You probably thought I was done in bashing Oculus. Oh how wrong you were. MWAHAHAHA. If you are not interested in psychology of gameplay, you may just want to skip this post, or at least just scroll on down to the very last section. You’ve been forewarned. Please don’t stop subscribing to Miss Medicina just because I find psychology of gameplay a worthy wall of text topic. This is what happens when instead of writing my thesis, I wax poetic on World of Warcraft.

In response to my own post yesterday, I can answer my title question quite easily. “Why Occulus is a Failure?” Because even some of us grammar Nazis just can’t spell it. Sigh. Thank you Shintar for pointing out my egregious error. Even Larisa gave me some light teasing, and informed us all who Occulus really is. If I had not misspelled Oculus in the title of the post itself, I would go back and correct my spelling, but now it’s out there, and everyone whose spelling I have criticized can redirect me to it.

Earlier I touched upon the problems with Oculus in regards to the Vehicle Mechanic. I stand by my hypothesis that this is one of the major issues influencing the overall failure of Oculus as an instance, but I wanted to post separately about something that was brought up in the comments that has also contributed to its failure.

Many people mentioned that their biggest struggle with this instance has nothing at all to do with learning the abilities of a new vehicle, and more related to flying. Oculus and Eye of Eternity phase 3 are both three dimensional fights. That is to say, they not only require you to properly move left, right, forward and back, but also up and down. For some of us this is a more serious problem than for others.

Traditionally our game fights are horizontal. Adding that extra vertical element can either be perceived as a welcome challenge that adds a lot to the fight for some, or a vertigo inspiring nightmare for others. I fall into the latter category. I won’t even talk about PvP fighting in Aion. Regardless, I don’t blame Blizzard. No, I blame my hippocampus.

The Hippocampus

First I will draw you a pretty picture that shows where your hippocampus is. By the way, I’m totally accepting commissions for my now famous MSPaint diagrams.

So what does your Hippocampus do? Well, to be honest, there is still some debate on this, but here’s what scientists currently think the Hippocampus does (simplistically of course). I originally wrote a lot more about the first two duties of the Hippocampus, but if you are interested in that, go to that wiki – I will try to cut this post down only to the relevant material.

· Helps you form new episodic memories.

· Another theory that is apparently not very popular currently is the inhibition function. The idea is that if you have hippocampal damage, you may seem more hyperactive, or have difficulty learning to inhibit your responses to things based on how you first learned to respond. You may seem a little… well, tweaky.

· The most relevant function of the Hippocampus to this post, however, is its role in spatial memory and navigation. This is related to the discovery of what is called “place cells” in the Hippocampus. These are spatial firing fields in the neurons in the Hippocampus, and they are triggered by recognizing your location, the direction you are faced, if you’ve been there before, where you suspect you are heading, etc etc etc.

The discovery of place cells led to the idea that the hippocampus might act as a cognitive map — a neural representation of the layout of the environment… Studies with animals have shown that an intact hippocampus is required for simple spatial memory tasks (for instance, finding the way back to a hidden goal)… the hippocampus plays a particularly important role in finding shortcuts and new routes between familiar places. Some people exhibit more skill at this sort of navigation than do others, and brain imaging shows that these individuals have more active hippocampi when navigating.

(Taken from the Wiki linked above)

Why am I bringing this potentially boring topic into a discussion about flying fantasy drakes? Because I suck at flying in a 3d environment, and I wanted to know why. I get disoriented. I don’t know what direction I’m facing, or where I’m heading. Even though I stated yesterday that the overwhelming problem with Vehicle Mechanic fights is learning the new abilities at the drop of a hat, that’s not actually the biggest issue for me and many others. Sure, I don’t particularly LIKE it, but that’s not enough to make me rudely drop group after landing in Oculus. However, my complete inability to navigate within a 3D environment is. And apparently I’m not the only one.

Do you find yourself getting lost in Oculus? Are you useless flying on your own near Malygos? In spite of all that, are you still pretty good at Flame Leviathon and jousting? If you do not have a problem with vehicle mounts on a flat surface, but struggle in a vertical one this may be your issue. If you have tried to PvP in Aion by flying around, and struggle with it, this may also be your issue. Hippocampal damage can have severe debilitating effects on your spatial navigation system. And it is not uncommon to have some minor degree of Hippocampal damage. It’s not just for people with Parkinson’s or Alzheimers Syndrome.

The Role of Depression in Hippocampal Damage

I’m going to throw some statistics at you, folks. Take them as you see fit – 326% of statistics are bogus, right?

· 15% of the population of most developed countries suffers severe depression.

· 30% of women are depressed. Men's figures were previously thought to be half that of women, but new estimates are higher.

· 80% of depressed people are not currently having any treatment.

· 80% of people who see physicians are depressed.

Basically, all that means is that a lot of people are depressed, a lot of people don’t take it very seriously, and I deliberately did not include the stats on suicide. It’s just too… well, depressing. I will save my soapbox rant about people misunderstanding exactly what depression is for another time, another place. That having been said, I know it’s a controversial topic here in the states, but please do not comment here to tell me all about how people are whiney, and depression is a silly pill-popping conundrum. Link me a peer-reviewed journal article on the topic and I will take you a lot more seriously.

