About Me

Welcome to Life in Group5, a blog dedicated to being a healer, by a sometimes overly-dedicated resto shaman.

Who am I?
Someone who loves healing. My main is Vixsyn, a troll Resto Shaman in FH (Forgotten Heroes) on Black Dragonflight (US). Vixsyn has been and will always be a healer, although she did have a brief stint as elemental at the behest of a former guild leader. I have a variety of alts, including an army of 80’s which I play/raid on when I’m not raiding on my main: an unholy/blood DK, a feral druid, a disc priest, an all-specs mage (my former main in BC) and a prot/holy pally. I’m an avid console gamer, dating back to my first introduction to Nintendo 64 and extending through almost every system since. As far as online games, I admit to being a recent devotee, only having ventured into other MMOs like Tabula Rasa, L4D, and Aion. When I’m not on WoW, I can usually be found talkin trash in MW:2.

What is Group 5?
For those of you who might not be aware, in the quintessential 25-man raid, Group 5 is where raid organizers typically start placing their healers during group formation. As a resto shaman with the lackluster-but-still-better-than-nothing mana tide totem, I’m typically assured a position in raid slots 21 – 25. Thus, Group5 not only represents my little square’s location in my raid frames but also the company in which I spend the majority of my raiding time. (I wouldn’t have it any other way.)

When did my WoW affair begin?
I rolled my first character in the months before Burning Crusade, although due to general nubishness and battleground distractions, I didn’t hit 70 until a couple months after expansion release. Like most newbies, I started out completely ignorant of the game dynamics, had auto-attack on my bars for a very long time (as a mage, mind you), and I didn’t even know about the AH until about level 40. And although I’ve gone from wiping on Curator to a guild that consistently sits in the top 50 US for progression, my origins are humble indeed.

Where do I get my ideas from?
To be frank, all over the place. Since WoW plays a big part of my life, I often find parallels between life in game and life outside of it. I’m a huge movie buff, former collegiate athlete and all-around research nerd, so chances are I’ll be pulling in concepts, quotes and themes from a wide variety of sources. In terms of WoW-knowledge, I draw from my own experiences as a raider, my debates with guildmates, the forum community at large, theorycrafting sites, and other assorted blogs.

How am I going to help you?
Ultimately, you readers are my audience and my clients, and my goal here is to help you improve, change, adapt or maybe just pass the time while you’re bored. If nothing else, whether you agree or disagree with my perspective, I want to give you some “food for thought”. I’m not going to tell you how to play, or even how to think, but I will provide you with insight about the how and whys of my methods so that you can make your own decisions.

Why do I only post every couple of days?
In terms of post frequency, my goal for this blog is quality over quantity. I want my posts to be useful, informative, and backed by solid reasoning/data. Although FH maintains a very light raid schedule, I also work as a consultant and normally clock about 50ish hours a week, which when combined with all of life’s little time sinks, means I generally have to work on content over a multi-day period. There will always be topics that I want to address and might not be able to get to, but rest assured I will do justice to those that I do take on.

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And although it may seem cheesy, my thanks go out to everyone who actually takes the time to read my perspective on things. My greatest achievement here would not be making my soapbox bigger, but rather making the WoW discussion broader. Anything I can contribute to that end, I have you to thank for.

~ Vix