Technical Specifications
Name: Feral Aggression
Class: Druid
Spec: Feral
Tier: 1
Ranks: 5
Abilities Influenced:
Feral Aggression. The world hates you, you do realize that? You are a five rank talent with benefits many wouldn’t pay 2 points for, and you sit next to one of the Feral essentials. You’ve been a very bad talent. Very bad indeed.
Oh, hm, yes, this is going a direction no one wants to see it go, so let’s step back and be objective for a moment. We’ll finish this later, Feral Aggression.
Why the Feral Aggression hate? Why is it the case that, in the words of the immortal Ackbar, “it’s a trap!”
Let’s first look at the competition, Ferocity. Ferocity is also a five point, tier 1 talent. It’s effect is that it reduces the cost of Maul, Swipe (kitty gets one now too), Claw, Rake and Mangle (both Cat and Bear versions) by 1 point of Rage or Energy per rank. At all five ranks, that’s five less Energy and Rage per attack on all of the basic toe-to-toe attacks in your arsenal.
Let’s single out the kitty kitty attacks a moment, since Bear is something of a fuzzier line. (Haha, fuzzier! See what I did there? You can’t unread it!) Kitty starts with 100 energy. She refills that energy at 10 points per second. A Claw costs her 45 energy. So, she attacks with Claw, she has 55 energy left. During the 1.5 second global cooldown, she’ll get back 15 energy. We’re at 70, so we’re only at a net loss of 30 points. Next claw drops us to 25, and we’re at 40 after the GCD.
At a cost of 5 less, our energy goes 100, Claw, 60, GCD, 75, Claw, 35, GCD, 50, Claw, 10. We got in a whole extra claw before we had to pause to regain energy. I guess what I mean to say in all too many words is that 5 less energy adds up really fast when you are literally blasting these attacks out one after another.
I had said Bear’s issue was fuzzier. I say this mainly because Bear runs on Rage. Rage comes of attacking and being attacked and if Bear is the center of much brutal attention, Rage management tends not to be an issue. In massive raids, tanks will often tell you they simply can’t use up their Rage. It comes piped in like that kid who cheated at water gun fights by using the hose. You know which kids you are, and know fear. For kids like I will find you and have our revenge. Accounts will come due!
Er, so Bears. What does Bear get? HUGE discount prices! A Swipe only costs 20 Rage. Now it costs 15. 25% off! Maul costs 15. Now 10! 33% off! All Rage must go! It makes being a Bear pretty darn cheap, though we look back again at situation. If Rage will never be an issue, maybe we’ll consider taking…
Feral Agression
Oh, snap! I almost forgot this wasn’t a Ferocity article. I think you feel sufficiently stupid for not taking Ferocity. Let’s try to salvage that, put it in a jar, and take it out later when you’re feeling confident and secure, because we can’t have that. FA has two effects:
- It improves the attack power debuff of Demoralizing Roar by 8% per rank (40% at max).
- It improves the damage of Ferocious Bite by 3% per rank (15% at max).
Since Kitty went first last time, let’s keep on the Bear train. Demoralizing Roar, at glorious level 80, reduces Attack Power by 411 to everyone around you for 30 seconds at the cost of 10 Rage. It’s a tanking ability, obviously. It reduces damage you take from things that plink at you, and is essentially identical to the Warrior’s Demoralizing Shout. You just, you know, roar instead. With points in FA, you now reduce Attack Power by 575.
Skip, numbers make my head hurt. Just tell me if it’s good or not.
Truth be told, I’m not a Theorycraftist. But I’m very good at stealing knowledge from Theorycraftists, and the results are good. Attack Power mileage bounces around a bit, depending on boring things we won’t talk about, but the down and dirty result seems to be that this shines best in the raid environment. You know, that place we said your Rage would rain from the sky to nourish the seeds of your wrath into blooming blossoms of carnage and ruin. Rough numbers put the damage turned away by a roar to be somewhere between 9% and 18%, depending on the phase of the moon and what you had for dinner. An improved roar does, just like it says, 40% more of that. Simple math? Not in my house! That 9% to 18% becomes 12.6% and 25.2%. That’s an improvement of “it doesn’t matter, because you’re a Tank and your job is to take things that make you live, stupid”.
