5 Barriers of a Raid Healer – Part 2: Criticism

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Image courtesy of frko

Each Saturday for the next five weeks, I will be writing about one barrier of the raid healer. Healers are often overshadowed and looked over since we are expected to simply know what to do. With luck, this five part series will help you to become a better raid healer whether you are a varsity or a freshman. Last week, I talked about indecision.

Barrier 2: Criticism

“Complaining about something without taking any action to correct it is irresponsible. If a condition deserves criticism, it deserves an honest attempt to change it.”
– John Renesch

Remember that you are not the only person in the world that takes criticism. It can come in any shape or form. It can be malicious or delicious (yeah, think about that for a second). Sometimes it will hurt. When you’re playing at a high level in WoW (and I don’t mean just 70), people will be very blunt with you.

The only aspect of being criticized by others that you can change is your reaction.

As a Priest, I’ve taken my share of lumps going from 1 – 70. But you as a player have to understand that these players, be they friend, foe, stranger, guildmate, or Mr Pinchy are trying to make a point to you. They’re trying to make you aware of your own shortcomings.

We’re in a special class of our own because we’re responsible for the well being of the raid. If anyone dies, 90% of the time, we get looked at first as the main cause. Our results are dictated by one factor: Whether or not our assignments are alive.

When you start coming under fire from your Guildies about why you’re doing such a poor job, it can really blast a person’s confidence and make them question their own abilities. I know I’ve had on more than one occasion.

Dealing With It

Handling criticism isn’t the easiest thing to do in the world. We all like to believe that we are alpha players at the top of the food chain. Unfortunately, we’re not. I lot of people I know react to criticism poorly. Thankfully, the raiders I play with take criticism admirably and constructively. The feedback of others serves to make them better players.

During the summer, I worked as a carnie in the local fair. A job like that really stresses you as a person because every day you’re subject to a large torrent of kids and angry parents who pressure you with questions like "Where’s the bathroom?" and "Can my kid stay a few minutes longer?"

Needless to say, that experience tempered me a lot. It taught me how to accept a lot of flak and ignore it. Sometimes, people will say things that are unfounded.

Applying it in WoW

If my play is under question from anyone, I usually ask myself a couple of questions:

  • Is it justified?

    Sometimes what the other person saying isn’t true. It might not have been my fault to begin with. It could’ve been an encounter mechanic.

  • If it is, how can I fix it?

    There is always a solution to every problem. Work with other players to find out what went wrong and what you can do to fix it.

Accept Responsibility

Be honest and be humble. If it’s your fault, ‘fess up to it. It will help defuse any tense situations that might start to heat up. There’s a lot of players I know both in my Guild and not in my Guild that still have trouble doing this. They don’t want to face the shame or the embarrassment. No one likes to admit that they screwed up. But often times, the hardest thing you do ends up being the right thing to do.

Ask for Help

Lastly, don’t shy away from asking for help. Why do you think Pride is considered one of the 7 deadly sins? If you’re coming across a trash pull in a raid and you’re assigned to a tank who’s about to take a beating and you know healing will be rough, ask for help. Know your own abilities and your own limitations.

On the other side, if you’re noticing a healing in your group who is struggling ask them if they need a hand. WoW often reminds me of a lecture hall in that there are very few people who raise their hands to ask questions. Sometimes, you just have to offer help and they’ll be internally grateful because it saves them the "shame" of asking for it.

So to summarize:

  • Accept criticism without retaliating
  • Learn from it
  • Try to come up with a solution
  • Be honest with yourself about your abilities
  • Ask for assistance if you need it

WP Bloggers: Get Into WPDesigner’s $5 Themes Club for Free

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Image courtesy of lusi
For some bloggers, one of the hardest things anyone can do is find a theme for their site that they like and enjoy. WPDesigner’s Small Potato has formed a $5 Themes Club. Out on the web, you’ll find a ton of premium WordPress themes that cost an arm and a leg to download and use. Some of them are indeed membership based where you have to pay some kind of a subscription in order to access them.

