Gevlon over at Greedy Goblin made an interesting post today talking about running into brick walls when raiding. In a nut shell his view is that good players will see the problem and if its the mistake on their part, subtly fix the issue. Where as poor players will simply not see it at all, and if someone tells them they are the problem, they break down and get defensive.I... actually mostly agree with him... which is a weird spot for me to be in. I usually see his views as too extreme and out of touch but I see these brick walls first hand way too often. In fact people not taking criticism properly is something I've posted on before.
Something Gevlon said in particular stuck out:
I hated the "attempts of the shake of it", trying one more time although I'm 100% sure that we'll wipe again and I can't do anything about it. I can't interrupt for the rogue, I can't kite for the hunter and I know that they will mess it up again. Why bother?Though I assume he meant "attempts for the sake of it".
I've mentioned Katmandue before and months later he is still part of our 25 man raids. Now recently we have been doing ToC 25 on Friday nights then heading to Ulduar on Saturday. When we were focusing on Ulduar I used to bring my Shaman every time and on fights like Auriaya... it came down to me breaking the fear and interrupting the shadow blast... thing.
Why did this fall on me? Well because our Warrior tank Katmandue was incapable of breaking the fear and interrupting it himself. So instead of relying on the person who SHOULD be interrupting... it fell on me with my ranged interrupt and occasionally a rogue who cloaked before the fear.
A few weeks ago I took the weekend off from raiding. What do you think happened when the raid group got to Auriaya? They died. A lot. In fact they couldn't down a boss that we had on farm since the 4th week of Ulduar.
Fast forward to last weekend. I've been trying to get my warrior into Ulduar since my friend Kobeck decided he wanted to switch mains months ago. Unfortunately he kept coming on his DK to tank and I kept dpsing. Two weeks ago was his last week of raiding... because college is starting up for him and apparantly Quantum Physics is hard or something. Friday we did our normal killing of the first 2 bosses in ToC and then slammed our head against the champions (Kat isn't the only moron keeping us down on that fight).
Saturday we headed into Ulduar... only Kat was on vacation for the week. I took the opportunity and ran with it. Bringing in Skyru my Draenei Warrior. Except for Ignis, (where someone pulled aggro and dumped a scorch on half the raid) the fights up to Auriaya were one shots. My moment to prove how bad Kat really was had come! Auriaya went flawlessly... well up until people decided to not move out of the void zone. But Auriaya never got a single cast of her shadowy thingy off! In fact she didn't even budge from her initial tanking spot (usually she moves all over the place and it is hard for people to stay in front) except for when I was repositioning her after void zones.
Now while this wasn't exactly a brick wall... but this was something that should never have been an issue with our group but always was because we have a truly terrible tank. I fear though the group is a little too "social" to dump Kat. He also never listens to advice that some of the other warriors have tried to give him. The raid leaders played with Kat in Everquest long before the release of WoW... looks like we may be stuck with him.
When we get stuck on fights like the champions... I feel like Gevlon because I know that every attempt is going to end in a wipe because some people just can't pull their shit together.
7 comments:
Good post man! I like posts I can relate to.
List of several points I can relate to in this article:
1) I rarely agree with Gevlon because we're on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum. But his posts are so well written and argumented that I still visit his blog (besides, I need to learn to make some gold).
2) My guild had a similar problem like yours with that warrior.
3) I'm starting college soon, and yes, Quantum Physics or something IS complicated.
4) I'm wanting to switch mains too. Since you're an alt-expert, what advice could you give for somebody wanting to switch mains?
Right now with the psuedo gear reset that came in 3.2 it is the best time to switch mains. With the easily accessible high level gear from emblems and ToC it makes catching up in gear with your current main much easier.
The real trick though will be proving yourself with a different character. Look for opportunities to bring in your new main and don't let them pass by!
One of the things I love is group synergy so I try to show how my new character will bring something important to the table. Whether it be strong interrupts or great group buffs, nearly every class (except rogues, well they do have the one combat talent...) have something they bring to a raid that buffs what it is. Figure out which buff it is and convince the raid leaders that they need it!
If you want to give some more information like typical raid set up and which classes/roles you are wanting to switch I may be able to help further.
Well, now that I think about it, to switch mains I need at least another lvl 80 character. I have, like, 5 more toons 1-15 lvl each. Damn I always swear I'll level them but every second I'm doing quests in my lowbie toons feels like a second wasted to improve my far-from-perfect main.
Irony...
Well in that regard... leveling a toon to 80 if alts isn't your thing needs to come from one of 2 places.
1) Bored with your main and need a change of pace
2) Need to fill a gap that your main can't.
Seems like if there is still stuff to work on with your main that you aren't bored of him. The second one is if you are tired of seeing LF1M healer/tank/dps and you wish you could fill that spot.
Once you decide that there is a gap you want to fill it is finding a class that suits your playstyle and feels natural.
Both 1 and 2.
If I wasn't bored of my main I wouldn't want to switch mains.
And since we got Daul Spec instead of Trial Spec, there's always a role left to be filled.
The thing is that I don't want to miss Arthas for not being ready for Icecrown when 3.3 comes.
Though now that I think about it, if Blizz continues with this emblem update philosophy, that's gonna be no problem.
3.3 is probably another 3 months away which should be enough time to level another toon if you are dedicated to it. I wouldn't worry about gearing up as much as getting to 80. From what I've seen of the content you can do current raids while 2 tiers behind.
Heck we downed Anub last night with my priest who has one piece of ilvl 219 and one ilvl 213, everything else is 200. As long as you can learn the new class well enough, the gear/skill ratio curve isn't too high.
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