Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Why I Heal the Stupid

I’m bewildered when I hear sentiment by healers, “if DPS is being stupid by standing in the fire, I don’t heal stupid.”  Presumably this means the healer just throws heals on the tank and lets the stupid DPS die.

Except… I can’t do that.  The 51 point talent and defining ability of Holy paladins is Beacon of Light, which means I heal by healing everyone but the tank.  And if that damage was caused by stupid, well, I’m still healing the tank by healing the stupid.  So doing what these other healers are suggesting basically means not using the defining Holy paladin ability, which is kind of silly.

That being said, stupid DPS does frustrate me, and I’m not thrilled with feeling like I’m carrying them, but if I’m using the LFD tool, I have one goal, and that’s to get get through the instance and some emblems.  Not healing stupid DPS is ultimately just going to slow me down when he dies, and the likelihood they’ll learn any sort of “lesson” is minimal.  I also risk dead DPS meaning the fight becomes too overwhelming to just 2-man (e.g. Phase 3 of the Black Knight), and wiping slows me down even more.  And lastly, am I even correctly judging who is stupid?  Did the trash do some sort of AOE damage attack?  Did the DPS lag out right before the guy started to whirlwind?  Is the tank slacking off on aggro?  Is it really worth having a superiority complex about the whole thing when at best, it’s not going to do any good, and at worst, I’m not even evaluating the situation correctly?

Well, I say no.  There’s this idea that there’s a whole generation of WoW players that now suck because of people like me, but I disagree.  I got better at WoW because I wanted to get better, and I did things like research class specs and boss strategies, and sought out advice and information from other players.  I never got better because someone let me die in a fire, and these people won’t either.  You can educate and advise, or you can ignore and belittle, but don't fool yourself into thinking you're doing the same thing at once.

Monday, March 29, 2010

LFM ICC 10, taking first 9 people to whisper me

Nobody starts a PUG this way, but given how so many people go about it, they might as well.

Recently I realized the yellow text didn’t mean anything.  People can get carried in raids or do the carrying, and both of them will get the same achievement.  Not to mention the various ways to fake it (linking someone else’s achievement, using Underachiever, linking the incomplete achievement, etc).  I bet you’ve had a lot of successful PUGs where you finished the raid and yet half the group got the achievement, and I bet you’ve had a bunch of fail PUGs where everything went to shit despite the PUG organizer insisting only people with achievements can come.

If you really want to start a raid PUG, you have two options – grab 9 random people and hope everything works out, or do some actual work.  Quiz them on the strategies.  Inspect them to see if they have a clue on how to spec and gem/enchant. That may mean you have to have your own clue on how different classes and specs gem/enchant.  Well, if you're going to be leading the raid, shouldn't that be the case?

I’m not saying grabbing 9 random strangers is bad.  You’ll get a PUG up and running fast and depending on what your goal is, it may be worth just rolling the dice instead of meticulously filling every spot.  I essentially do this for the raid weekly if it's something like a Naxx boss or Flame Leviathan and it works just fine.

I’m just saying if your entire vetting process for a PUG consists of “link ach plz,” or "pst Gearscore" then you're spending a lot of extra time doing something that probably won't result in much of a difference in the skill level of the player you pick up.

Introduction

You may be reading this post because I'm now a world-renowned blogger, known for being a swirling vortex of keen insight among the World of Warcraft community.  Upon visiting my blog for the first time, you were struck my my latest dizzying display of brilliance on the first page and proceeded to hungrily consume every word I had ever published until you came to this one, your very last post but my very first.  You can hardly contain yourself as you realize this post, this post right here, is where it all started.

But chances are you're reading this because you're one of the handful of my friends that knows I play WoW, and after nagging you incessantly for the past two weeks you've decided to finally check it out.  So, hi there.

To everyone else: hi there too.  My name is Justisraiser, and I play a holy paladin on the server US-Mannoroth.  I know the last thing the web needs is another World of Warcraft blogs, especially one about paladins, but... oh well.  This blog has basically been inspired by Paladin Schmaladin's latest writer position contest, which I entered and submitted a few writing samples for.  Although I didn't win one of the writer positions, I found it very easy and fun to write about the game I enjoy playing so much, so I thought I'd give the blogging thing a shot myself.

So thanks for reading, and enjoy.