Self-righteous Sunday: This is why we can't have nice things

Tanks, please figure your shit out. You're the leaders of the group. It's part of the job. Its not mere arbitrary social standard, it's a game mechanic.

You control where mobs stand. Put them in the right place. Onyxia phase 1 should not be done directly in the middle of the room 45 degrees to the left. Get against the fucking wall and get her straightened out. This applies to all other cleaving, kknocking back, AoEing, or whatever-other-bad-thinging mobs.

You control where DPS stand. They're a lot like NPCs. They do not move unless they start getting out of range errors. But once they're out of range, they tend to move. If there's a pat that you want them to avoid, you'd better drag the current mob until the DPS must move. If not, you're getting adds. Blame the DPS, it's their fault, but c'mon, you're the baby-sitter. Pick them up and put them back in their seat and make them eat dinner instead of playing Outlet Explorer. They tend to lose that game. So let's say you're in PoS and you're pulling the ghosts near the end and trying to avoid that one pat. The shadow priest is still standing way back and will aggro it. Just keep running down the hall until he is out of range and must run to catch up.

Fun fact: Red-haired people are more resistant to electrical shocks than others, but we sunburn more easily too. This might be how my brother survived childhood.

Yes so, know the fight. Everything about it. Know when DPS need to stop and figure out a way to make it happen. Drag the mob all over, BoP the melee, pop DS so they die. All is fair when teaching DPS to stop DPS.

[late addition] The true reason we cannot have nice things is that if I write after midnight I get mixed up by the date change and schedule the post a day too late.

Saturday Superstar: I had to smoke a bowl!

Ever run into this?

There's a wipe, the person doesn't release and run back. They don't say anything at all, even after trying to talk to them. I couldn't kick them, unfortunately. Finally they come back and report that they had to smoke a bowl.

I won't bash the drug use. That's your decision. Go for it. Smoke during the run even. I really don't mind.

Go ahead and when we wipe ask "mind if I smoke while you run?" Odds are I'll res you. I'm actually pretty lenient about rezing people after wipes if they say something. You can even mention it and auto-follow someone as long as we're not on boss. But don't just go afk and get offended when we don't carry you.

What annoys me most is the word choice, and my suspicion that they mean it: had to. Marijuana isn't additive. You don't have to use it. Maybe you had an absolutely terrible day and so you 'had to' use it, but wouldn't that be before the run even started? Needing it halfway in makes no sense at all. It's not as if we're talking about tobacco that people 'need' in the sense that they'll get stressed and irritable and freak the fuck out if they don't have it. At least as I've seen it, people are much more likely to 'need' a cigarette right now.

I guess it comes down to consideration and perspective. Be considerate and have some perspective on what you're doing. You don't need to do it and it's not cool, so quit bothering the group about what you're doing. We don't care except as far as you impede our progress with your behavior.

I'm an old-style elitist

Back in the day, way back, long before my time, nobility was the big thing. Bloodlines were serious business. These days, I laugh at people who think who their parents were is something special. But back in the time of kings and princes and titles, you were a noble or you weren't. It wasn't earned or granted or even luck. You just were or were not.

This is the kind of elitist I am. I'm a tank and therefore I am better than other people. This privileged position allows me to mock anyone I feel like, except for other tanks of better lineage. By that I mean, from better guilds. Unless they're total asshats, in which case, I declare war, marry his daughter, kill their sons, and then burn down their castle while they're trapped inside. I try to be nice, but I can be spiteful. I'm pretty sure I just described the Nexus War.

Also I've been playing since vanilla, so I can trace my lineage back pretty far.

The other type of elitists are the capitalists, the landowners or merchants with their money and property and silly ideas of being anything more than peasants who don't know their place. These are of course the people who use gearscore and DPS meters. Ha. The peasants think their silly numbers make them worth something! Oh they amuse me.

If these capitalists attempt to take over society, I'll do what any sensible person does: start a socialist revolution, then betray its ideals in order to grab personal power. Have I mentioned that I once did an analysis of Stalin's leadership skills? Big surprise: he was terrible. That was a fun presentation. I didn't stand out all that much, since someone else did Martha Stewart.

