Dead Men Can’t Dance
Chas and I are pretty committed to our server jump – bizarrely, it’s really motivated me to get off Tam’s arse and get to grips with useful things I should be able to bring to a new guild, fishing, cooking, a clue, that kind of thing. Sadly, the clue is still pending.
But, while engaged in this during the dwindling days of my time on Emerald Dream, I received a very nice, and truthfully rather flattering, whisper from someone inviting me to join the Guild I Really Used To Hate To Pug With. I know it’s unfair to judge a guild from pugs but everyone seemed to be of the “go faster” “just nuke it” school of thinking I hate so much. Obviously I don’t think a heroic run should take twelve and a half hours and require a little map of the area with twiddly coloured pins stuck in it but they take as long as they take, and you go at the speed comfortable for the least-geared party member.
It turned out that TGIRUTHTPW has been through the wringer recently, since its leader and all its officers quit under Mysterious Circumstances. Perhaps they all looked in the mirror one morning and thought: Oh my God, I’m a smug, self-satisfied twat, I must get out of here. Anyway, since M’Pocket Tank and I have pretty much no investment in or commitment to Emerald Dream any more, and thus nothing to lose, I thought “what the hell, what could possible go wrong, let’s at least get some more raiding experience so I don’t rock up, a total noob, and ask people to invite me, open-armed, into their guild.” It turned out they were specifically looking for a tank and a healer for 10-man Naxx that evening.
So along we went.
There was another paladin there, from yet another guild I don’t like on Emerald Dream. They’re the top progression guild and don’t they know it. I wish fewer people were convinced that size of shoulders is directly proportional to size of wang. Again, I just don’t get it. So you’re think you’re the cheese. Why be a dick? M’Pocket Tank and I exchanged uh-ohs. Again, maybe I have some unrealistic platonic ideal of raid leading in my head, but although the RL seemed to know vaguely what they were doing, they essentially abased themselves before the Mighty Wangful Shoulders of the out-sourced pally. There was a brief discussion over who was going to be MT. M’Pocket Tank said she didn’t mind but she had a mild preference for main taking, since quite frankly it’s way easier, especially in the spider wing. (Misneach is so right, off-tanking needs more in-game recognition, I wish people would stop perceiving it as the lesser role. From the little I’ve seen, a good OT is the difference between a raid cruising and a raid drowning).
This was all agreed. And it seemed sensible because M’Pocket Tank, although she was less wangfully geared, was more thoughtfully geared and therefore had bothered with things like, y’know, say avoidance.
The raid then kicked off with the OT aggressively tanking all the trash while the rest of us where concerned with piffling little trivialities like making sure everyone was, y’know, ready.
Essentially, it seemed the OT wasn’t, in fact, happy to be OT but rather than saying “Actually I’d rather MT this, if that’s okay” had decided to deal with the issue by MTing anyway. The thing is, I don’t think it would have bothered us either way – and M’Pocket Tank dutifully took up the OT role – but the lack of clarity really pissed us off. And, again, in my limited understanding, I believe raiding is a team effort, you don’t want the tanks having to fight for their role. Happy to swap as required and all that but discussion maybe?
The RL was still rolling at the feet of Mighty Wangful Shoulders so had no comment.
This piece of nonsense had thrown the healing team into completely disarray. There was me, another priest and a druid who was too imba to talk to us. I was meant to be on main-tank healing, the druid on off-tank healing and the other priest on raid but because of the role-shifting I had no idea if I was meant to be healing M’Pocket Tank or Mighty Wangful Shoulders. The priest and I had a frantic whispered conversation and it seemed that neither of us had a clue what the druid was doing (everything, perhaps, on account of Being So Imba) so we basically decided that I would do Chas and raid, and he would do Mighty Wangful Shoulders and raid (assuming the druid wasn’t doing either or both of these already).
We did, however, manage to blunder along slightly more competently than the last time I’d visited this wing. Mighty Wangful Shoulders continued to tank everything and anything at his own personal pace, while not paying what I would consider a great amount of attention to what the rest of us were doing or how much threat he was bothering to generate (not helped by his inability to remember to put up Righteous Fury), which meant the DPS kept dropping like flies. When it came the Grand Widow, he decided the best strategy would be for us to kill all the adds and nuke through the enrages. Again, I know you can do this, but why bother unless you’re going specifically for the achievement? The RL was too busy tonguing his shoulders to comment so, despite tentatively voiced reluctance from, well, the healing team actually, that was that. We did manage to heal through it but it was really really unnecessarily gruelling.
By this stage M’Pocket and Tank had lost it with the whole business – we knew, as we’d suspected anyway, the guild wasn’t for us and it was only a misplaced sense of obligation that was stopping us from walking right out of there.
We had really trouble with Maexxna, however. Because the tank hadn’t really bothered to pay much attention that mitigation lark he was taking damage at a horrible, horrible rate. And a couple of times during Webbing Fun For The Whole Raid, the tank just went SQUISH. The first time, he accusingly observed that he had some sort of poison debuff on him which meant he was getting less healing. To which we responded: “Hello? Paladin. Cleanse thy fucking self.” And the second time the RL chewed us out for not healing the tank enough.
Gee. Moar healz, you say? That would never have crossed our mind.
I don’t know if this bad raid etiquette, and I suspect it is so you can tell me off in the comments, but by this stage I was feeling frustrated enough to whisper the RL. “I don’t mean to be rude,” I said, “but this tank is slightly squishier than Chas.”
“Wtf?” said the RL. “Squisher?”
“Yes,” I said, “less mitigation. So harder to heal.”
“Spam heal, then,” returned the RL, sharply.
Woot. Or as we say on RP servers: wooteth.
I left it that, having perhaps entirely rightly pissed off the RL.
I have to say, I was pretty pissed myself. It’s not that I object to pulling out all the stops but I felt that myself and my fellow priest were having to work harder than we might otherwise have had to in order to cover for the laziness / inadequacies of others. A heavy burden of responsibility for success of the raid was being placed somewhat unfairly on our inexperienced shoulders. Yes, “spam heals” is one solution but so is “use your better tank.” Obviously, these aren’t my calls to make, but I think you should be trying to ease the pressure on your team, not add to it.
Still, the spider wing went down in about an hour and a quarter, making it a massively smoother, but massively less pleasant, experience than our last attempt. M’Pocket Tank and I were still wrestling with a gribbly sensation of not wanting to be there but there didn’t seem to be any way of getting out of it without shafting 8 other people.
And then came Heigan, and his fucking fucking fucking dance.
Okay, so it was my first time there, and perhaps I’m just irredeemably stupid, but I just couldn’t, for the life of me (or, more accurately, the death of me) get it. I’ve read the tacs, I seen the videos – but blah – my fail was severe. To be fair, there’s definitely a difference between learning the theory and putting what you have learned in practice but the RL’s attempts to explain what were meant to be doing, well, they left a bit to be desired.
In my overly simplistic understanding, I thought you just had to run in a straightish line past the platform to avoid the Huge Green Walls of Slimy Death. But the raid leader kept going on about not standing on the cracks – the floor is literally covered in cracks. How do you avoid standing on them? I tried jumping, dodging, strafing, everything. Also the raid was standing in a different place to those depicted on all the videos I’ve seen, so I was thrown. And the raid leader kept yelling at me to follow her closely and I was trying my damnedest but I’ve recently learned that you’re better off trusting yourself because of latency and the like. So I think my miserable failure (and oh it was miserable) was down to combination of my Total Personal Fail, Bewilderment and Bad Advice.
Next time, assuming I can get over my phobia for there to be one, I’m going to try and do it my way and see if that helps at all.
I think we took four attempts in total in down him but Mighty Wangful Shoulders just had to whip out failbot.
And oh my God.
Was that annoying.
Tamarind fails at dancing.
Tamarind fails at dancing.
Tamarind fails at dancing.
Tamarind fucking knows he fails at dancing. And he feels it keenly, trust me. The last thing I need when I’m trying to learn something new in an already uncomfortable situation is to be repeatedly chastised for it.
Also the constant lines of orange streaming across my screen were actually interfering with my ability to see the fucking fight.
After a while, M’Pocket Tank took pity on her beleaguered healer and asked Mighty Wangful Shoulders to turn the damn thing off. This lead to a long disquisition on the merits of failbot. Both the raid leader and Mighty Wangful Shoulders were big fans. They thought mortification was an important part of the learning process. In fact, Mighty Wangful Shoulders actually expressed relish at the pleasure of pointing out to people what they did wrong and shaming them for it in public.
Don’t get me wrong, I can see failbot as useful personal tool and I could even see it as being relatively fun in a group of trusted friends, loling at each other’s abject failure and the like. Also if I was a raid leader, I could see why I might use it monitor performance as a whole and maybe whisper someone if they were constantly standing in fire or whatever.
But as a teaching tool? Yes, it’s way up there with the cane for efficacy.
