Dealing With Personal Weaknesses

Everyone has weaknesses in the way they play. I have a myriad of them, but after many years of raiding, I’ve learned how to best counter myself.

I am a creature of habit. Reflexes are my way of forming mental filters and handling complex fights. Once I figure out the rhythm of a fight, I can devote my full attention to doing my best. It’s not unlike learning to drive–at first it’s all OMG THERE’S SO MANY THINGS TO REMEMBER but it becomes second nature before long. I must master the individual layers before I can excel at the whole.

This means that when things change too much I’m the derpiest of derps.  I’m used to working like this, and it’s one reason why I seldom pugged raids  even when I had the time. The constants of a guild raid week in and week out were better for me. I’m self-aware enough to not court failure more than I must. I struggled massively with my guild’s Rags attempts because I only raid every other week, and with two different raid leaders, the strat would literally be different every single time I went. I’ve never felt so unsure of myself as when I was failing left and right on Rags. Thankfully that’s not a situation that comes up much, and after I’ve done a fight the same way a few times, I’m okay. I just need my crutches in place.

There’s a reason I was only in a “top 5 on the server” guild in Vanilla. In 40 mans, who really notices 1 of 7 holy paladins dying? NO ONE.

Suffer from left/right confusion? I know of many people who rely on post-it notes to not only remind them which way is which, but of other assignments as well. I sketch things out on paper on my desk sometimes (ex: THIS SON, dumbface) as a visual reminder.

I couldn’t get through life as a responsible adult without post-it notes.

What are your personal weaknesses, and how do you cope?  Are you a perpetual keyboard turner that remains extra aware of stuff on the floor? Did you used to be a paladin tank who had to install an ad-on to yell when you didn’t have RF up?

Share your failures!

Welcome the Nerf Bat Overlords

I can smell the QQ from here, already–but I, for one, welcome our nerf bat weilding overlords.

While other people cry TOO SOON, EXECUTUS, I cry OH THANK GOD.

You see, SiB has been a little…stuck. It’s embarassing, really, becuase we chewed through T11 at a steady pace. In fact I’ve felt that we’re the perfect example of the middle ground guild–we don’t raid a lot (6 hours a week), but we make steady progress when we do. We see content when it’s still “relevent” and “as intended” even if we never really get to doing hard modes.

We were the common denominator, and well, we just weren’t…getting anywhere. It wasn’t like we suddenly sucked or anything, I just started having vanilla era flashbacks to boss progression.  When I was breifly talking about the nerf with Fuzz, my raid leader, we decided that we were just relieved. Our e-peens were not threatened. They’ve been too trampled by lack of progression to feel threatened further.

As I nudged Twitter I heard similar mutterings from other groups.  Yeah, this nerf pre-patch is weird but…well, they were stuck, too.

If you’re looking for why Blizzard is doing this, I honestly think that is why. When your AVERAGE guild–not your “hard core” raiders, not your stacks of fail panackes, but your AVERAGE GUILD–isn’t getting anywhere, even when they are slowly accruing more gear, that’s when you nerf. Considering the burnout trains many people are holding tickets to right now, high levels of raiding frustration are not what you want if your goal is to retain players.

Bring it, Blizz. Just uh, not in my direction, okay?