In any case, the $5 will grant you an all access one year pass to all the club themes that get produced as well as the themes that have been made. Just don’t sell them or give them away. Feel free to use it for your own blogs and such. You can expect at least 12 WordPress themes throughout the year.

20000 accounts are being given out and Small Potato was awesome enough to sponsor a non-blogging and non-wordpress blog with 50 free accounts for readers of World of Matticus. So if you’re struggling with the idea of starting a blog because you need a look to go with it, never fear! Blogging may not be for everybody, but it shouldn’t be because of a lack of design. Also note that 20000 accounts x $5 = $100000 worth of accounts.

Even if you already are satisfied with the way your current blog layout is, can you say that 6 months from now? Well, you probably can.

Here’s how you get in on this deal:

  • Leave a comment that says you’d like one (Bonus points if you RP it)
  • Double check your email and ensure it is valid
  • Check said email in a few hours
  • Coupons expire at the end of 2008

I don’t know about you guys, but I like things simple. I think the rules are fairly simple.

20 Questions with Nightravyn

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Every week, Matt gets a chance to sit down with a WoW Blogger chosen by a rare Manna Biscuit found in Alterac Valley. Find out a little more about your favourite bloggers as he tries to get to know them a little more!

This week, Nightravyn of NE Hunter LF4Mobs was awesome enough to stop mending her pet for a few minutes to answer a few questions.

I know I keep mistaking you as Nightrayne but that’s because I used to play BloodRayne when I was younger. Now I just think of you as a vampiric, dual wielding hunter. What influenced the name Nightravyn?

Nightravyn is a long-standing internet usename for me. I adore ravens, and at the time I created the name, I was spending a lot of time up in the wee hours of the morning. When I went to create a name, I tried "Nightraven" but it was taken, so "Nightravyn" it became. Cheesy, yeah, but it fits me still.

What is your real life alt?

Real Life Alt? But, but, but Nightravyn isn’t my character’s name! Hmm, well there’s my main character in WoW, Siana, who’s my hunter and the one that I write mostly about. And then there’s my real name, Amy. I can’t really consider any of those alts, though. Hmm, I guess if I could pick, I’d have to go with whichever alt of me that exists that has cabana boys waving palm fronds over my head while the IT crew finishes setting up the online gaming facility for me to lounge in. You know, the rich one. ::sighdream::

I’m absolutely hopeless when it comes to dealing damage. A hunter would be the last class I would play because I’d have to manage a pet as well. What three things about Hunters could you tell me about in order to lessen the intimidation of playing them?

I’d never been a "pet class" person before starting WoW but found it horribly easy to handle.

1. Pets make lovely meat shields, increasing your survivability. 

2. Pets increase your DPS letting you plow through mobs even faster.

3. There’s just something heartwarming about seeing a giant animal you’ve named and trained going after a mob, killing it, then coming back to you with this "Moremoremore?!" attitude. Well, heartwarming until you have to feed the twerps every two seconds cos they’re bottomless pits of starvation, or they go pathing off in the wrong direction when the raid’s still buffing. Oh and let’s not forget the… oh, um, ::cough:: "petz r gud."

 

Just for the heck of it, what’s your Hunter’s spec and why is it specced in that way?

1. Right now, Siana’s spec’d Marksman. Yes, I said it. Marks. I’ve been playing with her specs, trying MM/BM and mostly MM, with MM/Survival up next for the testing. I appreciate the DPS that a BM-centric spec has, but it’s just not my play style. I’ve tried, and it doesn’t fit me as well as the MM spec does. I’m thankful that I belong to a guild that doesn’t frown on any spec, as long as you do the job you’re there for.

What did you find most appealing about rolling a hunter instead of another class?