Mighty Wangful Shoulders actually seemed to believe that individuals were incapable of monitoring their own sense of shame. He was genuinely convinced that it required direct intervention by himself in order to make other people realise they were making mistakes, and feel bad about it.
Seriously. What the fuck?! I mean, I know we’ve all PUGed with the guy who just won’t get out the fire no matter what you do but that’s the exception not the rule. “Unless you make them feel bad by embarrassing them in public,” explained Mighty Wangful Shoulders, sagely, “how else are they ever going to change?” “You know, you’re so right,” I fury-typed back, “without you and your failbot I’d be sitting here, sipping champagne and chuckling to myself about a job well done because I’d just fucked up the game for 9 other people. I love doing that, it gives me a real thrill.” The discussion at this point, needless to say, got pretty nasty.
I’m still inclined to fume about it even now. What truly surprised me, though, that nobody else seemed to be in any doubt that this was the teaching tool par excellence. What is wrong with people?
Maybe it’s an abuse cycle. You know, everybody else who learned the dance while simultaneously being harassed by orange text and the metaphorical tomatoes of public contempt (I don’t necessarily admit a connection between these two factors) is now so broken to the Cult of Failbot that they’re just relieved that they’re finally the abusers rather than abused.
Also, Mr Mighty Wangful Shoulders, if you if really have “waiting for people to do something wrong so you can point it out loudly” on your list of hobbies then there is something very bloody wrong with you. Ultimately I think you’ll live a happy life if you can find some contentment in who you are, rather than waiting for the failure of others to make you feel good about yourself.
Maybe I’m just a sensitive little flower who has no place in a raid group but, hell, I play WoW for fun, not to obligingly open wide for the WoWcocks of others. You may be sure when I fuck up, which I do (often, sadly), I will apologise and I will moreover be feeling bad about it. I don’t need intervention. People generally don’t. It has kind of knocked my confidence across the board, though, I will admit, rather pathetically. My healing has been generally off kilter and the idea of facing Heigan again … well … not for a while, thank you, maybe not ever. And I know after the first couple of tries I basically gave up, which is not something to feel pride in. The thing is, if i was going to be at the mercy at orange text, I was damn well going to be so on my own terms.
But breaking people is just not a good way to teach anything – especially not the first time you’re trying to do a thing.
I might as well try to teach meter by bending somebody over my desk and spanking them in dactylic hexameter until they learn to recognise it … hmmm … oh … actually … 
They thought mortification was an important part of the learning process.
That is practically vomit-inducing.
Run far from these people, run far and run fast. Whether or not their sort is the “norm” is completely immaterial to the fact that they are wrong and you should not have to endure that sort of bullshit in a game.
Hope you find a suitable home soon, Tam, with sensisble people. *hug*
Don’t worry, run we did, hard and fast and far
We’d pretty much decided they weren’t for us long before they proved they were abject and worthless human beings.
I think there’s always an undertone of that sort of thinking in the super-serious progression guilds on ED, I don’t know how widespread it is to others. There does seem to be an (eroneous) impression that being miserable and badly treated brings out the best in people. It made Chas particularly furious because she’s a teacher.
I think it was the first time I’ve seen it so badly and unabashedly expressed though.
Well, whatever, it was certainly an experience – and I think good times are on the horizon, but I don’t want to jinx it
I used to have Failbot on public announce, but my guild is full of crazy and lulz already. It’s certainly something I turned OFF for pugs, and even for guild runs it’s now on private announce. It has it’s uses (Healer: Why was Phaseroll taking so much damage? Me: …shadow crash fail!) but yeah, totally not something to blast pugs with.
What is it about the Most Progress Guild that seems to fill it with douchecanoes? Blah.
I’d happpily have somebody I already knew and trusted blast failbot at me for joint lulz but having it used as a stick with which to beat me – no thanks. And I confess I’ve yelled violently at fire-standers in the past but only after polite whispers didn’t seem to generate the desired effect.
I spoke to my friend who’s a big name in aforementioned progression guild and he stands by the notion that if you want to progress you have to recruit the player, not the personality. But equally it strikes me as absurd that “tolerance for dickheads” is consquently a hidden criteria progression raiding – which can’t be the case as the blogsphere is full of perfectly lovely people who raid pretty damn seriously.
Amazing how that works… it’s almost as if every raider in a proper progression guild who was not a twat blogged about their guild and/or raids…
Consipiracy I tells you.
Maybe blogging encourages self-reflection which decreases twatitude, who knows?
The unexamined raid is not worth, err, raiding or something.
Also I think the idea that putting up with dickheads is a necessary part of serious raiding is another abuse cycle, like the failbot-teaching-tool-method. An “if I have to endure dickheads, so do you” mentality
Good evening Tam
I’m a new reader to your site
Regarding to the Heigan dance, don’t worry
Everybody dies at the first time doing it. To make it simple to do it, just run to the place where you saw the green goo spew 
Of course there are a few place where you can stand but that comes from experience.
Nothing teaches faster then fucking up a few times XD so don’t worry. Personally, I hate Failbot as well
Stupid ass addon if you ask me.
Mr. Wangful shoulders is just a masochist. Leave those sods alone. One final note, you might want to try the oceanic servers
Don’t know about you but I tend to find that horde side on the oceanic realms are much better behaved. For one thing, There are almost no Chuck Norris jokes in Barrens 
Hello, thank you, welcome
Pull up, err, a chair. Try not to sit on the cactus.
Thanks for reassuring words about the dreaded dance – hopefully trying it again in more congenial company (with less random angst about cracks – wtf?) will lead to less abject failure on future attempts.
Add-ons that can be linked to others tend to bring out the worst in people I fear – failbot, recount, *shudder*.
Given his expressed preference for causing people pain and mortification, I suspect Mr Wangful Shoulder’s proclivities to lie in the opposite direction – although, actually, I think it’s more likely to be either being 12 or his having an ego the size of shrivelled walnut, therefore requiring him to make a big deal out of the failure of others in order to bolster it
I am hoping for happier news on the guild front over the next few days – I consider this little adventure a swansong from Emerald Dream.
That was quite the WOT there Tam.
So, as I have work to do, two comments, when I thought to only make one.
First, standing on cracks is irrelevant. You can stand on cracks all you want. Don’t try to avoid them. Make sure to stand in the quadrant of the room that doesn’t have fire – your whole raid should be moving from quadrant to quadrant (shoot, been so long, is it just three segments? – I think it’s four), side to side. That’s the dance, not avoiding cracks. /pat
Second, I’ve BEEN in those guilds. Y’know, the ones that were top dog on the server. And I ALSO HATE the assholes who think their wang is bigger because of it. Meh, those guys make me sad, and slightly sick inside. I’m a damn good raider, but I’m certainly no better person than my best friend who plays wow, has several 80s, but doesn’t have the chops to make it into my raiding guild.
Grrr-sticks, I wrote a reply to this and then hit the wrong button so it fell screaming into the virtual ether and was lost. I’m sure I can’t recreate the wonder and sheer genius of that single lost commnet but I shall endeavour to proffer up a poor semblance
I’m sure it wasn’t *that* much of a WOT – at least experiences were had and learning was done and blog psots were written
That was quite the WOT there Tam.
So, as I have work to do, two comments, when I thought to only make one.
I’m increasingly coming to believe that the Crack Theory as it’s now official called was simply a mass of miscommuniation between the RL and half the raid (I wasn’t the only wtfing). Essentially by “don’t step on the cracks” I *think* he meant “don’t step on the cracks when they have massive walls of green slime erupting out of them.” But still. WTB CLARITY!
I do kind of understand where the raider = arrogant dick mentality comes from. I mean, in WoW Value terms, saying somebody is not a better person than you even though they’re not as good in a raid the equivalent of saying somebody has a lovely personality but is unattractive
I mean, because endgame is so raiding focused, it’s the major way players ascribe value in WoW. Of course anybody with half a brain thinks around that but I do see where it comes from.
Horrible… you’re right: it’s a game, and when it stops to be fun, look somewhere else. Hope you find a nice guild soon, I know they’re out there. They should keep their add-ons to themselves too (failbot, recount).
With regard to Heigan: I was a terrible fail-dancer until I figured out I should run to where the wall has just disappeared. That menas standing on the cracks!
I get off the platform on the side of the entrance, then watch the flames/slime and run to where they’ve just receded. Works every time now.
I think all may be well on the guild front – but I’m keeping things quiet for the moment in case I jinx it
But, yes, I feel exactly the same way about add-ons. Anybody who wants the information from them (and I believe it’s helpful, necessary information) should just install them and keep it quiet – not use them for scoring cheap points at the expense of others. Grrr.
It’s quite reassuring that other people admit to having at problems with Heigan, not because I’m repairing my ego or anything or because people always say “some people get it straight away, some people take a while, and some people may never get it” – with the implication that if you’re in the latter category you’re doomed, you might as well hang up your sissy robe and let the strange van take you away with Boxer…
But maybe now I’ve dispensed with worrying about the cracks, know to go about my own pace, and have got the initial “wtf” out of the way I might not be due for the knacker’s yard just yet.
