I've been levelling up at a reasonable rate, I reckon 4-6 hours per level depending on whether I'm all out questing or taking a more leisurely pace catching up with old friends. I'm now at the heady heights of level 84 and melting my way through Uldum when a fellow guildie pops up and asks if I fancied a jaunt to the Lost City of the Tol'vir. To this point, the only thing that I've done is dps, I've intentionally not even set up my healing tree as I don't feel confident enough to have four other people relying on my heals after so long out of the game so I'm off as shadow.
There are only four of us from the guild wanting to go, so it's into dungeon finder for the fifth, or is it? Apparently not, I haven't discovered the instance so it won't let me queue… after a brief explanation as to why I can't get in the queue from my less nebbish guild mates I pop in and we're in the queue.
I have to say, I like what Blizzard have done with dungeons, less trash and difficulty that requires players to have a little bit of skill rather than simply being a gear check. It seems to basically boil down to "don't stand in crap not to die" and "kill the right things first". One thing that does strike me is that when DPS don't do this, the healer goes through mana very quickly. Admittedly, this is my first instance, so it might just be this healer, but it strikes me from the stuff I've read about the new content that this is intended. For us it's not a problem, as it's a group who know each other, but I can imagine PUG's are less forgiving and will instantly blame the healer even if it's the DPS being thick.
My DPS rotations due to the added need to move quite a bit during boss fights are all to pot, that combined with not using Mind Blast or Shadow Word Death in normal rotation, it seems a bit strange not to use MB (except to get the buff from having a shadow orb up) and I keep hitting it when I shouldn't out of habit. I'm still not sure whether I should be waiting for three orbs or just using it with one, the buff seems the important thing as the direct damage is pants. It's also a lot easier to maintain a mana pool, which again I believe is by design, there's a load of mechanisms to recoup mana, I'm currently using Vampiric Touch, Dark Evangelism, Shadow Fiend as a matter of course, choosing whether to pop Dark Evangelism early for the DPS boost, but wasting some of the mana regen, and getting it again by the end of a fight, or saving it till you're sub 80% mana makes a big difference. If I'm really desperate I then start hitting SWD even if the boss isn't sub 25% health, having it glyphed also helps. And if I'm really really desperate dropping out of shadow form and playing hymn of hope. I'd guess I'd only generally look to use that when the rest of the party are struggling for mana.
Everything goes pretty well, with a bit of a stumble at Barim, mainly due to DPS (not me noooonono) being thick as outlined above and I get a shiny new ring for my troubles. All in all a pretty successful first experience and great fun, I'm looking forward to hitting 85 and ploughing through the heroics now.
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