My WoW Story

Asilos, the Blood Elf Shadow Priest, has been my baby boy for the better part of 10 years (or more) now. Each expansion has brought new changes and a new flavour to our relationship, and with my recent enjoyment of Legion, I think it's time I finally document our history together.

la bella faccia

My WoW journey starts before Vanilla WoW launches. Like many, I loved Warcraft 3. That was my first entry into the Warcraft universe and I was hooked. I loved Azeroth. I loved Arthas, I loved Jaina, I loved Thrall - Warcraft 3 was not short of memorable characters.

That's why when WoW was announced I was ecstatic. I'd finally have a chance to craft my own path in this world I love. 

Whenever the closed/open beta was, I was a participant. My memory is foggy, but I think I had an increased chance of getting in because I was also beta testing Maplestory at the time. The details aren't important though. It was in this beta test where I finally got to play as a Paladin. Oh man, that feeling, you know, that feeling. New discoveries and experiences were hitting me left, right, and centre. To any MMO fan, you've felt it before and know what I'm talking about.

During the beta, something drew me to Warlocks. It was the pets, I'm sure. I'm a big fan of the Final Fantasy series and the idea of summoning a magical creature (demon, whatever) to fight along side me was too enticing to pass up. I rolled a Warlock (I think it was Undead) and had more fun playing that than the Paladin. I still loved Arthas and Paladins though.

I have a great memory being in Elwynn Forest as a Warlock (maybe a Mage - I'm sorry my memory is foggy but this was way back when Napoleon was still alive) and having an epic World PvP match minutes before Blizzard shut down and wiped the servers. To this day no WPvP in WoW has compared to the feeling of fighting to the literal death of your character.

I first officially subscribed to WoW a month before The Burning Crusade came out. I wanted to play a Paladin again, but my buddy was an Undead Warlock, so I HAD to play Horde, so I settled on Undead Mage. I was so bored! I don't know why - maybe the constant eating and drinking in between every fight? Anyway, that wasn't important because, with BC coming out, Horde was getting access to Paladins! I was excited to live out my young fantasy again. The class for Horde would be slightly different too, a nice, cool, "evil" take on my favourite class in WoW Lore. I'll never forget his name, Briennaron. 

[Buddy and I created a band a year or so after Briennaron was created called "Red, Violet, and Briennaron Skies...told you I'd never forget his name!]

Well, leave it to Thousand Needles, but Paladin became super boring too. What was wrong with me? Why couldn't I level up a character like my buddy (max level at this point). To remedy this, buddy and I moved to a new server and rolled Alliance characters so we could play together. I rolled a rogue, and at first fell completely in love with the class. PvP was so much fun! I still remember looking at the scoreboard and seeing my name at the top and being happy and proud. Actually, you know what, I'm still happy and proud about that.

After time and time again of playing boring characters, and not even making it to the first mount at level 40, my buddy recommended I try Priest. Shadow Priest, specifically, since at level 40 they get Shadowform and that was "super cool" (can confirm it is still super cool). What I enjoyed most about Priest was Power Word: Barrier - I could finally cast spells even from being hit with melee attacks! You see kids, back in my day, each hit interrupted your spell casting and would sometimes make it impossible to cast any spells. This feature of Priest sold me on the class, and level 40 came easily, along with my new purple aura of power.

And the rest is history. I didn't make it to max level until when Wrath of the Lich King came out, and I didn't raid at all in that expansion pack sadly. With Cataclysm, I tried healing, but it was so stressful! Stressful in a good way, I suppose, but I found healing to be too reactive, and with Healbot, essentially, I was just playing Whack-A-Mole. I became fully committed to Shadow Priest in Mists of Pandaria, where I took down Grom with my team in Normal, my best accomplishment so far.

Legion created the most changes for the class, and I've finally come to terms with them, now that my item level is high enough to actually have an impact on mobs. I guess with the new skills it became difficult to balance the class; we had the potential to be overpowered, so were nerfed in the areas of survivability. That, coupled with the areas' mobs leveling with you, created a difficult time for me as I quested through The Broken Isles. Finally, however, I can appreciate Asilos again, the most powerful Blood Elf I have had the pleasure to accompany with throughout the many years in Azeroth.