Failbot can be useful in a raid group where you are working for hardmodes and need to tighten up… but not for a casual raid where it’s all about the learning experience. I would never, ever use it for a teaching tool and in fact, don’t have it installed at all.
I really need to tell the story of Tank Wars. I was co-tanking with another death knight who decided I was too Fragile A Flower (i.e. a girl) for him to allow the mobs to hit me despite the fact I was better geared. I eventually just let him attempt to tank everything and then when they killed him, gathered them up and showed him how it was done. It was simultaneously amusing and frustrating. We ended up replacing him because his lack of teamwork was killing us on Sartherion.
Again, I can totally see useful applications for it – either so you can monitor yourself or so you can tighten things up in a group of people who *already know and trust each other.” If you throw it at a group of folks who have never attempting a thing before, it is the learning equivalent of giving somebody a task, not explaining it properly and yelling “WRONG!” at them at abitrary intervals.
Woah … that is some classically stupid tanking. I mean there’s misplaced chivalry and then there’s being a dickhead – although, actually, the more I think about it misplaced chivalry *is* being a dickhead
I have to say, it’s also kind of hilarious – although probably not at the time, for you.
Cracks? The strategy they were employing was based on the tile decoration of the floor?
Like others have said, the cracks have zero to do with anything in that fight.
I promise you, raiding doesn’t have to be like this despite the series of bad experiences you’ve run into on ED. >.<
I was genuinely bewildered at the Crack Theory (hah, perfect name for it) – but it’s possible he’d just communicated what he was trying to say really really badly – as in “don’t stand on the cracks when there is spewing green fire coming up them” came across as “don’t stand on the cracks.” But considering about half the raid survived on the 5th go – something must have gone right somewhere.
Also it’s quite difficult to avoid the big spewing walls of green death when you’re playing hopscotch simultaneously.
I shouldn’t have listened but it was one of those moments when you think “hmmm, maybe I read the tacs wrong” rather than “I think this might be foolishness.”
Oy vey.
First, total agreement on the difficulty of being the OT. The MT usually has a variation of “See the brick. BE the brick.” Sometimes with movement. There are a few fights that vary of course, but few have the complexity of the OT’s job of grabbing stuff, rounding it up, moving things around, and all while not falling over dedz. So here’s an Morning Glory Dew Lite salute to you, Mr or Ms Off-tank, you rock our socks off.
I know exactly what you mean about he “moar healz plz” school of thought. I’m like, “I’m the one looking at GRID, I KNOW, if I was holding back I would have told you”.
And Heigan? He’s full of crap. The cracks are fine, except when poison is blowing out of them. More important is to move at your own pace, as you surmised. Honestly, the hardest part of that boss is getting the tank to maintain the proper distance during phase 1, and the transition from phase 2 to phase 1 when he layeth of the smackdown on occasion and you have a couple of seconds to recover.
The funny thing is that if you do spider wing right, it doesn’t take any longer than it do to ‘brute force’ it.
Our GL recently raided with a guild where they had a warlock in there for the express purpose of humiliating him. She was talking about it in /O chat. Lordy, that’s sucky. Like Ambrosyne, we’ve used failbot in-guild for fun and chuckles on non-progression runs, but never as anything other than humor. When it stops being fun, it gets turned off.
At any rate, if you have any doubts that you are overreacting, dispel them immediately. You are not. I would have been much less kind.
I don’t know if you saw it but Aggro Junkie wrote a spiffing post on the value of the OT a while back, let me dig it out. Yeah, it’s here: http://aggrojunkie.blogspot.com/2009/09/embracing-off-tanking.html
I’m still very much wide-eyed about raiding and probably always will be, to be honest. I can evaluate a 5-man with a snap of my fingers but raiding I just stand quietly at the back in my sissy robe, and watch and hopefully learn. But pretty much as a direct consequence of that post, I started watching the OT in my next raid and I was like “holy crap, that guy’s awesome, he’s doing *really complicated stuff* and nobody seems to care.”
The moar healz school of tactics really does bewilder me – it strikes me as treating the symptoms not the disease. I mean, yes, it’s true, if you wipe, there was probably an insufficiency of heals but the question, surely, is *WHY*. Although I the general assumption is that healers are just standing there, buffing their nails and healing when they feel like it =P
Heigan. Grrr. I think I’m Heiganaphobic at the moment. Also I was too stressed to see how the transition went but finally he went down so something must have been going right somewhere.
I’m generally not a fan of brute-forcing, except if I really hate the boss and then it gives one a sick sense of satisfaction
Even if you don’t “have” to, I like to do things with style and finesse – and DPS-blitzing something just feels cheap a lot of the time.
Sorry … what’s this story? The guild kept a warlock around specifically to take the piss out of him? That’s genuinely repulsive. I’m really rather shocked. Also, why would the warlock stick around to take that?
Anyway – experience are experiences. I was kind of more than a little peeved at the time but I look back on it, now I am safely outside and away, and think “hmm, interesting.”
I hate the ‘kin dance…I’m crap at it. We’d been killing the poxy bugger for weeks and slowly but surely I moved along the list from first to die, 2nd, 3rd and so on until one week I actually survived. It’s more luck than judgement though
My own progress was kind of a bell curve as determination / demoralisation interacted. So I started initially getting better, like you, working may way from first, second, third to die … but then I got so stressed and distracted by failbot that I started slipping backwards. Gah! Dammit =P
Sorry to hear about the PuG that sucketh mightily, at least you’re out of there.
For what it’s worth, your Raid Leader was dead wrong, ignore the cracks and just run/strafe/dance in a straight line from one “segment” to the next. Telling you to worry about cracks, bah, bad Raid Leader is bad.
I promise “hardcore” guilds don’t normally use failbot. It’s used by wanna-be hardcore guilds full of people that think things like gear-score and failbot-humiliation are good things. I can barely say the names of those two addons without a sneer (much less big brother… pray you don’t get that one in your new guild), gear is a crutch… bah, I’m off topic… GL finding a new home (and keep writing).
Oh don’t worry about it, I don’t feel I can whinge too much about it, since it did inspire a blog post
I’m sure the Crack Theory (as we’re officially calling it now) was simply piss-poor explaining, rather than actual stupidity, on the part of the GL. All the same, if you’re in charge of explaining the tacs, I think maybe you should at least try to make them coherent.
But, yeah, I’m relieved to see I was just being a Delicate Flower over Failbot. I’m definitely willing to acknowledge its place as a personal tool or to tighten up a raid among individual who already trust each other but, gah, it’s nothing something to be whipped out in public when people are learning.
I’ll chime in, the cracks have nothing (or, as you folks on That Side of the Pond might lyrically say, “sod all” or “bollocks”) to do with the fight. It’s all about your positioning in the room, the four spew zones are fixed and don’t interact with the floor cracks at all. And yes, you die on that fight the first few times. You just do. I did. Everybody does. It takes a while to learn where you need to be and you have to do it on your own. You can’t really follow anyone else, because if you have any sort of latency that we mere mortals tend to have, following someone else will put you far enough behind to get clipped by the edges of the spew.
I’ll add that the second somebody whips Failbot out in public and smacks me over the head with the results, I’m gone from that raid. Like you said, 99.44% of the time, we know when we mess up before anybody else does. (Especially me as a tank.) A guild or raid that seriously thinks they must use public humiliation via Failbot as a training technique isn’t a guild or raid that I, nor anyone else I know, would want to be associated with. Privately, it’s a very useful tool for officers. Publicly, it’s the kind of thing that destroys raids.
I don’t understand top raiding guilds leaving the checkbox for “Are you a douchebag? (y/n)” off their applications. It’s always seemed to me to be a lot easier to take a decent person who’s an average WoW player and turn them into a crack raider, than it is to take a l33t player who’s a total wang and un-wang them (so to speak). Skill can be learned with time and motivation…personality’s a lot harder to change.
Or bog all, if you want an alternative to sod or all or bollocks
I have come to the conclusion that it was genuinely a miscommunication – or, to be less charitable, an inability to explain on the RL’s part
I think he must have meant “cracks when they are full of poison” but I swear to God it sounded like he was warning us away from all the cracks.
I guess I’m worried I’m just one of those damned souls who never get the dance – and then I’ll be consigned forever to outer circles of noob where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.
We did leave the raid not long after Heigan, although actually we should have left way before. The problem was, even though he didn’t particularly have a role for us, we felt a pressing sense of obligation. Since we’d explicitely said we’d go and they explicitely wanted us to join the guild (yeah, way to sell it, chaps) it felt like we’d be unduly unshafting them if we flounced off.
They were semi-nastyish about us not joining up after, actually – they gave me a lot of “But with you guys we’d be able to be active” crap. Then you shouldn’t have treated us like shit =P
Very true about the anti-wanging – but then perhaps if you get enough wangs in a raiding guild nobody cares, hence the lack of wang-filters in most application processes.
