Common Sense Ain't Common

I'm still trying to figure out how some of my guildmates think. They bitch exceedingly hard about losing every second scenario, and how their PUGs are stupid, so I joined up with one or two of their groups to back them up on my melee healer.

And I'm amazed at the stupid antics they themselves are pulling.

Like running into a group of 10+ Order people. Alone. Fine, you're on a tank.

The only healer in your group is my melee healer, who is capable of giving you two slow but steady heal-over-times, a couple of decent direct heals from a channeled spell that requires me to be in melee hitting somebody, and a strong direct heal that builds up over time and has a cooldown of 60 seconds once used.

You MAY get heals from two other zealots, who are the healbots of Destruction, who have a strong heal over time, and can pulse a decent direct heal IF they have you targeted.

And did I mention that there are lots of other people running around with 30-50% hp left on their bars?

Seriously, what kind of heals can you expect will keep you upright under the face of focus fire from 10 Order folk, a good half of which are Bright Wizards and engineers, aka ranged DPS, and the other half are melee DPS and healers who can do damage?

Then there's the witch elf, meant to be a stealth melee DPS class, in light armor, mind you, pulling the exact same stunt and expecting to live. Haha. If you weren't in my guild, I wouldn't have bothered throwing my two HoTs on you. But I'll spend the 5 seconds and my precious soul essence (without which, I cannot heal) just for the principle of things.

I just don't get it. Perhaps it's my unique perspective from playing both MDPS and a melee healer, or my innate sense of low-down female "kick 'em in the jibblies when they're down" cunning, but I do pride myself on enough common sense to NOT be the first guy in to attract all the tab-target focus fire.

I dance around the edges of combat. I look for guys with low hp, preferably non-tanks, and finish them off for a kill. I look for healers on the edges of the battle, lone engineers who think setting up to one side gives them a good view and squishy light armor melee as targets.

I don't barrel alone into the middle of the enemy zerg to get snared and fire caged while attempting to reach the very last healer in the back row, while everyone just swivels and let loose the firestorm of the century on my backside.

At most, I have run up to a group to attempt to scatter and distract with my AoE mutation arm, for 3 seconds, before dashing back out of range because I know the limits of my health bar. Or I run into the group to take out one healer, and back off again because of the focus fire I know will be coming. But I do it only when I see the opportunity to make a clean gettaway. I don't suicide on purpose, rationalizing that my death served the greater good of the team. It didn't. You just gave the enemy free points, free kills, free xp and free renown.

Of course, I'll grant that if everyone thinks like me, everyone will end up retreating and then getting bombarded with enemy fire, forcing healers onto the defensive and generally get rolled anyway. (Which has happened in more than one scenario because the enemy kept a tight group and we had no ability to scatter them.)

But I believe the idea is to run in together. Not alone. And a little bit of situational awareness (like realizing half your teammates are dead, maybe you'd better retreat and regroup after they respawn, or that your 3 healers are getting harassed by 4 tanks and an MDPS or two so they're retreating madly and maybe you'd better not choose this exact moment to dash out of heal range into the enemy zerg) would help.

I miss my co-guild leader. He's gone off on a ten day holiday with his significant other, and I must say, those two are the core 'center' of this guild. (If you remember the 'center' theory from the MUD organization days.)

When they are about, people rally to them, and it helps that he plays a Chosen tank, his SO is a healbot zealot, and both of them are REALLY good at their jobs.

Y'see, his Chosen can run into a group of Order and survive because:
a) it's not 10+ people, more like 5-7,
b) he never does it alone either, other people run in with him to harass and distract
c) his pocket healer is watching his hp keenly
d) his auras debuff the opposition, a Black Orc tank doesn't get those
e) his gear isn't too shabby, and his level ain't bad either
f) he was a closed beta elder tester, and you bet he knows all the ins and outs of Warhammer

Meanwhile, we have these other people trying to follow in his footsteps and crying that their teammates suck and they don't get enough heals.

Sigh.

It's an odd state of affairs. Without the 'center' present, my guild feels like a troop of whiny loners, who form up into an incompetent mass of casuals who get pwned. It's enough to make one think about shopping around for another guild.

With the two of them around, they rustle up group activity every night and we go around together like a small zerg to do various interesting things like RvR, keep sieges, scenarios, and all.

Going to be a long ten days.

My alt is nearly the same level as my main, which I was holding back on so I can move together with the core two.

So I can either level up the main, into more PUGs, or I'm tempted to level a tank alt or two - just so I can see things from their point of view.

And do better. Cos I'm mean that way.