More Low Level Dungeon Lessons

Well - team Alliance marches on.  After ending my brief fling with SWTOR and deciding to refocus on WoW leveling, I've really been able to make excellent progress on my remaining 9 alliance characters.  The end results for May were a total of 60 levels in just about 2 weeks.

Here is where we stand as of today:

Hunter - level 66
Druid - 18
Mage - 19
Paladin - 22
Priest - 19
Rogue - 22
Shaman - 16
Warlock - 23
Warrior - 18

I've also been leveling the druid, shaman, priest, paladin and warrior primarily through dungeon finder, which has been an interesting process so far.  I must say, the addition of quest givers in all of the instances has greatly increased the viability of leveling through the instances and the speed at which that happens.

Fortunately, I started this process on my two healers first.  It's been a long time since I was in a low level dungeon, so I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that mana isn't nearly the issue that it used to be for low level dungeon healers.  In fact, as long as the group had a semi-competent tank and the dps weren't too ridiculously trigger happy, I could pretty comfortably heal through anything.  Power Word: Shield and Renew, Earth Shield and Healing Wave.  All worked fine at keeping the tanks up and topping off any dps that decided to pull someone they shouldn't.

The experience tanking hasn't been quite as positive.  Having healed a fair amount at end game and more heroics than I probably want to think about has probably given me quite a bit of an edge in terms of healing low level dungeons, but I've been pretty surprised by some of the other groups that I've encountered as a tank.  Let me preface the below sarcastic onslaught by saying that the majority of my experiences tanking low level instances have still be pretty positive and I've had some very good groups. 

So, more lessons for low level dungeoneering:

• Warlocks - if you're running an instance with your voidwalker out, you're doing it wrong.  Please re-roll a mage.
• If you queued as a healer, strangely enough, your primary responsibility should be to heal.  And the primary focus of your healing should usually be the tank.  If you are wandering around searching for Serpentbloom, you are doing it wrong.  If you are three bosses in, and haven't cast a single healing spell, see above.
• Even if priests are allowed to need on strength mail, doesn't mean you should be doing it.
• Hunters - just because you're bows can shoot really far - doesn't mean you should constantly be trying to shoot whatever is farthest away.  Try shooting in the direction of whatever group the tank is currently pulling.  You'll find that mobs don't come and eat your face quite as often.
• Intellect cloth does not make you a smarter tank.

That's it for now.  I'll be spending a lot more time in low level instances this coming weekend, which I'm sure will generate another wealth of valuable tips and tricks.