Cheerfully self-deprecating, that’s me!
I have a confession to make.
(Yes, another one! What can I say? I’m in a sharing mood...)
I’m not very good at this game.
Oh, I’m far from hopeless — and I have some fairly impressive achievements to prove it! (The Undying, Of the Nightfall and Champion of Ulduar are among my more meaningful titles.)
But when it comes to new encounters, I have a steep learning curve. Part of it is the Guild Leader’s curse: distracting /whispers throughout the raid, some inane (I’m looking at you, Elam!), but most at least relevant. A new recruit is confused about our kill order and too intimidated to ask for clarification in Vent. (Skull, X, Circle, Square. “Because you have to put on the condom before you can enter the box,” as Keaton oh-so eloquently puts it.) A shadow priest has to leave for twenty minutes to pick a friend up from work. (No problem... but don’t forget to zone out this time! *stares pointedly until the mage portal appears*) And a wait-listed rogue wants to know if we’re likely to need him, or if he’s free to PuG the heroic daily. (Actually, a priest is heading out. Do you want to sub in?)
The rest of it is me.
As a healer, I spend most of the raid staring at health bars and am prone to tunnel vision — especially on new fights, before I learn to anticipate patterns of incoming damage. I also have the second worst sense of direction I’ve encountered in-game. (I’m not exaggerating: I am so spatially inept that I can get lost in a circular room… the Argent Coliseum, for example.)
What this all comes down to is this: If The Bad™ makes an appearance in a new fight (and, really, when does it not?), then I will stand in it. If the entire raid is counting on me to master one simple mechanic (such jumping from one ledge to another, dodging lava waves, or strafing out of Icehowl’s charge), then I won’t.
Maybe not on the first attempt, and certainly not on every attempt, but at some crucial point … I will fail.
I am “that guy.”
Failbot adores me. If I didn't routinely bribe our Death Knight officer to reset his tallies, it would read something like this:
*Liluye has failed at Overload/Lava Waves/Chain Lightning/Lightning Nova/Telling Left From Right/Telling Right From Left/Void Zones/Flash Freeze/Laser Barrage/That Damned Jump!/Tying Her Shoelaces (And She Doesn't Even Have Shoes)/Life In General (45,613,980).
For the leader of fairly successful raiding guild, it's downright embarassing. Most of the people I play with are frighteningly good. Our best DPS — a mage — broke 8K on Koralon last night, and our second best DPS — a warlock — finished a fraction of a percent behind him. Our ret paladin once solo-tanked Emalon 25 in his off-spec, and our holy priest recently solo-healed Jaraxxus 10 and most of the Faction Champions after his pet healadin disconnected.
I've had my moments, too — flukes, mostly! (although I'll never forget the time I tanked Ignis and his adds to a few thousand health before running out of tricks...) — but for the most part: while my intrepid guildies are rocking the DPS meters, throwing heals like spaghetti and tanking stuff, I'm facedown on the floor.
I cope with my failures by being — as the title of this blogpost suggests — cheerfully self-deprecating.
Can you tell?
(P.S. There was a point to this post that had nothing to do with my flirtation with Failbot and everything to do with the most valuable lesson I've learned about tanking to date. I never did get to it; next time, I promise!)
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September 23rd, 2009 - 20:54
Heh, I get what you mean. Even if I’ve read up on a new encounter beforehand / had it explained reasonably well, it still can take an attempt or two for it to really sink in properly.
My biggest problem currently though is the DC Boss. Honestly, I don’t know where it’s come from. Granted I typically ran 10 man content previously, I did pug 25s on a reasonable basis with no such issues, certainly not with the frightening regularity they’re coming at presently! Still trying various things at the moment to see if can eliminate them.
Reason I actually mention that now though is that it might make you feel a little better to know that if I do end up face down on the floor, you’re not the only one getting inane chatter during the fight. Elam is getting a taste of his own medicine! Muahaha!
PS: Note a little similarity with the priest there as well. Apologies! Will make sure to get out of there in future even if locked in so far as the regular raid portal is concerned.
Naithin´s last blog ..Time to get this blasted achievement?
September 23rd, 2009 - 21:49
I wasn’t worried about you /afking inside the instance. For one thing, we kind of locked you in. :p For another, we knew you’d be back!
It’s the “Hey, Saaaaari… I have to go for, like, 20 minutes and I think I might possibly maybe if everything goes according to plan and the coin lands good-heads up come back sometime before the end of the raid, so I’m going to just sit here in the corner so you can’t replace me if the stars don’t align perfectly” that I eventually come not to appreciate.
As for the random disconnects… Yeah. The extra spell effects and screen clutter in a 25-man raid are harder to process than the scaled down effects and clutter in a 10-man, and some computers just can’t handle them. I’ve started having issues recently, too. One thing I’ve found helpful on some fights is pointing my camera at the ground so I can see most of the incoming Bad(tm) but miss some extraneous spell effects. It seems to give me a little fps boost on “busy” fights like Iron Council.
September 23rd, 2009 - 21:58
Aye, I started to strongly suspect it was a bogging down issue on the PC end rather than a true net/connection related DC, when on the second DC in Ony25 it didn’t occur until precisely the moment I found myself staring at blizzard/druid-thundery-stormy-thing-I-always-forget-the-name-of on a massive bunch of whelps.
So I’ve as of this morning reduced details further and reduced screen res from 1920×1440 down to my previous 1600×1200. Also got rid of a few of the needier addons that were a bit too chatty – who knew Recount really used so many resources! – so fingers crossed have eliminated the worst of it now.
If not, will likely end up with your staring-at-the-floor method. Hehe.
September 24th, 2009 - 06:41
I like your new blog so far!
I must admit, I am bad, I never read strats before I get into a new boss fight. Somehow though, I always end up being one of the last people left alive before a wipe >.>
September 24th, 2009 - 08:17
I find that even if you walk into a Boss encounter somewhat unprepared, a general understanding of bosses can usually make up for it.
If you go into most boss fights expecting there to be “Bad” to move out of, expecting that the boss will have some kind of nasty cleave/frontal attack (and, if it’s a dragon a tail swipe) and generally paying attention if DBM makes a loud sound, you’ll probably not do too badly.
Obviously there are some fights where this all gets thrown out of the window, but for a lot of fights these general principles are enough.