But yes, by this analogy I will become a healer, intended to spread the heals and keep the group alive. Instead I'll be spiteful and let anyone die who I don't like. Before long the meters people will come in and remove me. But I'll be back. The nobility never go away forever.

And there we have it: a projected personal WoW story as symbol for Russian history.

Announcing: Whiny Post Day

As you may or may not know, bloggers are people with feelings. Some of these are positive, some are negative. We get angry and happy and even... whiny. Usually we refrain from these whiny posts because they're whiny and who wants to read that? Whoever makes the first whiny post will look like a total emo jackass. But if we all make a whiny post? Then we are liberated. To be whiny.

And so I announce to you, the first annual Whiny Post Day of March 17. On this day, bloggers everywhere are allowed to make one whiny post in solidarity with their fellow bloggers who are also making whiny posts.

1780 - George Washington grants the Continental Army a holiday "as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence".

2008 - Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer resigns after a scandal involving a high-end prostitute

None of these are very good for whining, but they were better than the alternatives: terrorist attacks and battles and whatnot.

What is a Whiny Post?
It's a post about your unjustified, unsupported, stupid complaints. Maybe someone got a node just ahead of you. On a normal day the correct thought pattern is "oh well, I'll go in a different direction" or if you happen to mention it the correct response is "shut the fuck up, so what?" But on Whiny Post Day? You fucking whine about that damn night elf druid who got to the node first and you know, just KNOW that he only got there first because flight form is instant cast so he had a totally unfair advantage.

If you can't figure out if a post is whiny, use these simple checks.
- Would you be annoyed at reading it?
- Would you want to respond with "cry more"?
- Do I disagree with your complaint?
This last one is most essential. The primary indicator of a whine instead a legitimate complaint is that someone else disagrees that there is a problem.

So join us in whining. If you don't, the next day will be Whine About the Lack of Whiny Posts Day. And that's just too damn much whining.

I'd rather be overgeared

All content is designed for a certain level of gear and skill. Most of us fail at that level of skill, so we compensate with more gear. Or we have inferior computers; framerates can really hurt performance. Whatever it is, for the most part we go into content 'overgeared' and don't think much of it.

Sometimes Blizzard decides a boss is overtuned and nerfs it. We saw this a lot in BC, with many fights receiving major nerfs weeks or months after they were released. And then near the end BT was nerfed heavily, presumably so people could see it before we stopped caring.

I don't mind either of these. Overgearing just seems natural; gear is central to the game, part of the process of gaining strength to take on bigger challenges. A hamster wheel, but that's life. The big nerf, that feels like Blizzard looked at how fights were going and said "oops, too hard." It's a balance decision.

This 5% stacking buff feels more like "Oh you poor slow guilds, here's a cookie. And some unearned damage, healing, and health. Don't forget your homework on the way out!" It feels almost insulting. Overgearing, at least that's something we earned and worked towards.

I'd mind it less if it wasn't on by default. That would allow guilds to individually say "We're not getting anywhere, let's see what this can do for us." Or to say "We almost have this, let's give it a few more weeks."

When it's on by default, it's far harder for a guild to say "We want to refuse this buff to keep trying as we are, and keep wiping." I know that in effect they are the same, but the mind is a weird thing. Who is going to say "Let's make this harder than it has to be"?

Last night we did a lot better on Valithria. How much better? It's hard to say. 5% more healing is easy to calculate (if we assume no one died to lack of healing, which I'm willing to assume to simplify things). 5% more damage? That's harder. Getting suppressors down a little bit sooner can have a big impact on healing; especially if you consider that a suppressor at 4% health is so close to 0%, but is still debuffing her. And if we do take into account player deaths due to lack of healing; consider the blazing skeletons; killing them sooner makes them easier to heal through, as does the buffed healing, which combine to give more time to heal her and more players alive to kill suppressors faster meaning more healing on her... You get the picture.

If you were 1% from beating her, you can say you got 1% better. But what if you're going from 65% to 80%? Clearly that's more than the 5% healing, but 5% damage, 5% health, those multiply the healing. Maybe you only truly improved 65% to 70% and the rest is just a handout.

*sigh*

It's kinda killing ICC for me. The sense of improvement is weakened. Just stand around and it will get easier.


