick up adds and I was too busy saving myself. I don't like to blame others. When people point the finger at me all I will say is I'm doing my best. If they keeping blaming and complaining at me I simply leave. Its just not worth the effort to argue.

I am a damn good healer. I've been healing for so long its like second nature. I know when a wipe is my fault and I will freely admit it. Just because I still have mana doesn't mean I've been sitting and twiddling my thumbs letting you die. Believe it or not, at this level I have yet to go OOM. Maybe its all the Spirit gear I've been getting. Maybe Blizz tried to make it a little easier on low level healers. I don't know.

Wipes happen. I don't know if anyone told you, but Godfrey is a hard boss, even on regular at level 20. I don't know if you realize, but 10 mobs is a bit excessive and is likely to wipe even the best group, especially if no one seems to know how to CC. How many healers are going to be left if the first thing we hear is that its our fault? Even if it is our fault, c'mon, cut us some slack.

Leveling Holy

I know, I know. I'm totally doing it wrong. I'm leveling a Holy Paladin by questing. But, you know what? It isn't that bad. I may not kill things super quick, but I can take one heck of a beating and keep on swinging. The only thing that's driving me crazy right now is gear.

Where is the healing mail? I guess Blizzard realized they overkilled quest rewards in Wrath with Holy Pally gear, so when they revamped the old world for Cataclysm they put nearly none of it in. Either that or they never expected someone to be stupid enough to try and quest as Holy. I have bumped into all of two pieces of mail gear with Intellect on it. One of those was a BoE random enchantment drop, and the other was a quest reward from the one dungeon I've completed.

At level 33 I'm wearing a motley assortment of Cloth, Leather and Mail. I'm terrified to try to heal a dungeon. Several levels ago I managed to get through SFK, but afterwards I was told that my gear was abyssmal and that it was a testament to my healing skill that I managed to heal through the dungeon. Great compliment, but it doesn't exactly make me eager to try another dungeon.

I don't know what to do. I'm leveling faster than I ever dreamed possible. I swear I went from level 30-33 in an hour last night. That is without a guild, without BoAs, without rested XP. The pace is mind-boggling, and I don't like it. I don't want to go into a dungeon because that will put me that much further ahead of the quests I'm working on. I'm trying to linearly complete zones so I can see all of the story. I'm sacrificing dungeons to do it. I'm almost half tempted to switch this toon to all dungeons all the time, but then what? Sure, I'll probably level up really fast and have healing gear, but I won't get to have the story.

What do you think I should do?

Cataclysm: My First Dungeon Run

Well, I decided to break my rule and run a dungeon on Viva, even though she's not 85 yet. I decided to do regular Blackrock Caverns before I couldn't queue for it on regular anymore, and consequently reached level 84 at the end of the dungeon.

I queued up using the LFD tool, and was grouped with a bunch who were also doing their very first Cataclysm dungeon, so none of us really knew what we were in store for. It was an interesting run, considering we were all rather new to things. We wiped once if I remember correctly, so all in all, not too bad.

The biggest change is mana. Where did they put all my mana? It just slips away so quickly now. I don't quite have to drink after every pull, but usually after every 2 or 3 pulls, depending on the amount of damage the mobs are doing. Its definitely interesting to heal now.

No more just spamming Rejuvenation and throwing the occasional Regrowth and Swiftmend. I'm not really exactly sure what I should be doing, but I don't know if keeping Rejuv up is really a good thing, as it seems to be consuming a lot of mana.

I'm actually thinking about going back to my Priest, just to see how the dungeon healing is on her. The main reason I want to try this, is just to get a real feel for it. I haven't been playing a Druid for very long. I don't know all the tricks and tools I should probably know. I know all that stuff on my Priest. I'm scared though, because I keep hearing that Priests are suffering worse than other healing classes from the mana crunch.

I just think I'd be better able to cope with the change on my priest. Back when mana mattered, back during BC, I prided myself on managing my mana well. Can I cope with the changes now?

I don't know all the answers to these questions, but I guess I'll find out. I think I'll just keep questing on my Druid for now, though.

On a somewhat related note, one of my friends who almost solely plays DPS classes/specs said this to me: "They made it so it's much harder to play a tank/healer, and much easier to play as DPS."

I don't know if I necessarily agree with him. What do you think?