Monday 11 August 2008

Top 10 WoW Memories - 5 to 1

5. Fury in Feralas - I started levelling Shank, my warrior, using a 1 hander and shield. I realised it was painfully slow going so tried a 2-hander for a while, but decided that the extra damage taken wasn't worth the trade off and went back to sword and board. This was before I discovered bandaging between fights rather than eating! Then at level 44 I finally switched to a dual wielding Fury build, and loved it. The endless rage generation, Bloodthirst, the various procs and the constant stream of damage numbers was just a world away from waiting for a slow 2-hander to swing.

4. Proving the rogue wrong - back when the end boss of Sunken Temple was a level 55 elite, Shank answered a "LF tank, last spot" call while "only" level 51. A few of the group weren't sure about the idea, most notably the rather vocal rogue, but decided to give it a try. The run was very smooth, earning praise for my tanking from the healer priest. But most personally rewarding, given that I had a levelling dual wield Fury build at the time, was the whisper from the rogue at the end asking "Are you prot?".

3. The Leeroy video - when WoW was first announced I avoided playing it, as I had a good idea of how much time it would take up if I didn't resist. When the Leeroy video came out I crumbled - although the nerdy comedy side of it was pretty unappealing, the look of Blackrock Spire made the game seem just a great realisation of what I saw in my minds eye in my pen and paper roleplaying days. Chalk up one for viral marketing.

2. Venturing out into the world - I still vividly remember crossing the bridge from Durotar to the Barrens for the first time. There was a real sense of stepping into the unknown, and knowing that a lot of stuff out there was seriously threatening to my virtual self. Also first stepping into Ashenvale, into the shadows and the undergrowth, expecting to be ambushed by Night Elves at any moment. Back then I didn't realise that, on a PvE server, you're actually quite safe from the "opposition" nearly all of the time. Walking into Thousand Needles was also pretty amazing, but from there on the sense of wonder in each new zone slowly diminished, as you get blase eventually.

1. Guild first kill of Hakkar - Zul'Gurub was my guild's first real raiding, as we just weren't big enough to do the 40 man raids such as Molten Core. It was also my first experience of the raid experience of wiping then overcoming. Although some of the ZG bosses were pretty painful we actually clicked on Hakkar on our first night of trying him, when we thought we were just practising for the next raid when we'd try properly to down him. The great thing about the Hakkar fight is that when you "get it" there's a great rhythm to it, the coordination of 20 people culminating in the kill was a great moment.

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