The Classic Dungeon Experience

 So far Classic WoW has been pretty much exactly the way I remember it, i.e amazing. There has been one notable difference though, at least to me, and that is the dungeon experience.

While I do recall having fun with dungeoning back in the day, I struggle to remember why or how that was possible, because most of my memories are of it taking way too long and people both playing and behaving very badly. The playing badly part I don't mind so much as long as there is a level of effort put in, and I know for a fact I was far from great myself. And to be fair, it was to be expected. Back then the game was completely new to all of us and even those with previous MMO experience (unlike me) still didn't know anything about tactics, best gear or best talents.

Unrelated picture of a scared priest.

This time around though I rarely find a player who seems to be completely new to the game. Either they have played a lot of retail, Vanilla or both. And in either case they mostly know what needs to be done and I've had a blast going through dungeons so far. I don't need people to play perfectly and I don't need people to be social geniuses, as long as everything is done in good effort and politeness.

So I managed to play a year of Classic and umpteen low and mid-level instances before I ended up having one of those experiences. One of those that took me right back to all the memories I have of everything taking just too long and nothing ever really clicking. Like, I can't even point at any one person and say "this failed because of you" but the group effort failed all together.

Ok, in this particular case there were definitely some warning signs early on. The fact that it takes almost an hour to assemble a group is not one of them though. A lot of instances are literally half an hour of running away and without Dungeon Finder Tool you're left to having to wait for the right person to show up at the right time, that's just the way Classic works and I'm fine with that.

I found a group for SM Graveyard and Library on my alliance priest (whom I have a lot to say about by the way, but that is matters for another post) and had to run myself from Wetlands, through Arathi, Hillsbrad and Tirisfal to get to the instance. I was the last one there and everyone had patiently waited for me without complaining. Off to a good start. 

Unrelated picture of a priest in Darnassus.

Except that when we were going to start our hunter wasn't present. Well, that's fine. He had probably gone afk without telling us while waiting, that's understandable. We cleared the first boss in SM GY before the hunter finally shows back up, at this point we had waited at least 15 minutes for him so that's a pretty long afk, but ok, we had done fine without him.

It was going to turn out there was a reason for that as he was ending up to be more of a hassle than gain for the group. He would stand around just not doing anything for minutes at a time, often not going in to action until prompted by someone asking for his attention in party chat. "Bad lag" he says. With lag that bad it's a wonder you can play this game at all, I think. But then again, he was playing a hunter.

Fortunately SM GY is not a difficult instance and we get through it without trouble. Off to SM Library, and the first half is fine, except for the hunter still being mostly afk. He runs around with Aspect of the Cheetah until I tell him and has full mana after every fight he actually does engage in... but I choose to keep my mouth mostly shut, and so does everyone else. We're still doing fine, after all.

After the first boss problem starts to arise though. The hunter starts "lagging" in to extra mobs, pulling more than the tank can comfortably handle. We have our first wipe. No one is complaining, but we're telling each other to be careful not to pull extras. The warrior turns out to be one of those who doesn't bother corpse running but just waits for someone to res him instead. The mobs in SM Lib are fairly tricky actually, with a mana burn I try to hide from as much as possible and a nasty kick that will silence you if you're not careful.

Unrelated picture of a priest running.

That kick will be the cause of our next wipe, just before the final boss. No one is to blame really, it is one of those breakdowns of team effort I described earlier. Or maybe rather an accumulation of mistakes that breaks the camels back. Even though I use Fade I get aggro from mobs throughout the instance, and getting my spells silenced means the tank dies. The first problem might be that the tank doesn't pull the mobs in to a safe spot, but forces us to fight them where they can more easily aggro more mobs. This also means the hunter often stands in places where he more easily aggros more mobs. The paladin or warrior don't use their cooldowns to save us when shit hits the fan and I forget not to cast a heal when I have aggro from one of the kickers. So we wipe.

We all made mistakes, any one of them miniscule but all together too many to keep the group alive.

The second time we wipe we come back to the instance fully respawned. We had literally been about three mobs away from finishing it, and now we have to clear it all over again. But we decide to do it. And through everything we manage to somehow keep our calm and not start yelling things. I just get mildly annoyed when the tank druid starts needing on cloth caster gear. I mean come on dude, that's just not cool. But I also remind myself that this mid-level gear is a drop in the ocean and it doesn't matter. It really doesn't.

But in the end everything took way longer than it needed to and some have been very much carried by the efforts of others. While it didn't leave me angry, sad or even particularly frustrated it definitely left me extremely mentally drained. And I don't know, was it even fun? In the end I probably feel like I could've been without that experience and that is probably a first in Wow Classic for me.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly - on classes and their pugging behavior.

Lately, I have been trying to re-establish myself on my new server. That doesn't just mean getting close and friendly with the locals, but to set myself up for independence. Back on my old server I had one alt for every profession, so that I would never have to pay anything but material fee for the most common goods (in the end I was too lazy to relogg for the most common items anyway, but that's beside the point). Anyone who knows anything about me knows I am a very cheap person however, and just moving two characters (and faction change them) was on the edge of what I am willing to pay extra for WoW. They've sucked plenty of money from me already (and more to come when D3 is released). I don't mind leveling alts, in fact that is what I spend the most time doing in WoW by far. Leveling lots of alts means doing a hell of a lot of instances usually, because I can't be arsed to do the same quests over and over (the same instances over and over is a little less boring). Doing instances means meeting people and in the end, after the 150th instance of the month (or so it feels sometimes) you will start generalizing things about those people. We all do it. Every hunter is a ninja looter, every paladin is just face rolling and so on. I like to think that in WoW, there is always a kernel of truth in prejudice. And here is my list regarding the classes in WoW and how they behave in dungeons.

Be warned, the following text will be filled with wild generalizations and ranting, maybe even more than my posts usually are.

Death Knight - Annoyance level 10
What better than to start off with the class that got me into this idea in the first place. There are so many things I want to say about Death Knight behavior in pugs, and none of them are good things, that I barely know where to start. I think the only thing that can be said in favor of death knights is the fact that they don't start pestering you with their presence until around level 58. Unfortunately, they somehow seem to think they have to make up for that fact by being about ten times more annoying than most other classes.

Here are some facts about death knights: they used to be overpowered one man armies and they used to be able to be either tank or dps in any spec. Used to be being the key words here. Dks seem stuck in a mindset that hasn't changed since they were introduced into the game. Few death knight tanks seem to bother with more than being in the right presence, for the most time "tank gear" is a concept that completely eludes them. Their lack of gear doesn't stop them in any way from doing pulls way bigger than any other tank, for some reason, and usually without any knowledge of how to keep aggro on all those mobs or use cooldowns to mitigate damage from all those mobs. At best, the tanking dk will use some runes on Death Strike.

But the tanking dk is nowhere near as annoying as the dpsing death knight. Normally, the tanking death knight is just very bad, and most of the time I am willing to overlook that since the instance is at least moving forward (also usually if I am not tanking I am instead the healer, and a bad tank does provide some challenge *positive thinking*). The dpsing death knight however goes into great lengths to be actively annoying. There are two factors here; the fact that Blizzard have designed dks to be very annoying in themselves and the fact that every player seems to want to play dks in an annoying way to add insult to injury. Seeing someone, who doesn't have the faintest clue about what is going on, basically facerolling their way onto top damage done, is the first annoying thing about Dks. Dks are not an easy class to master, yet similarly to paladins it doesn't seem to require any brain power to get a good result. The problem with this is that it prevents anyone who leisurely plays their dk to ever give a rats ass about what they're doing, because if anyone ever complains they can just point at the meters and say "well at least I am doing the most damage". Which is in no thanks to their skills but to Blizzards crappy programming.

The other part is that Blizzard has provided the dks with a skill like Death Grip. Remember now that people who play dks think they are one man armies who can handle anything on their own, and don't give a shit about what the rest of the group does. They are the ones who get a skill like Death Grip. It is mildly annoying that a dk death grips a mob out of my melee range to be able to hit it whenever he's not in range. Deep down I can understand that, it is lazy behavior and being a very lazy person I can empathize with it. It also only mildly annoying that dks seem to only be able to use DG on melee mobs and never caster mobs which would be ideal. But using Death Grip on a mob you're already hitting on only serves to give you aggro, which is completely meaningless for a dpsing dk. If a dps warrior does it I can think that he did it to get more rage or something, but the dk only does it because he just can't let that Death Grip button go unused!

