My best WoW memory:

Gee, this is a tough one because I have so many!

The Death of the Lich King:

Aviria, my rogue was my main who I raided full time in ICC with my guild on Cenarion Circle.  The guild was the first guild who I started raiding seriously with as a 10 and 25 man raider.  I became good friends with one of the holy paladins, Niero, who befriended me when I was a new pug raider for a ToC 25 man.  We started raiding regularly together and discovered that we liked to play together, that we had great chemistry between the two of us.  I’d FoK adds away with ToT if I saw any mobs staggering towards his holy paladin in raids, and he’d save me with Divine Intervention if I got into trouble.  We were murder in battlegrounds whenever we teamed up- we took great pleasure in killing the Horde together, with my rogue ganking people and him making sure we stayed alive.  I loved playing with this guy.

Niero and Aviria

He started expressing his frustrations with the game in late Wrath when we were struggling on killing the Lich King.  “I don’t know if I want to keep playing WoW,”  he told me.  My heart sunk when I learned that he might be quitting the game.  I would be losing my favorite pocket healer for battle grounds and I would be on my own in raids again.  I would really miss him, I knew.  He was undecided, and as a friend, I told him if that was what he wanted to do, I would support him 100%.  “I would miss you a lot, but if that’s what you want, go for it,”  I told him, giving him my sincere wishes for the best.

As a month of mind-numbing and frustrating nights of wipes on the Lich King passed by, we were getting close.  The longer it took, the more frustrated he got.  The cracks crept a little wider every time I heard him talk about quitting the game.  But he was determined to see the end of the Lich King.  He wasn’t going to quit until he killed the Lich King, he declared to me one day, finally sure that he was going to quit once the Lich King was dead.  I was glad he was going to stay by my side and see to it that we killed the Lich King together.  But he wasn’t the only one who were feeling really weary of the fight.  I shared the sentiments with him except that I wasn’t the one who wanted to quit the game.  But damn it, we were getting so close, wiping at the very last minute right before the Lich King wipes out the raid.

“I think we’re going to down him this week, I’m sure of it,” I told him before a raid night the following week, convinced that would be it.  He thought the same, adding that he had this one-use item that would boost his stats that he was saving for the LK kill.  I don’t remember what it was, but he mentioned he was saving it for a special occasion for a long time and decided the LK would be perfect.

“Shit!”  A dps swore after he dropped dead from one of the Valkyrs during that fateful night.  Healers were out of brezzes, and we were very, very close.  Our offtank was the next person to die after being smashed by a Vile Spirit that explode if you came in contact with one and damage everyone in the blast radius.

It was do or die.  Adrenaline Rush came off cool down and I remember spamming the button for AR to feed my energy starved rogue.  Damn it, damn it, gogogogo!  For a few seconds, time seemed to stop.  The adrenaline kicked in as I eviscerated the LK and hit Blade Flurry.  Everyone’s health were steadily dropping away because we lost another player- a healer from one of those vile spirit suckers.  Everyone else would start dropping one by one like a row of dominos if we didn’t kill the Lich King.. fast.

Exalted and Lich King

I got blasted back from a vile spirit but my health got topped off by my trusty holy paladin friend, Niero with the last of his mana.  I literally saw his mana bar drain to empty as he healed me, struggling to keep the raid going while his own health also dwindled away.   I got back on the LK like glue once the daze wore off, and I could see the tank was going to be next with his health dipping dangerously low.  Please, just let us get him.. I silently pleaded, hoping to negotiate with the would-be pixelliated WoW god, if there ever was one.  This was all we had, dead healers and the main tank was quickly approaching death, desperately using CD’s as the Lich King smashed away at him.

Before I knew it, we were all dead.  Yes!  My hands were shaking so badly, because that was a truly epic fight and that we finally killed the Lich King.  Someone we relentlessly pursued since the beginning of Wrath, ending in his own domain in the Ice Crown Citadel.  As soon the big bad boss of the expansion died and loot windows popped up, I turned around to face Niero.

Ice Crown Citadel

My face wet with tears, I wrote a tell to him, “Yeah!  We did it!”  jumping around on my rogue while we waited for roll calls.  “Grats!”  He wrote back as he hovered near the edge of the platform of the ICC tower.  He turned to face me and waved at me… then he jumped. Off the edges of the platform.  Stunned, I rushed over to the edge to see where he had gone,  ”Niero, no!”   I immediately realized that this meant the end for him, what he had been talking about for months were finally here, with his story ending when Niero finally slew the Lich King.  The realization struck me the moment he died at the bottom of the tower.

He stopped playing the game shortly after, selling everything he had and giving away gold to his friends, myself included.  We exchanged our good byes before he logged off for good and unsubscribed from the game.  Nowadays, we’re still friends and he sounds like he’s been doing pretty good, but whenever I talk to him, he reminds me of that night.  Him jumping off that platform to his death after the LK got killed symbolized a turning point for me in the game.

After he left, I took a step back to re-evaluate what I wanted out of the game.  While I liked the guild then, I wasn’t feeling like I was getting much out of it, especially now that Niero was gone.  The guild was focused on raiding, but I guess you could say that they were a casual progression raiding guild.  Casual wasn’t helping me reach my goals, so I applied at another guild.. the same guild that I’m still with today!  I’ve become very good friends with many of the raiders I play with, so I definitely don’t regret making the decision to leave.

I didn’t make the decision lightly either, because I was with them for two years and would miss some people I knew.  I cut down on raiding a lot and focused on what was important to me in life shortly after he left.  Even though I didn’t raid as much as I used to, good things still came out at the end of the day.  Good things like the creation of this website and being able to raid with a great team, playing WoW only when I’m raiding.  I don’t often log on when I’m not raiding or when I’m busy with other things.  I don’t put off other things for WoW anymore, so it’s less of a priority for me now, I don’t feel the need to log everyday because it’s as good as it gets for me.

The best part is that I’m okay with that

Aidrana

Having played since late BC, Aidrana enjoys raiding in her spare time. When she’s not busy raiding, she either geeks out in other games or devotes her time to making awesome pictures in Photoshop. She also loves to paint in traditional mediums and writing about her work even as it progresses. She thinks she’s caught the writing bug, and hopes to get better at it