Begining to raid.....again. (Release - Pre-TBC)

October 2005:
I had been playing the game for about 9 months pretty solid. The server I was on was just starting to venture into the raiding game. I played a Night Elf Rogue. Although the GM and other officers had respect for me as a player, they wanted every player to have an equal chance at raiding, so we had a rotation schedule set up. I was not displeased with this, and pretty much went with the flow. We were able to get Lucifron down, but had trouble with Magmadar. This was before anyone really know what the crap we were supposed to be doing, so progress was slow.

At a nephews birthday party my dad is telling me about his guild (on a different server) and how they are doing. Saying that they could always get groups together for UBRS (LOL) and the like. I had a close RL friend that played the game with me, but had other things going on and could not play as much anymore. I decided to reroll on my dad's server to play with him.

After asking him what class they need most, I roll a Dwarf Priest to suppliment the guild. My Priest was level 60 in 50 RL days and under 12 days /played. I had gotten attuned to MC at level 55 (the lowest level you can get attuned) and was asked to come into MC at level 56 - they only had 35 raiders. (Maybe another story on that later...). By level 59 I was attuned to Onyxia. Don't quite remember if BWL was released yet, but I don't think it was. Basically, got attuned for every instance possible in the game before I hit level 60, and well before my guild was ready to do most of them. When I first entered MC as a Priest I don't think the guild had down Magmadar. Maybe once, but definetly not to the point where they could do it reliably every week. At level 56 I am the only Dwarf Priest in the raid. So, by default, I am assigned to help heal the MT, along with constantly keeping Fear Ward up. Frist try - Magmadar down. Come to think of it, I don't think I have ever died by the paws of Magmadar. 1 shot everytime.

We progress to Gehenes (sp?) I think we even got him down the next day. Next week rolls around, I am level 58. Asked to come to MC again, since they only had about 36. I am hesitant to accept this time. I feel like I really should be leveling to 60 to be a more powerful healer, I really could have been level 60 by the weekend. After talking to my dad, I accept the invitation. This time we make it all the way to Garr, and actually beat the snot out of him. Garr down, first guild attempt ever!!!
This was back in the days of out of combat rezing. As the only sub-60 in the raid, I am asked to do this job. I was asked to do this often in my first 3 or 4 weeks of raiding. Being sub-60 was a natural choice for an OOC rezzer. I did not like the job, but I did it well. After killing Garr we actually went down the hallway after Garr and made attempts at Gedon or Shazz....forget the order of bosses in MC... GM says, "Everyone make sure to get your FR gear on". FR gear??? WTF is that? I look at my character sheet to see what my FR is sitting at. 15....MotW gives you 15 FR....awesome. I was able to see at least the first 5 raid bosses in the game without even hitting level 60. Over 3 times the raid content I had seen on my Rogue that had been level 60 for nearly 6 months.

Fast forward to the first of the year. My family lives close by, so I do not have to travel much for the holidays. I spend the extra days off gearing up for the job of a raid healer. By the time the 2nd week of January rolls around, I have about 4 pieces of my Devout set, many MP5 pieces from the various 5 man instances, and about 110 FR. I feel I am at least up to par with the rest of the healers in the guild in terms of gear. Many of the guild members are using the Damage Meters addon for calculating damage output. Our GM liked to look at other categories as well. "Healing Done", and "Damge Taken" to name a couple. At the end of the first raid of 2006, he links the "Healing Done" meters. I had the top spot by about 10% more than #2. He exclaims, "OMFG hax". I laugh about it and was proud of myself. Not so much to top the list, but more to show to the guild, and myself that I could be a formidible raid healer. In the coming weeks I am semi-promoted through the healing ranks. My GM thought that Group 1 was were all your best players should be. Group 2 was your next 5 best players, and so on. I made my way from Group 8 to Group 3. The Priests in Groups 1 and 2 were in the guild from the beginning and outgeared me. Group 1's Priest was actually the GM's wife. I figured that I would not be assigned to the 2 MTs for basically political reasons, and happily accept my poisition in the healing rotation. We go all the way through MC, adding Onyxia to our list of loot pinatas and begin to enter BWL.

March 2006:
Things are going fine and dandy until the guild breaks up before downing Vael in BWL due to many of the core officers leaving. I was not an officer so I was not privvy to the conversations that lead to this. My dad was though. His short version is that many people were whining that they were not getting the loot they wanted in a supposed unfair loot system. This was - IMO - an outstanding loot system.

I joined another guild that was just beginning to start on MC. The second guild went all the way though MC and started on BWL. Vael again was a pain in the ass. The officers of this second guild were not managing their members very well (IMO) and many people started to fall off. Around this time my original GM was trying to make another guild and give raiding another try. So I left Guild #2 for Guild #3. This guild made it all the way to Nefarion and started on Naxx and AQ40 right before TBC was released.

After everything is said and done, I had maxxed out reputation with Hydraxian Waterlords (999/1000). There is no rep for BWL so you'll have to believe me when I say I was there a lot. My AQ20 rep had was up to revered, maybe exalted. We had nearly gotten to Unfriendly with AQ40.

Then....TBC came out.