And it probably comes as no surprise to you that a lot of depressed people play MMOs.

I can’t find the actual article Dr. Noshir Contractor wrote, or a copy of the presentation, but it was a pretty hot topic amongst MMO players for while. Here’s the skinny:

· 7,000 players of EverQuest II were surveyed.

· 21% of the players who didn’t play the game that often were depressed.

· 30% of the players who DID play the game often were depressed.

· "This could mean that highly active players get more depressed or that depressed people are more likely to be active role players," said the author of the study, Noshir Contractor, a professor of behavioral science.

One of the reasons Dr. Contractor won my respect is due to that very quote – showing a correlation between two things does not show causality. What that means in layman’s terms is that just because a bunch of depressed people play an MMO does not mean that the MMO makes them depressed. Maybe they play the MMO BECAUSE they are depressed.

Without reading the actual study, I cannot tell you how “playing the game often” was quantified, or how researchers determined who was depressed. I also can’t tell you if folks who play EQ2 are inherently different than those who play World of Warcraft. To someone who doesn’t play these games, we all may be the same. But to those of us who do, there could be vast differences. According to tables shown at mmodata.net, WoW has just over 11.5 million players. Aion is fairly new in North America, and has just south of 3 million players. EQII is listed as having around 200,000 players.

This leaves me wondering… if you surveyed Aion players (a game which is developed around a concept of three dimensional PvP via flying) and compared them to WoW players (which is not), would you see a lot fewer people sticking around to play in the Abyss in Aion if they are depressed? I know, I know, what a logical leap. But this is MY kind of theorycrafting, mmk?

Get to the Point, J-Bizzle

Alright, alright. TLDR like whoa, I know. I find this stuff fascinating. My point in this argument is actually very simple. A lot of people have a problem with Oculus and Eye of Eternity, not because they struggle to learn new vehicle mechanics, but because they struggle with the 3 dimensional, vertical aspect.

I am merely suggesting that since deficiencies in spatial navigation are often connected to problems in the Hippocampus, which is also linked to depression, and that since depression is allegedly more common amongst MMO players than the average population, maybe this isn’t really that big of a surprise. I’m not saying that if you suck at Oculus, you are Hippocampally challenged either. There is truth in the argument that a lot of people hate Oculus simply because they can’t zerg it, and therefore, in an attempt to maximize their badge-grinding time, drop out of it.

The hippocampus is often directly linked to depression.

The hippocampus is also linked to spatial memory and navigation.

Lots of depressed folks play MMOs.

So let’s just go out on a limb here, and say that IF 25% of WoW players suffer from some degree of depression, and IF depression does have a solid link to hippocampal damage, maybe, just maybe, 25% of players struggle with the Oculus because three-dimensional fights are particularly challenging for them.

The other 75% just hate those whelps in the first pull, yo.

I generally detest blogging about… well, blogging. It’s like making drama about drama. A topic, squared, does not necessarily increase the amount of interest on that topic. Meta-blogging is really not my thing.

Be that as it may, I am currently having a previously only internal debate regarding the direction of this site. No, I’m not going to stop writing it anytime soon. I have 12 drafts in my blogger queue, 7 drafts sitting on ScribeFire, and 18 emails I have sent to myself with other column topics I’m working on. And let’s not forget the giant Healer Survey data analysis that glares at me angrily every time I sit down to my macbook with the intention of running dailies. This brain, it’s like a fountain I tell you. A FOUNTAIN OF SPLENDOR. There’s no risk of drying up anytime soon.

But… what is the purpose of Miss Medicina? If I had a mission statement, what exactly would it say?

When I originally began to write this (with lots of encouragement from Fulguralis and Fuubaar), my premise was simple - a blog about healing philosophy. Not traditional theorycrafting, because math is like, hard, but a different kind of theorycrafting that comes from finding overarching general patterns amongst how healers heal, how they play, and the nuances of healing style. I planned to start with healing as a Priest, expand into Holy Healing (by progressing into Holy Paladin information), and then slowly begin integrating Nature Healing with Druids and Shammies. First and foremost, I wanted to write a blog that would be a resource for new healers. I wanted to help them cover the gap between “l2play n00b” and an Ensidia application.

The progression never happened. It’s not because I don’t love resto shammies (why does Word keep trying to change this to shimmies?) and druids, but more because I struggled with my Paladin, and then kept going back to my lovable, huggable, femdwarf priest. There are plenty of people who are altoholics, who simply love playing lots of different classes. I, however, judge everything against my Priest. I love everything about the Priest class. I love my class so much that when I play OTHER games I always pick the priestliest character class I can find (such as my 4e cleric). When I try to level a new alt, I never get past the early teens… unless it’s another priest. Yes, that’s right. Arguably the most detested class to level, and it’s the only class I’m interested in leveling. That having been said, I certainly enjoy reading about other healing classes.

