About the Bloggers: Tyler Caraway
About the Bloggers introduces you to the people behind WoW Insider. You can find articles on some of our more longstanding staffers in earlier About the Bloggers entries.
This week we have one of the newer faces on the block, who wasn't around when the original series ran: Tyler Caraway.
What do you do for WoW Insider?
I'm one of the contributing editors for the site and primarily focus on writing Blood Pact for warlocks, Shifting Perspectives for balance druids, and Ready Check for your raiding insights. From time to time, though, I've been known to write about a multitude of things ranging from theorycrafting, elemental shaman, death knights, and various other class tidbits. Where I could end up any given week is half the fun of the job.
Horde or Alliance?
For the Horde!
I started my WoW life playing on the Horde side of the game, and that's where my first raiding experiences came from. For a time, I switched over to the Alliance to play with friends of mine and stuck with it for quite a long time, but I couldn't leave my original faction forever. The Alliance is just too fluffy for me.
What's your main?
Since the dawn of WoW, my main has been a balance druid. Although my first character was actually a paladin, I got to level 15, cried a little bit, and quit right there. After that, I've been druid through and through.
I am, however, a horrible altoholic and have the long-term goal of getting one of every class to 85. As of right now, I've got a warlock, mage, rogue, and hunter. Currently I'm working on my sweet little paladin, but I also spend some time on a shaman and death knight.
What are you most proud of accomplishing in WoW?
I've done quite a lot in my days. I spent the better part of vanilla and TBC playing in one of the world's top guilds and scored quite a number of server firsts (sadly, never any world ones). Even now, in my more casual guild, we still get those, such as our server first Yogg-0 and heroic Lich King.
Despite all of that, I don't think anything will ever top merely being a raiding balance druid in vanilla. Blizzard didn't intend for druids to raid as balance; the community didn't want raiding balance druids. But I was there with a small handful of others doing it. Not only that, we bloody rocked. Doing what was considered "impossible" was a very thrilling experience.
What's the best 5-man instance in the game? The best raid?
I've never really been a huge 5-man kind of guy. I run them when I have to, but otherwise they don't interest me much. My favorite, though, is probably the old Sunken Temple. It was long, somewhat confusing, somewhat boring, but I loved that it felt like I was actually invading this evil sanctuary -- interrupting their rituals, stopping their sacrifices, the whole nine.
As for raids, I probably have a fairly unpopular choice: Hyjal. I loved Hyjal, and it was hard to love Hjyal when my only AOE spell was on a 1-minute cooldown. But to feel like I was fighting off an army, taking down the generals -- that was epic. Plus, I got to range tank Frostwyrms. I love ranged tanking.
What was your favorite expansion?
The Burning Crusade, without a doubt. I loved the raids, I loved the systems at the time, and I loved the zones. The expansion revolutionized the game far more than any of the others so far, and it was just the single most amazing experience that I've had to date.
More than that, I loved the balance of the time. Hybrid DPS were there to be support classes, and I totally dug it. While I fully endorse the system we have now, given the choice, I'd would more than happily pick up and play a support class instead.
What is Blizzard's biggest mistake in WoW?
Mages.
Have you ever wanted to write for WoW Insider? Your chance may be right around the corner. Watch for our next call for submissions, and be sure to sign up for Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider. The next byline you see here may be yours!
