I finished my AA in graphic arts. Go me. /clap
Now I’m working on my BA in Economics with a certificate in Agroecology. What? Yeah.
I stopped playing WoW for about a year, as school is far more difficult and time-consuming than work. Having spent the majority of the last decade in a professional office environment, I’d never fully appreciated the ability to sit at a desk for 8 hours straight 5 days a week then go home and do nothing related to my employment. University doesn’t work that way, and it’s not been an easy adjustment to 40 hours worth of classes, assignments, projects and readings split into 4 or 5 hour blocks over 6 or 7 days a week.
You may or may not be asking yourself how and/or why my personal academic trials and tribulations are relevant to gaming or guild leadership. In the event you are asking yourself that, or you’re just curious as to my response, here it is:
Group work in a school setting is now the bane of my existence.
This past spring term I had a whopping seven group projects and papers. To be fair, there were only three groups I worked with for all these assignments, but still. In the vein of naming 10man raid groups, I’ll name my project groups LOL, OMG, and WTF.
Group LOL originally consisted of 7 members. A month into the semester, one dropped the class, bringing us to 6. One of those 6 was a student-athlete, whose game schedule effectively gave us 5.5 members. Halfway through the semester, another one disappeared, so we were down to 4.5 members. No worries, since two members of the remaining group were fairly strong. To put it in WoW terms, here was the group breakdown once we were at 5 members:
Tankadin who can breeze through an instance with their eyes closed
This was our group leader. Always on point, and frequently preventing wipes with a well-timed bubble or heal on another group member, although clearly their job is to tank.
DPS who only specced Heals to roll on a drop from the final boss
This was arguably our weakest link. Unprepared, mostly uncaring, with little regard for the rest of the group and always expecting someone else to make up for their shortcomings.
Mage who leveled by AOE grinding
Wooooo, this one was bad. No comprehension of PVE mechanics, frequent posting of meters, dying often and wanting to roll on plate “cuz it’s pretty.” Dead weight would be an improvement over this group member.
DK who belongs to someone’s cousin’s friend
Not terrible, but not great either. Mostly there because it’s not too difficult and maybe they’ll pick up an upgrade for someone’s cousin’s friend. Can occasionally pick up some slack, such as when Mage who leveled by AOE grinding pulls another pack of mobs, but also randomly AFKs. Basically good when they’re around, but not tragic when they’re not.
Hybrid DPS who refuses to spec heals unless there’s absolutely no other option
This would be me. Enough DPS to finish taking down a boss and enough mana to throw around a few much-needed heals with the healer failing, but consistently annoyed about it. Could just go ahead and spec heals, but not feeling the situation is sufficiently dire just whispers with the tank about how bad the healer is, then puts the healer and Mage on /ignore once the instance is over.
I’d have to say that out of the three groups I was a member of, this was the least stressful and annoying, mostly due to the Tankadin. The most effective strategy for Group LOL would have been for me to spec heals and 2.5man the whole mess with the Tankadin and DK, but that simply wasn’t an option, as there was no kick feature.
I’ll elaborate on Groups OMG and WTF in a later post, but in the meantime, imagine the nightmare scenario of queuing for a random and being unable to drop group without canceling your account for 3 months.
1 Response to “Okay, so maybe I was a little dead.”