Failadin, a Love Story

Again, I must give a nod to fellow blogger Cozmo D, he’s been talking a lot lately about his experiences in the random ques. And though I’ve had reasonably good experience usually, I have run into some real winners. Today I decided to do a full random que for the first time in a week, it was here that I stepped in a real pile of fail…

Forward
It was a day like any other really, birds were singing. I’d just had a lovely pair of brown sugar and cinamon pop tarts. My glyphs were freshly posted, I’d already done my JC dailies and daily gem transmutes. The previous nights raid had went well (though no tanking loot dropped that I could use or want) I had enough Emblems of Frost to pick up my new Sigil of the Bone Gryphon, I was anxious to test proc out and see what the uptime was like (I wasn’t disappointed btw). I noticed that none of my regulars were up yet, so I decided to que full random and get some testing in. My original plan was to get some anecdotal experience with the new sigil/proc and make a post discussing the merits of the various Sigils available in Wrath (I still intend to do this, I promise).

I was surprised when the que popped to see myself in Utgarde Pinnacle, not my favorite Heroic but a reasonably quick one, if the group is reasonably lacking in the failure department. Moreso, I was surprised when I looked around to see a group of what could’ve been alts from Face on Fire. The whole group was basically in 10m ICC gear, so I expected this to go reasonably well. So, we were off to a good start…

Enter the Paladin
Dontstop is a Ret Paladin from Stormscale, decently geared. Capable of reasonable DPS. However his name is not just a clever moniker, the guy seriously has patience issues. At least, I assume that’s the issue. Because I can not for the life of me think of another reason for a Ret Pali to pull a 4 pack of mobs instead of letting the tank, unless of course he’s trying to pad the meters. Which, I guess is also quite possible. Or he could be a simple facerolling ape, this is also possible. In either case, we got to a 4 pack and I was waiting on runes to drop DND. He decided to pull it, and I let him die.

Why?

Because nothing teaches like failure.

Think of it as a child, you may not remember the first time you touched something hot. But there is now an instinctual memory inside you. When you see a flame, you know don’t stick your hand in it, it will burn.

And so, with that in mind we have the following scenario, provided by screenshots:

To be fair
First, my GearScore is NOT 5900. It’s 5862, I know… let’s not split hairs here. But, I pride myself on the facts.
Second, this guy made a mistake. As proven by the fact he was taking a dirt-nap. I wasn’t rude (I don’t think) I simply spelled out the situation for him and the rest of the DPS. Let me pull…

I could’ve spent 20 minutes explaining the niceties of threat, and why I can’t hold aggro on multiple mobs with my runes on cooldown, or that how if the DPS pulls I start behind on threat. I could have done that, I opted instead to simply let him die and tell them in no uncertain terms that the same would happen to them if they decided they could do my job better than me.

He complained for a little while, by the time we were at Svala however he’d shut up. I kept pulls fast, so if they were typing they weren’t doing DPS. And in the end we cleared the place in short order. Of course, when I thanked the group for a smooth run the pali left without a word. He made several sad observations that proved his own ignorance (beyond y’know, pulling a pack of mobs and dying when he could bubble).

He mentioned that I could’ve gotten my gear by being carried…

Now, I want you think on that a moment. I suppose it is possible. But for me, that leads to the conclusion he thinks I did something similar to Gevlon, and bought a place in a raiding force. That, or that maybe better/more equipped tanks carried me through instances to get my gear.

Well, assuming those are true… there’s a problem.
First, I’m the second best geared tank on Bloodscalp. And I had one of, if not the first Shadow’s Edge on the server. To make the axe required no small amount of gold. But I can’t imagine a guild selling off their first Edge to someone with no skill. I mean seriously? Even assuming I’d just gotten the axe this week (which I didn’t) that’s still at best the 2nd one that guild will see. I simply do not see this happening. Guilds will likely be doing something similar to what ours does, giving it to the primary people first. Then handing them out to people who’re wanting to “attempt” the feat for an offspec or something afterward. Logic dictates that the carried guy is going to have to wait in line. In fact, I doubt you even could pay a raiding guild enough gold to warrant first dibs on cutting edge raiding gear.

Similarly, carrying someone through Festergut and Rotface is no mean feat. And forget about carrying someone through Putricide (right now).

So, in the end I think what we face is a bruised ego. Someone who’s not used to having someone tell them they were wrong: that their badass AE DPS on trash pulls is fucking secondary to getting the job done, and done right.

To his credit though, he did perform admirably for the remainder of the fight. I think he realized I wasn’t kidding and that I definitely would let him die, again and again until he got the fucking message. He shut up, did his job. And we all walked away better for it.

I dedicate this one to Cozmo D. And to my buddy Sharpobject, Failadin extraordinaire! <3

To all fail DPS, Stop Crying Already!

P.S. Just to show I’m not just whistling Dixie about the gear rating… Here’s a couple of screenshots from wow-heroes.com.