I'm getting back to WoW Insider after a month's real-life-related absence and have been spending some time playing catch-up on the site. One of the articles that caught my attention was Matt Rossi's popular "One reason tanks won't PuG," in no small part because I play a tank and my own PuG runs have been few and far between of late. My main, a Tauren Druid, respecced from balance to feral at level 69 because there were so few tanks on my server, and I literally spent months and months tanking PuG's to get experience and gear.

During that period I saw everything from rogues rolling on +healing maces to warlocks needing on tanking cloaks, and I learned that you never can tell what you're going to get from a PuG. Yes, you'll get hunters who can't trap, mages who never resheep, rogues who mistakenly believe they leveled a warrior, and priests who Power Word: Shield you straight off the pull -- but you'll also find people who know their class well, or are in the process of learning just like you are, and who are fun to be around. I have now killed Illidan with a contingent of people who showed up to my PuG's back when I was a wee lolbaretank in quest greens and Heavy Clefthoof, so as a matter of personal experience I think PuG's are a somewhat underrated way to meet people who will later turn out to play crucial roles in how you experience the game.

I don't PuG as frequently anymore due to time constraints and increased time spent leveling alts, but I still hang out in LFG from time to time for the pure enjoyment of meeting new people. Yes, it is often difficult to PuG tanks and healers (I would submit, as someone who typically tanks or heals in dungeons, that it is also difficult to PuG skilled DPS), but a lot of people could make it easier on themselves than they do. If you're having problems finding a tank or healer for your PuG's, try these.

Stitchedlamb on WoW LJ wants to know: how do you do any questing as a healer? One reason WoW is such a popular game is that no matter your spec or role, Blizzard has done their best to make sure every class can play solo. But if you've ever played a Prot Warrior or a Holy Priest, you know for sure that some classes solo a little easier than others. Before the itemization changes hit in 2.3 and 2.4, healers had it pretty bad, and even after, it's tough to push out quests when all you've got is a bunch of +healing and no Shadowform to speak of.

I rolled my Shaman to 60 as Enhancement (Windfury while leveling is one of the great pleasures of Azeroth), but when I hit 60 way back when, I switched to Resto -- I like playing in groups, and being a healer makes sure you have groups whenever you want them. But when Burning Crusade came out, I still wanted to play instances, so I leveled from 60-70 as Resto.

How'd I do it?

Our Priest column is back! Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is now Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus, and this week he's written different "If" statements to follow.

Summer is almost upon us and I hear Mount Hyjal is lovely this time of year! Honestly, I believe everyone playing right now needs to go in at least once and just experience the place. It is essentially the successor instance to Black Morass with multiple incoming waves consisting of various Undead trash. Not since Karazhan have we Priests needed to utilize our Shackle Undead extensively in another raid environment.

The latest patch has opened the raiding doors wider and allowed more players to experience some of the most complex encounters in the game. This week, I'll help walk you through Mount Hyjal and offer some advice and tips in what I consider the most punishing raid instance devised.

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

Hot off my month-long, four-feature dissertation on casual raiding, I've decided to answer some e-mails that relate to it. This week's e-mail is about a subject that comes up quite often in casual raiding guilds: When someone is generous, helpful, and an all-around great member, but who just isn't getting the job done in raids, what do you do about it?

Hi Scott,

I'm an officer/co-GM of a humble, little raiding guild, looking to have fun, grow and progress with our members. [. . .] We take raiding seriously enough that we're not wasting our time (everyone is on time and comes prepared), but we also have a lot of giggling and laughing in vent during raids, even when we wipe.

All would be fantastical and perfect . . . except my guild is in sort of a predicament with a certain guild member. He's been with us for a while now -- long enough to not be considered a new member. He's a friend of mine, as well as a friend of our other co-GM. He's a healer and quite well geared. Probably the best geared in the guild. [. . .] Along with all the effort he's put into improving his character, he's also a decent guy. Whenever someone in the guild needs help, whether it be for a quest or for an empty raid spot, he won't hesitate to stop what he's doing to come help out. [. . .]

So, he seems like a top notch guild member. Well geared, puts effort into his character, and is a nice guy. Problem? He knows he's well geared, but he doesn't know he SUCKS at healing.