I use failbot and it’s following things constantly as a raid leader for a couple of reasons…
I initially installed it during Sartharion with drakes attempts.
I set it to announce in raid.
The reason I did so, was not to embarrass everyone in the raid. Nor was it to teach people.
It was so I as the raid leader could figure out exactly how people died/took a ton of damage at that second and at a quick glance.
See, our DPS healers and even tanks have a very hard time identifying exactly what killed them. The default reason became, “I didn’t receive heals” which is absolutely inane, as a lack of heals never killed anyone, because it doesn’t actively deal damage; I needed to know what was causing the damage that got people killed. After being able to see this, “I didn’t get heals” turned into “I didn’t get heals after I stood in the Flame Tsunami because I wasn’t paying attention” or “I didn’t get heals because the void zone I was standing in one shot me.”
Now I was able to identify what deaths were due to things like Flame Walls, or Void Zones and which were due to loose adds or passive AoE damage, and thus I was able to address the situation and correct what needed to be corrected instead of “Healers, heal more!”
But this is as a raid leader, where in order to fix a problem, I need to find out what the problem is first and make sure I’m not ‘fixing’ a non existent problem.
@Selyndia – let me suggest something better than Failbot.
Acheron – http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/acheron.aspx
More useful, and without the ridicule.
Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand that failbot can be used as a tool. Being able to work out how people died is naturally really important for the RL – and had ours been paying anything like attention, we wouldn’t have the “moar healz” solution to every wipe. I wasn’t trying to condemn people for using it, or to suggest that it was an inherently evil add-on or anything like that – I just meant that under those circumstances, specifically to chastise people and thrown about during a run that was, for many people, their first it was complete mis-use.
Tam,
Don’t feel too badly, I have done hiegan, maybe 17-18 times, and I have only ever NOT died at the cracks once (that was the nice little story of me tanking him, LOL). I don’t know what it is, I try to do everything, im with the group, the slime monster just likes to eat me. Even the raid recognizes this, and they laugh when I am standing the the dammed CENTER of the pack of people, and I am the only one that dies. GRRR
Anyway, two big things of note. Wait, make that three.
My server has the big douchebags on the hordeside – and everyone is alliance side (its like 6 ally to every 1 horde, no joke). So, we are always getting ganked in WG, entrance to naxx, hell anyplace they meet us. Its one thing to put up with a downright dick in a raid, but to have it be on the opposite faction? yeah, log out for 15 and come back. They might be gone by then.
Anyway, of Failbot – that is absolutely the worst way to teach someone. There is actually a nice little animation on wowhead that I refer my raid members to. Consistently pointing that out in a public manner, that is just stupid. Dickhead is a Dick.
And lastly, on you speaking up. As a healer, that IS your job – you speak up and tell your raidmates what you need them to do to allow you to do your job. If that means bashing Mr. Dickhead’s ego, so be it. There are times when I would put a less than optimal tank in the MT, but it is the job of the healers to bitch at me (the RL), and it is my job to politely explain to my healer something like “there are going to be a bazillion whelps hitting on the OT, I’d rather have his avoidance against those” or “This guy has things that need to be interrupted pretty dammed quickly, and if (said tank) is OT’ing, he wont be able to do that consistently.” To dismiss you like that – if I were you, I would have walked right out of that raid. I, as a RL, accept input from ALL of my raiders, its their job to tell me if I am making something harder than it has to be. We will politely talk about what went wrong (no failbots in our raid), and then adjust things based on input. Make no mistake, there is no illusions of a democracy in my raids. But I know when to listen to the wisdom of my raid mates.
That was a brilliant story – and becomes only more brilliant now I know that dancing isn’t your strong point either
Sounds like you have either serious lag, or, more likely, A VILE CURSE! Or perhaps, like, Londo Mollari your shoes are you too tight for dancing 
But, yes, failbot is a failteacher, I shall be happy if I never seen my failure writ large in orange again.
As a couple of people have pointed out in comments actually I might have been wrong about Wangpally being ’squishier’ – possibly it was just a subconscious reflection of my dislike filtering through my healing. “No, no, he’s just squishy, it’s not reluctance to heal him, no sir.”
I neither want nor expect raids to be democracies but I think lack of a strong, sensible leadership really hampered that one. I don’t expect to be listened to, nor to be accredited with wisdom, and I’m pretty sure I get it wrong as much as I get it right, but having some idea *why* decisions have been made certainly keeps me quiet. Besides, if nobody explains, how can you *learn?*
*hugs*
Ok…let me see if I can help with the dancing
If you are standing at the door, and looking at the stage that Heigen is on, there will be 4 zones that spew the green bile from the groud, with one always being “safe” and having no bile spew from it. This “safe” zone, moves. He will spew them sequencially, and always in the same order.
We use numbers to discern for everyone where the spew is going to come from, and where the “safe” spot is (1, 2, 3, 4). The floor will spew from 3 of the zones, leaving one safe to stand in. From standing at the door, looking at the stage:
Zone 1 – If you draw a line from the left corner of the stage to the back wall, you can be anywhere to the left of that.
Zone 2 – If you draw a line from the middle of the state to the back wall, you can be anywhere left of that line, but right of Zone 1.
Zone 3 – Using the same line from the middle of the stage, you now need to be to the right of it, but left of a line that you draw from the right (far) corner of the stage to the back wall.
Zone 4 – Draw a line from the far corner of the stage to the back wall, and you need to be to the right of that.
The order of the safe spots will *always* go 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, etc. You only have a few seconds to move to the next spot, so do not cast any heals with a cast time, or you won’t be able to get to a safe spot in time. Utilize only those heals that you can cast on the fly: renew, PW:S, CoH. If someone else can’t dance don’t risk dying to heal them past what you can do while running. Also…if you’ve spec’d into the speed boost in PW:S, you can always keep a shield on yourself so that you can move about a bit faster.
Now, the trick to dancing is that when you move you want to be on the edge of the next zone you need to move to. So when you orignally move to zone 1, be right on the edge of where zone 2 starts (but still in the zone 1 safe spot) so that you just need to take a few steps to be safe after he spews to become safe again. When you move to zone 2, move to the edge of zone 3, etc.
Also, be sure that you are a few steps back from the stage or you will get hit with Heigen’s disease, which can kill you quite quickly.
I hope that helps!
On the note of failbot: We use it in raiding, specifically so we know what happened, and so that our raiders know what happened so that they are aware and correct their errors. Although, to be fair, it’s a bit like compairing apples and orages. While I think it’s appropriate for a progression guild to use while raiding as a learning/accountability tool, we try to remember to turn it off when we run pugs. A lot of those folks are new to some of the encounters, and don’t need to be smacked in the face when they make a mistake.
I still maintain my number one rule with PuGs: Do NOT assume everyone knows what is going on, and ALWAYS take the time to throughly explain the mechanics of an encounter. The 5 minutes you take to do this, can save 30 minutes in wipes.
Beru. Thank you
As I say, I’ve seen the vids and I’ve read the tacs (I am a good WoW student 
) but you explain it incredibly clearly. I must find some way to stop this wonderful piece of writing disappearing into the void of blogposts lost.
The next time I try it, actually, I might enchant my boots for an extra turn of speed (who needs that spirit anyway
) which, you know, might make the difference, since my PW:S is the basic, common or garden variety of damage absorber.
I think I was causing myself more grief than I should have by trying to shoot of heals – even just instant casts can be distracting when you don’t know the best way to put dance theory into practice. It’s just it’s hard wired. Healer … must … heal. But, yeah, no healz until I can learn to damn well dance.
Looking back over the raid, there was a general awareness that this was the first time for many of us and the raid leader was trying to explain the tacs before each fight. It’s just he was really *really* bad at it. Usually I felt less confident going into a fight after his explanation than before it. Not a good sign
Again, I’m not dying that failbot has its place: I just think it’s genuinely stupid to try to claim that it’s a learning tool, any more than would try to claim a cane was. Also I have an intense dislike for people who openly claim to get off on the failure of others. Hmmm…although I can’t imagine many people are likely to find such a trait admirable
*hugs* I feel like you just cast tranquility.
I know it wont make you feel any better, but I survived my first Heigan dance
On a related note, I ran a Naxx 25 on my healer last week. The Tank was for the top progression guild. He pretty much chain pulled everything and didnt stop for any kind of strategy.
We got to Patchwerk and I asked for healing assignments. Someone said “Just go” to the tank. I said “If you just run in, I am going to hearth”. They just ran in and I hearthed. I wont put up with dumb bullshit regardless of what guild they are from. The sooner you can just say “F U”, the happier you will be with raiding.
You bastard
Also that’s a fantastic story. I don’t know what it is with these Uber-Raiders who seem to lose all interest in *actually playing the game*. Maybe it’s a form of unacknowledged burn out.
