First off, for those of you who are a fan of my actual WoW/healing/Resto Shaman writing, I just put a basic Resto Shaman guide up at Wowhead. I haven’t done any theorycrafting this entire alpha/beta cycle, because I’ve been very busy with my main Wowhead project of dungeon and raid guide-writing, so this guide is very general and largely qualitative. As always, I’m open to suggestions, input, corrections, nit picks, and other feedback – don’t be shy!
Lots of people have asked me about updating my Choosing a Healer guide for Legion. Unfortunately I don’t think I have enough knowledge to do this. With having to level to 110 and gear my character to test dungeons and raids on Beta I haven’t had much of a chance to experiment with other specs. I don’t want to publish a guide that doesn’t meet my personal standards of accuracy and experience-supported theory; I hope you understand.
In the coming weeks I’ll be simplifying and re-organising this site to remove outdated Warlords information. In light of what I’ve written below about personal matters, I’ll probably be scaling back to a less theorycrafting, more practical and personal type of blog. I’ve loved being analytical and mathy all these years, but my heart simply isn’t in it right now. Perhaps sometime later.
On to more personal things:
My guild of just-under-4-years has decided to quit raiding for Legion, and I am frantically looking for a new home. It’s an emotionally difficult time for me, as the people in Something Wicked were more than just guildies. They were my family, they provided a space where I always felt comfortable and accepted, and that’s not something I find easy to come by in either real life or internet settings.
Just in case someone reading this happens to know of a guild that’s recruiting – I don’t even know how to find guilds anymore! – here’s my “dream list” of qualities I’d like to see in my next guild:
- Mythic raiding at a high level (~top 100 US)
- Needs a Resto Shaman/dedicated healer; my DPS skill is atrocious and only to be used as a last resort 😛
- Light schedule, even during progression
- Active in beta/PTR, theorycrafting, and the community
- Mature but light-hearted and silly attitude
- Non-tolerant of abusive, racist, sexist, or other discriminatory language and behaviour
- Friendly and inclusive atmosphere
- Alliance
I’d love to find a guild that hits most or all of those dot points, but given how close we are to Legion launch I am skeptical of my chances, so I’ll take all the help I can get in finding a new home.
I’m trying not to make permanent decisions now while I’m still struggling with this development. I’m still working on Wowhead dungeon and raid guides, and I hope to have the dungeon guides finished by the end of this month, with Emerald Nightmare guides done a couple weeks before raid launch so you can start planning your strats. I want to write a few things here about the basics of Legion systems, and I want to make some cookies.
I also want to cry, a lot.
It’s possible that I will no longer be playing WoW or participating in its community if I can’t find a Mythic raiding guild for Legion, since raiding is my true passion. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I know I’ll always have the wonderful friends I met through this blog, through Twitter, through beta testing, and through the community, no matter what happens. ❤ you all.
healiocentric 
I do hope that you’re able to find a new raiding home quickly. You are one of my favourite go-to people for restoration shaman info, so I would be very sad to see you not blogging about resto shamans. But I also completely and totally understand how important it is to have a raiding home to feel comfortable in the game, and your happiness has to come first. So I wish you all the very best in the hunt for a new raid team.
xo
Check out (of the Queue) on Nesingwary [Nazgrel/Veknilash]. The guild was formed as a following of a Blizzard Watch (formerly from WoW Insider) column known as the Queue. You’re probably already aware of the site. The guild hasn’t progressed Mythic, but several folks in the guild are Mythic raiders on other toons looking to progress Mythic over here. Roll up a toon on one of those servers and “/who of the queue” whisper any of us for an invite. Check out the guild before you spend any dough on a transfer. Good group of folks from all over the world. Server time is CST.
Thats really unfortunate and sad 😦
After Abraxas effectively disbanded I milled about in another guild that wasn’t the same then quit for most of MoP and WoD because it just wasn’t the same without the awesome guildies. Its taken me a long time (I guess its been about 3 years? such a long time <_< ) to consider playing the game again without them. I started playing again about a week ago because a friend of mine thought I'd like the changes on the PTR (which I do).
The guild I joined recently is currently recruiting mythic raiders for Legion. Since I literally joined a few days ago its hard to say how many things they tick off your wishlist, but my realm isn't likely to be anywhere near the top 100 raiding guilds, so probably not what you're after.
In any case, best of luck in finding a suitable guild. Your guides are amazing, you're an awesome person and a great healer, I'm sure there's plenty of terrific guilds out there in need of a healer such as yourself 🙂
-Az
Holy shit Az, talk about blast from the past! ❤ Glad to hear you're back for Legion. I think it's going to be a fantastic expansion. Thanks for being positive, it's helping ❤
When my friends stopped raiding, back at the end of WoTLK, I thought I would never raid again. How could you find a group of people that you could laugh with, cry with, rage at always-hunter-drops with, and cheer with, ever again?