So therefore, as it happens, I have posted a lot more information specific to Priests – yet even here I’ve made a distinction. I’ve completely ignored that shadowy spec, because I wanted to restrict my focus to healing (hello… Medicina?). So now I’m in something of a conundrum that really grates on my type A – I-like-things-in-neat-little-categories brain. If I’m going to focus on priests, shouldn’t I include more shadow priest discussion? If I’m going to focus on healers, shouldn’t I expand to more than just Priests?

This is one of those things that makes Priests a somewhat tricky class about whom to write. Of the four healing classes, you have two full blown hybrids that can cover every role (Druids and Paladins), one class that has 2 DPS trees and 1 healing tree (Shaman) and then you’ve got Priests, with 2 Healing specs, and 1 dps spec. I don’t read a large number of Shaman blogs, but of the ones I have seen, there seems to be some struggle with this as well. For priests, most of the time you find people either writing solely about the Healing Priest (Holy & Disc), or the Damage Priest (Shadow), and ne’er the twain shall meet.

Before dual spec, it seemed that we Priests had something of a standoff. Many who were healers were adamantly opposed to Shadow, and many more Shadow Priests were sick of being asked to heal. The lines have blurred a bit with the release of Dual Speccing. Many of us who were once solely healers picked up a Shadow spec for the purposes of grinding dailies, or other every day tasks.

Dual Spec has allowed me to play around with shadow in ways I never had before. I have a lot of questions, and a lot of topics I could write about shadow priesting, especially as I have recently begun raiding as shadow (the irony is that these are alt runs – everyone else brings an alt, and here I am, just running a different spec on the same toon). But is this really the place for it? Can Miss Medicina bear the weight of so little focus?

Ideally what I would prefer is a place to regularly write about Priests specifically (all different manifestations), and another place for Healing Philosophy in general. Until such an opportunity presents itself and is settled, however, Miss Medicina remains as it has been – a healer’s blog, with a special interest in Priests of the non-shadow variety. If, however, I were to have a weekly post specific to Shadow Priests, would it merely annoy my readership?

What a heavy Friday topic. I am having an identity crisis, it appears. Which role am I first? The Healer or the Priest?

In true Miss Medicina form, I started writing my piece on reflex and rotation yesterday, and it just got way too TLDR, so I tried to split it up a bit. This chunk seemed the easiest to divide from yesterday's post.

The Theorycrafting Behind it All

I've posted before about the problems with theorycrafting, and I wanted to bring it up in regards to my continuing topic of reflex and rotation, because all my pondering on the difference between these two has affected how I see theorycrafting for healers.

Of course theorycrafting is useful, but how you use it, or perhaps when you utilize it differs slightly between the rotational and the reflex healer.

Much of the theorycrafting used to prepare your character takes place outside of a raid setting - how you choose your talents, the enchants, gems, and gear you choose, the consumables you will bring to a raid. It comes down to min-maxing your gear, and choosing your talents based on what you expect you will use most during a raid. Or, perhaps you choose the talents you think are best, and intend to train yourself to use the proper spell combinations that will benefit. Either way, once you're actually in the raid, that is where your efforts come to fruition.

If you are working on a rotation, you are working the theory in as you cast... because your rotation is based on maximizing your potential. Perhaps you know the exact moment when it is best to pop your cooldowns, knowing when they will be available again. You will make the choices needed to keep the target alive while simultaneously maintaining Grace, or building stacks of Serendipity.

But when you are a reflex healer, you need to put more preparation into the theorycrafting before the raid, and the best thing you can do to improve your healing skills are to develop the proper habits. Trigger fingers need training! When you are responding to unpredictable damage, or popping a reflexive reaction to something, you may not have the time to calculate in your head what is the best spell for you to use to maximize output while minimizing mana usage. My use of Circle of Healing on one target who takes damage? Perfect example. I don't think about how wasteful it is - I respond. I have developed a bad habit, and trained my trigger finger that way.

This is not to say that Rotational healers do not have to train their fingers, or make snap decisions. Nor do I mean to suggest that Reflex healers do not come into a raid with an expectation of what spells and cooldowns will work best in combination. All healing classes have a combination of both Rotation and Reflex based methods in order to allow all of them to be effective as the sole healer in a 5 man scenario. At end game, however, each class begins to display more strength in one realm or the other.

For instance, I've used Pallies as an example of rotational healing... but all those "Hand of..." tools are indicators of different methods of "emergency response", if you will. If all you ever consider is the best rotation for healing single or dual targets, you won't know what your "extra appendages" are for (you know, like me).

If the Holy Priestess does not work some rotation into her raid healing, and intends to respond purely by reflex, then she will not be adequately prepared when massive raid damage hits everyone. If she has not built up her stacks of Serendipity, if she's already blown her Divine Hymn cooldown, then she's left scrambling to top people off before they find themselves dangling limply and lifeless from Kologarn's fists, because a Circle of Healing may not be enough, and the cast time on a non-hasted Prayer of Healing is painful.

***

Thanks for humoring me in one of my biggest rambling "philosophy of healing" segments ;) If you ever needed proof that I love theorycrafting (perhaps sans numbers), this was for you!

