Despite my religious, Southern Baptist belief system one of my greatest struggles is my tendency to assume the worst in people. I find that it's much easier to go into a given situation believing that someone is a jerk until I'm proven wrong. It just feels safer to me to make that assumption and be pleasantly surprised than think that everybody's a good person and be consistently defecated on.
As a result of this mindset, the very aspect of World of Warcraft that I enjoy, the social aspect and playing with my friends, is often the thing that makes me want to log off and do something else.
Last night, I was invited into a 25-man Vault PUG. In the event that I haven't made it clear enough in previous posts, let me restate that I hate PUGs.
I should have known better. I'm nowhere geared enough to tank a 25-man anything. As a result, the subsequent asshattery is partially my fault. However, I believe that a quick whisper from the raid leader telling me that they'd rather have another tank would have prevented this symphony of monkey crap from reaching a crescendo.
I zoned in to a half-wipe. This should have been a red flag. Someone grabbed a trash mob before hardly anyone was in the instance and we just managed to drop him before he killed us all. Rez, rebuff, start handing out assignments.
The wisest of us (not me, unfortunately) took this as an omen and started to leave. The main tank was one of those justifiable deserters. And so it begins:
Asshat: Please tell me Misneach isn't going to tank. I'll pull aggro off of him.
I shake it off. Let's get moving. We fill spots and a new main tank arrives. Cool, now I can fade into the background as an offtank and not get singled out as a mentally ill n00b by the 19 year-old virgin who thinks purple gear makes him a success at life.
One more trash pull:
Asshat: If the tanks can't keep aggro I can't dps. I had to feign and shadowmeld and I still pulled aggro.
OK, big guy. That's plenty. Can we just kill the boss please?
Main tank is assigned to the adds, I'm assigned to the boss. Very simple job on my part. Grab the big guy and hold on.
Asshat: Mis can't be the boss tank. He'll die.
Main Tank: Well, he can't AoE tank the adds.
Well guys, thanks for making assumptions about my ability and talking about me like I'm not here.
Boss attempt #1. Adds don't die fast enough. We wipe.
Asshat: Seriously, if the tank has blues we can't dps fast enough to kill the adds.
Funny, I wasn't tanking the adds. Generating enough threat to allow the DPS to burn the adds wasn't my responsibility. But hey, if 19 year-old virgin thinks it's my fault, he must be right.
Boss attempt #2. Healers don't know their assignments. I die quickly. The raid leader singles out the healers and tells them that they didn't pay attention to the assignments.
Asshat: Doesn't matter. If Mis is tanking the boss he's gonna die again next time.
That's it. I work a 9-5 job at a well-known corporation in a leadership position on my team. I spent the day doing a ton of my own work as well as helping others on my team, both my subordinates and superiors, get their jobs done because I'm a specialist and they need my input to complete projects from time to time. I go home at night to help my wife raise 4 kids, one with a disability, and a niece who's currently living with us. I also work a part-time job on the weekends.
I log onto the game to have fun. I like the vast majority of the people in our guild. They're fun to play with, chat with, etc. I don't have the patience, however, to deal with the jerkoff population that roams around Azeroth talking to people like they're second class citizens.
For those of you who think it's OK to treat people like that, grow up and show some respect. If anyone in the raid didn't think I was capable of running the instance, tell me, I can take it. Shoot me a whisper and say it. Don't blame every mistake that someone else in the raid made on me because I happen to be the guy who's still sporting a couple of blues. Treat me with respect and I'll walk away thinking that you're a pretty decent person, even if you're offering criticism.
If you're incapable of doing that, DIAF.
/rant over
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14 comments:
Again I am so sorry for pulling you into that raid.
That guy was a HUGE asshole. The original MT was in even worse gear than you (and you are NOT in bad gear) and was a total dickwad. He was standing over the NPC that you turn in the "Victory in Wintergrasp" daily to and thought it was hilarious that no one could turn in their quest.
We need to just get a guild even set and do that instance like we do OS. We don't even have to do the boss we wiped on. We can just do Arc
It's not your fault at all. Some people just suck :)
Like I said on Twitter last night, it just hit me at the wrong time...rough day at work, long day, etc.
Give me an all-CoF run anyday :)
Gah! Gah! A world of gah!
What a pustulent little arseweasel.
This blog post has been incorrectly titled "misanthropy"; didn't you mean "perfectly justified criticism of an abject moron"? :)
I know it's is the *principle* of asshattery (i.e. the noxious louse has no damn right to talk to anyone that way) but the practice is way off base as well - unless your tank is wearing a pink frilly dress and wielding an egg whisk, as far as I'm concerned, if you pull aggro, your own fault.
I know I joke about the DPS demon but there really is a bizarre perception shift going on here:
DPS to Tank: "I pull aggro because I am so awesome."
Everyone else to DPS: "You pull aggro because you are stupid."
Anyway, sorry you had such a bad experience - can be really demoralising, especially because WoW is somewhere we're meant to be having fun.
Go and park your mammoth somewhere cheeringly absurd (although that sounds like it ought to be the beginning of an insult - go park your mammoth :) )
Even your post comments make me laugh.
I'm going to stick with Misanthropy, because the incident was proof that 97% of the general population is composed entirely of skidmarks on the underwear of life.