[edit] And as fate would have it, I wrote about overgearing (and difficulty) over a year ago. Though with a different angle. I guess it's a "If you liked this you might also enjoy..."

We're %&$^ing idiots

How many times have we run around to get rewards and ended up completely screwing something up by working for a disguised enemy?

This might have spoilers, so read with caution if you're not a Loremaster and have already seen it all.

Searing Gorge
We help a black dragon in their war against the Dark Iron dwarves. At least it's enemy vs. enemy, so this may be the least harmful.

Desolace
Twilight's Hammer cultist there, who we help, to learn more about the Old Gods. Nothing good can possibly come from that.

Arthai Highlands
Long and annoying chain, due to crossing over far too many levels, in which you are convinced that you must help free some captured princess giant. Just in time you learn to instead kill her.

Grizzly Hills
Drakuru sends you around to gather important artifacts so he can cleanse Drak'tharon Keep. Which he does. Of the trolls. With your oblivious help he becomes an important part of the Scourge assault on the Ice Trolls. An early and awesome quest chain in Zul'drak pretty much consists of cleaning up the huge mess that you've made.

Storm Peaks
Save the captured goblins! Oh hi, who's this? She sounds nice, wants to help this Thorim guy. Oh, that was just a plot to lure him into the open so his brother can capture him.

Well let's go kill the bad brother then. Well that seems to have started the process for our entire world to be destroyed.

Fire Festival
Surely nothing bad can happen from giving a stick to a cute little fire elemental. Oh so cute so cute so cute! Who's the cutest little fire elemental? Who's the cutest little fire elemental? Oh yes you are!
*toss twig*

Thank you again, Kelpsacovic, for this delectable incense.
< devours the incense. It's ravenous! >
So good! So packed with energy!
It has everything a growing scorchling needs!
I can feel the power SURGING within me!
< bellows with laughter! >
Now! Finally! Our plans can take effect!
KNEEL, LITTLE MORTAL! KNEEL BEFORE THE MIGHT OF THE HERALD OF RAGNAROS!
YOU WILL ALL PERISH IN FLAMES!
< blinks... >
Ah. I was merely jesting...

Well that was close...

Dragonblight
What else, what else? Oh yes... that little New Plague to Kill the Scourge and the Living incident.

Tanaris and Sunken Temple
A fun chain that sends us all around the world to hope that we can stop the return of Hakkar, the devourer of souls, a bloodthirsty god who nearly destroyed troll civilizations with his lust for sacrifice. Turns out we summon him, triggering the takeover of the troll priests in Zul'Gurub and yet another heroic effort on our part to save the world from the problem we created.

And so am I
I'd like to apologize for a recent post. It was meant to be a joke, but somehow in my rush to get out the ideas, it turned into some sort of muddled mess. My intention was to have a laugh about how healers seem to always 'lag' if a tank dies. Somehow theorycraft ended up in it, and that's just not right. I feel that I've let down myself and you, the people who had to muddle through that mess about EH and avoidance. I apologize for failing to live up to the standards I set for myself and I will make every effort to avoid anything potentially useful or logical.

Thank you for your patience.

Too many dicks on the dance floor

Last night we had another thrilling round of Wipe on Putricide. It's similar to Killing Putricide, which I understand is popular with some guilds, but with this twist we die instead of him. It's not really for everyone, but that's how niche guilds work.

If you've done him, you might have noticed that in phase two he drops two beakers which reduce your hit by a lot if you step in the clouds they create. In 10-man we (other people in the guild, I get bored enough with only one ICC run per week) have the tank move and the melee follows. This gets them away from the orange miss gas.

Last night I made a small suggestion: that melee watch for these. That was the totality of the suggestion. Okay I technically said to watch the ground so they can notice them sooner. Notice how this has no bearing on what the tank does. Or what the melee does. Or really anything except reacting faster to something which would wreck their DPS.

I pointed out that a process of [tank notices] and then [melee notices tank move] is slower than [melee notices]. Or more accurately, since melee aren't watching the tank, since they're rarely trying to stab him, the process would be [tank notices] [boss moves to catch up to tank] [melee notices boss move].

I know, how RUDE and OUT OF ROLE of me to make this ENORMOUS change to the strat. The very idea of suggesting that melee pay attention and possibly even react to their environment without the delayed orders of someone else is... unthinkable.

