Furtive Father Winter - Guest post by Rilandune

Greetings readers of The Daily Frostwolf - Druid Edition!

Blog Azeroth organizes an annual blogger guest post Secret Santa and this year I am quite happy to have received Navi’s name in the virtual hat as the recipient for my guest post!  (I do hope she’ll feel the same way ^^ )

A short introduction - (I’ll post more details in the signature) I am Rilandune from Heroically Random and The OverLores Podcast.

As readers of Navi’s blog you know just how much she loves her guild and that she is a passionate healer.  In fact, it appears at this point that she has but one spec - Restoration (a PVE and PVP variant of course).  This will be what I will focus the first part of this post on.

Personality Types And How (Do?) They Merge With Role Choice In Gaming:



A brief history of my WoW “career” - I played a Holy Priest from Vanilla launch until midway through TBC when I rolled my Rogue.  My Rogue was then my only character I played until the closing days of Wrath when I started playing with a Paladin that started his life as a tank, then moved squarely into a Healing role where he is today but has taken a backseat to my Rogue again which I am now playing as my main again.

I will not claim to be an expert in WoW, but I will say that I have played every aspect of WoW in some capacity.  From raiding to PvP (arena and BG’s), from professions to achievements, from exploring to obsessive completion-ism.  I’ve played all three roles, healing and DPS more prevalent but I have played the tank role a good deal.

Again, I’m no expert, but I’m observant, I watch people, I read people, and I think over what I see.  There’s no denying that peoples personalities outside of game effect their choices in game.  For instance, I am a very non-evil person.  That sounds odd I know, but what I mean is I cannot come to grips with playing something that feels outright evil to me, ie. Forsaken, Warlocks, or Death Knights.  (I’d throw Gnomes in that list as well, but they are kinda cute, and fun to punt, even as a die hard Alliance player [sorry Navi ^^]).

Tanks, generally, are people that in their “real lives” (I hate that term, gaming is just as much real as any other activity, I don’t ask people when I’m at a soccer match what they do in their “real life” why should I say that in an mmo?) are natural leaders, organizers, managers - folks that generally lead something in a professional capacity, or at the very least are the go-to person for their group of friends for weekend plans, making reservations, organizing events, etc.  That’s a no-brainer.  That’s not always the case certainly, there are no absolutes in life, but that’s a reasonable generalization.

DPS players tend to be all over the map, but a common theme is that they (we) are very competitive, thrive in competitive environments, and respond well to a prize based system (topping the meters!).  DPS players are often proud of their characters, their gear, their accomplishments.  Cocky is a word that can be used certainly, but not always.  DPS’ers tend to be high energy, often high-strung folks that talk a lot (guilty).

Healers.  Healers are a breed unto themselves for the most part.  *Have you noticed I’m not speaking in absolutes, trying to avoid hate-mail ^^*

Generally speaking healers are the soft-spoken caretakers.  The wisest members of the group.  The ones that keep the bickering to a minimum during progression runs, or wipe-nights.  Healers tend to be very compassionate and caring individuals that clearly bring that into the game from their personal lives.  I consider myself to be very caring and compassionate.  I am a husband and father and there is nothing in my life more important than my families happiness.  I play a healer, and love healing.  It’s an area of the game I keep coming back to, even though I at the same time love playing my Rogue.  I think my caring side comes out more when I’m healing.  I hate the thought of letting the flippant DPS’er die by not healing them in a random, even though they have insulted the entire group, intentionally pulled ahead of the tank, and blamed me for a wipe.  Now, coincidentally, when I’m on my Rogue, I have no problems hitting that same flippant DPS’er with Tricks of the Trade, popping every cooldown imaginable while pulling an entire trash pack, then vanishing so that he/she gets instant aggro from 5 or more mobs.  Call it dual personalities perhaps?

What I am getting at here is that healers tend to be a very caring group, not the leaders tanks can be (for good or bad) or the ego-maniacs DPS can be (CAN be, no hate-mail please).  But is that always the case?  I have run with healers that are more obsessed with the healing meters on every boss fight than the DPS seem to be (which is silly because having higher HPS can simply mean you spam heal too much for no reason, but that’s a topic for another time).  Are these same healers caregivers in their lives, are they compassionate wisemen/wisewomen like the rest of the soft-spoken healers I have grown accustomed to?  Or perhaps they are just meter-watching DPS’ers at heart that found they enjoy playing a healer because it gives them a different, though similar outlet for their competitive nature to shine through?

I’m a bit of both in all honesty.  As I stated I am a very caring person and I am a big softy.  I cry at movies. A LOT.  Heck, I cry at some commercials.  My 4yr. old daughter has me wrapped around her pinky and she knows it.  But when I am healing a raid, I cannot help but get a tad angry when I am not topping the healing meters.  Which, I will point out, has never once happened when grouped with a Resto Druid. *grumble grumble green-circle-of-meter-topping grumble grumble*  ^_^

And a quick part 2:

Have Fun With Your Guild And/Or Raid Team!



I find that one of the worst things about raiding is the burnout you experience.  The constant pressure to succeed, the constant wiping.  It gets to you.  And given that we are in the midst of Winterveil it is a great time to point out that WoW has an incredible amount of fun things to do, as a team/guild, that can cheer everyone up, get their minds off of raiding for a bit, and keep the morale high.

So get out there, throw on your ugly sweater, organize a snowball fight, take down the Grench, and most of all do the fun achievements together (IN VENT) and you will find your guild having a great time doing some very silly things, and that is the greatest way to keep everyone happy and ready to delve back into whatever raid content you are going after right now.  Organizing a group of people do the achievements like BB King (see Navi’s recent post about that, great write-up!) can be so much fun, but you really do need to be in vent/mumble to truly enjoy it, that’s where all the fun chat takes place while invading your opponents cities.

Get out there and have fun, this and every holiday/event!

Thank you very much Navi for having me guest post on your blog, and I hope all of you fine readers of The Daily Frostwolf - Druid Edition didn’t mind my rambling too much ^^

Cheers!

~Rilandune

You can find me at HeroicallyRandom.com, on twitter as @Rilandune, hosting The OverLores podcast, the Warcraft podcast for the Lore nerd and the Lore noob alike, and on The Twisted Nether Blogcast, where I contribute a weekly addon segment called Addonation, and a written article on the blog called Resource Site Spotlight.