I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting lately. There’s a lot of questions that are churning through my brain and it can be overwhelming at times. Sometimes it helps for me to get it down on digital paper so I can sort through my thoughts.
- Why do I have an easier time writing stuff for free as opposed to being paid?
- How many players do you have in your guild that are capable of tanking but aren’t necessarily in tank positions? (As in have the gear, and the skills but their primary is DPS or healing)
- Is your guild vent dirty? As in rated R+?
- Are there certain types of people you don’t want to raid with? Why is that?
- Do teachers make great raiders?
- How do you group your healers in raids? Staggered or most of them in one group?
- At what point do you say enough is enough and pull a trigger on a deal to add another player to the guild knowing it has the potential to cost you two in the process? Especially when one player hasn’t shown up in recent weeks?
- Why doesn’t the Orgrimmar Inscription trainer’s store not have a name?
- What to do for lunch? Foot long tuna sub or foot long turkey sub?
- One more: Why do I have problems counting? 🙁
go with the turkey sub
Some of you awesome bloggers just keep writing things that make me consider starting up my own blog to avoid crazy long comments.. I will! Someday!
– Are there certain types of people you don’t like to raid with? Why?
I’m very, very picky about who I raid with. I get enough of the drug/alcohol/smoking scene at school that I don’t care to deal with it on a game I play for fun. It’s individual choice, and I understand and respect that: but I try not to run repeatedly with people who talk about how drunk they are, how stoned they are, how they’re packing their bowls, whatever. Sure, they’re good players (or some are, some aren’t, that’s how it goes!), but I don’t like the Vent atmosphere that often comes along with them.
Along similar lines, I suppose, if I’m not comfortable talking on Vent with a group or with particular people, I won’t raid with them again. I’m a female. I don’t care to have to hide that to be respected. If the first comment on vent to me talking is “oh my god a female”? Chances are I won’t run with them again.
I’m picky about my friendships in person, and that carries over into the game; some people I click with, some I don’t, and I’ve flat-out told my boyfriend (who’s much more tolerant) that I will not raid with certain groups again. If he wants to? Sure. I won’t come with.
About healers and groups – it’s heavily dependent on the raid and the makeup of the raid. I try to keep priests in separate groups for prayer of healing if I know there’s raidwide damage, I try to keep druids in separate groups if I anticipate a use of Tranquility. However, our default organization has ended up being healers group five, tanks group one, dps everywhere else. For a heroic OS pug, I’ll leave it like that until Sartharion so I can hop into group 5 (I’m mainly boomkin now), give healing assignments, whisper the healer I moved out of group 5, and swap people around into the different groups once that’s done. TL;DR : Varies depending on encounter, group, and my knowledge of individual playstyles.
Gotta agree with dannamoth, go with the turkey
– Free is easier b/c it’s so free form and you can write on whatever you want, it can be short, long whatever. Being paid, you feel there has to be more to it.
– more “capable” tanks than real tanks. 2 of our tanks are so hit or miss, but I’d hate to lose our other healer/dpsers to a tank position.
– Is guild any fun if it’s not at least PG 13? 🙂
– usually group healers with a resto shaman for mana
– Totally go with the turkey 🙂
We’re…in the very least PG13. Consider the fact that a significant portion of the guild is made of guys in their early 20s, and there you go.
It’s not usually that bad, I think the worst it got was…er…well okay, maybe I won’t post it here.
Ambrosines last blog post..Mondays suck.
[Is your guild vent dirty?] Usually no. On certain bosses the language gets filthy. “Get out of the fire! Get the $%@# out of the fire! $%@# $%@# $%@# $%@# I’ll $%@# your $%@# $%@# to death myself if you don’t $%@# $%@# $%@# $%@# $%@#. $%@# $%@# $%@#!… $%@# .”
[How do you group your healers in raids?] Staggered or most of them in one group?
[Why doesn’t the Orgrimmar Inscription trainer’s store not have a name?] Orcs don’t write. Duh. That’s why all the inscribers I know are Bloodelves.
[What to do for lunch?] Foot long tuna sub or foot long turkey sub? I’m a big fan of the tuna… sorry.
[One more: Why do I have problems counting?] 7
And teachers make AWESOME raiders. Especially if their names start with “S.”