And perhaps I'll find out the name of the tank my guildie Millea mentioned and park my mammoth on top of a questgiver or flightmaster he/she is trying to use.
Yes, mammoth-karma shall be my weapon.
Wow. What an asshat.
I really hate people who complain about other people's gear.
I really really hate people who complain about other people's gear when they know jack about how the sodding game works.
I've just checked your armory and you're (a) Def Capped, (b) have 26K HP. That's enough for 25 mans. It had better damned well be enough for 25 mans, because the only way to *get* better gear than that is to *run* 25 mans.
Gah! Sorry, this guy just sums up so much that I hate about high-level WoW.
- Thinks the quality of your gear is based entirely on the colour? Check.
- DPS who thinks that having to manage his threat is an imposition? Check.
- Thinks you're not ready to run introductory raids without the gear from those raids? Check.
- Displays a complete lack of understanding of the mechanics of the game, check (I shadowmelded! but the boss still attacked me! anybody would think it didn't function as a threat wipe!)
- Displays a complete lack of awareness of the fight. Check.
The guy should get a fricking award for being *that much* of a complete dickhead.
Temitope:
First of all, thank you for the comment. It is much appreciated.
Second of all, I know you've commented here before, but for some reason or another I didn't realize you had a blog. I found it, read through a couple of posts, and it has found a permanent home in my reader and blogroll. Good stuff.
Third of all, back to the comment. If someone is an idiot, I'm kind of ok with that. There are plenty of things I don't know jack about. However, if you're going to be a vocal idiot, that is where I get my knickers in a twist...and when you wear plate, that is simultaneously difficult and incredibly uncomfortable.
Emalon was probably a bit much for me to handle at my gear level. Archavon would have been a better option. Even so, doubting my ability to tank something in a respectful manner is far more tolerable from my standpoint than repeatedly blaming every screw up in the raid on me.
Again, thanks for the comment. I'm going to have to fill your blog with as many rambling, useless comments as I do Tamarind's :)
Dude Mis, I know for a fact that you are more than geared enough to tank Emalon. If you had more HP, then you probably wont have much trouble with the adds either, cause the adds hit hard and more health just gives healers some breathing room. The Emalon fight is a DPS race. If there's not enough DPS its an automatic wipe.
Looking at the Recount from that raid there were just too many people with under 2k dps. I think u had maybe 3 DPS that actually broke 3k. So the wipes are not your fault.
I know a good deal of it wasn't my fault at all. I was pumping out between 4 and 5K TPS and, on the first go, with heals I was doing fine. The dps there was the problem...nobody was hitting the adds.
That dude was being an asshat for the sake of being an asshat, really. I just don't have the patience for it. He was being equally dickish to the rest of the dps as well.
I love Vault and hate Vault all at the same time. Love it for the crazy gear it drops for the relative ease of the instance and hate it for all the asshattery that goes on with pugs. I've heard your story over and over through the eyes of tanks, dps and healers and have been in plenty of fail raids as both dps and healer. There is a simple solution. Start your own raid. When someone starts running his/her mouth (a teenage boy most of the time) then he gets a kick and an ignore.
I've healed 10 and 25 Emalon and I have to say that tanking Emalon is the easier of the 2 tanking jobs. he really doesn't hit all that hard and it was fairly easy to heal through.
I've also been in a lot of raids with tanks with your level of gear and very, very well geared dps. The only dps that pulled aggro were the ones not paying attention to what they were doing right after the pull. After 10 seconds, they can go full throttle with their attack rotation and not have any threat issues. If someone does manage to be a concern with the threat they are generating, just throw Vigilance on them and use their stupidity to your advantage.
@Rorik: This was a PUG in the purest sense...I think our guild was the most represented one there with 3 people.
The MT had Vigilance on the loudmouth if I recall correctly (the memory is already fading...or being suppressed), but frankly, you're right, there was no way I wasn't generating enough threat for him to do his job.
If I'm pumping out 4-5K TPS there really is no mathematical reason that someone should be pulling off me if they're doing their job right. If they give me a head start, they can pretty much go nuts and be just fine.
But, some people are just idiots. Oh, how badly I wanted to post his name here so he can get flamed every time he logs in...but I guess it's up to me to be the adult :)
Pssh...have u heard some of our guild chat? ;)
I say put his name so that we can all spam him. :D
LOL. The temptation is there, I assure you.
"Looking at the Recount from that raid there were just too many people with under 2k dps"
Just out of interest, was one of those people Mr "The Tank is in Blues"?
I'm totally guilty of this myself, but it infuriates me that the average DPSer is such a slacker. We won't walk into a heroic unless the tank and healer are decked out in Tier gear, but we have no problem showing up to a raid and pulling 1.5K DPS. Because y'know, it's the tank and healer who have to make sure we actually win the fight. We're just there to see who does the biggest crits.
"Because y'know, it's the tank and healer who have to make sure we actually win the fight. We're just there to see who does the biggest crits."
Yeah, no crap.
Actually, Mr. Skidmark had about 4k DPS, which (forgive me for repeating myself), should not have been enough to pull aggro off of between 4 and 5k TPS given that they probably had buffs that lowered their threat as well as abilities to completely dump threat altogether. That's just math.
Going into OS tonight with some guildies who are not asshats. Should help restore my faith in some of the WoW population.
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