I do probably need to be assertive with the bullshit – but hopefully when I find a guild I can invest in, there’ll be less bullshit
LOL! I feel for you, I really do. The crack explanation is hilarious considering it has nothing to do with cracks, but rather sections of cracks. Four sections where the crap spews from the ground. When running to the ends, just move in enough to get in that section and wait. Run too far and you won’t have time to run back.
@Ambrosyne – It’s on private announce? Since when? LOL!
Crack explanation is, indeed, cracked… =P
I may have to make graphics
I have been in the situation of running pugs with people much less geared in raids I would not go to with my guild because we were focusing on higher content.
I have two stories for you. Two good stories of how you can help when being more experienced in a pug.
One evening, I was bored and saw in /1 LF one dps and one healer for Naxx25, only Thaddius and the 2 end boss left.
The RL was very polite, and I wanted to go to Naxx it had been a while. I grabbed our paladin (he hadn’t the legendary mace yet…) and we were in this guild group struggling through Naxx when we used to wipe on Yogg. The run was a catastrophe, we never passed Thaddius because of failing people but I had fun (the paladin too, he’s like me, loves fail pugs…). The RL was very sorry for us but it was ok for me.
My conclusion here is : if you’re a good raider : shut up. Do your job. And only your job. Nether my guildie or me failed, he healed, I did dps, we didn’t fall or crossed charges. The others failed but not our problem, the RL’s problem. The strategy was good, no need to tell to the others : “hey guys, frankly you suck at that ! Get better !” What use is it ? I don’t think they were failing on purpose, they just needed practice, we gave them practice until the RL called off for the night.
And last Friday, I was on my druid alt and former guildies needed some people to fill a 25-man Ulduar run. I love Ulduar and I had never healed a 25-man with my druid, I decided to go and try, my favorite mage being there with his warlock alt too. We know these people very well. They know us for a long time and followed our progress through Ulduar for the past 5 months. For most of them, it was there first Ulduar 25, some had done it in 10-man. We followed quietly. It was nice, no pressure. We had Leviathan in two attempts, not bad at all.
Then we had XT. The first try was a pure nightmare. I discovered the chaos of healing a 25-man with people running everywhere… My favorite mage ninjaed the lead. He did that only because we knew half of the raid there, we knew the RL very well and he agreed on passing on the lead, he wasn’t confident enough in this content. And I was there on my seat, shooting to my screen (but not in Vent) : “you stupid *insert dpser or healer here* ! come back you idiot so I can heal you ! And you get out of the raid with your light bomb !”
Actually, this time, the strat was crappy. Their strat worked in a 10-man but not in 25-man. We explained them a good strat, and why it was good, and my favorite mage kept calling for bombs so people would react. And we downed him. And everyone was happy.
And then the RL told us something like : “I know it’s not a big deal for you two”. That was not true. I learned a ton that night. My first 25-man healing ! And we were really happy for them being able to do some Ulduar raiding. And we haven’t much time to spend with those friends, so every minute is worth it, wipe or not…
So, my conclusion is, if you know those fights like the back of your hand and the strat is good, but people fail, let them fail and do your job. If the strat is failing, talk to the RL in /w and explain WHY it is failing. Help or lead if they ask you to.
And Failbot is a tool. It’s humiliating for some people. I don’t like it. But sometimes, I can understand why RL use it. If you are in a advanced raiding guild, running for first kill server, one or two people failing repeatedly is generally pissing off the other raiders who do not fail anymore. Sometimes, the boss is hanging to that one person failing again and again and it’s not acceptable. I have seen this addon been turned on in my guild on some fight when nearly everyone was doing his best and one or two were slacking. It’s a progression’s guild run, not a tour guide…
If you are in a regular guild, I don’t see the point to turn it on. People know the fights and know when they are failing. If they don’t know, use it privately as a RL and deal with the person in private : maybe it’s his first time here, maybe he’s got problem dealing with this particular fight and need practice…
And If you’re a pug, shut it, linking failbot on raid chat is even more rude than linking the dpsmeter…
Hurrah story time. It’s hard to comment in reply to personal stories and that always makes me feel bad because I really appreciate it when someone goes to the trouble to share something illuminating with me – and if you just type “thanks, illuminating” it looks pretty crap
But actually it’s really nice to hear that more experienced raiders can get something out of raiding with less experienced players – there’s nothing worse than feeling like you’re dragging someone down.
I think the difference is a combination of confidence and knowing what you were signing up for. I mean, somebody happy and confidence doesn’t have to point out the mistakes of others or wave their lootwang in your face.
I sometimes heal normal 80 dungeons when people on LFG are desperate and can’t find a healer. They always take longer than they should, especially if they’re at level, because very occasionally you get people genuinely levelling through the content. And sometimes I’ll get killed by trash because learning tanks can’t keep the hungry monsters out my face but, hey, I try not to bitch. I went there to help out, and I do it quietly and without complaining. I certainly don’t expect people to, err, suck my shoulders (not that they’d want to, I currently have lousy shoulders).
I’m not disputing the efficacy of failbot as a tool – but, yeah, using for the sheer sake of mortifying people trying to learn something for the first time? So not cool.
Failbot = run screaming from the idiot on the other end. Unless you’re doing progression and need to know EXACTLY who’s dying to what, it doesn’t really matter — someone screwed up, put your pants/skirts back on and get back in there.
I had a recount whore last night — picked up a Monday night PuG for Naxx and every single boss fight Recount data x2. The good news is, I found a very friendly tree and we had awesome healing synergy going on, and I had a grand time!
Gah! I hate recount whores – have you noticed they never have their own recount? They’re always wanting other people to link their’s. Why is that?
But yay for your friendly tree
I used to have a really good healing relationship with my fail-guild leader. I miss that feeling.
I don’t think anyone has said this either: absolutely DO NOT HEAL during the dance phase. I’ve had luck with latency and good raid leaders, such that I’d never died on Heigen…until I switched to healing. And I died every time thereafter until I swore to not heal while dancing.
Because people should not be taking damage during that phase if they’re dancing properly. Yes, sometimes a person just clips the slime and they’re technically still alive…but that’s what pots and healthstones are for, to bridge the gap until Phase 1 starts again and you can heal them for real. And the secret to Heigen is that a small handful of people can kill him eventually, so you really DON’T need that DPSer. Let him die.
So it’s entirely possible that the fail of others was contributing to your downfall, and I didn’t want you blaming yourself unnecessarily!
I was trying to heal – just instants but, yeah, I think it was doing more harm than good. It’s so hard to stop yourself though … I’m a healer … must … heal … gah! It’s also semi-instinctive. I see a health bar go down and I’m right there, caressing it back up to full again – except in this case, I’d be massaging away and a big wall of slime would eat my arse
In future, though, definite commitment to *no healing while dancing*. At least not until I learn what I’m doing. Assuming I ever do =P
The only use we have for failbot in my guild is amusing our dpsers as they compete to see who can stand in the most bad stuff and still stay alive at the end (I think one of our rogues holds the record with managing to hit every flame wall on our last sarth 3d kill). On progression stuff it is firmly switched off as its usually fairly obvious who screwed up without making them feel bad in front of everyone else. As for raiders being obnoxious, definitely a fair number of them are. Taking my own guild for example, they are for the most part perfectly normal, helpful and nice within guildchat but to random people they pug with.. they can be downright awful. We are trying to wean them off it, but so far with no avail.
What can help with Heigan is if a nice engineer drops flares/elune’s stones in the safe portions to mark them out. Thats basically how we trained our non vanilla raiders.
When anyone brings out Failbot in PuGs I get this overwhelming desire to stand in the bad stuff though
But why are people in your guild nasty to people in PUGs? Why? People who PUG are people too! And very often perfectly competant people PUG. Sorry, I feel a little bit bitter about this, since I’m rather sick of being treated like shit on no provocation from raiders.
It’s true, by the third attempt, I was so pissed off with Failbot that I actually threw myself into a slime wall just to fucking decide when I would fail.
I will fail on my own terms, dammit.
My last raid leader, Mr. every piece of gear you’ve ever gotten is because of me, summed it up very nicely one night after the guild failed to take down the general in Ulduar.
“Rubi”, he says (cuz that was the characters name, follow me here) “I finally figured out the difference between you and me. You play this game because you LIKE it.”
Well duh? Why would you pay a monthly fee to play a game that you can’t stand? I’ll freely admit that I’m not the best player out there. Some would say that I suck. But I truly enjoy a good raid. And by good, I mean fun. Killing bosses CAN be fun, but it’s not the only source of fun to be found in a raid.
Or maybe I’m just a noob.
(btw, the site isn’t mine, it’s run by my wife)
I had a moment of confuslment there – I thought Windsoar was taking her jaded alting to the next level
Thank you for the story – and, yes, I’ve encountered people like that in WoW and it truly bewilders me too. Given how much time one spends in WoW, I can’t imagine doing it for anything other than the fun of it – but some people seem to not like it at all. Like you, I suspect I’m doomed to perpetual noobism – I’m in for the experience, for the scenery, for the adventure. I’ll probably never be a terrific player (I nearly didn’t take an epic cloak today because it clashed with my outfit) but as long as I can pull my weight and I’m having fun … I’m happy
I do my best to remember my own character names
But I think I’ll be stuck as Windsoar for a long time now that I’ve gone public. I knew there was a downside.