Warrior - Annoyance level 3
I like warriors, they're usually silent and effective regardless if they're tanking or dpsing. Most warriors don't talk much, something that is common for many melee (except in fact, dks) and I can only imagine that bashing all those keys makes it difficult to type at the same time. People who roll warrior tanks usually take their job very seriously since in the general opinion warrior tanking is the most difficult and usually only done by people who have some previous experience in tanking. Warrior tanks are probably also therefore the stingiest of the tanks by far, sometimes on the verge of cranky divas. Warrior tanks can often be divided into those who have stopped caring and just tank on, and those who won't tank unless the rest of the group behaves exactly like they want to. Fortunately, the latter group often sorts itself out of the system, since few tanks actually ever get into a group where every player will accommodate their every whim, and so they end up warrior dps instead.

Although warrior and dk dps are similar in many ways, they're usually played completely differently. The dps warrior doesn't pull extra groups, rarely charges off ahead and seems to try to focus more on doing good damage rather than trying to pull as many mobs as possible.

Priest - Annoyance level 5
My biggest problem with priests, whether healing or dps, is that it seems that so few people have a clue on how to play them. Many new players probably choose to play healing priests because they think they'll be the easiest of the healing classes, they couldn't be more wrong. Discipline priests are easy enough, shield and smite away to do decent healing. In fact I rarely have a problem with discipline priests. Holy priests however, seem to only understand two spells in their arsenal, Renew and Flash Heal. No other healer ooms as fast as the holy priest, because all they do is throw Flash Heal at any damage.

The shadow priest is usually also bad, but for no fault of the player. Shadow priests have bad mana regen and non-existant aoe for a very big part of their leveling, which make them lose damage done to most other classes (except rogues who also lack a decent aoe for most of their leveling). Most commonly, you will see a priest run around oom for most of the instance, which probably is more frustrating to them than it is for the rest of the group.

Shaman - Annoyance level 2
Whenever I get a resto shaman as a healer, I know I am going to be in good hands. I have yet to encounter a bad resto shaman in a lowbie pug, and this is no exaggeration. It is probably partially because Healing Stream Totem and especially Earth Shield does half the job for them, but also because the resto shaman comes with so few skills for the first 70 levels that there really is very little confusion as to what to do when the tank is taking damage, something that many resto druids and holy priests seem to struggle with.


Most of the time dps shamans don't deal as much damage as most other classes. Enhancement because they don't have any good skills until later on and elemental because they're casters, and casters suck for the most part compared to melee until level 80ish. But on the other hand they don't cause any trouble either. Enhancement shamans can't charge ahead or taunt, elemental shamans can throw a chain lightning into the wrong pack of mobs at worst. None of them have procs that they feel a strong urge to use on the next group before the tank is even close, the way a mage does for instance. The only thing shamans can fail with really are whether they decide to use totems or not, and even then it's not something that is especially noticeable when pugging.

Mage - Annoyance level 2
Mages have become a lot better lately. They deal more damage than they used to and somehow they have become a lot less annoying than they used to. Because most mages get aoes early on, they're usually the ones that will try and nag the tank into doing huge aoe-pulls the most, just so they can one-button use their Blizzard/Flame Strike/Arcane Disco throughout the instance. A year ago I would've put mage at level 8 easily.

But that was the old mages, the new mages are behaving themselves a lot better. They will normally give you water upon request, they even sheep things sometimes, although that is rarely necessary in any instance before level 80. Fire mages sometimes have an OCD regarding using Hot Streak, but that is an urge I can understand and fall for myself quite often. I wouldn't want three mages in my group (which has happened), simply because as casters they still suffer from all the things casters suffer from (mostly running out of mana all the time), but otherwise I rarely have any issues with them.

Rogue - Annoyance level 1
I never thought I'd say this, but rogues are probably among my favorite melee to have in my group at the moment (except for one certain rogue, you know who you are Dazsh). They really never cause any trouble, and eventhough they rarely out dps any class who has a decent aoe, they still get the job done in a nice orderly fashion. Rogues used to be the class I had the most issues with in nearly any context, be it pve or pvp, mainly just because they have so much possibilities to be so very annoying. But most pugging rogues at the moment seem to just fully focus on getting their job done, and I am very greatful for that.

Paladins - Annoyance level 6
Having a generalized idea about paladins is difficult since there is a big difference depending on whether they are healing, tanking or dpsing.

The tanking paladin is usually among the best tanks to have in a pug, since they're so easily played that even a blind hen could get it right. Starting out with the IWIN-threat skill Avengers Shield they rarely have any trouble keeping aggro. The fact that they also have the best self healing abilities of all the tanks helps the matter further, and most of the time I just stand idle when healing paladin tanks. There isn't much the paladin tank can fail with snice they're truly a one man army in lowbie pugs (unlike dks).

Paladin healers are usually among the better healers. Paladins get a few, strong spells and probably have the least mana issues of all the healers at those levels which means most people can play them good enough.

Paladin dps on the other hand suffer from some similar issues to Dks. They're far too simple to play to warrant that good a result and I think the only reason they're not as annoying as dks is simply because they don't have Death Grip. I know this because back when Hand of Reckoning still did damage, every retridin would use it as a damage skill, which meant they'd taunt every eight seconds. Retridins still randomly choose to use Righteous Fury for no gain whatsoever, and trying to get them to turn it off is like trying to explain world economy to an iguana. Retridins and dps dks sometimes make me wish that tank specific skills were limited somehow to the tanking classes...

Hunter - Annoyance level 10
Almost every hunter is as annoying as every dk, because similarly to dks, hunters have so many things about them that give them ample opportunity to be very annoying. The fact that they have ranged, instant skills are among the worst, because most hunters seem to be dpsing by pressing the tab skill rather than any dps skills. Eventhough they aggro everything in a 100 yard radius, often by "clever" use of their pet, they still rarely get above third on damage done. How is that even possible?

The old joke that hunters need on every piece of loot they come across seems to have become a mentality of every hunter I pug with. It is as if they feel like they have to live up to that prejudice now, probably thinking "ah they're expecting me to ninja it anyway, so might as well" or "wouldn't want to disappoint them!". As a tank, hunters are the most annoying class to tank, they make a mess of every pull, can easily save themselves with Feign Death and don't even deal good damage, which I at least get out of most Dks. They more often forget to turn of Aspect of the Pack than they would ever start using any kind of traps other than Explosive Trap.

Warlock - Annoyance level 2
Warlocks are like good shadow priests. Eventhough they don't deal good damage until later on, they can at least keep up most of the time, and many of them will offer you a soulstone or healthstone or at least give you one upon request. A mystery I have yet to decipher is how the difference in pet handling can be so vast between warlocks and hunters, where hunters seem to have no clue at all as to what their pets are up to while most warlocks rarely see their pet come running back with three new packs of mobs in tow. That's not the only similarity between hunters and warlocks. Just like hunters, warlocks have many instant, ranged skills, yet they rarely pull ahead or pull extra packs in the way most hunters will.

Druids - Annoyance level 5
Just like their hybrid friends the paladins, how annoying a druid is usually comes down to what spec they are playing. I've never been very fond of tanking druids, and eventhough I must say I quite enjoy playing them myself at the moment, I still feel like most tanking druids are bad at what they do. They seem lost and confused most of the time, like if they were playing in close to first person view and their big bear ass was obstructing most of their screen. They lose aggro all the time, but don't seem to notice or just don't care. They're slow and don't seem to where they are even half the time.

Resto druids can either be really good or really, really bad. Their hotting healing style should suit a newbie healer well, because it allows you to keep several heals up on several targets and to heal while running. Instead it more often just confuses lowbie healers, leaving them to do nothing in panic. Resto druids also often have a tendency to wandering off aimlessly. Although I have no idea why resto druids in particular do this, and any speculation would just wander into crazy areas.

Dps druids aren't very noticeable, not on the meters and not in the group. They run around, using skills at random as it seems. Most druids suffer from the "hybrid" thinking more than other hybrids, meaning they tend to need on any kind of loot "for their other specs" more than paladins and shamans. Nonetheless, dps druids are almost always friendly and good humored and I enjoy having them in my group.

So my favorite group composition, if I was tanking, would be:
Shaman healer
Rogue
Warlock/Mage
Warrior

And hey, that would be a good composition gear wise as well.

Tales from the Random Pug - 8th story

In what probably was purely my imagination, I thought it felt like pugs in the old heroics were much better after 4.1. People weren't good, but they were friendly and I had fun even when we wiped on easy things.  In one pug to HoO we probably wiped some 6-7 times, 5 times to the same boss but there was no name-calling, no quitting, no nerdraging. We just brushed it off, discussed our tactic and tried new things. My own pet theory was that this was due to that all the no-patience-leet-raiders had gone to the brand new troll instances, and left the old heroics for newly dinged people like my alts. I can understand that you have more patience if you realize that the wipe was partially due to your own short-comings, but I must say I really preferred those undergeared runs over what has come now in 4.2.

