BigRedKitty: Ignorance and Stupidity
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BigRedKitty on Wednesday, March 4, 2009 - 44 Comments Tags: PUG, heroic, ignorance, learning, pet, student, stupidity, tank, teacher, threat, violet hold
BigRedKitty on Wednesday, March 4, 2009 - 44 Comments Tags: PUG, heroic, ignorance, learning, pet, student, stupidity, tank, teacher, threat, violet hold 
One of the perils of doing anything publicly is the risk of being labeled "Stupid". Ignorance we can handle, stupidity not so much. Is there a difference? You bet.Ignorance is the absence of knowledge. How do rogues do an attack rotation? We have no idea; we're ignorant about rogue-mechanics.
Stupidity is acting in a manner inconsistent with known facts. We know not to pull aggro from our main tank. If we were to start firing before the main tank has established aggro, we'd be acting stupidly.
There is a fine line between ignorance and stupidity and that's "Unconventional". A hunter who melees because he knows no other way is Ignorant. A hunter who knows the proper method of playing a hunter who chooses to melee his way while leveling is Unconventional. So also would be a player who eschews killing mobs while leveling -- known as pacifist-leveling -- or someone who refuses to wear gear while leveling, just for the challenge of doing it.
Being unconventional is fine, as long as you don't affect other people without their knowledge and consent.
For example, it is known by most hunters that bringing a level seventy-five pet to a heroic instance will be gimping his own damage-output. It is also well known that the fastest way to level a hunter-pet from seventy-five to eighty is in heroic instances. A single heroic Violet Hold will usually give a pet almost an entire level.
Bringing a level seventy-five pet to a heroic with the goal of leveling it quickly, but seeking the permission of the rest of the raid before the raid starts, is Unconventional.
Bringing a level seventy-five pet to a heroic because you didn't know there are level seventy-nine pets available for immediate taming is Ignorant.
Bringing a level seventy-five pet to a heroic and without caring about the feelings of the rest of the raid is Stupid.
Personally, we are ignorant about just about everything there is to know about tanking and healing. When we bellow at our tank, "Make more threat!" we are very fortunate she doesn't yell back, "Why don't you, in your infinite wisdom, tell me just how you expect me to accomplish that!" Because if she did, we'd stammer and stutter and exclaim, "Just... you know, get it angry. Hit it, whatever, right? Threat! Do it!" And she'd reach through the Internet and squash us for our ignorance.
However we are not stupid, and we know that regardless of how the tank is generating threat, it is our responsibility to not pull aggro from the main tank. Our ignorance of tanking-mechanics can be compensated with our knowledge of hunter-mechanics.
How do we compensate for a tank not generating as much threat as we'd like?
* Cast Misdirection at every opportunity.
* Feign Death before we overtake the tank on the mob's threat list.
* Just chill out and decrease our DPS until the tank has a solid threat-lead.
If we were to refuse to Misdirect, Feign Death, and reduce our DPS when the tank is having difficulties maintaining aggro, we would not be "teaching the tank a lesson" by intentionally pulling aggro. No, we'd be Stupid.
Eliminating ignorance requires two people: an apt teacher and a willing student.
Eliminating stupidity is the job of just one person: the stupid one. You can encourage, enlighten, educate, and cajole a person towards not being stupid, but ultimately, it's his decision.
But what else can you do? You can learn to differentiate between ignorance and stupidity yourself and react accordingly.
Your PUG is having a hard time in Culling of Stratholme because the priest keeps running ahead of the party? Remind him that the paladin tank makes a wonderful Undead battering ram. Teach the priest that standing on top of, or slightly behind, the paladin tank will basically guarantee the priest's survival. If the priest adjusts his tactics appropriately, you'll have eliminated a little ignorance from the game and probably ensured the success of your run. But if the priest says nothing and keeps running amok, you'll know that you're dealing with Stupid and it's time to abandon-party.
Ignorance, stupidity, and unconventionality are big parts of Warcraft. Learning to modify your behavior when confronting these characteristics is key to your progression and fun in the game, (and in real life too).
Reader Comments (44)
A good article that everyone should read up on. (Love seeing the old "Calvin and Hobbes" comic, by the way.)
