Laid reading is a spoonerism...

If you don't understand the title, i'll explain at the end of the post. ;)

Anyway. So last week in my guild, "Stands in Bad", I did my first bit of what I would consider to be "real" raid leading. I put that in quotation marks because I was never officially assigned the raid leading spot, and there WAS an officer or two in the raid with me. I do, however, feel like I kind of took control of teaching the couple new people in the raid. We had a boomkin who had never one -any- of the fights (to my knowledge), and the off-tank was a Kingslayer... on his hunter and mage. He had to be taught how to tank the fights in ICC, which admittedly is MUCH easier to learn when you now the fights as a DPSer. So, I sort of took control of that raid... and, as far as i'm concerned, it was a lot of fun.

I have to admit though... The rest of the guild made that job easy on me. The boomkin who'd never been in there had watched the videos of the fights, so they had a basic concept of what they were doing. The guy who tanked with me was -very- quick on the pickup (which, to me, tanking ICC is easier than DPSing it). We one-shot all the bosses up to Sindragosa, which took several tries because.. man.. The learning curve on that fight is steep. We didn't get the Lich King down last week, but not for lack of trying. We made some solid progress on him, even making it to p3 once or twice. (for the people who haven't got their KS title yet... they'll get it this week!)

Now then.. Why am I writing this post? Well, it is a sort of rebuttal to a fellow blogger, and a man I respect very much. If you've ever listened to the Inside Azeroth podcast (which, unfortunately, is no more) you may know him as the wandering ranter. That's right.. Just yesterday, mister Zephon T'Sol posted a somewhat downtrodden look from a raid leader's perspective here. Now, while I can understand Zeph's point, I do feel the need to make a point here. If you're taking up the mantle of raid leader for recognition, thanks, and a pat on the back you're doing it wrong. You volunteer to be a raid leader because you know what you're doing, you can explain it to the others, and you are (generally) capable of getting people to focus for 10 minutes at a time. While I understand, and can completely sympathize with, wanting to feel like people appreciate what you've done... If it's going to ruin your day because a raid isn't going the way you want it to, then perhaps you need to step back for a minute an examine why you do it.

Now, Zeph, if you're reading this, don't misunderstand me. I know everyone has bad days and such, and blogging is the *perfect* way to get shit off your chest with relative anonymity... But at the same time, you really can't let your raid get you down so much. If you get frustrated with the raid, then they take those cues from you and will get frustrated in return. When the whole raid is frustrated, that's when people make mistakes that they normally wouldn't, in turn leading to more frustration.... it's a nasty little catch-22. Here's my advice... If you feel yourself, and the raid, getting overly irritable, just call for a 5-10 minute break so everyone can step back and gather themselves. If that doesn't work, then you may need to consider simply calling the raid for the night so everyone can back off. Tempers can run high sometimes, and that's not the sort of way you want a raid night to end.

By the way... in case you hadn't figured it out, a spoonerism is a term for getting the first letters or sounds of words mixed up.. Laid reading = raid leading... spoonerism. There's your random trivia fact for the day.

Hey Jealousy!

Yep.. I stole the title of my blog from a song by the Gin Blossoms. Anyway. What am I jealous of? All you beta-testers out there! I realize there's lots of server problems and the new download client sounds.... weird at best. But you're there! You're in the beta, watching the game develop LIVE AS IT HAPPENS! Breaking news at 11, thousands of people are playing something that I don't get to! Yes, that makes me a bit jealous. If you listened to the podcast I guest-hosted on last week, then you already know this.

Speaking of the podcast, i'm curious of something. I've found myself listening to that particular recording multiple times. Why? Do I like the sound of my own voice that much? No...... well... maybe a bit. But mainly, I wanted to analyze myself. I can be very harsh on myself sometimes, and I wanted to see just how big of an idiot I made of myself. I am quite proud to say that I think I did *quite* well for my first live interaction. And on top of that, a lot of my comments were done by the seat of my pants, as it were. I don't want to say I didn't prepare for the show, because I did. I've been following the druidic changes very closely since the talent trees for Cataclysm were first officially released. I've groaned and grunted, cheered and questioned, scratched my head and stared blankly, just like everyone else has at some point in time over some of those silly changes. What I mean about "seat of my pants" though ,was that I really had very little scripted preparation. I knew some of the basics I wanted to say about the feral tree. I knew that we (Esh, Kat, myself and Lisanna) were going to talk about the druid changes, but I didn't know exactly what -kind- of things were going to be discussed. I didn't know that Esh and Lisanna were both in the Alpha, as well as the Beta. I have very limited experience with both boomkin and resto, so I didn't know how much helpful feedback I would have to give to those topics. And, i'll admit, My thoughts on resto/balance may have been a little silly and hackneyed maybe, but I literally pulled them out of myself on the spot.

It was a HELL of a lot of fun, and I look forward to doing it again. Who knows.. Maybe one day i'll get off my keister and get my own podcast going. Have a lot of things to learn about before that day comes, so who knows!

I blather!

So! For those of you enamored by my blog and what I have to say (all 2 of you)... I did my first guest-appearance on a podcast today! I want to thank Esh and Kat, hosts of "Gaming Worlds Collide" for giving me a chance to vent, laugh, rage (a wee bit), and rename myself on today's (broadcast on 8/2/10) episode. If any of you are interested in the podcast, click here to listen to this episode. Also, you may notice, that the other guest on the show was none other than Lisanna (aka Restokin, from the famed restokin.com blog). That's a high caliber guest for me to debut along side, but I feel like I held my own, made some good points, and wasn't TOO goofy to be taken seriously on the cast. It was a lot of fun. Debates were had, ideas were bounced, silliness was made, laughs were plentiful, and serious was serious'd.

Now then, what did we discuss? Druids! (If you went to the show link I posted earlier, then you know that by now). We discussed the direction druids are taking in Cataclysm. Things we liked, things we didn't like, things we think will happen, things that need to be shifted around (Furor, i'm looking at you), and so on. I talked at length about feral. Resto got a good bit of discussion, and balance was touched on a bit... I kinda feel like you lazerchicken lovers may've gotten the short end of the podcast, but Lis is far more resto oriented, and I am far more feral oriented. Either way it goes, I think it was a great discussion by all.

Disagree with anything that was said in the podcast? Let me know! Leave me a comment and tell me what you disagree with and why, and i'll be more than happy to discuss why I feel the way I do about some things. (Are you getting the hint yet lovely readers? LEAVE ME COMMENTS! :D)