@ Sydera: Teachers do make awesome raiders. *is one too!*
Kittss last blog post..I’m excited!
– Because you’re not getting paid for it, so you don’t have to be as concerned.
– We keep our Vent PG13. Families involved ya know.
– I don’t want to raid people who don’t pay attention. That drives me nuts!!!
– SOME teachers make great raiders, others don’t. Would a teacher make a great raid leader? Or class leader?
– Our healers are staggered throughout the raid.
– Pull the plug when not doing so would be more work.
– Furthermore, why is it a hole in the wall on the second floor of a dark alley?
– I’d go with a foot long ham sandwich myself.
Stephenns last blog post..The Argent Tournament (Part 3)
*X-rated talk is in party only. Guild must be PG13.
*Healthcare workers make great raiders also. We know how to triage under pressure.
*Healers should be staggered in my opinion.
*Orgrimar also has the annoying anvil not located beside the smelter. I hate doing engineering there. Back and forth.
*Safeway has the yummiest Panini sandwiches. Or there subs have much much better fixins’ than Subway. 🙂
-Clearly, its harder to write when you’re being paid because money is power and power corrupts and you’re worried about becoming corrupted.
-We have about 20ish raid-ready people, 3 of whom have multiple chars, who can fill multiple roles. We have one amazing ret paladin who could also be our guild’s MT if he wanted, both sets of his gear are that good. Our top druid healer could also probably MT Naxx if he wasn’t so busy boomkinning.
-Guild vent is PG 13 for the most part, although the bad puns might jack it up to R. “If this guy is Noth the Plaguebringer, we should go find the real one!”
-Spread the healers out, never know when someone may need to pop a tranquility. Try to switch things up before certian fights (heigan, for example, stack ranged in the same groups)
-Clearly, you need to go chicken bacon ranch. Everything $5 at subway!
Posolutelys last blog post..10’s vs 25’s
Why do I have an easier time writing stuff for free as opposed to being paid?
1) Because you’re more invested in your blog, and therefore more motivated.
2) In our raid group, we’ve got 3 holy pallies, all of whom can tank, and a DPS deathknight who’s just itching to.
6) We put the healers in two groups for mana tide totems.
Also, turkey sub.
Sihas last blog post..Against Your Better Judgement: A Guide to Judging
There are 6 mains in our raid that can tank, though only 3 tank on a regular basis. Multiple other alts that can tank, though none of the holy paladins tank.
Guild and Vent are rated R
I have a very difficult time raiding with someone who thinks they are god, and constantly screws up. I also have a hard time with someone who thinks they are god, and actually does rock in some way or another (usually arena epeen) and they feel they need to share it every moment they can.
Healers are stacked in one group except for the resto shamans, those are put with the caster groups.
You pull the trigger when you have the replacements for the two that will go.
– With the way raiding currently is going in Wrath all our raiders have a minimum of one max level alt, so a lot of us are capable of switching roles pretty effectively.
– Guild vent = XXX rated. There’s no telling what’s going to be going on at anytime. But to be fair, it’s in the guild charter. Expect to be offended.
– Healers get thrown in Group 5 until it’s full, then it’s free for all.
– Orgrimmar inscription doesn’t have a name because Blizzard is lazy. Ohhhh, punkin’ Blizzard.
– Don’t ever compromise. Foot long turkey and tuna sub. Best of both worlds.
1. You figure that just because you get paid that it immediately must be higher quality than what you do for free. The reality is this is silly since you got the job because they liked the high quality of your free posts.
2. We have 5 people (off the top of my head, there’s probably more) not tanking that are capable of tanking. We regularly bring 4 people that aren’t counted in that number as tanks to a raid.
3. Our guild’s vent allows most things within reason. (no racism obviously) During raiding though things are very PG as we’ll even fine people for swearing during the raid. (this is actually really more a way to keep the guild bank nicely stalked up with money though than a huge deterrent)
4. I don’t want to run with people that need to lead the raid. The reason is because I lead the raid and it’s impossible to get stuff done with people undermining me or interrupting me. I don’t really like raiding with young kids either, but then our guild is 18+ so I don’t have to worry about that.
5. Not really. Students make good raiders. Teachers are often too busy trying to take my job of leading the raid to reach their maximum potential.