A faction change, server change and almost two expansions later I found my new home, and I’m glad to say that the timetable suits me (I would love to raid Mythic but there isn’t consistently enough of us. It’s not just skill, but attitude, after all). While we get through content at a decent chop, we get to have a laugh/theorycraft and we play other games together during off nights.
I guess what I’m saying is to hold on to the hope that you’ll find ‘the right place’! I would be particularly sad to see you go because I do love reading your blog (and you inspire me to try resto shaman, one day). For all the guilds out there that you would never, ever want to be a part of there will be one that isn’t like your old guild, but it still feels right.
I won’t get my old friends back (a lot of them have moved on in life, after all) and I guess I’ll always wish they came with me. I still carry old mail letters I’ve saved in my bank (thank goodness for wardrobe, right?) from old guildies… but I love the thought of making new friends in Azeroth.
Good luck with your hunt. Hit me up on Barthilas if you are ever in want of a troll friend. 🙂
Dayani… I understand your sentiments about a guild feeling like second family. Unlike me who views raiding guilds as something objective- for me guilds don’t feel like a social experience anymore, we all have a common interest and as soon as those interests diverge I look elsewhere to go. Does not make me a guild hopper, but if something no longer serves a purpose which benefits me (aka I am not having fun) then I move on, is this a bad mentality to take on?
100℅ seriously check out proper villains on proudmoore. I’m not sure that we need a healer or not, but we check a lot of boxes for you I promise. If you choose to app you can say Star sent you.
I actually looked at your guild in my own search a year or two ago, but I was a bit behind them at the time. PV is doing very well and only getting better (new team as of the start of last year).
I do hope you find a home!
Ah, Dedralie, I love reading your posts – I hope you find a guild that fulfills all of your requirements. It would be a shame to lose you; you bring so much warmth, help, love and laughter to the healing community.
Hey Dayani,
I’m reading your blog from my early SoO days and it always gave a good push to my thoughts and writing (I write for resto shamans on Icy Veins). You are doing a great job and I sincerely hope that looking for a new guild wouldn’t push you away from WoW and theorycrafting.
I went through the same issue in oct-nov 2015, when the guild that I treated as my long-term home stopped to raid and announced “No more than HC 2-day raiding in Legion”. I felt same awful as you do and thought that I would never find anything even close to the quality of people I had around. But here I am, 10 months later, 13/13 Mythic in a great guild with nice adult people, preparing to fight more Mythic bosses in Legion. Actually my current guild hits most of your boxes but we are EU so 😦
Anyways, what I’m trying to say here is – don’t afraid to go out and search – there are so many great people and good guilds, just give it a chance 🙂
I really hope you’ll find your match, don’t give up!
Pandacho
Because of tensions in my old guild and the raiding environment becoming terrible my BF and a friend from the old guild created our own in January. With only three months of raiding we became 9/13M before prepatch. Maybe you could find some of the guildies that want to keep raiding and keep it alive? Being a co-GM with two other people still proves to be a lot of my plate, but I am super proud of the happy environment that we have created in our guild or “home.” Unfortunately, we’re not the same faction but I love reading your stuff!
I hope you find a home! You gotta do you!
If your looking for a guild that is a great community, consider Eternal Kingdom on Proudmoore US#67.
We have 5 mythic teams 13/13M. http://www.ek-gaming.net/
I am the heal lead on Knight team and would like to discuss if our guild is a good fit.
I love your blogs.
Regards, Gal
Hi Dayani,
Sorry to hear about Something Wicked, I always was rooting for your team’s progression! I’d offer my guild (Motivate Me), but we’re not at the level of progression you’re likely looking for (usually a few bosses into mythic when the next tier comes out). We are planning on being a bit more serious going into Legion, but still raiding 6 hours a week without huge shakeups, so probably still in the same tier of progression, give or take. I’m sure you’ll find a place to live, given that you’re a very talented healer and a great person! I hope you can stick around; we can’t lose you with Hamlet gone (or well, not gone but out of the community)! If you decide to pull back or just want a place to park on Whisperwind, just hmu on bnet!
Much love,
Twitch
Have you thought about starting your own guild? I mean it can be built in your own image and you have some time to be picky with selection of members. Not to mention, I’m sure you have some friends in other guilds that may be looking to move on as well. I ran a guild for years successfully (according to our/my goals) and it’s not too hard if you don’t make it hard and don’t take shit off anyone. This doesn’t mean you need to be an asshole, it just means you need to be stern yet understanding.
I would suggest that you find one good person to run it with you and find officers willing to help in the mundane tasks that GM’s shouldn’t be micro-managing. This is the only hard part.
Parting quote: “Surround yourself with successful people, and you will inevitably become successful!”