My catastrophic, and somewhat traumatic experience the other night on my Holy Pally was incredibly humbling. Normally in my 10 man Sunday night group, I'm running as shadow, which is something that previously I had never really done much in a raid. As someone who has ALWAYS raided solely as a healer, it has opened up an entirely new concept to me (don't you dare laugh, all you DPSers!) - the Rotation.

Sure, sure, I'd read about the theory behind it... making sure you have 5 stacks of shadowy thingie goodness, timing your Mind Flays with Mind Blast, etc etc etc... but knowing about it in theory, and performing it well in practice are two very different things (as my experience trying to heal as Disc has shown me!). Once I finally get my rotation down, however, I'm completely bored. The challenge is gone for me now, and I'm looking around for any emergencies that might require me to do a little backup healing...

But I digress. I really do have a point.

When I'm running holy, I'm johnny-on-the-spot. I am, by nature, a highly caffeinated, fidgety, jumpy person. I may not always have the most appropriate response to a stimulus, but respond I do - my reflexes are definitely there, sending limbs akimbo and random curse words spewing from my mouth. BUT AT LEAST I REACT QUICKLY. That's what's important, after all!

So therefore, I do well as a raid healer. There is very little rotation involved, and even with the small amount that Blizz has pushed on us through Serendipity, it's more of a nice bonus effect for something I would likely be casting anyway. Raid healing is generally more of a Reflex response.


Types of Damage and the Proper Response

There are many levels of predictability in raid healing, and they all require different amounts of preparation, and a different mix between rotation and reflex.

1) The Predictable Raid Wide Damage. E.G. XT's tantrum. You know when this damage will hit, and you know exactly whom it will hit. So for instance, for a Holy Priest, you can build up your Serendipity stacks beforehand to get a hasted Prayer of Healing off during the damage. Perhaps a Disc Priest will start pre-Bubbling people into safety before the inevitable tantrum.

2) Unpredictable Damage, Predictable Target. You might also simply call this spike damage on a tank. Think Patchwerk. You don't know the exact second the off tank will be hit with a Hateful Strike, but perhaps you know it will be the offtank who gets it, you know it will be happening often, and therefore you can just keep heals up on that target constantly. Usually, the best way to handle this type of thing is just steady healing, or keeping the potential target shielded, or buffered with HoTs. This isn't really that significantly different than the next type of damage, and they go hand in hand with one another...

3) Predictable Damage, Predictable Target. This is almost always the tank, and this is the damage that is healed best through rotation. The most optimal single target healers have solid, if somewhat more complex, healing rotations, and that is part of what makes MT Healing a bit more interesting than it might be otherwise. For instance, if you stick a Holy Priest on MT healing, they will spend most of their time working with the one rotation mechanic we have through Serendipity - Flash Healx3, Greater Heal. It's not that complex, but it is something - it is our only real rotation. But put a Pally Healer there, and there will be some funny business with a Sacred Shield and a judgment somewhere, some Flash of Light thingies... well you get the idea. (Obviously if I understood the rotation for Pallies better, I would not be so horrible at it)

4) Predictable Damage, Unpredictable Target. Think Slag Pot. Light bombs. Kologarn's fists. Frost Bombs. All of these mechanics are things you expect, but you cannot exactly prepare the target, because it could be anyone - so you simply have to respond quickly.

5) Unpredictable Damage, Unpredictable Target. Everyone screws up sometimes. Everyone steps in the fire on occasion (at least at first!). You can choose to ignore people who consistently do this, of course, but usually we just need to forgive and flash heal.


More than Simply Single Target and AoE Healing

Any time you have an unpredictable target for damage, powerful, reflexive single target healing is needed. You don't have to be an AoE healer to pick this up - and this is one of the reasons that so many Disc priests actually do well on raid healing. Their ability to respond quickly to bombs and fight mechanics makes them valuable to a raid, even if they aren't focusing on the tank. But, let's not forget that Pallies as well have one of the best single target burst heals available - Holy Shock is instant, with a reasonably short cooldown.

The idea that those who heal the Main Tank are just spam healing is not accurate. It is possible to simply spam, but from what I'm beginning to understand about the different healing classes, if you are spamming the tank, you are either not playing your class properly, or you are not really built to focus your heals on one target. A good Main Tank Healer weaves in their abilities through a solid rotation to make the most use out of their spells, talents, and cooldowns.

Raid Healers are built for reflex and rapid response. AoE heals are also important in raid healing of course, but I think sometimes we focus too much on the power of one or two spells, be it Wild Growth, Chain Heal, or Circle of Healing, and forget to note the synergy between our spells and talents. Main Tank healers need to know how to build a strong rotation, whereas raid healers need to know which abilities will work best in a split second situation, with an eye on cooldowns and procs. Both are challenging, but in different ways, in different scenarios, and for different people.

