Day 13 – People That You Admire

This post is part of Saga’s 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge!

Good morning and welcome to Contentpalooza 2011! I’ll have not one, not two, but three blog posts for you today! Two of them are Days 13 and 14 of Saga’s 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge and one of them will describe, in great detail and with screenshots, my raid night last night, which was both an exceedingly frustrating experience and one of the more hilarious raid nights I’ve ever had.

But first…

Day 13 – People That You Admire

This is supposed to be about bloggers and players that I admire. There are several of each, so let’s organize this into two categories.

Players

I admire my officers, all six of them.

– Dayden was basically born to be a tank. He’s outstanding at tanking and does a great job herding the cats in the raid. He does his homework and puts what he’s learned into practice. He’s a fairly reasonable sort and is Canadian and one of the best things I ever did for Apotheosis was somehow get him to be the tank officer. He doesn’t get frustrated terribly easily (last night, as you’ll see in an upcoming post today, was an exception) and I would not have reformed Apotheosis for Cataclysm without Dayden being part of my officer team. He and Daey and I made a great leadership team through T5/T6 in Burning Crusade and I can’t imagine being the GM of Apotheosis without Dayden, star of the guild-favourite game, “CAN DAYDEN TANK IT?!?!”, right there with me and the other officers. I admire his play, I admire his attitude and basically, I think he’s awesome.

– Daey. Daey, also known as “Football”, has been someone I’ve played this game with for about five years. He was in my first real guild, Fated Heroes, and, to this day, still gives me hell for choosing to bring a rogue over him for Zul’Gurub raids. My biggest reason? “Rogues can sap!” Yeah, I was a scrub. Daey turned out to be basically our best DPS ever throughout Vanilla and BC. He would have to go stand in a corner on Void Reaver and do absolutely nothing so that the tank could build up enough threat. Hell, we used to soulstone him on Hakkar so that when he inevitably pulled aggro, he could pop back up and have 0 threat and actually get DPS done. More than that, he’s a fantastic strategist who sees things on the fly that I would only see after an hour of scrounging through the logs. It’s his quick thinking that gets us through sticky situations and things like 8 waves of Hyjal trash at a time. BigWigs would announce the trash that was incoming and in those, oh, five seconds of lead time, he’d assign CC and tank targets. Doing Hyjal trash without Daey the few times we had to do it was seriously painful. This is another piece of the Apotheosis machine that I wouldn’t have done without for Cataclysm. He’s a great foil to me, we think in very different ways and see things very differently, but apart from the occasional butting of heads, we use our differences to work out what’s best for the guild in any particular situation. I admire his quick thinking, his amazing level of play, his fast reactions and his ongoing dedication to the guild. I also admire the fact that he manages to have a “real life” that includes playing a lot of hockey and respect the fact that he’s a die-hard Pittsburgh Penguins fan.

– Fog. 4 years, 7 months and 1 week younger than me, my brother came to the game just after I did and he beat me to 60. He killed Rag wayyyyy before I ever would. I probably would have gotten the old crew back together without him, since Fog only stuck around through Gruul back in BC, but having him around usually makes things more fun — when we’re not yelling at each other, as siblings do. ;) I admire his insane ability to learn a class and a role with ease. He’s had four mains: Vanilla was his druid, Fog, and he was feral and he was resto. In late Vanilla, he rolled a rogue, Slovotsky, and carried that toon into BC, where he stuck with us through Gruul, as I mentioned. In Wrath, he played his hunter, Je, then rolled a paladin, Harvey, and he’s now tanking on Harvey for us in the guild. I admire the ease with which he picks up new classes and new skills. I admire his basic understanding of the mechanics of the game and his level of play that allows him to succeed at basically anything he does, in-game. He’s currently serving as guild bank administrator for the guild and is doing a fantastic job in terms of keeping up with EP donations and the mandatory flask “donations” we have in order to keep dropping Big Cauldrons of Battle. I envy him his organizational skills and leet spreadsheet skills! I am definitely not that organized and not that mathematical.

– Darista. Again, I’ve been playing alongside Dar for about five years, as she was also in Fated Heroes. She only became an officer for us in Cataclysm, but I’ve always enjoyed her presence in-guild and in raids. I feel like I should have promoted her to officer three years ago, given what a great addition she’s been to the team! I admire Dar’s level of play, which has always been very good — and if it hasn’t been “great”, she’s done everything she could to bring it up to a great level. I admire her tenacity; if there’s a problem, she will find the damn answer! I admire her ability to communicate her ideas clearly and her ability to do it in fewer words than I do! :) I admire her dedication and loyalty to this crazy group of people and her ability to persevere through stupid in-game issues, like when she couldn’t ever load Skettis or sometimes couldn’t log in to Dalaran or a variety of technical issues. She’s a great addition to the team and I’m so pleased she’s still with us. :)

– Toga. Another former Fated Hero, Toga was my original hunter protégé. I remember out-damaging him in MC. ;) Toga was also the original GM of Apotheosis, something he accepted willingly and humbly. We lost him for Wrath and I swear to God, that’s one of the reasons Apotheosis didn’t do so well. Toga is an excellent player, a really nice guy (no, really, he’s super awesome!) and he’s probably the most reasonable of any officer. If you need someone to cut the crap and get down to the brass tacks, you want Toga. I admire that about him — he’ll look at the big picture and the details and he’ll figure out what the best course of action is. I also admire his willingness to do the dirty work. He hits our gongs on Atramedes. He used to kite General Drakkisath in UBRS. Toga does the shitty jobs and he does them well and he rarely complains about it — and when he does, it’s usually good-naturedly. I adore and admire Toga for so many little things he’s done over the years that just make me laugh or smile or see reason, I can’t possibly list them all. Just know that I am so fortunate he came back to us for Cataclysm. I wouldn’t have gotten this thing going without him around, either.

