The Stupid Debuff

It’s been a recent challenge to figure out whether some of the raiders are slow learners, downright dumb, too stoned to care, watching a movie while they are standing in fire, or cursed with the Stupid Debuff.

The Stupid Debuff happens to everyone once in awhile….auto-running into a boss, realizing your fishing pole is still equipped on the first pull, forgetting you’re the shaman when the raid is calling for Heroism (yes, that happened but this time it wasn’t me), pushing PTT when you really, really shouldn’t have…that kind of thing. Hell, the whole raid seemed to be infected with it the past week or so. So, the challenge is determining whether it’s a temporary state with some raiders or the moments that they DON’T have it are few and far between.

One example is the warlock who, after having downed Festergut several times on both 10 and 25, still walks in to the encounter and fails. He gets the spore over his head and doesn’t move fast - despite most of vent yelling for him to run to the designated person - and when he does move goes the wrong way. This is not behavior that happened once, by the way, this is something we almost expect from him. This particular raider then doesn’t understand why he is placed on standby. On the other hand, once he gets the content down (think TOC) he does really, really well. It just seems to take him, well, weeks instead of attempts or even hours.

Another is the tank that still can’t quite seem to grasp when he needs to taunt Saurfang back from the other tank. He lets fanatics eat the healers’ faces. He also never has flasks, ran out of reagents at the end of one run and never got them before the next one an hour later, and after all assignments are given generally asks, “What am I doing?”. And, frankly, he sounds heavily medicated pretty much all the time.

Yet one more is the shammie who stupidly admitted he really didn’t listen to vent because his music was on and therefore misses healing assignments, ready checks, calls for breaks (and how long the break is) and strategy.

Admittedly, I am procrastinating having the conversations with them that need to happen. Why, you ask, do I not just boot them from the guild or, at the very least, not let them raid?

Let’s see, in the locks case it’s because part of me truly doesn’t want to lose a player whose heart and interest are right where they should be and I’m afraid if I place him strictly on farm content (where I think he belongs to give him the time he needs to learn the fights) he will be hurt and/or bored and leave. He has potential to be a really solid (if not ever exceptional) raider once we get past the raid-wide learning curve that is progression.

For the tank, mostly, it’s because we are short tanks every week for the third 10 man and, until I can get someone else geared to do it on an alt, we’re stuck. He’s also been around since the early days of the guild and has been a very casual player up until recently. Part of me is still trying to figure out if he’s just one of those people who doesn’t sound that bright or if he has a permanent Stupid Debuff.

Lastly, the shaman when he’s on his game is amazing! Key word though is “when”. I want him to focus! But, unfortunately, like most of our healers (seriously, WTF is up with healers?!?!) he is emo much of the time and I have to catch him at just the right moment.

Let me be clear, I am the most patient person in the world with true noobs who just want to learn how to play the game. You need someone to teach you how to dive or the best way to get through Redridge I’m your gal. I’ve taught more people than I care to remember the best way to pull the mobs in Scarlet Monestary. If it’s your first time tanking a raid I will walk you through the bosses, teach you the aggro tricks and offer suggestions on how to handle weak healers or overzealous DPS. I used to run the Saturday Night Kara Raid every week long after I was in T6 back in BC and taught and geared countless mains and alts.

Basically if you have done the research on your class and spec, homework on the content, and are open to feedback I will help you in any way I can.

However, and this is a BIG however, I don’t have the time or desire to do this in 25 man progression content.

Our server is smaller and not known for progression so recruiting the A-game, exceptional players I’d love to have is extremely hard…so I have to train some of them to be remarkable instead of coasting on their built in, ready-made uberness. I keep telling myself, I only need about five more really solid people and we will have what we need to progress faster. Truly, those five would make all the difference in the world. Its finding those without the Stupid Debuff and keeping it off of them that is the challenge. Until then, I will keep working with what I have and sacrificing Dranei to the WoW gods in the hopes that Putricide and Council go down this week.