Result: Bear Raid Tank wants Feral Aggression. Bear Raid Tank only wants Ferocity if he finds Rage is an issue.
Kitty. You get +15% to Ferocious Bite. Ferocious Bite is Kitty’s main spike damage attack. It makes one big number, but fails to compete in raw, sustained damage against anything that can survive the spike. And in a raid, such a spike is just going to piss off whatever you bit, where it will promptly turn you into Meow Mix. And since it uses up all of your Energy in the process, good luck defending yourself.
No, Ferocious Bite quickly makes its home amidst the PvP world, where it is designed to rip a player’s head off with a savage ?k crit. Since FB makes such massive numbers, 15% more of it is not a bad thing, really. Would you rather have 15% of a cake, or 30% of a cupcake? The problem falls in with point starvation. You need to ride the Feral trolley down to Rend and Tear, because the +25% crit is vital. Ferocious Bite needs to crit to show its teeth, figuratively and literally. That double damage with +15% means really +30% damage. You’ll want Predatory Instincts to boost your crit damage another 10%, again feeding on the whole percentage of massive numbers theme we’ve got decorating. And you’re going to want every drop of crit chance you can muster, possibly investing into Master Shapeshifter way down the Resto tree. After all of that, you’re going to have to give up on some good talents to make it all fit. And then the moment of truth arrives. You build up those combo points, you lock onto your target and you give them the bite of doom… and it doesn’t crit. Yeah, you’re pretty much boned…
Sour grapes, that is. Here, chase it down with a fortune cookie.
If man were meant to fly, God would have given him wings, though I suspect he knew flying coach was cramped enough with the limbs we already had.
Battleground Kitty Mark Beta 1 Bleeder Roger, WoW 3.2.2
It’s been my desire to get my Critty Kitty into proper PvP order before I hit 80. I know it’s really not worth considering until then, but I’m impatient. I think what I have now is an upright and proper bleed build. I know bleeds are mostly a PvE sustained damage thing and PvP is all about the crit spikes, but Ferocious Bite just keeps giving me reasons to hate it. I want to like it, but it refuses to obey.
This here Kitty doesn’t have a lot of survival built in. A few points were taken in for concession, but our main goal here is stealth, stun, bleed, Shred. We don’t start fair fights. We find fair fights and make them unfair.
Feral Talent Overview
Ferocity – Required for Feral. We don’t ask, we just do. Even if we’re considering Feral Aggression, we still take Ferocity too. We aren’t. Like I said, me and Ferocious Bite are having a tiff.
Feral Instinct – Necessary for proper Prowling.
Savage Fury – +20% damage to your primary attacks? Yes please.
Feral Swiftness – +30% movement speed. As a melee attacker, your mobility is vital to your existence.
Sharpened Claws – +6% Crit. The crit game begins!
Shredding Attacks – Shred is really not useful without this talent. The cost is way too high. This lops off about a third of that, raising the damage a lot.
Predatory Strikes – We’re mostly taking this to meet prereqs, but it does offer a lump of attack power, so we won’t sneeze at it. It also offers up the chance at instant cast healing. Since our mana bar isn’t getting used for much else, it’s a readily available source of health. Pop off a Maim on your opponent, heal yourself, then jam back into kitty shape before they can shake it off.
Primal Fury – While unpredictable, we’re loading the dice on this one with as much crit as possible. There are few things as deadly or as satisfying as those moments where you rack up 5 combo points in just three attacks.
Brutal Impact – This only adds 1 second to the stun of your Pounce. One second may not seem like much, but if they don’t trinket out, that’s one more Shred which is one more chance to get a combo point or two, which may open up that 5 point Maim or Rip that spells their doom.
