Another day, another Pick-up Group. That's not exactly the way it was. I finally got the time together and logged into the Looking For Group Channel. I ticked that I could offer healing because, well, I did last time.

Not long later I was invited to a run heading into the Hellfire Ramparts. Ramps. I even had a quest for it. Rock on.

Now in a perfect world I should be playing to my Boomkin spec strengths and observing a proper healer at work. At least for my first time into the instance, right?

But no. Seems like there's never a healer around when you need one. So rather than sit around I offered to do it.

And I went ok. The tank learnt pretty quick not to run in too hastily and we made it to through to the last boss. In fact I got the achievement for the instance but I still needed the bloke riding the dragon for my quest.

Unfortunately, by this time the group was falling apart. My server tends to the Australian so they're a good few hours ahead. Second time the boss wiped us it was just me and the Group Leader.

DK - I can tank it but we need at least a DPS
Me - I can DPS but then we need healz

In the end we reformed a whole team. Enough, in fact, to reset the instance and run it again. This time we had a good high level tank who was clearly very experienced and helpful. Bugger it if he didn't disconnect and then log on long enough to apologize for his computer.

So we ended up four-manning the same last boss. We wiped. I couldn't stay alive. And I couldn't keep the tank alive.

From a personal development point of view, I suppose, it was good: I had actually learnt enough about what I was doing to completely understand that... well... I just didn't have the healz to pull us through.

I could tell the GL (now tanking) was getting frustrated. Everybody kind of wandered away after the second wipe. They didn't say anything direct but I know that blaming the healer is common phenomenon.

And if it happens when it's unjustified, you can bet your last murlock it happens when the healer really is at fault. Oh and I accidentally rolled on a piece of plate and won it. I really was *that* guy.

I will be addressing this two ways: I'm leveling a proper healer. A Dranei priest. As soon as he hits 20 I'll be running every instance I can get my paws on.

And for my Druid, it seems if I want to run instances I need to be ready to heal. I'm not ready to give up my spec. So I'll need another. That's 1000g for dual spec that I need. AH here I come.

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Now for another installment of Things I Should Have Done Sooner! I finally played a pick-up group. I know, right? It's only, like, the core of the game.

Basically my problem is I've been far too desperate to come across well. Not to ruin the instance for everybody. To not be That Guy.

The main issue being time. The other times I've tried to do this I've ended up standing around a meeting stone for all the time I had available and then having to apologize and leave. Mortifying. That problem is made worse because I had literally no idea how long it would take to do a run. An hour? Four? Several play sessions over multiple days? Who can say.

On the other-hand I'm resistant to the whole 'know the fights' mentality. I mean I get it and I understand the time and place for it but I want to treasure the exploration and the surprise value of the unknown.

So anyway, eventually the number of quest lines leading down below the Swamp of Sorrows just became too much and Katyana and our house guest went off to watch Culture (hoik-pitu). I knew I had the evening to myself and a group presented itself on the LFG channel.

I leapt into action, pausing on the way to buy wildberries so I could cast my group druid buff. The gang came together and we went in.

Now it wasn't a complete success. I got more or less drafted into healing. That's what I think will end up as my natural role and everything but it felt like a lot of responsibility straight out of the gate. There were a couple of Paladins there as well so they chipped in a bit from time to time.

Cards on the table, we didn't finish. We got a bit stuck when the dragon above wouldn't wake up. Nobody seemed to know what was going on and we did a bit of aimless wandering. Then our tank (and clearly the most experienced player) succumbed to either tiredness or tedium (it's pretty damn late for the Aussies when it's 10pm in Hong Kong) and the whole thing kinda fell apart.

We tried jumping through a hole in the floor into water which turned out to be inches deep. We tried a bunch of silly stuff but we knew it was all over.

Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's a product of all the content being new but I still call that a success. Having two-personned a bunch of stuff with Katyana it seems weird to me tha people would rather stand around or abandon completely rather than give it a shot with whoever's available.

Anyway, I had fun. I got my feet wet (in more ways than one) and I feel much more competent to try it again. Win.

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There's that Monastery again. Doesn't it just look like it should have lightning behind it? By a remarkable coincidence that is exactly how our second attempt went south.

We went in pretty fast but we got a bit messy and picked up too many Scarlet Chaplains. Razzinfrazzin healer frazzers. So we did the corpse run a Lo! Every monk in the place had been replaced by a replica of itself only alive again.

Then we tried a new strategy. Basically less area effect from Katyana and more focused extermination one at a time. This may well be a blazingly obvious truism to non-Noobs but it made a massive difference to us. Kind of like pacing for a long haul up a hill rather than sprinting at it and hoping to make the top before having a heart attack.

Anyway it worked well and we were happy to have figured it out for ourselves. Our houseguest told us that the average UK couple says around 800 words per day to each other, so we were feeling pretty smug about that too. Even if around 4000 of ours were variations on 'Fireblasting now!' and 'I get him'.

But all the while a storm was brewing.

Hong Kong has some mad electrical storms. The humidity gets so high that you can see it hanging in the air. The moment the temperature drops, say, by night falling, it all comes tumbling down.

For a while it was awesome. Dark red skies. Background thunder. Brilliant flashes of light. The dogs going mental.

But then I pull a couple of Monks and a Diviner and start my routine but Katyana doesn't help. Instead she says 'Are you ready?'

On her screen nothing's happening.
On mine the fight is kind of moot because everybody is doing the half cast spell dance.

Bugger.

Fortunately all the technology is okay but we couldn't face going in again. We had a little look in the Graveyard and it was a doddle so we just romped through it. The other fortunate thing was that we had already picked up the book for Katyana's mage quest so we were able to trundle back to Tabetha and hand that in.

We'll close this damn Monastery. Just not quite yet.

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