Ignorant people i can deal with but there seems to be a growing population of stupid people out there who refuse to listen and do nothing but get me saved to heroic or raids that will fall apart because of them
Ah, but what about ignorant, stupid people? :P
A good read, much applause.
Nice article. I guess I'm unconventional. I picked up a round of new pets to try different racials in a raid setting, and asked my guild if I'd be cool to bring them to heroics with me. They didn't mind, and in two weeks I leveled two pets 75-80 and a third from 76-80.
I've always thought ignorant people are the worse out there, until you came up :D Guess the word stupid does have its uses after all :D
As a hunter, I usually stay back, way back out of harm's way :D Which usually means let tank/pet keep aggro :D
I remember back in the day one of my first "serious" characters was going to be a Melee hunter. Everyone called me stupid but I LOVED doing it. I only hit like 40 before I quit hunter, but Melee hunter was fun I don't care what anyone else says.
Good post
Nice article BigRed, and a nice change of pace for the lore blog, although I love all the bloggers and there posts.
I just want to say that this is one of the most intelligent and well thought out articles i have ever read about world of warcraft. I deal with all 3 of those daily and it is nice to see someone who really understands and even helps people deal with problems they have. I know from this article that you play a hunter but for future reference (as a few of my friends have asked me) if you could maybe ask some people who play other classes their way of threat reduction would only make the game 7 classes less stupid... or is it ignorant?
everyone should have a basic understanding of threat and how to reduce it. Almost every class gets a specific skill that reduces threat. When you hit 80, threat shouldn't really be must of an issue any more unless you outgear your tank by a lot. I remember this one PUG OS 25 we did. I outgeared everyone so much I had to wait a full 45 seconds before I even started to DPS. Most people when they hit 80 should have this basic understanding.
Great Post BigRedKitty I should e-mail this to like all of my friends on this lol
No call him BigRed, he is BigRedKitty or BRK, don't be ignorant. I want to hear more about Death Kiniggets!!
another amazing post. Understanding threat, whether your a dps, healer or tank is certainly an easy task (and it eliminates ignorance) but doing what your supposed to when it comes to threat whether your a dps,healer or tank is something we should all do no matter what excuse (cause otherwise we're stupid). Too many dps would rather be top of the damage charts (and threat meter) in a wiped raid than hold off on the dps a little while the tank is establishing threat. Too many healers run ahead of the tank and get one-shot for a raid mob, when all then needed to do was let the tank get in front of them. And sometimes tanks dont understand the importance of a solid rotation to establish threat. All in all, we find that when we find out what we're supposed to do and actually do it we have fun and can blow through the game material like we're supposed to :)
you are amazing haha, i was reading this and it made me think of so many times that ive seen people act this way...great post....everyone needs to read this and keep it in mind before speaking like they know everything about everything
Great post seen a lot of this lately, there also seems to be a sub-class of said Stupid which seems to be more like arrogance. Just people that obviously do know more than the people in the group but instead of choosing to try and help them they just laugh at them and call them stupid.
I am a lvl 80 Huntard, and just recently picked up a Gorilla from STV. I got him to 76 and then was asked to do H UK, and I took him along. Fortunately it was a guild run and afterwards I asked the healer jist how much he had to heal my pet, which was "Off-Tanking" some of the leets, and the guildie was like very little. In fact he had almost forgotten about my pet who did amazingly enuf did not die once. Maybe for me this time it may have been a bit "Stupid", maybe a li'l "Arrogant", but at least I now know my pet is capable of holding its own. Excellent post btw.
This is a really excellent post. It's somewhat a new change of pace, but it's really nice to take new aspects of it. My question though, should people be called stupid if they're undergeared? That doesn't really make sense; I'm stupid because the game rolled me a fucking 1, or the upgrade(s) never dropped in the run? Seriously.
Anyway, great to finally read on some good work by you BRK. Plus, I never see Dorkins writing blogs, so it's nice to see another hunter's view :P
The one thing more annoying is the Ignorant player who refuses to pay attention to the environment, dies every time there's an environmental "concern" (think every trash pull in VoA), whines when they don't get a res before the last trash pull and then dies 30 seconds into the Boss fight because they don't move (again).
