One Year of WoW

My main character, Arinae (shown here with her trusty tiger, Sylven), is one level away from 80. She's my first character to get this far in my one year (give or take a few months) of playing World of Warcraft.

It's been a year and five days since I first created my World of Warcraft account. I was inactive for a few of those twelve months because I was in my senior year of college then and thesis got in the way, but still; one year of World of Warcraft.

I think this calls for a recap.

Starting out

Shiro (my boyfriend and MMO partner-in-crime) and I decided to try out WoW using trial accounts. After having some fun with a Night Elf Hunter and Druid on the Echo Isles server, we decided to pay for the game and start playing for real.

I eventually decided to create a Forsaken Rogue. I never really select melee classes from the get-go in online games (I always go for ranged attackers - or in rare cases, magic users - when I start playing an MMO), but I wanted try something different. Shiro, who usually goes for melee DPS classes, rolled a Forsaken Warlock. I guess we just wanted to see how we'd work if we switched roles in our usual MMO partnership.

BRB

I went on a bit of a hiatus because of school, and because I realized that Rogues and I just didn't get along. My computer had to be taken to a shop for repairs too, so I was inactive for a few months.

Return to Azeroth

I eventually went back to playing WoW (and I blogged about it too), and Shiro and I upgraded to Burning Crusade. We finally gave in to our preference for pretty characters by rolling Blood Elves. After seeing how the aforementioned role-switch (him as magic user, me as melee attacker) was an epic failure (I remember a Forsaken Priest getting very annoyed with how no0b-y we were in a dungeon run), we decided to go for our usual combination: me as a ranged attacker (Hunter), and him as a melee DPS character (Retadin).

Switching servers

After wrestling with my misgivings about moving to a PvP server (note: I'm not particularly fond of PvP), we eventually switched over to the Executus server, where one of our friends had an active guild and everything else that would give us a good jump start.

(To Skullpion, Ceserae, Save, and the rest of <Months Behind>: Thank you for all the help and laughs; I'm looking forward to raiding with you when I hit 80!)

The Northrend invasion commences

After giving the Wrath of the Lich King trial a go as Blood Elf Death Knights, Shiro had both our accounts upgraded to WotLK as an early birthday present for me in July. We then proceeded to invade Northrend, and we'll keep at it until we both hit 80.

If you can't beat them, join them

After several bad experiences with PvP (e.g. getting ganked while getting mobbed, being /spit on and killed by a level 80 Night Elf Rogue multiple times while I was still level 60-something, etc.) throughout the months I spent playing, I decided to try to optimize my character's spec for PvP despite my lack of fondness for PvP. My Hunter was originally a Beast Master, a spec recommended by Skullpion since he knew that I like solo-ing (when I'm not in a party with Shiro) and that I dislike PvP.

Being in a PvP server, however, means that you really can't stay away from PvP. I learned that the hard way. While I love the Beast Mastery spec, just defending myself against Alliance players proved to be a challenge.

After researching about recommended PvP specs through the official forums and websites like The Hunter's Mark, I decided to Dual Spec my Hunter and try out a Survival spec. I might respec from Beast Mastery to Marksmanship too, but I'm feeling like a bit sentimental right now and don't want to completely give up on BM just yet. I have yet to test my Survival spec in combat, but I'm kind of hoping I'll do a little better than usual.

...I say kind of because, well, having a PvP spec doesn't really omit the fact that I get too panicky when I get attacked and forget what shortcut keys to press.

Maybe I should try attacking some Alliance players myself just to see how I fare.

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This year of Warcraft has certainly had its ups and downs; it's just too bad that I didn't get to record most of it as I went along. I think I'm going to try posting about WoW more often from now on.