Feral Charge – It’s not just for Bears anymore. A lot of people give FC the shrug, but it’s an amazing gap-closer. As a kitty, it will not break stealth, so you can open up with a Pounce or to just tease your opposition. While it doesn’t technically interrupt casting in Cat Form, you can make a player’s spell fizzle by quickly leaping behind them before they get the cast off.
Heart of the Wild – I actually let this slide in a lot of my builds, as 5 points is a lot of investment for what I consider to be less of an attack power improvement than people give it credit for. Still, we’re going all-out on the damage here, so we’ll listen to the masses and take it.
Survival of the Fittest – Yes yes, this is a tanking talent. While I said we’d be mostly ignoring defense, this talent is the origin of the word “mostly”. There’s a lot to love. The crit resistance mimics the effects of PvP Resilience to a degree. The +6% to all attributes will result in a small damage and survivability increase. And in a pinch, you’re better equipped to tank an AV boss than most.
Leader of the Pack – This talent is not only amazing for you, but makes several other classes your best of friends. +5% crit for one point is amazing. Getting to share it is icing on the cake.
Primal Tenacity – With only one point in it, this one got a point as pure filler, and didn’t get Rank 3 due to a lack of spare points to finish it off. Fear is a bothersome fact of life in PvP, though we’ve got Berserk to bust out of it once every three minutes. This point could’ve gone just about anywhere above it and still provided similar benefit.
Predatory Instincts – I filled this 2 out of 3 points primarily as filler, but it’s filler with nice effects. The AoE damage isn’t as lethal as it would be in a raid, but in a packed map like AV, they are a reality. The bonus damage to crits shows itself more and more as we buff our crit chance to the sky, and will help negate the Resilience our opponents will be stacking.
Infected Wounds – Because Mangle and Shred will be your main attacks, the Infected Wounds disease will almost always be on anyone you face, ensuring they’re always moving around at a crawl. While anything that can remove a disease can clear it off, that means it works equally well as a cover-effect to help keep other class diseases from being stripped so easily. Make friends with a Death Knight using Pestilence, and watch as he turns a field of enemies into snails for the slaughtering.
King of the Jungle – This ability will serve you two fold. You can now use your Tiger’s Fury to instantly generate 60 energy, essential for turning it up to 11 on a stunlocked victim. Second, it reduces the cost of your Cat/Bear shapechanging by a massive amount. While you’ll usually be a Cat, dropping in and out of form is your primary means of breaking CC effects like ice and roots, which can get very expensive very fast. Shapechanging will cost next to nothing for our build.
Mangle – Just take it. And take Improved Mangle to make it cheaper. This is not optional.
Rend and Tear – This sort of dictates your tactics now. You’ll often find someone already engaged in a fight, Pounce or Fairy Fire depending on situation, Rake and Mangle to prime the bleeding, then Shred wildly.
Primal Gore – Rip is probably your least favorite attack in PvP, but it has the luxury of doing the largest total damage of any of your finishing moves plus it ignores armor. With your massive crit chance, this is a huge damage buff to an already intimidating attack. Drop one on any opponent with a lot of health or armor where you know your other attacks aren’t going to finish the job anytime soon.
Berserk – You mostly want this as a fear break, but the 50% cheaper attacks come along as a nice bonus.
Resto Talent Overview
Improved Mark of the Wild – BG Ferals don’t typically take this one, because chances are there’ll be a tree around to offer up an improved pink paw for you. I think the +2% attribute bonus makes it worth it, however small it may be. Along side Survival of the Fittest, it’s nearly as good as running around with a permanent Blessing of Kings. Rarely do people pass out buffs in BGs after getting out of the gate anyways. Don’t rely on them for your buffs.
Furor – Skip, you only took 4 points in Furor! WTF?!
