Raises hand...... I play World of Warcraft. Yes, yes, I play a Druid named Muhan

I have been playing since a few weeks after launch. A few friends played it during the beta and convinced me to give it a try. We rolled characters on a PvP server first (I was a priest), it was fun with a hint of danger and occasional gankage. The Horde Alliance ratio was approximately 1 to 2. Then Blizzard opened up realm transfers and the ratio changed and the new Alliance folks would gank and camp you for an hour. Hard to impossible to just quest.

We rolled some Alliance characters but they just weren't as fun somehow. Blizzard favors Alliance - total personal opinion :) When Blizzard opened character transfers we moved to our current home on Malfurion, a PVE server. I got my priest to level 60 and raided a little with a guild (Onxyia and . The priest class was beginning to pall. I had been playing a shadow priest to quest but had respec'd to holy for raids (Onyxia,, Zul'Gurub never got to Molten Core). Just not a good long term match. Then Burning Crusade came out.... Wow! My wife was pregnant, new daughter, didn't have lots of time to play. My friends leveled much faster then I did. Soloing with a holy spec priest is, rather challenging. It's also frustrating. Eventually I got my priest Fallwelt to level 63 before I found I wasn't playing WoW much.

After a break, I went back and began playing a feral spec Druid I named Muhan. I had this cat form for sneak and damage. At level 30 I got this Travel form (cheetah) that went faster then others and this Bear form for taking it and surviving. I got my kodo to ride at 40 and upgraded speed at 60. . In the Outlands at level 68 I got my taste of flight with my flight form. Flying was fun but soon I was lusting after more speed. I scrimped and saved my gold (5,000) for training (and borrowed some too) and then embarked on the epic 16 part quest chain for my Epic flight form. It was fun fun fun zooming around. No Druid should be without this fun form.

We raided with a guild for a while but for a variety of reasons some of us found our current home with Order of Thought. A casual and friendly guild that welcomed us in.

Our core raiding set of raiders comprised a group that could clear Karazhan. A challenging 10 man raid for those hitting 70. It required a combination of skill, gear and party class mix. I was able to off tank initially and got better gear so occasionally picked up tank duties more and more and DPS'ed otherwise.

Many of the older guild members wanted to try their hand at raids. At first, our raid leaders just made a second group and all the new folks tried that. Didn't work so well. The initial pre-kara gear and class set not so good for the later half bosses. So some of the experienced and geared raiders were split by our raid leaders into two Karazhan groups to mix well geared/experienced raiders with not quite as well geared folks (I get to be main tank for this second group, fortunatly Nerindel is raid leader). We've had a lot more success with this format. Both in clearing Karazhan and in getting better gear for folks. This gets more people used to working together and learning their role (DPS, Tank, Heal, Buff, etc). The goal of course being further end game content and gear while having fun. It also gets people some more Badge of Justice (to get more stuff).

Well the last few weeks we've been trying to do the next instance. A challenging 25 man raid called Gruul's Lair. The gear minimums for armor, DPS, healing are much higher. We've had to pick up friends outside the guild to fill various slots but have managed to get a complete raid so far. In four attempts we downed the first challenge High King Maulgar and his very tough council (Kiggler the Crazed, Blindeye the Seer, Olm the Summoner and Krosh Firehand). It required a combination of tanks, DPS and healers in a mad, chaotic and swirling fight. Gruul on the other hand eluded us. (we didn't attempt Gruul the first time.

It took three more raids before we succeeded in downing Gruul this last Sunday. In an EPIC fight to the end. I was one of three tanks and the last one left, the main priest called 'all heals on Muhan' and I popped all my trinkets, my drums of restoration, my frenzied regeneration to keep me in there fighting and watching his health slowly go down. The remaining DPSers got him own to 1% health when I died. The cry went out... 'BURN HIM DOWN' and we watched (the dead ones that is) as one by one they were silenced and Gruul's health bar went down. In the end we were victorious with half the raid still standing.

Hopefully we will be able to repeat this feat now that we have done this successfully once. this time I'd like to see some more of the end game content before Blizzard's next expansion comes out.