Kurn's List of Progressed Female Raiders who Blog

Kurn / / blogging, icecrown citadel, raiding

Okay, so obviously, my brain wasn’t working when I wrote my Being a Woman who Raids post, because I forgot about some truly excellent bloggers who are women who are fairly progressed. So, ladies, let’s all work together and try to come up with a fairly definitive list of progressed female raiders who blog, shall we? Please leave a comment with your blog URL if you’d like to be listed (or someone else’s blog URL if you know they’re a progressed female raider) assuming you meet the requirements below. If the blog does not have the woman’s most-progressed raiding character’s armory profile listed on it, please include the armory link as well. (You can email me the armory link if you prefer: kurn [at] apotheosis-now [dot] com.)

I’ve populated the list with a few names and blogs already, but haven’t been able to verify progression in some other cases.

Requirements (may be subject to change, but we’ll start out with this):

1) The blogger must be at least 9/12 ICC HM (that’s 10 or 25, although if you’re doing 10, you shouldn’t be decked out in all 277 gear). This can mean that the blogger has reached that stage with her current guild or a previous guild. Please let me know what the progression is in the comment itself. (Note that I’ll take your 25m progression over 10m if you’re wearing lots of 277 gear.)

2) The blogger must be a woman. This means that the blogger should say somewhere (either a blog post or in the About section) that they are a woman. Gender of the character does not matter. ;) (I will also include self-identified MTF transgender individuals as female bloggers, should any exist, mostly because I’m inclusive in general, but also because my previous post was spawned in part by my annoyance with the male-dominated heteronormative narrative that exists in WoW.)

3) The blog should primarily be about WoW stuff. If your blog is mostly you talking about what movie you saw before you went off and spent a couple of hours in ICC, you won’t get listed. I’d really like for this to be a solid list of women who are progressed in this game and who really talk about the game on their blogs.

A proper submission:

Kurn of Kurn’s Corner (http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com), is 11/12 ICC 25 HM and here is her armory: (link)

Please note that this is not any kind of effort to be elitist or to snub women who may be less-progressed! This is really a sort of experiment to see how many women out there are progression raiders who blog about WoW to help me see if my initial theory was right or wrong. (I believed that the reason there weren’t, from what I could tell, a lot of progression-minded female raiders who blogged was because there weren’t that many progression-minded female raiders at all.)

Also, the 9/12 HM requirement is arbitrary, I know. I put it there because I feel that most raiding guilds can eventually get Lady Deathwhisper down on heroic (typically the 9th boss on heroic you’ll do) but that, for whatever reason, a raiding guild may struggle once they start banging their heads against the walls that Putricide and Sindragosa represent, even to the point of giving up and no longer raiding.

I have a feeling that this post may be updated fairly regularly. ;)

25-man Progressed Female Raiders who Blog

(Please note that progression listed below is for Icecrown Citadel 25-man hard modes.)

12/12:

Avalonna at Tales of a Priest (co-blogger)

Dawn at Disco Priest

Hanny from Hanny’s blog

Vixsyn of Life in Group 5

11/12:

Aislinana of Empowered Fire

Anafielle over at Righteous Defense (co-blogger)

Angela at Restoration Druid

Bellwether from 4 Haelz

Beruthiel at Falling Leaves and Wings

Cassandri (and Lathere) at HoTs & DoTs

ecclesiasticaldiscipline at ecclesiastical discipline

Foofy of Foofy’s CupCake Factory

Keeva from Tree Bark Jacket

Kurn at Kurn’s Corner (tip: you are here!)

Oestrus from The Stories of O (and Divine Aegis)

Ophelie of Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon

Zahraah from Pugnacious Priest

10/12:

Codi at Moar HPS!

Elsen at The View Through the Branches

9/12:

Janyaa from Muradin Musings

Jasyla from Cannot be Tamed

Napps of Mama GM

Osephala from Crispy Hands

10-man Progressed Female Raiders who Blog

(Please note that progression listed below is for Icecrown Citadel 10-man hard modes.)

