Moments

I had a moment today playing wow. A good moment.

I've been playing Theera, my death knight. She only recently turned 80, and since that point getting her geared has been a serious headache. I spoiled myself with my resto druid, popping in to a new random after a three minute wait, piling up the emblems. She was getting good drops, too. Theera? Not so much. The dps queue is 15-25 min long, which makes every run that much more important. But I have been plagued with trolls, wipes, and players dropping, and she has literally gotten no epic drops*. Am I ranting? Maybe a little bit. But mostly just giving context.

I have run hot and cold with this character as it is. Levels 60 to about 73, she was just plain boring to play. The way the button mashing was metered through the rune cool-downs was mind numbingly monotonous, especially after the dynamics of playing a warrior. It was only about level 74 that she got diverse enough to really be enjoyable. But she has never been a character I've taken to seriously or felt I had any real commitment to.

That said, I could just be happy I got her to 80, woohoo-another-notch-in-my-belt, and just move on to something else. But I finally like playing her, and I am really seeing the potential in the unholy dps build. Even in her crappy gear, she is doing respectable dps in heroics—about 2k almost completely in blues. I can claim I got a DK to 80, sure, but I can't claim I really played the class until I play her.

But back to my moment. A glum moment. I had picked up the weekly quest which happened to be Noth. And as I shuttled back and forth doing Argent Tournament quests while waiting in the queue, I would pause in Dalaran and ask in trade if anyone was putting a weekly raid together. No answer. If I had been on Tam or Milo, I would have asked in guild chat. That is after all why they are in a large raiding guild. But Theera isn't in that guild, she's the leader of my little guild of friends and alts.

And so I was sitting glumly in Dalaran, advertising on and off, “mdps lfg [Noth the Plaguebringer Must Die!].” And then I get a tell from this guy saying “I'll join.” And I', like “But I'm not...”

And then I have a moment and think “Why not?” And I threw him an invite and started advertising a weekly raid that filled up in less than five minutes. We went and downed Noth with no issues and came back and turned the quest in.

I've had these moments in WoW before. Moments in which my perception of what I am capable of doing in WoW is suddenly altered. Moments where my assumption that “There are players who do this sort of thing, and I am not one of them.” falls away. Like my first time playing a healer, or tanking. This sudden realization of “Oh, I can do this!” When I first got Tamenie to level 80, that was a really big moment like that. I had been playing a long time, but it was the first time I had gotten a character to max level before. It seemed so intimidating, so remote. But then all of a sudden it wasn't.

I'm not claiming these as life-changing moments of personal growth. Maybe if Noth had dropped something besides caster gear, it would have been, but mostly it was just cool. Life isn't always chock full of win, but sometimes it's nice to just not fail. My DK's gear sucks, it's going to be ages before she completes her T9, but dammit, I put together a PUG raid and it didn't suck. Sometimes moments like these are why play, and sometimes they are why we keep playing. That, and the absolute conviction that this time that stupid sword is going to drop. I know it will...

*She did in fact get one epic drop. This happened to be the blue proto-drake from Utgarde Pinnacle. And while completely awesome, does not add a thing to her gearscore. She can't even ride it till I farm enough gold for epic flight. Yes, the glass is half empty, shut up.