Maybe it is the burn out. Maybe it’s the boredom. Maybe Blizzard has finally found a way to hypnotize us through our computer screen. I cannot be sure. But what I can be sure of is whatever is in the air is causing people to play….dun dun duhhhhhhh….The Blame Game.

How does one play The Blame Game you ask? Well first you take a boss. Any boss will do really, but try to get a boss that you have beaten a million times over and over. What boss did you pick? Oh Hard Mode Saurfang? Perfect! Next, grab your friends. You can bring 10 or 25! How many did you bring? Oh you have only a few friends? Well that is ok, 10 works!  Then get to Saurfang and buff up! Don’t forget to change to Hard Mode in the process. Everyone buffed and ready to go? Alright lets pull! Hmm, everything seems to be going according to plan. The boss is at 60% already? Good good. Wait, Blood Beasts are not dying? Yuck a Mark on a person! Eww now lots of people are getting hit by Blood Beasts. What’s this? Even more people are getting hit by Blood Beasts. Everyone is dying you say? Saurfang is healing too much? Well…you know what to do, blame the tanks!! Rinse and repeat until the tanks are so mad and are done raiding for the evening. Blame Game completed! Congratulations! You win the prize of making the raid uncomfortable and upset.

This is what happened to us on our Saturday raid. We brought in someone who only ran with us off and on, and The Blame Game was activated. Normally, this would never happen because everyone is very close with this person. But it seemed like a dark cloud hung over our raid. Again, I do not know if it was the weather, boredom, or just having a bad day in general, but there was sighing, blaming, and even yelling over vent.

Why were the tanks getting blamed you might ask? The claim was that the tanks were not taunting fast enough when the Rune of Blood was placed on them and Saurfang was healing too much because of that. Odd I thought, especially since I can see the average time it took for a taunt was 1.5 seconds and the max was about 3-4 (taunt missed). Plus, the last time we fought Saurfang we had a fail tank who would never taunt for almost full Rune of Blood rotations, so we knew this was not the problem. After we stated this over vent the person did not let up, linking recount and showing how much healing Saurfang was receiving from Rune of Blood. Now, it is a lot, but from what I remembered it is always a lot (This was confirmed by looking at another guild 10 man’s numbers. Both groups were the same, but we had lower DPS). Plus with the healing done by the Marks, it was just too much for us to handle. There was a huge funk in the air.

The final straw for the tanks was when there was a missed taunt and one tank said over vent “Taunt Missed.” Once it was said a loud “SIGH” rang out over vent (do you really have to guess who did that?). Both tanks responded with anger. One said “Keep your comments to yourself. I am done after this attempt.” After that failed attempt, the tank logged off and went to talk to the raid leader in a different vent channel. Many of us did research on what happened by looking at other logs and recount. We figured out it was a DPS problem which could be fixed (One DPS had horrible lag and could not attack the Blood Beasts correctly). Another member of the group whispered me saying how the raid was ruined because of The Blame Game. I happened to agree.

So what happened? Why are we getting so heated over bosses we have beaten many times over? Or maybe that is the reason we are heated. We know we can do that bosses but we are failing on some key level. Most of the raid did not care, it was just one person. Wipes happen, even on the simplest of things. But I have noticed lately that many people cannot take the failing. I believe it has to do with the pre-expansion burn out. We know it is coming, we know that we will never need to run ICC again (Yay!) and we are just trying to grind through each raid. Does this give us the right to be rude and play The Blame Game on other members in the raid who probably feel the same way you do? No. If you have an opinion that could potentially be volatile to the raid, tell the raid leader or keep it to yourself. There is really no reason to ruin an already strung-out groups mood.

But what go you all think? Have you noticed others struggling to put on a happy face during raid? Have you been the cause of some raid tension? Are the pre-Cata blues affecting your mood?

Just remember, in a raid we are all a group. We need to work together as a group. Causing tension and drama only hurts further progression in the expansion when groups are going to be together again for 10 or 25 man raids. If you are mad enough to be rude, just don’t hit that pesky push-to-talk key, take a deep breath, and relax!