12/12:

Kae at Dreambound

Nefernet from Krasus Kronicles

11/12:

Ailinea of Playing with Fire

Jen of Stories of WoW

Laranya from Root & Branch

Larísa at The Pink Pigtail Inn

Lidanya of Licking Floor

Leafie at Leaf-head

Vidyala from Pugging Pally

10/12:

9/12:

Arioch of Clearcasting

55 Replies to “Kurn's List of Progressed Female Raiders who Blog”

  2. My blog is a little more “This is what I’m up to in WoW” and less informative like a lot of other bloggers, but it still is a WoW-only blog. My mundane real life boring stuff is elsewhere. So feel free to add or not depending on what you’re looking for. =)

    Ailinea of Playing With Fire (http://phoenixborn.wordpress.com/) is 10/12 (hopefully getting 11/12 and my frostwyrm this week!) in ICC-10 HM. My armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Sentinels&cn=Ailinea

  4. Elsen and Ailinea – thanks for your links. :) It’s okay if you don’t talk about ICC terribly much, so long as you do talk about WoW. :)

    TM – Yep, Vixsyn is definitely a woman. I found the Raid Warning she was in (which you can find at http://www.raidwarning.net/2010/07/the-warcraft-shaman-round-table-totem-recall/ and Vixsyn introduces herself at 47m50s). :)

    I didn’t include Hellmode because there’s just not enough WoW content from Ashelia, despite seeing her screenshot of her toon with the Insane title. :) Her bio on the site doesn’t mention WoW at all. Interesting site, though, so thanks for the link. :)

    I also added Aislinana. Thanks for your contributions!

  5. Ashelia is on break at the moment, which might be why she’s not blogging about wow much.

    Personally, I’m a female, fairly hardcore raider (11/12) who doesn’t blog because I am bad at sitting down to write things all the time, not because I am self-conscious about my femaleness or my wow interests. It’s a motivation issue – I used to be heavily involved in the fashion blogosphere, which is virtually 100% woman dominated, and I never started my own blog then, either. I’m one of 4 female raiders in my current guild, and was one of approximately 9 in my previous guild.

  6. Leafie, my resto druid main, is 11/12 in ICC10 hardmodes. And I really hope my guild shifts its focus to reaching 12/12 some time soon, though right now wer’re trying to recruiting enough to start serious work on ICC25 hardmodes. My guild’s GM is also a woman, and so is the mage on our core raiding team. The three of us all take our play seriously.

    http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?cn=Leafie&r=Medivh

    Your list should fill out nicely as word gets around!

  7. TM – that’s great to know, that there are another three female raiders in your progressed group and another 8 or so from your previous guild! Thanks for the info. :D

    Leafie – added! Good luck with the 25s. And if your GM and the mage have a blog, feel free to link them. :)

    I do think the list will fill out beautifully over the coming few days!

  8. My wife has turned to blogging (although her posts aren’t through final editing yet, so still only drafts) on my blog, but she’s there. I can pretty much vouch for her gender, should that be a problem (since it doesn’t say anywhere on the blog yet).

    Nobal, co-author of The Failadin, is 11/12 ICC 10 HM. Armory link:

    http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Eonar&cn=Nobal

    I know more progressed female raiders on my realm, but they’re not blogging as far as I’m aware.

  10. Codi – Your armory says no Putricide, no Sindragosa and no LK on heroic 25, so that means 9 down, no? Who did you get that the armory didn’t catch? (I presume you would have released on a would-be wipe, but the boss actually died?)

  11. One interesting thing to note is that every last one of the bloggers listed so far plays either a healer or a cloth caster. I know for a fact that the “women play healers” stereotype is not true – most women of all progression levels play DPS, same as men. But I think the higher up in progression you go, the more likely it is that your female players will be healers, followed by casters/hunters.

    Certainly it seems difficult to find blogs written by melee/tank women, and even fewer who are high progression raiders. Is this a function of there being fewer raiders in these roles, or an unexamined bias or lack of interest in reading about tanking/melee from women?

    I’ve had the pleasure of playing with only one highly progressed female tank. I have also played with one enh shaman and one female rogue. Many of my progressed female friends have melee/tank offspecs or alts, but not mains. (I know several more from other servers, like a dear friend who is a 12/12 rogue.)

