Obligatory Trite Introduction Post

There's no non-cliché way of doing this, soooo...

I am Rushift (or mostly just Rush) of the Horde guild <Inferiority Complex> on US-Blackrock.

I began playing WoW in November of 2005 as a free trial. As a budding World of Warcraft player, I knew exactly how to ensure that I was a unique snowflake in a field of uncreative losers - I, of course, created myself a brand new, level 1 female Night Elf Hunter.

I know, right? Talk about unique.

I played this hunter up to level 60, stopping along the way to create an alt here or there that never really amounted to anything. One of these alts, in particular, however, would end up changing everything. His name was Rellian, he was a Night Elf Druid, and he made it to level 41 as some kind of ridiculous balance/feral mishmash in the dark days before I actually learned to play. During those days I knew (kind of) what I was doing on my hunter; I read up on one forum or another about what agility level was needed to make Lightning Reflexes in Survival better than Trueshot Aura in Marksmanship and speced accordingly, and it was enough to get me taken through Molten Core, Onyxia's Lair, Zul'Gurub, AQ20 and most of AQ40, and finally some of BWL with various guilds - I never tended to last long in any single one due to my utter inability to shut up. Sue me, I was 17.

Eventually, in the few months leading up to Burning Crusade's launch, I decided to dust off that poor druid and do something interesting with him. For a moment at level 41 I speced him completely into balance, but I realized that wasn't at all what I wanted to play. So back to the trainer I went and eventually settled into an epiphany: I was going to be a bear.

I did my research and made my spec and set out to start earning my way to the gear I needed. I transferred him from Draenor (why I ever created him there I cannot remember) to Hellscream where my hunter was and away I went.

One of the first dungeons the newly-renamed Shifthappens entered into was Zul'Farrak. It was there that fate chanced upon me and changed the very future of my entire history with World of Warcraft. It was there that I met Durto and Auxesia.

In Tanaris I was slaving away at quests when a conversation sprung up in general chat. During this conversation it was revealed that not only were there girls on the intarwebz, but one of them was actually cool - this girl was Auxesia, a dwarf priest. Shortly thereafter I was invited to a group that included her and her boyfriend, Durto, a gnome warrior. Throughout this Zul'Farrak I think I probably typed more than I actually fought, because like I said before - I just couldn't shut up. By the time we were done, I had ended up firmly under the wing of these two players. Further conversation revealed that Durto was the alt of a priest in one of the best guilds on the server, and he was leveling this warrior in order to become a tank for said guild.

A few weeks later came the true turning point in my WoW career: during a late-night run of Stratholme (back when it was still hard, you damn whippersnappers!) Durto asked me a simple question that would carry repercussions through the ages:

"So you're tanking this one, right?"

He coached me step-by-step through what I needed to do to pull properly, to hold aggro, and to react quickly to changing situations. By the time the Baron lay dead at our feet, I had a new lease on WoW life. I was a tank... no matter what the "go resto for innervate or go home" crowd had to say about it.

During Burning Crusade my druid remained my main character. Durto and Auxesia, and various friends and guildies of theirs, will recall running Heroic Magister's Terrace with me for approximately 40 days straight trying to get the Commendation of Kael'thas to drop (25% my backside). Due to a terrible schedule with work I never made it beyond Void Reaver in Tier 5 content, and never set foot in Tier 6 raids, but by the time the expansion was done my gear was good enough via badge gear and etc. to tank Brutallus (I never got to, although I think The Awakening might recall teasing me about doing less than 1k DPS on him the one time I went).

I think my fondest memory of this time was The Awakening (the best guild on Hellscream at the time) taking me through Zul'Aman to get my Amani War Bear. My run fell the night before the patch that removed the War Bear from the game, and my tension was pretty high - after all, if anything went wrong, I wasn't going to get my bear. The moment of truth came on Jan'alai - a tank disconnect left things looking grim, but my feral instinct (lol) kicked in, and I was in bear and tanking the boss with Durto's calm voice on Ventrilo telling me exactly what I needed to do. A few minutes later and the bear was mine. Later that very week Durto invited me to The Awakening as a social - which may not sound like much, but it was truly an honor as far as I was concerned, as they did not really accept too many socials.