Because of 4.2 people we're doing heroics like crazy again. The new troll instances weren't new anymore, and most people had gotten all the gear they wanted from there for their mains and five alts. In fact, most people probably got sick of doing their vp grinding solely in the troll instances (me among them) and decided to do old heroics to keep things interesting. Only they've done those instances umptifive times as well and just want a smooth run to get it over with. Wanting a smooth run usually means you have no patience for mistakes, which means there is a lot of name calling and whining when things don't go exactly as expected. Eventhough I realize that I too sometimes can be the cause of a general gloomy attitude in a pug, because even I have bad days, sometimes I just end up in groups where every person is an asshat before I've barely opened my mouth.


This pug wasn't an old heroic, but close to. It was a normal Stonecore I did on my 84 resto druid. It just perfectly shows how some people can act sometimes, which makes me think "Why? What did you gain by this?".

It starts out innocent enough. I constantly have to remind paladins that I can do BoK and it usually takes a couple of minutes before they get it. But then I find out the tank is a comedian.

Yes, I am laughing my ass off here...

Only way to react to a troll is being one yourself. There is no way to reason with someone who thinks they're hilarious when they're morons. So I let this one go. I hardly need BoM enough to make a fuss about it with a 5-year old. Then it turns out the warlock is a special snowflake too. Two in one group, whodda guessed it?

The tank, who liked to overpull, pulled two stone giants and three of those with wavy arms. The lock dies. I use rebirth, but no reaction. After the combat I use revive, and still no reaction. I wait for a minute, but the tank doesn't so I start chasing after him. Then this funny dialogue ensues once I'm nearly at the second boss;

The tank had already pulled the boss before I got there from after ressing, and I was locked out. I also told the lock that I wouldn't run back to res someone who didn't care to stick around to accept the first two he got.

Yeah so I don't even know what a "tetam" is but I am sure it's horrible. I'm not sure who the hunter was talking to either, I suppose the lock since he took ages to get back to us. It can't have been me because I was back there ressing people and getting mana back from after the huge overpull. But maybe a mana-less hunter wouldn't understand that.

So a warning to you all - pugs have turned horribad again. Or maybe I'm just in a bad streak. What can you do in these situations? Just /shrug, get on with it and hope it's over quickly I suppose.

Who gets to need on gear?

I got a very good question the other day, on my post on "Top 5 things that will have me kick you". Commenter Ralthrus asked me to clarify what I meant when I talked about ninjas because as he said it;

"If someone is able to need on an item then it's rightfully as much theirs as anyone else who can need. Doesn't matter who needs it 'more.'"

I can definitely see where Ralthrus is coming from with this question. There tends to be somewhat of an elitist view on who should and should not need on gear, to the point where it almost becomes counter productive. Just as with the old Gearscore addon, people forget the uses and reasons to why such a system is developed and just take it too far to the point where people around think "does it really matter?". People just learn something without understanding it, and then think everything else is dead wrong. I remember when I was laughed at on my level 15 warrior for using a staff. It just happened to be the 2hander with the highest high-end damage in the game at that level (and seriously, who cares what a level 15 does?). But people only saw a warrior with a staff. It might not have been the best weapon around, but it was damn good. Just as in our everyday life, we see people who make it their business to advocate something, eventhough they don't have the slightest clue to why. I've met plenty of people who want to kick the level 34 warlock in my group for needing on a wand with spirit. Is it really that important? Does it matter who needs on what and why?

Yes, it does matter. Most people playing know that some stats are basically useless to some classes and crucial to others. Intellect is a very useful stat to a mage, but useless to a warrior. But that's only the obvious. Even with stats that a class can use, there are differences. A rogue can use agility a lot better than a warrior, although a warrior can still benefit from agility. And even further, a rogue can use a dagger a lot better than a hunter.

Each item holds 100% potential, but not all classes can use 100% of that potential. Some classes use more, some less.

So he can use 95% of that item and I can only use 60%. Why should I care? It's still better than what I have, it's still an upgrade to me too.

Yes, why indeed. You don't have to, of course. And in many many cases I don't care. When leveling characters or otherwise when the differences aren't big enough or I don't expect to keep said item for very long, I don't think it matters - as long as you at least intend to use it. Most importantly, as so many people tend to forget, just because you'll want to aim to use as much potential as possible, doesn't mean that that is the only acceptable way to use it. It's not 100% or nothing. But there are times when it actually does matter.

As with so many informal systems built up around human interaction, this one relies on a "treat thy neighbor as thyself" idea. An item drops and you know that you could use it, but someone else could use it even better, what do you do? When you pass that item to another person, it is because you hope people around you will honor this system when it is time for you to have a chance on something. The more important, or more of a difference an item does to us, the more we care. The same goes for everyone around us. You're not the only one who wants good upgrades. So if you hope that people around you care when something good drops for you, you should care when it is someone elses best gear at stake.

But you don't have to. We could have a system where everyone frantically need on everything that is the slightest upgrade or would bring some vendor gold. That would also be a viable system and I honestly don't think there is something morally wrong with that, as long as that is what we've all (ie the majority) decided to use. It just would be a way less good system of distributing gear, and we seem to have realized that somehow. So most of us have decided that instead of having a system that is equally sucky for everyone, we've got one that is equally beneficial to everyone.

Ralthrus goes on to explain that Blizzard condones this behavior since they allow it, and thinks that being able to need equals having the right to need (or at least that is how I understood the comment).

"Go ask blizzard. They will tell you that it is working as intended."

It's not really that simple. Saying that we should need on it because we can is shortsighted. With the system we have it is true that you might lose some gear you wanted right now, but on the other hand you might gain a gear piece you'd lost otherwise the second time. This system is built around being able to do a smaller sacrifice right now for a bigger gain later, and fortunately most people realize this.

Blizzard have been asked many times to change the need-system, because people abuse it. And they've answered and changed many things about it (just imagine, back in Vanilla there was only need and pass, and you had to ask everyone to pass on loot if you wanted it! Couldn't trade it when someone else had won it either). But it's impossible to build the perfect need-system, because no AI, no line of coding, can ever tell what your character needs as good as you. Because we can have multiple specs, classes and roles in WoW, there could be plenty of reasons for you to roll on something that you might not need right away. This is exactly what Blizzard have stated as their primary reason for not wanting to change the current system. It would make it impossible to gear up any other spec than the one you're currently on. Imagine you want to start tanking with your paladin, but only have holy gear? You join a group as a healer and hope to get some tanking gear. This wouldn't be possible if all you got to roll on was more holy gear. Getting gear is a big reason to why we do instances, to many the only reason. This unofficial system doesn't forbid anyone from needing on gear they can, and intend to, use. It only kindly asks them to consider whether the needs of someone else outweighs your own. I am glad that Blizzard think we're intelligent enough to work out a system of our own that works, and don't need everything to be with 27 rules attached just because we can't agree. There will always be people who don't understand this concept however.

Blizzard have carefully designed loot-tables so that all classes and all specs have about equal chance to get the gear that is best suited for them (although holydins who never got the bracers from Cho'gall probably don't agree with me). That means that if everyone follows this system, it will even out in the end. If everyone needed on everything it probably would even out in the end as well, but a lot of gear would be wasted in the process - it would take longer for you to get the gear you really needed. Instead you would get more items that are less of an upgrade, or for vendoring. This current need-system is agreed upon since it is supposed to effectivize gear distribution so that each drop is made as usable as possible. And since Blizzard have made it so that some classes can roll on more items than others, any other system would turn out unfavorably for anyone who isn't a warrior.

To get back to the beginning here though, I do agree that some people take this too far. The idea of the system is to have someone who can use the item the best have prio, not that anyone who can't use the item to 100% not have a chance on it ever, even when no one else needs it. When a gear piece drops, imagine everyone in the group being ranked on a list based on who can use the item the best (which has nothing to do with skill, but how Blizzard has designed the game). Whoever is top on that list should be allowed to have first dibs on the item. But if he doesn't want it, the second on the list should have every right to need on it. I'll allow anyone needing on basically anything, as long as they can and intend to use it. I don't even mind holydins needing on hit-items, as long as no one else wanted that item and it somehow still is an upgrade to them (this happens suprisingly often to me in pugs). If there is any stat on an item that is beneficial to someone, and the item is better than what they had, I don't mind them rolling. But I don't think they have equal right to it as someone else who'd use it more, just because they both can press the need button. Maybe next time something drops, the tables will be turned, and you'll probably be damn happy that that shaman doesn't need on your tank shield, just because he can.