    *Please note I’m not saying that women can’t or, conversely, “should” play melee/tanks to make a point. Just that there is a clear correlation about what roles women in progressed environments play, blog about, and what roles highly progressed guilds are likely to accept women in. Being accepted and respected as a female tank is much more difficult than being accepted as a female healer, IMHO.

  12. I never realized Vixsyn was female!

    My guild is 11/12 ICC HM 25, but I haven’t been able to raid much this summer due to my work schedule, so I only have kills for 9/12. (I also appear to be logged out in my very embarassing pvp gear *dies*)
    http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ner%27zhul&n=Rykga

    @TM- I don’t know if it’s really harder to be accepted and respected as a female tank in a decent guild. I haven’t seen enough women try. I know a few people’s experiences doesn’t speak for everyone, but when I was a tank, it was never an issue (even when I stopped being a tank, I kept getting begged to tank) and when my current guild had a female tank, she was treated no differently than the male tanks.

  14. Oh, and @TM and Ophelie: my guild’s raid leader, main tank, and de facto GM is a woman and she’s damn good at it.

  15. You’re either very fast or I was listed there already, in which case Jen’s reading comprehension FTL. Never post in the morning before I properly wake up…

  16. Hrm….I think my comment got eaten, so apologizes if this is a double post :(

    Keeva over at http://www.treebarkjacket.com is 11/12 25 man HMs.

    Kae over at http://www.dreambound-druid.blogspot.com is 11/12 10 man strict HMs.

    Allison Robert from wow.com is 11/12 (or maybe 12/12?) 25 man HMs.

    Bellweather at http://www.4haelz.com was 11/12 25 man HMs (although just retired).

    Jasyla from http://www.cannotbetamed.blogspot.com is 9/10 25 man HM.

    Foofy from http://www.foofyscupcakefactory.blogspot.com is 11/12 25 man HM.

    Vidalya from http://www.puggingpally.wordpress.com is 11/12 10 man strict.

    Just more to add to your list! Also, I just realized that I have a TON of female bloggers on my blog roll :)

  20. Ophelie – I, er, had no idea who Vixsyn was… This little project is introducing me to SO many new (to me) blogs and bloggers. And helping me realize just how progressed a lot of women who comment are. (I had no idea you were 9/12.)

    Jen – I’m fast like a ninja! :)

    Beru – thanks for the links! Foofy’s link was inaccurate (drop the “factory” from the URL) and I’ve tweeted Allison to see if she has a specific post where she notes her progression, either at wow.com or a personal blog. I’m gonna be a stickler in terms of verifying stuff across the board (I listened to the Raid Warning podcast to verify Vixsyn was a woman, for instance!) so we’ll see how that goes. :)

    Jasyla – Aw, Proudmoore. :) I’ve got a few toons sitting over there. :)

    Vidyala – gotcha! And yes, if you know of an easy-to-integrate, simple comment system that allows people to EDIT their comments, I’m all ears. :)

  21. /pout

    I’ve been toying with the idea of setting up a blog, but I have a bad habit of not sitting down to write :(

  22. I was all excited until I saw the HM part…lol…hopefully one day soon!

    I am looking forward to reading the women that do make your list however!

  24. (Your comment thing told me I was being spammy with my 4 links… harumph!)

    Lissanna at http://www.restokin.com/
    Her Armory link: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Elune&cn=Lissanna

    I’m not sure she quite qualifies, but I wanted to include her in your list because she had written many very good Boomkin and Tree guides that have been shared all over the place (including the WoW forums). And she is a graduate student working on her PhD and still posts a lot of really interesting and informative Cataclysm Beta stuff. Some of which, I believe, have contributed to changes towards making Ex-Tree Druids better.

    Those are my contributions.

  26. Kurn, it wasn’t a criticism of your comment system, I really don’t know! WordPress doesn’t let people edit them, either, although sometimes if someone expresses desire for an edit, I’ll edit their post and delete the subsequent “doh” post.

