My Moment
Vonya over at Egotistical Priest wrote a short post about a pivotal moment for her in the World of Warcraft, a moment when the game changed for her and she started taking it more seriously. And she asks her readers whether they have had any moments like this.
For Vonya, this moment was early on in the game, she mentions Mr Smite, formidable foe of the Dead Mines, and that she and her friends wanted to run instances.
For me, the moment didn’t come until later. Much later.
Although I started playing in early 2006, the pivotal moment for me didn’t occur until the early summer of 2007, about a year and half into the game when I had at least 2 level-capped characters.
My moment was when I went to Karazhan for the first time.
Sure, I had run instances many times, and seen the inside of most of the 5-man dungeons in the game at least once or twice, and even done some pug raiding in MC and Zul Gurub with my rogue Tessye shortly before the Burning Crusade was released, but those were more of the interesting study trip variety and not really dependent on my dps for its outcome.
And I had never really bothered with gear or enchants or anything like that. I was happy under my WoW cork tree where I could smell the flowers and level one alt after the other. Gear was something you got from doing quests or the odd lucky loot out in the wild. It helped you get along but was not really that crucial to having fun while playing.
It seems like such a long time ago…
Anyways, when my guild started talking about doing Karazhan in a joint venture with another guild I was not very interested at first, but as one of the more regular players my guild master convinced me it would be fun to join with my bear tank Joaquime.
Although I was pretty clueless I was not so clueless that I didn’t realise this raiding business would probably call for some more serious approach to the whole gear issue, so I started doing some research. Sites like Allakhazam that I had hitherto mosty used when trying to find the whereabouts of an elusive questmob or similar things was now put to use in determining what I should be wearing.
I found that the Heavy Clefthoof set, with a chest and legs and boots, was the best tank set available for a bear druid, so my leatherworker Tessye hunted clefthoofs in Nagrand til they were almost extinct making that set. I gemmed it with nice defense/crit/stamina gems and I even put some stamina patches on it!
I scoured the AH for a cool tanking weapon, and I put a nice green-glowing enchant on it.
During this researching and gearing-up I realised I really liked reading about what stats to go for and tank spell rotations and when to use what ability and how to make the most of the tricks I had up my bear’s sleeve.
Suddenly I learned why Agility was good (armor, crit, dodge!) and I learned how to do multi-mob pulls and I learned how to quickly pivot the camera so I could take a look behind me to see what was going on there.
A whole new dimension of the game opened up for me, the theorycrafting.
And I loved it.
My tanking went from the odd run now and then to doing runs almost daily (and this was in the time when a Shadow Labyrinth run took about 4 hours and the times you actually got through the Black Morass with the shield intact was easily counted).
And after about two weeks or so it was time for The Real Thing. Karazhan.
Despite all my new gear and newfound knowledge on the druid class and bear tanking, I was nervous.
It was me and my GM and a few more from our guild and five from the other guild. The warrior from the other guild named himself Main Tank, but somehow all the tricky tanking ended up on my plate.
Pick up Attumen when he spawns!
Stay on top of the aggro list on Moroes while you keep the Ference dude on you as well!
Was a good thing they didn’t know how sucky a tank I had been just a few weeks earlier, but I think I fooled them all into thinking I had done nothing but tank since the day I started playing WoW ;P
It took us four hours to get Attumen and Moroes down, but we did it! I did it! In these early days of Karazhan raiding everyone needed to be sharp and alert and pull their own weight, and I had pulled mine!
And then I was truly hooked. This was the most thrilling and exciting and enjoyable adrenaline-rush I had ever had while playing WoW and there really was no turning back for me.
I kept on reading about tricks and tips and things about druid tanking, and I started poking my nose into roguery, and warlocky things, and as my priest grew bigger I immersed myself in the priestly theories as well. The fun I had doing all this seriously rivalled the fun I had actually playing.
Eventually I found some sort of equilibrium, where I spent about as much time playing as I did theorizing and trying to find what gear was best for what girl.
But the game was for ever different for me after that first Kara raid of mine.
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