Tale Fifteen: Pet Peeves

You’ll have to excuse this fluff blog, but I’d rather not muddle my way through the patch notes right now. I have a killer headache that has decided to pay me a visit for the past two weeks and just won’t leave me alone, no matter how much I tell it that it’s unwanted. Some things just don’t know how to take a hint.

It’s been a year and four months since I began my WoW journey. And to quote an achievement: “what a strange long ride it’s been”. Or something to that effect. Which means that I’ve been raiding for about a year.

Without further ado… here’s my pet peeve list!

Anyone other than the Raid Leader giving me instructions:
This one is major for me. It is, perhaps, my biggest pet peeve. Step into my shoes for a second: you’re healing, trying to concentrate and out of nowhere, yelling explodes. “PUT THE WINGS ON THE TANK! GET OUT OF THE WAY! LASERS!!!” By the end of the raid, I have to knock down painkillers to try to kill my already massive headache. Vent should be only for the Raid Leader. Unless the RL says “so-and-so will be helping me explain the fights” I don’t want to hear you crowding the Vent channel. And if you’re helping out with the explaining of the fight, do it before the boss. I swear to God, if one more person YELLS in Vent, I will take my head piece and throw it across the room. Gearing up my druid should not have me wanting to bash my head at the end of the raid.

Solution: Don’t talk unless you’re the raid leader. Don’t tell me what to do during the fight. I’ve done the fights before. I know what I have to look out for. And if I did something wrong; do not yell at me. It will only make me curse you endlessly. Use bio breaks to crack jokes.

Calling out people’s names:
“I’m in the pot!” or “so-and-so is in the pot”. As I understand, all raiders MUST have Deadly Boss Mods on, right? So why the hell are you telling me what the mod is already announcing on the screen? I can read! And I can sure as hell see your health go down super fast. My fantastical brain will pick up on the fact that you’re taking more damage because… you’re in the frigging pot or something!!

Solution: Let me do my frigging job. I know who my healing assignment is, and won’t just stand there with my mouth hanging open while I slowly watch you die.

Fail-bot Mod:
This one, I’ve seen pop up lately. Basically what it does, it’ll tell you who stood in the bad stuff, who got hit by the icicles, etc. But it’ll say it like this: “Littlebark fails at not casting x 1”. Hmmm…. Let the tank die because the other healers have stop casting or risk just me getting spell locked while I cast a Nourish to make sure he doesn’t die? As long the tank doesn’t die because my HoTs are rolling and I managed to get a Nourish on you, I’ll take the spell lock. You know what this Mod makes me think of? That kid from the Simpsons. Nelson Muntz, I think his name is. As soon as I see “So-and-so fails at doing …” all I can see is that kid going, “HA-HA!”
Solution: If I see that Mod one more time, I’m just going to put you on my ignore list. If you need to get a hold of me, you can do so in Vent. Sans the yelling, please.

Talking so much in Vent that I have to mute you:
Yeah. Pretty self explanatory. The Raid Leader will be explaining the fight in Vent and people like this would go “AND HE DOES THIS AS WELL!!!” Yes, Skippy. He was getting to that part. Slow your horses and shut up. You know what’s worse? When he does this every single raid. You know what’s even worse? When it gets to the point that you’ve muted him but you can still hear him through other people’s mics.

Solution: You’ve been muted. Take a hint.

Crying out for buffs:
Most usually, until last night, I have been the lone druid in our Ulduar raid. Which means that its up to me to give you my Paw. I usually come prepared with 40. We wipe a lot. We’re still a learning guild. I will not Paw you unless everyone is within my range. If you died and need a rebuff, and I still haven’t given you one before the next boss, then by all means, whisper me or something.

Solution: Let me do my job. I’ll rebuff when we get to the next boss.

Trying to be “helpful”:
But LB, I can hear you say, what’s so wrong with you being helped? Well, I consider myself a very good healer. I do. I know what I can easily do and what my weakness’ are. If you assign me to heal the people in Ignis’ crotch pot and the raid, I’ll happily oblige. If you assign me to something that has alarm bells going off in my head, I will whisper you and let you know. But for me to be comfortable in my healing assignment, and we wipe for X reason, and then you come in and say “Looks like Littlebark was struggling back there. Let’s send another healer to help her”… that ticks me off. Look: as an amazing healer as I am, I cannot heal while Kologarn has me Stone Gripped. So if you really want to be helpful, you’ll toss my target a couple of extra heals while I’m up there.

Solution: Unless I speak up about it being too hard, please assume that all is okay.

Now this isn’t a pet peeve, exactly, but it’s not my favorite thing. The two priests that we’ve been running Ulduar with are very dependant on these things they call Wings. I’m assuming this is the spell that’s actually called Guardian Spirit. My dwarf priest is Disc so educate me here: Is this spell really something you need every fight? I don’t mean only boss fights, but also trash pulls. Am I just being naïve here?