– Majik. My partner in crime on Blessing of Frost, Majik and I have been playing together since Vanilla in Fated Heroes as well. Majik is a very smart, very talented player who, like Fog, can easily slip into any role or class required of him. He’s a great DPS, a great tank and a great healer. While that’s a great trait and I do admire it about it, what I really admire is his charisma and attitude. Majik was BORN to lead smaller raids. He’s hilarious, light-hearted and makes even the most soul-crushing wipes somehow fun. Apotheosis would not have been resurrected without Majik on board. He doesn’t always get to express his personality to its fullest in 25-man raiding, which I guess is just more serious compared to crazy 10 or 20-man runs back in Vanilla, but I know it’s there and I SO wish I had that kind of presence and charisma. This is the guy who, on off-lock-out periods of ZG for us, would convince 19 other people to go do “a 20-minute Venoxis run”. Why? Simply so he could get the 1H spell dagger off Venoxis. That was the sole purpose of the entire run. But somehow, he would convince 19 other people that it’d be fun and fast and they’d get rep and coins and bijous and… yeah. God help us all if Majik starts a cult and stops using his powers for… well, not “good”, but harmless things. ;) I also really admire how even-keeled he is. He just doesn’t take things that seriously, never really lets it get him down. I’m the complete opposite and so it’s amazing to look at Majik when I’m all blah about something and he’s like “hah, that was fun!” or whatever. I bitch about Majik a LOT, it’s just how our friendship works, but I think he’s awesome. And will deny ever having written those words. >.>

Apart from those six jokers, some other players I admire:

– Fugara, the GM of Choice of Skywall. I only really got to play alongside her for a little less than six months, I believe, but Fug is the GM I wish I could be. I am nowhere near as organized or as settled into this role as she is. She was the deciding factor when I made my decision to leave my Proudmoore guild and find a new home where I could finish out Wrath. I’d narrowed it down to Choice and a guild on Hyjal and while the Hyjal guild was tempting — more progressed, offered free consumables, sizeable repairs, etc… They didn’t have Fugara. An excellent healer, a formidable leader, a great person. I admire everything about Fug’s play and leadership and she’s basically the GM I want to be when I grow up. ;) Leaving Choice sucked not only because I was leaving a good group of people, but because I was leaving Fug and leaving someone I knew I still could learn more from. So if you wonder why I constantly plug Choice and beg people to go apply there, it’s because of this woman and my overwhelming admiration for her.

– My RL Friend the Resto Druid. My friend, whom I’ve known for nearly 30 years, is the best damn druid healer I’ve ever seen. She’s an amazing player when it comes to the mechanics of the game and the encounters, but she’s just a fantastic druid healer. She’s rolled with the punches and learned a lot along the way, but she’s just hands-down fantastic. She also did an amazing job at being the healing lead for her guild despite not really wanting the position. Her dedication and tenacity in trying guild circumstances made me admire her all the more and so when I had to step in as healing lead for a couple of months while she dealt with personal stuff, I tried to be at the top of my game and get the most out of the healers the way she did.

– Fadorable. Fad is the best damn resto shaman I have ever encountered in my life. Topping dispells and healing on Yogg-Saron without even taking cleansing totem into consideration? FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC. And it wasn’t any of that stupid Chain Heal spam, either. Fad is a fantastic player and I would love to see her apply to Apotheosis (COUGH COUGH) and, by golly, I would make room for her if there was no room to be had.

Of course, I think very highly of just about every player in Apotheosis too. But these people listed above are not just amazing players to be admired for their play — it’s the additional contributions that they give. If I weren’t already at 2000+ words, I would go into detail about all the players I admire from the guild.

Bloggers

A shorter list here mostly because I’m already running super long on this post, but I admire anyone who can write properly (using good grammar and spelling — not resorting to “lol, me 2!” or “y u mad dawg” or such things) and about things in this game about which they’re passionate.

– Rohan, of Blessing of Kings. Rohan always has intelligent commentary on the game or various aspects of the game. He’s also been writing FOREVER. So not only do I greatly admire his posts, but his longevity. I mean, look at this first actual post from December of 2005 talking about, what else, paladins. Awesome post!

– Lissanna, of Restokin. Lissanna is just SO dedicated to druids, you can’t mistake her for anything else. She IS a druid. Her love (and sometimes frustration) for her class is evident everywhere. She is passionate about and dedicated to druids and it’s her long-term commitment to the class and helping others to learn about the class that I admire.

– Matt, of World of Matticus. I admire Matt as a blogger and as a GM and as a player, although the most interaction in-game we’ve ever had was him rezzing me once just outside of Stormwind during Cataclysm’s Beta. ;) Matt is a busy guy and yet still has time to have a team of bloggers blogging, still has time to GM a guild, still has time to do all kinds of stuff. I’m sure he makes mistakes, I”m sure he lets things slip, but his blog is his baby and the amount of time and care he’s put into it is something I really admire. I tend to let the blog slide when I’m busy with the guild, but Matt takes that extra step to make sure his blog doesn’t suffer due to his busy schedule.

All right, I think I’ll leave it at that!

Yesterday (well, two days ago): A Day in the Life
Later today: This Upsets You