/officerchat

Every now and then, you come across someone who is playing…in a really interesting way, possibly to the detriment of the raid.  Or the heroic. Or the dungeon. Or the BG. Whatever it is, they aren’t pulling their weight and when you’re trying to get somewhere, it’s got to be a team effort. That means the team has to bring everything they’ve got.

Rather than accuse, it’s often better and nice to offer suggestions. You can’t hold someone’s hand, but you can point them toward
the resources to get what they need. Call this your cheat sheet for a handful of common issues.

1. WTF Gear

There are two WTF gear issues that a GM and RL will deal with on a pretty regular basis; low level gear and poorly itemized gear.

The first thing to understand about low level gear is that there is often a perfectly good reason for people wearing it. Trust
me, I’ll probably be killing Arthas with my trusty Arrowsong. I have just had awful awful luck with bow drops. One of my tanks
has repeatedly refused a pair of high level pants because they come with no defense and he’s got no way to make that up. Crappy
luck and funny loot systems in no way represent a player’s ability and if they are a boon to your team, you can fix them up
pretty fast.

Poorly itemized gear is harder. The first thing to do is to ask the player why they are wearing it. Maybe I just have a very
experimenting group of people, but it’s not uncommon to see a hunter of mine in +sp gear for the day just to see if that really
DOES make Mend Pet more effective. See if they are just messing around or seeing what different stuff does. You can ask them to
not experiment in your raids and go about your merry way. If it’s poorly itemized gear with no thought behind it, you are going to want to find your favorite character blog and hand them the link. It’s two seconds of google work.

2. WTF Spec

WTF spec tends to fall into the same categories as WTF gear.  Ask someone about their spec.  I have a pally who debated specing
into Judgements of the wise to heal to see if he could become a self-sustaining mana battery and allow his gear and the rest of
his spec to carry his heals (it doesn’t). But the point is that someone who has a reason for what they are doing is thinking
about what they are doing, and players who are thinking are good players. Even if they are thinking a bit wrong, thinking outside
a cookie cutter spec is not a crime.

“I happen to draw the line at telling folks how to spec.”

71 point specs are generally the same as poorly itemized gear with no thought behind it. Two seconds of google work and hand
off a resource. Even better if you keep a guild forum or blog and then you can have resources right there for everyone. The same
thing if you have class leads.

I feel the need to mention that frost mages, BM hunters and the like are not, necessarily, WTF spec. They are built for something other than raiding and I happen to draw the line at telling folks how to spec. I don’t believe that everyone has to max/min to make a raid work. A 71 point BM hunter…maybe pull them aside, but if they want to raid as BM, I say either let them or let them find a guild who will. I have yet to meet a dps in any spec that was performing under the tanks by reason of spec alone.

3. WTF Are You Doing

Ah, raids. I have to say, the reaction time that most 80 level raids expect is amazing. The lot of us are well set up for second
careers dismantling bombs. And yet, there’s always that one fellow who drops in the fire, hangs out for the flash freeze, stands
in the dust cloud or…yanks agro off a tank. Here’s your true story for this one. One one of our Malygos farm runs, I find
myself suddenly staring a dragon in the face and being breathed to death. One of my warlock (who has a death wish to begin with)
said, “I don’t know why, but I suddenly thought that Malygos didn’t have an agro table.” D’oh!

Your first raid RX for standing in a fire to make sure that Projected Textures is turned on in the video menu, under effects. You’d be amazed what you can see with that on with a minimal amount of lag. In fights with a lot going on, DBM can be a huge help to warn you when something is coming or honk a horn in your face to move. You also want to decide if you want to penalize players with older computers or not. Lag is lag is lag and you can’t get out of the fire if you can’t move. The same goes for player with just plain old slower reaction time. It’s up to you and the direction of your guild whether or not you want to deal with it. I say before benching someone, give them a chance to change video settings and throw in an add on or two.

A team is only as strong as its weakest link and if you’ve got one, you can’t just expect that the right answers are going to fall out of the sky and bonk them on the head. You’ve got to get proactive as a GM.

And maybe I’ll be nice and put together that list of links for you.