So I wasn't sure if I wanted to raid this expansion
but I did as much as I could to be raid ready. My guild raid three times a week
which is way more then I wants and anyway there at least once a week that I
can't make it, so raiding wasn't even an issue. My guildmates are making good
progress, doing mythic dungeon, including Court of stars and Arcwell right off
the bat, clearing normal on first week and now are 5/7 heroics, so I'm happy
for them. I remember when I was a fresh level 110 and they were already doing
world quest and I was like:
"WQ? What is that?"
"Oh it rewards phat lewt."
"Bah I don't have time for that, I'm way too busy
leveling profession and getting rich. Oh, is this BoE BiS? Because it's like 80k
on the AH."
My guildmates were like "Should you not keep it
for yourself?"
"Hell no, it's like 2 free month of wow!"
So anyway, I was one ilvl short of gear objective of
840 when the raid came out. I haven’t leveled a profession to max level yet
since I had the good idea of dropping every gathering profession, so I had to
begin anew (I was sure they were getting rid of the limits on gathering
profession after WoD). I didn't level Inscription much since I was selling
herbs at ludicrous price. Now most prices have dropped but things like gems, necklace
enchants and the Sky Golem still have outrageous prices and I didn't had time
to benefit from it since I have not leveled any alt yet. Next one in the list
is my warrior who is enchanter and skinner then my paladin who is miner and
blacksmith. So I just did they're artefacts and some entry level profession
quest.
Since then I've done a lot of world quest (which kept
me busy, got good rewards and are actually fun), I've done tons of questing in
Suramar which is my favorite zone so far. At the beginning I had a hard
time in that zone but now I'm fairly comfortable pretending I'm a nightborne,
grappling and navigating around except for one elite part of the city which
still is challenging. I have leveled and geared my followers (epic 830 which is
a little low now that I have 850 mission), I got artefacts for all my druid
specs and I managed to progress to the end of the Falanaar tunnel with my
withered army, so I'm almost through solo content which leads me to group
content and that's back to the subject of my post.
This expansion I feel like it's an expansion of love
and I'll tell you why. First hint of that is the join scenario in Assault of
the broken shore, two full raid, one horde and one alliance progressing
together to rescue Tirion and his Argent dawn, boy he must have smiled when he
saw us fighting together. Blizzard tried to convince Alliance that Horde
betrayed them during that scenario but come on nobody bought that, Sylvanas
blew her horn so the alliance had plenty of time to retreat and they would even
had the time to rescue Wrynn since Fel Reaver 2.0 was one shot by the king. But
hey, Greymane and Sylvannas they have a history so let them bicker but me I'm
seeing the big picture. I fought both with horde and alliance during the
invasions and they are all my bros (except forsaken, even my tauren had cold
sweat when he visited Undercity).
I've been playing WoW just before wrath came out so
I'm used to competing for nodes and tagging as much mob as I can to complete
quest. But this time even if I would want to be a jerk I wouldn't be able to.
Mobs are shared within faction, rares, nodes and quest objectives are open to
all. So I surprised myself stunning a mob attacking a horde player or helping
another kill his mob instead of stealing his node. Hey why not, we are all
bros, no? Playing in the world, I didn't see a single jerk, I thought to
myself: "They must be all doing group contents or harassing low level on
PvP server".
I eventually had to do some dungeons, I did normal
when I could and heroics from time to time but everything went smoothly so I
was thinking, it's too easy, that's why there is no drama. Then the Raid Finder
came. People where talking shit, making lewd comments about Il-gynoth and such
but except the random comment like "Oh half the raid is gonna die to this
mechanic" (which in fact happened) or "Why DPS sucks so bad and why
are they purposely standing in the fire" I didn't heard much negative
stuff. One time we did Dragons of nightmare but some people where complaining
that one of the tank was dumb and didn't understand the mechanics so they
started a vote to kick that tank (even though we one shot the boss). I admit I
voted yes but only so we could get over with it but anyway the vote didn't
passed. People were like "Who cares, its raid finder, stop
complaining". So I pinched myself and thought to myself I've witnessed a
once in a lifetime anomaly.
And then this weekend I did my first mythic. I have
two dungeons mythic only that I unlocked this week in Suramar and there is
Karazan that is coming in the next patch that I absolutely wanna try so I
wanted to get my feet wet. I had a mythic dungeon quest in Hall of valor
so I read the adventure guide and queued for an heroic as quick practice (which
took only 10 min as dps). It was tougher than I expected, I died at least once
on thrash but no wipe and it was a painless run. Plus I realized it was the
only dungeon I haven’t done in heroic because I got the Legion dungeon hero
achievement. So I read the strategy thoroughly on wowhead, trying to find out which
mechanic was different on mythic and how I could do better and I queued on
group finder.
It took some time but I got accepted in a group and we
managed to grab an healer and a tank while I was doing world quest waiting.
When we got a group I realized I had to get to the portal, fortunately I was in
Stormheim questing and our group leader was a warlock. We started and... wiped
on thrash. Our healer apologized and our warrior tank said not to worry. We
slowly progressed to the second boss, during that time I was on the low end of
DPS and again I died on thrash. I was starting to worry and already I was like:
"Oh well at least I tried, I'll try to hang around as much as I can before
they kick me". We wiped a couple of time on second boss then the healer
quit and said to get a better healer. Next healer we had was solid and we
managed to get to the last boss. It went much smoother, I wasn't on the verge
of dying every second so I had more time to concentrate on my DPS and I realized
I didn't switch my trinket that's why I wasn't proccing (I had my agility
trinkets). So I was climbing back to the top of the dps chart but we wiped on
Odin like five time and the healer was showing signs of impatience, I think his
friends were waiting for him, then he quit without a word. It took a couple of
minutes, some healer declined and I thought it was game over. Meanwhile the
tank and his DK bro were fooling around with toys and pretending to fight. Then
a healer came and we managed to down the last boss. All that took two hours, I
got no loot but I had fun and I learned a lot, not just about how to prepare (I
had no flask, no food buff and the wrong trinket) or how to avoid certain
mechanics but how people are nicer then what I was expecting from experience.
While I never doubted that we could triumph against
the legion no matter what, I now think that if we all stand together, Horde and
Alliance, and that if player continue to be nice, patient and helpful to each
others, nothing would be able to stand against us, no legion, no old gods, no
titans what's not or elementals horrors from outer space. Oh I hear you and I
know what you are saying: there will be content drought, people will quit, wow
will die, winter is coming and here will be sucks on top of sucks for everyone.
But until then, dear reader, enjoy our legion of love!
