Memoirs of a Healer – My Introduction to WoW

Why in the world would I be writing a blog? What experience do I have?

Well these questions came up recently (in my own mind). I thought maybe I should start doing a brief history of myself and my time in WoW. No, it's not a fascinating story, but it's been an awesome journey, and one that I want to keep somewhere.

Excuse my ramblings and vague memories - but the beginning of WoW was such a hazy time for me. I mean really. Do you remember what it was like to be level 1 for the first time? To watch a character introduction video and feel the oncoming awesomeness of your first character? Level 20? To get your first mount? Do your first instance?



My brother has always been fascinated by playing games, and I loved watching him. I never considered that I could play them as well. There we are, hanging out in his new apartment, when my brother sits me down in front of a computer. He points the screen at some big thing and says:


Sister. Sit here. Push these buttons as fast as you can. If it dies, yell for me. I’ll be right back.


My thoughts:


Why in the world would anyone play a game that they can’t get up and walk away from??


But it was cool. He was talking to from all over the place, from a few blocks to a few states away, playing a game together on a computer. Yes, I’d seen him play EQ before, but this game looked like so much more fun.


It wasn’t until about 3 years later I finally realize that the character he sat me on was his Level 60 gnome mage. The same little mage, in fact, that is my level 80 bank alt. She has changed quite a bit, but it’s still the 2 button character I remember from years ago.


My real introduction to online gaming was my college roommate. He played WoW, EQ, all the big ones, the World of Warcraft was a college roommate. He played a lot of games, but I wasn’t willing to spend the money until I knew I liked online gaming. My roomie and I discovered a small-time free MMO called Last Chaos. It was SO BORING! All grinding, no quests, no plot, no point. It was almost impossible to level, everyone had the same gear, and the only event/instance type of thing was a weekly guild pvp contest, which was of course dominated by the same guild each week.


My roommate let me play around with the character creation on his account, but he told me I was “Never ever ever allowed to roll a dirty alliance on his account. It was horde or nothing.” Well that was easy enough -- the horde had cuter classes.


Ok, Horde it was. I started playing around with different races and classes, and fell in love with a dark-haired elfish character I created. Of all the classes available to me, the priest was hands down my favorite. They were ranged (I hated close-quarters combat) and healers. I’m a self-proclaimed ‘softy’ and therefore, have always been A Healer at Heart.


I finally caved. My brother had me house sit for him one summer, and let me use his WoW account in return. About an hour into playing I discovered a sad truth.

 I hated playing my priest. I couldn't live. She died to EVERYTHING! 



I did what any nwb would do. I called my brother and QQed, about my dumb character with her dumb spells and her dumb inability to live.
He did what any self respecting good big brother would do -- he immediately shot down my dreams of priestly awesomeness.


Sister. Don’t play a clothie. You will never learn the game, you will hate it and you’ll never make it to end game content. If you want to heal, roll a paladin. If you want to dps roll a mage or a warlock. Learn the game. Then go back and play your priest. Trust me.



Well, he Had been playing the game longer. Bye-bye priest, I learned what the delete button was. Out rolled my first character, Cimmorene, a dark-haired Blood Elf Paladin.


Within a week I was a proud member of my first guild, Blood Fury. I understood why my brother played so much.


Within a month I was an officer of my guild.


Two months later, I logged in and my guild had been disbanded in the middle of the night. NO! I was so close. SO CLOSE to Kara! We had a raid leader, 6 full bank tabs…we were raiding in a week. Everyone was in place….and the guild was gone???


I grabbed a guild charter, found as many people as I could and reformed Blood Fury. For the next two weeks I asked everyone around me to take the GM position. They refused.




There I was, a nwb on my 2nd choice character, 2 months into the game, and I had no idea what I was doing. No tanks, only one or two other healers, and no prospect of this awesome thing called ‘raiding’ with no experienced ‘raiders’ in our guild.


We eventually formed a core, began to raid. Our fledgling attempts at Kara weren’t terrible, my roommate had enough 70s he was able to guide us along.

I wish I had a screenshot of my and my friend’s gear sets. We must have been so bad. Mostly dungeon sets, only gemmed with what we could find from heroics (yes guys, they used to drop gems). Our gear probably wasn’t even enchanted. In our minds, we were 'raiders'.

Our raids took HOURS. We were disorganized, we often didn't get the same people on for a 2nd night. Despite the insanity, we learned a lot, and we all had fun. After all, wasn’t that the point? Wasn’t that was WoW was all about?



The feeling when we first down'ed Prince was pure elation and joy. The demolition of our first raid had us hungry for more. We cleaned up our groups and schedules as I eased into the position of raid leader (with my roommate feeding me everything). Kara entertained us for the last month or two of The Burning Crusade and I leveled my priest Namika on the side, preparing for an 'expansion', whatever that was.


Ah yes. BC. The expansion of 'firsts'. The expansion of social guilds, of not knowing what raiding guilds were really like, not caring about stats, of picking gear purely because it looked cool and went together. Of shooting sparks and hoping I was doing something right.

The expansion of innocence and joy in this crazy game called 'WoW'.

My Favorites - Paladin

I recently helped write a resource guide for my guild on holy palis. Basically, it's a list of my favorite links for holy paladins, from coaching forums and blogs to anecdotal material, I didn't want to lose this list.

My post:




Toxictears' so-dubbed "Resident Holy Pali Expert" (who plays a priest??) is here to pass on some of my most favored resources:

Playing/gearing/gemming/all those questions
http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t84922-holy_paladin_compendium_3_3_a/
Hands down, if you read the forums you will know most of what you need to know about holy palis.

http://www.theholypaladin.com/frontpage.php
From addon setups to gear, this is a fantastic resource. They have hosted a 'how to be holy' piece lately to avoid downtime while tapping our toes for cata.


Coaching your Pali:
Both of the above resources are awesome for coaching. In addition, I recommend
The Light and how to Swing It:
http://www.wow.com/category/the-light-and-how-to-swing-it/
article by article my favorite for on-the-boss coaching, tips and tidbits. During downtimes between boss releases he uses the time to guide you in other classes, addons, gear selection and how to be better in your game.



Extras:
http://paladinillumination.wordpress.com/ - Illumination used to be a kickass site. I haven't been keeping up with it lately, but check it out!  He has some great breakdowns on math and a very funny wya of looking at things.


'Filler' blogs for downtime:
http://ferarro.blogspot.com/ - dubbed Paladin Schmaladin
http://bossypally.wordpress.com/ - Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon - more anecdotal than informational, but some good giggles and occasionally a good teaching point.