Looking For A Raiding Guild

Time for another visit to the way back when machine. All the way to July 2006

The guys at Soul of the Fire were great, they let me join their off night raids for the next few weeks which meant a quick blitz through Molten Core followed by a Zul'Gurub run sometimes I would miss the Zul'Gurub run if they started there as my schedule meant that I couldn't start raiding until 2000 GMT (2100 server) and their raids started at 1830 GMT (1930 server).

A few pieces of epic loot and some of the "epic" blues that dropped in Zul'Gurub slowly started drifting my way and the Soul of the Fire guys also must of had some confidence in me as a few times I got asked to join their Blackwing Lair progression runs as they were a few people short, no chance of any loot as their guys were still gearing up but the experience was good enough for me. I have always enjoyed raiding for the challenge of killing the boss mobs, sure the loot gained on the way is nice and at some points necessary to achieve the ultimate goal of killing said boss mobs.

The raids with Kittiah and Soul of the Fire where great fun but as they had MC and ZG on farm not really much of a challenge and as their raid times simply did not match my free time so I started looking for a raidng guild, it would be sad to leave my EZO friends behind but the other officers there knew that I was looking for something they simply could not offer as the majority of the members were still not even level 60 let alone geared enough to start raiding.

I tried many guilds, Encore, Pure, Cold As Ice, MCO, Soulriders of the Felwen to name a few but they were either too good for me or their times didn't fit. I had almost given up when Kittiah suggested posting on the ShadowsongEurope forums, which I did. After a couple of days a reply came from Vegelus who was raiding with a raiding alliance, the Teddybears of Doom, their progression was about right, MC cleared but BWL only the first boss was killed and their raids started at 2000 (GMT). It was like the perfect solution, I could stay in EZO AND raid. I applied and got accepted.

The first night was spent in Molten Core, a smooth run that saw us clear all the way to Ragnaros and my first real attempt to shine. Sadly, I failed miserably as my gear lacked in Fire Resistance and that meant I died a horrible death rather quickly. But a full clear on my trial run and I don't think I let myself down.

The next night was off to Blackwing Lair. Razorgore was the first boss in there and while the Teddies were good in Molten Core, they had only just progressed into BWL and it took a few attempts to get the bugger down. It was a crazy fight with adds everywher and people running all over. I made my first big n00b error that night too.

After a wipe one of our lazy raiders hadn't done the marathon corpse run from Searing Gorge into BWL and being "the new guy" I was keen to impress. I edged forwards trying to get in range to res the poor fellow and just got him in range.I started to res then the boss moved a step closer to me and decided I could be his next meal and proceeded to stomp through the 3/4 of the raid team. I got a few jeers and mock cheers that night and to this day is still something I am paranoid about happening and will try to push people back if I am trying to do it, although it happens rarely now as I'm now that lazy bugger who slacks at returning to my corpse.

Long story short, the ToD guys still loved me enough to offer me a full-time spot on their raid team.