Alright, alright, so maybe I have a teeny tiny obsession with debating crit and haste. But can you blame me? You usually have to choose one at the expense of another, so I'm always curious and fascinated by what people choose for their healers and why. I've gone from crit obsessed to haste obsessed to somewhere in-between and back again, never able to be completely decisive about it. I dislike crit on principle, but.... Surge of Light is all shiny and I am drawn in like Bella to a shirtless sparkly sunlit Edward. *sparkle!!*

Therefore, I've been poring through all my favorite resto druid blogs reading about thoughts on the upcoming changes in 3.3 for druids in regards to haste. I warn you ahead of time that I am by no means an expert on Druids, and I'm almost positive that my Druid readers are going to have to set me right on a lot of my thoughts... but that is exactly the sort of feedback I'm hoping to get!

ETA: If you are looking for some interesting blog posts that resto druids have been posting lately on the topic, I recommend some Rolling Hots, Dreambound, some tricksy maths from Forrestump, and Restokin has some really helpful PTR testing - for the record, the way I understand it, Haste will both decrease the time between ticks on HoTs, AS WELL AS the total time the HoT ticks - therefore, with the Rapid Rejuvenation Glyph, you will not be getting MORE ticks to your HoTs, just faster ones. If this is wrong, please correct me!

Haste vs Crit for Druids

One of the things that has always confused me is the lack of viability for Haste and Crit for Druids. Before anyone rips me apart for saying that (be gentle, I'm not a druid myself!), I don't mean that these stats are useless for Druids, but merely that they seem to be a lot less useful for Druids than they are for other healing classes. As a Holy Priest, I can completely justify stacking either one sky high, though if I were to crunch the numbers, I may come up with good reasons to put a soft cap on either one. Since a lot of Druid heals are quickie casts, if not instant, then Haste really only seemed to matter up until GCD cap. And, since HoTs can't crit (unless you've got the T9 4piece set bonus, of course), Crit seemed kinda blah as well.

Ever since the changes to Shadowform for Priests, allowing DoTs to crit while in Shadowform, I've been wondering why HoTs can't crit while in Tree form. I see Druids on the whole, more than any other healing class, stack spellpower at the expense of haste and crit, because for other healers, those two latter stats seem stronger (I'm somewhat guessing here, I'll have to ask Codi over at MoarHPS to come over and beat me over the head with her calculator in order to have any maths to back any of this theorizing up). I'm sure some balancing would be necessary if HoTs were allowed to crit, but at the same time, that would mean Druids would stack more crit than they currently do, which would inevitably mean less spellpower as well.

Broadening the Niche? Should HoTs come closer to burst healing?

Another thing that intrigues me is that it seems as though the developers don't know how to get Druids to use crit and haste, and they are trying different things, and using different tools to test it - but with the same spell, Rejuvenation. First they try tinkering with a set bonus to see if Druids would be too OP with critting HoTs, and now it looks like they will try something similar with a glyph in 3.3.

I'm not impressed with the glyph, myself. I can see why many think it's very exciting, but to me, it's a bit similar in theory to Glyph of Renew - which I've always found stupid. If I wanted more healing in a shorter period of time, i.e. more burst... why wouldn't I just cast Flash Heal? The faster HoTs tick, the less time they are buffering... I'm not sure if that really IS a great thing.

Between the T9 set bonus for Druids, and the upcoming Glyph addition, I suspect that Blizz still hasn't figured out for sure how they want to handle some of the stat streamlining they are bringing in in Cataclysm. It feels like they are using the posterkids for HoTs as a way to test out how different stats might work with HoTs. I don't think this is a bad thing, for the record - I just found it interesting enough to bring it up. I suspect that if the changes work well for Druids, without breaking class balance, we may see all HoTs and DoTs for all classes being affected by both crit and haste in Cataclysm - or at least, with certain talents.

I'm still not sure if I like that or not... by speeding up the effect of HoTs and DoTs, it just brings them closer to being burst healing or burst damage in the first place, and eventually (taken to the extreme), it may completely degrade and diminish the niche, power, and value of *-over time effects.

BUT - Perhaps I'm just thinking about it too much. What say you?

There are a lot of interesting discussions going around regarding elitism in WoW, how things have supposedly become so much easier, how those that complain about it are meanie mcmean elitists, etc etc etc.

Much like politics, what always concerns me about these sort of discussions is the lack of any real middle ground.

If you think WoW is too easy these days, you must be an elitist. If you think it's great that it's getting easier and less grindy, then you are a, gasp, >CASUAL< (haha I love The Guild...).

What if it's neither of the above?

Elitism

I leveled my two 80s back when you got your first mount at level 40. Back before the xp bonus was increased significantly, so it took a lot longer to level. Back before the BoA XP bonus items. And I'm rather proud of that.

Does that make me elitist? Does it make you elitist if you are proud of the challenges you faced? Does it make you elitist if you want to preserve the challenges?

There's ease, and then there's accessibility. I believe that what we are seeing from the developers these days is less about ease, and more about accessibility. If you wanted the best gear in Vanilla, you needed a 40 man raid - very difficult for most people to manage, organize, and maintain. Then, in BC it was reduced to 25. And now, in Wrath, we have the option for 10 OR 25. With each succession, we find that more and more people, from small guilds or large ones, are able to access the instances that provide the best gear.