Top 5 Things That Will Have Me Kick You

I like to consider myself a patient girl woman person. At least most of the time. If you happen to enjoy tanking pugs like me, that really goes without saying. If you're not a patient person, you won't have fun tanking pugs, that's just the way it is. And I honestly don't mind people being bad, seriously! I don't mind taking some extra minutes to explain tactics or class mechanics to someone who doesn't know, and I have plenty of proof of this. Everyone doesn't know everything and we're all knew to the game at some point, I don't expect everyone to be omgwtfbbq at what they do. As long as they try. But there are some things that will push my buttons, so eventhough I don't vote to kick people at their first mistake, I am still a pretty avid user of that function. And it's difficult to rank what of all the things people can do in a pug that annoys me the most, since all of them are just pretty much annoying. But I've tried, so here is my top 5 list of things you can do that will get you kicked out of my group.

5. Whiners
I usually just put whiners on ignore, but some people are so whiny I just don't think they deserve my tanking love (or healing/dpsing love for that matter). I've had runs that have gone perfectly smooth, no one has been close to death, threat is not an issue, I'm not asking for cc (because omg, that is so much hassle) or complaining about anything, and you can still bet your next salary that someone will find something to whine about. Just the other day I had a run like this in Stonecore and some guy just had to complain about my addon that announces my cooldown usage in party chat. I'm sorry dude, this is part of the bargain. I happen to like it when my healer knows if I've got Shield Wall up in a tricky situation or not, mostly because I know that that is information I would want if I had been the healer. And I'm sorry, where you using the chat for anything useful? Nope, it's completely empty and silent, and I don't care if you have 15 important whispers or something going on in guild chat, right now I want you to focus on our instance. Besides, one shout out every 3 minutes is hardly "spammy". I won't actually kick someone for just whining though, like I said I mostly just put them on ignore. But some people take it to the next level and start complaining about anything and everything. The healer is an idiot, the other dpsers suck, etc. At some point I just don't think he deserves our time anymore and will vote to kick him.

4. Laziness
Like I said initially, I don't mind people being bad as long as they try. Because there is seriously few things that annoy me more than people who can't be arsed to do their part of the job. Again in Stonecore (albeit another pug) we were doing the first boss. I had asked the dpsers to take care of the adds, but what do I see? All adds hitting on the healer. I sigh and do some charging/intervening/heroic leaping to pick up the mobs from the healer and trying to avoid getting the buff on the boss, although I failed with that so we wiped. So I ask the dpsers to kindly take care of the adds, why would they just let them stand there and hit the healer? And one dpser asks me "why don't you do it yourself?". First of all - I am taking care of the boss tanking in case you didn't notice. But sure, ok, tanking a boss isn't all that troublesome. Secondly, the fight mechanics prevent me from helping out on the adds unless I want to make the boss hit really hard forcing me to use cooldowns. But sure, that's what cooldowns are for right? Thirdly however - didn't you just notice I was in fact the only one who cared about the adds (which made us wipe when I was out of cooldowns), and you have the nerve to tell me to try harder?

Another matter in laziness that really (I mean really) grinds my gears are people who don't release and run after a wipe. I can understand if when only one or even two people die, they don't release and run. I mean as long as one resser is alive and well, you might save time having them res you instead of running all the way. But when we all wipe, there is nothing to gain from having one person just lie there, waiting for the rest of us to do the running. The only time that is ok is if you happen to sit on a computer from 1995 that has so slow loading times that you actually prefer getting ressed over having to release and run. I've encountered such people and that is totally ok. I even accept people who say "I have to do x, is it ok if you res me?". Just bleeding ask and I will say "sure, fine" and think nothing of it. But just lying there, taking it for granted, will really piss me off.

Not gemming your gear pretty much goes here too. I can understand that people don't want to enchant gear while leveling, but when you're doing ZA/ZG and got epics... it's time to put a little more effort into your gear.

3. Not fulfilling your role
Although I accept bad playing, and I mean bad as in "not knowing your class inside and out and perhaps not bringing 25k dps to my group" generally, I won't allow it to stand in the way of the group progress. If your playing is so bad that I know that it is YOU that are hindering us from downing this boss, I will kindly ask you to leave, get some better gear, read up on your class and the tactics of the fight. I also don't accept people who refuse to use their class mechanics. I will take the time to explain them, because like I said I don't demand that everyone knows everything like the back of their hand. But we're at max level now, you've played that class for 85 levels and you will have to stop making excuses somewhere and start learning what is necessary to know for heroics. When the shaman in VP told me he couldn't bind elements I told him to go train it for the next instance, because people would want him to be able to do that. He then eventually found it in his spell book, no harm done. But the other day when doing BRC I asked the mage if he could kite the adds on the last boss. He said no, he would suck at it. I said that's ok, be as bad at it as you want - as long as you keep the adds of me you've succeeded. I explained how he could go about doing it, basically just frost nova, blink, ice lance to regain threat. It's seriously easy. But he just refused. No explanation. If there is something I don't have the patience with, it's people who won't even try. Now either he thought it was dreadfully boring, and I would've accepted that if we had had an alternative kiter (although basically anyone can kite that). Or if someone else in the group had said "I love kiting those mobs, please let me!". Otherwise it's to me like if the shaman would say "no I don't like popping totems, it's boring" or the priest says "no I don't like using Fortitude, it has an ugly icon". I don't really care - you've chosen that class and spec, so that is your role. People will ask you to do this so if you don't enjoy it, go reroll. I don't mind you doing it badly (as long as it gets the job done), but you have to do it, sorry.

2. People who just fail
I won't mind someone doing bad dps, or accidentally pulling an extra group, or not knowing tactics and loads of things. All of those are ok - but not at the same time. The other day I was doing (yes, I am doing a lot of pugs lately) Lost City and we had a DK who not only did awful damage and didn't know tactics - he face pulled everything in the instance. He managed to pull groups I've never ever fought before in that instance, after having done it some 50 times. He gave the rest of the group so much extra work, making what could've been a really smooth run really troublesome all by himself, that I finally had to tell him that he wasn't worth the trouble. He wasn't pulling his weight, he was instead adding extra weight. Not ok. If you're bad, be humble, try to counter it by being useful in other areas like cc, buffs, debuffs, anything. But just being an extra workload and no gain won't give you much sympathy from me.

The above example is of a fail player that I don't think actually tried to ruin our run, he just did inadvertently. But there are also the players who think they are more important than the rest of the group and that their needs should be put above everyone elses. "Hurry, I've got work in 20 min so we have to chain pull the instance" - sorry, don't care. Don't join a run that takes 45 min when you've only got 20. Don't take it out on the rest of the group by face pulling everything you see so that the tank has to chase after you and the healer go oom after each pull because everyone is taking damage. In any case, that sure as heck won't make the run go any faster.

1. Ninjas
I think most people agree with me that the biggest asshats of them all are people who shamelessly take stuff from other people. All of the above are things that not necessarily have to be because the player tries to actually be annoying or ruin the fun for other people. But taking something from someone else says only one thing - I think I am better than you, and I couldn't care less about your feelings. In a game that is all about social interaction and teamplay, that is just not ok. Fortunately, the ninja problem has become way less of a problem in Cataclysm than it was in Wrath. Nowadays, epics drop so often that people care more about being able to stay in the instance than getting that 100g that the epic might be worth, or 20g that the blue might be worth. But ninjas are still, without a doubt, the people that annoy me the most in pugs.

Tales from the Random Pug - 7th story

Although getting into bad pugs isn't uncommon, I rarely get into pugs that are so bad you start looking around to see if you're on Candid Camera. But this happened to me the other night, as some of you might've noticed by my shocked and rambling Tweets (yes I am hanging with the cool kids at Twitter now!). This group was so bad, it was like a comedy or parody of WoW-pugging, you know the kind of group of players you'd throw together to exaggerate the horror of pugging. And just when you thought it couldn't get worse... it did. This story has a nice Shyamalanesque twist in the end, but I dare believe it is better than his are (except Sixth Sense, I liked that one).

It all started out when I decided to do a late night run on my blood dk. I like tanking on my dk, it's ridiculously easy and I would also get the satchel. I queue up and get into the dungeon after some wait (!). I face Erudax, with one add. Sweet! Only last boss, and goodie bag. 5 minutes worth of trouble and I get my satchel, I could even have the time to do another instance after this one. The group consists of me, a holydin, an enhancement shaman, a mage and a warrior. The shaman quickly tells us that they've spent some time in this instance because they've had some bad people. I also think I recognize the holydins name. She had a very special name, and I remember I had done a Throne of the Tides earlier that day in which she dpsd. So I figure I've been very lucky to randomly get into an instance with only last boss left to kill and with a dude (or dudette) I did an instance with earlier today! Coincidence? Freaky. I ask if everyone are ready, they say yes (or nothing at all) and we start the fight.

