Nitlo, the short lived

"Nitrana are you still angry that you aren't on the starting 5's team? "

Although referencing no point in my entry, my first comment to my first blog entry, ever.

I get this question a lot, it's about time I gave it a full answer.  

Am I angry?  Not so much. 

Am I bitter?  That's probably more like it. 

I don't think anyone in my situation would NOT be bitter.  I truly believe I'm the best rogue that plays World of Warcraft at this moment.  For one to openly admit he believes he's the best, would often be mistaken for arrogance.  In this case, I believe it as confidence. For a lot of people, this statement is a hard pill to swallow, but throughout my history of playing this game I've had this belief.  Proving time, and time again, that this claim is well supported; it naturally built confidence into my play.  In fact, I was so swelling with confidence; I felt I could take on a second class.  Little did I know, I was doomed from the start.

When I first made Nitlo, it was almost a joke.  I was so fed up with Rogue (At the time the only form of serious competition was strictly 5v5), I would've done anything to satisfy my lust for competition.   That "anything" for me was giving up my Rogue for a Shaman.  At that point in the game, I wasn't into any sort of PvE on my Rogue, and recently opted for the bench route on Power Trip in the best interest of the team.  I simply had nothing else to do.  It began innocently enough, Noktyn was a quick support explaining to me Uroo's reroll success story of Rogue to Warrior.  If you know me, you know leveling is not my strong suit.  Ala, Drak'Thul, and the infamous Animal Kingdom of Altar of Storms.  Much thanks to the Unruly rerolls (Hypno, Ganache) making my leveling much easier.  But what I lost in leveling, I made up for EASILY in achieving gear at 70.  I snagged my heroic badge shield in nearly one single day.  Mechanar, Botanica, Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Underbog, Steamvaults, Slave Pens, all pug'd all in one day.  What can I say?  I'm good with pugs!  From 60-70 I made sure I did every rep quest as well as running each instance repeatedly to ensure Revered in each faction.  I didn't miss an instant of AV weekend, and farmed UB for everyday available to me for Stormsong Kilt.

While all this was happening, TFM/Overrated were the hype.  The 2345 comp, as its known today, was reigning over everything else.  Noktyn took a special interest in a Shaman named Douja.  Sck/Douja pairing as probably the best support a 5 man at 60 could have, stuck out in Noktyn's mind.  I don't blame him for wanting a Shaman.  After playing with windfury the majority of his days at 60, he's one to know its OP factor.  Around the time I was getting my 40 mount on Nitlo, we had a team meeting about  Douja.  Douja had put the pressure on Sck/Noktyn, claiming he was going to quit the game if not given a shot on the team.  The meeting ended with one thing resolved, we all agreed to give me a chance on Shaman.  Looking back on it, although everyone said they agreed on giving me a shot.  Noktyn wasn't going to be satisfied with anything but Douja. 

My 5v5 play on my Shaman was short-lived.  Although having a winning record against every team we faced (barely over .500 against Rag Dolled, but still over .500), it wasn't good enough for my team mates.  It's my belief that some of the people on my team were looking for any excuse to get Douja on the team.  One night of bad play against Rag Dolled was enough for them.  The previous night we easily had a winning record against them, but this day they overtook us.  In complete fairness, of the matches we lost, the majority of them were my fault.  I played too aggressively, and was too damage hungry.  I often would ignore purge opportunities to cast lightning bolts.  It put me in a lot of bad positions, and sometimes I would lose track of the fight.  The night I stopped playing 5v5 on my Shaman it seemed like no matter what I did I was criticized.  One particular fight stood out for me.  It was the last 5v5 I ever played with them.  Kintt pushed too far into the middle on Blade's Edge arena VERY early in the match.  I was already pre-purging, but noticed quickly of Kintt's bad position (extremely bad in this case, 2345 is notorious for solely focusing Priests).  I started a Lesser Healing Wave that landed.  I can't remember how low he was after that heal, but instead of using NS, I started up another Lesser Healing Wave.  A bad choice in retrospect, which lead to a 4v5.  The rest of the match I played near perfect, but was heavily criticized for not making the correct play in an unusual circumstance.  We ended up almost winning despite the very early set back.  I'm completely positive that Kintt would take the blame for that loss, but for the rest of the team they had had enough.  That loss put them over the edge.  The finger of blame eventually pointed my way, and that was it for me.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming to be some all-star super Shaman, but I thought it was understood within the team that it would take a little bit to develop a natural grasp of the class.  Judge for yourself: http://files.filefront.com/Nitlowmv/;8181282;;/fileinfo.html

