My First Ever Raid

Ever since I started playing WoW, my husband has told me tales about raiding and it became something that I wanted to aim for, he warned me though that raiding isn't for everyone and I may not enjoy it, he told me that a raid member needs to be able to take advice and learn from it. Think hard about what you are contributing, and of course...to know the tactics.

I've been doing heroics for some time now, and pretty much all of my gear is 346 or better with the exception of a couple of 333 items, so husband and I decided that we would like to have a go at a raid.

The first raid that springs to mind when starting out in Cataclysm is  Argaloth in Baradin Hold,  now a few people have since said to me that it's not a real raid...well, you know what? I don't give a damn. Its a good enough raid for my first ever taste of raiding.

Initially we joined a PuG...

I had no idea what to expect, I was actually trembling with excitement and nerves, it felt just like the very first time I did a dungeon in WoW. I kept asking my husband silly things like "Do I just heal my group?" "Do I dispel only my group?" "Are you sure I'm ready to do this?" he kept having to reassure me that unless I was told otherwise I should just look after my group.

The Tanks and DPS were great, I was doing my job, but the other healer wasn't. On the first wipe I had done 76% of the healing and more dispels as well.  So that healer was swapped for another, and again the healing caused a wipe...it crossed my mind, should I be doing more healing, but I was successfully keeping my group alive and kicking. So once again we swapped the healer, but it was too late, the next battle for Tol Barad was about to begin, so we left it at that.

Later in the evening, my guild decided to put together group and the Guild Leader kindly allowed myself and the husband to come along, so I must say a 'thank you' to him for that. It was so much fun. We wiped once because one DPS died and we didn't get the boss down before beserk but we got it on the second attempt. I healed pretty much the same amount as the other healer, and dispelled the same, which was a great relief to me and means, I cant be going too wrong. I also bagged myself some PvP loot...Vicious Gladiator's Satin Leggings.

Husband was tanking first so I dropped a lightwell, popped a shield, prayer of mending and renew on him and we all stuck with him so the damage would spread evenly. I used chakra, mainly using heal and serenity which also refreshed the renew on Nuad, and also utilising my other group heals such as Circle of Healing (which is now lovely since the patch) and a few prayers of healing, and I also used Sanctuary, but I felt that the serenity was more useful to me on the tank, or whoever needed it at the time. When the other tank and group took over it allowed me to just top everyone off and regain a bit of mana. I did use shadowfiend to regain some mana, but I wasn't completely oom by the end of the fight. As the debuff Consuming Darkness landed on players, I removed it as soon as possible...a few weeks ago Nuad suggested that I bind dispel to a mouse key, I took his advice, and it was very useful to have such quick access to dispel during that encounter. During the Fel Firestorm, I ran around dodging the fire but keeping an eye on my tank so that I could be back with him as soon as possible after the firestorm was over, and watching the health bars of the DPS, in case they needed an extra heal. Before I knew it, the boss was dead, and it was all over. But, I was so caught up in what I was doing during the fight that I forgot to get any screenshots, even though I have a bright pink note stuck to my computer monitor saying "SCREENSHOTS." I think I need a bigger note!

It took me ages to get to sleep last night, I haven't felt this excited about WoW since my very first day in the game. It was brilliant seeing everyone work together and I can't wait till I can do more raids. Even today, I'm still buzzing about it. After all, "It's easy to get good players. Getting them to play together, that is the hard part."

(Myself and the Tanks)