Because people are able to access more difficult scenarios, they are becoming better at playing their class. I know people will disagree with me on this, and I certainly do not think it is true in every case, but overall, people are becoming much more aware of how to play their toons through more and better experience. Dual speccing allows them to more easily practice with other specs. Everyone is a raider these days - and the blogging community has flourished under this change, though we've definitely lost a few of our best.

But, much like capitalism, someone has to be poor in order to make someone else feel rich. There have to be people who HAVEN'T accomplished the things I have in order for me to be proud of it. Otherwise, who cares? It's just something that everyone else has done. That is where elitism comes in. Some call folks who feel this way elitist, and imagine them sulking and pouting in the corner of the room. I, however, have some sympathy for their situation.

We are generally most proud of those things that go above and beyond the norm. It's not just the difficulties faced in raids themselves... the advent of "less grindy" rep battles inevitably means that those of us who worked so hard to finish that grind will outwardly appear exactly the same as those who breezed through it once it was nerfed. To use an Economics analogy (because I see a lot of economics analogies in this debate), the supply is suddenly bloated, and therefore the demand is lower, and each achievement has a decreased value.

Granularity

I remember doing my first heroic dungeon in Burning Crusade... and it was HARD. We spent 4 hours in there, and it was considered the easiest of all heroics. Back when crowd control meant something. Back when healers really *did* run out of mana. I have not used Shackle Undead once in a dungeon or raid in Wrath - and with all the undead running amuck, I fully expected to.

Do I think that Blizz is making WoW too easy? Not necessarily. I think they are increasing the granularity of game challenges. Perhaps the thought is that Heroics don't need to be so hard, because you can simply pop into an OS, Naxx, or VoA pug right after hitting 80, and you'll see more challenge. The development of 10 man options along 25 man options, and then even further into 10 man reg, 10 man heroic, 25 man reg, and 25 man heroic, along with hard mode options on top of all that - THAT is what I call granularity.

However, along with this granularity we have a very muddled progression path. In fact, one might say there is no progression path at all anymore. You can get everything, up to and including the top tier from running heroics, with no need to step into a raid, thus inspiring the new fad of "heroic grinding". Can you imagine "heroic grinding" in BC? I sure as hell can't. Shudder.

All that having been said, I did not enter the raiding scene until late in BC. To be honest, I didn't think I *could*. I was a n00b raider, and who wants one of those?

Maybe there is validity in the comment that raiding has just become far too easy - that you shouldn't have to hold your hands behind your back, jump up and down on one foot with a blindfold dosey doeing to Achy Brakey Heart in order to get a challenge (what? You didn't have to learn how to Dosey Doe to Billy Ray Cyrus in Elementary School? Must be a Texas thing...). Personally, I think granularity is a good thing. But I also rather agree with what MoarHPS said - that one of the big problems now is that you can buy tier items from badges, whereas you could not pre-Wrath. Tier tokens only dropped from certain bosses, so you knew you had to progress to those bosses in order to put together your set. I suspect that this is part of why the progression path is so non-existent these days, and I think it's one of the best points I've heard in some time.

I'm in the sort of field where I spend a lot of time doing data entry. You know, that mind numbingly boring repetitive stuff that everyone hates doing? The reason why I'm actually quite good at it is that I *don't* find it mind numbingly boring.

Larisa over at the Pink Pigtail Inn has made it very clear multiple times that she hates grinding... whether it be reputation grinds, or daily grinds, and I can completely understand why so many people hate that. The thing is... I don't... and sometimes I'm actually somewhat embarrassed by it. After all, Larisa calls herself a moron for it... what does that say about ME? Eeek!

So why don't I get bored and hate it? Having always been the kind of person who enjoyed entertaining myself with whatever I happened to have in front of me, I turn those boring tasks into challenges.

I'm the speediest woman on a ten-key I've ever met due to all that boring data entry I've done in my life. I type faster than a speeding bullet. And I can clear 20 dailies in under an hour - 2 if I'm distracted.

I know most folks love to test out their dps numbers on a dummy, and I do realize that gives a much better indicator of boss dps... but to me, dpsing on a dummy seems like something of a waste of time (but then again, this is also because I'm always healing in raids). I would rather do it while doing my dailies. Why grind for cloth for tailoring when I can get it while doing dailies? Why buy eternals on the AH, when I can get them while working on dailies? Why buy things to DE if I get so many silly green items while running dailies? Herb farming? Dailies, again.

I challenge myself over and over. Just how quickly can I get these dailies done? How many mobs can I take and AoE grind at the same time? Can I do all my dailies without emptying my bags once until I'm done?

Why would I ever be embarrassed about this? It comes from that one adjective - mind-numbing. The fact that I enjoy doing dailies tends to suggest that I enjoy mind-numbing tasks that don't require me to think - or rather, that I do not enjoy doing things that DO require me to think.

