A little kindness

Wednesday night, I stepped into Nightmare of Shek’zeer (aka HoF LFR part 2) for a little druid-healin’ action (and possible loots, but no luck there). The trash before the empress gave us a 476 spirit-cloak BoE drop. The need roll was won by a mage with a 483 cloak equipped, of course – that’s how things go in random, groups, right?

Now, I did not need this cloak. I greeded on it for kicks, but I have a much better spirit-cloak already, so whether I won or not was neither here nor there.

So anyway, the mage won, and I made a jokey comment about people who actually “needed the cloak, not /need-ed it :P.” Of course, this being LFR, things were already escalating quickly, with a very vociferous warlock named Dot(somethingblahblah) (of course) calling for a kick.

“Let’s vote-kick him so he doesn’t get valor.”

Enough kick-initiates came in, and it was time to vote.

All this time, I was arguing in chat that there was no reason to kick the guy, because during all this the mage explained that he’d thought he could use it for his priest.

Now obviously, the guy didn’t know that needing on a BoE binds it to you. He thought it wouldn’t matter if he won it for his alt, given today’s gear levels. He made a mistake.

I said the following in raid chat: “FYI, _________, needing on a BoE in a raid or dungeon binds it to you now.”

Then, I followed it with “see, you just have to make it a teachable moment. :)”

Of course, the lock was arguing that the mage wasn’t bringing much damage to the raid, blah blah. Meanwhile, others are chiming in with “one more to kick” or “just pull, don’t kick.”

Anyway, I argued my case, the vote was initiated, and the vote failed.

And I was glad.

Then we killed the boss. In fact, we one-shot each of the three bosses.

…

Some people love to be super petty in random groups and pugs. “He needed on a lock box? Vote-kick his dumb ass!!” And so on. I never vote to kick people like that. Almost every time, the person is initially surprised that they did anything wrong, and then things can go two ways: the guy either keeps his counsel, or he gets indignant, while half the raid spews venom against him and the other half says…

“It. just. doesn’t. matter.”

In my head, I’m actually thinking “who gives a flying f—?” I don’t say that though, because using bad language can weaken your argument through bad form in cases like this.

It always warms my heart to see people make situations like these into teachable moments. Whether it’s ignorance about fight mechanics / class mechanics, or ignorance about how loot works, there are a butt-ton of people out there who don’t know as much as you and I know, and if you run something that groups random people together, you will run into them. Turning those situations into opportunities to share knowledge or expertise is positive for both you and the person who’s learning whatever it is, and is a positive example for others.

This isn’t to say that I won’t say negative stuff to myself. Fighting Ji-kun on my hunter the same night, the damage was really bad. We wiped once, and then made some adjustments and tried it again, and downed the boss. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t look at Skada during the fight and say to myself, “man, the damage in here sucks balls.”

But it’s important to remember where you are. Who you’re playing with. That lock didn’t need the cloak any more than the mage did… but I don’t know: maybe the lock has the exact opposite personal policy that I have, which is to say that he thinks anyone who does something that stupid in LFR must. be. kicked. And vilified, for good measure.

I can’t play that way.

We vilify too much in this society, and there’s enough of that in this game without being so petty. So it’s my personal policy not to kick unless someone is demonstrably a) afk or b) a complete asshole or is trolling the raid’s progress.

…

The mage thanked me as the fight started, and I made a level 1 toon on his server afterward to thank him for his tell. I told him that I hoped he wasn’t discouraged, and he said it was fine, but that it was remarkable how quickly it escalated. We had a nice conversation, and then I logged. He seemed to appreciate that I took the time to talk.

I looked him up on the armory, and his gear was entry-level HoF LFR level, on average. So yes, Mr. Dots in 510 gear was going to be a lot better. No surprise there.

I can totally understand frustration with the play of others in LFR, because I’ve been there. But there’s a way to make something good of it, and many ways to make it a negative experience. Being extremely petty is one of those negative ways, and while I will kick people, I don’t like kicking (or vilifying) people who make insignificant mistakes. It just rubs me the wrong way. There’s always a better course of action in situations like that – certainly better than revenge.

I’m glad the guy got the chance to get his Valor.

…

Thanks for reading this post by Mushan at Mushan, Etc. Comments are welcome!

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