Chills, man. Let’s do the math right quick. Furor lets me keep up to 20 points of energy per rank, assuming it would’ve generated that much in the time I spent away from Kitty. Furor is important in PvP because we often have to break out of Cat Form to escape CC effects, and we want the energy waiting for us when we get back. Energy generates at a speed of 10 energy per second. When I return to Cat Form, there’s a 1.5 second global cooldown before I can actually act. In that 1.5 seconds, I’ll generate 15 energy. With 4 ranks in Furor, I’ll make it back to kitty form with 80 energy, then make 15 more before I can act. I’m only losing out on 5 energy. That’s a fair exchange for a talent point, I feel.
Naturalist – +10% extra raw damage. Not bad for a tree talent. Not bad for any talent.
Natural Shapeshifter – Prereq. Many call this talent next to useless, and if we were considering PvP, maybe it would be. But, since we’re using our shapechange as a method of freedom, it carries its weight some.
Omen of Clarity – Happiness is! Almost anything you do has a chance of procing OoC, giving you a free attack. Generally considered vital to the Feral offensive, you’ll find yourself getting off many more attacks this way.
Master Shapeshifter – Many consider this talent to not be worth the investment it takes to get here. If Natural Shapeshifter isn’t worth beans to you, it’s like paying 5 points for +4% crit. Still, you already paid 3 for +6% and 1 for +5%, right? It’s called diminishing returns. If you want more, you gotta pay. Me, I want it.
Feral Talents That Didn’t Make the Cut
Survival Instincts – It didn’t get dropped for lack of awesome, but it’s really only a necessity when tanking. I said up-front we were sacrificing some survivability, though I may consider swapping it for that lone Primal Tenacity point.
Primal Precision – It was hard to give this talent up. It was really handy while leveling, and I’d still recommend it in a PvE build. Accuracy is less of an issue in PvP, as attacking from behind removes a lot of the player’s avoidance right off.
Nurturing Instincts – I really like this talent. Agility is your main stat, so while the benefit won’t make you a raid healer, it’s a minor investment for a huge return. It’s pretty common to toss a HoT or two up, then go into Cat Form and engage the enemy, gaining both benefits of the talent at the same time for the start of the encounter. It didn’t make it on the list due to sheer point starvation, but is a candidate for that stray point floating around.
Natural Reaction – Strictly a Bear Tank talent. It also has to compete with some beefy talents at its tier.
Improved Leader of the Pack – This was another hard one to let go. You’re pretty loopy if you don’t bring this one along on a raid, but it’s just not that useful in PvP. The heal is great for taking pressure off of the healers in a group, but since most PvP exchanges only last a few flurries, you’re just not going live to see any worthwhile benefit. The mana replenishment ensures that you are never dry, but we have very little need for it to begin with.
And now your fortune cookie:
If one in the hand is worth two in the bush, someone has a very high opinion of their hand.
The Survey meme scene has been getting pretty popular amidst the WoW blogging scene. Curse you, MySpace generation kids! No, seriously though, it’s actually pretty interesting. Rather than just a “I like pie, my bf is a dbag” survey, you get to see why different people play their classes in various ways. It’s a nifty little community family portrait. Quick, get in and have your picture taken too! Alright, now a silly one for the year book. Great!
It all started with the healing survey from Miss Medicina. Then there was the spin-off tanking survey by Koriel. It was only logical we’d see a DPS survey too. The trinity is complete!
I’ll be filling out the DPS sheet, because Calhi usually fills the role of Critty Kitty. I have a tank spec, but I rarely get to use it and it’s not my forté. Enough yammering. Let’s roll.
What is the name, class, and spec of your primary dps?
Calhi, Druid, Feral. AKA, Critty Kitty.
What is your primary dpsing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
I really don’t have raiding experience. 5 man or PvP? I enjoy BGs more, but melee DPS is something I’m still adapting to in PvP. So, though it’s not my most successful, I’m going to say PvP.
What is your favorite dps spell/ability for your class and why?
