Why do I love to heal? Oh let me count the ways...

I didn't start out a healer you know. Last year, a friend of mine was trying to convince the husband to play WoW. Jas was a bit skeptical, he'd had some bad problems with MMO's in the past, and wasn't eager to try his hand at it again. But our friend bought him a copy and just said "Try it."

So he did. Our friend had many alliance toons, so he made a NE druid, named him Fiordhraoi (Gaelic translation = "Crotchy weirdo druid"), and well, he liked it. I have a habit of watching him play tons of video games (and play a few myself) because at the time, his PC was shinier than mine. And I liked it too. I wanted to play.

So out we go to EBgames (our home away from home), nab me a copy, get home, install, and I'm there at the races screen. What did I choose to play? My first MMO (Guild Wars didn't count since I only played it for like ... 1 week) ever.... Well, I don't want to play something smchexy, everyone plays something schmexy. So NE's and Humans are out. Dwarves.... not terribly inspiring.... OMG gnomes are so CUTE! OMG Pigtails of DOOM!

And Giddg was born. My gnome rogue. Because rogues are easy to level, and again, I was just starting out.

Fast forward a couple of months, and after some guild drama (we had joined Hyppie's guild, but we left because of some mental retardation coming from the officers) Fio, Hyppie and I, along with some friends created Aetherial Circle. The 18+ guaranteed that we wouldn't have to deal with most of the grief we had gotten from the last guild. Around this time, I had an alt (my first!) Phelyx. She was a mage I made to play with Fio's mage, Miloc. But even though I leveled her to 20 something... I just couldn't get a good vibe going. Being squishier then my rogue yet dealing damage seemed to be a lose/lose situation.

Then, as some of the people in the guild started hitting 60(yay Fio hit 60!)they were starting to get a bit bummed. Fio was an awesome balance boomkin of doom, and he can heal quite well too. But the instances were getting tougher even for him. So I figured, well, why not? Hyppie explained to me that healers were always a sought after commodity on pretty much any server, and if I made a dwarf priest, I could have my pick of anything. "Fear Ward."

So, back to the character creation screen I go, this time to whip me up some Dwarven Priest. After toying with the generator for 15 mins or so, I got the look I wanted. They spoke with a Scottish brough, so I wanted something appropriate to name her. Rhiannon. That's what I'll name her.

THAT NAME IS NOT AVAILABLE.

Damn. Ok, what about Rhia? NO. Shannon? Nice Try.

Ug. Ok, I need a new inspiration for a name. Hrm.... or do I want to watch Firefly again. WAIT! I put a little Irish spin on it and whoop! Cayleigh. Sweet.

Next advice I get, "As soon as you hit level ten, start putting points into your Shadow Tree. You want to do as much damage as you can." Ok, shadow tree.... well, yea, that's a lot of damaging type things. Can't I level holy?

*crickets**Sound of a thump, followed by cats making noise and laughter*

Ummm, guess not. Apparently, if I tried going for healing right away, it would take me forever to level. So ok, I guess I'll conform. Just this once. Besides, Fio could heal all the lowbie instances I'd need to go through anyway.

So, months later, about 4 weeks from BC release, and whoop! Cayleigh is 60! I had been good, leveling her mostly shadow (and actually enjoying it for a while) but at level 57, I decided it was time to go holy and start healing.

Holy shit, what a rush!!! I was healing BRD (keep in mind, I was still a nooblet at this game, even though Cay was my second 60, this was my first time actually balls-to-the-wall healing) and went OOM but we killed the boss and only the squishi died!
From the squishi - "Steph, don't DPS the boss. Just sit back and heal. We'll cover the rest."

Sorry -.-

And after many adventures of learning that Fade is my friend, amongst other things, we come to the Cayleigh of today.

Few things I've learned and (love) about being a healer:

1) Everyone wants to group with you. I mean everyone. This can be a good thing (Oh, I need 4 more badges for my Tears of HEaven offhand, who's up for some heroic Mech?) to a bad thing: (*while in the middle of some other dungeon run five tells of* - "do u want 2 run X plz!?!one!"). So you'll never really have to worry about not being able to do any instance (unless all the tanks are afk/not on T.T).

2) As a healer, you have one of the three most important jobs in the game, so it makes things much, much more interactive then just smushing buttons and getting big numbers that gain you aggro (with mobs and other players).

3) Guaranteed loot in most cases. Hunters/Shamans, Feral Druids/Rogues/Warriors can all quibble over who should get what (because it does happen in PuGs... a lot... unfortunately) but as the healer, if it has +healing, or in a priest's case, spirit, intel, mana/5, you won't have any one else to compete with.

4) How do I describe the feeling of awesome success? I don't know. But it's a fuzzy feeling, and I'm prone to them. I guess I'll have to get into this step more later on. But suffice to say, I felt retardedly awesome during that Black Morass run BRK went with us on.

So those are my reasons for playing my priest. It's not a great list, but more things will come in time. Yes, I will say one thing: it does kinda suck that you can't solo any more, but a solid DPS set will see you through those tough times.

And for now, musings off. Gotta close up the library. And like, do work. oO

Toodles for now!