Need... more... rage

Ok, maybe not rage. I've been pretty frustrated the last couple days just fine on my own.

See, Ulduar has been exposing some wonderfully glaring errors in everyone's performance. Not even the healers or tanks are immune to the scrutiny the officers are placing folks under.

It's easy to see problems in DPS. Low hit rating, bad rotation, dieing to fire all show up when you look at the stat meters later that night. When we placed a 3k min dps requirement (so to speak, we aren't evil but we make very strong suggestions), some of our dpser's started to get the attitude of "Well, I can't change things, so I won't sign up for raids period."

This is hurting us, actually, because now instead of being able to cycle in one or two spots, folks aren't signing up for raids at all. Sigh. Bang Head. Little do they know that 2.5dps is being replaced by someone even more casual then they are because we need to fill spots.

Over on the other side of things, we have a unique problem: our tank and healer team is made up of mostly the officer core so when one of them has a bad day (week, month, one is loathe to tell them to step it up. Healers are prima donnas, tanks have fragile egos. I'm a prima donna with a fragile ego left over from my bear days, so imagine trying to tell me anything!

Seriously though, I have found that being respectful and more or less honest when the person is enough to get the ball rolling. Instead of saying "Hey, you sucked last night" doesn't help and yet, people do that all the time across many guilds.

I need to remind myself over and over why I left the guilds who treated me like crap or second rate. What I have learned is:

Get to know the person beyond the game. We have more than one player who is in a wheelchair for various reasons. I remember calling out a player for not moving during the flame wave in Sartharion. I grumbled, battlerez'd them and told them if they did it again I would not battle rez them, like, ever again. Later, someone else told me that the player uses a special device to play WoW and that movements are not as reactive as they would be with a keyboard/mouse set up. Man, did I feel like a chump and went back to the player and apologized for being an ass. This goes way beyond the dumbass dps need to get that last spell off and pray shit doesn't kill them. I didn't bring up my newfound knowledge, but I did, inwardly, have enormous respect for this player and what he has been able to do with his 16 bucks a month. Does he need to get out of fire? Yes, and he knows that and each raid gets better and better.

Of course, not everyone who plays has a physical disability but it is good to find out a little more about people you work with. Some have kids and have to stop the game in order to attend the little ones (I prefer duct tape, but maybe that's why I just have cats), others are naturally slow learners, others have low social skills which draws them to the game in the first place and don't think before they spew out what's in their heads, while others are insanely fantastic people who never say a word in vent or raid chat and won't tell you what's bothering them.

Everyone has a bad day or two, as a leader of anything it is important to take care of your people so they in turn can take care of you.