    Thanks for adding me in there. :)

  27. I don’t blog quite as frequently as I used to but here goes…

    Arioch of http://www.clearcasting.wordpress.com

    Arioch (mage) is 12/12 in 10, 9/12 in 10H, 7/12 25
    http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Drak'Tharon&cn=Arioch

    First alt:
    Selwyn (disc/holy priest) is 11/12 in 10, 6/12 10H, 7/12 25
    http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Drak'Tharon&cn=Selwyn

    Second alt:
    Kaayn (DPS DK) just started raiding again 2 weeks ago and is 8/12 in 10, 1/12 10H, 8/12 25
    http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Drak'Tharon&cn=Kaayn

  28. Kaleri – which is a darn shame, because the world NEEDS more bloggers who know how to punctuate! :)

    Rilgon – will check into that, thanks! :)

    Vidyala – oh, no, I know, it’s just that people have been asking me for an edit button forever. :)

    Arioch – thanks for your comment!

  32. Pingback: I Fight Like a Girl « Playing With Fire

  33. “male-dominated heteronormative narrative”
    Here we go again.
    It’s okay to be sexist as long as your target is male, am i right? :-)

  34. Imbalanced – Actually, no, you’re not. This list is for other women who, like me, feel occasionally like they don’t really “belong” in progressive raiding guilds. I had absolutely no idea there were so many women out there who raided and blogged.

    There can be absolutely no denying that the World of Warcraft is male-dominated and that it conforms to a heteronormative narrative. These are facts. Everyone assumes I’m a straight guy regardless of the toon I play, unless I inform them otherwise.

    Not only am I annoyed by that culture within WoW, but I’m annoyed by the fact that I didn’t think there were a lot of female progressed raiders and even fewer who blogged. There are currently 26 female bloggers on this list who are all at least 9/12 in their particular choice of ICC 10 or 25. That’s honestly about 18 more than I thought existed. There are certainly more out there as well.

    So no, it’s not being sexist. It’s “hey, ladies, you’re not alone. Check out these awesome women who, like you, have progressed to high levels of content within this game.”

  41. Thanks for the listing! Just wanted to comment that you can update my listing to being 11/12 HM for 10-man. Meant to write in sooner, but I’ve been too busy flying around on my frostwyrm or something. ;)

  46. Well, I don’t have a WoW exclusive blog, in fact it’s mostly about food and my current push to get the Insane in the Membrane achievement, however I’m a female who plays a melee class in a high-end progression guild.

    http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Azjol-Nerub&cn=Sephestra

    At the moment I am only 8/12 HM ICC25 (really busy summer and start to the fall semester), and 12/12 HM ICC10.

    Really enjoyed glancing over all the blogs, even bookmarked a few. So great to see that there are other women out there who play for keeps.

  47. Hanny, Ose, Lidanya – I’ve added you all. Sorry for any delays. This whole 4.0.1 thing has eaten my brain.

    Seph – I’m afraid that because you’ve got quite a bit of 277 level gear (accessible only through 25m HM encounters) and judging by your statistics page, you’ve done more 25-man kills than 10-man kills as well, I have to look to your 25-man progression and so you don’t quite meet my (admittedly) subjective cutoff of 9/12. Also, I don’t see armory confirmation of 12/12 in ICC10. :/

  50. Rhii – Sorry, I should have updated that much sooner, but thanks for the heads up!

    Janyaa – after a quick look at your armory and your guild’s progression ranking, it looks like you’re 9/12 (I figured the armory was borked or something), so I’ve slotted you in there for now. :)

  51. Kurn- I’m embarrassed to say, I mistyped. It is 9. Hopefully we’ll get HPP down this week and I can accurately say 10/12.

    I’m sorry for the confusion!

    Janyaa

  52. Hi !
    I just found out your blog. I play a hunter in a hardcore raiding guild for one year and a half now. I was part of the Grand Crusader kill of my server this year while I was officer in a 25-man raiding guild. We were at 11/12HICC in June.
    Now I’m in a 10-man only guild, we killed heroic LK in October. I’m the second in charge here, I raidlead.
    Here is my armory : http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Elune&cn=Nefernet

    I really liked your posts about female high-end raiders. In my current guild I receive as much respect as the other raiders, and that made me realise how much discriminated I had been in the past year in my 25-man guild.

