Yogg-Saron Bites the Dust!

Last night, the Tempest guild's 25-man raiding team finally downed Yogg-Saron. After wiping multiple times (a bit of an understatement), dealing with changing raid members (it is the summer, after all), and generally moving along the learning curve (which I declare must have been changing every week), the big guy with tentacles is finally dead.

It was a moment of great satisfaction to everyone in the raid.

It made me remember when, long ago, we downed Archimonde in Hyjal. Again, that was a fight which took a lot of work for us. We even had "remedial healer and tank training" days, where the dps was not brought in, and the only goal of the healers and tanks was to learn the required movements of the encounter enough to stay alive until the enrage timer. Once we could hit the enrage timer, we called in the dps.

It took weeks of orchestration, but those weeks of practice were what made the achievement of the goal satisfying.

When goals are too simple, their accomplishment does not bring this sort of satisfaction. This applies to real life, as well as any game. I had a teacher once tell me she did not want my daughter working on "+5" exercises, because they were more difficult for her. She wanted to keep her on the "+0" exercises, to boost her self-esteem. I told her that meeting and surpassing a challenge is what brings self-esteem, not repetitively performing simple tasks.

This is why I do not complain when the game encounters are difficult. I know that victory will taste all the more sweet for the price we had to pay along the way.

Self-Introduction

It occurred to me that I have not properly introduced myself. I am Commander Anachan, Hand of A'dal, of the guild Tempest, of the Gorgonnash server. I play a 14/0/57 Restoration spec in raids or on battlegrounds and a 55/0/16 Balance spec when I am just messing around, doing dailies or farming. I have raided as Balance, Feral, and Restoration, and I vastly prefer raiding as a healer.

I have one alt of any consequence, which is a level 70 mage called Amiranar. Unfortunately for Amiranar, between the fact that my raiding schedule is something akin to a part-time job and the fact that my Druid is just a lot of fun to play, she spends a good deal of her time parked in one inn or another.

My husband plays a level 80 hunter called Shadowfoe. His paladin is almost level 80, spec'd for tanking and healing, Shadowbeard.

My eldest daughter has a level 80 Death Knight, Shadowquean, but she does not spend much time playing her right now.

I will not go into all the other details about Anachan, as anyone who wishes may look her up on the Armory with the above information and find out for themselves.

A Grove of Druids

Not too long ago, on the World of Warcraft Druid forums, someone asked what would be the proper term for a group of moonkins. After all, a group of cats could be a pack, while a group of Druids in flight form could be a flock. It was an interesting question to ponder. (My personal favorite was a "parliament" of moonkins, as a parliament of owls . . .)

But in conversations with the Druids in my guild, another question was raised: what do you call a group of Druids, in general?

In my guild, our 25-man raids usually include 5 or 6 Druids. On any given night, we may have 2 Feral Druids, 1 or 2 Balance Druids, and 1 or 2 Restoration Druids. This means that when you look around the raid, you would see a combination of bears, cats, moonkins, and Trees of Life. What word could be used to describe us all?

We thought about it a while and discussed it over our super-secret Druid chat channel (whose name has been closely-guarded from all outsiders . . . at least for the past 14 months or so, since I joined the guild.) Finally, a suggestion from one of our moonkins seemed to make the most sense.

We are a grove of Druids. As with all Night Elves, we are tied to the World Tree and, by extension, to the forests. We take upon ourselves forms at home in the forests. Of all the terms we discussed, a grove of Druids fit the best.

I do not know if every Druid discussion group would come to the same conclusion. I highly doubt they would. But for us, it works.