I make mistakes in the video, but who doesn't make mistakes?  Some are pretty glaring mistakes, like Lightning Bolting Medz I thought I had Moochi targeted -_-) by mistake, or shock interrupting into a Divine Shield, but I think I play a pretty decent Shaman.  After being dropped from the team it was made very apparent to me that the ONLY thing that mattered to the team was winning at all costs.  Don't get me wrong, winning is very important to me, but to me winning isn't everything.  Winning with what got you there means more to me.  I'm going to pull a Ming here and use a basketball reference.  A lot of this reminds me of Karl Malone playing one year in L.A. at one last attempt for a NBA finals championship.  If he had won the NBA finals championship, would it really have been worth it?  I guess we'll never know.  Also, I guess Karl Malone wasn't from Archimonde.

The thing that bugs me the most out of all of this is: I have faith in Noktyn playing Shadow Priest, Kintt playing Warlock, and even Sck playing Druid (if he wanted to), but that faith isn't returned.  I know if they're playing a new class they will be no where near as good as their original.  I don't expect them to be, but I know that they're good enough players and I trust them to make the right decisions when the time comes.  The trust I instilled in my team wasn't returned. 

In Socom II, I was an incredible player, carrying my team almost every gamebattle match up.  I played with my same original Quad squad since starting the game (Sup, Ballajr10).  I Often would switch my play style to accommodate the players around me.  In every game I've ever played I felt like I could fulfill any role needed by my team.  Swapping from my Rogue to my Shaman was no where near my Socom II endeavors, but what did swap from my Rogue to my Shaman was the belief that I would eventually become the best Shaman.  When I was dropped from the team, I really didn't know what to think.  It was the first time in any game I have EVER played where I felt like I failed.  I still feel like I wasn't given a legitimate shot.  I guess that's where my bitterness stems from, but what's done is done.  I should be more than happy being an incredible Rogue, but my confidence (and maybe arrogance) got the better of me.  At that point that level of failure was not an option for me, because it never had been in any other game I've played.  I was bitter towards my team for the wrong reasons.  Winning is the final goal.  Winning should be the only concern in any decision involving the team.

After everything was all said and done, I felt like I was lead on when I rolled my Shaman.  It's my belief that a lot of my team didn't think I would finish leveling/gearing my Shaman, so they just let me give it my best shot.  With good reason too, as stated before leveling is definitely not my strong suit.  Once I failed my Shaman, they could invite Douja to the team and we could just put it behind us.  The closer and closer I came to 70 the more and more I heard about my inadequacies.  When Team Pandemic went to China I was glued to the live stream.  Anything that was happening at WSVG China I knew about.  I put my Shaman on the shelf for that weekend, and when they came back, I heard about it.

"You're not leveling fast enough."

"I'm starting to question your commitment."

It was only a matter of time, and the more and more I excelled the harder it would be for the team to let me down.  From the beginning I really had no shot with my Shaman.  I don't think, given the circumstance, anyone else on my team could produce the level of play expected out of me.  The level of play expected out of me, was simply an unfair expectation.  Although I did put myself up to the test, it was silly for anyone to believe I could pull it off in the time I had to work with.  Regardless, no matter how I would've played I don't think everyone on our team would've been completely satisfied without playing with Douja, at least once.  Some people think I hold resent towards Douja because of that.  To clear that up, I've always liked Douja.  I liked him when we first talked on Relentless vent about Notorious vs. Nurfed in WSG.  Other than Sck, Douja seemed to be the only person in that vent at that time with a level head, and I've got nothing but love for him. 

Project Nitlo taught me a very valuable lesson.  Failure is a part of life. 

The Dalai Lama has said that you should thank your enemies because they teach you more than your friends.  Failure is one such enemy, and a very powerful one at that.  I know, because I have failed more often and in a greater variety of attempts than anyone I know.  I also have had some spectacular successes that I would not have experienced if I had not been willing to risk failing. I’ll take that a step further and admit that I’ve learned far more from my mistakes and failures than from any of my accomplishments. You cannot learn without risking failure. That’s part of the reason I’ve experienced my share of failure: I like to learn new things. Learning requires failure; you won’t learn if you are not willing to make mistakes and fail.

In the end, my catch phrase, "Can't be stopped", is nothing more than a catch phrase, but the willingness to attempt the impossible, and fail, will be the only path to lead me to my goal of becoming truly unstoppable. 

Please excuse my punctuation, grammar, and spelling errors.  I never was a good writer, but what I wrote I felt needed to be written.