Monday, after dinner

Back after a long gap. Level 90 now, Midnight everything, and my healer feels like a car I have not driven since last winter. I queued one unrated battleground just to remember where the buttons are. Died twice before the gates finished opening. Great start.

Tuesday, lunch break on the laptop

Read about the season in ten minutes: Season 2 is live for Mythic+, the raid and PvP, patch 12.1 brought the eight-boss Venomous Abyss, and the old Voidspire is the previous tier. None of that matters for my week. I am here for the battlegrounds, and the only job is to keep people alive long enough to cap a flag.

Wrote a sticky note: heal the carrier first, then everyone else.

Spent the evening afterwards fixing my bars. Moved the emergency heal to a key I can actually reach, hid the buffs I never read, and put the party frames where my eyes already go. It sounds like fussing, but the first match after a layout change felt like putting on glasses.

My partner asked what I was grinning at. I said “a healing interface”. She went back to her book.

Wednesday, the good match

We won a long one. The turning point was a teammate who kept shouting where the enemy was coming from, which no addon replaces. I finished with a modest number on the healing meter and a very large feeling of usefulness. Honor ticked up. I spent a little on a piece for my off-set and noticed it already helped.

Lesson: stay near the objective, not near the corpses.

Brief interlude: guildmate whispered that I was overhealing the tank. He was right. I changed one habit, which was to stop topping off everyone and instead leave the small damage alone until it mattered. Mana lasted longer and the numbers looked worse. The team did not notice the numbers.

Thursday, a bad one

Lost three in a row. Kept chasing a damage dealer who had run out of range of my heals and then blamed myself when he died. Stopped queuing, went into a delve instead for twenty minutes of quiet solo play, and picked up a couple of upgrades. Felt better. Do not queue angry.

Cooked dinner late, then did one more queue on the couch with the controller of my patience set to low. The match was a slow back-and-forth over the middle of the map, the sort where nobody commits. I kept my cooldowns because I did not trust the push, and when the enemy finally went in, I had them ready. We held. Small thing, large satisfaction.

Friday, a bit later

Looked at the gear I had collected during the week. Mostly entry pieces from honor, one crafted item from a crafting order that fixed a missing stat, and some leftovers from a delve. None of it is flashy, all of it helps. The new raid, Venomous Abyss, will wait; tonight I am a battleground person.

Also noticed my hands were tired. Note to self: stretch, drink water, stop after the third loss.

Wrote down my numbers on paper, just for fun: matches played, matches won, times I ran out of mana. The last column was the shortest, which pleased me more than the first two.

Friday, the question

A guildmate asked if I would try rated. I said maybe. Then I looked at how long the climb might take with a free evening here and there, and I started reading about what other players do when they want rated rewards but have a tight calendar. WoW PvP Boost came up repeatedly, described as an arrangement where someone experienced plays the rated content with you or on your behalf. I am not decided; I note it as something some players pick, usually for scheduling reasons.

What I would rather do is find two regulars and learn the format properly. We will see.

Saturday, the morning queue

Tried a couple of rated battlegrounds with a small group from the guild. Different feeling entirely: people called targets, someone watched the back flag, and I knew where to stand. We lost one, won one, and I came out thinking about positioning instead of buttons.

The group finder helped fill the last seats. Took a minute, nothing dramatic.

Sunday evening, the totals

A week in, here is what I have: a handful of honor pieces, a small stack of crests from delves, a couple of crafting orders placed for stats I was missing, and a clearer idea of how I like to play. I also have a short list for next week: learn one new map properly, keep one defensive cooldown for the end of a fight, and ask the guild if anyone wants a regular rated slot.

Whether or not I ever take the shortcut route, the week reminded me why I came back. Healing in a crowded fight, with people moving as one, is its own kind of fun.