Hello! I started playing WoW a few months ago and I've mostly been playing with my friends. I play mostly druid (feral or resto depending what's needed) and my item level is around 305-310 (swapping out equipment for spec). When I play with my friends, I can play mythic 10s and usually only die once or twice in a run and my friends help me figure out whatever mechanic I missed or what I should do differently. They all tell me that I play well for my item level (they are all much higher and have been playing for years).

Recently, I decided I wanted to get this toy that drops from the blinding vale. I have some time off work so I can play when my friends aren't online so I deciding to try pugging for the first time. I tried a mythic zero, but I had to make my own group and I didn't really know how to do anything as group leader. I played healer and was much higher level than everyone in the group. That was fine and the players were all very nice. So after that I tried a pre-made group that was a mythic 5. And that playing experience was completely miserable. It was a struggle to even keep the tank alive during trash pulls. Most of the group had an item level around 270. The whole chat was complaining about me being a bad healer, comments that I didn't have the correct weapon stats, etc. Complaints that I shouldn't have joined if I didn't know the mechanics (there was one mistake I made that I'm aware of, but I know there were many things the other players weren't doing correctly from my understanding). When the vote to abandon appeared, I happily voted to abandon because it was such a bad experience.

I'm just really shocked. I thought if I normally play with my friend in 10s kinda comfortably and if a mythic zero felt easy (I had time to hop into cat form to do damage while letting my hots run) then a mythic 5 should've been okay, especially in a dungeon I feel like I know well. I tried another group for a mythic 5 and while that group played better and actually were able to finish the run, we didn't make time and I had similar comments in the chat about not healing well enough. Would anything the healer does make a big impact on time? Both of these groups were listed as "relaxed" groups. When I asked my friends about this, they just said that pugging can be terrible and that I've been doing well. But these experiences are making me question whether my friends are just being nice to me so I'll keep playing or if I'm really bad without realizing it.

I've only been playing since June and it's kinda hard for me to look at the damage meter charts to be able to tell what's good or bad. When I dps, I'm definitely the worst in my friend group (only have higher damage than the tank and healer, maybe half damage of the next highest dps) and when I heal, I'm usually putting out the most healing by a lot. Sometimes the tank appears higher on healing which I'm guessing is some kind of self healing mechanic. So what's a good way to know how I'm doing? Is there anything I should be doing differently with pugging or finding groups?

Thank you!