Together with most of my guild I stopped playing WoW for a while, back in June. We had done one raid in Hellfire Citadel I think, in which we cleared 5 bosses. People were going away for the summer holiday, and we had all started to feel incredibly "meh!" about both WoW and raiding, so we kind of avoided making plans as to when we would start up the raids again. My partner and I got a puppy during the summer, and we stepped up our previous hiking habits by about 1000 %. The puppy, the four cats, TV shows and other video games (especially Life Is Strange and Dreamfall Chapters) ensured that I didn't miss WoW at all really. I did log on one or two times per week for followers and follower missions though.
About one month ago I decided to finally go ahead and tame Gara for Lae, and name her Ronja, after my real-life puppy. :) Lae was still 96, Kinlai was my only level 100, and I decided that I would level her. And after that I found out that I should keep progressing with her, now for gear. I started having a blast again! With Tanaan Jungle, legendary quest-line, heroic dungeons and raid finder. As I was getting close to as well-geared as I could get without raiding, Valor made a re-appearance, so I kept doing dungeons, and actually started doing the easier raid finder wings over again to accumulate points.
Eventually I started thinking
"I miss raiding... I mean, I don't miss organizing them, or the damned struggle with keeping enough people in the raid team. And I don't miss having set evenings of the week occupied by raids. But I miss playing with my friends; working together against the evil on Azeroth/ Outland/ Draenor!"
And then there was the moose-announcement...
"Defeat Archimonde on heroic or mythic to get this awsome moose-mount!"
I need that moose! I really need it. Norway is like the land of moose! I need it.
Last night I was invited by Class to join her guild's alt run in heroic Hellfire Citadel. We killed the first six bosses without any problems, and I got a shiny new trinket. :) My DPS wasn't awsome (I'm a stubborn Beast Master at item level 703, and I refuse to take Barrage too), but it wasn't terrible either, so that was good. And I didn't do any really bad mistakes either. (Ok, I got caught in Blitz one time (Deterrence!), and I triggered a Hand on trash before Kormrok, but it wasn't too bad.)
After 2 hours I was completely exhausted, and had to step out. And I was thinking; "wow, these fights last for SO long!", and "imagine doing the same bosses one or two times per week, every week, since June...", and now I'm not sure what to think of my future "career" in raiding.
Perhaps organized raiding isn't for me anymore? Could I be happy and satisfied without it? Could progress in dungeons and raid finder be enough for me? Would I be happy about getting that moose through a free or paid boost? Or should I write it off? Why does it bother me so much that I'm not a Raider? And what does these standards I set for myself really mean?
Another thing I think about these days: "Who is my main now? And who will my main be?"
