Team Venture

Jane

Jane, Janewatson specifically, has a long history of lots of things. I also am a famously amazing story teller, just ask anyone in the guild I'll keep it to a few short stories, I promise. I started playing wow like most significant others of people who played the game. "Here, make a character on my account, run around a little, isn't it fun?". My first character ever was a hunter named shehulksmash (I'm the she hulk by the way). Danthor picked that one out for me. I'm a vet student and he figured the whole having a pet thing would appeal to me. Well it did and I leveled her enough that Danthor said I should get my own account otherwise I'd never want to re-level. They didn't separate characters etc. in those times. So I got my own copy of WoW and rolled pretty much every class you can think of. I secretly wanted to be a cow (I love cows) but everyone played alliance. When it came down to it, I decided I didn't just want to take care of an animal, I wanted to be able to change into them! Seriously, how cool is that.

So the druid it was! Jane was leveled pretty slowly, and as a resto druid. What a conincidence, that's what I am now! But now, that's not how the story goes. It was tough for sure, but when Dandelions (the warlock, and yes, all the characters that start with Dan are the same significant other that started me playing in the first place) explained the different talent trees I knew with every leaf on my tree that I was a healer. Again, I was a vet student, born to heal those in need in real life, clearly I would have some connection with that theory in game. So I leveled a tree. This was back when they had just added trees, and the only things you really could do while shapesifted were to throw HOTs on people. No healing touch, no innervate or remove poison. Those were interesting days.

Then outland happened and it was magic! But I wasn't leveling fast enough for the venture brothers. While waiting for me at the 70 level cap Denthor rolled a priest....Queball. And it happened. The day Dan asked me to go *gulp* feral. Queball the priest had leveled to cap in a blink of an eye and the guild no longer needed a healer, they just needed more DPS. Now, it was not that dramatic of a request, but at the time I thought WoW was ending for me. Of course I re-sepc'd and it was difficult. I had pieced together a mismatched feral set along the road to 64 (the time I switched) so it wasn't the gear that was a huge problem. (Insert rant about needing multiple gear bags. Every class, especially hybrids should own multiple gear bags. I have 4. One for healing, cat dps, bear tank, and pvp. Even though your role is one thing, you should always be able to throw on a different look at try your hand at something else. This is even more important now that there is dual spec in the game. It is not that hard to keep a very low set of gear for something you may do eventually. The quest blues and random dungeon loot that would otherwise be sharded is enough to supply it. That extra 7 gold isn't really worth selling the piece if in a month from now you decide that you're bored with healing and tanking may be fun. Every class should have multiple sets of gear. I'm looking at you too mages. Maybe not locks. This is why I never have enough bag space, but funny enough, no one ever complains when I say that I can switch roles or try and pvp with the best of them. End rant here)

And you thought you were getting away with a short story. HA! I pretty much resented my feral self as I leveled to level cap. I cried when I couldn't level anymore. I hated the endgame. I couldn't raid, I didn't know enough about the game yet to run dailies, do battlegrounds and play the auction house. It ended up ok, I promise. Eventually Team venture was running heroics and during our first attempts at Shadow Labs there was need for more crowd control and we didn't always get it. The words "Jane go off tank triangle" brought new meaning to my feral self and I found happiness in being semi important for some pulls and hiding in back as a cat in the rest. I promise I even saved a few lives with a quick tranquility every now and then. Since I had a good enough healing set from being resto before I even healed a few non-heroics as a feral. You could do that, did you know? I always told the group that I was spec'd feral but could heal the dungeon just fine and I did, though some would always ask at the end of the run " arey you really spec'd feral?" So I got my healing bug satisfied from doing that and healing in battlegrounds--- oh how they loved healers of any kind in AV.

Then wrath launched and I was loving how fun it was to level as a feral druid. I was having a blast. And then came Butkus (Funny story, same guy plays Butkus and Queball...). Butkus was a dps shaman with license to kill and leveled moderately fast. But while Butkus was leveling there was no healer Queball to be had and the guild no longer could make a group fast. So, at level 7-something I was asked again to re-spec. I don't think they would have if they didn't know how much I secretly loved to heal. I may complain about how stressful it is, and you may hear nervous clicking on vent, but I really do like it. I think I waited until dual specs came out because resto is listed as my secondary spec-- oddly enough since it's the one I spend most of my time in. So I'm a tree again, that's how the guild knows me. Selvain, our other druid resto/feral, gives me a break for 5 mans sometimes and I can go back to my feral self. Let me tell you though, there is a slight lag time in getting back into the swing of things when going cat. My "off tank" set is dusty in the bank and will likely sit there awhile. I snagged some holiday trinkets and neck pieces for it! And that's my story, I hoped you liked it.

Story #2: The Elf and the 100 pets.

I don't have 100 pets, let it be known. It is a goal of mine however and I'm getting pretty close these days. I'm at 96 last time I checked. My first pet ever was Timmy's white kitten. Dan got it for me. He found Timmy wandering around Stormwind and gave it to me instead of putting it up on the AH. At the time the AH scared me and I had no clue what this "white kitten" meant. I mean, he could have gotten 60 gold for that cat carrier, back when 60 gold really meant something! Oh how I love my first pet! Did I mention I'm a vet student? Well, it makes sense doesn't it, to collect as many crazy critters as possible and have them run along side you as you explore the world? I really got hooked when I got the macaw in deadmines. It flew! I collected as many as I could, and Dan always found ways to get me presents. Gotta love the high level mage with gold. Achievements came out and I was like, what? a skunk for getting 50? That is SO mine!!!!!!!

I finally added the oozling pet to my collection. I wish I could say I farmed it but there was just no way I could do that with the time I played. That one, and the firefly, had been on my list a long time and I'm happy to have them both. I could tell you about each one individually, but I did promise to keep the stories short. Well, shorter.

Real life:

I'm a vet student if you didn't catch that. It translates into limited time to do much of anything else. Hopefully when it's all over, I'll be able to work, travel, play wow, and cook until everyone is morbidly obese! (not the last part, I'll make them ride 100 miles on their bikes every day. I like biking).