It’s a simple question, but one that you’ll find has very varying answers, and answers that vary wildly depending one’s situation. How do you treat someone who randomly whispered you asking for help with their class? How about someone who’s asking for a spare gold? What if you’re a mage and they’re asking for food or water? If you see a player nearby you pull a few too many mobs than they can handle, do you pitch in a helping hand and save the day? What if they’re part of the opposite faction?
Overall, kindness in WoW falls in one of two categories: random kindness that isn’t prompted, and kindness that’s done as a reply to a request. The latter is a topic I can talk about for ages, as it involves everything from friends asking, to a guildmate asking, to random players asking. Not to mention all the things they can ask for. So let’s talk about the former: random kindness.
I don’t know about you, but one thing that always brings a smile to my face is when people I don’t know — complete strangers — act kindly towards me, without me having to ask. Has it ever happened to you when you were a lowbie and didn’t have many abilities at your disposal, and while trying to make a risky pull, you accidentally pulled more mobs than you can handle? Now, more importantly, have you ever been in the situation where some random passerby helped you out and between the two of you, you managed to clear off all the mobs you pulled and stayed alive? How did you feel? Did it encourage you to do something similar yourself in a similar situation, but on the opposite side?
When I was a lowbie on my first character, my Mage, something happened that I remember to this very day, and it’s something that really affected the way I play the game. I was level 18 or so, and just about to graduate from The Barrens (yech, Barrens, I know). I was doing that annoying quest where you have to steal silver back from some raptors who decided they needed it for their shiny metal nest (Stolen Silver’s the name), and realized as I got there that the raptors were all symbiotic creatures and were always in groups of two. I managed to get through the first few groups of them by sheer luck and with a mage’s wealth of “oh sh*t” buttons, but the last pull was a difficult one. Right next to the silver is a group of three raptors. One is a little bit father away from the rest, and I knew with clever planning I could pull him separately from the other two. So I targeted him, backed up, and prepared to fire… and aggroed the other group of three raptors right behind me, just as my shot fired off and aggroed the first group of three. I now had six very angry raptors after me, and my escape was blocked off because the raptors on the way out had respawned.
Of course, being a mage, they ripped right through me and before I knew it I was staring at my toon’s body lying there on the ground. With a groan we’re all familiar with, I reached over to the [Release Spirit] button and prepared to press it. A second later, I found myself alive right near where I died, at the feet of a level 30ish shaman. I was amazed. This random player, who I had never seen nor spoken before, had apparently noticed I died, and had stopped in the middle of their journey to give me a rez. I whispered them a “thank you”, and they just said “no problem” and ran off on their merry way. However, that random act of kindness has stayed with me ever since. Just the other day I was doing my Quel’danas dailies and saw a resto shaman get eaten alive by some blood elves just before I could get to him and help. Being a druid, the only thing I could do was to throw him a battle rez (which cost me a reagent). He was shocked that I would spend money on a complete stranger. But that’s just the person I’ve become, and it’s something I don’t mind doing, especially knowing the smile it brings to the other person’s face. It varies per server, but I’ve found the WoW population as a whole is mostly rude, including a few who go out of their way to steal a node/chest that you just cleared a mob for, and stealing quest mobs/items right in front of your face! However, I find that it’s those rare situations where someone goes out of their way to be nice to you, that make all the difference.
What about you? Do you have any stories about times when someone you didn’t know was kind to you? How about something you’ve done? Let me know in the comments!
Have you ever read through a blog post (such as my own) in Google Reader and wished you could hover over the item links and see that familiar Wowhead tooltip? Well now you can, thanks to a fantastic Greasemonkey script! It’s a simple three step process:
That’s it! Open Google Reader and enjoy, ;)
Test it out with the following items: One | Two | Three
The more I play a Feral Druid, the more I realize how much is different from the DPS role I’m used to. One of the things that really struck me last night when we were cleaning up Kara was the synergies between a Tank and people in other roles.
As a Mage in a DPS role, it was almost all about the charts. I’m not going to lie, but I considered myself an above average mage. I could not only bring the numbers in a raid, but I was also aware of the situation and reacting to what was going on (as well as doing my job). However, most of the time I was staring at the DPS meters and perfecting my timing of hitting my “3″ key. Every so often hitting another hotkey to start a cooldown. I loved healers who would heal me and keep me up when I took a random hit, and got slightly annoyed when I died and no healers were targeting me. In a few 5-mans, I admit, I even looked at the healer in the eye and said that I was watching their spellcasts and they weren’t even trying to heal me (which I really feel bad about now).
However, I now know what it’s like from the other side (DPS vs Tank/Heals). There is some sort of special connection that occurs between Tanks and healers that can’t quite be explained. And one that DPS classes can’t even come close to understanding. I’ve been leading Kara runs for a few lower geared people in our guild who are trying to work their way up to T5 (where my guild’s officially at) by organizing and running Karazhan raids. One of the people I help run through is a holy paladin, who often gets the assignment of healing me (the main tank).
When we’re all in the middle of the action and I’m hitting all my hotkeys and worrying about my positioning and what’s going on and just trying greatly to keep the boss pissed at me, and pissed enough that my DPS can unleash just that little bit more without worrying, I’m also constantly watching my health bear to make sure I hit that “oh shit” buttons when I need to. Being a tank means you’re a constant magnet for heals (obviously), but it’s still sends a tingle down your spine when you see your health bar topping off and noticing that one healer giving it their all just to keep YOU alive. It’s almost an instant friendship, and it’s hard to describe.
Since then this one holy paladin and I have become great friends, and I almost cheer to myself quietly whenever he’s assigned to be my personal healer in raids. I know I can trust him with keeping me alive, and I trust him to do his absolute best at each and every raid when he’s assigned to me. He makes sure my blessings stay up, and will put me before himself. Similarly, I offer him many liberties, giving him first priorities with Innervates (though as a Paladin he rarely has mana issues), and feeling a slight excitement when I’m the lucky one chosen to throw a battle rez his way. I also happily recommend him when we need another spot to fill a raid or a group. Additionally, when the shit hits the fan, I loyally run between him and oncoming mobs, and pick up whatever I can (at one time tanking 5 elite mobs in TK since our tanks dropped and they were running for the pally keeping me up).
So I must ask you readers out there; Tanks, do you notice yourself forming this kind of unique connections with healers? Healers, is there a similar synergy that you form with tanks? What about you, DPS, do you find yourself in a similar position as I was when I played my mage, or do you find yourself forming your own connections?
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