I’m sure that this post is going to be messy, but I was inspired after having some words with Rilgon about raiding & stuff. So, I present to you, the reasons I am a fail raider and the logical ways to stop them from applying.

1.

I’m woefully inexperienced. I have done, in WotLK, the four first wings of Naxx, OS twice (+0 & +1), Flame Leviathan, & ICC trash farming. That’s it. To be honest, this ‘inexperienced’ part of the equation is terribly self serving, in that it will make me too nervous to sign up (or inquire about) raids that we more or less have on farm (read: ToC-25) and even more nervous about my numbers in raids, but that’s a whole ‘nother section of fail.

How to fix it:

This is fairly easy – go do some raids. Of course, this means complying with my other ‘reasons of fail’ to a satisfactory standard.

2.

Numbers. I’m the sort of person, that wants to ‘pull above their weight’. When I go in as a DPS, I expect to be doing exactly 1/(number of DPSers) of the raids total DPS, and hopefully much more. My biggest problem, is that I have no real way to see what my numbers might be – without being in a raid. Now, I’ve been running some tests in Rawr, to get some reports on what my “theoretical maximum DPS” is.

Firstly, I try and get it to give me an accurate number for my DPS against a target dummy, It’s saying that for my basic AB to 4 stacks then Missile Barrage – I should do 3696.59 DPS. This is assuming no raid buffs, and now I will go and test it out for accuracy’s sake.

So, one test later, and I’m sitting at 3402.9 DPS, which is fairly close, considering lag, and the fact that I stuffed up the rot a few times. Doing a quick check of raid DPS, I’m projected to do about 4.5k DPS, which I’m not sure if I’m happy with – what should my DPS be like, for 25s?

3.

This is slightly not really at all to do with anything – go figure.

Okay, this isn’t really a reason, but I’m extremely self critical. I’m that rare DPS who thinks that it’s never the tank or healer’s fault, it’s always the DPSs fault. Because in this game, every fight becomes easier with more DPS.

Now this is a rather stupid stance to take – of course it’s the healer’s fault if half the raid dies to unavoidable damage – but what if half the raid had been eating extra ticks of whatever the avoidable damage is on that fight? Of course it’s the tanks fault if he’s not Defense capped, gets 2-shot, and wipes the raid.

But in the vast majority of cases, I will take the fail-burden, and attribute it to myself, and I’m not the kind of person who enjoys wiping. Especially when the only damage being dealt to the raid as a whole comes from people who are STUFFING UP THE ENCOUNTER. I might not play a healer, but I expect you NOT TO STAND IN SHIT. Gah, people are EXTREMELY STUPID. So I guess that comes to the real reason #3 – I don’t want to waste my evenings with a bunch of people who aren’t bringing their A game in regards to STANDING IN SHIT.

Seriously.

No excuse.

Ever.

Yes, it is true, I am working on a new template for Arcane Envoy. This is (part of) why I’ve not posted much recently. (I’ve also been playing DA:O)
So, you can expect a new post in the next few days (by friday) about DA:O (with spoilers up the wazoo) and the new layout in the next two weeks.

Now, 3.3 has been out for a few weeks now, and I feel like I have had enough exposure to the Dungeon Finder tool to write a post about it. (To be honest, it was prompted by a post by Saresa, at Destructive Reach, http://www.destructivereach.com/2010/01/rants-you-know-you-have-missed-them/ )

Now I’m going to largely agree with Saresa, and also with Matticus ( http://www.worldofmatticus.com/2009/12/22/i-can-carry-you/ – with the exception of the part about Oculus at the bottom ) I don’t care about your gear, as long as you :-

• Push out as much DPS as you can (without standing in voidzones and such) – as long as you’re near 1k, I don’t mind carrying your share of the damage.
• If you’re the tank, you need to be able to hold aggro (at least on a single target, if I die AoEing, then I’ll stop).
• If you’re the healer, you need to keep the tank alive (and heal any non-avoidable damage to the group, like what 90% of the trash in Forge of Souls deal).

Now I’d like to think that I’m not asking much. It kinda makes me sad, because as a DPSer, I can carry the groups DPS requirements (as long as the two others are dealing about 1k, we’ll be fine) but I can’t be a bit more useful (like if I was a healer and could just carry the group by healing through everything).

Of course, not everyone has such a pleasant attitude. Sometimes (and this seems to be (to me) a bigger problem with the tanks and healers, who often act more important with there instant queues) you get a selfish arrogant player who treats the other players like shit. These are usually the ones who are obviously only doing these for their two bonus badges per day, and are decked out in full ToC and ICC gear, and who will be pulling 3-5k DPS, and calling anyone below 2.5k ‘shit’ and ‘scrub’ and ‘fail’ DPS. Worst (but when you get a nice one they are the best thing ever) are the tanks that deal 2k + DPS and call all the DPS crap (even when you are outdpsing them) and who pull whole rooms and yell at the healer when he (the tank) dips below half health.

Of course, this is coming from about 3 or 4 bad experiences I’ve had with the system, and in general, the groups have either fallen into the wonderfully efficient “silent but deadly” groups, where the most communication that happens is that occasionally a mob or two is marked, and the “Thanks for the group” at the end, or the “chillaxed” group, who are cracking jokes, and having a good time (usually I get chill groups in Culling of Stratholme, but sometimes I get them elsewhere), but tend to be a little less efficient, although this is because they let the healer drink after every couple of chain pulls.

The only other thing I have to mention is the tendency of people to bail out of Oculus the moment they get in.  Give it 15 minutes. Please. You should be able to clear the place out (or at least get to the final boss) by then, and now you get 2 bonus Heroic badges, and a chance at a sweet mount (sure, it’s a bribe, but some of us want to do it anyway).

Yeah, this super quick picture post brought to you via my gag reflex.

I look like an Australian athlete, it’s horrible.

Anyway, for explanation’s sake, let’s just say that I’m probably not exactly a patriot because I think Australia is not the best place on earth (in fact, I can say that it is the worst place I’ve ever been to that I can remember), and I hate all of our national sports, and green + gold === bleargh.