A little while ago spinks put up a post talking about what it would take to boot somebody from a group. Spinks observed that she (you are a girl, right Spinks?) was fine with booting people for being dickheads, but not so fine with booting people for poor performance. A lot of people chimed in to agree, a couple of people took the opportunity to get their wowcocks out.
This isn’t really a reply to that post, it’s a riff on a theme vaguely inspired by that post.
Gevlon showed up and was Gevlonish and – as ever – stayed on the right side of reasonable. It is after all perfectly acceptable to boot somebody for doing X DPS if you think you can find somebody who will do X+Y DPS in less time than the time you save by getting a DPS boost. A couple of other people banged really hard on the “if you do less than 2K DPS you ARE NOT ALLOWED IN HEROICS” drum. One commenter observed that they would “rather have a misanthropic, misogynistic racist who did 7K DPS than a nicer player who did 2K DPS”.
Here’s the thing.
I have nothing against people taking the game seriously. I have nothing againt people taking a rational, selfish goblineque approach to the game. What I have a real problem with is people who use “elitism” as a cover for their own inadequacy.
But first, a rant.
Here is how dictionary.com defines “elitism”:
Elitism (noun)
1. Practice of or belief in rule by an elite.
2. Consciousness of or pride in belonging to a select or favoured group.
Notice that nowhere in that definition are the words “does not suck”. Elitism is not the same as meritocracy. Quite the reverse in fact, elitism is the belief that it is desirable to restrict particular resources and privileges to a small group regardless of whether that group deserves it. Self-defining as an elitist means self defining as somebody who can’t stand up to competition. Elitism is only letting people from posh schools go to good universities. Meritocracy is giving university places to smart people.
Where was I. Ah yes, booting people from PuGs.
The guy who said they’d rather have a racist doing 7k DPS than a nice guy doing 2k was, I think, trying to give the impression that they were the hardest of the hardcore. So totally dedicated to being awesome that they’ll put aside little things like personal comfort. Tam had similar discussions with people from top raiding guilds on our other server (“we select purely on the basis of skill, not on the basis of personality”). The problem is that it rings hollow.
The only reason to want somebody doing 7k DPS in a Heroic PuG is because you want it to go faster. The only reason to want it to go faster is because you want to farm emblems more effectively. The only reason to want to farm emblems more effectively is if you want free epics. And don’t get me wrong, I love me some free epics and I’m relatively happy to get them purely off the back of other people’s effort and gear. But I don’t pretend that my desire to get free stuff because of other people’s gear makes me hardcore. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Temitope is currently in 3/5 T9 and pulling in a respectable amount of DPS. I’m not at the stage where I could solo this lol, but I’m at the stage where I don’t really give a crap how much damage everybody else is doing. In fact, I mildly prefer it if people aren’t doing 10k damage, because it means that the bosses stay alive long enough for me to iron out the kinks in my rotation.
Does it mean that I don’t get annoyed when people in PuGs play badly? Of course not. But most of the time the people I’ve seen playing badly are the ones all tricked out in epics. I’ve had more than one overconfident tank wipe us on trash (particularly in the Room O’Abominations in Drak’Tharon Keep) and doing a corpse run costs me far more in terms of both time and gold than taking a few seconds longer to down a boss.
If you think you’re a serious player, think about why you care how much DPS the rest of your party is doing. If it’s because they’re actively harming the group, brilliant, boot them. If it’s because they’re not turning the whole thing into a faceroll – well that’s your perogative, but don’t turn around and complain that there’s not enough challenge in endgame.
Isn’t “farming free epics” a contradiction? “Farming cheap, easy epics” would be accurate.
Good point.
Hear Hear.
I’ve left groups because the people were too elitist. I’d rather take a 15 minute grind-break than run with people who are going to rub my feathers the wrong way just because I still have one blue trinket (it’s a crafted JC trinket and it has two dragons-eyes socketed in it… I’m loathe to part with it).
I’ve been complaining about EPIC tanks who run off ahead of me and wipe us because they think they’re too EPIC to need heals, and I’m going to keep doing it. I’d rather run with a less EPIC tank who pulled carefully and was nice enough to make sure I’m in the same room before starting a boss fight.
