The Joys of Heroics

So most of the new serious players have at least one character to 85 and have begun the process of gearing those characters.  Hooray for heroics!

In WoW there are these things called dungeons or instances which are zones that five player enter into to work together and kill everything and steal the stuff from the dead bodies. The stuff is called loot and not all loot is created equal.  Different kinds of characters want different things with different bonuses or made of different materials. All instances have a loot table, a list of gear they can drop, so in order to get what you want you often have to go back to the same place multiple times.

There is also two different versions of each dungeon: regular and heroic. The heroic version of a dungeon is the same basic dungeon made more difficult. Heroics offer better loot and other perks over the normal versions so people generally want to start wanting to run heroics as soon as possible.  Sometimes people just should not be running heroics just because they can.

All of Warcraft has certain basic mechanics (aspects of the game) that stay the same throughout the game.

Crowd Control: Most classes have some form of crowd control, or cc, which makes a mob unable to attack the group.  Every mob that can be cc’ed means one less mob to be hitting the group trying to kill them. It would make sense that a group would try to cc everything they can. Its a great theory but sometimes the practice is a  little different. Some people have no clue what abilities they have and what they can cc. For example: I had to tell one player that he could in fact turn beasts into sheep and render them harmless for a short period. This particular mechanic has been in place for at least five years.

Now when the group is ready to fight a mob that has been cc’ed  the tank or someone else who is designated to break the crowd control damages the mob and makes them active and angry again. Great theory, not so much a reality all the time. Some people are completely incapable of not hitting targets they are not supposed to hit or they think if they hit it the tank or healer will save them. I am almost to the point where I let these people die. You break it on purpose you tank it….. without heals douche bag.

Don’t Stand in Shit: This is another major mechanic of the Warcrack. If a monster throws something on the ground it generally not there to help you.  Standing in poison, fire, falling rocks, or whatever tends to mean you die. This is a pretty universal mechanic throughout the game.  I am guilty of this one sometimes, as are about 99% of WoW players, but the difference is that I move as soon as I realize I am standing in stuff.  I have had people stand in stuff and take tremendous damage then get mad that I didn’t heal them through it. If you continue to stand in fire, you die.  A good example of this is a tank we had in one instance decided it would be okay to stand in the huge inky black clouds of death and that I should just heal them through it. I let them die then we removed the tank.

If A Mob Casts Something You Can Interrupt, Then Interrupt It: Mobs often have abilities they cast (take time preparing to hit you with) and many times these abilities can be interrupted. These abilities can cause damage, make the group run around in fear, heal the mob and make it harder to kill, or any number of things. Almost all classes have interrupts and should use them to stop this stuff from happening.  Many times it is vital to success that these things get interrupted. Know what you can interrupt, when you should interrupt, and do it.

Your Survival is also Your Responsibility: I’m a healer, my job is to try my best to keep the group alive. This does not mean that I should be expected to heal someone through stupid. This goes hand in hand with Don’t Stand in Shit. First of all, every class has survival abilities that either heal them or reduces the damage they take. Every player should know theirs and use them.  If you are dps in a boss fight and the tank is taking huge damage realize your healer is busy and you should probably take a healing potion, bandage, or do anything you can to restore your own health or otherwise keep yourself alive.  Simple as that. Also, after a fight, if you are low on health and the group is waiting for the healer to get mana eat some freaking food to restore your health. A good example of this is one group of mobs throw axes and stick them into random players heads that damages that player for a large amount over a set amount of time.  When this happens and we are in combat it is my job to heal the player through it. If the group goes out of combat it is no longer my job. THERE  IS A FREAKING AXE IN YOUR HEAD, EAT SOMETHING DUMB ASS.

If you are low on health do not go running into groups of mobs. It seems like a simple concept but, like crowd control or not standing in something, some people cannot seem to grasp it. I was in a group where someone died because they played stupid and did not eat after I brought them back to life. When the tank pulled the next group this player ran right in while at half health and died again. This happened two more times before the player finally typed “why do I keep dying.” I wanted to type “Sorry but I don’t heal stupid.”

Please do your fellow WoW players a favor and research your class. Know what you can do and what you should do. If you don’t, pray you don’t get a healer like me that believes it is her responsibility to let your stupid ass die.