Everything is going along just fine until the first Shadow Gale comes up. The mage and the warrior don't move, and both die. We wipe because our remaining dps is too low to handle the adds. I tell the mage and the warrior that there is way less shame in admitting that you don't know tacs prior to engaging the boss, than having the group wipe because you didn't know what to do. Me and the paladin go on to explain the tactics, asking if the warrior and mage have understood everything or anything. They don't say a word. In fact they haven't for the entire time. I say that maybe they're young and don't speak english, it happens. The warrior decides that this is an excellent time to call me a "fuckface". I tell him that at least he just confirmed to me that he's probably a child. Sadly enough we can't kick this fine gentleman, because there have been too many kicks in this party already. Let me just say, I'm not surprised. We engage the boss. The first shadow gale that comes up, the mage and warrior dies again. The shaman, by then probably plenty frustrated with a group he's spent hours with (according to the paladin they had been there for 2,5 hours) decides to leave mid combat, fortunately so does the warrior.

In comes a feral druid who shares the wipe with us, and while we corpse run back a hunter joins the group. We ask them if they know tactics and the hunter says no, but that he is a quick learner. We explain them to him. First shadow gale, the hunter dies. He gets a combat res (yes, I have cr now!). Second shadow gale, hunter and mage dies. Progress, the mage survived one gale! We wipe and run back.

Fourth try, the hunter and mage have actually learned to move out of shadow gale now, at least most of the time. But alas, their dps is abyssmall. And I don't mean "omg, they don't do 20k dps? Lololol". I mean they're at 5k dps. And not just the hunter and mage, but unfortunately the feral druid as well. I'm doing 9k and vastly outperforming them, also the mage doesn't seem to know what Time Warp is because he doesn't use it when asked to, which leads to us wiping because the adds don't go down quick enough.

During the corpse run we kindly (honestly) ask the mage to leave. We tell him that we just can't complete the instance with him in the group, it's nothing personal, it's just raw facts. He keeps on dying and he performs the worst of us all (which really is saying a lot). He says "ok" and leaves. I do feel sorry for the guy, because he wasn't a bad person, just a bad player. If I could've kept him I would. He did actually, after a couple of wipes, do some questions about the tactics (it speaks!), and I could tell that he was really trying. Unfortunately (and I mean that) just trying isn't always good enough. In comes a priest.

We ask him if he knows tacs. I plead him to please do more than 5k dps (jokingly really, because most people at level 85 could stare at a mob for 5k dps, they'd do more damage with auto attacks only). I tell the group that he can't possibly be worse than the mage and that we will surely make it this time! The priest says nothing. We fear the worst, yet cling to hope. He just must be better than what we already have had so far. Can you possibly get five überfails into one group in the same night (ok the druid and hunter were just bads, not überfails)? I start the fight. What does the priest do?

He starts smiting. For petes sake! He's a holy priest whos signed up as dps, for some forsaken reason. I just stare at the screen and think "my lawd, this can't be happening? This isn't real. Someone is toying with me. He's really a GM who's laughing his ass off at us right now". Maybe he was. In any case he actually managed to do less damage than the mage but hey! At least he moves from shadow gale. He doesn't attack adds, but you can't get it all I suppose. By now I'm actually starting to giggle. I can't even be mad because this is just hilarious. I'm starting to understand Donald Duck in that show they always have us watch at Christmas here in Sweden. The priest does some 3-4k dps, but because he was offhealing we managed to finish the boss anyway. Apparently healing and smiting was his dps rotation. Our dps was so bad I could use two 3 minute cooldowns, I think the whole fight took some 5 minutes in total. But at least we made it. I still can't believe that it really happened. It feels like a nightmare, or like I accidentally fell into a rabbit hole when I pressed that "join queue" button. At least I can comfort myself with the thought that few pugs will be that bad in a long time. Or at least, that is what I dearly hope.

Tales from the Random Pug - 6th story

I've been laying unusually low with the alting for a couple of weeks now, although I'm not sure why. I usually juggle some 5 alts around simultaneously, but lately I've been focusing on my mage, with a dash of shaman and paladin on the side. Still more than most people, but not so much to be me. But then I managed to convince Love to start playing a lowbie with me, and got to tank some lowbie instances again. Also Love got me to try out boomkin on my druid, and I love it! So she has been taken out of retirement and back into action. So the last week, a lot of lowbie instances have been done. Although many stories about lowbie pugs are horror stories about people who don't know their head from a pineapple, need on everything, don't speak english (except for "lol"), go randomly afk for 5 minutes at the time (or more) 10 times throughout an instance and make you wish you could queue for instances as just 2 people, there are other things to say about them too. There is 95% of that, but there is 5% of other stuff as well.

The other day I was doing Nexus on my druid, as a healer actually. I was watching a movie while playing (Drag Me To Hell no less, it was a decent movie) and didn't want to do something which needed much attention *ahem*. In Outlands and Northrend instances, you usually need a lot more attention to dps than to heal, at least if you want to do a decent job or like me like to top the meters (having a hard time against dks though). When healing I can just occasionally glance down on my Vuhdo bar and see if someone needs a Rejuv. So anyway. Just after the first boss, the dwarf which isn't even a boss in normal, the tank drops off. Getting a tank actually goes really fast on those levels, I usually don't have to wait more than 4-8 minutes as dps. So we queue up and expect a new tank to join us any moment. Now, the entire group was fully decked in BoA, so instead of waiting around idly, we decided to continue until the new tank arrived. And that is where I experienced something interesting. We didn't actually get a new tank until the third boss, which meant we made it all the way from the dwarf to Anomalus without a tank. Like I said, Outlands and Northrend instances are really easy but still, suddenly everyone in my group pulled out their A-game. We had a mage, a hunter and a shaman and we had traps, sheeps, frost novas, silences and focused dpsing all over the place. It made healing easy. I could easily continue with my movie watching, although I did help out with some rooting here and there.

When we finally got a tank, it actually made healing more difficult (marginally, but still). It wasn't because our tank was bad in any way, but because when we didn't have a tank, everyone cc'd everything they could which meant we fought only a few mobs at a time. Since no one had aggro for a longer period of time, everyone took a low amount of damage instead, which suited my hotting healing style perfectly. When the tank joined however, it was back to the mega-pulls with all the damage focused on one player or mobs running everywhere hitting everyone (instead of just one or two mobs hitting everyone). It was no problem, but the difference of the two styles really struck me. Does having a tank in a group actually make people play worse? My group had gone from careful and beautiful team work, to the regular "all dps ninja pull, tank tries to keep aggro on everything, everyone are taking damage etc"-group.

Of course, I could've been unlucky enough to end up in a group where no one knew how to cc, and we would've failed miserably without a tank, making the tank our savior. I've had plenty of runs like that as well. But it really fascinated me how different people played depending on how difficult they saw the situation. Without a tank they did everything they could to make sure the pull would be as smooth as possible. With the tank, they must've thought that he would handle everything so their cc wasn't needed, which in an instances like Nexus definitely is true. Is it this we see in heroics as well? People don't want to cc because they think it's too easy, and we tanks and healers are really the ones who are making it easy? I did grace on this in my last "Tales from the Pug"-post, where I said that;

"Are we seeing a betterment in the general puggers behavior? I am inclined to say yes. I actually feel like the increased difficulty of instances, even normals, have turned most people into friendlier and more skilled players."

So when people think they can just burn something through, they won't even try to do anything but dps. They're thinking "ah, he's got it. I don't have to think about it" when the tank probably is thinking "dang it, I really have to do everything myself in this damn group!" and the healer goes "oh no, not another steamroller tank without any regard of my mana...". I remember in early Cata when healing was really tough for holy priests. I simply told people that "if you don't use my Lightwell you will die, and we will never make this boss. That's fact", and left it completely in their hands. People usually did understand this (omglol) and started using the LW. We are all working toward a common goal after all, namely finishing the instance. If you make it clear that some part won't be taken care of by you, then hopefully someone else will actually make an attempt. It's a fine balance where you as tank don't really trust anyone but yourself to get the job done, but by taking on all the responsibility you will also get dpsers that don't help out, because there doesn't seem to be a need to. Maybe we should go on a strike, declaring that we won't tank more than 3 mobs at a time, just to make sure dpsers keep their A-game going.

As a bonus anecdote story, I wanted to share a little tidbit about lowbie tanking, which I have recently started doing for the umptififth time, but this time with Love by my side as mentioned. When doing instances from level 15-60 ish (or maybe a little more) you really get the feeling of being some sort of overlord, taking your measly minions on a stroll. It's not good for my tanking megalomania that I honestly don't need anyone in the group, except perhaps my healer. I usually do more than half of the groups damage, by myself. I do all the interrupting, I know exactly where to go and how to complete quests. In lowbie dungeons you really get to feel like a God when tanking. Maybe that could be enticement for people to try it out?

I'm not just blowing my own horn here, here's another example!

