Nervous about dungeon groups?Follow

I've been away from WoW for about a year and I really didn't do any of the dungeons in Cata because I was busy doing other stuff, mostly crafting and leveling a million alts. I was thinking I was done with WoW when I quit but I just found myself intrigued by all the different new things with MoP. I finally resubbed and it turns out that was a great decision, as I'm absolutely loving MoP. I've now leveled two characters to level 90, raised all the crafts to 600, but I'm finding that I actually want to get seriously geared up with a few of my toons, as it will definitely help with SoH farming and all my crafting.

Now the problem is, I haven't done a dungeon in about 2 years and I've got a bit of social anxiety about getting into a dungeon group. It's kind of strange, as I don't really have any social anxiety in real life. I have never once run a dungeon with either of the classes I ended up raising to level 90 first and I'm really worried that I'm going to get kicked from not being 100% perfect in the group. I understand that there are a lot of baddies out there and that they manage to make it through these groups without getting kicked all the time, but for some reason I'm still having that fear. I've been to Maxdps, Noxxic and WoW-Popular to find out exactly how I should be gemming, enchanting and reforging my gear and what my rotations should be, I think I know what I should be doing, but I still find myself looking at the LFD screen and not pressing the stupid Find Group button. I just can't figure this out, as again, in real life I have no problems jumping into all sorts of different situations regardless of whether it's new to me or not.

But then I found Scenarios! After reading a bit about them, I finally pulled the trigger and jumped into one. Am I ever glad I did! They are very easy, or at least the two that I did were. They tell you step by step exactly what you need to do. We didn't even have any healers and we finished them easily, even though the other two people in my group would constantly trigger the lightning traps in one of them, over and over. I was able to actually get some practice in on my class with no worries at all, and at the end of it got a fairly nice ilvl 463 item and some gold. I'm going to do some more scenarios, just to get more comfortable with my class and then I think I'll be able to head into one of the dungeons finally. I know it probably seems like a silly problem for most of you. You probably run multiple dungeons each day and have never worried about what I've typed above, but I just wanted to share my experience in case there are any others out there that had this problem.

One question I did have though, in regards to the dungeons: When you first started doing a group of new dungeons, did you first try and research the bosses before going in? There are so many dungeons and so many bosses, I've tried reading the dungeon guide and watching a few youtube videos, but I'm never going to remember which boss has which ability without going in and experiencing each one. Should I click on specific dungeons after reading up on just that dungeon and then do that for each one until I'm comfortable enough with all of them to use the random dungeon finder or should I just jump in and tell people I'm new?

TL:DR - If you're worried about dungeon groups, try doing a few scenarios first!

Edited, Oct 28th 2012 3:31pm by FFATMA

Don't forget Scarlet Halls, specifically Armsmaster Harlan. Out of all the bosses this expansion (haven't ran scholo) he is by far the most unforgiving if you mess up. Had a group yesterday where apparently they had wiped a couple times on him before I came in. Took a couple more wipes to eventually kill him. People kept standing there like sticks in the mud and getting sucked up in his whirlwind of death. Except for one rogue who thought he could outrun his whirlwind. Not sprint, not jumping down like he should have after the boss went up the stairs, just outrun him. Funny the first time. Slightly annoying the third.

What's really important is to not let people get to you. There are many people out there who behave like a$$hats in groups and eventually you will encounter them and eventually one of them will be insulting you. Even if you play flawless this is very likely to happen at some point because the anonymity of the internet brings out the worst in people more often than not.
Just ignore them. Jerks will be jerks and if you don't respond to their trolling/insults/whatever they will get bored and (hopefully) leave you alone.

It's very solid advice letting people know you're new to the dungeon. Some people, like myself, have a tendency to snap at people who cause wipes, because we assume they know what they're supposed to do. It's not that I'm an elitist *******, but if the person causing the wipe hasn't told me that he/she is new there, I have to assume they're not and therefore being idiots.

I always let people know at the start of a run if I don't know the fight. I hate telling people that I'm clueless about a run, or anything in general. I find it very embarrassing to ask for help, but it's a lot better than silently tagging along and then causing an uproar when you accidentally wipe the entire thing on a boss fight.

It should be noted that I've accepted my cluelessness these days. Just ask Digg how many stupid questions I asked in the GW2 guild chat the other night. Oh, man, that game is confusing the hell out of me at the moment, primarily because I know nothing about anything in it. You've got to ask if you want an answer, though.

GTFO is another solid addon I like to have. I just has sound buzzers/alarms if you're in something you're not supposed to be. Very handy to have one less bar or message to track.

Also, this expansion so far I have found pug dungeons pretty civil. LFR, on the other hand, is like a nightmare of d-bags cycling in and out, raging out on everybody. I do not understand this mentality of dropping after a single boss kill or intentionally wiping raids rather than cooperating for a few minutes and clearing a place.

Dungeons, heroics, and scenarios seem pretty mellow though. You'll get your feet under you after a couple of runs I'm sure. I have been leveling and running my holy pally through the starter dungeons, and this is really the first time I've healed on her since Wrath. I told the first group "hey, haven't healed in a while." I fumbled around a bit but had it mostly sorted out by the end of the 1st dungeon. One guy died but he was standing in corrosive water so not much to do.

All good to hear, although I'm sure some of you would like some more challenge. I haven't had time to take the plunge yet, but I think tomorrow I'll give it a whirl.

If people didnt bail after one or two bosses(or after a wipe or two) in the first place everyone would always get a fresh run....

This is really my issue. Even with a clean run, a boss goes down and 10-15 people leave. Why?

My regular raid crew is still trying to get off the ground for this expansion so the 8 of us that were ready did an LFR on Thurs. Actually ended up with the rest of a decent group who stayed (save for a couple here and there) and I think we cleared all 6 bosses in maybe 2 hours. An hour or so for 1 wing of an LFR is not bad, especially considering the marathon heroics, or even regulars of early Cata.

The dichotomy is what throws me I guess. Dungeons and heroics right now seem so cool and laid back. People seem so pleasant and understanding, even with total fail groups. Then LFR seems full of ragers, quitters, and Jenkinses, even with really good groups. I'm hoping after a couple weeks or so everybody will mellow out a bit.