I had a pally tank tell me that keeping Divine Plea up is a good enough reason to charge a boss without your healer present. I disagree… I’m a pally, I use Divine Plea too. It’s got a one minute cooldown, not a twenty minute cooldown. Don’t wipe me because you’re so impatient you can’t wait sixty measly seconds.
Quite honestly, I wish the LFG tool didn’t match me so well with other people of close to my gear level. We’re not quite geared enough to be able to carry a group ourselves (I could solo this, lol), but I seem to be at that level where it’s really about e-peen. I’d rather carry lowbies, at least they’re nice to me.
Does it actually match you up by gear? I’ve never noticed.
The Divine Plea thing is really interesting, because I think it highlights a really common mentality amongst people who suck.
I mean, keeping Divine Plea up is really important, because it gives you mana and helps keep you alive. But you know what else gives you mana and helps keep you alive, having a *fricking* healer.
Also, you don’t even have to wait thirty seconds for divine plea to roll around. Either the boss fight lasts more than thirty seconds, in which case you can just work it into your rotation, or it won’t, in which case … well … what are you worried about.
As DPS, running heroics with undergeared or less experienced players can potentially be more fun (although 2 unnecessary wipes and i’m gone).
I’m misdirecting more. I’m using CC more. I’m more aware of what everyone else is doing. I’m not just mindlessly going through my rotation and trying to vaporize a boss that should have some complexity.
Last night I was in a PUG with a clearly inexperienced tank. He was doing fine, but taking his time. The healer was having connection issues and we lost him. The next healer we got constantly urged the tank to go faster. It was annoying. I was doing more than 2x the DPS of the others, and misdirecting every opportunity, but I was really enjoying helping the tank practice his stuff.
That’s how we learn. And that’s how we get more tanks so LFG goes faster.
Indeed. If people just plain don’t cut it, fine kick them.
But kicking people because your only motivation is just having your e-peen stroked by standing in Ogrimmar or Dalaran they you FAIL at this game. A lot.
The Dungeon Finder smoothed the process of human interaction for a dungeon, included the neccesary wannabe hardcore douchness.
I know. We had somebody quit a run today because they didn’t get the achie they wanted on King Dred.
With sold tank & heals, having 3 DPS that average 1.5k seems to be enough to faceroll most of the Heroics I’ve been in. (none of the ICC ones)
We RAN thorugh OK the other day, and I was the only DPS averaging much above 2k, and it was a boring faceroll.
I am more than happy to work with lower geared players. At least I feel like I am personally doing stuff, and (usually) the less geared folks are willing to talk, exchange ideas, etc.
I loathe going in with a bunch of over geared a$$holes. I learn nothing, I am often ignored or left behind and hardly have to to even get into rotations/etc. It’s also creating some REALLY bad habits, because it’s nearly impossible to die in that instance. (unless the thealer is a complete git)
Hooray to friendly! F*ck the “leet”.
The awful habits that people are going to get into from the current setup does actually worry me, because like you say you learn nothing from walking behind somebody bashing out 8K DPS in full Colosseum gear.
I just don’t understand. I wish I did…no, wait, I’m glad I don’t fully understand that mind-set. If I did that may mean that I would be prone to the same behavior. Shoot me if I ever act “Elitist”.
you know, when I’m running a heroic, i don’t ask for much. give me a moment to loot before charging ahead. hold aggro (or at least attempt to, taunting is a nice skill to have as well) if you are tanking, don’t pull for tank if you are dps, unless you are a rogue/hunter misdirecting as agreed in advance, or possibly DK death gripping a caster that tanks asked you to grip. Do a little more then autoattack. Don’t stand in bad stuff and expect me to heal you through it (and act all butt hurt when I simply cannot manage and have to perform an emergency triage). if you are in a heroic that’s new to you – admit it, ask questions instead of quietly causing wipes or near wipes. If you are wearing starter heroic gear, don’t act like you are decked out in TotC 25 heroic gear and pull the entire instance at once. Don’t insult your fellow group mates, just because you happened to roll on a more progressed server and that means you are a god’s gift to lfg and we must all genuflect before you, regardless of abuse you pile on us.
or maybe I’m asking to much and am an elitist for having any sort of requirements at all :/
Well, it happened, I left my first group yesterday. Was tanking it on the new tank in a mix of blues, some purple and 1 green, 28hp: should be clear to anyone that I’ve only been 80 for a day or 2.