Since it’s technically an ability, Cat Form is the obvious answer. Without it, I would not be the Critty Kitty. That’s not really a fair answer for druids though, as every role/spec depends on at least one form. My favorite cat ability? Thanks to a little talent called King of the Jungle, I’m going to pick Tiger’s Fury. This is a talent that rivals even the Rogue’s Combat Potency in raw energy generation. Assuming a Rogue with a 1.5 speed dagger, he’s looking at an average of 120 energy over a 60 second period. (40 attacks each producing 15 energy 20% of the time). It’s random, but decent. Tiger’s Fury will produce 60 energy on command once every 30 seconds, which averages to the same 120. I favor the kitty version, as I can drain my bar, call upon the 60 energy, then drain it again for a nice burst, and the fact that it comes with a 6 second damage buff is just good synergy. Then you point out that that same Rogue also has Vitality and my comparison loses weight fast, but I still really like it. My Mangle is still cooler than your Sinister Strike. /raspberry
What dps spell do you use least for your class and why?
Nature’s Grasp. That isn’t to say it’s not useful. I just can’t seem to find a place on my screen to put it where I’ll remember to keep it up. It’s actually a great leveling and PvP tool as, unlike Entangling Roots, it can be cast in your Feral forms as a quick escape from a melee attacker. I also don’t use my Balance abilities, but it’d be silly to ask a Feral druid to do so.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of your dps class and why?
As a class, it’s the variety. If I ever got tired of being a melee DPS, a little gear-grinding and a respec later and I could be a ranged caster. Only Shaman have similar freedom, and they don’t have a tank spec. Speaking strictly Critty Kitty, we really don’t have much a Rogue can’t do too. Many of our abilities are copies of theirs, but we have the other non-DPS abilities to fall back on if we need to, most noteworthy being healing, which I’m sure any Rogue would kill to have when out leveling.
What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your dps class and why?
The usual stuff. The difficulties of melee. Squishy leatherness. The life of a rogue-clone. When your other cars are a plate like grizzly bear, a life giving tree and a laser hurling chicken, you have no room to complain about giving it all up for silent but deadly.
In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best dps assignment for you?
You know, I really don’t know. I just don’t have the raiding experience to say. I think I’d enjoy the bursty, mobile action of chasing down and dropping adds. I’m not a “stand there and press 1″ person. If I were, I’d have gone boomkin.
What dps class do you enjoy dpsing with most and why?
Silly puppy. You ask funny question. We’re talking about my Critty Kitty, so of course I’m going to say Druid. Why? It’s my favorite class all around. Pure fun factor. I just enjoy it. If we ignore that a moment, my fall back is Hunter. I primarily play my hunter on the BGs, and it’s the class I most effectively PvP. Juggling half-a-dozen CC assaults feels as natural as a glove with them, and I hope to some day feel so at ease with my kitty.
What dps class do you enjoy dpsing with least and why?
Assuming all classes are technically DPS classes, um… Shadow Priest, I guess? I’ve tried every class and several specs, but Priests just never played well for me. Calhi rolled with a shadow priest for a while, so I got to see their face melting power, but I just can’t do it. I’m an altaholic, so I’ll give it another good faith effort some day, but for the moment, we’ll call them my least favorite.
What is your worst habit as a dps?
I don’t think I have room to put all of that here. Ha! Nah, DPS can do no wrong. Stay out of the green crap and keep your slot on the Recount higher than the tank. Blame the tank and healer for everything else that goes wrong. We are the raid cowboys, baby. All glory, no responsibility!
What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while dpsing?
Probably the same pet peeves of any group environment. Any 5 man PUG I manage to be part of, I’m the bottom of the Recount list (the list kept by the other DPS members of the party, of course), because I’m always the last one into every encounter. The attacks usually go in this order: DPS, second DPS attacking different group of mobs, healer now drawing aggro trying to heal dying DPSers, then the tank. After the tank has started attacking, I pop out of stealth and Shred his current target, but it’s all a big mess by then. This assumes the rare moment that all members of the party are actually in the same room for an encounter. Even as a DPSer, yeah, my pet peeve is still stupid and selfish DPSers.
Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other dps?
