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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Having fun in old, familiar places
by Danny Waller 
Aug 26th 2010 at 8:00AM
We all run random dungeons. Usually, we'll just do our job, tanking, healing or DPSing to get through the dungeon as fast as we can. But every once in a while, we may get the inclination to mess around a bit.
My main character is a disc priest. Since all I really have to do in heroics is shield the tank every once in a while, I'll often run around like a crazy person using Holy Nova to try and beat the DPS. Not only does it make the runs go faster, but it's more fun than just standing around doing nothing. Sure I could use other, more normal DPS abilities, but it's fun to see those golden bubbles everywhere.
If I'm in a group with guildies and they know it's coming, it's sometimes fun to play "how low can you go" with the tank's health. I'd never try it in a PUG random, but with friends who can laugh if it goes wrong, it's fun. One thing I've always wanted to try but never have is healing in shadow spec. While it wouldn't really be difficult, I don't really know how random groups would react to it, having their healer running around in Shadowform all the time.
While some things that you could do are borderline griefing, there are many options to liven up your daily heroic while still doing your job. What do you do, if anything? Or is there something that you'd like to try, but never have? Are heroics just a daily chore that you grind through, or do you look for ways to make them more interesting?
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Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
Parknet Aug 26th 2010 11:14AM
For those of you that are bored, let me tell you to fix that. Hit Esc, then the Logout button. Bam! Us know nothing noobs will disappear right before your very eyes.
I have leveled my 1st character as Holy Priest and thought.. "holy crap, is every single tank a total jerk?" Why do they play the game if they are so miserable? So, I leveled a tank. I have fun and talk to people. I let people suggest achievements, even drink mana if they need it. ( i know.. you are shocked, right? )
So to answer the question of the article. What do I to mix things up and have fun in heroics? Well.. I relax and enjoy the game I pay to play. I talk to people. I show off a new drop. Put Guardian Spirit on a pet so they can have cool wings. Levitate the bouncy rogue, mind vision the boss. Pull agro, then dump it just to watch the mob run around. Have fun with /emote during npc chat. I goof off and enjoy playing Wow. Has everyone really forgot that's what we are supposed to do?
Hillazon Aug 26th 2010 12:10PM
Wish there were more know-nothing noobs. They make healing fun!
The problem is that pretty much everyone is geared, making healing boring. Plus, no one wants those crappy 200s (or even 213 or 232s) anyways.
Aaron Aug 26th 2010 12:44PM
:O I want to play this game with YOU! Why can't more players have your attitude? =D
Maveric Aug 26th 2010 11:23AM
As a DK tank, I'd swap to DPS spec, and maybe half DPS gear (still staying crit immune) and have my pet tank bosses. That made the healers laugh, at least. When I'm with guildies, my fun comes from a few DPS who will pull, taunt, and otherwise make me stay on my toes as the tank.
As a holy priest, I also play "Let's holy nova and try to out-DPS the DPS" on trash, and "see how long I can keep SW:P and Devouring Plague up on the boss" on bosses when we have a tank that doesn't actually need heals. Don't guild run much on my priest since I'm the only guildie who actively enjoys tanking though.
orco42 Aug 26th 2010 11:36AM
I heal random heroics in shadow fairly often. I give it a few pulls and if I think the group can handle it I ask if I can go shadow. Most of the time they say yes and we steamroll the place with vampic embrace and a renew between pulls doing the job.
Lieke Aug 26th 2010 11:29AM
I have a druid and I have, in guild runs, healed as boomkin. In pugs I rarely ever pop into treeform. I will for the ICC heroics though.
