Have you helped your noob today?

Today (okay technically yesterday) I taught a paladin to use seals. He was level 60. The moonkin thought it was a waste of time.

I tried to explain stats in basic terms. No, I didn't say strength strength strength. That might have just confused him, that he might have then thought strength was all that mattered. He was 9 after all. I don't mean I assume he had to be 9 to be that bad, I mean he said he was 9.

Instead I said things which are good: strength and crit. Also that agility is okay and AP is about half as good as strength. I didn't mention hit because it's not too common early on; haste and ArP might have made his brain start frying.

Later when a SP trinket dropped, he asked if it was good. I said it as good for casting, but he's melee. In truth, it would have been an upgrade since he had a PvP trinket in one slot, but I thought it would just make him think SP is good. I wasn't sure that he'd get the concept of "better than nothing." I didn't steal it, so don't get all judgemental; he even won the greed roll.

At the final boss of Blood Furnace he successfully did not come closer when the boss told him to, nor did he burn. Maybe that was due to many trials of classical conditioning: "Come closer" comes before pain and eventually "Come closer" triggers a fear response and running away. Or he actually listened when I sent a tell "When he says come closer, RUN AWAY."

Maybe the druid was right, he's just a noob and I wasted my time. But if I can make him even slightly less terrible, isn't it worth it? He'll be in hundreds of PUGs down the line, so in a way, I helped make hundreds, maybe thousands of people slightly less miserable and nerd-raged. Just getting him to use seals might make him learn judgements (I somehow forgot about them) and even if it doesn't, he's at least going to be significantly better (maybe less worse is more accurate). And maybe he'll associate being less terrible at soloing with taking the advice of others.

After that we ran ramparts. Shortly before the first boss he was complaining that his mother wanted him to go to bed. After we killed the boss and he greeded the chest that he really wanted (I once again explained that he should need when he needs something), I kicked him and told him to listen to his mother. I think he got mad and sent some capslock whispers about needing the quest. I promised there would be other runs and that he'd be better off with more sleep. With luck I'll run into him tomorrow; I plan to run him through on my paladin, to make sure he sees that indeed WoW can wait until the next day and so he can see my spec. Fortunately my ret spec isn't weird anymore, so I won't be accidentally corrupting him.