 It's crazy really...

Call to Arms - On second thought

My initial attitude to the Call to Arms news was a fairly neutral one. Although I didn't think it would actually solve the issue about making tanking more fun, I actually hoped that it would have more people interested in tanking. As some bloggers have pointed out, that in turn could have more people respect the effort there is in tanking. I've had some time to think and read other peoples thoughts on the matter since my last post, and I would like to make some additions. Most people seem to range from very negative to mildly positive about this change, with only a few being very positive. Although my first post might have made me sound as negative as anyone, especially with the title, I do think that this change could bring something good. Don't get me wrong, ideally I would prefer it if Blizzard could just wave a magic wand and have people act decent towards eachother in pugs instead. Most of the trouble I find in tanking is that other people really try to take the fun out of it, and succeed. But we all know that there is no magic recipe for getting people to be nice to eachother. So we really have to accept that we have to find another solution.

In my other post on this matter I wrote that the issue about tanking right now is that it is too much work and not enough gratefulness. If we look closely, everything we do in WoW comes down to attracting us by either being fun or rewarding enough (preferrably both), and by "rewarding" I mean in hard, cold epics (or any item really). The best moments in WoW for most of us is when we've really had fun with something, busted our asses off and got a nice reward for it. A good example would be to get a difficult boss kill for the first time. Most other things in WoW are usually either fun or rewarding though. I strongly doubt people do dailies for the umptififth time because "omg those quests are just so much fun!". It's rather for the rewards we get for doing them. The same goes with instancing. Although I hope not many people are outright bored with what they do in WoW, like I mentioned in another post, there are people who spend hours doing something they close to hate (archaeology), just to get a nice reward. So when we have something that is neither fun nor rewarding, it's not very odd that people don't want to do that. And that is where we have tanking.

Blizzard could've approached this issue in two ways. Either they make tanking more fun, which is what I hoped for. But like I said, that is basically an impossible task because the problem doesn't lie in tanking, but with the pugs. Or they make tanking more rewarding, which is what they are going to do. At first I didn't like this idea, but then I started thinking. Would I tolerate a bad run if I thought the reward in the end was worth it? Heck yeah! (To a limit of course, a girl can only tolerate so much). If the reward is good enough I'll just think "Ah what does it matter if they annoy me, I get a nice reward in the end and they don't Muahahaha!". Would that be any different from all the other times we spend time doing something we don't enjoy very much just to get to the reward at the end? No. Is this a good or a bad thing? Well that is another question, but in any case that system has been around in this game since the beginning and is a part of any game of this type. If we question this, we would have to question many other parts of this game. I don't personally ever do dailies, and I don't do many heroics just for the vp, so it's possible that these tank rewards won't do it for me either. But rewards are a big thing about what has so many people spend so much time in WoW, so it's quite understandable that Blizzard chose this approach, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it really worked.

Some people have argued that this is an unfair reward since it's aimed at only a smaller portion of the player base, which has ignited the old debate about whether everyone has equal right to everything in the game or not, since we all in the end pay equally much for it. To me the whole argument is moot, since this isn't a reward aimed at only a portion of the players. Everyone has the possibility to tank. There is nothing in the game that prevents any player to roll a tank and reap the benefits of this change. So you don't want to tank? Yeah, join the club. That is exactly what Blizzard is trying to fix, and if you still don't want to tank even when getting this reward, that is really your choice. It's kind of like complaining that the garbage man does a better salary than you. He does a job no one wants to do, so in all fairness he deserves a good salary to go do what he does. And nothing is stopping you from go do his job (I don't really know what garbage people earn, but I hope you get my point). Even if there are things in real life that could stop you from getting to the most rewarding jobs, in WoW there is no such thing but your own preferences. I think this is a fair reward. We all have access to it, and the worst thing that could happen is that you have to level a tank to get to it, which really is done in a jiffy these days. And this reward isn't aimed at tanks exclusively like some people make it sound like. It is aimed at those people who currently fulfill a role that few others do. A role that is needed for everyone else in the queue. Even if you don't directly benefit from the Call to Arms, you will hopefully indirectly by not having to wait forever. The change is to smoothen the lfd-queues, not to woo tanks specifically.

Some people have compared this reward to prostitution. Now I don't usually care much about the political correctness about things, but this comparison seems about as valid and relevant as calling someone a Nazi in an argument. The worst thing about it is that it makes it difficult for me to take anything else that person has to say to heart, even though it might be good stuff. So just don't, it's silly and doesn't add anything to the real debate.

If we look closer at this change, instead of nerd raging about what it looks like on the surface, we will find that it's actually quite in line with how everything else in WoW works. We work either for fun or for rewards, so there is nothing stupid or strange in how Blizzard have decided to handle this. I love tanking, and I don't think there is much wrong in tanking per se. The issue is peoples attitudes. Would I have preferred it if people could just act nice to eachother in dungeons instead? Yes of course. But anyone who thinks that is possible to achieve is naïve. And like I said, what I really hope about this is that it will have people at least try out tanking, and maybe even get some respect for the role. It could actually turn out to fix peoples attitudes.

Call To Arms - Adressing the right issue in the wrong way

Of course I am going to have to jump on the train and talk about the new Call to Arms change. Even though I said I was going to slow down my posting and not post anything today, it is difficult not to mention some thoughts about a bomb like this. I will admit, when I first read it I had to check the date it was posted to make sure that it wasn't yet another april fools joke. And then I couldn't quite decide whether I thought it was a good or bad idea.

The bloggosphere basically exploded upon these news in a way I've rarely seen any other kind of information affect us players. Maybe because it really affects us all, and not just a specific class, and because most of us didn't really agree with how Blizzard had decided to "solve" this. Here is a wrap up of a couple of posts on it that I thought were interesting.

Pradzha at Piercing Shots thinks this actually is a good idea (the only one I've found who thinks so). He argues that if it would interest bad tanks, then why wouldn't it interest good tanks?
Orvillus, guest posting at Oh my Kurenai says that this "solution" doesn't actually solve the existing problems with tanking, that of tanking being a rather tedious and ungrateful job. It only makes something most people think is too horrible to do slightly more worth it, but not necessarily more fun.
Rohan at Blessing Of Kings compares to Age of Conan where you actually use two tanks. By sharing the responsibility between two people it actually made the role more fun to play, and finding tanks in AoC was way less of a problem than it generally is in these kind of games.
Ohken of Shifting Nature also thinks that what the tanks really need is less responsibility or an easier way of tanking.
Rhidach of Righteous Defense means that this won't have him tank more instances, because the problem isn't (as mentioned) that it isn't rewarding enough, but that it isn't fun enough.
Jar of Rank 4 Healing Touch also talks about what makes people want to, and not want to tank today, mentioning gratification and responsibility as many others, and whether this really could solve that problem.
Ironyca over at Ironyca Stood In The Fire gives us a wrap up of the history of the lfd-system and shows us that it is pretty much covered in Band Aid solutions by now, this is just another one in the heap.
Mhorgrim at the Rusty Blades says that what the lfd-system really needs is some common decency between players. Does it really have to be too much to ask for?

I am a really nice person, believe it or not. I always have a hard time complaining at something someone does when I feel like they're at least trying. Whenever I do random pugs with Love and someone in the pug is just miserably bad, I always say "nah, leave him be. He's at least trying". Honestly. Trying their best is all I ask from people, as long as it still gets the job done. I don't care if I am boosting them, if they're nice I will leave them be and maybe give them some pointers on how they can improve. So in a way I feel the same thing about this. Blizzard are trying, and I just feel bad when I have to say - I am glad you're trying, but it's not the right way to go Blizzard.

So what is the problem? There are too few tanks. As Rohan pointed out, that is an issue in nearly every holy trinity based mmorpg. But why? Why does no one want to tank? I wrote a post about it a couple of weeks ago. The conclusion I had is the same as many others - tanking is too much responsibility and not enough gratefulness. Alot of responsibility doesn't have to be a problem, if it wasn't for the constant whining you get thrown at you. Ungratefulness doesn't have to be a problem either, if you didn't have to bust your ass off to get it. To sum it up tanking often feels like a job. This is coming from someone who has played 3 prot warriors to max level because I sincerely love tanking. I still prefer to level prot warriors because of the fun of tanking. I enjoy tanking with my dk and paladin too (my druid not so much). But there is no denying that it is alot more trouble tanking an instance, than it is to dps or to heal it. That is part of why I enjoy it so much. When the challenge has gone out of healing and dpsing heroics, the challenge of tanking them will always be there. Because you are fighting the players rather than the mobs, it never becomes easier (not when compared to healing or dpsing). I don't say this to whine about it - like I say, I enjoy it. But it is still something that scares most people off. And it is a fine balance. Even though I love tanking it only takes a particularly annoying ass hat for me to drop off. He is not worth my time or effort.

