Practicing the art of sheeping (warcraft mage)

Right now I've got four toons I'm working with, plus a bank toon or two for extra storage.


I spent some time with my 21 Troll Mage since he's got a full bar of rest experience, and finished up some quests around Crossroads yesterday. I took some time to practice the fine art of "sheeping" when I had multiple opponents, and found that kept (squishy) me alive for much longer much more reliably!


Then, today I was on my 16 Undead Priest poking around doing Xroads quests when I saw a healer on General trying to get together a Wailing Caverns group. My level 21 Troll Mage had 6 WC quests, so I hopped over to that toon (my only male toon) and joined the party with this level 21 Troll Priest, knowing it's a good bet to join a party when there's guaranteed to be a Priest present.


As I got my inventory cleared out and visited the Auction House to upgrade any equipment I could upgrade, a few more people joined our group coming from the LFG tool. A Blood Elf Pally and a BE Hunter. Then a few seconds later, a Warrior joined. Everyone was over level 18 and it seems like everyone was quite experienced with the whole "running an instance" thing as well. We had no problems with ninja'ing or inappropriate rolls, etc. It was great.


The five of us blew through WC with one death in the entire thing, and I levelled twice, using up all of my rest bonus experience.


I got a chance to work on the whole "sheeping" deal some more while in the dungeon. Whenever we had extra mobs being triggered, I tried to sheep them and keep them entertained. For the most part our team didn't break sheep in purpose, and I don't think the one guy who died could have been saved by a sheeping exercise... so I guess we did okay overall :)


Unfortunately my inventory was full when I came up to loot one of the Fang Lords and I didn't notice it and ended up missing one gem, so I got 4 of 6 quests done and have to go back for the 99 year old stout and that one gem. Not sure if I'll go back for that one gem or not, but the 99 year old stout might be something I can handle on my own now that I've levelled up to 23.


I was pleased to see that I didn't "steal aggro" hardly at all while in the party, even when I started to cast fireball right when the warrior started wailing on the mob. Mages are known for stealing aggro and then getting themselves killed. I know the Priest healed me periodically however, so perhaps I would have died had they been a noob Priest doing their first instance :)


I don't generally get much time to run instances, so it was nice that this one came up when I had time to do it and a toon that would get a lot of benefit out of completing the circuit. Now I'll leave my mage to rest up. Coincidentally, I have stuff to do over the next few days, and all of my toons will be taking rests, aside from good ol' bank toon, who rarely stops her twice-a-day full auction house scan, mailbox checks and re-listing of things to sell. :)