I’ve never heard of Failbot, but i’d of said “fine” and then made a macro of “/raid MightyWangfulShouldersRealIngameNameGoesHere fails at collecting tank gear for tanking” spam that several times then spam my second one: “/raid MightyWangfulShouldersRealIngameNameGoesHere fails at life”
But thats just me
Pointing out that Failbot was both unhelpful and demoralising caused enough of a diplomatic incident but, God, I wish I’d the bollocks for a fails at life macro
That’s simply wonderful.
Every addon is a tool – it’s how you use the tool that really matters.
Going for the nobobdy hits a mine/bot/fire achievment? Use failbot. Trying to master new content and you can’t figure out why someone is dying? Use failbot. PuGging a few folks for some farmed content? Keep that in house.
The problem is, in my opinion, is that most players fall roughly into one of these categories.
Pro) Player excels at all classes and aspects – expects others to do the same.
Pro Casual) This guy may have 100 alts, and while he may not have the best gear or best numbers, he at least tries his damdest on every attempt. Listens, asks questions – basically the only thing holding him back from being Pro is time.
Casual) Just kind of goes with it. This is the player you forget is there.
Turd) This is the guy that wants to be boosted, doesn’t care if he makes mistakes, and is the first to bitch about loot. This is the player who doesn’t AoE because they prefer to blast Arcane. The Paladin that won’t bubble/divine sacrifice because it hurts his DPS.
Hope you find some like minded folks to join up with. Now if you’ll excuse me – my shoulders need polishing.
Given the attitude of our erstwhile RL, I’m sure you can get the right somebody to polish them for you
Usually the turd I know won’t do anything BUT AoE for maximum DPS
I’m naturally wary of categorising players, even into hardcore and casual, because it seems too generalisation sometimes – but these work as good as any .
Chas and I always tended to add a special category to turd we call Wannabe Casual – these the players who want to look good but won’t make any actual effort and tend to be a dickhead. I’m pretty sure that the only people who use failbot are genuine hardcores – working on refining their technique – or wannabe hardcores – wanting to make other people feel bad.
Heigan is a bitch. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve run that place and I still fail miserably at the dance.
I would say ‘practice makes perfect’ but I would be talking out of my arse.
Way-hey!
Well, failure, like misery, loves company
Failbot, when used as described above, actually has a lot of similarities to how torturous (hope that spells “people who torture other people”) are educated. They get the punishment themselves, and end up not having a problem doing it to others.
Heigan is nasty untill you get that “ahHA” moment. then you get it
(easy to say i know). Keypoint for me was learning not to follow everyone else, their lag combined with your lag will kill you. Other than that, follow what Beruthiel wrote. It will make sense 
Hehe, yes, I think you’re right about Failbot. I thought it was weird cult, indoctrinating people into being dickheads, but a cycle of torture works just as well
Failbot can be useful in more chaotic fights where there are several things you have to avoid and people aren’t entirely sure what killed them. Sartharion when you have the void zones from the extra drakes, for example. You might not be certain if someone died from a lava wave or a void zone. But for a fight like Heigan where there’s really only one thing that can kill you, and it’s quite obvious because you’re lying right there on the edge of one of the green lava zones, it’s just a matter of public ridicule.
FYI, don’t ever jump when you’re trying to avoid nasty things on the ground. The way the game works, it doesn’t register your change in position while you are jumping, it considers your location to be where you were when you left the ground. You don’t move horizontally any faster when you’re jumping, so don’t think that just because your feet aren’t touching the ground, that you’re not going to get hurt. The game doesn’t work that way. It’s best to always remain on the ground when running away from bad things. (This is also why death knights can’t use death grip while jumping.)
Just try to follow the rest of the group, in this case. On the later rounds of the dancing, dead people and hunter pets who failed the first round will nicely mark off where the zones are. After a dozen tries or so, you’ll probably have the rhythm down pretty well yourself. I know it took me about a month before I could dance well enough to throw off some instant-cast heals while running.
And personally, I probably would have just said “screw it” and left the raid towards the end of the spider wing. Though it really depends on my mood at the time, sometimes I’ll stay in an obviously frustrating PuG just to see how much worse it will get, in hopes that I’ll get a good story from it that I can blog about ^_^
Yeah, I’m not disputing the fact that failbot – when correctly applied – has its uses in certain situations, but, yeah, during the Heignan dance… not so much. “Oh I’m dead, no idea what killed me, wait a minute, could it be the huge erupting walls of green slime? Naw.”
Oooh…thanks for the jumping tip – it’s weirdly tempting to jump away from stuff just because it’s the most obvious way to register movement, heh, and also you look quite surprised =P I’ll try to train myself out of it though.
We should probably have quit the group, to be honest, since it was clear we didn’t suit each other. However, at the end of spider wing it was annoying rather than actually horrible. I’d rather not put myself through hell just to get blog posts but I do occasionally get stuck in a sense-of-obligation / treat-as-thou-would-be-treated cycle which means I don’t get out of things quickly enough
10 man Heigan can be 2 manned by a decently geared healer and tank. If Mr. Wangshoulders was so awesome, he would have been fine with just 1 healer not failing the dance. Almost every time I tank a naxx pug, I end up with 2 or 3 people alive at the end of that fight (Meaning you’re not in the minority at all for dying here). I’d wager he made a few mistakes himself, that may not be reflected on failbot.
Also, about hardcore progression guilds having a lot of dickheads… most of them don’t care. They have a goal, to progress quickly and efficiently, and althought it may be easier to cure experience and skill issues then mentality issues, they’re not interested in curing mentality issues in the first place, they want people who will quickly and efficiently clear content. There are obvious exceptions to this of course.
I know Heigan!Fail is relatively widespread but I suppose I’d rather be one of the 2 or the 3 people left than the numpty who bites in the first slime wall. Sigh. I mean, just for my own personal satisfaction as well as not being a horrible drag on whatever raid I’m in.
I do see why not being a dickhead wouldn’t be a concern if you priortised efficient content clearing above all else and who I am to judge other people’s fun but I’m sure it is perfectly possible to be skilled at the game and, coincidentally, not a wanktard
Hey, first time poster, been lurking for a while.
The source of the fail in that PUG isn’t the “Crack Theory” (which is bonkers, just divide the floor in 4 and go 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 at your pace, mostly dictated for latency), it was a confusion of Leadership. Aka your RL didn’t have the balls to actually lead the raid instead of sucking the WoWcock of the Uber-geared guy.
It needs to be clear who guides and if you can’t do it, just pass it to somebody that can. If there is a confusion on who leads, there is a confusion in everything else. Even if the RL is a dickhead, that means that there’s only one place to focus if you have to oppose him.
And besides that, the guy who leads must also have balls to say “This is your job. Do it or GTFO”.
Hello, welcome, thank you for the comment
But I agree with you entirely about the leadership confusion. I didn’t make more of it in the post because, hell, I know very little about raiding and even less about raid leading, but it did struck me that the RL was suffering from a profound lack of spine. I mean, it doesn’t matter how big somebody’s shoulders are, ultimately if one is the leader one should, well, lead. Even if he’d just said that he wanted Wangful Shoulders to MT that would have been fine, but the dithering around in the background, letting the whole thing degenerate into a confused and chaotic mess… grrr!
Hmm…seems a whole lot went wrong..but it also feels like it might’ve come from two sides…just a tiny bit..maybe?
Here’s the thing. When I lead a raid into Naxx I ask before a fight. Does everybody know this? If I get no replies I assume people know what to do.
If I do get questions I explain the fight in very basic terms.
Not until many people actually speak up will I stop and explain in detail.
The other way around, if I step into a raid I don’t know well enough yet I speak up openly about it. And if they want to replace me, no probs.
I don’t want experience mismatch or annoyances with anybody in the raid of the type that you’ve had. I would rather sit out and find myself a raid that moves at my speed.
Cocky/Blunt/Direct? Maybe all of them. But it would’ve spared both sides a whole lot of annoyance.
Failbot is turned off in raids I lead. (I’ve kicked people already for ignoring my request to turn it off).
People know what they’re doing wrong generally, and feel bad enough about failing (most people at least).
If we fail because of people screwing up there are much better ways to communicate it.
Oh, did I mention I’m Dutch? We like the direct open, no chance for miscommunication or misunderstanding approach *grin*
And oh…something my raid team found very helpful for Heigan, it might help
http://www.theorderls.com/belt/wm/wow/heigan.html
I’ll happily take my share of blame for anything that went wrong.
