Dead Healers Can’t Heal

I finished up all the dailies on my Hunter and really didn’t feel like grinding out reputation, so I dusted off my level 12 baby Priest for some quests.

Warsong Gulch

My Warrior friend suggested I try an (ugh) battleground for the experience and honor points, so I thought what the heck?  I’ll give it a try.

I’ve only had a small taste of battlegrounds and promptly spit it out, but this time I though it would also be a good opportunity to learn to play the Priest class and see what I could do.

So I queued up for Warsong Gulch and the first group I got was full of Baby Boy Dramas – swearing, calling people names – generally acting like idiots.

We lost.

Queued up again and this time we had a good group of people.  One person was actually giving directions and advice in a “professional” manner, everyone worked together and a few people even said “thank you” when I healed them.

We won.

Immediately queued again, got almost all the same people as in the second group and everything went smoothly.

We win again.

I ran the battleground a few more times until I leveled up to 15 – some good (we won one more time), some bad, one or two just horrible.

Between battles I stayed near the Priest Trainer and purchased new spells as they became available and would use them in the next battle.

I think I was actually improving as I went along because by the last battle I was all the up to #2 in Healing – not bad for a beginner.

I also racked up quite a few Achievements:

• An Honorable Kill
• everything except “Death Knight” (of course) for That Takes Class
• Know Thy Enemy
• The Grim Reaper
• 100 Honorable Kills
• Not So Fast
• Warsong Gulch Victory
• Warsong Gulch Perfection

You can probably guess which groups I was in for the last two Achievements (Hint: no idiots.)

Here are a few observations based on my limited battleground experience:

• swearing and calling people names does not make them better players – helpful directions and advice will make players more likely to listen
• just because you are a “veteran” battleground player doesn’t mean a thing if you can’t communicate a strategy – acting like an idiot makes you worse than the most inexperienced player
• falling in love with your “jump” key and jumping all over the place means I can’t lock on you to heal you – don’t blame me if you die (note: so far, “jumper” = idiot)
• if you see a couple of bad guys beating on me and you’re not busy, it might be nice to stop and help me kill them instead of running away – I wear cloth, remember?
• clogging up the battleground chat fighting with each other, whining and wailing is a guaranteed win for the other side
• see the little round portrait with my name on it?  If it says I’m dead, I can’t heal you – swearing at me won’t change a thing
• dead healers can’t heal

Overall, I’ll have to admit it was a lot of fun with a good group of people, experienced or not, even if we didn’t win.

I made my fair share of mistakes so I’ll have to do some research on the Priest class to improve, but I enjoyed healing and playing the game from a different perspective.

I just might try it again.

Just for the Record

Recipe: Delicious Chocolate Cake – 0
Recipe: Skullfish Soup – 1 Finally!
Jeweled Fishing Pole – 0
Bone Fishing Pole – 0
Reins of the White Polar Bear – 0
Reins of the Green Proto-Drake – 0

What I Got Instead…

Stinky Cheese – 0
Snowballs – 3
Large Hoof – 1 (how many hoofs can there be?)
Sharpened Fish Hooks – 3
Worthless Glass – 2
Mysterious Egg – Still Hatching