Sunday, January 2, 2011

The difference between leets and pros

The difference between a "leet" player and a pro player is when a "leet" meets a "nOOB" he tells him so. "L2p" "YOU SUCK" vote kick reason "nub" and my favourite of all "please leave". A pro player will work with what hes got and get the job done. Enroute the nub either learns whats offered or gets kicked/wastes the opportunity. The leet whines about how wow is hard because of the scrubs, how they prevent him from getting on. The pros dont need to whine.

I was reading http://thenoisyrogue.wordpress.com/2010/12/28/please-leave/ not so long ago and it got me thinking. Not up front, more at the back of my mind gnawing away. Theres been similar threads on mmo champion about stuff like this as well. I have had some experiences myself of this (of course) I've been asked to leave or vote kicked from lfgs before.

I also listened to totalbuscuit over at cynical brit http://www.cynicalbrit.com/news/blue-plz-new-year-epicsode/, discussing this (round about 25 mins to 32 mins into the podcast). I listened to the podcast, cos I fell asleep new year about 5pm and though I meant to spend my new year listening to him I guess working 15 nights in a row caught up with me. His comments there also made me ponder the point. I will sum up here very simply: he talked about a guy pulling 3k dps in heroic grim batol, who after the third wipe on the boss because of his low dps, had the guts to say yeah its me holding you back and then left the group so they could continue with a better dpser. His comment was I want to give that guy a medal, he has guts, he has balls, he has a SPINE.

Well as my memories come back to me of various fuck ups, screw ups and rows with idiots like flashbacks almost, I recall my first experience of the "leet" a guy called yorken or some such. I started lfging for the first time in my early(mid?) 30s. I had been playing wow less then two weeks and had been doing rather well by myself, but pretty much like I always do with anything important I went and researched to death beforehand what I was supposed to do before I went into the dungeons. My research being the Brady game strat guides (yes i am one of those guys who buy strat guides, they normally serve me well). Well these were vanilla guides and atlases, full of infomation how to trap dance, how to offtank, how to scout and lecturing how I must watch my healer and if an add starts eating his face its my job to stick a distracting shot into it and lead it back to the tank or to my frost trap. ie not relevant to the wrath babies in full heirlooms zerging the bosses.

So I entered my first ever pug, got uld, opened my atlas up on the desk next to me and started to roll. Was horrified when yorken ignored everything the guide said and just mass pulled 3 packs at a time, mass pulls that were out of all control, rushing ahead while one pack isnt even totally dead to pull the next and generally being a nightmare. the healer fell behind because he was drinking, I fell behind and so did the rogue as we were looting and our tank started screaming over party chat about our low dps and to keep up. After the group wiped, 3 dead with the healer being saved by myself with my cc and kiting, as the healer ressed the others I interupted the tanks diatribe to point out he was going too fast, the group wiped because of him and he should leave his mouth of me, because if it wasnt for me saving the healer he wouldnt be being ressed right now he would be doing a long corpse run. The next thing that happened was I was kicked from the group. Well I was outraged. Not so much at the moron, but at the others for voting yes.

Anyway I requeued and what do you know? inside 3 mins i get scar mon cathedral. Yorkens the tank. So i guess the others had the sense to quit after i was kicked. So I was like "oh its you" and got simliar posts back. Anyway apart from a few snides over p chat to each other ("your not letting yr healer drink again" "stop looting and keep up hunter") we just got on and did the job. Then at the end of the dungeon as all the others left he said "nightgerbil:"
and linked a recount. It showed I was firmly 4th dps, below the tank and just above the healer. The other hunter did half again the dps I did. Then he said "that other hunter was using volley: you are doing single target dps. You need to use vollies." Now you cant argue with that. Numbers dont lie. So I said "ok I will fix that" and I am delighted to say I never met him ever again. Turns out I couldnt train volly until I turned 40 anyway and I have no idea how heirloomed up those guys were but I was in crappy gear with bad talents.

Still as I say the numbers dont lie. I sucked. I didnt enter another lfg until I was in my 50s 5-6 weeks later, after having conversations with many others enquiring as to why I was avoiding the dungeons. It was being noted, I was fking about fishing, exploring and doing stupid achivements instead of getting on and getting to 80. Having been encouraged to try, I found I was actually quite good. Volley spam worked but when the brown stuff hit the spinney thing I saved groups from wiping and they seemed to like it. My first raid on the other hand was in uldar for a weekly. Never had been in, didnt know shit. The raid leader knew this as well. He picked it up from the fact i didnt know to get into a vechile. I got a w to jump into his vecihle and via /w he told me how to fire, got me firing at stuff which i did ok at, when we got to razorwing dragon thingy, he set me to the harpoons on raid chat "because the hunter can dps at range and do the harpoon" in private he explained to me in words of no more then two syllables exactly what i had to do. It wasnt hard. The boss went down we all got our frosties I got a gj in /w and I really really appreciated how he didnt humilate me in raid chat and what a wonderful differnece this was between my first lfg experience.

Meanwhile on my dk I have been kicked from groups leveling up through outlands. Pretty much I have agreed with the kicks to. Doing 400dps when the others are doing 1k, ya I suck. I am a shitty dk. I cant make it work. it seems basic enough, frost rune strike, plague rune strike, puts 2 dieseases on the target. Then hit pestilence it spreads the dots. They need time to tick ofc. Then theres my deathstrike that hits hard and heals me a bit. theres other bits of fluff, but basically i can do single target damage while the others aoe crap down and my aoe takes 3 gcds to even start ticking, by which the trash is normally dead if the group is any good. I tried dropping death and decay, I tried using other abilties, I guess it doesnt help the things not in heirlooms and hes still in his dk starter gear at 68, bar the the nagrand arena weapon, but yeah... I suck. I cant do dungeons as I get chain kicked. So I have given up on it. It gets taken out for a few quests now and again and I have to say, its fking awesum to solo with sooo resilliant, able to take bad pulls and lay watse to ten mobs at a time all at higher level. It is good fun to play. Unplayable though as I cant do dungeons with it.

Lastly theres my Holadin. Oh my I have never had so much fun. Its gross. As a healer topping dps meters while not letting anyone die, ya its awesum sauce, never been kicked yet. I have actually got a few real id requests, heh. I did however stop some dks being kicked. Bless erm they only had 400 dps, below mine but screw it we got the dung down anyway...