My WoW History

Since we are coming up to the five year anniversary of WoW, I decided to recap my own history in the game.

I entered the World of Warcraft about a month after its release. My first character was a dwarf paladin named Thorwald. I was attracted to the idea of a holy warrior that was wearing heavy armor, a two-handed weapon, and used a combination of magic and brute force to kill monsters. Thorwald was deleted when he reached mid-30s, since I got bored with the combat system (buff yourself, autoattack, and watch mobs die at random speed). I then tried out an undead rogue for 35ish levels, and then a human mage. That mage eventually became my second character to reach 70, and is now, at level 71, working as my bank character / enchanter.

I have played every class in the game to at least level 55. The only classes that never made it to 70 were warrior, druid, and priest.

I didn't start raiding until I was 70. My first raid instance ever was Karazhan, and my first raiding character was a holy paladin named Isolde. Isolde had been around for a long time by then. After deleting my dwarf paladin, I realized that I still wanted one of those holy warriors, so I created a human paladin and levelled her as a holy/ret hybrid. She was my first character to reach both 60 and 70. These days she is stuck at 71, still dressed in her BT/MH epics, sitting at the inn in Valiance Keep.

I raided SSC, TK, MH, and BT on my holy paladin until I got bored with the paladin healing style. I then switched my main raiding character to my elemental shaman and spent some time spamming lightning bolts at stuff in raids.

At this time, I felt the guild needed another tank, and thus Arnax was born. I levelled him as protection from day 1. I still remember the mid-30s when I finally got Reckoning, which made AoE grinding alot faster. "Need to kill X boars? Sure, just round them up and hack away!". Switching between Seal of light and Seal of wisdom to keep them bars topped off while being attacked by a plethora of mobs was fun.

I tanked my way through all the TBC raids up until Council in BT when The Patch was released, which made it easier for everyone to finish off those pesky final bosses. Thus I never tanked Illidan before 3.0, and I always brought my shaman to Archimonde for an extra tremor totem until 3.0 hit us.

Arnax is now my main, and is the character I bring to progression raids. I have a rogue alt who I bring to our second raid group (Ulduar and Coliseum) and a death knight alt who I help out in Naxx with. My shaman has raided Naxx and Ulduar, but is now in the ice box.

I have deleted all my other alts, mostly to remove the temptation to level them as well. But I have found that the experience of having played almost all of the classes up to 70 has served me well. I know what to expect from other classes, and I know their strengths and weaknesses. Actually, the only specs I have absolutely no clue about are balance druids and shadow priests.

The only class that I have stuck by with through all these years is the paladin. My current main paladin was not my first, but my third paladin created. It just took some time for me to figure out which spec I enjoyed the most (I play a horde retribution paladin as well).

It's been a fun five years. The last three years my wife has played the game as well, which has made it even more fun. The time I have spent with the guild Guardians of Destiny has been great, and I thank them for letting me raid with them, and letting me switch roles from healer to dps to tank in our progression raids.

With Icecrown Citadel at the horizon, and Cataclysm later on, the future of WoW looks promising. I hope to enjoy it as long as it lasts.