These issues have limited the people interested in joining the lfg-queue for tanking to two types of players;

Either you have the people who really enjoy tanking. I used to be one of them. Back in Wrath I always did at least one heroic on all of my tanks, just because I really enjoyed tanking. The same with early Cataclysm. Recently, the fun of tanking has gone out of me somewhat, especially warrior tanking.

The other group are those people who have the choice between going as a tank or healer/dps, can't be arsed to wait and go as tank just to get it over with. To them, the instant queue is incentive enough. I belong in part to this group as well. A big reason that I love tanking so much, is because I can just log onto WoW and get an instant instance. I don't have to wait around, it's there whenever I feel like it. If I have the option to tank on a char, I nearly always choose that option (except on my druid), just because I don't want to wait, and I don't mind tanking.

So who will the new system lure in? The people who already tank because they enjoy it will get a bonus. But will it have arms warriors decide to polish their prot spec enough to give it a go? Will it have resto druids get their bear gear in shape? Maybe, but I doubt that it will be enough. For those people to whom the instant queue isn't enough of an incentive already, for all those people who right now prefer to wait 20 minutes in queue over having to tank even though they could, I don't think that these rewards will be enough either. I know it wouldn't be for me. Because most people prefer the wait time only if they really hate to tank, or don't have the option to. Since the satchel is BoA I can only see that it could encourage some people to dust off that alt tank they have laying around. The positive thing I see in this is that it might be incentive enough for people to actually try out tanking at all. But it might not have them stick around with it since it's still not adressing the right problem - the fun (or lack thereof) of tanking.

Personally I'm rather going to look at this as confirmation about the fact that I am doing the tougher job in the group. I really don't think that tanks get enough recognition as it is right now, and I could tell you horror stories about how dpsers treat you like dirt under their nails just because you weren't doing the run exactly like they wanted to, even though the bastards have waited 20 minutes for you to join the queue. Yes, tanking has made me bitter. Tanking is extremely ungrateful, and in most random pugs you're not lucky enough to end up with 4 people who won't try to make your tanking experience miserable. I might sound cynical, but that is the sad truth. I won't decide to tank more because of this, simply because mounts/pets and other stuff like it rarely has been much of an incentive to me overall. To some people it might be, question is if it will be the right people. I might decide to tank on my paladin instead of heal, even though I feel more like healing, and I'm not sure that's right either. Blizzard recently changed the way dailies worked because you never should have to do something you don't feel like just to get the full reward. I know it's up to me in the end, but it still feels wrong that Blizzard hangs a goodie bag in front of my eyes and says "do the boring thing and you get this". Couldn't they try to make the boring thing more fun instead? Mhorgrim is absolutely right, tanking would be no trouble at all if people just had a little more patience with eachother. Unfortunately that seems as possible as asking a pig to fly. A possible solution could definitely be what Rohan suggests, in getting tanks to share the responsibility with another tank, kind of like how it works in a raid environment. It would require a complete redesign of the instancing system, but why not?

Maybe this shouldn't be seen as an incentive to join the instance as much as a "thank you" for doing the job no one else wants to do, but that everyone needs. When I do decide to tank, I will definitely feel like I've deserved those extra goodies at the end of the instance.

Good advice don't have to cost much

I've been doing a couple of posts regarding the interaction between players overall, and especially in the ever random random pugs (yes that should be two "random" there). It is a subject I love to discuss, and fortunately I'm far from alone about that! I wrote one post on individualism in WoW and how it has taken its toll on the random groups. One of the issues discussed was how new players are being treated and how they learn to act in random groups from us "oldies". I also wrote a post on the problem of lack of practice opportunities for tanks and healers (and cc too for that matter) outside of instances, a problem I think contributes alot to the frustration and fear many seem to feel (me included) when joining random groups. I got a mail from Florian as an answer to my post on indiviualism, but it touches on both the subjects of "newbie reception" and how new players really have to go about learning the things in the game that aren't much practiced outside instances. After writing my post on healers and tanks needing dummies, I set upon a sort of personal quest to try to help people that seem to have these kind of problems. Florians mail only convinced me further that there probably are loads of people out there that don't know exactly how to do things, and who, if done the right way, would love to get some input.

Let's start with the mail, and thanks to Florian for letting me use it! I've decided to post it in its entirety because it really is a great story.

"I've been playing the Blizzard games since Warcraft 2, so that would probably be around 1996. Have played Diablo and Starcraft too, loved every inch of it. Never got to like Diablo II though because I chose a hunter and died repeatedly because arrows were not infinite like in Diablo I. I found that stupid and stopped playing.

I've known about WOW since Warcraft III cause they had this teaser video in it, but in 2004 when the game came out, I had started dating my future wife, and decided not to spend my time playing video games because I pretty much knew from experience how time consuming that could be, and feared myself when it came to playing a character in a MMORPG.

So during 5 years, I knew that there was this great game out there, that I would really like to play, but probably never would...

But during the summer of 2009, I find myself alone at home for 3 weeks, and I have this "World of Warcraft trial" standing around preinstalled on my PC that's been curiously looking at me since I bought the damn thing. So I thought, "the girls are not here for 3 weeks", I guess I can always give it a try and I'll stop playing when they'll come back. So I started playing...

At first I did not know anything about guilds and dungeons. So I leveled to around lvl 10 pretty much questing on my own. I got invited in a group in the Ban'ethil barrow den (bear nest in Teldrassil) and thought that being in a group was the best thing ever! I was on a trial account back then, and could not invite anyone, so I quickly decided to go crazy, spend the money and unlock it.

I still knew nothing about guilds and dungeons, but I found myself inviting people as often as I could: killing stuff is just so much quicker when there's 2 or 3 of us, and I really did not know much about my class (Warrior), so I pretty much sucked. I found the friends list, and started adding the people I had grouped with in it (well those that were either good or nice or funny).

When they came online, I started greeting them, and found myself playing more and more with the same 3-4 players. One of them probably had to be in a guild, cause he had invited other people in the group, and started saying "Hey, let's do deadmines!". I thought, WTF is that??? But I got along and loved the dungeon experience. We sucked so badly and wiped so much, I had no idea at all that we were supposed to have a healer and a tank, so we were pretty much 5 players trying to dps, and that did not go very smoothly as you can imagine. We did not finish the instance that day after several hours of trying... I went out of the experience thinking that it was awesome but very hard! If only someone could have told us that one of us was supposed to tank and one other to heal!

But I did not really had any other opportunity to retry deadmines, or any other dungeon for that matter, we never got to find 5 people willing to travel there and spend hours wiping.

So I quested, sometimes alone, sometimes with people on my friends list. Someone had invited me in a guild sometime and I had accepted, but it was a very little guild that never had anyone in it playing, so I did not understand the purpose of being part of a guild. The end of the summer vacation came, and I decided to stop playing and give my money to my friends. That was supposed to be the end for me, I had leveled my characted up to somewhere around 40.

During the Halloween vacation, my wife and daughter went to my step-parents again. I had just one week. Should I spend 15$ (I used to play on an american server "Fizzcrank", because my preinstalled trial was configured to play on US realms) for just a week time of game? Well I could afford it, so here is my character come to life again!

Patch 3.3.0 was out by then, and with it the "dungeon finder" tool. WTH is that? Nice!!!! Now I can enter dungeons (which is my favourite activity in wow) without having to know anyone and wait for hours! Hey, that's funny, they let you choose if you want to tank/dps/heal, why would they do that? Ok, I'm a warrior, I suppose I can both tank or dps! And here starts my first real dungeon experience, as I enter Dire Maul West (as a tank of course with the penury of tanks)... Gee how much I knew nothing about tanking, it's amazing how Blizzard makes absolutely nothing to prepare you for what you're going to have to do in a dungeon! It does not change "that" much from questing for a DPS (ie: nuke stuff), but if you're a tank and don't know what a tank is supposed to do (which is pretty much the default for a new player), you don't know anything about aggro, you know even less about having to keep, you don't even know you're supposed to avoid the others from getting attacked, and you have even less of a clue on how to do that.

I've been laughed at for not wearing a shield for a start! I used to wear a two-handed weapon before. (I was sensible enough to wear plate though, but it was pretty obvious that more armour was always a good thing) I used to click on the buttons and did not play with the keyboard! I did not know that I had to choose items with Stamina/Strength/Agility/Crit/

Dodge/Block. I did not use Shouts (it looked complicated and I did not know which one to use)! I used Rend a lot, I thought it was cool to bleed those pigs to death! Luckily for me I thunder-clapped a lot, which gave me "good enough" aggro and made me a passable tank. I had no knowledge about the existence of glyphs!

