Seri sez: Now you pay da ogre! – Signs your Class Leader is an idiot.
December 4, 2008
A good Class Leader is like a savory cheddar: firm but yielding, sharp but subtle and aged to perfection. Or, in my case, like a croissant: A bit flaky, but versatile. Unfortunately, as with any specialization, we have our share of so-called “experts” who engender more confusion than confidence, more contempt than respect, and… dare I say it… more “WTF” than “OIC” (as the youngsters say).
Fortunately for you, I’m not afraid to call an apple an apple. I grit my teeth and stand up in defiance of this nonsense, shaking my tiny fist at the sky. Knowledge is power, you see, and the better able you are to recognize these impostors the sooner you can knock them from their pedestals and pour a bitter draught of reality down their throats. Or, if nothing else, you’ll be better prepared to do damage control. Be alert for the warning signs!
They don’t practice what they preach.
You know the type. They yell at you for DPSing, but you see them Smiting during trash pulls. They insist you get an expensive enchant, but don’t get it themselves. They tell you to use buff food and elixirs/flasks, but don’t use anything themselves. They harp on you about buffing, but never do their share. They expect you to be on time, but they’re chronically late. This is perhaps even worse than the straight-up ignorant Class Leader. I recommend flogging, unless they’re into that sort of thing. If they are, collaborating with your Hunters for Misdirect hazing may be your only option.
They’re rolling/bidding against DPS casters on hit gear… for their healing set.
This just in from our global news source: Heals don’t miss. If you fail to heal someone, there’s not even a legendary item that’s going to make you any less fail. Sure, there may be occasions where the item is an upgrade for you just based on the other stats on it but there’s no reason you should be competing with a DPS caster for hit gear.
They’re socketing Mp5… as Holy.
As Jov kindly pointed out on Tuesday, there’s no reason for a Holy Priest to socket Mp5. A Disc Priest? Sure. Maybe. It depends. If your Class Leader is a Holy Priest socketing Mp5, it is your biological imperative to laugh at them. If they start waving their lustrous blue gems in your face, run and tell an adult. It’s just indecent.
They get 90-100% of their Priest Class information from the Official WoW Priest Forums.
There are so many sources of awesome Priest information out there… unfortunately, the Official Priest Forum is not one of them. Sure, there is probably a ‘how to priest’ sticky there somewhere that is of help to novices, but if you’ve been Priesting/raiding for a while you’re not a novice and neither is (I hope) your Class Leader. I don’t bother reading ANY of the official WoW forums, because 99.5% of the time it’s just full of whining. It’s demoralizing as hell, and nothing will make you feel like your class (whatever it is) is broken and Blizzard hates it quite as much as browsing the official class forum. Good Priests look elsewhere. That’s why you’re here. That’s why we’re here. To cut through the clutter.
They think MMO Champion is a breakfast cereal. *rimshot*
(If it were, I’d still read the back of the box every morning.)
Ever wished that someone would just yank all the useful information out of blue posts every day and put it somewhere you could read it without slogging through the mire of whining and ‘133t-speak’ that is the WoW forums? I’m about to make that wish come true. Every Class Leader should be in the habit of checking MMO Champion … if not daily, then at least once a week. It should not be your only source of information, but it’s a great way of staying on top of the most recent WoW-related news. I usually just read the news page, but if you’re particularly ambitious you can browse the BlueTracker.
They’re Shadow.
Okay, okay, Shadow Priests can make good Class Leaders too, but you might be surprised just how many of them used to be Holy, burned out, and now have zero interest in Holy Priesting. (How dumb is that?) This particularly breed will usually panic at the first implication that maybe they might have to heal again (even temporarily). Try it sometime when you see them gathering outside the instance portal, just to watch them scatter. It’s a hoot, kind of like chasing pigeons in the park. What, you don’t chase pigeons? Do I have to teach you EVERYTHING?
They don’t read World of Snarkcraft.
Okay, so maybe our brand of tough love isn’t necessarily for everyone. But beneath our bitter and sarcastic exteriors lies… okay, probably just more bitterness and sarcasm. What was I saying? Oh! Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him to blog and… he may just learn something. Or drown in the archives. Either way, it’s a win.
What did I miss? Comment freely! Viva la Revolution!
World of Snarkcraft 
I think I’m in love with you, Seri. Or at least your blogging. Excellent post. Both informative and very entertaining.
Yeaaah, I totally don’t check MMO Champion like I should. I’ve got WoR as a feed, and I DO keep an eye on lots of places where discussion happens. So I’m not too far out of the loop. (Let’s see… PlusHeal, my blog feeds, Official class-role forum, lj’s worldofwarcraft, lj’s wow_ladies…)
@ Ayeba – Aw, shucks. Thank you. 🙂
@ Jov – I’m only peripherally aware of WoR, but I’ll keep an eye on it for a few days and see how it compares to MMO Champion. I think what I like most about MMO-C is that so much of it is directly from the mouths of the CMs without being reworded, interpreted, or extrapolated.
@ Seri – MMO Champion is like Special K and WoR is like Frosted Flakes. Under all the sugar, they’re the same cereal, but that sugar does appeal to the sweet tooth.