I did a run with a pug group where I challenged the tank to either get me to pop into treeform OR get me below 40% mana. He didn't get me to do either but it was super fun! :D
threesixteen Aug 26th 2010 11:40AM
i like to do 'hunter runs' where 5 hunters do a random instance and we all macro our MDs to each other to make an epic chain MD. so first hunter MDs to second, second to third etc. It's fun to watch the mobs bounce down the line of hunters. we mix it up trying to get wipe each other; using FD's and kiting and MDing to see who gets killed. it's pretty hilarious.
llaw_grimm Aug 26th 2010 1:48PM
My Main was leveled from about lvl35-lvl80 in the RDF, She leveled as a disc priest after about 39 cuz I could not stand holy, and I wanted the challenge of levelling non-dps mode. sitting with heirloom shoulders, chest, MH, and both trinkets slotted with Discerning Eye of the beast *I pity the poor blind beasts out there* I was able to simply bubble, renew and flashheal my way through all the way into BC runs, then pennance got in there, cuz of the pewpew factor.
doing LBRS with everyone in the heirlooms was kind of not fair. i mean, still a challenge, but not too much of one. when i was lowest @ 53, highest lvl was the tank @56, we could mow through it, we got cocky after our 3rd requeue. the the one new dps zones in as the tank bolts for the ramp, pulling as we went, our boomkin playing offheals.
Fun fact, Left to their own devices, the scarshield summoners will summon adds indefinately.
Another Fun Fact - Pally Tanks, when Oom, lose alot of their gusto.
Final Fun Fact - Boomkins are apparently very palletable to Blackrock orcs. as are spacegoat priests.
Maira Aug 26th 2010 12:20PM
I challenge my guildies to evil-laugh contests over Vent. You should hear people's reactions when they log in during the middle of a contest.
"MUAHAHAHA!"
"Six point three."
"Seven point eight."
"Five point five."
"What the-!"
Gabriel.Bayles Aug 26th 2010 12:41PM
How about in the stuffed trophy hall in on of the Utguards where everyone gets to guess which animal will get animated next? Back before everyone skipped. Just talking to your group or getting a discussion or a joke going can be fun.
droknar Aug 26th 2010 1:20PM
So I was in a pug NORMAL Drak Tharon Keep a few days back on my elemental shaman, and we had a DK tank that was apparently dps spec. The tank died twice within 10 minutes of starting the dungeon, we were having aggro problems, and he was complaining about healing. He was dropping ridiculously fast. Well the tank tried to vote kick the healer, no one voted yes, and he was promptly vote kicked himself.
So what does the healer do? Chain pulls and tanks all the trash to the next boss, and tanks the first half of the next boss fight. The feral druid dps'er turns to bear and tanks the last half. Dumbfounded, we finally figure out what the deal was.
Healer, for whatever reason, was a 5.9k GS shadow priest. No idea why he was in the dungeon. No fellow guildies. Needed heirloom badges, I guess. But it was pretty dang funny watching the lowest defense guy in the group tanking without a problem.
musicchan Aug 26th 2010 1:20PM
My husband and I have 2 paladins. I'm generally holy/ret and he's prot/ret. We used to run daily heroics all the time, even though I was geared with some of the best raiding gear at the time. He was the tank, I was the healer.
One time we queued up together and got UK. I turned and said to him "I'm going to heal as ret until the boss, okay?" He agreed and we proceeded to freak the heck out of the DPS. One guy even cursed out whoever had signed up for a role they weren't doing properly, without ever realizing the two of us were in the same guild. It went fine, no one died, and I switched to heal spec when I knew I needed to. It's pretty funny, though I do feel a liiiiiittle bad. Just a little.
hhinde Aug 26th 2010 2:12PM
As a fairly well geared druid tank, avg ilvl of 254, I am finding more and more priests in my random daily heroics going into shadowform.
I have a lvl 71disc priest and know how beast my PW:S is and how bored I can get in an instance.
As long as I don't die, I don't care if my healer comes in a dps spec, boomkin/shadow/elemental. There's a reason they have their healing spells available to them in any spec.
