Tuesday 9 March 2010

Grumpy Old Merke Man - Volume One

Hello all and welcome to the first addition to the Grumpy Old Merke Man seris; a set of short whine-posts devoted to "The fuck don't these people realise this shit" by the Merke himself.


Good morning, minions. Today I'd like to talk about the accursed thing called "Laggggggg wwwwwwwwwwww". Let me start by saying; back in my day we didn't have fancy addons like Gearscore or whatever. But we didn't have that SpamFU shit every raid either despite there being addons like Gatherer and more that I'm sure spam the raid with uselss shit. My point is, a massive emphasis has been placed recently on the "Massive lag generated by --- addon". Upon further probing of "Then how comes I don't get the massive lag generated by --- addon", I am told "Oh, it's because of how your internet is configured".

Now, call me dumb, or don't, because I'll fucking kill you, but I care little for this mumbo-jumbo about configuration of network ports. All I know is, I've never touched mine, and the difference between someone running gearscore and 20 running gearscore seems to make no different to my lag/FPS. So, the moral of the story is, don't configure your network... settings? ... No, of course it isn't, you stupid dick. The moral of the story is; raiding requires preparation BEYOND that of "Did I bring my flasks/buff-food". It requires YOU to be fit to play (AKA, not asleep on your keyboard or fucked off your face on Meth) and on suitable hardware to play on. If you're lagging/DCing on every try, you're a liability. High-time people realised that and fixed their issues, or fucked off.


Speaking of issues that need sorting, repeated mistakes are one of the things that really get on my tits when Raid-Leading. When I ask you "Do you understand or have any questions about --- mechanic" and the answer is either Yes or Silence I ASSUME that you have understood and will take on board what I have said. You then receive the privilege - which can be revoked - on one death allowance in the form of "Practice". Unless something is overly complicated, or "Outstandingly Random", one death is all it takes to realise where you went wrong and not do it again. I wonder if people just don't bother to listen and then fuck up on purpose to make life hard for us.

Everyone makes mistakes - but how you use them is what determines how good of a Player you are.


Speaking of good players; my game focus revolves mostly around DPS and a shy dip into Tanking now and again. I can't heal for fuck, but take pride in that I know how best to use the healers at my disposal, depsite not being able to heal myself. We'll stick to my area of expertise for now though and hug the "DPS Skill" and co. So, what is the measure of skill for a DPS? Is it the numbers pulled, the survivability? A combination? etc. Well, let me tell you what it's not.

DPS 'Skill' is not about pressing buttons in the right order. Anyone can do it; it was a daily in TBC for the Ogres in Blades Edge for christ sakes. Non-moving DPS zergs are overall boring and show next to nothing about the player in control of the toon.

As is the obvious answer, it is a combination of both. But it doesn't stop there. Getting past the "Good" to the "Best" in DPS is actually a massive barrier in itself. Rather than a knowledge/Theory wall, it is really a mental wall that needs to be broken through. By that, I mean, the Player needs to consistantly ask themself once every ten seconds "How can I increase my DPS at this point in the fight?". I touched on this briefly before when taking Professor for an example in using the Green Ooze explosion to power yourself back to the boss, therefore cutting out movement time, but just how many features like this are there? The answer is; a lot. Some big, some small. Some obvious. Others not so.

I won't do the whole Pokemon cliché but finding these in the fights and how they work for you will boost your DPS from the good to the extreme. And that's the way, aha aha, we like it, aha aha.

Thank-you for reading my whine thread. Expect more great ones soon.

- The Merke Man

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