The last game I’d played by Blizzard was Diablo 2. I’d loved playing a Bow-spec’d Amazon, and knew that I would love any class similar to that. Also at that time I was closing out my career as a cleric in EQ and was tired of healing, so "Hunter" was a good fit for me to try out. I promptly fell in love with the class and haven’t looked back.

Which particular class do you find yourself having trouble with killing?

I’m going to have to say the infamous "25-man raid" class. Although "Paladin Guild/Raid Leader" comes close, too (danged bubbles). In all due seriousness, since I don’t PvP or Arena, this is kind of a hard question for me. I haven’t the faintest idea! ^^

What are you going to look forward to the most in 2.4?

New 5 and 10 man instances. Oh and new dailies. Although, I still have a cooking recipe to get and need to finish out my Netherwing rep and… hmm, maybe I don’t want more dailies/rep grinds.

There are hunters in this game that can’t seem to hit the broad side of the barn. Do you think implementing tracers and laser sights would solve that?

Some of them, sure. They just need a little training. Others? Mmm not so much. Although now that you’ve mentioned tracer rounds, that would be kinda cool to see.

Any top secret and classified plans that your readers might be interested in knowing about?

Oh boy! Oh yes, yes I am! It’s going to be this… hey wait a second here. C’mere. I’ll whisper it in your ear. Don’t mind the knife in the hand behind my back. No reason to be worried…

As a Sci Fi person, would I like watching Farscape?

I’d think so! I loved Farscape. Amazing effects, fantastic plots, the Henson Creature Shop behind it which meant the aliens looked alien! It had this wonderful mix of drama, with bits of comedy thrown in at prefect times. The storyline was compelling, and you grew to really care about the characters. And then there was the eyecandy: for the girls, there were guys in leather pants. For the guys, there were girls in leather pants. It was a win/win!

Speed questions

Best pet in the game:

Cat! (but I’m biased – go kitties!)

First thing you do when you see Horde:

Tauren – Wave/hug. Everyone else – ignore.

Favourite raid encounter in the game thus far:

Old School – ZG. TBC – Karazhan.

Most creative use for feign death:

Creative? Don’t know about creative, but /kissing Mojo, turning into a toad, then feigning death sends me into giggles each and every time.

Effective way to deal with troublesome domestic animals:

Swear a lot, Feign death and apologize. Oh, you said "effective". Pets to passive, don’t target the tank’s mob til it really is pull time, and lock your real life cats in another room.

When you’re not playing WoW you are _____:

Reading, playing on the Playstation/PSP, annoying the cats, or at (gag) work. Soon to be adding "harrassing The Boyfriend to help me paint rooms in the house" to that list.

DPSing is like ___ :

Pewpew! Pewpewpewpew! ::boom:: ::giggle:: Pewpew! LEWTZ!

Dual Wielding Guns (yes or no):

Only with silencers attached to both. -.-

Favourite Sci Fi Captain:

Hmm. Captain? Brains: Captain Picard. Guts: Captain Kirk. Insanity: Captain Crais. All other ranks, including Captain and above: Honor Harrington. (David Weber ftw!)

3 things that annoy you most about other hunters:

1. Not feigning death and complaining when "the tank lets you die".

2. Not knowing how to turn the "Growl" button off on your pet.

3. Giving people any chance at all to paint all hunters with the "Huntard" brush.

Special thanks to:

To Kestral for noticing I’d snuck into existence. To Phaelia and Valenna for creating Blog Azeroth. To the Hunter bloggers for proving there are good Hunters out there and helping educate the populace. To my guildmates who are an amazing and determined crew of insane, fun people. To Aerye and Uber Pally, friends and guildmates that said "Sure!" when I poked them and asked if I post some of their tales and information. To The Boyfriend for putting up with this, and to the real life kitties who wait (mostly) patiently while I do "one more thing" on the computer before giving them their pettinz. A shoutout to all the all the people in the Blog Azeroth chat room (there’s a lot of us in there now!), with nods to Big Bear Butt, Anna, Bellwether, Siha, Matticus, Jon, Maerdred and Leafshine (and I know I left someone out! /cry)

Nightravyn’s blog: One hunter, a "teal" cat (looks blue to me) and infinite ammo cheat enabled! While you’re visiting, don’t forget to subscribe to Nightravyn’s blog!

