Y’know what?

I like knowing something that someone else wants to know but doesn’t know.

And while I do like to help people and share things I’ve learned, I like it even more when the asker COULD know what they wanted, if they did something simple, but they choose not to take the action required.

“Does anyone have a DPS meter?” Is one of those questions that gives me cruel pleasure.

Pleasure for two reasons: Yes, I have a DPS meter, but no, I’m not going to admit it to you nor share the results of it. If someone else does, that’s their decision, but I won’t do it, not even for friends.

Turning Annoyance Into Pleasure

I’ll admit, I didn’t always feel this pleasure… It used to really annoy me, and I’d frequently say “if you want to know the meters, install them…” but that just served to escalate my own annoyance when the person ultimately responded something confirming just how lazy they really were, and how much they expected others (complete strangers!) to enable their laziness. And of course, they didn’t feel guilty about this at all.

But, at some point in trying to feel good feelings more often than bad, I switched the way I looked at the situation and now find myself feeling pleasure about having knowledge that someone too lazy to get it themselves wants, and purposely withholding it.

According to the works of Esther Hicks (which are odd in some parts but very interesting and helpful in others if you’re into the self-help/”how to live a joyous life” genre of books), I moved from Irritation to Pessimism, which is a step UP the ladder towards Joy and Appreciation and Empowerment, and away from the bottom of the ladder of Fear, Grief, Depression and Powerlessness.

Am I Being Mean?

Yes, it’s true, it could be labelled “not nice” behavior, but I tell ya - I do this in other relationships as well, without guilt: I withhold certain types of information that someone could easily gather themselves if it were truly valuable information to them.

Why? Because I’ve learned that if I just GIVE them the answer they seek, I teach them they don’t need to take responsibility for what they want to acquire/learn - they can rely on the organization or knowledge of others to get what they want. And worse, if they’re someone I run into often, the more answers I give, the more they depend upon me as the source of their answers.

Oops, did I just twist my body while doing a little shrug? Is that why you’re on the floor? Oh, I’m sorry. Looks like you’d better get up, as we’re moving forward.

Funny Who Asks For Posting Of Meters…

I do find it interesting, tho, that the person asking for the DPS meters is either right on top on my charts, or way down at the bottom. Very few of them are in between. Maybe those people have meters and are striving, or maybe they just don’t care?

Do you have some type of damage meter installed and running when you do an instance or a raid?

Or did you take offense to my attitude above, because you’re one of those who cares about the meters but doesn’t have them installed for whatever reason? :)

(and yes, I know some people’s computers are too slow to run many addons. In my mind, a crappy computer is not a valid excuse for relying on complete strangers in a PUG, or even your “buddies” in a Raiding guild. RL friends, that’s up to you.)

Tags: damage meters, joy of pugging, lazy puggers, pugging, pugging strategy, recount

I’ve got two World of Warcraft accounts. Don’t ask why… I just do.

Partially because I wanted to be able to Enchant my own gear - so when I set up the second account, I transferred my 70 Hunter to that account, and kept the rest of the “family” together in the original account.

Another thing I wanted to be able to do, however, was run my own toons through lowbie instances in order to speed the process of gearing up, and leveling a bit as well.

I had a reader ask me to write more about the process of running my Lowbies through instances since they recently got a second family account, so I thought I’d start here, and further questions on the topic could help inspire more detailed entries on the topic :)

But before I talk about dungeon run-throughs which can, if used incorrectly, lead to one having such a poor understanding of group dynamics and appropriate class skills that I refuse to give run-throughs to guildmates who are otherwise strangers… let me say this:

All My Toons PUG

I used to abhor pick-up groups, and was happy to join a guild that ran regular instances so at least the social pressures inherent in staying in guilds would lessen the possibility of having a completely horrid experience every time I went into a dungeon.

But, as I got higher level with my first character and got more familiar with the game itself, I progressed into doing PUGs more often, and at a point, even preferred PUGging with *complete and utter strangers* instead of going in with my casual/social guild’s guildmates because while they were nice people, they had no clue how to behave in an instance party, having been afraid to PUG themselves while they leveled up to 70 and thus having largely “solo” skills and manners which translate poorly in a party situation (where Crowd Control requires cooperation for one thing).

So, right from Ragefire Chasm in the teens on up, all of my lowbie toons get into Pick Up Groups on their way through the various levels that lead to level cap. I consider it an important part of learning my class skills, since soloing offers only a small challenge in comparison, and running with friends all the time means I don’t “really” have to learn key skills for my class. Also, PvP while also highly beneficial, teaches different skills than PvE.

And yes, as a noter inquired, I do have aspirations to take all of my toons into Heroics and be able to hold my own, and make friends with other mature folks who are solid at their class and doing Heroics. The Heroics Divide of player skill and attitude is astounding and I like to challenge myself to be a player that those in the most progressed guilds consider to be “good” despite my non-raiding status.

So Why Run Myself Through Things?

PUGs are fine and dandy, but we all know they can be aggravating at times, and the competition for gear is only one aspect that adds to the aggravation - like the Maraudon run I healed in my mid-40s where one Mage got 4 blue BOP upgrades and didn’t once think to politely pass some gear to the healer, who was also in need of upgrades, but for whom the Roll Gods weren’t enamoured about that night.

Another reason to run myself through things is just for the sheer fun of it. I like this game - all aspects of it. I like to challenge myself, and I like to feel powerful as well. And sometimes, the best way to learn your way around an instance is to (be dead and running back a lot or) be able to walk into it and decimate everything you see.

Thoughts While Running My Lowbies

I don’t think I have any hard-and-fast rule about when I’ll run my lowbies, aside from this one thing:

If my Lowbie has 100% rest bonus, it’s time to do a run-through to burn some of that rest bonus off and allow it to resume accumulating again.

If any of my toons have burned off all of its rest bonus, it gets parked in some format - sent to the city to work on professions or do some battlegrounding for a week or so while getting plenty of ZZzz’s and adding up that rest bonus. There are, after all, other toons with rest bonus to burn.

When it comes time to do the instance, I have two computers running, and I’ll log into both and as long as my toon isn’t super-low for the instance, I’ll put the lowbie on follow to my high-level, and put the looting on Free For All, and then just go and mow the place down. If the lowbie gets aggro, sometimes I’ll leave it behind and gather up mobs then bring the mobs within exp range of the lowbie before I mow them all down.

If my inventory gets full, I’ll trade with my lowbie and hand her whatever junk I need to hand her to clear spots to pick up more loot.

If there’s BOP equipment that would be best picked up by my lowbie, the confirmation about binding message comes up even on Free For All looting, and I have a chance to cancel on the DPS toon and go loot the corpse with my lowbie instead.

The Class For The Run-Throughs

… is definitely my Mage. Partially because he’s better geared, but mainly because he does AOE (area of effect) damage, and with the right spec, can gather up a lot of mobs, freeze ‘em in place and then AOE them down with minimal impact on me, myself.

Of course, running Stratholme for the Piccolo of the Burning Flame over and over definitely helped improve my Mage AOE instance farming skills, but I often experienced a lot of pain during those pulls, dying a few times each attempt to get the trinket, and taking heavy damage even when I didn’t die.

But as I said, it’s all fun :)

Tags: advancing lowbies, learning druid, learning hunter, learning paladin, learning priest, learning your class, pug strategy, pugging, run throughs, run thru's, running lowbies