Of course, I've already explained why that is not the case for me, but I'm sure there are others who are like me... right? It's certainly not that I'm not a creative person. Hell, I'm a writer, a sometimes-musician, a cartographer, and someone who enjoys painting and drawing more than most. I enjoy puzzles and challenges - I'm not brain dead!

I like to multi-task, and I can do that while running dailies. I can chat with others, or watch TV... or even play Civilization on another monitor. To be quite honest, most of the time I much prefer running dailies to grinding instances, unless there is something specific I want from the instance - which is rare. I don't need anymore Emblems of Conquest, I have the Culling of Stratholme mount, most people don't seem interested in doing the achievements... I'm just plain overgeared for them, and there are still plenty of things I want to buy with gold and Champion's Seals!

So stop judging me just because I like doing dailies, and I'll stop judging you simply because you don't want to make the effort to get exalted with Sons of Hodir!!! :P

I have a love/hate relationship with ElitistJerks, the kings of theorycrafting. If you are looking for numbers on something, they provide some of the best resources. If, however, you are looking for tips on how to handle various situations better, or how to become a better healer, they are useless. They will throw numbers at you and ridicule you if your numbers are not what they consider ideal.

The thing is, it is very rare to find yourself in a raid mix and situation that is ideal - that's why it's CALLED ideal. The numbers they provide always have basic assumptions attached to them - such as who else is in the raid with you, what buffs you have, that sort of thing.

But what if I *don't* have a resto shammy with me? What if there are no druids available for an innervate? What if we don't have a shadow priest? Surely all these things would be ideal, but it is not practical to always assume this will be the case.

The way you should gem and enchant your gear, the talents you choose, the stats you prioritize should all take your fellow raid members into account of course. As I've said before, raiding is about synergy, not about individual perfection. At the same time, the numbers and theorycrafting provided by folks like the ElitistJerks will very rarely actually properly apply - because it is very rare that the average raider will ever meet all the conditions assumed by the EJ calculations.

The problem is, people get so hung up on tiny little numbers that will potentially boost their stats by such infintesimal amounts, that they completely forget to balance themselves.

Theorycrafting and the math that goes with it gives people the impression that there is really only one "best" way to do something - the way that maximizes the numbers used in the calculation. But the average raid is a lot more dynamic than I think people like to admit. Changing things up is how people learn new fights, conquer new material. If I couldn't keep people alive with loads of crit rating, maybe I'll try it with tons of haste and see if that works better. And people heal differently. So if you don't gear yourself for how YOU heal, and instead try to gear according to how EJ insists you should heal, you are not doing yourself or your raid a favor.

Does that mean theorycrafting is stupid? Not at all - much like meters, it is a useful tool to help you improve. Use that theorycrafting to make decisions between choices you have in front of you, between items you might pick up. But don't let the theorycrafting of others dictate everything about your character, because especially for holy priests, there are a lot of flexible variables.

If you are new to a class or role, reading up on theorycrafting and scanning through the EJ priest forums is a fantastic idea. Had I not done this, I would still be stacking spirit and ignoring intellect. Until you find your niche, until you train your reflexes and trigger fingers properly, it is not a bad idea to default to the suggestions of the more experienced among your class, and those with the math skillz to explain it all.

But, once you get a handle on the basics of your class, and once you start to develop your own rotations and habits and strategies, stop depending on the way others choose to gear, and start figuring out what works best for you. There is an awesome discussion along this line of thinking from the Penance Priest for those Disc Priests who are at the stage of the game - you've got the basics down, now you are ready to personalize your style and priorities a bit.
There are still wrong answers, a la agility for Priests and all sorts of degrees of less obvious fail. Every healing priest (probably all priests period) need to pick up Meditation, for instance. It's really not optional. But just like how there are multiple wrong answers, I assure you friends, there are also multiple right ones.

From Poptisse, whom I absolutely adore, and for whom I have tauren-loads of respect:

"What people have to understand is the basics of raiding. When you gem and enchant your gear there is more then 1 aspect to look from. [...]Gems and enchants should always be decided upon a wide perspective of your raidsetup. My guide isn't a bible, neither is EJ guides."

The problem with that thing all WoW players know as “DRAMA” is that once the drama ball starts rolling, it’s hard to stop. You get caught in this sticky web, and the more you try and get out of the drama-vironment, the worse you seem to make it. It’s like there is a panic in the streets, and anything you say or do can and will be treated as MOAR DRAMA.

It usually doesn't stem from one source. We've got it running rampant in our Alliance right now, and it's not just from one person, I assure you. It's like a disease that is spreading quickly through our ranks. Hell, I've been suckered in myself, and contributed a lot more to it than I meant to.

The underlying sources of drama

The relative anonyminity of the internet allows us all to release our inner jerk. Yet, even despite this, the biggest problem is miscommunication, and even that comes down to basic human flaws. People are wimpy. It’s so much easier to tell someone they are doing a great job, than to tell them they suck. Now, for some people, it’s a helluva lot more fun to tell people they suck – but in general I don’t like spending time with those people anyway. Except my fiancé, and that’s just because he’s cute.

