I was introduced to the world of raiding in World of Warcraft right at the beginning of TOC. It was so foreign to me, and so different from anything I had done before. Trying to heal the first boss in TOC with my pally was a complete nightmare, because I had no idea what was killing me as I healed. Turns out I was standing in bad stuff. I had not yet discovered recount, and I wondered if anybody ever actually killed bosses, because my experience in Pugs had been nothing but wipes. I was bad...really bad...and I had no clue how to get better.
While in a heroic dungeon, I had a player blast me for being a bad healer. He proceeded to spend the whole dungeon explaining every little thing I was doing wrong (his main was a holy pally), and then said I should do some research before trying to heal another dungeon. I asked him what he meant by research and he told me to go to elitist jerks, a website that would help me get better.
I have always been the curious sort, so I went to elitist jerks and was so confused that I just gave up. I couldn't find any information on pally healing, let alone anything on pallies. After a couple more weeks of TOC wiping and so so dungeon runs, I finally decided to try elitist jerks again. I clicked on every link I could find, and after about 45 minutes of clicking, I finally got to the page on pally healing. (I am really embaressed to admit that now)
I was in love immediately. The post on pally healing answered every question I had about the class. It taught me the best way to go about healing. It taught me how each stat effected my healing, and in rare cases, even explained "how" to heal certain fights. So I took my new knowledge and went into a dungeon. It was ugly at first, but quickly got better. Then I got into a pug raid and we managed to down the first boss in TOC. The next week, (around this time I discovered recount) I got into a guild pug run. They were two heals short, so I jumped in. Not only did we down the first boss, but we got all but Anu'barak down. The raid leader was patient, explained everything, and I found that by doing what he said, bosses got down, and I won two pieces that night. It was one of the coolest feelings I have ever felt.
I realized then I needed to get into a guild, so with a few more weeks of running with that guild when I could, they gave me an invite. About this time, ICC had dropped. I was hooked to ICC raiding instantly. I would pug a 10 man every week, and then raid with the guild for 25's. It was the most fun I had ever had in a game. At one point, my wife joined me, and having her raid with me was even better. That didn't last long, as eventually she got burnt out. With each week, I got better. I started using more addons, and started perfecting my class. My guild got to the Blood Queen before our progression halted. We just couldn't coordinate enough to get her down.
So I started looking for better 10 man pugs, and after a while I found a dedicated pug that happened at the same time every week, and frequently worked on heroic content. The heroic content was really hard for me at first, but I got better with each week, and eventually I realized my current guild was holding me back. I will always be grateful to them, because they took a kid that knew nothing about raiding and helped him develop into a heroic raider, but I wanted to kill the Lich King and knew that would never happen with my current guild.
My bro stumbled upon a new guild forming at the end of ICC. It actually wasn't a new guild, it was an old guild reforming, and they needed good players. Eventually they gave me a trial run and I earned a spot. We quickly worked through all the bosses but LK, and as we worked week by week on LK, we also started doing heroic bosses. My gear got better and better, until finally one week before the cata talent system patch dropped, we downed the LK. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life. What is more, it was only the fourth week of raiding since the guild had reformed.
I lost my job around that time, so I couldn't buy the cata expac right away, and by the time I could, I was way behind in progression for my guild. I quickly played catch up, but they were already deep in the T11 content, getting close to heroics, competing with the top guild on the server. I did catch up evetually, but my first raid in, my computer couldn't hack 25 player raiding anymore, so I sat again.
Eventually I switched to disc, and joined a casual 10 man guild, and raided with them through T11 and early T12. I very quickly became the guild leader as I knew the fights better then anyone in the guild. It was a great time and a frustrating time all at once. The guild had five really good players, and five pretty bad players. I use to strategize how to overcome the weaknesses of the others to down content. My heals were often 40% of the whole group, using 3 healers, but I didn't mind, because it was fun. I remember on Al'Akir sending the five bad players to the top for the last phase, so that when they dropped the cloud, it didnt matter where they did, because it wouldn't affect the five good players on the bottom. They all died quick, but we managed to five man the last phase doing it right. It was a horrible strategy but for our guild, it worked.
Eventually the hunger for progression got too much of me though. My old heroic guild, which had become the number one guild on the server had a huge fight blowout, just about a month after absorbing the best horde guild on the server. (they convinced the whole guild to faction change) So they were no longer an option. I joined a different guild, and switched to my druid.
It was a great time for raiding, we finished all the regular firelands content and got 4/7 on heroic. Druids were OP back then so I was the number one healer on every fight. Even when Dragon Soul dropped and druids got nerfed, I still found myself number one on most fights. We downed Heroic madness in content, the first time I ever killed a heroic end boss in tier. Ironically, I was more excited about the LK kill on reg.
I had to take a month off at the start of MOP because my wife had a baby, but while I was off, I was leveling my monk. When I finally got back in, it didn't take me long to re-earn my raid spot, and within a couple weeks, I was topping the charts again, despite having worse gear then many of the other healers. Which leads me to now, when in a one week span, they took my class from being overpowered to broken. That quickly...one week.
Raiding has been a part of my life for so long, and I love it. It helps me get through the week as on raid days, I just keep telling myself, just get through today, and then you can raid. It is my stress reliever (for anyone who has raided heroics, I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but its true), and it is my break from reality. For two nights a week, I can be an epic hero killing mighty Dargons (Guild inside joke) instead of a regular guy struggling to get by. Raiding is my calm in the middle of the storm.
And I can't feel good raiding if I know I am holding th guild back. I never have any in game gold, because if I have gold and there is a piece that will improve my performance, I buy it, because I don't want to ever feel like the guild is carrying me. I haven't felt like I have been carried in a raid since those early days in TOC. Atleast, not until last night. Last night I felt like my spot on the guild team wasn't justified. I am seriously considering finishing leveling my pally, because monks are just in that bad a spot now. Sure, I can put up decent numbers, but I can't sustain it, and in the burst aoe phases, I am worthless, because all my aoe heals will burn my mana out before the phase is over, leaving me with no mana for the rest of the fight.
I really hope Blizzard hotfixes their change back. Make it 15%, or even revert back to the original 5.1 changes, I don't care. What I do care about is raiding. It is very important in my life, and having my value in raiding reduced to nothing in the space of a week is extremely frustrating and not good game balancing. You wanna nerf my output, go for it. You want to make my mana a little more expensive, go for it. But when I have 11k+ spirit, and the rest reforged to crit, it is insanely stupid that I can't heal for half a fight for fear of not having the mana to heal at the execute phase.
I know Mistweavers were too OP, but you fixed it in patch 5.1. The hotfix was not needed and was detrimental to the class, and not a good change. And the worst part...no explanation why. A phnatom one line nerf in the hotfix update that broke a class, and nobody even has the guts to try to defend the change to the player base. I have dealt with many nerfs over the years, but this is the worst I have ever seen and leaves me very frustrated as I worry I might lose something very important to me as a result...raiding.
(This history of my raiding is a brief synopsis. It doesn't include my time as a kitty druid, a ret paladin, or an elemental shaman, but for purposes of not going too long, I oversimplified some of my explanation)
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