Now, there's some classes (mostly pure DPS) that have a special advantage when it comes to respeccing: When they decide to change specs, they can mostly get away with using the same set of gear. They may want to regem a bit toward one stat or another, or switch weapons, but for the most part, they can change their spec and settle right into their new role with relative ease, not having to wait for certain gear to come along before they make a "final" plunge. Even if they do need to make a bigger stat change, their old gear can usually mostly suffice until they get a few more drops.

I've noticed this because I'm strongly considering switching two of my hybrids to another role full time soon, and it's been a lot more complicated, because gear enters the equation in a much larger way.

This isn't me bragging: I fully expected to die. Usually when I do this kind of thing... in fact, in 99% of the times I've charged into a pack of Alliance or Horde when PvPing, I do die. It's usually a last ditch attempt to prevent a flag capture. I don't expect to live through it. But today, through some weird combination of skill, luck, and some poor choices and gear on the part of the alliance, I came out of it alive and they all died. (That rogue who showed up at the end helped, I admit it.)

I know it won't ever happen again, but for just that moment (long enough for a mage to ride up and fireball me down, since I had like 200 health left) I honestly felt like I'd learned something new, made a shift in how I PvP in World of Warcraft, and even surprised myself with how good I could actually be at a part of the game I've never really felt that I excelled at. Now, I still expect that the next time I try this I will die, but I won't go in thinking death is certain, and that changes the way the whole thing feels.

Almost certain death, slim chance of success, what are we waiting for? That dwarf knew what he was talking about.

I've raided for a long time on my priest. My first real raid started with Zul'Gurub before I graduated to Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. Unfortunately, I started late in the game to the point where I never really appreciated AQ 40 or Naxxramas. Years later, I am now working my way towards Illidan after mopping the floor with Archimonde. It's difficult for a holy priest to begin raiding. The learning curve can be steep at times because there are so many options available.

That being said, there are a few lessons I've learned from raiding that have proven universal. They had as much application back then as they do now and I wanted to pass them on to any new budding raid priests.

Check out all thirteen tips, from reagents to situation awareness, right after the break.

We get our motivation today from Thongsnapper (nice name) of Gorefiend who asks, if you could have any spell in Warcraft in real life, which one would you have? Hearthstone would be an interesting choice for sure, and Polymorph would make for an interesting life (though its uses might be pretty limited, considering that real life doesn't actually have aggro management), but I think personally I'm going to have to fall back on the old superpower standby: stealth. Moving around unseen just seems too fun to pass up.

Actually, I might second guess that -- in terms of practicality, healing spells might actually be more beneficial to the world. Wave your hands, and any ailments, no matter how big or small, are done away with. I'll have to give this some serious thought. In the meantime, let's hear it: if you could have any spell from the game in real life, which one would you choose?

A few months back, I did a rogue column on how rogues can enhance their gear with enchantments, gems, armor kits and the like. Well, it's time for paladins to get a similar guide -- in three different forms! Yes, since paladins have three main specs for three different roles, they need some wildly different enchantments. Today, we'll look at above-the-belt enhancements for a regular ol' endgame healing paladin, soon to be followed by prot and ret recommendations. (Shockadins, just grab the caster junk like usual.)

Head

Glyph of Renewal: This item, available for 90g once you get revered with Honor Hold or Thrallmar, gives you a one-time boost to your head item's healing and mp/5. Revered with HH/Thrall isn't too hard, and you need all the mp/5 you can get, so pick this up if you're planning on any serious healing. 10/10 PVE, 7/10 PVP.

Glyph of the Gladiator: On the other hand, if you're the arena type and find yourself a bit lacking in the two key PVP stats, you might want to pick up this stam/resil item from revered with Shattered Sun Offensive. It's pretty useless for PVE, though, so save it for your _____ Gladiator's set piece. 3/10 PVE, 9/10 PVP.

Every week, Shifting Perspectives is written by someone who is not me. Except for that one time. Rather an addictive experience, stealing this column. Does anyone even read the italicized portion at the top? Hello? Nobody? I'm just gonna sing. "My baloney has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R, my baloney has a [censored over copyright infringement] (ed. just do the column, please).

