An Introduction to the Priesthood

Hey look I made another one of these bloggy things!  I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up.  I totally did!!

So in my last blog post I briefly talked about my background and what I hoped to accomplish with this new blog.  I realize I never talked about my in game persona and my first max level character.  So I would like to introduce him to you.

This is Exlucis.  Roughly translated, it means “of the light” in Latin.  I should really just take a screenshot but I am really bad at those.  Plus this way, you can all laugh at my gears and whatnot.  The gear he has mogged was his first raiding gear, his first blues. This was my first raiding toon, my first max profession alchemist, my first PvP success… Really, he is my first WoW love.  He is my fallback, probably because he can heal AND dps like a boss!

Exlucis was born at the start of Burning Crusade, when I started the game on a whim.  Quick backstory on that: so I was engaged at the time to my wife, and her best friend had played since Vanilla.  Her friend wanted her to play as a way of them to stay in touch.  Well I thought I would give it a try and I was hooked.  Even MORE backstory: when I was five my dad bought me a Nintendo, and I beat almost every game I played from six onwards.  Original Mario, OWNED!  Mario 2, EASY!  Mario 3, one of the best games every made.  Yes I beat that game too.  But no game I had every played ever matched the world of Azeroth.  Quite simply, it is one of the best game worlds in existence.  I had played the original RTS games in high school, so it was nice to see what had happened to the world since then.

Anyways, Exlucis was originally born out of my inability to decide what kind of character I wanted to level.  I had originally rolled a Draenei Paladin named Gentral on Zangarmarsh, where he resides today.  Back then leveling was slow; this was before they had done the original nerf to leveling experience.  Hell, this was before they nerfed ANYTHING! Gentral was on his way to level cap, but because he was a paladin it went slowly.  This was also when I had no idea what WoWhead was, or what the forums were, or what ANYTHING was, so I was putting talent points in ridiculous places (this was something you could do back then).  Why Paladin, I don’t remember, but I do remember one time when I wanted to “tank” Scarlet Monastery Cathedral.  I was politely told to stand in the back and heal, which I did poorly at.  I felt unequipped to perform the role of healer, which I was new to as well.  I thought “if I’m going to be asked to heal, I’m going to roll the perennial healing class…”

Thus the birth of… Healdude.  Remember, this was before paid name change as well.  But I was a healer, I was a dude (not really), and I wanted to be labeled as such, so off the Draenei Priest went.  Of course, I was told to level as shadow, so when I wanted to “heal” I had to re-spec (before dual specs) and waste all my money.  Eventually, I did make enough to buy epic ground riding.  Eventually, I made it to 70 (it took me six months of off and on play).  Eventually, I bought normal flying (and spent the dough on a name change) and I eventually geared up to raid.

But I was asked to DPS, as we had a priest healer already.  So I learned to DPS.  I learned what add-ons were.  I learned to not stand in the fire.  I learned all the normal tricks you learn when you raid.  I also learned that Shadow was a valuable asset to have for healers, as I provided a lot of regen (this was back when Shadow was the mana battery.)  My AH HA moment occurred at the end of my first Kara raid.  I was so excited to finally go to one of these raid things.  I pulled my weight, I thought, and while I was second to last on the meters, I had provided the healers enough mana to help down bosses.  The healers were happy to have a shadow priest in the mix, and I was thanked in a tell by a paladin healer.  I was hooked.

That guild went through many transitions during BC, as we couldn’t down Magtheridon.  We failed at cubes.  This failure caused a lot of turnover, and we were forever a Kara guild.  However, this transitioned well into Wrath.  10 mans! I thought it was excellent, except we ended up having a lot of transitions again.  We also ended up having a large amount of raiding priests.  This led me to level a shaman, which was fun but not AS much fun as the priest.  My desire to play the game dwindled as time went on, and coupled with my varying work schedule, I decided to take a break.  I came back about halfway through TOC , and did some 10s on my shaman.  I participated in some Lich King raids, but never made it past loot ship.  Sad, I know, but I just couldn’t commit to raiding full time like I wanted to.

Since WoW is a game primarily built on raiding, or at least has been, staying with it has been tough.  I was gang ho for Cata, but faded fast after 6 weeks at max level.  Most of the guild was fed up with WoW, and wanted to try RIFT.  Heroics were too hard to heal.  Heroics were hard period.  I’m not complaining, as heroics were hard in BC.  But in BC you took a hard CC.  There was no group finder.  There was no 4-tank model.  There was down-ranking and chain-potting.  The Cata model was fine, but not for me.  So I did what many people seemed to do; I quit WoW.

