The Gift That Keeps On Giving - Why?

Syrana over at Sideshow & Syrana made a post recently: The Gift That Keeps On Giving. If you let her know that you'd like to play along in the post comments, she will ask you a question for you to answer in the form of a blog post. Unable to pass up the chance at a shameless plug for AeL, I decided to play along. This is what she asked me:

@Nim – Yay! I’m glad you want to play too. Ok, let’s see… looks like Ankh = Life is pretty new. So, I’d love to read about why you chose a shaman, your name, and restoration!

I'm glad this is the question she asked. It strikes me as the sort of thing I should have covered in my first post.

This story goes back about two years ago when I was in a webcomic guild that went sour. disputes were had, friends were made enemies, and I was caught in the fray of it all trying to stop the arguing and animosity. Eventually two members split off and transferred to another server. I still wanted to play with those two people, as they were still my friends. So I took a small hiatus from my main toon to create Jhayna on the new server.

She was a Shaman. I was always intrigued by Shamans, and thought they'd be fun to play, so this was a good time to see if I was correct. I went Enhancement, and loved it. I didn't make it to max level on her (70 at the time), though, before going back to my main server to continue to play my toons there. I ended up forgetting about Jhayna altogether. A year later I took a hiatus from WoW altogether due to relationship issues, guild drama, and another hit of relationship issues (It's complicated).

While I wasn't playing WoW, I ended up with a new job. New job means new people to talk to. This group of people happened to play WoW. Wrath was out by then, and they talked about it . Far too much for me to not miss playing. So I re-activated my account, got their server name, and made a new character. I didn't want to transfer my Druid or Paladin (my two BC 70's) as I decided to retire them after my old guild broke up (final respects, of sorts, for the favorite guild I'd ever been in). I knew I enjoyed a shaman from playing Jhayna, and I didn't want to spend two hours deliberating what class I wanted to play. That time had to be reserved to an acceptable name.

It always takes me forever to think of a name. For anything. Ever. It usually starts with me hitting a random letter on my keyboard. I then go through about a bajillion names in my head for what I could name my character, none of which look or sound quite right for the toon. So I delete random letter number one, and pop in random letter number two. Repeat. What I was looking for was something that I thought looked and sounded like it could be the name of a draenei, as well as the name for someone who is connected with the elements. Eventually, I stumbled upon Nimala. At the time my reaction to it was "Eh, it's not AS bad as the other names...I guess it'll work". But it grew on me, and now i really can't imagine her being named anything else. The only problem was people calling me (what I consider) a female name when I am, indeed, a dude. So I shortened Nimala to Nim, which isn't as gender-specific. In game and on vent, people know that Nim is Nimala, and I don't feel like I should be wearing lipstick when people refer to me.

I initially started out, once again, as enhancement. I enjoyed it, and it was familiar. When it came time to dual-spec, I dualled into elemental. I was very averted to the concept of healing. I figured the option of melee or ranged DPS would be a good idea for raiding, too. I was not in a raiding guild at the time, though, so I pugged a lot. And I got sick of having to wait 30-45 minutes to get into a group. So I switched from Enhancement to Resto. And life got a little bit better. I was having little trouble finding groups for Heroics and, even better, I found out I enjoyed healing as a Shaman. It was more interactive than a BC Paladin's Flash of Light spam. So I decided to stick with it, and it has worked so far very much in my favor. It's something I'm still learning about, and it gave me a reason to create a blog and start writing again.

And that is the story of how Nimala, Restoration Shaman, was born.