But come on Shy, give me at least an iota of credit. I’m always absolutely honest about my level of experience before I do *anything* in the game – they knew before we went in that I hadn’t done it before. It was the first thing I said to them when they asked us to come along. Equally I’d done all the research in preparation. I’d read the tacs, I’d watched the vids, I may be casual but I’m not an idiot. However, I’m also well aware that reading the tacs isn’t the same as putting the tacs into practice, so I’ll always defer to experience.
And when I was bewildered by his explanation of the tacs – since they did not match anything I’d read or seen – I asked for clarification – a clarificaiton he did not provide, instead telling me to just to follow him – which, as we know, is not at all a sensible thing to do.
Equally I would quite happily have left the raid but ultimately I felt a degree of responsibility to see it through since I’d given what I interpreted as as sort of committment to the guild. Me not enjoying myself massively did not hamper the success of the run.
I know it’s my account and therefore filtered through the lens of my perception and therefore biased in my favour – but I’m slightly bewildered as to why you assume that I wouldn’t have done any of these things?
Is it bad that I want you to raid more just so I can hear more raid stories? They are like your pug stories, only twice as good! *ahem*
And have you looked at any specific servers to move to yet? Starting to wonder whether Earthen Ring would be for you.
I know a couple of nice ten-man guilds here…
It’s been a while since I’ve run Naxx, but the last couple of times our Heigan strategy basically went like this: “Do we have at least a handful people who know the fight? Okay, everyone else: You WILL die, but don’t worry, it happens to everyone at first. Just watch and try to learn something from it while the rest of us kill him slowly.” No need to be mean to people about it, it’s a learning experience for everyone initially.
And I don’t like failbot either. I can see the info being useful under some circumstances (I remember my guild having similar issues on Sartharion with three drakes as another commenter above), but the way it’s set up seems to serve the sole purpose of being mean.
I’m afraid you might be doomed to disappointment (thank God) – my latest raid story is a WIN!RAID (hehe, and thus probably horribly boring, so all my readers will drift away
)
We’ve been investigating server moves for a while – and finally committed. I haven’t written about it much for fear of jinxing it.
Hopefully doing Heignan under more congenial circumstances in less wanky company will lead to, well, it going better and, hopefully, me learning the technique – or not feeling as crap if I don’t.
I can see the utility of failbot under certain circumstances – but as a stick to beat people, on thanks?
Failbot/Ensidia Fails can be a great tool when your in a supportive guild who isn’t using it to make you feel bad, but to work out why you are wiping on that hard mode over and over again.
The imba tree should have been cleansing the poison of Mr Wangful he was very naughty not to do so!
Mr Wangful is a moron who is probably used to having an overgeared pocket healer that he plays with every day in any raid or instance he sets foot in. It just doesn’t work that way with PUGs and new guilds, its never going to go as smoothly and its his job to slow it down to ensure everyone is coping with the content.
I am so glad I did the Heigan dance for the first times within weeks of WotLK coming out and everyone was a noob at it! It seriously took us ages to get on our boogying moves so don’t stress about it, they are just so uber elite that they can’t imagine some people are experiencing this content for the first time. I bet Mr Wangful wiped his raid plenty of times his first go too!
Perhaps Imba Tree just didn’t think it was his job since he was on raid healing? But ultimately, surely, if you’re tanking and you see you have a poison on you – instead of whinging about it, maybe you could remove it – or ask the healer with the capacity to remove it, to, err, remove it
But, yeah, we’ve pretty accepted that Mr Wangful Shoulders was just a plain out terrible tank, both in terms of the actual mechanics of his tanking and his approach to the game.
I’m hoping dancing will be easier in better company – after all, who wants to go to a disco with a bunch of wankers
I have only met one (1) person who has survived the dance on Heigan the first time he did it. I think I died the first 4 times I did it and I felt increadably, increadably stupid. But it just takes practice. I don’t get the “don’t stand in the cracks” thing though. I think I do sometimes. Just as long as you don’t stand in the green flames you are fine, cracks or not.
And that addon: it is truly annoying…-.-
I’ve decided to be generous and put the Cracked Crack Theory down to the RL’s inability to communicate… okay that’s not very generous
I think there’s an implicit judgement in the dance thing – you know, that some people never “get” it and should go cry in a corner
Hopefully in better company, I’ll get it….maybe.
Tam, Just to add to the Safety Dance stories, I have the following. Firstly, as a group of Australian players playing on US servers as we are, following people is an exceptionally short route to disaster. I woudn’t try it, ever.
Second, even as a healer, the one and only responsibility you have is to stay alive until the dance is over. Especially as a pally with my limited instant casts, I look after me, me, and then me. This is something that has been said to me by a number of RL’s.
Third, I know at least one friend who refuses to even enter the room until the fight is over. She WON’T dance at all, ever. End of story. The fact you are trying puts you above her.
Fourth, I also know another friend who is physically incapable of doing the dance, I have even bubbled him and he STILL died. Some people just cant do it, and that, is that. Move on.
Lastly, my personal strategy is to go close to the platform. Just far enough away to not get the disease, and that gives you precious microseconds to get it right. Yes it means that you need to pause each time, but it also means you can run flat out and make up time.
Just my thoughts
Thank you for your thoughts – always appreciated
Yep, next time (eeeek, the idea of next time makes me flinch) I’m definitely going to try and trust myself rather than subjecting myself to what is essentially a double-latency fail. It goes against the grain to not-heal (I’m a healer! Must heal!) but, yeah, I really need to concentrate on myself. It’s kind of training yourself to priortise *you* above everyone else. I mean, no you, definitely no healz. I used to fidn this really difficult =P I’m still a bit of a suicidal healer.
Has you friend been traumatised by too many people being horrible to her over the dance? Truthfully, I wouldn’t blame her – but I’m certainly not giving up. Hehe, I’m a suicidal, masochistic healer =P
1) The dance.
- Don’t follow anyone.
- be near the front stage.
- Run to the green fire and stop.
OK, not to the fire while it is there, but when you see it erupt, that is where you want to stand for the next dance step.
2) Failbot
Next time do a quick macro
“Mr Mighty Wangful Shoulders is a fail tank becuase he can’t gear properly”
“Mr Mighty Wangful Shoulders is a squishy tank, the Mage has more avoidance”
etc.
Maybe failbot will get put away after the other 8 people in the raid see Mr Mighty Wangful Shoulders more full of fail than the Heigan square dancers
Thank you for your dancing tips – maybe it’s just Tam, he’s probably never been to a disco in his life, it’s no wonder he doesn’t know how to moooove
I certainly need to get meaner in game, I think – Cat, further up, also had some good tips for a macro. But I think, since Chas and I knew, we had no investment in these people and would never see them again, it was easier to just get out without antagonising any more people than we did by objecting to Failbot in the first place.
See I don’t know. I like Failbot. There’s something in the Freya trash that I’m not meant to dispel, but I do it without fail (hahah) everytime I’m in there. It’s not til I see the Cassandri fails at cleansing (1) that I even know I did something wrong. So yeah, I like it. Couldn’t care less if someone else is on there for failing 20 times – if they’re failing something like the void zones/fire walls in Obsidian Sanctum – well you can see that anyway.
The only difference between these “expert” dancers you ran with and yourself is practice. So don’t let it get to you.
Nobody gets it first time. N O B O D Y.
Plus Heigan can be killed by 2 people – 1 healer and tank even if everyone else dies. It just takes like 1 hour. So don’t get upset if you die, just shrug your shoulders and think “need more practice”.
If you have a clue-y shaman in the raid you can ask them to drop a totem at each “safe” points to help orient yourself. Or a prepared RL will carry smoke flares.
If you’re about 5 yards away from the edge of the platform it’s really a run – pause timing that you have to learn yourself. You’re exactly right: you can’t follow someone else.
And as for the cracks in the floor… spend enough time in this room and you’ll be able to measure the poison zone boundaries using the floor markings.
I think the difference is the circumstances under which one Failbots? I mean, you’re using it specifically for you and you’re using in a supportive environment where nobody is using specifically to judge and condemn. The point is, having people admit to taking genuine relish in pissing on people for their failures, and using failbot for that, is, well, more than a little demoralising. I don’t object to the tool, so much as the way it was used.
But, yeah I’m feeling less Heigan-phobic… hopefully practice and not being yelled at will make the difference.
Im gonna be skipping the funny comment now and touch on some srs raiding issue: the “poorly” geared wang paladin.
From what I can gather (please giiiif armory
) he stacks stam, rather than avoidance. Thus making him harder to heal?
Well, i’ll beg to differ. Sure with avoidance you will take less damage over the entire course of the fight, but (and this is a big but) you do not know when damage will spike beyond control.
Lets say for example that tank 1 has 50k health and 10% avoidance, and tank two has 25k health and 50% avoidance. Which one would you rather heal?
Tank 1.
Here’s why: if tank one takes a huge knock on the head for 40k dmg over 3 hits in a short amount of time, you are fine, if tank two takes the same 40 k dmg over 3 strikes and just happen to -you know- not dogdge those 3, you have a wipe.
