Two weeks around the Christmas and I played several times. With several toons on several servers.
And I learned a lot of myself and my playing.
First of all, I participated the Weekly Raid with our guild. It was the Ignis the Furnace Master in Ulduar. First of all, I thought I could make it as an off tank. I knew the encounter, I had read the strategies, watched the Tankspot movies several times, even dug out some odd ones from Youtube.
And I failed as the off tank. I just couldn't gather up the adds fast enough and -honestly speaking- I caused the wipe. Twice, as I got more even more confused on the second time. I think the raid leader did the wisest thing ever at that point: took up the adds and made me do Ignis.
We one shotted it this way.
Lesson learned: my skill to tank multiple mobs in a fast moving, action packed surroundings is neigh. I just cannot target and catch up the adds/mobs the speed they come. This came even more profound the other day when I volunteered to tank for a guild group stuck in the ToC: they had hunter, rogue and warrior in there, and I just couldn't keep the mobs interested in me long enough. (Though I'm not sure if everything else was quite at place in there, as I seemed to bit the bullet a bit too fast for anything...)
I got bored to changing group from instance to another. Then again, my poor performance in the earlier Icecrown 5-mans keeps me away from joining guild run 5-mans for some peculiar reason: Like I've stated earlier, I don't want to make others suffer from me being not up to date, so I rather try to learn as much as possible before trying to ruin their day again. I'm not there, yet, and as I just run out of steam for running any more LFD PUG's, I don't know when I will be. It seems that it took me less than five nights of Random Dungeons in Dungeon Finder to wear me out. I just don't have the persistence to run for the few Emblems for my next piece of Emblem gear to make my gear score just a bit better... There just is no story in that, now is there?
So I did some levelling with Pupunen, my priest, now clad in Shadow.
What can I say. I love questing when it's 'meaningful' to the character. When it advances the story, level or gearing of the character. Got her from lv69 to lv73 in three sessions, did quests which I had neglected with my warrior. I did some of the quests with my warrior, too, earning the Borean Tundra and Sholazar Basin achievements. Which was nice, of course!
I also started Inscription on my banker toon, who is a low level druid. Specced him at the tender level of 21 to Balance, and struggled him up to lv25 in that spec: learned to love fast quests, learned to hate the running around the world at low levels. Got my inscription from 0 to 181 in few hours, and it seems that the whole profession has netted me more than cost, even though I have bought a lot of the herbs I used. Then again, this druid has also herbalism, so he brings money home after every run in the wilds.
Lesson learned: I love to do quests. Much more than the chaing PUGging in Dungeon Finder with anonymous groups. I love to see the progress in tangible measures. And as I can choose my challenge level in levelling, I find the levelling game more challenging than the random dungeons at best (I did some with Pupunen, too, with very different outcomes).
These two combined has confirmed me that if I have 2 hours time to play every now and then, I much rather play a levelling toon and chat with the people in the guild than run the mindless groups through the random dungeons through Dungeon Finder.
In short, I found out what I really like in the game. It's much more than what I suspected.