Then, the boss goes down cuz the rest of the group picks up the slack DPS and the said Ignoramous has the Gall to beg the person who rolled higher than him on the Tier set to "let him have it because he needs it more".
/sigh.
Another great post from a sharp mind. Semantics aside, does not Blizz share the blame for not making the 80 levels of grind a little more educational? Threat mechanics seem basic to me now, but the educational system is lacking. Without wowwiki, wowhead, elitistjerks, blogs, kind in-game teachers, and others, I'd still be a poor nub.
having all 3 sides off the game (tank, healer and dps) I know from first experience not to overaggro tank, not to run ahead of group as healer and never ever let my healer die no matter how much dps go down (which they almost almost cause on themselfes by ... overaggro-ing).
Some dps really need to understand that a druidtank isn'nt as good as a pala or warrior on multiple targets, yes we have swipe but the aggro from that isn'nt as good as the abilities that palas and warriors have. We do rule on bosses tho :)
Some tanks don't understand that his healer doesn't like him to run off to the next pack off mobs and getting LOS and then die because healer couldn't reach them in time.
And some dps always have to be asked to use all their abilities, which is just stupid. Why bring a lock if their to lazy to make a soulwell, why bring a mage that doesn't make cookies, etc...
I attempted to run Heroic UP with a PuG because I'd run previously with some of the other members. The tank was def capped, halfway geared and though I'd never played with him, I figured since he had decent stats he knew what he was doing.
It wasn't until he was attempted to tank the first boss by jumping around a like a PvP rogue on crack, causing us to wipe 3 TIMES due to him not being able to gain or keep any aggro that I decided to pipe up (I'm not one of those people who feels comfortable telling other classes how to play their class- just not how I roll).
Me (rogue): "Um, you will hold aggro more if you stand still while tanking."
Him: "Oh, really?"
Healadin: "Yeah, you generate a lot more threat when you stand still. Also, don't turn your back on the mob, you can't dodge or block at all when your back is turned."
Him: "I thought the more you move the more he notices you."
Him: "I still like moving around. It's boring the other day."
Would that logic be classified as stupid or ignorant?
Great article.
You're my new hero, BRK.
- Lanca the tank
Love the post!
Interesting read, and I must say i've been pondering this for a while now - how do I convince my group to kick the stupid people, over the ignorant/unconventional people.
I for one, am inconventional, I waste a bit of mana spellstealing buffs that could cause a wipe, when i've seen other mages never even doing that (wait, that's common sense....)
Anyway, if i could get everyone on my realm to read this, PUGs would be an awful lot easier.
Loved the pala tank "undead battering ram" bit btw :P
oh, and @ Andra, that's stupidity pure and simple
I ran a UK Hc as my holy priest (levelled 10-80 as holy) with some fairly new to 80 characters. At the time I was near full epic and was there just to get badges, and I understand the fact that people have to get geared somehow. Anyway tank wasn't def capped and dps in general was quite low. Despite this we got to the final boss with only a couple of deaths and all was going well......... Until........
After a quick mention of basic tactics we dive on in and get him to phase 2 with no problems, until his axe decides to start spinning on where the hunter and warlock are both standing and they don't move, so despite my best efforts they go down and then we wipe.
I'm busy typing away some encouraging morale boosting message, while re-iterating the tactics, when a party message pops up saying "It's ur fault we wiped healer. U was 2 slow. L2P and keep us alive next time."
Now to say I was completely taken aback is an understatement. I had told them 2 move while frantically trying to keep them alive and throughout the whole instance I had been rolling at a steady 1.9K healing per second with only about 13% overheal.
I got mad.
I posted my healing numbers asked them if they could honestly tell me how I could heal any better or faster than that, seeing as at the time 1.9K healing per second is what I could do raid buffed. Silence. Of course they couldn't. Anyway we re-grouped and downed him, and parted with a couple of our members being better geared than they were coming into the instance.
Despite this I didn't deign to tell them that their dps should be higher or that tanks should be at least near the def cap. Why? Because I don't know how those classes work, let alone embarass myself saying what they should be doing when I have no idea how they could do it better.