Nice post…even if I am kinda anti-class lead. Though that may be because I was forced to be one! No I’m kidding. I just do not see much need for a class lead. I figure they were needed back in the Pre-BC days. Back when all raids were 40 mans and all priests were holy! Now…not so much.
@ Ayslin – I think the developments that have taken place since raiding in Vanilla WoW require the need of class leads more than ever – just the knowledge base required to fill that roll is broader than ever. Unfortunately, finding the people who really know how to play all aspects of their class is difficult.
I mean, I’ve played warriors pretty much since the beginning, but I really only feel like I know Protection (despite having played Arms and Fury while leveling). I don’t really feel like “Role lead” is necessarily a solution either – the difference between tanking as a warrior or paladin is easily as distinct as between an arms warrior and a prot warrior.
Perhaps the concept of the “Master Priest” or “Master Warrior” is too much for any one person – but with dual-spec on the horizon, I think that it is at least more probable.
Generally WoR is filtered for more of a raid/instance/non-casual perspective, while MMOC is more of the fire-hose. I pretty much only bother with MMOC if there’s something I’m interested in that might not show up on WoR.
Then again I actually do browse the official forums, so the blue trackers are mostly useless to me, as I’ve usually already seen the posts in their original contexts; the other features on WoR are more useful and interesting to me than the ones on MMOC, so it’s a better site for me.
Also no one should socket Mp5. Pretty much ever, unless you’ve somehow managed to put together a set of gear with hardly any other regen or you’re really desperate for that socket bonus and can’t find a better purple gem. It’s itemized exceptionally inefficiently on them, so generally you end up with wasted itemization points by doing so.
Honestly, I’d add a note about the difference between Disc and Holy. I’ve talked to a lot of people in-game who don’t get some of the key differences. I’ve heard stories about class leads who are making really weird choices with their disc and holy priests. And with Disc being raid-viable now, it’s a pertinent issue.
@ Tarsus – I guess the problem is that rather than having one person in the guild be the go to person on priests I’d rather have open discussion with all the healers. I have zero interest in the DPS and no amount of research on my part is going to make me an expert on them. On the other hand I feel very comfortable discussing healing in general and discussing specifically priest and druid healing. I also feel that as much as I know about my chosen class I can always learn more from others both of my class and not.
On the other side of this…I do not want someone telling me how to play my class or how to gear. I am very self reliant and I guess I expect others to be too. I guess really I am for less titles and less leader roles. Keep things simplified and work together. I suppose it cannot always work that way though.
Anyhow My boyfriend just started up his own guild and I specifically requested Role based forums and no class leads. We have a healer forum and we just start the title with [healers] or [priests] or whatever to specify what is in each post. This allows me a place to discuss my favorite topic without ever having to pretend I care about a shadow priests spell rotations.
Now maybe this would never work with a large guild, but I have no real interest in large guilds either. Anyhow it works for me. I was not at all trying to say how other’s should feel about class leads or role leads. I have been a class lead myself…and stated openly the whole time (well to the officers anyhow) that I did not think we needed class leads. I did the best job I could though regardless of my personal feelings.
@ Ayslin – My general sense on where the rubber hits the road vis-a-vis class leads is performance. Interpreting WWS reports and examining rotations to try and understand what differentiates Alice from Bob in your raid is really where a level of personal knowledge comes in. This can be useful when you have to explain to the raid leader that difference, or explain to Bob that he needs to socket Spirit if he is Holy.
I suspect in an ideal world that you would have a more numerous individual class/role leads – but I think all but the largest guilds are too small for that.
And, of course, there is the sensitive matter of when you have to decide that maybe Bob is not the person to occupy that slot in your raid. The raid leader is often tasked with that decision, but having a class lead means that the raid leader is neither making the decision in a vacuum, or playing the host on an episode of Survivor: Molten Core.
@ Me – “You are the Weakest Link – Goodbye!”
/snark
@ Ayslin — I agree with you. In a perfect world, EVERYONE would keep up on priest changes and how to play/gear/etc a priest. Unfortunately, they don’t (part of the reason we started this blog! har!). Currently, I’m in the process of trying to start discussions on spec, gearing, gemming, regen, all of that on my guild forum. But when it comes down to it, I strongly anticipate there will still be a lot of PMs saying “do this because that”
They’re Shadow.
Okay, okay, Shadow Priests can make good Class Leaders too, but you might be surprised just how many of them used to be Holy, burned out, and now have zero interest in Holy Priesting. (How dumb is that?) This particularly breed will usually panic at the first implication that maybe they might have to heal again (even temporarily).
Oi. So true. So true.
Though .. if your guild only has *one* priest class lead, having one whose played both shadow and holy heavily .. can be a *good* thing. Gives them a firm understanding of *all* things priesty. And they can then champion both the DPS priests, and the healy priests in their guild …
9 spirit = 4 mp5? the math is wrong.
At level 80, with a 1000 int/1000 spirit, you’ll need 14 spirit to get 4 mp5.
1500 int / 1500 spirit, still need 10 spirit to get 4 mp5.
Cool post. I like this blog.