Melee DPS gets no love, but I don’t think that is for a lack of balance or ability. Kitties aren’t exactly the peak of the DPS world, but we do well for ourselves, if given a nurturing environment. When it comes to raw theorycraft damage, I really don’t know where we are. Every list I see assumes Druid DPS to be Boomkin, end of debate, lolheresacookie.
What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance?
I don’t. /blush. I should, but DPS meters being flashed in my face get old fast, so I don’t really use them. I’ve only recently hit levels where I can actually attack training dummies, so I’ll probably pick one up to practice my rotations. Bleed-based rotations, which raid cats excel at, aren’t that difficult or unforgiving, though. Keep the bleeds and debuffs going, Shred the rest of the time.
Okay, I do use Omen, but I’m not very good at watching it. There’s too much else going on to stare at it, and I find it doesn’t usually flash the red “oh crap” alarm until a second or two after the enemy has already turned to make a lunch of me. Bleeds are usually pretty good at not spiking the aggro, though if you do manage to steal the show, they work in reverse in that you can’t just turn them off until the tank takes it back.
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?
That I am a Bear. Or that I am a Tree. Or that I’m a Moonkin. The expansions saw to it that Druids could be anything, but only with a proper investment of talents. It takes different gear and talents to do different things, and if I’m dressed for kitty play fun time, I’m not healing your group. I’d be as effective as a Rogue with a sack full of bandages. I think all healer classes have to deal with this, though.
What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new dpsers of your class to learn?
The same challenges as all melee DPS. Mobility is a learned trait. It’s honestly something the ranged DPSers could learn a bit of too, but it isn’t a barrier to their success. In order to maximize damage, you have to be able to quickly get to your target, get out when it gets hairy, then leap back into the fray as soon as it’s safe to do so. Take advantage of your speed boosts and gap-closers. Stay light on your toes and practice your battlefield awareness.
What dps class do you feel you understand least?
You mana-guzzlers baffle me. I tried to be a Boomkin for a time, and it’s just not my speed. I guess “understand” isn’t the best way to put it. I get it. Mana-management, that is. I alt around. I’ve got a basic understanding of most of the classes, and none of them totally escape me. I just like my yellow bar more.
What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in dps?
For the sake of your sanity, I’ll keep this answer shallow. I am a macro junky, and use a variety of keys that change functionality based on my current form. I have Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text tweaked out to keep watch on my combo points and other effects through audio cues. I prefer noisy instruments for this task. For example, anytime I generate a combo point, a loud electric guitar “bwrarrrr” blasts in my ears. When I hit 5 combo points, it jams out a guitar rift. Toss in a few other warnings on drums, keyboard and the like, and me taking my kitty for a spin sounds something like a heavy metal concert. It’s my dream to have an add-on that generates a techno mix with variations and clips that play based on live conditions of the battle, similar to the PS2 game Rez. I can dream…
[Your class's preferred basic stat] over other stats or balanced stat allocation, and why?
Aww, crit crit mutha fudga! There’s a reason they (they being me) call me the Critty Kitty. Agi and crit ’til the sky turns red, woo woo! Haste is near worthless to me (I’ve tried it, but when you generate one white number per second and all of your yellows are instant, it just doesn’t show). I hear armor penetration is nice, but I haven’t bothered to try and figure out the math on that one. Stamina shouldn’t be totally ignored when you’re in the melee fray, but it’s just not a focus. Agility really is center ring for the kitty circus. No getting around it.
And then we come to the tag portion of our tale. Unfortunately, I’m new to this community, so I haven’t a budding roster of neighbors to pester. I’d bug the lovely Ophelie over at Bossy Pally, but I know for a fact she doesn’t enjoy donning her Ret gear that often, but if you’d like, love, I know you’ve already done the Tank and Heal survey, and so you could give Rykga the whole shabangabang. I’d also like to briefly thank Jaedia at The Lazy Sniper, just because hers was the first DPS survey I read. Good times.