Extreme Makeover – Matt’s UI: Part 1

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My UI is an absolute mess. But somehow, I’m able to make sense of all that information and I’m able to act on it (usually). As a Priest, I spend most of my time with my eyes glued on the raid. With new encounters in Hyjal and BT, situational awareness becomes much more important.

Here’s a sample screenshot of the current state of my UI. It’s a complete and utter mess. There’s a lot of crap on my screen and a lot of it is redundant.

With that in mind, I decided to do a quick 2 parter before and after series about my UI. I figured I’d share my thoughts and my approach in overhauling my interface so that it’s more zentastic. Yup, that’s right. I intend to apply a minimalist zen approach to my UI. I play on a large screen. It’s quite tiring to traverse my eyes from the left side to the right. I want to start compacting information in one area so that I don’t have to scan the entire monitor for it.

Note: The addons I have below are those that can be visually seen.

Text Chat

First, I’m going to write about the non-addon related stuff: Namely, the text chat.

I’ve split up my chat windows from 1 window into 3 separate windows.

Left window: Handles general, trade, LFG, and Say chat.

Middle window: Raid chat, Guild chat, Healer Chat, and Priest Chat

Right window: This is meant for a separate channel that I share with my friends on the server. They’re all in different guilds but we keep in touch in our channel.

Addons

Aloft: This replaces the default nameplates that Blizzard has packaged with the game. You can see it in action over some of my guildmates on the right. Their health bar is colored to reflect their class. It also shows their mana bar below (or rage or energy). It’s very handy for me if I need to find a player and physically get to them.

Omen: Omen has replace KTM as my personal threat meter of choice. At the moment, I’m seriously considering removing it from my screen or disabling it. I’m almost never going to pull aggro. Knowing the threat levels of other players isn’t going to help me much in any way. I will keep the addon activated in order to transmit, however.

Bongos2: I use Bongos in order to manage my bars. As you can see, I’ve reduced my bar size to something fairly smaller than normal. I do most of my spell casting via my keyboard anyway. The alpha (transparency) has been set to 50%. XP bar is disabled, along with my bags, latency, and keyrings. I use Shift B in order to open all of them.

Elkano’s Buffbars: You can see my buffs in action on the right side of the screen. It shows buffs, debuffs, and durations. I’m trying to figure out how to disable that "Blessing of Demonstration" or whatever it is on the bottom.

Recount: I’ve mentioned Recount before but I mainly use it to analyze my own performance and troubleshoot player deaths. Note that the one linked is to Recount (Preservation). It’s meant for use in 2.4 but I believe it should still work for 2.3.

Pitbull: This is what I use for raid management. There’s a lot of options and a lot of flexibility and I need to spend some serious time going through it and messing with it. Those raid windows are large and I need to figure out how to shrink them among other things.

NECB: Natur EnemyCastBar is what I use to help track spell casts of other entities around me. I just need to find a better place to put it. Maybe to the right of the middle.

DoTimer: It can tell me at a glance how long before my HoTs and DoTs expire and when my cooldowns can be used again (Stoneskin, trinkets).

Targets

As you can see, I have target windows all over the place. There’s my player window, my target’s window, my target’s target window, my focus window, etc.

I don’t use focus macros that often, if at all. Therefore I’m considering removing that. I might move my own player window to the far left side. I plan on downloading a HuD eventually. I’m going to do away with Pitbull’s Main Tanks and tank targets window. I’ll probably axe pet targets and party pet targets as well.

You will also notice the raid in various states of transparency. That’s my range finder. If the player is transparent, they are not in range. If they frame isn’t transparent, then I can hit them with a heal.

Check back next week when I post the results of my modifications.