R-E-S-P-E-C-T

This last installment of my weekend's frolics in WoW will take us, or maybe just me, out on a happy note.

Before I get started, perhaps a drop of background. Back at 38 and 39 I spent some time in BG playing capture the flag. Basically clueless, but having a hugely great time. On one run, there was 3 of us who didnt know eachother but just sort of clicked. A warrior to carry the flag, a priest to keep him alive and me to slow down the pursuit. We just read eachother's minds and won 3-0 in a hurry. Get back into the battle queue, and then get entered into battle. In the little waiting room, the warrior is there. He asks where the priest is. I said I dont know. He went on for 2 or 3 sentences of praise and how much that priest had been "healing him like a champ". I sat there just glowing with joy from the win, and also agreeing with everything he was saying. And inside, i thought to myself, "Someday, I want someone to say that about me."

Ok, maybe not say that I was healing like a champ, but just observing some of the subtle things that I do that I hope separate me from the general Night Elf Huntard crowd. At least I think they separate me :-)

Fastforward from there, but rewind from today, and I discover BRK's blog and his descriptions of chain trapping. You've read about some of my chain trapping experiences here on this blog. Lots of practice in the solo wild, and a very precious few times doing it in 5-man groups in
instances.

Running through Hellfire Ramparts, where Rogue sap is limited because of all the dogs, and no mage in the group. Group leader says "moon=freeze", which I interpret means me. We head in. The details are in the post before this one, but in general, it's working. I was reasonably effective at keeping a mob entirely occupied through many of the pulls. Plus, anytime our tank forgot that he's supposed to be generating threat on all mobs, and not just the primary DPS target, our healer would gain aggro and start getting smacked. In those scenarios, I would send my pet over and off-tank, firing a few growls or an intimidate to generate threat.

Keep in mind that among the small circle I was running with, this healer is well respected and receives lots of compliments. He really has a good eye for anticipating who's about to take damage and starts casting before the hits even land. A great attitude and team worker, to boot.

Later on sunday, I had been logged off for a while to decompress because all the wow'ing had me a little dizzy. I log in and in short order get a pst from the healer asking if I wanted to run ramparts again. SURE!!! (A) excited to at an opportunity to run an instance with a good healer, and (B) really excited that, of all the huntards out there, he thought to invite me. A giant "feels-great-to-be-me moment".

Then the icing on the cake. I join the party, and see him, plus 3 names I dont recognize. So for introduction, he says "everybody welcome amava, he really knows what he's doin with his traps."

Ok, so it took me a minute to come down off the ceiling after that one. A tiny little one sentence party text remark, but it made me realize why I'm busting my hump trying to get better at this game. I know I'm reading way more into this than I should but...

Thanks, Drake, you made my day!