Thank God for Kind Tanks

As a resto druid healer who has spent my entire career spamming rejuvenation, life bloom and wild growth (with an occasional regrowth in tight spots), I have been hesitant to heal any dungeons in Cata. Well, maybe hesitant isn't exactly the right word. It's more like I've been scared shitless. Spells and buffs and talent trees have changed so drastically. My old rotation is total garbage. The spells Blizzard now wants me to use as my mains I've never even thrown before. On top of all this, I've decided to stop using Healbot and begin using VuhDo. I made that decision based on reading this post by Jasyla over at Cannot Be Tamed. Once I decided to use VuhDo, I of course had to learn how to set it up. And there's no better way to do that than to read Tamarind's post over on Righteous Orbs.

After getting my addons whipped into shape and rearranging my action bars, I needed to practice. But we all know how pugs go, right? A lot of individual agendas, no concern for anyone else's mana, rage quitting, ninja need rolls, and (most relevant to me) everything is the healers fault. Who needs that shit? I'm in a delicate emotional state right now, getting yelled at by random strangers does not sound appealing. Luckily I got the chance last night to group up with a few friends so I suited up and took my first trip into Grim Batol. Unfortunately, none of them were tanking and tanks can be the biggest issue in pugs, so I was still a little worried.

Turns out, we were lucky enough to get one of the rarest forms of tanks in the game these days - a nice guy. And overall, I didn't do too bad. I certainly learned what I needed to tweak with VuhDo and I learned how my mana was being used so I can control it better next time. Because of this success, I'd like to give a big shout-out to Thatlilshyt from server Undermine for being a great tank. He explained boss fights immediately and thoroughly, he never once yelled at me when I wiped us on a trash pull or wiped us 3 times on the first boss. He even took his time moving forward so I could drink without having to tell everyone I needed to drink. Amazing. Because of this tiny bit of patience, we all succeeded and I am now better at healing than I was. And it didn't hurt any of us. Except for the cost of repairs after wiping. :)