Actually, I'll believe that he's run it more times than you. Mainly because he's probably wiped more groups doing it than you could ever dream of, and he/she/it/r-tard keeps going back for more.

Anyway, I feel your pain. I see it all the time on Azjol Nerub-H in groups that I've run with. I've pretty much gotten to the point where I don't even worry about trying to PUG anything on my alts, I just ask a guildie or someone on my FL if they'd mind giving me a twink run.

Trashidawa, doctre and I were in a Black Rock Depths instance group the other night. Two pickupgroup members, one of which was a warlock who kept sending in his pet to attack even though Trashidawa was marking the kills. Marking the kills gives everyone a common target when there are multiple enemies, so we can focus dps, drop groups of enemies faster, control aggro and manage heals a bit more efficiently.

Trashidawa asked him once to focus on the marked kill (skull icon over its head). He ignored and did his own 'thang', a couple more times. After clearing a couple more monster groups, Trashidawa asked the warlock again to attack the marked mob, which resulted in the very dramatic:

Warlock: "If you tell me one more time how to play my class, I'm leaving." which left me laughing. We weren't saying anything about playing his class, just trying to get him in-sync on the party hunting method.

Anyways we dropped him pretty immediately and Hanta came to our rescue, though we later learned we werent quite ready for BRD.

While I'm not certain on it's zone specifity, I have gotten a decent 3agi/3stam ring out of stockades. Defias Renegade Ring if you want to look it up on Thott/Alla.

As to lowbie instances, Pur is very correct in that they can be outstanding XP, especially from the quest turn ins. That alone is why I generally make every effort to hit them up on my alts, if for no other reason than to run them once for quest completion. If you're picky enough and can find someone to hook you up with twink runs, then you can generally come away with the drops you're after, a decent chunk of XP, and the higher level friend will come away with several gold in coin drop and cloth for the AH.

Personally, 90% of why I enjoy WoW as much as I do, and why I've played as long as I have is for instances. Running them for the first time, learning the ins and outs are things I find interesting and exciting, and as such I continue to do them. But hey, YMMV.

I have had the same experiences with DM/VC, but the last time through was with my Priest (Aesildur) in a group of 4 (all of us 19-21) that was very educational and made the effort well worth it. I learned a lot about my class as well as about DM (including the cannon or wheel trick - which I wouldn't have thought of on my own). We got wiped twice and had to take 5 tries at it, but we eventually did it.

Ironically, I love the Stockades. Not because of the loot, but because of the quests. For a short run, if you have done DM and all the lead-up quests, it worth more XP in a shorter time than any other place I have gone (my XP per hour w/ quests when I go through the whole thing is usually 60k or higher). The reward on one of the quests is a ring I remember wearing with Sunseeker until my 40s. Of course, that makes it a one-and-done instance, but for that one shot, it's worth it.

Valleja and I were tempted to try a PUG for some of these higher instances, but luckily, it didn't come to that when Gloigan & Zandrise logged on this weekend and we took on the Sunken Temple. We looked for a 5th and it ended up being Tador, so didn't really learn all that much other than the general feel/layout for the instance. Would be interesting to try again, although based on what I saw with Tador, it seems like it would be a rather long instance for a group on the edge of being able to do. I did take notes on things like the idols, so at least that's ready.

On our horizon now is BRD, Scholo, and Strat. Hopefully, we can group up with guildies and experience these in the near future, too. Heading over to Outlands is certainly tempting, but I feel like I would be robbing myself of seeing some of the original content by skipping right to the expansion.

I agree with BadMojo, 100%. I might even add an addendum to his "learn to play" suggestion: "let me learn how to play, too". It's perhaps the only intimidating thing about WoW in our relatively brief experience with it. Valleja and Sunseeker are now level 58, and I consider us pretty quick learners when it comes to games like this. That said, we are still very new compared to many out here. When I read relatively heated discussions by people like AnimeJ and TheGameguru where DPS, specs, and items are tossed about with maximum efficiency in mind, I think "uh oh... we are going to be over our heads trying to group with those folks."

Don't get me wrong, though. There has been nothing like that at all directed our way in game, but as Val and I approach the levels of others, not having the "best build", "best equipment", or in-depth knowledge of instances is a bit foreboding.

Of course, good people are why we joined GWJ Alliance & Blackhand, so I am sure any apprehension is wasted energy and it won't interfere with our desire to continue our progress towards group-ability.

And it should be noted that I really enjoy reading the discussions on good specs, desired items, and instance discussions that pop up now and again (not to mention insights given on-line). I sometimes even understand them

I made it almost to the ship with an f'd up pug with my shammy. I was so on my toes because we had a cast happy and panic happy mage that was of course at the bare minimum level for dead mines.

I take pride in those events despite when we finally wiped, the group disbanded. I was running like a madman when the party would split and move out of line of sight for my heals. It was almost like this was a test to see if I was ready to be a healer in a raiding guild.

You should have seen the fight in the shredder room with the idiots taking on 4-5 of the elite goblins at a time. Not to mention the mage prancing around the mine shafts and aggroing every miner. Oh its a dam good thing shammies get shields because my leather was well worn and hadnt seen an upgrade in 5 levels.

Still I was able to get complete boobs to the engineering room before the ship. Not a bad effort at all.

I'm totally with you guys on that. I'm pretty clueless about a lot of things and continue to learn more and more about how to play better. I can't count the number of times I've felt that I'm the guy making things go wrong in an instance with my fellow GWJ Alliance members. Dungeons and teamplay are intimidating to me. That's partly why I tend to solo a lot, that and that I have such an unpredictable play schedule these days. But every time I've teamed up with the GWJ crew, I've had a lot of fun, and they don't seem to get too mad at my embarassing blunders.

Do I note a hint of jealousy here?

My favorite hunter thing is when they accidentally pull bosses while everyone is buffing. "Sorry I accidentally hit "XXX hunter ability" with the boss targetted". Good times. How are hunters in the expansion? I felt kinda bad for them back when I was doing Naxx. We'd take max like 1-2 of them along and they would always get constant sh*t for being low on the dps meter. I guess that's what they get for their autoshot napping in 5 mans !

So is that what breaking sheep is called?

Now that's funny.

Yup... you're obviously trying to reach Rank 7 loyalty there.

You can't TAME sheep! Honestly.

Well... maybe you should be a warlock instead then. I can't tell you the number of times I've had one of my sheep seduced by a warlock.

My favorite, as a rogue, is when I'm attacking something and a mage sheeps it without warning, and when the sheep breaks a half second later I get yelled at for breaking the sheep.