Attitude leads to Aptitude

Ah, the glorious dungeon finder, How I love and hate thee...

So the other day, I log in to farm some more emblems, because that is what we are all doing now, right?  It won't be long and I will be working on my T9 for my off-spec.  I toss out the inquiry into guild chat to see if anyone wants to come with, and, getting no positive responses, I join the queue alone.

Since I am a healer, I almost got my drink to my lips before I had a group ready to go.  Did I mention I love being a healer?  We zone in, and the top of my screen tells me: "Discovered Halls of Lightening".

Me: "erm, guys?  I have never been here before.  Give me some basic info on the fights and I should be fine."
DPS: "...."
Tank:"Cakewalk!"

Feeling better, since the tank considers it easy and he is certainly not overgeared by any stretch of the imagination, I develop a false sense of security.  And off we go.....

Please note:  I don't know the room names, or anything like that.  You will have to just live with the noobish descriptions I give.

So we get to the room that has what looks like a giant forge in the center.  Apparently the strategy here is to run off ahead of your healer, and sprint through the entire room pulling face-aggro on everything as you run for the opposite steps.  Then, you position the entire pack on the steps and start grinding them down.  Apparently, this is also so obvious to everyone that there is no need to tell the healer that you  will do this.  Also, unbeknownst to me, there is a pack of nasties at the top of said steps such that if you move up to position yourself to see what the hell everyone is doing, you will aggro them, and die most horrifically.

So, 2 wipes later, one b/c the tank pulled face aggro only, and didn't drop the holy aggro-juice so as soon as I toss out my opening Wild Growth, everyone suddenly hates me to death.  The second, b/c I discovered the 'top-of-the-step' baddies, and the tank informs me that if I "let him die again", he will leave.

  ok.  No big deal.  Moving on.  I don't respond in any way.

Next we move along until we get to the boss that has the crawling lightening attack.  The tank explains how it works, mostly, and we get to it.  One DPS dies b/c he cant seem to get out of the lightening, or something.  Don't remember.  The tank starts to rez him, which includes a party-chat announce that he is rezzing.  about 2 seconds before he is done, the DPS runs through the portal anyway, canceling the rez. 

Something bad must have happened, because his health bar suddenly drops, he dies again, and drops group.  Now, I am not sure how, but the tank-inator decides not to re-queue us for a 5th member, deciding  that we can 4-man the rest.And we do.  Up to Loken.

We get to Loken, the tank explains the fight "Basically, this is a DPS race, so it might be rough.  Oh, and he does this thing that you have to run from".  Fine.  Start.  Chaos.  Wipe.

Tank: "Oh yea, if someone gets the debuff, run away from everyone else, unless it's me.  Then you all run away from me"

Me: (as we enter the instance)"Since it's a DPS race, and we are right here at the entrance, can we get another DPS now?"

30 seconds of silence, and nobody moving...

Me:" ? "

Tank: "It's more funner this way"  <-- Actual quote...

Me:" For you all, maybe.  If it's a DPS race, and we have 33% less DPS, then that means the fight is 33% longer.  DPS don't care, you don't care, but I have to work harder to cover the longer fight"

--New DPS joins the group, and we all start running.

Tank:"Happy now?"

Me:"It will make the fight faster and easier, yes"

Tank:"God forbid you use any skill"

Aaaaand....  leave group.

Sorry, but the snarky comments, the continuous sprint tanking, and the fact that I had told him, repeatedly, that this was my first time through.  I couldn't take it any more.  I popped back into IF, and proceeded to unload all my pent up nerd-rage into guild chat. (sorry, everyone).  It took me a good 20 minutes to calm down and get back into the frame of mind to ever heal anyone ever again.  Evar!

Repair, and requeue.  10 seconds later, group is ready (hrmmm..  a slow one this time.  heh!)  Guess where. HoL.  I died a little inside.

Me:"I haven't ever done this"  (note:  using the definition of done to mean complete, I was truthful.)
Tank:"No problem."
Me:

And then we proceeded to have a lovely run, whereby the tank explained what was going to happen, where she was going to position, and how to handle each boss.  She told everyone how the debuffs and special attacks worked, and we got through the entire run without a single wipe.  As soon as the loot dropped, she requeued the party, and we cleared Gundrak.  Requeued again, and it was UK.  Requeued, and one of the DPS had to go, and my bags were full and the kids were  hungry, so that was the end.  I did something that I have only done twice before.  I thanked the tank personally.  I told her that it was a pleasure to heal for her, and I hoped to see her again.  I wish cross faction friending worked.

The moral of my story?  If people are treated decently, things go much smoother.  I personally learned to be more appreciative of the good tanks out there, and let them know who they are.  I also have to scoff at the DPS less.  I am sure they are people too.  Probably.

What about you?  What 'people-skills' are you learning as a result of the dungeon finder?  Are you ready to choke anyone yet?  I like Tamarind's new name for it:  Sanity Tap.