“Totems of Grizzlemaw” by Russell Brower from Wrath of the Lich King 🎵
The is the true World of Warcraft story of when I knew I would marry my husband.
Justin and I met at a game company, Thrust Interactive, over a decade ago. We worked on some games together but on some we did not. I remember being cautious because he kept inviting me to lunch to eat with the rest of the engineers. I was a game designer, and we were both very busy sometimes.
Eventually he stopped trying.
He respected me a lot – never crossed any boundaries.
Taught me a lot.
Anytime I had a question he answered it. He respected my opinions.
He never saw me as a box or a role, but a person. We’d stay late and test the games over and over and over. He wanted to learn more design and I wanted to learn more engineering. He taught me C#. I taught him wireframing. He hated it. He taught me how to do UI components in Unity. I then did UI components.
This was all outside of the job.
We taught each other over and over and over.
We really liked teaching each other.
I remembered my grandmother’s voice saying “Find someone you want to learn with.”
I started playing World of Warcraft with Justin (my now husband), his brother, and a few others after work late at night. His brother also worked with us so one day I mentioned in person when we had worked far too late – “I think I really like your brother, and I don’t want to mess things up.”
He said, “He can’t stop talking about you.” Not too long later, in World of Warcraft I messaged Justin Sheets and finally told him.
In real time apparently to everyone on some chat (not Discord because it was not around), he said, something to the effect of “OH MY GOD SHE IS FINALLY TELLING ME HOW DO I ASK HER OUT ON A DATE WHERE DO I TAKE HER I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO HELP ME.”
Or so I’m told.
The Setup…
Almost 15 years ago (yikes, Wrath of the Lich King was 2008) I used to raid as a shadow priest when it was broken to combine a shadow priest, warlocks, and death knights in raids if you cared about DPS charts. I then began to not play as much because I was busy and had almost no time to play the game. As part of being casual I did more more player vs player experiences…where I found my true desire. That desire being winning against real people.
When Battle for Azeroth came out I got The Alliance Slayer in War Mode quickly. I led 20 random people to use Goblin Gliders and jump into the middle of the port city of Boralus, the capitol of Kul Tiras as a protection paladin.
It wasn’t that hard. I found people who were already demolishing Alliance but not together and said “I have a lot of Goblin Gliders and a plan.” The plan sounded so dangerous that it might work that it did work. No one could fly yet in the expansion zone so we went to the highest mountain we could.
And simply fell on them?
I enjoy doing stupid things with really dumb plans that somehow work. I like what that feels like.
What is Victory Rush?
Victory Rush is a spell warriors in World of Warcraft get. Specifically the description: “[Victory Rush] strikes the target, causing (40% of Attack power) damage and healing you for 10% of your maximum health. It’s only usable within 20 seconds after you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor.” 🙂 .
The Date
Justin and I decided that a fun date night would actually be just staying home with my dog and attempting to do an old 25 man raid with 2 people – a warrior and a shadow priest. This was in late 2013.
We decided to see how far we could get in:
Sunwell Plateau
With 2 people. We were not top tier raid gear. It was not that far off from that expansion. You see, the level cap was 90. Mists of Pandaria was out. Sunwell Plateau is from Burning Crusade where the level cap was 70. So we thought, “Hum, we could probably get pretty far.” However neither of us could sneak, he was a warrior and I was a priest. And some bosses were disproportionally scaled for still 25 people in their mechanics.
One boss, in particular.
Felmyst
Felmyst is a boss that, like a great southern dish, rises from the corpse of the blue dragon Madrigosa. She has 2 phases and a ton of HP that then was still very high. This is what the fight is like with 25 people who are normal level.
Because we were so high level, getting her out of Phase 1 was not really a problem. Dealing with the damage was not a problem.
Getting mind controlled was absolutely a problem. The mechanic “Mind controls you for the rest of the fight – no options” if you get hit by the fog. And it is very challenging to not get hit by the fog.
I got hit by the fog.
Because, I was great at player vs player interactions, and it is not Justin’s favorite activity, my character was not only perfectly set up for this having not really taken this raid seriously, but I began destroying him.
Or rather, I was watching myself destroy him and crying and laughing and laughing and crying.
He, being the kind person he is, did not want me to die because he did not want my gear to take damage from dying to a boss (cute). “I don’t want to hurt you!!”
He was almost dead. I was absolutely not and this boss still had HP. He had no way to heal. I yelled “Kill me for victory rush!” and without thinking he did. This gave him honor because I was an enemy having been mind controlled. This both healed him and increased his damage.
And then he killed the boss.
The Moral of the Story
It is really important in any relationship, whether it’s your marriage, a friendship, or a business relationship to have spent time knowing a lot about the other person not only yourself and your own skills.
Spending time with other people is how you show them you are truly invested and care even if you don’t know what you’re quite looking for yet out of that relationship. Getting to truly know who they are through their work, their writings, their decisions – that is everything.
It was in that moment I realized I had learned so much about him that I knew how to help us and that I had been spending all of my time there.
I knew I wanted to marry my husband when I said “Kill me for victory rush!” and he listened so we both won.