It’s not easy to step up, and privately tell someone you don’t like what they are doing. It requires a lot of diplomacy. Doing it in anger will only make it worse, and if you can’t be calm and rational when expressing your grievances with someone, then you will most likely just make it worse. I’m a big proponent of positive honesty, and I have been accused of many things because of it.

It’s not easy to be that person who gets criticized – even when it’s done in a private, calm, rational way. I don’t take criticism very well and I’ll be the first to admit it. I know some people who always seem to assume the best about themselves – unless they are told they are doing a crappy job, they believe they are doing quite well. They give too much credence to kind compliments. I’m the extreme opposite of that particular type of benevolent arrogance. I always assume I’m doing everything wrong, and that I am crap at everything I do. Unless someone tells me I’m doing a good job, I assume I’m not. So if someone shoots criticism at me, it really shakes me – because I don’t need confirmation of my own failures.

If you cannot stand up and explain to someone how and why you are disgruntled with them, if you cannot appreciate the bravery it takes for someone to express their grievances about you TO you, then you are failing at mature human interaction. Being a WoW player doesn’t excuse you from mature human behavior.

From where I’m standing, that’s the source of the drama. People are being unfair to one another, and it all comes back to that fear of honesty. So let’s break it down.

• It is unfair to expect others to fix a problem they do not realize exists.
• Most people do not read minds. A lot of people who play this game are really dense. There’s no point in getting pissed off about something they cannot change about themselves. If you want more positive outcomes, you have to adapt. You cannot realistically expect others to know you are upset with them unless you TELL them – and tell them why.
• Informing others that you are upset with them will likely not have a very positive response if you do it in a public fashion that is meant to attack, alienate, or accuse them.
• If someone takes great pains to apologize to you for something they’ve done to upset you, or if someone goes to great effort to rectify their previous actions due to your criticisms, it is unfair to attack them in such a public setting. They are doing all they can to rectify their mistakes. Get over your grudges, and try to come at it with a clear head. Did they listen to your criticisms? Have their words and activities since you expressed your concerns shown a marked improvement? Are they at least trying? Give them credit.
  

Venting your frustration

Everyone gets pissed off about the ways things are being run in a guild or alliance from time to time. Sure, sure, if you had the ultimate power, I'm sure you could make it all better. Just ask Stalin.

Sometimes, all you want is to rant. It's cathartic. The thing is, you need to pick your rant location and audience carefully. Yesterday I was subjected to quite possibly the most amusing and annoying rant ever by a pretty good friend of mine. I could hold it against him, but truth be told - I'm glad he ranted to me instead of behind my back, or in a public forum. I'm especially glad that he chose to take it out on me instead of on the people who were the true sources of his anger. If we had been in the same room I probably would have punched him in the neck, but see, that's why the internet is so awesome. I would like to believe that he went off at me because he knew it was safe, and that I wouldn't hold it against him or anyone else. I know that my part in contributing to the current drama from which our group is suffering is due to my poor choice of rant locales and audiences. Go ahead and get out your frustrations, especially before you address them to the source, but take care not to influence others into a grudge they are unlikely to forgive anytime soon.

Drama can be prevented

I recently had a misunderstanding with a very dear friend of mine in the WoW universe. Luckily for both of us, it was only semi-public; Only a handful of people saw what we had to say. We both shed a lot of tears about it, and then talked about it privately, and understand a lot more about one another. Now we’re back to mutual adoration. It all stemmed from taking things too personally (on both sides) and possibly being less than forthright with one another. Why didn’t this escalate to full on guild/alliance level drama? Because instead of attacking one another in increasingly public spaces, we decided to handle it privately, and accept one another’s apologies.

We’re both girls. I am trying to decide if I think this has any bearing on the outcome. I am the anti-sexist, so I usually try to avoid such generalizations. But there’s a lot of testosterone in WoW, and there sure are a lot of temper tantrums. Is this a solid trend? Moar research required! I need a flow chart.

Basically, most drama can be prevented by calm honesty, discreet disagreements, and rampant forgiveness. We all screw up. And most of the time? Our mistakes are not malicious. We can’t always see things from another perspective, unless that perspective is specifically explained to us.

I have multiple examples of people with whom I disagree on a regular basis. Anyone who reads both of our blogs knows that Ful and I are polar opposites on a lot of issues – but despite the fact that we annoy the hell out of one another, we are equal opponents, and we consistently remain friends. Perhaps this is borne out of mutual respect. But that respect came from being honest with one another when we piss each other off. If it were not for that fact, we could easily continually instigate loads of drama.

Maybe it’s due to the fact that I know from experience such drama can be prevented, but I have very little patience for people who, instead of approaching disagreements with a clear head and a calm tongue, decide to spark drama. Is it a need for attention? Do you want people to beg for forgiveness so that you feel more powerful? Or do you simply feel that it’s not worth the energy to try to rectify the situation through more appropriate channels?

Regardless, I find the best way to deal with these types of misplaced acrimony is simply to ignore it. It doesn’t mean I don’t care – but I’d rather let it blow over, and instead focus my attention on those who find more productive means of conflict resolution.