Posts with tag olgrumpt

Howdy again, folks. It's me, Ol' Grumpy, your guide to Cataclysm instancing pitfalls and how to avoid them. Lately, I've been noticing some frustration, irritability, and yes, bad sportsmanship from folks while running pickup group heroics via the dungeon finder. Whether I be tanking or DPS, I'm seeing a lot of the same behaviors and even engaging in them myself from time to time. Since we posted a solid guide to good behavior in groups today, it seemed like I might as well don my grizzled ol' chapeau and tell y'all a secret.

Sometimes the problem is you. (Sometimes, it's even me. I know you're shocked.)

If you've been playing WoW for a while, one fact is indisputable. You learned how to play your class or role by playing. It is in groups that we learn our toolkits, how to perform our role properly, and each dungeon or raid we run not only teaches us how to run that dungeon or raid but gives us the context we need to tackle new content down the road. We learn by doing, and moreover, we learn by interacting with our groups, be they guild runs or pickup groups. PUGs can be hard schools, but they're invaluable in jogging you out of your comfort zone and getting you to think about what you do and why.

If you think of your instance runs as where you go to farm a quick batch of justice or valor points, you're part of the problem.