6. Healers are almost always in Group 2 with less senior healers not getting to be in the prestigious healer group. There’s literally complaining when people don’t get to be in that group when I move them around for strat reasons. (it a joking fashion, it’s not really annoying, just a funny raid dynamic)
7. That’s a tough one to answer really. Depends on a lot of variables, but suffice to say, I’ve never seen anyone leave the guild over someone else joining.
8. Because it’s ironic.
9. Turkey if it’s cut from the bird. (ie. not coming in flat slices) Tuna if it’s not.
10. Because you probably wrote the title before your wrote the post or at best wrote like 4 points then figured… I can make up 6 more. 😉
Veneretios last blog post..Back to Basics: Clustering
I’m weird, I prefer the tuna sub, toasted, with cheese and ranch dressing and lots of veggies. The girl at the subway near my house looks at me funny when I order it that way, so I try to get my subs at the other subway near work. The ones there taste better anyway.
I really hate raiding with people who swear profusely in raid chat or vent. It’s almost worse for me in raid chat, because then I have to keep looking at it. About all I’ll put up with is one person. In my regular raiding group, there’s one feral druid I really can’t stand who keeps swearing in raid chat and refused to buy cold weather flying for over a month so we kept having to summon him back to Naxx every time we wiped.
I would refuse to raid with him, but he’s real-life-friends with my raid leader, so I don’t really get much choice. At least he seems to have toned down the swearing, and he finally took a loan from the raid leader and bought his flying skill, so things aren’t as bad as they were.
But definitely, if there were more than one person in the raid like that? I’d find a new raid.
And I don’t like the idea of writing for profit either. Everyone used to tell me I’d make such a good artist when I was younger, but I hated the thought of only drawing what other people wanted me to draw. Art is for myself, and that also extends to writing. I don’t want anyone to have the power to tell me what my art should be about.
Free is easier because it’s always easier to do something when you’re avoiding work! Also you feel that you’re doing it for fun rather than because you’re contracted.
(But I never really found it that hard to write for pay myself. It’s mostly down to discipline, good notes, and outlining.)
Guild chat is occasionally R rated but all in good fun and people stop if anyone else is getting uncomfortable.
* Why do I have an easier time writing stuff for free as opposed to being paid?
Because you feel force to write if you get paid? And you do not like to be forced?
* How many players do you have in your guild that are capable of tanking but
aren’t necessarily in tank positions? (As in have the gear, and the skills but their primary is DPS or healing)
Not a lot, thou I’d like to see more people collecting good tanking gear…
* Is your guild vent dirty? As in rated R+?
Ohhhh yes… But it’s lol.
* Are there certain types of people you don’t want to raid with? Why is that?
Meter whores can get on my nerves… And people who think they can do it better while they’re failing…
* Do teachers make great raiders?
No idea, but I wanna become a teacher and I don’t think I’m doing bad xD
* How do you group your healers in raids? Staggered or most of them in one group?
All in group 1-2.
* At what point do you say enough is enough and pull a trigger on a deal to add another player to the guild knowing it has the potential to cost you two in the process? Especially when one player hasn’t shown up in recent weeks?
When we’re constantly need to bring along social players (like 5 of them) instead of all members to 25men raids.
* Why doesn’t the Orgrimmar Inscription trainer’s store not have a name?
I have no idea, maby he prefers to be anonymus?
* What to do for lunch? Foot long tuna sub or foot long turkey sub?
Turkey ftw!
* One more: Why do I have problems counting? 🙁
Because you’re bored and writing this all down (and I’m bored also so I’m answering all of them) ^^
SuicidalPriests last blog post..Bags
“In my regular raiding group, there’s one feral druid I really can’t stand who keeps swearing in raid chat and refused to buy cold weather flying for over a month so we kept having to summon him back to Naxx every time we wiped.”
That is so… I don’t know what. Spoiled behavior? I tolerate of slack from nice people I raid with. Because I’d rather raid with nice people slacking than elitist jerks. (Although some are both). But I would never go along with that.
Teachers do make some very good raiders, we usually run with two of them 😉
Douceurs last blog post..From DPS to Healer
Matt — this is not really a comment on your particular post, but I thought perhaps I would ask this random/general question in a post that has a random or general theme.