And now, I’ve been pondering. What would an MSG laden meal like a MBTY post be without a stale fortune cookie at the end to leave your mind reeling with profound wisdom and mild brain damage? So as not to leave you feeling unfulfilled, here’s your blog fortune cookie:
If Kate ate a date too late, what date was Kate’s late date ate?
Eh, maybe you should’ve called out for Pizza instead. Now you’re just going to be hungry in an hour.
This will be short, but I need to get it off my chest. I’ve accepted that DPS is a role. I’ve begrudgingly accepted that DPS is a verb. You may even hear me use it as such in a sentence.
Stop saying “DPS per second”. You do not do 3,000 damage per second per second. That would require Calculus and derivatives warping the fabric of time in upon itself. You also did not do 400,000 DPS during that last encounter. You did 400,000 damage during that encounter. If you could do 400,000 DPS, your raid group would not need you.
I can’t explain why this bothers me, yet it guts at me like a dull rusted knife to the intestines. Then again, it did take me several years to stop cringing at “lol”, and I still can’t stand to see it used as a replacement for punctuation. I’m a calm person, but I guess we all have our anal hang-ups we can’t explain.
TL;DR version:
DPS per Second is wrong. Stop saying it.
This angry rant brought to you by sleep deprivation. Sleep Deprivation, because Dragon Age: Origins consumed 3,000 seconds per second of my life last night.
I’d like to take a moment to pull back the pink curtain and have a brief ramble about the day job. I apologize to those I typically play and converse with, as I’ve been buried beneath a fairly large stack of IRL project work and haven’t made it in game where I’d like. This is mostly my own fault, as I took a bit more of the plate than was my due.
I find it amazing that in WoW, or any MMO really, there’s this fairly quick understanding of roles and a fairly potent level of communication about them, much of it implied. Someone makes a healer, specs healer, and then offers themselves up to a group as a healer, knowing their job will be to heal things. They find a task that needs doing, they pick it and fill it. Now, I’m talking purely abstract here, as I know there are many who outright fail at filling their role or picking up on even the most basic aspects of it, but they at least have it in raw concept. Despite the asocial tendencies of many MMO players, they understand and willfully take part in group dynamics and communication.
So there I was, clustered with several technically savvy individuals. The task is to propose, develop and implement a simple system. All are knowledgeable in their field and have done such things before. The “uhs, ers and ums” begin.
I’m not a take charge, energetic leader individual. Every group needs a take charge, energyetic leader individual. This is a fact that nags at me as I level my thick-furred bear towards tankhood. Coordination and group communication aren’t my primary traits, which really benefit a tank. I won’t go absolute on you and say it’s required, but the tank is in the best position to coordinate and lead, so it certainly helps.
So there we are without a tank. I can be playful and comforting when provoked, and so I at least try to coax the collective out of their shells. I guess I’m the healer now. Raw support. I joke around a bit. However, the woman directly across from me is pregnant to the point of potentially spawning adds at any moment. Suddenly, the repertoire stocking my head consists of nothing but dead baby jokes. I, in the morbid moment that could only be funny to me, laugh to myself, but here I am without anything to loosen up the group shy of acting generally goofy. Crap, I forgot to spec Tree. Now I’m healing the group with nothing but my DPS gear and Nurturing Instinct.
No one had any idea where to start or take the project, let alone how to divide it. I was not going to let this group wipe. Out of desperation to see the thing moving, I volunteered myself for about 75% of the work. That’s right, I heal-tanked it. Dropped an untalented Tranquility and let the mobs come as they may. I’m looking pretty good on the Recount too. A few days later and I’ve made it through, but you wouldn’t believe the repair bill.
I sit here now, exhausted, and wondering what it would be like if real life had such distinct roles people were quick to adopt and act upon. Of course, it isn’t like that, and so I think in the future I’ll have to treat myself a little nicer when taking the initiative in role divisions. I think I’m intimate enough with the project now that I shouldn’t have trouble drawing lines. Hey, look at me. I’m leading! Put that crown on my portrait, baby!
