On the Origin of Failures

(Disclaimer: I blame the piss-poor quality of this post on my brother.)

So, today on my level 16 Warrior alt, I went to solo Ragefire Chasm (for any alliance scum out there, it's like Stockade, but level 13-16.) On my way in, I saw a post in general: "LF1M RFC!" So I joined the group. Just after I got in the door, the leader kicked me to make room for a level 80 runner. I shrugged, easy come, easy go; I was going to solo anyway.

I went in, it was a little challenging, I went through a few healing potions, died twice, but an hour and two levels later, I finished the instance having completely soloed it. Victorious, I posted in RFC's general chat, "Woot! Soloed RFC!" To which I get a reply from the previous party's group leader: "Congratulations. In the same time, I got ran through here six times and I'm 8 levels higher."


What exactly is the point of levelling up quickly, particularly if you don't learn to play along the way? Unless you're just getting to 80 so you can sell the account on Ebay, being 80 without having the skill to raid is pointless, and if you miss out on the fun, why are you even playing? That guy in every PuG raid? Guess where those people come from. -.-

I think some people need to take a good hard look at why they're even playing in the first place. If it's neither money nor fun, I would say you're doing it wrong. Fun for me is overcoming great challenges, like 5man content with 1 player, or 10man content with only 2 players. I enjoy overcoming challenges, and go out of my way to preform the most outlandish feats I can come up with. I am aware that (although I do not entirely understand why) there is an entire other class of people that want less challenge as they level, but either way, following a random 80 around looting is boring, and causes you to miss out on all the other content you might have seen in that level range.

For the people who, like me, want to see raid bosses fall over in rapid succession, (shame I couldn't find a video to link,) chasing after gear even when it amounts to the level 80 equivalent of running is not what you need to be doing. Hat to break it to everyone, but unless you're doing Ulduar, you can clear whatever it is in mixed blues, greens and 70 gear, and unless it's hard mode, ilvl 200s will suffice in there too. What you really need to do is learn your spec inside-and-out, and practice basic raiding skills if you want to be successful. There's a reason that I saw "LFM VoA, no retards, people with downs or death knights" in trade today, skill is vastly more important than gear, even on a gear check fight. A skilled player in greens can do 2.3k dps and survive the fight, a moron in full Ulduar25 epics can do 400 dps and then die in a fire half a minute into the fight.


If you want to strengthen your tanking skills, there's nothing better than running a ton of Heroics with a random PuG group every time; people will do things dumber than you can imagine, and you are bound to run with a seriously undergeared group every once in a while. There's no better way to prepare for all hell breaking loose in your raids than getting used to all hell breaking loose in your Heroics. Also, if you're up to the challenge, (and specced at least partially Blood,) soloing level 80 Heroics will do wonders for your ability to mitigate incoming damage with extremely limited healing while having to keep up with a dynamic fight. Players looking to begin soloing Heroics are advised to begin with Loken in Halls of Lightning, or Grand Magus in Nexus.