Where is the shadow priest love on your blog? I know you’re a healer and I’ve been reading your blog for a long time, for advise on healing. Because I myself have been a healer for a long time. However for some odd reason my guild found itself in a situation where we have about 1 million tanks — and when they couldn’t tank, they all switched to holy or ret pally’s rather then leveling their ranged DPS classes. Leaving our raids, over full on melee dps, tanks and healers, but in short supply of ranged caster dps.
Deciding to switch spec to make my guild’s raid progression easier, I’ve been raiding as shadow for the last month or so. Shadow was always just a leveling build for me in the past, and the dps scaled horribly in BC compared with other classes. That isn’t so any more. There’s been a lot of changes and I’ve managed to find some information scattered in a dozen different places on the internet on how to gear my priest, and prioritize my spell roation etc. But it got me thinking.
I know that healing is your specialization. But I wondered if you’ve ever been shadow/have any advice for your shadow priest bretheren out there? You have the unique ability to take a LOT of information which is out there and condense it into simple to understand/follow information. I haven’t ALWAYS agreed with everything you’ve written on healing in the past. But I have learned a lot from your posts and I am interested in your insights.
So I thought I’d turn to you and ask if you a) had any advise for shadow priests which might stumble on your blog and b) ask if you had ever thought about either writing about shadow priests/have a guest shadow priest blogger write with you? C) Turkey all the way man 🙂
Monday Answers:
– When you do it for free, its a hobby. We love those. When you get paid, its a job. Everybody knows that a job ain’t nothing but work.
– Does a Hunter’s Gorilla count as a tank-capable player? You’d be amazed what Bubbles can do, and dual spec and mobile stable will make it that much easier to show her off. Although she will probably be replaced, once Thunderstomp becomes ubiquitous, with the bear I leveled up with and released back into the wild in Ashenvale.
– The real question is, how many of the R-rated thoughts you have actually make it out your mouth, and of those, how many do you activate your mic for? I’d say vent is about 1% as R-rated as the general surroundings of my WoW Lair.
– Multi-part answer…dislike raiding with ppl who:
* epeen during the raid. ego stroking occurs after all the bosses are dead.
* break radio silence during boss encounters with unnecesary jibber jabber. fun stories are fun….during breaks in the action
* anybody who kills mr. bigglesworth
– No. I know too many teachers. The ones who are good raiders is simply a coincidence.
– I used to set up raid groups in TBC. Since most mana-regen at that time was party-only, I tended to group the healers together. Now, as long as the hunter’s are in party 4, I’m happy as a clam.
– When faced with a performance issue in any group, a leader needs to act fairly and timely. In a raid group, if there’s an attendance issue, it must be dealt with according to policy (extra points if your guild has a policy to fall back on). If absences cause raids to start late or struggle due to an improper raid comp, its an issue for the full team. Addressing problems does get complicated when you consider the impact on people close to the situation, but the consequences of non-action are usually greater in my experiences as a group leader.
– Orgrimmar? Isnt that the folded paper dolls from Japan?
– Is this a metaphor? If so … tuna, FTW! (see answer to #3 above)
Amavas last blog post..Quartz. Now Spam?
Are there certain types of people you don’t want to raid with? Why is that?
I can handle swearing, I can handle giggling and i can handle failbot. What I can’t handle in a raid are people who are incredibly impatient and negative. If we wipe, we wipe, and getting angry and upset about it in a non-constructive manner is pointless and in turn angers me. If someone stands in the fire, they stand in the fire. It should be handled, of course, but not by yelling. And not by “Oh, we’re NEVER GOING TO DO THIS!”
I don’t much like people who spam DPS meters, either. I’m usually at the top or very closet to it, so it’s not a matter of being embarrassed myself. I just think it’s tacky. Most people are running some sort of damage meter, so they’ll know where they stand, and if they don’t, they’ll ask. In that case, meters can be whispered to them.
“At what point do you say enough is enough and pull a trigger on a deal to add another player to the guild knowing it has the potential to cost you two in the process? Especially when one player hasn’t shown up in recent weeks? ”
lol, You sound like an NHL GM there… thinking about the trade deadline?
as for answers:
1) You’re much more critical of yourself when it’s for someone else.
2)We have 4 tanks that tank, and about 6 more that could, but don’t. Some sit out, some alt spec.