Dungeon = Nexus.
I’ve done it before, so no problem. But then the hunter decides that my pulling the frozen mobs in groups of about 3 isn’t fast enough and though I had already warned him in the corridor not to pull before me (only elicited rude replies), he runs in and pulls the *whole* room. I decide to do nothing to get aggro back, sit down and tell him he obviously doesn’t need a tank. Felt sorry for the rest of the party, but exited right there and then.
Strange thing is: guild told me it was the right thing to do, but I didn’t feel much satisfaction.
Jeez, 28hp, I had more at level 5! Noob!!! :p
When I first dinged 80 we were doing heroics where tanks had in some cases about 20k HP (and a tank with 30k was a REALLY well geared tank), and DPSers that were often doing 1200 – 1500 DPS and we generally cleared it without too much difficulty.
It was more fun too.
Now generally my healing activity is confined to refreshing earth shield on the tank and the occasional riptide or chain heal.
Personally I am very happy to run with less well geared people. Performance only becomes an issue if there isn’t enough DPS to do the job.
“The only reason to want it to go faster is because you want to farm emblems more effectively.”
Not true, at least in my case. I want it to go faster because I genuinely don’t enjoy the time I spend in heroics. I do them once a day because Blizz has mandated that if I want to stay caught up on the progression curve, I need to run year-old content.
In my eyes, any time at all spent in heroics is time wasted. However, I’ve never voted to kick someone who wasn’t actively wiping our group (usually a healer, as I try and tank to ensure the pulls are alway as fast as possible) as it will, like you say, take longer in the end if I kick anyone who isn’t up to my personal standards of DPS.
I’ve run more heroics recently that “went off without a hitch” and was completely bored, to the point of leveling an alt instead. Then we recently had a guildie who hit 80, all in greens, with about 1000 dps, and we took him through a few heroics. We wiped. A lot lol. I’m not sure how, because we had done these a few hundred times, but like someone above said, you pick up bad habits when you get overconfident. I whispered to the guy, “I’m so sorry!” and his reply? “This is the most fun I’ve had in the game yet!”
And you know something? It was the most fun I’d had in a long time. I’ll happily run with people who are learning the game, friendly and are there to play.
Love the topic, and love the blog
I hope, I *hope* that the people who are asking for 12k dps in dungeons are just bad at communicating what they are looking for. And what most people like to have with them when running dungeons is players who knows what they are doing.
Usually in the sense that they don’t botch the run. And for most people its easy to translate “talented smart and not dumb” into “well-geared”. So they ask for tanks with 50k health, dps that can skullfu… ehh that can do lots of damage to the lich king himself, and healer who can single HoT through most dmg.
What I’m saying is, that maybe all they are asking for is not to be grouped with players who cannot fanthom the basics of the game, and if that is elitist, well I guess i belong in that boat too.
On the other hand, if all they are asking for is “I don’t care if he gets aggro all the time, stressing the healers and keeping us on the verge of a wipe, as long as he can do 1337 dps!!” -then that is a train of thought i cannot understand.
@Liadan: You were within your rights to do that. But I would have initiated a vote to kick the hunter instead: dps takes seconds to replace.
I’ve had the Elitism argument with someone claiming to be an Elitist. I tried to explain it was not something to be proud of – that it simply meant looking down your nose at others whether or not you’re better than them (more oftenly not better).
He argued for AGES that it was a positive thing, until I shown him the dictionary definition. He quickly backed down on claiming he was elitist.
The top raiding guild on our server consists almost entirely of people who are very good at playing their class and pretty much detest each other almost universally. Being the “best” is the only thing that keeps them together, although even with that they tend to self-destruct and reform every 6 months or so.
Fuck. That. I’m here to have fun.