The Second Raid Night – The Climb #667

Sunday 20^th December 2020

It was the second raid night tonight.

Despite spending most of the week working on Alt-leveling, I’d got some good drops at the start of the Warcraft week and as such entered the raid having made a good 7 ilevels.

I’m not trying to be the star DPS but at the same time I’m not trying to let the side down.  It meant that I entered tonight’s raid without stressing that I hadn’t played enough.  I don’t feel guilty for leveling my alts.

We made great progress as well, downing 5 bosses in the time. There’s talk of a second raid night during progress although I suspect that won’t happen until the new year.

What I’m enjoying is the progress.  Having trained swordfighting I know that the people most likely to succeed are the ones who embrace failure.  And we do.  We try, we fail.  We try something different, and we succeed.

I’m actually quite impressed on how far we’ve progressed in just 2 short weeks.

Of course, what I really need to do is to start doing some Mythics.  My problem is that the guild always seems to do them when I’m busy.  Or when I’m free, they are full.

I’m going to worry about it more after Xmas when things are a bit calmer and I have a few more level 60s under my belt.

It’s not like I’m not playing Warcraft.  Indeed, I have put loads of time in this past week, although mainly into alts.  I’m feeling pretty good where things are with this expansion currently as not only do I feel on top of things, but I feel I’m a bit ahead of where I’d usually be with professions progressed and alts leveled.  Maybe after xmas, when others have runs a loads of mythics and I’m still around ilevel 180 I might feel a bit behind again. But given how quickly I felt I caught up by doing heroics a week or so ago, I’m not too worried.

Given how shit everything is in the real world, Warcraft is my little bubble away from reality.  I’m starting to miss swordfighting greatly, and once the weather improves I need to start doing some more training ahead of when we come back.  But in place of tournaments, raiding is fulfilling that competitive itch I’ve been missing this last year.

It’s also nice to be someone in the background.  I can be terribly competitive and an overachiever, so it makes a pleasant change to be someone in the shadows rather than the spotlight  (a spotlight I hasten to add that is all a result of my ego wanting it).

Most importantly, I came away from raiding tonight feeling genuinely happy.  I wouldn’t say I’ve been sad or depressed this past year, but moments of pure happiness have been few and far between.

I’m looking forward to the next raid, which means I’m looking forward rather than trying to keep my head above water.

Hope is hope, whatever form it takes.