Some jackass raider [in the original post I'd mistakenly refereed to him as an officer, so some comments may seem off] decided to give me shit about this. He was in a harcore guild (or so I've heard) and in raid chat it was all figured out (they barely say shit in raid chat, it's mostly on vent, where they hadn't much either) and in tank chat too ( because I was totally privy to that, thanks for expecting me to know) and something about how I talk a lot but don't take much action. What the fuck that would even mean I don't know. Am I supposed to be a unthinking bot?

The whisper from him started with "we all know you have a blog" and then something about theorycraft vs. practicecraft. I explained that I had no idea what he was talking about. What does having a blog have to do with anything? I got the answer I sought: and it made no fucking sense. Apparently bloggers are part of a group which can only theorycraft pretty numbers and never actually play. This was new to me. He didn't seem to get my point when I explained that if he thought my blog has anything to do with theorycraft, he's never read it. I left out any mention of how so many unplaying theorycraft bloggers aren't formerly in hardcore guilds, they are currently in them, killing Arthas or hardmodes or hardmode Arthas, while we're wiping on Putricide.

Supposedly there was offense taken by my comment that there were "too many dicks on the dance floor". This raider decided to give me shit about that. If you knew me in game, you'd know I make jokes a lot, but I don't just randomly insult the entire raid. A person who is attempting to not jump to conclusions like a power-tripping douchebag will think "maybe that's some reference that I didn't get." In this case, it is. He had not taken a survey (I asked) but had heard comments in channels. An officer could not verify any cases of offense.

Eventually I ended the discussion with a polite (I'm lying) promise (lying) that I would not (lying) do any more thinking or suggesting (lying) no matter how much it did not affect the strat. Then I ignored him and spit on him on my way out. Perhaps not the most mature of responses, but when someone harasses me with no justification or provocation, I get pissed. The ignore did seem to shut him up though, so that's a plus.

I'm going to do a bit of rare theorycraft here. By theorycraft I mean insult people.

Former hardcore raiders who try to push a casual guild towards hardcore raiding and/or who constantly bring up their former status: Are worthless players. They are arrogant and lack the skills to match their egos.

They could not have voluntarily left hardcore raiding and voluntarily stayed out. They must have been called out for being not quite so great. Or for being egotistical douchebags. In other words, they were kicked out. And they can't get back in. If they could, they would. The fact that they try to change a casual guild indicates that they are not good enough to get into a pre-existing one or are socially incapable of creating their own. Despite their arrogance and sense of superiority, they effectively want the guild to carry them, to do what they cannot.

They are the "link achievement" person in trade chat, who does not have the achievement. They are the gearscore whores in blues. They are the people who whine that "WoW is too easy because Arthas died in X days after the patch" when they're still on fucking putricide. If even that.

I've run into some former hardcore raiders who got burnt out and didn't want to do that anymore. You know what? They were nice, good players. They knew their stuff and knew what they wanted. They didn't flaunt it except as a slight "yea, back in the day..." kinda thing to give cred without seeming to be bragging (or at least not too much bragging).

Then there are the ones who are out and want back in, but suck too much as players or people to do so.

This probably reflects poorly on my guild. That's too bad. I don't mean anything against the guild as a whole. Certainly there are all sorts of things which annoy me, but that's what happens with groups: nothing is perfect for anyone. This post is about the particular officer and his dickishness.

I guess there really were too many dicks on the dance floor.

The dick on the dance floor

I have a handy addon called Cellular. Most often I use it to separate conversations from chat log spam. It also logs them, which has been a huge help a few times when I've gotten whispers from people, thought "who is this person and why re they talking to me?", and then a scroll up show "oh, I bought herbs from them a few weeks ago". It's also easier than taking a lot of screenshots and resizing my chat log on the fly. Sorry if it looks odd, that's the formatting it uses. Be thankful blogger is ignoring the two dozen spaces before each line (or so the preview appears to be).