At first it was fine, but I had made so many friends during that time, that I had no one to talk to except my wife.  Since the start of Wrath, she has been wrapped up with intensive schooling while she works on becoming a grade-school teacher.  She doesn’t share the same passion I do for video games, but she does enjoy WoW.  We used to play together, but she had quit around the same time I did.  The point is, I walked away from my only effective outlet for socializing.

That’s right around the time I started having the problems I talked about in my last blog post.  That also wraps up the backstory of Exlucis, the shadow priest turned disc priest turned holy priest turned shadow priest.  That also brings me to Exlucis’ current incarnation as a troll.

So in October, Blizzard introduced the Annual Pass.  I asked my wife what she thought about it.  She seemed reluctant to let me go back, as money is tight for many folks these days (including us.)  I told her about all the perks that came with it, and she warmed up to the idea.  So in November I went back to Zangarmarsh and logged into Exlucis since before the start of Firelands.

Only all I found was an empty guild and a server full of strangers.  Reality slowly sunk in- I would have to start over.  I was distraught at first, but I made several posts on the forums about finding a new family, and I found my current home – Ride the Lightning on Malfurion… Horde?  So yes, I made the switch from a Draenei to a Troll, from Zang to Malf, from Alliance to Horde, from old to new.  And everything was great…

But things weren’t as easy as I hoped.  There has been some transition (what a surprise) since I joined.  The original guild leader (whom I had never met) had left, and the person who interviewed me is now Guild Leader.  The class lead still plays, as do many people; it is a fairly large guild.  However, there are some people who were active that are kind of taking a break.  As a result, guild chat is fairly quiet, and most people only show up for raids now.  It’s not surprising given the end-of-expansion doldrums that hit every guild, every server, and every time the expansion comes to a conclusion.  It’s just hard on me, as my one social outlet is now gone.  It’s hard enough for me to make friends; this just makes it even harder.

So imagine my joy when LFR was announced, along with Real ID raiding and Battletags.  Except I’m still shy and I haven’t signed up for any of the new social groups that I talked about in my last blog post.  I’m still hoping to hop onto Twitter Mumble.  I’m still looking to sign up for a raid on the LFRaid or Twitterland sites.  I guess I’m just battling a couple different things in my head right now.

One of them is my anxiety.  My doctor told me that I would have to make conscious changes, and while I’m working on it, it isn’t as easy as hopping on Mumble and saying “hey guys I’m JayVick82 aka Exlucis lets be friends k?”  I know that relationships take work, but I am so fearful of rejection that I would almost rather be a hermit.  To me, this isn’t acceptable.  I need to be more vocal.  I need more friends.

Another issue I’m having is my inability to share.  My wife likes to make lowbie characters, and even though she could re-activate her account, she isn’t eager to get seriously into the game again.  I don’t mind that she tinkers around on lower level toons when I’m not playing, but it’s hard to do that when I want to play and she wants to also play.  I'm hoping the tinkering will re-kindle her desire to play WoW so we can play together again.  I’m still trying to figure that one out.  I have League of Legends to play when she wants to WoW, but I miss my priest.  I miss achievement hunting.  I miss my Annual Pass charger.

So I’m asking my readers, my twitter tweeters and RE-tweeters; I need your help finding friends.  I need motivation to gear up to do LFR with the twitter mumble peeps.  I need to find the motivation to get those Fel drakes.  I need someone to talk to.  I need to try to be social again so I don’t revert to super-introvert anxiety man.  If you would be so kind, please drop me a line and maybe some suggestions.  I know I’m not alone, as was pointed out to me so kindly this morning by a blogger with similar issues.  Together we can start to form the bonds and take them well into Pandaria.

Speaking of…

I saw the updated talent calculators that came out yesterday.  I was surprised there were no real changes to the priest trees, but I did see the blue post saying that they were doing a lot of work on it at the time.  That has me excited to be honest.  I am eager to try Divine Star; it reminds me of a League of Legends skillshot type ability.  Here’s hoping that the future has many priestly things for us to ponder.

Next time I’ll talk a bit about my League play, and hopefully I can tell you about my first LFR experience.  Only time will tell.  Until next time, may your days be full of fortitude… get it?  Priest, Fortitude… eh you get it I’m sure.