Healing? You mean a healthstone, right?

Meet Dylena!

She’s a shaman (with a photobomb by Snuggles ^.^). If you.. Couldn’t….tell… Any who, she’s my latest project, which is to level a character to 90, using only the dungeon finder (and picking flowers)! She’s currently level 34.  No questing- kind of burnt out on that- and besides it gives me more practice on a role that I’ve been afraid of for a while, which is healing.

Back in the day (WotLK) I raided on my warlock and on my druid, who was a bear and a tree. I tanked through ICC, and a few other raids in Cata on her, and greatly enjoyed it! I also healed. This was back before the overhaul healing received right before Cata released, and therein lies my fear.

I remember it clearly. One day I was healing our main tank though dungeons, for achievements as well as gear for a guildie’s alt, if I remember clearly. Anyways, I was healing fine, heroic dungeons, the tank was pulling ALL the things, and it was fine! Then I went to do the same the next day. I had known that healing was going to change a bit, mana and mana regen was going to change a LOT, but boy was I utterly unprepared. It was…. Bad.  Really bad. Since then, I have not experienced that level of embarrassment in game, ever.  I felt completely helpless. I couldn’t heal. I was hitting the buttons (literally), was using my cooldowns, everything. We wiped. Time after time. On a dungeon I had run not even 24 hours before.

Now, the couple-years-older-me is looking back at this, and would have approached it differently. I would have run a non-heroic dungeon, with only guild members, after extensive reading and research on how my class had changed, and how to cope with the change. But I had that feeling of ‘nah, I got this’ which proved to be my downfall.

I was unprepared, I got scared, and I gave up. That one experience shied me away from healing for the rest of the expansion, past a certain level. I leveled a priest, she had a healing off-spec, but once I hit cataclysm level dungeons I would just go in as shadow. Same with another shaman on another server. Now I’m sitting here, at the end of the expac, with a lot on my to-do list, and this is one of the main ones. I want to conquer this fear. I know I am capable of doing it, I just have to overcome that fear of failure, of being embarrassed.

That’s where the anonymity of online play is my friend.  I can make mistakes, fail, learn. Yes I’ll deal with backlash from my group, will probably be kicked, will be called names, but I can find safety in not really knowing who I’m with.

I touched on this in an earlier blog post; I have my comfort zone, which is with ranged dps. I miss healing though. Yes it was stressful, but when I did it correctly, when we downed the boss or finished the dungeon, I almost felt more a part of it than when I was standing in the back flinging spells around.  Plus, what better time than at the end of the expansion, with the new one looming on the horizon, to try a new role? Who knows, I might overcome this fear and end up greatly enjoying it! 

Question time! Has anyone else ever experienced this? Being afraid to try a different role? Any tips on how to overcome this? Should I go the guildie/friend route versus the random human route for the higher level dungeons, where my scaredy-cat feelings come into play?

Or am I just a spaz? It’s known. 

 

Edit: My warlock is viewing me with disgust right now. “Healthstones are for healing. When those fail, a soulstone. Death and destruction, don’t help people, what is wrong with you?”