The Backstory: The Trial of Wrath

Anyone following this blog from day 1 will know that the reason for me starting to blog was to write about my progress in WoW and while that has sort of happened I've never really caught up with my pre-blogging story. My last installment was, as has become tradition, many months ago and in it I got got to the beginning of the Trial of the Crusader in terms of game progression and had just switch guilds leaving Encore and joining Quercus. Anyway, the story so far can be read in the following posts The Backstory: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13 and Part 14.

Quercus were more the type of guild I was accustomed to being in albeit it ranked a few places lower on the Tier 7 progress than Deadwood, but they were actively raiding and were a progression type guild. The folks there were a friendly bunch and, as expected were damned fine raiders too. They also knew how to have fun and that meant an awful lot to me as that was something that never seemed to happen in Encore and had slowly vanished in Deadwood as the guild slowly died. The only remotely odd thing was that the guild leader was absent as she was away in the US but her husband was leading the guild and doing a good job in my opinion.

The raiding schedule was hectic though in the 3 nights we raided we cleared Ulduar on 25 (as they were attempting to get the guild's 2nd Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings) and Trial of the Crusader on Normal and Heroic. The "off" nights were spent raiding Ulduar 10 working on hard modes in 2 groups and Trial of the Crusader (normal and heroic) in 10 man. Back then that didn't feel like a chore, mainly because my work schedule allowed it and because the guys were fun to be with following the mantra "work hard, play hard". In early December the guild leader returned from her break and things almost instantly took a more serious note when raiding but as Icecrown Citadel had just been launched I just put that down to us having to learn new fights rather than simply farming known content with the exception of heroic Trial of the Crusader (25).

The first boss in ICC, Lord Marrowgar died in the first week and boss #2, Lady Deathwhisper, died in the 2nd as did the Loot Ship. Saurfang slowed the guild down a bit and it was this that seemed to be the catalyst that saw a character change in the guild leader, as she became very rude with people and I remember her kicking a tank mid-raid for making a small mistake. A friend who I had encouraged to join the guild was so angry at this act that he left the raid and quit the guild instantly. It was at this point that I too decided to look for another guild, a process that took me only 2 weeks and during those 2 weeks the mood of the guild changed dramatically. A few days before I had got accepted into my new guild, Immersion, I was guild kicked without any explanation and to this day I don't know why, but can only assume that she found out about my application. This was proof enough to me that I was lucky to be out of the guild.

Today Quercus are one of the best progressed raiding guilds on Shadowsong EU despite having the guild leader still at the helm with some of the same faces that were there in Wrath. Hopefully, the guild leader was just going through a bad patch in her life and is now a friendly and likable person. However, she remains the only person I have encountered in game that I have ever had feelings of pure hatred towards. It doesn't make me feel big or clever however, she was the real inspiration at me starting this blog so I guess in someways I owe an awful lot to her. So Myrgthe I salute you!