I’d sheep the declared target only to see it broken moments later. in many ways it wasn’t a bad group, but any issues that occured were purely my guilds fault.

Then after a post wipe run we got the blind kick request.

I was typing in guild chat “OMG *they* are trying to kick you” as I clicked no.

The guild was outraged and made many suggestions on how to screw the group up if the heals and main dps cbf’d.

Meanwhile the vote initiator started ranting in party chat “WTF only one yes, the healer is shit, blah blah blah”

So I made a simple statement about the fact that if there wa one person to blame, if, it wasn’t the healer. As I quit the group I noticed one other party member clearly state it wasn’t my guildy’s fault.

No one has the right to call “bad” on another player, especially if that person is a higher grade of bad – yet they are often the ones.

My secondary main (I run her almost as much as my priest) is a pally tank… I haven’t tanked any of the new content because I’m scared, although my guild leader has said he’s tired of tanking and wants me to get my tank geared and is insisting on guild runs this weekend to enable that end. /fear!

A point that I would like to bring out of your post is that you never know what’s going on with a person… I am the perfect example of ignorance in WoW. This is my very first video game. Ever. I haven’t ever played anything beyond Solitaire before. I’ve been playing for about two years now, and I still sometimes have trouble moving the way that everyone says I should. Most of my toons were leveled to 60 using refer-a-friend. It’s nearly impossible to learn your class at the rate you level using it. The strafe keys? Can’t get them down to save my life (and they would have several times over, if I could get used to them). Macros? What? I only just figured out how to switch between my action bars without clicking with my mouse. Oh, if it comes to that- I don’t use a mouse to play. I use a tablet and stylus. Try getting advice on how to use that in game!

Like the one warlock who was in my SFK group on my baby bear tank and who, instead of doing his warlocky-stuff, was smacking mobs with a sword and pulled other rooms because he ran through them without caring.

But that’s not “playing beyond your potential”, that’s just plain stupid.

One of the reasons why I stopped raiding on my warrior tank (you see the pattern, I’m a tank) after ICC and LK was that people always wanted optimum performance. But anyone who ever played a team sport knows that this isn’t possible. Not everyone in a team can always bring the perfect performance at the exact same time as everybody else. It’s not possible. It was really “fun” dealing with stuff like that when carrying a guildmate, who had just arrived at this stage, through the content. Some people always had to bitch about him or her not being on the optimum side of things. How could the guildy be there when he just arrived at the content?

Common sense is what I missed most in those days.

Another thing was the damn DPS who always wanted to rush through content. I’m with BBB here, I read EJ, I look at the suggestions, but I don’t follow it to the letter. I deviate and… I TANK AT MY OWN PACE! FFS! Don’t like it? Drop group! Scram! Get lost! So we take a little longer. OMG! Horrible! Strangely I’ve never had healers whine over not going fast enough. Always the DPS. Once, one even took it to our guild leader, who, in exchenge, just told him to fuck off, and not in such a nice way.

I just look at me DK, who just hit 85 two days ago. Yeah, I’ve looked for a decent frost spec on EJ as well, but, again, I moved away from it a bit. Of course, in the eyes of the wannabe elites, this makes me a bad DK.

I don’t even want to know what they’d say about my bear.

The problem is there is a large gray area covered by this question. Someone doing 12k dps when he could be doing 14k is ‘playing below his potential’, and someone doing 3k dps when he could be doing 12k is also ‘playing below his potential’.

If the fight requires very specific output from each player (You must kill adds before they reach the target; you must kill boss before he enrages; etc.) and the players all accomplish it fine, most people couldn’t care less if you haven’t min-maxed your spec/ gear/ rotation.

If the fight requires very specific output from each player and you are failing miserably and directly causing the group to wipe over and over (such as happily standing with the group when you have an explodey bomb on you, so that when it goes off everyone dies), I don’t care if you’re having fun. You are wasting everyone’s time and shouldn’t be obtaining your ‘fun’ at the cost of everyone else’s.

*”You” being a general term and not a specific I’m-pointing-a-finger-at-you “you”.

There’s a counterweight to that core argument and you stated it but I believe it can be stated more concisely and because its so important for people to get this, because I really do think the world would truly be a better place if they did, I’m gonna restate it for you.

I do my job with the intention of making everyone else’s job easier.

You do your job with the intention of making everyone else’s job easier.

We all do our jobs with the intention of making everyone else’s job easier.

Or simply put, “Help me, help you.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGt5f70K02Q

Of course if you are chewing someone out you really aren’t helping make their life easier are ya? And hell I can top yer “I got bitched at for being a Beastmaster hunter in LFD”…

I got bitched at for not using bleeds as a Feral while questing… solo. Yes. Someone actually spent enough time watching me kill things by face mauling them that they felt they needed to send me a tell to the effect of “omg ur such a noob, u shud use rake and rip. u r a descrace to feral. delete ur character and cancle ur account b4 u ruin some1s LFD !1!!!”

On that note when are they gonna get around to increasing the length of the ignore list?

have fun
Rauxis, chosen of CAT

I alway chuckle at 3. I’ve read the articles – lots and lots of articles on tree healing, but when I had it, I hardly used it. Seemed a waste – for me. Yet people still occasionally go off on me about it. /shrug.

I guess as a healer, and less often, a tank, I’m not so worried about other peoples fun. I assume beating a boss is fun. Burning through trash is fun.. joking over skype is definitely fun. But that’s not my concern – those are side effects.

My primary concern is are we winning? Is the boss dead? Are we still alive? Am I making sure I’m doing everything in my power to limit downtime so we can jump from dungeon to dungeon efficiently? And then, if something is off, what can I do differently to help.

I linked the article to our guild forums… we have a number of people that are Inventory checkers… Skype is a lot of “fun” when we end up with a 4 man guild run… I feel sorry for the poor puggers who end up with some of our peeps. I’m hoping (but not hopeful) that they’ll get the hint.

Awesome post BBB – loved it :)