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Running heroics since I’ve turned 80 has been fun. There’ve been a few kooky characters, like the paladin who used his rocket boots to pull the whole first corridor of Drak’Tharon Keep…wait, that was someone in my guild.

Well, we like to keep it interesting. I waded into a few heroics with tanks I trusted before I actually started to pug them. I’ve never had a character before who hit 80 with semi-decent gear (yes, blues!) Dungeon blues are still ilevel 187 or so, they aren’t bad. A full set of them is fine. I still picked up a few other pieces before I felt confident enough to strike out on my own. Of course it would be Gundrak, which is still fixed in my mind as Hard To Heal even though apparently it isn’t anymore.

I was freaking out a little bit – on the verge of asking the melee to make sure and run out of the poison nova, since nobody bothers these days. I didn’t have time before the tank had pulled though, and of course none of the melee ran out of it. And… it was fine. Many tanks now have something ridiculous like 50 K hp or more. This was a DK tank, and he ran through the instance. My guild laughed because I was getting a constant stream of achievements, starting at [Snakes, Why’d It Have to be Snakes?] through [Less-Rabi]. Yes, I got [Less-Rabi] with a pugged group only a day or so after hitting 80. It’s a bit ridiculous. Why, my other characters had to work for that achievement,  uphill in the instance both ways, etc. Nonetheless, I have it. That tank even went to go and kill Eck, and I think he did it to be nice to me because I’d asked the group at the beginning to be gentle, since I was still a pretty fresh 80. Every emblem counts! It was kind.

I kept running heroics on my own with little happening that was noteworthy. I can squeeze one in on my lunch break usually. But one day, an unexpected load screen arrived… Heroic Forge of Souls. I wasn’t sure . Was I ready for it? The Dungeon Finder tool thought that I was. I took a deep breath and dove in. It was fine. Silent, but fine. Practically no one said anything until just at the end, I piped up and said, “So apparently LFD thinks that I can heal this as long as it puts me with uber tank.” The tank laughed and said he wasn’t uber, had just run these many times. He was a paladin with a ridiculous amount of health and I told him that just having run these many times made him uber as far as I was concerned. I just about had to get a new pair of pants when I saw the load screen. It was a short exchange, but it made the instance memorable for me. (That was the same run I got Seethe, hit or no hit, and it was the tank that urged me to roll on it. TAKE it, TAKE it!)

Since then, I’ve been tormenting all and sundry with heroic ICC runs. Even my husband was a bit skeptical. The heroic ICC 5-mans are no joke to heal, after all. But even in pugs, I’ve been tremendously lucky with groups and haven’t really had much to complain about. My only complaint, if I’m allowed to have one, would have to be this.

The silence. Unremitting silence. People who join without a word and drop group at the end the same way that they came in. It makes me feel a little dirty. I mean, I get that people are running these for their two emblems a day. Most people want as few bosses as possible. I had a tank in DTK skip the raptor boss and I was a bit peeved. (Every emblem counts, remember?). I understand that most people see it as a chore rather than actual fun at this point. But it’s still fun for me. I’ve been quietly gathering retribution and protection gear with the aim to try them out at some point. Even though I’ve seen these instances umpteen billion times, I still have fun running them. But I miss the camaraderie, the bizarre people from pugs of old. I wish I could get these people talking. The closest thing to conversation I tend to see is when a moonkin and a DK get into an argument because The Black Heart dropped in Trial of the Champion.

“Tanking is my main-spec,” they both swear up and down (this because I asked if anyone minded if I took it for off-spec.) “I’ve only been running this place for that and I’ve lost the roll twice,” etc. I passed on it, politely, although I honestly don’t think either of them had more right to it than I did. I told the DK that if he wanted it that badly – maybe he ought to be tanking to get it. I know that if my tank were trying to get something like that I’d be more inclined to back him up and try to get any off-spec rollers to pass for him, but I don’t feel as charitable towards any of the DPS who just happen to “need” that because tanking is their “main” spec.

So that’s what passes for conversation in heroic instances these days. As a paladin, I’m not in a great position to do the chipper “Hey folks!” beginning of instance chatter. I’m too busy making sure I have the right aura, the right seal, buffing everyone (Is there a warrior? Has anyone yet bitched at me to GIEF KINGS PLOX? so I can deliberately skip them?) and so I miss that golden opportunity many times apart from saying hello. I tried to see if anyone else had written about how to get people to talk in heroics (I feel like HoTs&DoTs did but I can’t seem to find the post, unless I’m mistaken). I did, however, find an article on ehow.com, “How To Get Someone To Talk Without Asking Them A Bunch of Questions.” I’ve edited it to apply to a pug, here for your convenience in three easy steps.

Step 1: When you know a pug is bothering someone, don’t start by asking them a bunch of questions. Instead try this, but only after you have memorized it (why not macro?)

Step 2: You say: I love you, pugger, and I know something is really hurting you, and I care enough about emblems to know what is really bothering you. Do you realize that if you won’t make chit-chat with me, and share with me when you plan to pull and what drugs you’ve made use of today, then I’m going to have to guess, and then write about you on my blog. And if you make me guess, I’m going to be a real human and guess negatively because, see, we humans never guess positively. We always assume the worst. And if I guess negatively it’s going to hurt our relationship, pugger, and I don’t want that. It’s going to make people on the internet laugh at you. We’re going to be spending the next twenty minutes together, depending on how much HP the tank has and how quickly he can pull. But I love you, pugger. The only question you have to ask me is, “Do you?”

Step 3: Once you ask  ‘do you’? turn and walk away to the other end of the pug, or drop group! You DO NOT WAIT FOR THE ANSWER (not my caps). You’ve already told the pugger that you love them and care for them and you don’t want to guess why they won’t talk to you, but by walking away you’re giving them the space they need. They can look at the symbol beside your party portrait and think about what it means, that little life-giving plus sign or that stabbey knife or stalwart shield. They may burst into tears or call you a lunatic, after they’ve had space and time to think about what they are going to say. You can say this to adult or children puggers, but children shouldn’t be pugging. But they do.

Tips and Warnings: Don’t get into any pugger’s character’s face. Don’t act like a know-it-all, don’t flaunt your gearscore. Let puggers have their space. The pugger may burst into tears, let them. If they want a hug, they’ll let you know.

Alternatively, you could try to start a conversation about something else, but doing the above is guaranteed to get pugs talking! Probably not to you, possibly about you, but at least it’s something.

So how about you? Do you have any way to get pugs to talk? Do you just not bother, or maybe just not care? I’m going to be making more of a concerted effort to get folks to talk a little, but paladin healing doesn’t favour this, at least it didn’t at my initial gear levels when I had to actually, you know, heal people. I’m used to being a druid – hot, hot, hot – chat, hot hot… But heroic running has gotten smooth enough that I can generally afford to swap out my healing sword for my one-handed axe and level the skill on the trash mobs, so I can probably strike up a conversation while I’m at it.