While I sincerely hope the rumors about the patch hitting soon aren't true because I'm sitting on all of 43 badges of justice right now (g@^#(*% mother-expletive piece of $%^@ fire resistance set), I am forced to admit that the times may possibly have caught up with me. I confess that for a long time I hadn't even looked at the new badge loot that will become available ingame, partly because things have gotten markedly busier with my guild of late and partly because I'd planned my 2.3 badge acquisitions very carefully and wondered if I could get away with keeping myself somewhat unspoiled for 2.4. That lasted until I found out just how expensive the 2.4 gear is actually going to be ("150 badges for a new weapon, Zach? Are you @*(#&#% kidding me?"). Noble effort while it lasted, though.

Well, no more. If 2.4 does hit next week, I'm going to be ready to stand in front of the badge vendor and know exactly what I can't afford to buy for all three specs.

This treatment looks exclusively at the new leather gear offerings available in 2.4 and assumes that you won't have access, or at least immediate access, to the new 25-man raid Sunwell Plateau. For my part I am still using six -- count 'em, six -- pieces of badge gear for various tanking purposes in Tier 6 content, which either says a great deal about the general quality of badge gear or says a great deal about how bad feral itemization is in endgame content. I'll be magnanimous today and say it's both.

Running 5 man instances is the bread and butter of gearing up any PvE character. There are some short instances, and some longer ones. There are some bosses that are ready for fun, and others that like to die fast. Many people consider it a universal truth that all you need to do these instances is solid crowd control. When you're faced with a pack of six or seven level 70 elite mobs, the last thing you want is one or two of them running loose.

But what can you do if you don't have any CC available? Are you just out of luck? Nope! There are a few tricks to running instances without CC, and if you pay close attention, you won't miss the lack of sheeps at all.

In fact, you might just start preferring to run without crowd control entirely.

Nearly every hybrid has felt the sorrows of lacking itemization at one time or another. Every hybrid has seen its ups and its down, has watched class balance fall into and out of order, and embraced their spec through the good and the bad. Throughout all of this, though, there has always been one ever-present issue. Completely unchanging. Viability and acceptance? Oh, no no no.

Bag space. The Blue Crew of Blizzard has made it very clear over the last few years that limited bag space is fully intended. It's viewed as an important aspect of game play. A mini-game, if you will. I must say, being forced into choosing whether you want to keep an item you enjoy or vendor it in favor of that new piece of resist gear that is mandatory for your raid's upcoming boss fight is the worst game ever. Sometimes little vanity items mean quite a bit, like your first epic. A lot of them are just plain neat, like the furbolg outfit maker.

Totem Talk is written by Matthew Rossi for shamans, and the people who love them. You'd better be one of those people that love them or are them... is them? Wait, how did this paragraph get away from me so fast? Crap, don't die, don't die, don't....whew, the heal landed! I'd better burn an NS and drop a Healing Wave on it, just to be sure. Man, the paragraph's health just started bombing!

So you've decided to heal.

Maybe you're full resto, or maybe you're an enhancement or elemental shaman but you have good healing gear and you need to heal for some reason. Perhaps your raid needs just a little extra healing. Perhaps you really just want to get that Shadow Labs run out of the way before 2.4 comes in and the only slot open is for a healer. Maybe you just like being yelled at by people if you don't keep them at full health at all times. I'm not going to sit here and psychoanalyze you, oh my no. First off, have you seen my picture? If I were you (and I'm not, I'm me) I wouldn't take any mental health advice from that guy. He looks kind of insane. Secondly, it's not Totem Talk's aim to discourage you, but rather to facilitate you in any way we can. If you want to spec resto and heal, we want to help you. If you want to heal as an enhancement or elemental shaman, we're on board. If you want to rob several banks and then flee to Prince Edward Island, you're on your own. We're terribly lazy.

We've discussed the nuts and bolts of shaman healing before, so today we'll mostly touch on it but not go into detail to that extent.

It also prevents me from having to re-invent the wheel, so kudos to Starryknight! Instead, I thought I would share some highlights of the guide, and my own tips and tricks to using Healbot Continued.

Many of you who read part one of the Healbot Continued saga have asked if this addon is suitable for PvP healing. As it turns out, Healbot Continued has a skin pre-loaded with battlegrounds in mind. Called the Alterac Valley skin, it will build a frame that is well suited to healing your battleground group, but wait, there's more! Healbot Continued has a built-in range finder, which will fade out individual players' bars if they are out of your healing range. This is a great way to avoid wasting heals, although it can't save you from losing a heal because someone leaves your maximum range while you're midway through a healing spell.