And with manamananana beeing what it is for healers (still not really an issue), you have nothing to gain from tank 2. In fact you will still have to spam heal him just as much, since you never know when the spikes will hit, so you need to stay alert. So you will have lots of overhealing and none of the buffer-benefits.
You and chastity has something very different though for a normal raid setting. You know eachother well, you know your playstyles and -im willing to bet- you have a very good feel for when to pop cooldowns and spamheal, you are in-sync so to speak. That is a great feature, but not one commonly seen in raids. So calling the paladin a poor dresser over his amount of stam, is not correct.
Hmmmm…yes, point taken – I am a raiding noob, so am not really in any position to judge a tank beyond how they “feel” to heal. And, as your comment shows, I shouldn’t try
The reason I won’t link to the armory of the Wangpally is because it feels a bit personal (especially since I’ve been so critical in my post) and, also, because they’ve had some gear upgrades so it’s no longer a fair comparison.
But does your reasoning still hold true over something like this:
Tank 1 has, say, 4k more hitpoints than Tank 2 but Tank 2 has maybe 15% more avoidance (again, maths is not my thing so this still might work out better in the long run). Tank 1 does not have vindication (Tank 2 does). Tank 1 keeps forgetting to put up Righteous Fury. Tank 1 is tanking in Seal of Light.
Truthfully I just thought he was a bad tank, regardless of numbers – my bitching was primarly reserved for this.
I do get your points about damage spikes etc. but I’ve healed Chas through Maexxna without breaking a sweat before. Wangpally, despite having more stamina, was basically getting torn apart while the raid was all webbed up. My simplistic (and, again, possibly eroneous – I’m sure you’ll tell me
) conclusion was that due to the lack of migitation. Given it was a highly predicable damage spike there was no way the tank should have been dying during the webbing phase.
Of course maybe it was shitty healing (again, perfectly possible – it’s weirdly hard to heal someone when you dislike them).
No no, he *is* a shitty tank. Webbingtime=use your cooldowns to survive time, does not sounds like he knew that.
It was more the sentiment about “he is bad because he chose stam over avoidance” that tickled my spidersenses the wrong way
And clearly your example proves that he was crappy beyond just the stam part
Hehe – I didn’t mean to imply that I thought he was a shitty tank for numerical reasons. I know so little about the tanking number crunching that my only available evidence for potential poorness fo tank is: “I’M DEAD!”
I believe Chas stacks stamina – but, again, I wouldn’t really like to comment in case i r rong
It’s not so much that the guy stacked stam over avoidance as the fact that he considered the fact that he had *very slightly* more HP than me (it was something like 2-3K after buffs) as evidence that he was a better tank than I was.
Hmm so all in all not the best of evenings? This Failbot thing sounds rather unpleasant really…
I have nothing to add in terms of strategy, being only just into the 70s on my main and in no hurry to reach 80, although didn’t Pike from Aspect of the Hare have an entry about how choosing a decent background tune to bop along to was key to the Heigan dance?
Hehe, I’m a very new 80 myself so everything is a bit of a wargle.
But I think you might be onto something there – I’ve clearly had the wrong background music.
I imagine Heigan is disco cheese rather than German industrial…
Don’t worry about wiping at Heigan. Everybody usually dies the first time. Strats and what to do has been pointed out, so I’ll skip this. What I wnt to point out are two things that really have the word “FAIL” tattoed in their foreheads:
) and make sure they stick to that. So assigning MT, OT and healing is his responsability. You can delegate (“ok, tanks decide who’s MT and then announce it loud”, “healers decide who heals who”) but then make clear for the whole raid who does what (and for Chtulhu’ sake, put up the MT list and include the MA!) and be sure everybody knows their roles. When you’re leading a raid for the 50th time into the same instance there’re no excuses for acting like he did.
1. The fucktard protadin. When people usually mentions “failpug” (or failraid in this case) the rest usually thinks: poorly geared people, not knowing tactics, standing in fire… but this wanker represents another kind of fail-player that I keep seeing more and more every day: the high-geared idiot who thinks he’s above all because he’s wearing tier(insert current top tier version here) gear. If he’s a tank he’ll believe he’s unkillable and can pull before healers have even started recovering mana. If he’s a dps will be an aggro-monkey who believes getting aggro was the tank’s fault. Healers aren’t usually that retarded, because being a healer puts you in care of the whole raid and you’re not allowed to slack or be distracted. So if you see some healer acting this way let me know so I can add it to the list of “i’m above you, was your fault” fucktards
2. Raid leader. First of all seems he didn’t know the instance, and that’s a big problem unless you’re playing the instance for the first times or you’ve never acted as raidleader (but that’s not an excuse for not knowing the fights). Second issue is the lack of leadership. I’m sorry but the game is not a democracy, so sometimes you must act as a bastard and tell people what to do (politely, of course
So my humble recommendation is to run away from that guild and simmilar ones. Trust your heart, he’s wise and was telling you from the start not to group with them if you really want to raid.
There was certainly a lot of fail in that raid all things considered – and don’t worry, we ran for it. The only reason we stayed after the OT decide to make himself MT instead was because we felt a (probably misplaced )sense of obligation to see it through because we’d said we would. We would have shafted them soundly, had 2 of their 10 person raid (tank and healer, no less) had bogged off.
The worst about Wangful Shoulders was that he was arrogant but actually an appallingly bad tank – I mean, he lacked some pretty vital tanking talents (vindication), was tanking in seal of light, had insufficient migitation really despite not having many more hitpoints than Chas, seemed to have no notion of how to maintain threat on *even one enemy*. But because of his gear, he seemed to feel this automatically conferred leet tanking skills. Gah! Worst of all possible words. I mean, if you’re going to have a arrogant, fucktard tank – I’d at least want him to be *moderately* competant.
And, yes, the RL was terrible – I was trying not make big deal in the post because, hell, I know nothing about raid leading. To be fair, I don’t think he didn’t know the wing, I think he was just phenomenally, unspeakably crap at describing the tactics. Also, yeah, he totally lacked for bollocks. It didn’t matter to Chas whether she was the MT or the OT or a DPS – it just mattered that somebody was driving the train, you know?
It’s quite possible to be both skilled and nice, but I didn’t see a need to explain that since you weren’t dealing with a skilled nice person. =p
I’d like to say that the 2 are totally unrelated, but that would be a half-truth; usually the more experienced and skilled a player gets, the more they become jaded and intolerant of inexperience. (Again there are exceptions.)
Yes, I know, I was just being frivolous
I’m looking forward to the day when I am cynical and jaded and mean … oh wait =P
[...] it’s disorientating to be a student – a noob – again. WoW is not, for the most part (as my previous post should indicate) a pleasant learning environment – I’ve been lucky in always having had people [...]
Heigan tip of the day – select yourself, spam insta heal spell while moving. Live to heal others later.
As a drood I spam wild growth to catch 5 other raid members as well. But the important part is that I focus on me, and I don’t attempt to switch targets or spells.
Heheh, probably the combination of trying to move correctly *and* compensate for if I don’t would do for me (cannot walk, chew gum and heal
. On the other hand, when I get slightly more confidence in the dance – assuming this miracle ever occurs – I fully intend to spam heals on myself 
Oh, Tam! Heigan was my husband’s BANE for ages. He never lived past the first dance, and he was a caster. However, I found a picture for him, and printed it out (in color!) and told him to strafe. He put it next to his monitor, and the next time we did Heigan, he lived! He said it was the best thing I’d ever done for him, and so now I’m passing along the link to the pic for you. I’d really recommend printing it out, IN COLOR, and putting it next to your monitor if you ever go near Heigan again.
http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/8518/hagdanceja6.jpg
I’m sorry your Naxx experience was so bad, but I’m hopeful you’ll have better luck on your new server! And sorry I didn’t post this earlier when I first read your post, but I tend to read them out loud to my husband as we’re making our morning commute.
Further on the Heigan dance;
As has been alluded to, but I will speak plainly, you have ONE job during the dance, and that is stay alive.
There is nothing there to heal through if you are doing the dance right. And any healy peeps that do it wrong won’t get a chance to heal anyway.
EVERYBODY ELSE has one job: do the dance. If they do the job right, you have no need to heal them, either. If they do it wrong, your heals probably won’t matter. The poison jets are enough to one-shot anyone but a tank.
So. Just dance.
The *transition*, where the squishies are briefly in proximity to him, is the difficult part. Practice and preperation will get you through. DBM is also handy so you don’t get surprised
By the by, search Youtube for “tankspot” plus the name of the boss you are interested in. They do great instructional vids for the whole raid, not just tanks.
[...] He always show us (Ron and me) much respect because we are doing endgame raiding, etc… Tamarind wrote a post this week about a crappy Naxx run, where an more advanced/geared player spoile…. I don’t want to be that player ever. That’s just the most arrogant behavior I can [...]
[...] while ago I wrote about a non-too-happy-making Naxx run. I’m currently quite pleased by the literary bent of my WoW life because, hey, let me give you [...]