Doing Mean Things To Stupid People

Let me start out by saying that I don’t generally run randoms on my 80s.

My Justice Points are capped (in Traxy’s case) or ridiculously beyond the cap (in Jana’s case) such that I have no specific need to run a random on my 80. The only time I would run one is if I felt particularly bored or if a friend asked if I wanted to come along. I did this once on Traxy recently, testing out her dps off spec for fun. It was fun. The spec rocks. But enough about that.

I do run randoms on Nadi; it’s primarily how I’m leveling her. It’s a good thing for learning a heal. But randoms on a leveling character seem fundamentally different than randoms at 80. Everyone you run into is in the same position as you: they are trying to level and gear their toon. You don’t have the broad range of characters in a leveling random as you do in a heroic random at 80.

I say this to note that my observations and experiences are not necessarily the most informed. This, however, is my blog, and I’ll say whatever I feel like on it. Just take it with a grain of salt.

Lately there was a bit of a kerfluffle going around about someone doing a mean thing in a random Old Kingdom run and writing about it. By “kerfluffle” I mean that somehow, in one of my light blog-reading times (for personal reasons), I managed to hear about it.  Specifically I got it from Murloc Parliament. I am of the belief that for such a thing to reach me (without being specific to any of the people I follow generally), it has to be quite the kerfluffle.

In light of that, I have a confession of sorts.

I have done mean things to people in randoms.

While tanking on Traxy or healing on Nadi, I generally have a fair opportunity to do mean things. On Jana the best thing I can do is to be sarcastic to someone.

I wrote about one of the meanest things I’ve done in one of my earliest posts on this blog. The short version: a warrior charged an unmarked target of one of the three watchers in the first boss in Azjol-Nerub, making it very hard for me to get aggro. The punishment? Later in the instance he caught aggro on one of the spiders before the second boss. I didn’t taunt off of him (although I could have), and he died. On the last boss, I tried to specifically set him up to be hit by Anub-arak’s pound.  Maybe I’m misremembering it; I denied it at the time. But I certainly wasn’t shocked or unhappy that he died to that.

On Nadi I try to use my heals as a learning tool. Generally if someone pulls aggro off the tank I will shield and heal them, because at this level it’s as much a case of differing gear levels and less than complete competence with the class than any malice. I don’t generally try to be mean to someone who is making innocent mistakes.

Some things I cannot abide by, however. The specific example seems to be limited to paladins and death knights.  Every so often I will run into someone who taunts a mob off the tank, either by death grip or by hand of reckoning. For some reason this is never a problem for warriors, and going forward it probably won’t be a problem for paladins since the taunt doesn’t do any damage. (The theory of why ret paladins occasionally taunted mobs was because they thought the move increased their dps.) In any case, I generally give one warning after I see that.

I was in a run with Nadi recently where the death knight was having none of it. So I let the mob attack him (having agreed with Leafie beforehand that she let him tank any mobs that he death gripped). I would normally let him fall really low on health before coming to his rescue and again chiding him for his taunt. But one time I was too busy doing something else and he died. I’m not the sort of healer who would withhold a rez (yet) on the first death, but as I rezzed him I again chided him for using death grip.

Turns out he was just clueless.

The people I hate the most are lazy dps. You know the kind: the hunters who auto-attack, the mages who do nothing but blizzard, the rogues who remain in stealth the entire way through the instance. Unfortunately, they also seem to be immune to most forms of in-game retribution; you can’t exactly push them off a cliff or get them killed when they’re doing nothing. Not, at least, as a priest or a death knight or a mage. I suppose if I had a hunter I could misdirect a few mobs to them, but then the healer and the tank would have to be in on it as well.

On Nadi what I try to do is out-dps them. Unfortunately, some people are not particularly shamed by being unable to outdps a disc priest who is also healing the entire instance. At that point, the vote kick is the only option, and that doesn’t always work.

Most of the time I can just gripe.

Anyway, if you’ve seen the kerfluffle, you’ll know that it’s about someone doing some mean things to people who weren’t being stupid; rather, someone did a mean thing because the group made a decision that was contrary to his personal desires. I think generally when you join a random, you’ve committed yourself to make a reasonable effort to clear the entire instance, whatever instance that might be. Yes, on some instances you can skip a few bosses to get it done faster, but at this point I don’t see any reason to do so other than by rote habit. Jedoga Shadowseeker and the Maiden of Grief both award justice points, and if you’re not there for the justice points chances are you’re there for someone who does need the justice points. There’s no “finish to get the quick frosties” anymore. You’ve also committed yourself to be reasonably competent at playing your role; incompetence should be inflicted only upon people you know.

It’s when someone violates that ideal that I get snarky. And mean.