"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] we all know you run a blog. practicecraft is better than theorycraft, imo", -- [33]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] huh?", -- [34]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] you've got me all confused now", -- [35]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] I mean, what does blog have to dow ith practicecraft?", -- [36]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] what we've discussed in tank and raid channel works. I read a lot of theorycraft on a lot of blogs. a lot of folks who like to look at the numbers and come up with strats don't seem to know how to do the actual work when playing the game.", -- [37]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] if the tank moves, melee moves. it works in 10 man and it should work in 25.", -- [38]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] I'm not saying to not move him, I'm saying melee need to pay attenttion too", -- [39]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] besides, I somehow doubt you've read my blog if you associate it with theorycraft", -- [40]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] you're one of several who talks more than acts. you're not the only one, and not the only one who broadcasts it on the net. the thing is, when the raid leader says \"we've got it\", and the tanks say \"we've got it\" -- we've got it. both of us have been i", -- [41]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] in harder core raiding guilds. we both know when to talk and when it's enough.", -- [42]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] do me a favor and drop the damn superiority act and actually read wtf I said", -- [43]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] it didn't have a damn thing to do with the strat", -- [44]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] I did. you told the raid what to do, and then called the raid a bunch of dicks. it wasn't appreciated, even as a joke.", -- [45]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] it was a reference to a show", -- [46]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] that's fine. to more than a few people it sounded like \"you jackasses don't know what you're doing\"", -- [47]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] you took a survey?", -- [48]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] it was brought up in a few class/role channels", -- [49]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] alright, in the future I will make an effort to never try to think about anything or offer any suggestions, no matter how much they don't affect the strat the slightest bit", -- [50]
},


Keep in mind this was while we were wiping, and not to an enrage or "oops I cleansed the abomination" or something that can be blamed on mere luck or a mistake. No, these were the wipes where you should be looking at what happened and figure out what to do about it. Maybe that's me thinking too much and the solution is to mindlessly zerg the boss without attempting to correct any problems. Of course there's also the little thing of my suggestion being directed at melee DPS, not at the tanks or the raid leader, so it doesn't matter the slightest bit how they're doing.

Don't worry, this isn't going to be a regular post type. I'm not a fan of negative posts. But sometimes I get a little too irritated.

New Topic: Redemption of the Week

[edit] I've blocked comments in this post due to spam.

My favorite social has called it quits on other people making his posts for him. It was too much work sorting through all the submissions and dealing with fakes. Perhaps I should have instead made a post Is Gevlon too popular to be good? But yes, no more morons of the week posts. I was almost disappointed, since having started playing my priest again I'd finally run into the awful tanks that I've heard so much about, but never seen.

I ran into a DK tank that used no diseases. None. I watched and asked. She said her boyfriend told her not to. Not part of her rotation.

I did some facepalming to myself.

But I decided to try to save her from the terrible advice. I had hope. Why? Because so far she seemed nice. Second, the fact that she took advice (even if wrong) in the first place suggests she might listen again. And finally, girls seem to be more receptive to advice anyway; maybe they are capable of hearing a suggestion as anything other than "you're wrong and stupid and I'm better than you."

So I said a bit about how diseases are a core part of the class and they boost damage and aggro. She claimed she was holding aggro just fine (barely). I countered with the always legitimate claim that more damage is good. That didn't seem to work, but she wasn't really getting defensive, just seemed that it wasn't clicking yet. She was still in the mode of That is Not Part of My Rotation.

Frost fever might have done the trick. I explained that it's a huge deal for tanks, so they take a lot less damage. Getting that on everything would make her a better tank. I think that broke through and got across the idea that diseases are good for tanks.

I gave her a starting rotation: death and decay, icy touch, plague strike, pestilence. Now everything is diseased and very angry with her. I didn't go much beyond that, since I was worried about seeming bossy or a know it all (this happens a lot). And she did it. Over and over. It did take a while though, pretty much to the end of DTK.

But at the end, I knew she had learned and the lesson would stick. What gave me this confidence? Her exclamation of how much more damage she was doing. People always respond to bigger numbers.

I doubt I made her a great player. Maybe not even good. But I did pull her back from major fail. Somewhere out there, someone has one less terrible tank to rage about. Random LFD is slightly better. With luck, I planted the seed of thought: looking at what spells do, trying to do better, learning from those around her, and hopefully testing their advice.

I want to make this a weekly post, created from your submissions, of a player who you have made significantly better through some minor effort.