So, I got sucked into my first party tonight in WoW. Up until this point, I'd been just soloing as a priest with my trusty wand and a relaxed pace. Any healing done was expected ahead of time (since I knew when I'd be taking damage). While I have healed other players, it's been mostly drive-by, toss a heal, have a nice day interactions.

The closest that I've gotten to a group has been where 2 or 3 players are all pulling from the same spawn area while working on quests. We'll, by undiscussed consent, stay out of each others way, but jump in to help anyone who looks over their head. So if we see that someone got a double-pull by accident, I'll yank the extra mob off of them and take care of it. Or I'll just toss a heal on them and watch their health until they get it back under control.

Another case would be where we have to clear a camp of multiple mobs in order to get access to some box / pail / barrel in the middle of the camp. I've been in that situation multiple times where the two (or three) players, without talking, simply take the camp apart in coordinated fashion. There's usually a "thanks" after all is said and done, but there's not the pressure of doing it as a party/group. That way, each person is looking after themselves and isn't expecting one of the others to make up for their mistakes. Although, naturally, as a healer, while I'm pulling my own mobs, I'm keeping a close watch on the players around me (if I can). Basically, you've formed an on-the-fly group which stays together just long enough to obtain the objective.

So, tonight's group. I had already turned down a "Deadmines" (the name of the zone) group earlier in the night. I was up in Loch Modan running quests, trying to get past level 16 - and I wasn't interested at that point in running all the way down to Westfall and over to Deadmines. But later on, after I finished all the quests up there that I was going to finish, and I had gotten to level 18 and bought my level 18 spell upgrades, I headed back down to Westfall. My initial plan was to go AFK at the inn by the gryphon trainer and then maybe solo for a bit longer trying to clean up some quests.

So after coming back from AFK and buffing anyone within reach, I headed off to the southeast corner of Westfall, to the area called Moonbrook. There's a meeting stone (which I don't understand yet) there called the "Deadmines Meeting Stone" so I figured if I hung around there I might pickup a group while I solo'd. After not too long, a 22 Rogue sends me a whisper asking if I wanted to get into a DM (Deadmines) group. I said sure, as long as it was a 1 hour instance and not a 3 hour marathon. Well, 1 hour is probably slightly optimistic for Deadmines. Unless you're in a group full of level 20 players who can plow through the content.

Now, we went into the instance with an odd setup. A 18 priest, 22 rogue, 16 hunter, 16 shaman, 18 mage. (Parties in WoW are limited to only 5 players unlike EQ1 & EQ2 that allowed up to 6). What that means for a primary healer is one big headache, because without a tank, aggro is going to be bouncing all over the place. Plus, it's a pickup group - so none of us are used to working with each other. It's also MY first group, so I'm still trying to get used to where WoW puts everyone's health bars and trying to figure out what heals to use when. Because when it comes to keeping the party alive, timing is everything.

Whee... it was close to 90 minutes of pure mayhem. There's so much going on the first time that you join a group that your head will be spinning. It started chaotically enough as we entered the dungeon in the section that is shared with other players. This involves a lot of leapfrogging, as you jump past where the other group is killing and then encounter mobs that haven't yet been killed. There's all sorts of new spells, noises, flashes of light, and just general chaos that the brain overloads and it's all you can do to try and keep track of the health bars.

As I said after we left the dungeon... "well, I'm sure there was pretty scenery down there, pity I didn't get to see any of it!".

So, tonight's "firsts":

- First party invite where someone messaged me first rather then blindly spamming an invite. One of my blind invites from earlier today was by a level ONE warrior in an entirely different zone.

- First party, complete with a hunter that was probably too young to be down there and who's pet was constantly taking aggro. But on the whole, after I figured out that the pet was taking aggro all the time, I started watching the pet's health at the start of a fight. (Yes, I did let the pet die by accident at the start.)

- First death of a group member. Oops! What happened was that as we mixed in with another player group, we got separated. The rogue and shaman were ahead while the rest of us were staying in place. Both groups got aggro'd by mobs at the same time and I was at a loss of who to heal first. Every time I went to heal someone who's health was dropping, I found out that I couldn't see them. In EQ1, you could heal through floors, ceilings, doors, as long as you were within range. In WoW, you have to be able to see your target in order to cast on them. So, our lovely shaman got killed during that little misadventure. Fortunately, she was a good sport about it.

- First use of a resurection spell. I found out that you can't cast the resurrect spell until 5 seconds after your last cast on someone in combat. Or the rule might be that the entire party cannot be in combat. I was unable to test it, I just know I had to wait a few seconds before I could rez the shaman.

- We had a few near wipes. I'm still trying to figure out which spells to use when. So while I'm relying on a lot of shields (not so efficient) and heal over time (efficient), I'm having trouble gauging when to start the longer casting heals. This would've been a lot easier if we had a designated tank (besides the level 16 pet which was too low to hold aggro well). Mana wasn't much of an issue. In my past experience as a priest / cleric, I've learned how to save mana for a rainy day as much as possible. When I buff the group, I start at the top, and work my way down through the list slowly over a number of minutes. That way, while buffing, my mana never drops below 75%.

- We had a full group wipe. I blame this one on not having a dedicated puller, it being a pickup group who still hadn't gotten the flow down yet, and it was a difficult section of the instance. Sadly, I died with mana left. I had mobs beating on me, but I was so focused on everyone else's health that I forgot to check mine. We might've survived if the shaman hadn't gone AFK about 60 seconds before the pull. Even then, maybe not, because we didn't have a dedicated tank to collect aggro off the lighter armor classes. So with the extra healing I needed to do, I was going to end up as dwarf-paste on the floor anyway.

Once you wipe in an instance, the normal method of recovery is that everyone stays in ghost form and heads back to the entrance to the instance. Then, when you're ready, everyone should zone in. The bodies will be laying at the entrance of the instance.

...

So, my first pickup group wasn't too bad. It's a shame that we wiped and didn't complete the instance. OTOH, there wasn't a lot of finger-pointing or smack talk. Nobody made a bad situation worse by complaining. It was a good learning experience as I got exposure to what some of the other party members could do. (I never expected a mage to lay down a heal over time buff on the rogue.)