    I play with my boyfriend and I have been told they took me because they needed him, I’ve had a hell of a time as an officer there because I was female too : I was basically the slave, doing loads of work but not being taken seriously when I dared give my opinion, seen as a witch when I dared moderating the forum. The GM, instead of backing me, demoted me.

    At first, I thought it was my fault, that I was really bad with people and shouldn’t be an officer, but after a few weeks, things went odd, I now know that some people in the guild manoeuvred to get me demoted, then kicked, my privacy was invaded, I have been dragged in the mud in front of the whole guild.

    With some friends who left the guild when I was kicked, we built a new guild, made projects for Cataclysm. I am an officer here since June, I learned to lead raids as no one stepped up to do the job. I earned respect from everyone in the guild. My GM never let me down, he trusts me as I trust him. We killed heroic LK. I got feedback from guildies about my lead and they are happy with it.

    It took me 3 months to get over the kick from that old guild I had invested so much in. But today, I realised there was nothing wrong with me. In the 25-man guild, there was only 2 or 3 women, I often got sexist comments, and the only respect I got was because my boyfriend was there too. There was something wrong with them. I can’t be certain but I think they had a problem to see a woman at the same level, and even worst, as a superior in hierarchy.

    The people I’m with now needed time to get used to me as a leader. But I don’t think the “female” part was determinant. They just needed time to get used to a new leader. I can feel the respect and trust I never experienced in my previous guild. I know I can count on the two other officers of the guild.

    On another note, I also play a tree and a healing shaman. The tree is 11/12 hm in 10-man and 10/12 hm in 25-man too. I love healing. It’s fun how the pattern repeat itself : high-end female raider playing a healing toon… The problem is I can’t lead while I heal. And I love my hunter too much… :D
    I levelled a tank recently to see that part of the game but I’m not raiding with her yet.

  53. Janyaa – No worries and best of luck to you!

    Nefernet – Merci d’avoir laissé ton histoire! Félicitations à toi pour tout ce que tu as accompli dans ce jeu. 12/12 ICC 10 HM, Herald of the Titans, avec ton druid qui est assez avancé aussi? C’est vraiment formidable de voir des autres femmes qui jouent a ce niveau du jeu. Être si avancé avec un seul personnage est difficile, mais avec deux? Incroyable. :)

    Merci encore d’avoir laissé ton comment. :) Je sais que je vais commencer de lire ton blogue!

  54. ok on my old main I am 8/12 hm and although I have just recently gotten back into blogging about wow after a server transfer and faction change for a chunk of our 10 man group we never got the ninth one down. Our small 10 man guild won beta keys back in July and since then raiding was on hold as we tested the newness.

    Allete (formerly Chanze) – http://www.forgottentheory.net/allete/ – 8/12 hm icc 10 http://www.wowarmory.com/character-achievements.xml?r=Ner%27zhul&cn=Chanze&gn=Forgotten+Theory

    I just wanted to say yes definitely progression minded raider although the transfer/beta keys/missing people put is in a bad spot post the 8/12 this past week was our last week in ICC pre Cataclysm drop and we had just finally regained the momentum we once had in 10 man content.

  55. Merci !!

    And about having several characters at this level, actually many good players can play two or more toons. It’s not incommon in hardcore guild to have 2 rosters. Sometimes, it’s meant to gear main characters more quickly in order to get to work on hardmode earlier, that in big guilds. In small guilds like ours, it’s more to be able to raid even if someone is missing.

    My GM came with his reroll on LK hm because we had trouble finding healers, and he then came with his dk, his main toon. Many rerolls of the guild are at 11/12hm. And nearly all of them are kingslayers if they have the appropriate gear. It’s actually easy in hardcore guild to find able rerolls. A good player stays a good player whatever spec he’s playing. Of course, not all people can tank or heal, but many can do two or more roles.

    Anyway, thanks for the kind words in French. I don’t blog in French because the blogging community is mainly English speaking and I’m fluent enough to make myself understood. But it’s nice to meet people understanding and speaking “la langue de Molière”.

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