3)We don’t allow under 17 raiders.
4)Negative Nancies, Blooper Bills.
5)Does any *insert real life job* automatically make great raiders.
6)All together, although we split priests for PrOH during Loatheb
7)What are you tring to accomplish now? Are you going for the playoffs? or can you wait until next season and pick up some really good free agents.
8)Logic has no place in this game.
9)Do you know how much mayo is in the tuna? I do… *shudder*
10)Simple tasks are often hardest for people who deal with the big picture.
1) You feel pressure when doing paid writing, while free writing is purely for your own enjoyment, so no pressure.
2) 4, myself included. We had an orgy of tanks with LK release, so some of use volunteered to just be dps.
3) About 30% of the time, yes.
4) Divisive people, those who play everyone and push their buttons to get what they want, people who don’t enchant/gem their gear, people who sound like they’re 12 on vent.
5) Only known 2 who raided, one was good, one wasn’t.
6) Usually most in one group.
7) Depends on which will hurt the guild more, not getting that new player or losing the other two.
8) The Stormwind one doesn’t have any sign outside either.
9) Turkey, altho it’s been a long time since I had a tuna sub…
10) I don’t know, but I’ve found that once you learn calculus you lose the ability to do basic math.
* Why do I have an easier time writing stuff for free as opposed to being paid?
Intrinsic motivation. Also, when someone else is paying you that means that they get to call the shots. You may want to read David Sim’s guide to self publishing.
* Is your guild vent dirty? As in rated R+?
There is no rating to express how foul mouthed our Vent is. Definitely not for the offend-able. And I don’t mean just cursing.
* Do teachers make great raiders?
Nurses do as well. It comes from being in a profession that is accustomed to working as a team and receiving little to no outside compensation for time spent outside of the job on job related functions.
* Why doesn’t the Orgrimmar Inscription trainer’s store not have a name?
Because he’s a recovering Strange Dust addict and the Royal Apothecary Society wants to have a word with him about a large amount of missing Black Lotus.
@freyal: Unfortunately I don’t. I’ve never played a Shadow Priest for extended periods of time. I’m not a damage dealer by nature.
But I actually do have a guest post on the way for Healing Priests switching to Shadow.
@kiryn
If I was in a raid group with a guy that didn’t have cold weather flying I would instantly gquit. Especially if he’s buddy-buddy with your guild leader. Flying is an intergral part of the game. Without flying (I’m pretty sure) you can’t get Ebon Blade rep. What is that guy thinking?
We had a guy in BC that didn’t have a flying mount. Once we started doing TK and SSC he never made it into another raid group. He hung around in guild chat but never raided anything more than Kara/ZA.
He obviously doesn’t care about his toon that much so it’s my belief that he probably doesn’t care about his performance in a raid environment either. But then again I don’t raid for fun, I raid to win. =P
“If I was in a raid group with a guy that didn’t have cold weather flying I would instantly gquit. Especially if he’s buddy-buddy with your guild leader.”
So would I. Makes me happy I’m unguilded. This is just a PuG I happen to run with every weekend because they can clear Naxx in less than 4 hours and then go on to do Malygos 😛
How many players do you have in your guild that are capable of tanking but aren’t necessarily in tank positions? (As in have the gear, and the skills but their primary is DPS or healing) 6
Is your guild vent dirty? As in rated R+? We enforce a PG vent and gchat, everyone knows this so it’s rarely an issue.
Are there certain types of people you don’t want to raid with? Why is that? non-team players. We view raiding as a team effort and those who want to go off on their own, doing their own thing we point them to daily quests.
Do teachers make great raiders? yes
How do you group your healers in raids? Staggered or most of them in one group? placed in the group that they will bring the most benefit to since all healers except druids have in-party/group abilities still.
At what point do you say enough is enough and pull a trigger on a deal to add another player to the guild knowing it has the potential to cost you two in the process? Especially when one player hasn’t shown up in recent weeks? miss 2 raids in a row and your out. This has been hard enforced and haven’t had much issues with it once the 1st person got dropped.
Why doesn’t the Orgrimmar Inscription trainer’s store not have a name? Orcs can’t read, duh.
What to do for lunch? Foot long tuna sub or foot long turkey sub? turkey