We did not finish Dire Maul West this time either, I probably still sucked too much and no one gave much advice.

Of course after trying again dungeon after dungeon, I was able to get advice, someone would more often than not criticize my tanking, and I'd say, "Well sure I'm a noob! What do you suggest?". The more instances I did, the best I knew that I had to use "high-threat" and "AOE" attacks to keep aggro, and quickly I started finishing instances. When I got to lvl 60 and BC content, with the dungeons much straight forward, I had the hang of it (not perfectly, but good enough to finish any instance without a wipe).

I can say a couple things about the "Dungeon finder" tool. Without it, I would have probably not made 5% of all the instances I did at that time. And I would not have learned how to play my class. And I would have missed a whole lot of my favourite part of the game. I would probably not have led to so many wipes, but that's how you learn, right? Did it reduce my "interaction" with other players? Probably, as I did not have to spend countless hours to try and assemble groups, and a dungeon is not really the place to socialize.

But did it allow me to spend more time playing with others in dungeons? YES, YES and YES!!! And that's really what MMORPGs are about no? Playing with other players? If you play solo, you can buy any standalone adventure game. If you just wanna fight someone else, you can most certainly play a "Quake-like" game or Starcraft. If you want to play WITH other people, then dungeons and raids are the thing.

So yes I think the lfd system probably led to the diminution of some kind of interaction. But in the end, it most certainly tremendously increased the time where a player got to PLAY WITH other players. And I believe this to be so much more important.

That was my "new player in 2009" story. It's interesting because I really was a noob by the time the lfd arrived, and boy I can tell you that the game sucked without it. I know some people are going to call me a heretic for what I'm about to suggest, but there should really be a "raid-finder" working along the same lines (probably with gear and/or accomplishments restrictions)."

It fascinates me to read about how new players are thrown into a playstyle without any explanation at all. The worst thing about it is that so much of a group success relies on the healer and tank performance, and yet it is the thing that Blizzard have decided to tell new players the least about. I hadn't even thought about the fact that the lfd-tool doesn't explain in any way what the different roles will demand of the player! Florians mail explains alot of the behaviors I have seen in random pugs where I have thought things like "how can they just not know that they have to use a shield?". But where does it say that a tank needs to use a shield really? Or that he has to use a certain stance? Or the concept of threat? Maybe in addition to class trainers, there should be role trainers in each starting zone as well? "So, you want to tank. Well then you will have to know about the following things;". We might think that these things are fairly obvious, but clearly they're not since people are having trouble with them.

I recognize myself in alot of this. I had even less computer gaming experience than Florian when I started playing WoW, and next to no experience about mmo:s. Like I've told you about, I really did try to get to know more about this intriguing genre, but was constantly set back due to lack of proper gaming equipment. I don't remember how I got into tanking however, and I don't remember how I went about learning to do all the stuff I know in the game right now. To me it was a very long process, I had plenty of time. And if I ever decide to play another mmo, I can take all the knowledge I have from WoW to understand that mmo faster. But what if WoW is the first mmo you ever play? To many new players today, the process of learning has been shortened significantly. Everything is supposed to go faster now, and people spend alot less time leveling their characters, and in length learning their characters, before they hit max level than they did a couple of years ago. I don't know if people were more patient with new players back in the days, I don't think so. But people definitely had more time to learn.

One thing I really think has changed alot is that everyone seems to know something about everything. Back in the day I could play my healer somewhat haphazardly, because the people I joined with didn't know if I did something wrong or right. When I join a dungeon today, everyone is an expert on how I should do my job. This could be a really good thing, if only these "experts" really did know what they were talking about. Unfortunately that is rarely the case. People who actually do know what they are talking about, also often know how to explain something without the use of caps, words like "noob" and "l2p". Because the "l2p"-people are so common, the people who actually have something worthwhile to say might avoid it, so that they don't come off as asshats. And that is a real shame, because good advice is really the best way for a new player to learn. Good advice shouldn't only have to come from friends, anyone should be able to give them.

So back to my quest of spreading good advice - how did it go? Quite good actually!

At first I was nervous about it, because there really is no easy way to tell someone "you're doing it wrong". It's not always necessary either. So I made a list of reasons to why I would want to tell someone that I've got a better idea of how they should do something.

• I like to flaunt my awesomeness.
• I like the feeling I get when I've turned a nervous healing wreck into a confident healer.
• I like it when my healer knows what to do because that means I won't die as often.
• I love to get pointers myself when I do stuff wrong (if given in a sensible manner) and like to return the favor.

I don't think any of these reasons are bad reasons, you just have to choose the right reason for the right moment. Flaunting our awesomeness is a huge part of this game and not automatically a bad thing. It's just very tricky to use when trying to give advice. You usually have to put some authority to your advice, like "I main this class" otherwise it is difficult for the recipient to know why you think you know stuff better. But saying "I killed LK" probably won't help you much. So although epeening should be kept to a minimum, I think it is difficult to deny that it is still some small part of why we care at all. I know some people can't be bothered, "he's not in my guild, why should I care", but although epeen might be part of it, there is alot in it for me as well, beside the general "yeah I know shit!" feeling.

You might remember how things went down on my first try. Not so good. Of course you will never know what kind of person it is you are trying to help out. Some people are very sure of themselves and they won't accept any advice from anyone not currently in Paragon. But my biggest mistake was probably to talk to the guy in party chat. Big no no. By doing that he will focus more on me trying to show off (see above) than the actual advice that might be hidden in my big talk. By whispering, I will have eliminated the possibility that I am just saying this to show everyone that "I know shit. Yeah!".

So the second time around, I yet again ended up with a priest who played things the old way. Which usually means they use nothing but Flash Heals. I don't care much about how people heal until they either oom all the time or let people die all the time. It's not until something turns into a problem that you might want to step in. I've seen plenty of bloggers who tell about a perfect run that still ended with someone saying "you suck". When a problem arises I will check if it is a gear issue or a "misinformed" healer issue. In this case it was the latter. Flash Heals at 60-70% total healing done is a good sign someone is just trying this out but hasn't read anything about the massive changes that have taken place to healing in Cataclysm. If they are serious about healing, they must know about these changes asap, or there will be tears.

I wanted to explain why the guy went oom all the time. He had started out by saying that he (it was a male character) was badly geared and that he would leave if he couldn't handle things. Turns out he oomed half way through each trash pack (in sfk hc) and he was about to leave when I whispered him. "You'll do fine" I told him. "Just try this instead". He was disc so I gave him the standard rotation - keep shield up, use Heal, Penance and Pom. Use Greater Heal when shit hits the fan and avoid Flash Heals as much as possible. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but his response wasn't it. He was thrilled! And thanked me throughout the instance. Suddenly healing had become so much simpler (hallelujah).

And the other day I did a normal BRC. This instance is overall really easy, and you can go through healing it any way you like. This time we had a holy priest who did well, no one died. But she (it was a female character) too oomed alot and I decided to give it another go, boosted by the success I had with the other healer. Otherwise she might be scared away from healing from failing later on. So again I whispered, telling her that what she did was good enough since no one had died, and my suggestion was really just a suggestion. Keep Renew up, use Heal, PoM and Holy Word: Serenity, use Flash Heal only when absolutely necessary. She too was grateful.

Did their healing change? In the first case yes, amazingly enough. I don't usually expect people to just wambam change their healing style because I say so. "Omg Zinn, you are my savior, suddenly I can heal!". But maybe he did so out of necessity. He couldn't keep on healing that instance on Flash Heals, it's just impossible. Brc normal on the other can be healed on Flash Heals, and the second priest kept at it. But she took my advice and even thanked me for it, I can ask for no more!

The reason for this rather lengthy post is to give some encouragement to "good" interaction between players. I really do recommend everyone to give eachother advice. These are just two examples, but I try to give advice whenever it is needed (and I think I've actually got something worthwhile to say, which usually is limited to priest healing). So far it's always worked well. Just do it humbly, try to point out the things they do right too, try not to get into "you should know this noob" arguments, but rather "yeah Blizz change stuff all the time, who can keep up?". Because there are tons of reasons they are doing it wrong, and the least likely one is that they simply are stupid. It might just be their 5th alt, or they were on a break, or they are new to the game and as I said, there is no good way to practice healing/tanking but to go into an instance and hopefully not fail all too much. The game does in fact not provide many tools for new players to learn, it is almost as if Blizzard expect us to go into instances and fail as part of our learning process. It is how they have designed the game. Back in the day this made sense because leveling was so slow that you spent alot of time being a lowbie. Now new players get to max level in a jiffy, not getting much time to do their trial and errors on low levels. By giving advice you've hopefully saved them alot of trouble by giving them the crash course without all the trial and error and yelling that failing in pugs usually include. If you see me out there and I'm just not doing it right, tell me.