Wrath of the Lich King released and saw a brief departure from my druid (now named Rush due to someone reporting Shifthappens as vulgar, apparently); I initially rolled a Human Death Knight named Loss and was among the first on my server to hit 80. He remained my main character throughout Naxxramas, but when Ulduar was near to coming out I decided to make a change. A coworker was playing Horde on Kargath, and I decided to give it a shot. I rolled a Tauren Warrior there named Banhammer (later Warfare) and eventually made it through all of Ulduar except Yogg-Saron with a guild I helped create and run called <Wrought From Ruin> (itself having been a previous guild called <Tides of Darkness>). I mostly played Arms, but I also tanked quite a bit of this content. The guild fell apart before ever really going anywhere in Trial of the Crusader, and it left me without much of a home. During this time I transferred my Druid to Kargath as a Tauren and got him a bit of gear.

At about this time Durto and Auxesia had gotten a hold of me and let me know that they, along with several of The Awakening's players, were rerolling Horde on Blackrock. With some teasing that they were just now seeing the light and going Horde, I told them that if I ever felt like Kargath wasn't going anywhere I'd move. When WFR fell apart on Kargath, I knew that time had come, and transferred my Druid to Blackrock.

Among the first things I did was begin looking for a guild, as Icecrown Citadel loomed near. When nothing materialized that fit my schedule - working nights, playing in the morning - my coworker and I decided to start a guild that fit our needs. A few posts on the forums later and <Inferiority Complex> was born. As a guild we trudged through 11/12 Hard Modes before the release of Cataclysm, with several of us finally getting Frostwyrms the week after 4.0 dropped.

Now we stand, as a guild, at 10/12 in Cataclysm raids; poor attendance and lackluster performance from some members has left us a bit stalled, but at the moment we are recruiting hard to pull through. Having a very slim number of people available to consistently play during our raid times has made things difficult, but I have faith that we'll pull through. We've survived a lot so far, anyway.

-Rush

A brief character history for those who are crazy enough to be interested (okay, really, it's more for myself than anyone else):

Level 60 capped:

• Serafinae@Hellscream, Night Elf Hunter
• Shifthappens@Hellscream, Night Elf Druid (formerly Rellian@Draenor)

Level 70 capped:

• Surrounded@Hellscream, Night Elf Hunter (formerly Serafinae)
• Rush@Hellscream, Night Elf Druid (formerly Shifthappens)
• Coax@Hellscream, Draenei Paladin (formerly Futureal, formerly Punyshmynt)

Level 80 capped:

• Rushiver@Blackrock, Blood Elf Death Knight (formerly Loss@Hellscream)
• Rushift@Blackrock, Tauren Druid (formerly Rushed@Kargath, formerly Rush@Hellscream)
• Rushout@Blackrock, Tauren Warrior (formerly Warfare@Kargath, formerly Banhammer@Kargath)
• Rushank@Blackrock, Orc Rogue
• Coax@Hellscream, Draenei Paladin

Level 85 capped:

• Rushift@Blackrock, Tauren Druid
• Rushine@Blackrock, Blood Elf Paladin (formerly Coax@Hellscream)
• Rushock@Blackrock, Orc Shaman
• Rushank@Blackrock, Orc Rogue
• Rushout@Blackrock, Tauren Warrior
• Rushield@Blackrock, Goblin Priest
• Rushatter@Blackrock, Goblin Mage
• Rushiver@Blackrock, Blood Elf Death Knight

Other characters at the moment (in order of most likely to hit 85):

• Surrounded@Hellscream, 77 Night Elf Hunter (if I ever decide to transfer her simply because she has Rhok'delar, despite the fact that I will probably never actually play her, her name will be Rushot)
• Rushade@Blackrock, 24 Troll Warlock

P.S.: This may or may not be a vaguely fictionalized version of the events that transpired to lead up to this day. A few creative liberties were taken, so if you were involved in this story and feel that you were inadequately represented, by all means, stick it where the sun don't shine, because this is my blog, dammit!