LFR Love and Hate

We have been back in the game for a little over two weeks now (I think, I honestly still have new mom brain so give or take a few days). I am currently up to 509 ilvl and have been rotating running LFR’s at night with my husband. We will only play at the same time if both kids are sleeping and with a one month old that is a bit difficult so we rotate raiding. It works best for us. When coming back to the game, this is the first time that I have had to use the LFR tool to actually raid. It was around when I was playing before, but I always had raid groups and never had to worry about not having the ability to raid. Now, since we have came back, my old guild has been dismembered and almost everyone is gone (more on this in another post) and we have had to resort to other raiding methods. At first this was a hard to grasp but I am getting better. I actually do not mind LFR since I can run a fast raid, hopefully get some gear, and it does not take up all my time. Plus I can run one while my son naps! All-in-all, LFR is not too bad.

The other night it was my turn to do an LFR and I choose SoO Downfall. Being my first time going in there, I read up on all the fights and was ready to roll. The raid pops after just a few minutes and I see that we are already almost done with the raid. No biggie, I wished it was the whole thing, but it was no loss. LFR moves like normal, business as usual. No one really chats we just go go go! I am fine with this as I am still trying to make sure I pay attention since I am not the best geared yet and I am still working on my healing.  The healers we have are me (druid..obviously =P), two shammy’s, and two priests. We start-up the final fight annnnnnd…….wipe. Which in LFR can happen a lot, we all know this. Cue aggro! No I do not mean trash or boss but raid, full on raid aggro. All of a sudden, healing meters are posted, damaged meters are posted and arguing ensues. Here is where I will fully attest that recount is the ruinier of raids, guilds, friendships, and probably marriages!

One of the priest healers says we need more DPS, which is true. There were quite a few DPS that were phoning it in and just there for the free ride. Again, another thing you see a lot in LFR. Then one of the tanks turns on the priest healer and posts healing meters again. The following  conversation takes place:

Poor Priest – PP

Angry Tank – AT

AT – “PP what are you doing? You barely healed above the other tank!”

PP – “Healing was not the issue, we need more DPS, look 2 of them did no damage.”

AT – “You are a fail priest and fail heals.”

PP – “ummmm…ok.”

AT – “F*** you, you stupid B****.”

Cue the O.O by most of the raid with random individuals chiming with “why can’t we all just get along?” comments.

PP – “I put AT on ignore so if he says anything of merit, let me know.”

I then whisper the priest and commiserate about how we are all looking for someone to blame.

AT  continues to mock the priest in raid chat and most people try to ignore him but a few even join in with snarky comments as we down the boss.

As the raid ended I told my husband what happened. Now like I said we have been out of the game for awhile, but we were both astounded as to how immature  people acted in this situation. I am not saying that everyone in WoW is rude and hurtful, but there are those that are that can impact a persons desire to play or who can make a person feel like they are horrible at playing in general.  These types of attitudes make me miss my old raiding guild. We were a group that worked well with one another (most of the time) but would never treat others with such disrespect.

There is not much we can do to change these situations. No one can make people be kind and curtious to one another, but maybe we can think about our own actions and how we treat one another in similar situations.  90% of the time, you are never going to see these individuals in LFR again so wouldn’t it be simpler to just run the raid quickly and effectively and be kind to the others playing the game around you? We all play WoW because we enjoy it so we all share the common bond of being nerds/geeks/gamers/whatever you want to label yourself as.  We do not have to all hug and kiss and profess our love, but let’s just be nice for once. Or as my mother always said “if you can’t say anything nice, do not say anything at all.”

So it has been a long time…

I mean that is a large understatement to be honest. I have not played WoW in a few years and for a while I was not missing it. We moved, then bought a house and moved again. I finished my masters program and got my MBA. And we just had our second child (a boy!). So needless to say we have been SUPER busy. But as I sit here on maternity leave, I am getting the itch. Not that the babies are not keeping me busy, but I have not even played a video game in forever. It used to be my passion, and now I feel like I am just floating around and on the endless cycle of work and sleep. Even after the kids go to bed I just sit around and watch some TV until I pass out as well. But I love my kids so much that I feel like there would be no real time to play and be Mom and of course being Mom is my first priority. So maybe instead of being a bump on the log during nap times and after they go to bed, I can try to test the waters and even do some research on Resto Druids! See you all in game, maybe!