In the beginning

I've been thinking quite a bit about how to launch the maiden post for this new blog and have decided it best to explain why I've undertaken this effort. For nearly 5 years I've been actively playing WoW, building up an arsenal of toons along the way. I, like many of you, shake my head in disbelief when I type "/played". A small part of my real life dies each time I do that. But nonetheless, I march on, crafting my players, learning the game mechanics, adapting to each new patch/patch of bugs. You could say that my addiction to this game, (which I have to often remind myself that it IS just a game) has led my drive for progression - and strive for perfection.

My WoW-life began as a lonely rogue, leveling up with only the skin off my mob kills. Soon, I had manipulated the rogue into a deadly killing machine and found my niche in PVP. I was determined to understand how to kill each class. I wanted to know their strengths and weaknesses. How do I counter each move? What do I do if they counter mine? Thus, a monster was created. I began a toon of each class, and leveled them up, learning their skill sets and rotations, talents and not to mention professions along the way. I altered specs along the way. My druid went feral, then resto so I understood the mechanics of druid heals. The shammy was no different. Hell, I even enjoyed tanking and it made me a better player because I understood what it takes to build agro and when to use my cool downs.

But it was then that I discovered my true calling - priest healing. With a priest, I could hold the balance of an entire party in the palm of my hand. It felt good to be getting compliments from my group members. "Great heals" they'd say. I'd never heard that before on my rogue. Nobody ever says, "nice job hitting the boss". Perhaps the most gratifying feat is really coming through to save some one's ass. Sure, they screwed up and pulled agro, but they're still alive because of you - and they know it.

Of course all of these would have been extremely difficult without the support of a quality guild. Via real life friends, I've managed to find myself in one of the most supportive, mature, no-nonsense guilds on my server and that's where I flourished. As time past and expansion packs released, the call for experienced healers went out and I decided that it was time for me to see the content my old guild couldn't allow me to see. As any respectable player who has but friendships with their guild would do, I thanked everyone for the experiences I had with them and kindly parted ways for a more experienced raiding guild. It was the top server guild, but that also wasn't what I was looking for. I'll take stability, drama-less, mature, focused, and personable guilds over progression any day.

So I guess that brings us up to today. We focus on 25 man content (10 man is free for us to organize amongst ourselves) and are currently making our way through Ulduar. We've downed 9/14 and are very close to 10 having cleared all content prior to 3.1, including 3D. We work well as a team but like any progression guild we stumble once in a while. The important thing now is that we keep getting back up and that we all keep enjoying the game. In the end, life if too short to continue playing something you don't enjoy. And when that happens, I'm calling wipe.