Patient Priest: Need a tank?

I've been having a lot of fun in the Wetlands in my level 20's. It's all new to me as I'm usually a Hordie. I've found this to be a great place to find herbs to level my professions, gather crocodile meat to improve my cooking skill, and kill a few murlocs and dead sailors along the way to get some quest experience and rewards.

I like my draenei. I think she looks pretty cool. I've noticed that her casting animations are all very similar though, which is a shame. I think her racial abilities are useful - the increased hit chance is very good at low levels, as there's not much +hit gear around. The extra healing spell has saved my life a couple of times too - usually when I'm out of mana.

Continued...

Something new that I haven't used before is the automatic self-targetting option. I think it was turned on for everyone during the last patch. I haven't really noticed it before, but when you're a healer it's pretty useful, but potentially problematic. While questing, I target the mob I want to kill and start casting my damage spells. If I want to heal myself I don't need to target myself (or push the alt button - the default modifyer for self-targetting) because if I use a spell that can't be cast on my target (or if I don't have anything targeted) it automatically casts it on me. Very useful! However, the problem is that I no longer get error messages if I lose my target. This will sometimes result in me healing myself when I think I'm healing someone else, because I don't realise I've acidentally de-selected someone (and don't get an error messages telling me I have).

Overall though, I like the automatic self-targetting, and I plan to keep using it. And I'm happy with my choice of draenei as race for my priest.

I've come across a lot of people who are levelling through the looking for group system - it a lot faster and more effective now. I read an interesting thread on the Warcraft Europe forums about another healer levelling through groups. The discussion evolves into a debate on whether tanks are necessary - many believe they can do the lower instances without a tank. I certainly agree that it's possible to keep a dps class alive during the low level instances - you don't need plate armor and a lot of talent points in the protection tree to survive a beating from a level 30 elite mob. However, the problem is that dps classes can't keep aggro, can't do aoe aggro, and most importantly - they can't taunt! I'm happy to heal warriors and paladins using 2-hands, I'm happy for hunters to try tanking with their pet. I'm not happy for some shaman or mage to run in there, spam a blizzard or chain lightening, then stand there and watch while most of the mobs switch to me and kill me as soon as I start healing.

Anyway, the thread is here if you're interested;

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12025293655&sid=1