So here we are, one month before the expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is upon us.

As usual, if you talk to people about the state of the game, if you talked to 10 different people, you’d get 10 different opinions: Some say there’s no use in playing at all, some say it’s the best time to play, some would look at you and say “huh?” and then go back to playing, because WoTLK won’t affect them very much (or so they think).

Personally, I’ve left my lowbies to sleep while I enjoy the high time of no-commitment-required PUG raids that we’re in right now.

Want To Raid? PUGs, PUGs, Everywhere!

There are Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep PUGs happening on my realm on the weekends left and right (both 25 man). Mount Hyjal PUGs, Sunwell Trash Runs, guilds in all levels of progression still looking for new members and actively trying to raid.

While my Healer sits unguilded, in conversations with what I believe to be a quality guild worth waiting for, I look around and make friends and offer my raid healing services where it fits my schedule, and continue to improve my gear to the standards of the new guild.

My Recent PUG Raids

Before the weekend’s raids, I ran Karazhan with an AWESOME group on Tuesday and did a full badge run, which was great. Then, I ran a couple of heroics a day during the week.

On Friday I got into an unadvertised Mount Hyjal PUG (25 man) on my Priest for the first time (thanks to some social contacts!!), and had a great time downing the first four bosses in the place, and while my overheal % needs work, I did well in general for overall heals and feel as if I contributed well to the group.

On Saturday after doing a few heroics and upgrading/re-gemming/re-enchanting my helm, I tried to get into a Black Temple PUG (25 man, same progression as Hyjal above) but I didn’t have any social “ins” to the group so while I made the +heals requirement by the skin of my teeth, I didn’t make the health point requirement that was in place for one of the nastier bosses in the place, and was removed in the pre-raid gear check.

Sooooo…. I vowed to improve my gear for that PUG next week, and put myself into LFG, and then got invited to a guild run going into Zul’Aman. While this wasn’t a Bear Run by any stretch of the imagination, it was another round of healing experience that I didn’t have, and can now update my “toon resume” with.

Experiences So Far

I’m really enjoying all of this varied healing experience on my Priest, but doing this wide number of raids I’m not directly familiar with means I’ve been doing a lot of reading and researching with my time, too. My AFK time on game while waiting for the raid to be fully assembled, etc, is spent on WoWWiki reading up on the fights about to come up.

In general the runs I’ve been a part of recently have been successful - well-run, or in the case of Karazhan, full of well-geared players ready to tear it up. The requirements for the 25-man PUGs I’ve been trying to get into are pretty stringent, but that’s good for the entire group.

The Zul’Aman guild run was the least successful of all the runs - but with 2 of 3 healers being geared only for Karazhan, it can’t be a big surprise that we only got Nalorakk the Bear boss down before wiping repeatedly on Akil’zon the Eagle Avatar.

Any Gear Upgrades?

Yes! Got some of those. Those aren’t my focus in raiding, however, so I mention them last.

From Hyjal, I got a couple of new pieces: Boots of the Divine Light and Angelista's Sash, but from the rest I’ve been picking up Heroics badges and the occasional off-spec piece for a Shadow set I’m putting together.

But for now it’s time to go update my Priest’s “toon resume”, before this Sunwell Trash Run I’m in starts up. Forgive me if I add it to my resume before I’ve actually completed the experience…

Tags: black temple, holy healer, priest healer, pugging raids, serpentshrine cavern, tempest keep