Cazgem

Stormrage-US (A)

Area 52-US (H)

The Beginning

My journeys in Azeroth had a brief debut in the early days of World of Warcraft shortly after release in 2004 using a demo token. I was stunned by the beauty and scale of Elwynn Forest, and explored for a brief amount of time on my Human Paladin. Unfortunately for me, most of my friends were still in Gielenor, playing Runescape so I quickly forgot about WoW for a while.

BC, Wrath, and Burnout

Sometime around the launch of The Burning Crusade (the exact timing of which escapes me) I began playing WoW casually and by the end of BC, I was raiding happily with friends in a guild. My raiding peaked near the end of Wrath of the Lich King as my guildmates and I were in competition for the first Heroic Lich King kill on our server. When our main tank ragequit, I was volunteered to take up the off-tank role, and our guild took that week off from heroic ICC to focus on getting my Paladin gear, and myself tanking experience. We ended up losing our server\'s race to down Heroic Arthas, but ended up getting the kill a few weeks prior to the Cataclysm as the second on our server. This rapid switch from being dps to tank for the first time was necessary, but burnt me out severely. As I was beginning college at the time, I decided to cancel my WoW subscription, and even went as far as to permanently delete my characters and account because I had become so burnt out on the game and wanted to move on.

The Return

Shortly before the final raid of Cataclysm was released, I was subject to a recruit-a-friend invite from a friend and former guildmate of mine. I joined my old guild as a casual after seeing what I could enjoy aside from high-end raiding and was quick to re-subscribe and begin my adventures anew.

New Beginnings

Having the itch to raid again, I pugged the raid using the new LFR system that was introduced to the raiding scene with this patch to satisfy my urge but it wasn\'t enough. I took to searching in Trade Chat for a group late one Saturday and by the end of the night I led their guild to successfully kill Deathwing on normal for the first time and was offered the position of Raid Leader as a result, which I took graciously.

By the time Mogu\'Shun Vaults came out, I was the Guild Master, Raid Lead, and reluctant fill-in tank. For a time I was GM/RL of a proud Heroic guild on ONe Server while quietly auditioning for a second guild on the Horde Side to satisfy my want to raid even more. It was at this time that my Alliance guild began to fall apart for a plethora of reasons regarding a rogue officer that was spreading dissent. I did not want to deal with the issues, so I handed the reigns to my second-in-command and left most of my alts in that guild to support him when I wasn\'t raiding on my Paladin.

Guild Drama. . . TO THE MAX!

For the rest of Mists and Warlords, I was part of a strong Heroic/Mythic guild that performed well and was quickly given an officer position despite my disdain for such positions anymore. The main tank for this guild had a problem with my being an officer over him despite there being a multitude of reasons for him not having an officer role. When the guild was threatened by his leaving over his severe distaste for me, I offered to step down. My stepping down revealed his true intents, though as he was quick to assign nonsensical roles to me during raids to frame me as a poor player. Not wishing to deal with this anymore I left after letting the GM know I was sorry for what had transpired and found a new home quickly after thanks to my parses being somewhat impressive despite the setbacks.

Demon Hunter Raiding = Second Peak

I quickly gained a reputation as a \"hardcore dps\" within the new guild when myself and a hunter solo\'d the last 10% of what would ahve been a wipe on the Arrakoan boss of Hellfire Citadel, and was given a junior officer\'s role as a recruiter for raids. This would only last until 7.2, The Broken Shore however as the GM wanted his Paladin friend to join the guild and didn\'t have room for another plate-wearer so \'offered\' me to try out Demon hunter at the beginning of Legion. I was at a second peak at this point in my raiding, consistently pulling great DPS while maneuvering any and all raid mechanics with ease and even becoming a highly effective raid lead at times when the GM was unsure of what to do next in a difficult pull.

This worked well throughout the Nightmare and Nightwell raids, and ended abruptly when the GM felt too uncomfortable with me in the raid feeling I was \"casting a looming shadow and not pulling numbers to back it up\" despite my being the #1 DPS in every pull and staying silent for two weeks in a row as requested by him. Seeing the conflict, I voluntarily left the guild without so much as a fuss because I didn\'t want another guild to split over circumstances I felt responsible for in part. Unfortunately, my leaving transformed that guild into a churning wasteland of toxic gameplay that, to this day, has never recovered. This is in part due to many of my fellow raiders feeling I was mistreated, others feeling the raid lead had a napoleon complex, and the GM\'s own ambitions to take a strictly Heroic guild and push ever further into mythic despite not having the skill or abilities to lead such an endeavor.

The End of Legion, Battle for Azeroth, and Today

Today I\'m a casual WoW player, mostly enjoying leveling alts, reading lore text in quests, and have taken a liking to getting an achievement a day as a personal goal to myself. On the Alliance, I main a Retribution Paladin to this day, and on the Horde my Demon Hunter stays current with content and raid tiers as my main toon on the Horde side.