Chamual Aug 26th 2010 3:41PM
'Having fun' is definately frowned upon in pugs I find, especially as a tank. I've cleared heroics in like 11minutes or less by speed pulling my way through and pulling 5-6 packs at once (in full t10 gear) but it seems if a single person dies in the 10 minute run everyone complains that you are an irresponsible tank and a bad player!!!
It's just as bad as a DPS. On my hunter I often pull mobs and let my pet tank them, or play 'see if I can dps the mob down before he reaches me'. I don't expect the healer to heal me if I want to play like this, and generally it works fine and nothing goes wrong but people still don't seem to like it.
It seems in pugs, especially with the new LFG tool all anyone wants to do is play very traditionally, pull 1 pack at a time and let everyone get full mana before every boss. God forbid that you would try and have a little FUN while running a heroic for the 100th time in gear 4 teirs higher than it was designed for!!!
mvhill699 Aug 26th 2010 3:46PM
i killed mal ganis with my Kalu'ak Mastercraft Fishing Pole equipped in a guild run the other day. still came in over 2k dps :/
Allison-knight Aug 26th 2010 3:48PM
Totally off-topic, but why in all the husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend teams is the man the tank and the woman the heals?
This phenomenon needs like, some anthropological/sociological exploration.
As for me, I'm female and am leveling a pally as ret/prot right now. My boyfriend has a pally dual specced prot/holy, and we are looking forward to the day when he can heal my early attempts at tankadining.
Any other tank/healer teams out there where the female tanks and the male heals?
cui_h_1999 Aug 26th 2010 4:46PM
My GF has a pally tank, while I was a disco priest.
Her mains are a hunter/boomtree, which leveled with my tanks (dk/warrior)
Next up is her DK tank and my warlock, and then her warlock w/ my resto shammy.
The reason for her tanking? She hates it when I tank b/c I chain-pull the crap outta instances. I'm a very impatient tank, and can do places like DTK in 10-12 mins on the warrior.
So now I heal or dps for her. Usually b/c she's more focused on "tanking things right" she never dies or needs a ton of heals. So I end up dps-ing a lot.
Oh, I'm also an impatient healer. I've panzerkin-d a couple heroics w/ a guildie holydin and a few of my tree pvp pieces b/c it goes faster that way.
ChefCK Aug 26th 2010 6:21PM
My husband used to be the primary tank, but he got burned out on it. To give him a break from tanking all the time and get a decent tank to fill the void of good tanks, he leveled my paladin. Now we have:
Him: Pally, Druid, and Warrior in the works
Me: Pally and Druid
Useurbandage Aug 26th 2010 5:18PM
I've been healing heroics in shadow spec for months now. Usually no one even notices till the 2nd or 3rd boss. It's quite funny when everyone realizes thier healer is also rocking top of the dps recount. I got rid of my disc spec recently in favor of a shadow pvp spec. Most of the time I just throw a pom a renew and a bubble right before the pull then melt faces unless something goes crazy.
ChefCK Aug 26th 2010 6:16PM
Generally, I only have two official PuGs in my groups. The primary make-up is my husband, a friend and me. We rotate tanking, healing and DPS roles to speed up queue times.
After constantly getting Old Kingdom, it was my turn to tank, and we get Old Kingdom...again. I'm on my Druid, my husband is healing on his Shaman, and our friend is on his Hunter. My husband is sitting next to me mumbling about how bored he is healing when I'm bear tanking.
I whisper our friend to make sure he keeps MD up on me as much as possible (he forgets). I switch to bear form, and put on my Moonkin gear. I let my friend and the rest of the group know what I'm doing. I tank the entire run in caster gear.
The whole time, my husband is sweating bullets because he can't figure out why I'm taking so much damage. I was able to hold aggro the almost the whole run. The hunter's pet tanked a couple of trash mobs here and there.
After it was done, I do a /p and say "That ladies and gents is how you tank in caster gear." The party busts up laughing and my husband starts cussing up a storm. Good times.