When I heard about Shadowlands releasing, I considered jumping back into WoW. First, however, I needed a new character to play.
I almost went back to my Mage, but playing as a fire mage just isn't the same anymore.
So, I figured I'd try something different, like tanking.
I had a bit of tanking experience from playing a Blood DK in Legion, but only in normal mode—nothing too wild.
I chose to go with a guardian druid this time, despite all the new covenant systems making things complicated.
That’s how I ended up with my druid tank, Zueschoo. Initially, I wanted to join a guild to participate in raids, but finding a spot as a tank is tough. There are only two tank positions, and if you remove one tank, you risk losing the other—a situation most guilds can't afford.
So, I ended up joining PUGs (pick-up groups) for raids.
Raiding with PUGs is hit-or-miss. Sometimes you get a good group, and you know you'll defeat the boss in a few attempts.
But then there are groups that fall apart after just one bad fight. People bail, and you can spend ages waiting for replacements.
It's often a mess, and the best solution is usually to leave and find a new group.
You would be amazed how many familiar faces you encounter when trying to defeat one of the harder bosses with PUGs for 10 hours straight.
Despite the chaos, I cleared the Castle Nathria (CN) and Sanctum of Domination (SoD) raids on Heroic difficulty relatively quickly, often before even attempting them on normal mode. I didn’t want to waste time on normal when I could be defeating them on Heroic.
P.S. One advantage of not being in a guild is that you can simply leave if people aren’t performing well. I joined some guild groups that clearly overestimated their abilities... what happened to them? Ah, right, they were 5/10 HC, getting hard-stuck on bosses like Painsmith... (even after the nerf)
Most of my time was spent doing Mythic+, which I loved. I met some cool Romanian players in a random PUG, and we started playing together, pushing high-level keys.
I managed to complete all +20 dungeons in the first season; only about 2% of players achieve that.
The next season was tougher, but I cleared all the +20 dungeons again during the pre-patch.
I also completed all +15s in the second week. After that, however, the game just wasn't providing the same thrill.
I felt I had accomplished the toughest challenges available to me at the time.
(Besides Mythic raiding, for which you need a good guild.)
With nothing left in WoW to achieve and Blizzard undergoing changes, I simply stopped playing. One day I was all in; the next, I was done. That's how it often goes. Now, it's time to find something new to pursue with the same dedication.
Some leftover videos: