My Mr offspec post from yesterday was intended as a tongue-in-cheek poke at an old mate of mine (who carried the “Mr Offspec” tag in his guild note for quite a while), primarily for those mates that I know read this blog, but also for general entertainment.
Arioch has probably captured my thoughts perfectly, but as my wife will tell you…
I can’t tell a story in a couple of words, when I could write a book about it instead.
About Us
Now to be fair, we do in fact have a system to handle main spec rolls and off spec rolls, through to DE’ing and distribution processes… so generally, there wouldn’t (shouldn’t) be an issue with a Mr Offspec situation.
We are a close knit group of 7 mates that play on a Friday night, while we all want a bit of loot, it is extremely common for any one of us to pass on an item to ensure that the group as a whole is better equipped, thus a) more capable of downing any boss/encounter and b) the loss of any one member of the party will not be so detrimental as to automatically equal a wipe (4 horseman on Friday is a good example, where even though the 2 top DPS went down early, while 9 manning the encounter, we still managed to pull through).
Our Goal
Our current goal is to gear up the group (I am not the newest/least geared member of our group, primarily due to the range of Alts-becoming-mains being brought through) so we can have a shot at Ulduar10. Of course the thing here is, that the sooner we get the average gear level up across our group, the sooner all of us will get a crack at significant upgrades from places other than Naxx.
Yet Mr Offspec is ever present, striking from stealth like those wraiths in Naxx.
Puggers are people too
Everyone has equal rights to drops… Not just the 7 of us, but also the 3 Pugs that join us. On top of that, as a general rule we would show the same consideration to a pugger in passing on an item with a couple of “dps” upgrade, where we can see that it is a major upgrade to the pugger.
This can be a bit soul destroying at times… We as a unit, working towards Ulduar, striving to get the best drops quickly from Naxx10 to enable this, and a Pugger we may never see again swoops in and grabs the prize.
I like to bitch about this stuff for a couple of reasons.
- A raid with no drama is a boring story to relate as mentioned in Do we QQ till it’s Qubed?
- It’s my Blog and I’ll bitch if I want to (Just as I will celebrate my Phat loot).
But, without that Pugger, the raid wouldn’t have happened (Is it better to raid with pugs, than not to raid at all? ), thus grats to the Pugger… but that doesn’t mean I am not going to sulk like the little Gnome that I am.
Lucky Luck Gnome
I know I have been incredibly lucky in both the available upgrade options, and that the RNG gods have looked favorably upon me.
Do I rejoice when I score a coveted upgrade?
- Hell yeah!
Do I bitch and whine when I loose a roll on a coveted upgrade?
- Totally! …but only for dramatic effect.
There is no “Mage” gear
Even as a Mage I have had to deal with Mr Offspec. Sure, armor wise, I am only after cloth with +spellpower, but I am also competing on all the other items with +spellpower, the trinkets, rings, weapons & offhands. There are a plethora of classes that can and will use them, from fellow cloth wearing Locks and Priests, through to leather wearing Boomkins, mail wearing Shamans and even plate wearing Pallies. It can be painful when after weeks of attempts, the desired item drops, yet you discover that the offspec Shadow Priest is main specing tonight, or worse the alt-off-specing shadow priest is “main specing” tonight.
Entitlement
I don’t consider the green or blue wearing toon automatically entitled to a drop, particularly when this toon is and has been Green or Blue equipped over multiple runs without attempts to upgrade the gear via alternative means. Yet, even where the item is clearly preferable for a class such as mine, if it will improve the toon’s performance, especially if it will improve our regular group’s performance, I will gladly (and vocally) pass for the greater good.
Taking my dps from 2500 to 2505 is worthless (greedy and selfish), if in passing on the item, the group dps can go from 25,000 to 25,200. Especially if the real upgrade (ultimate outcome) is the availability of a shard from DE’ing the old item for only a 5dps increase.
Epeenaggedon
Do I epeen?
- Hell yeah!
Publicly (excluding this blog which is my outlet for both my joys and frustrations in WoW)?
- Rarely if ever.
Mr.Z!, Mr Offspec, DualPersonalityPally, ConfusedIdentity & I are constantly discussing our performance. Will we gloat over doing 1 more dps, or 1 more damage in a fight… Hell yeah. Do we get as much joy and excitement out of producing equally high numbers…. More. Definitely more…
One night in Kara Mr.Z! and I were literally neck & neck on the meters (same numbers)… we laughed, cajoled and challenged each other so much… the end result, strong performances of ourselves and for the group.
Do we gloat over Mr Utility, that doesn’t place 1st in the meters… hell no, we donate a % of our results because without Mr Uitility, we were just a bunch of /faildps.
Do the healers in our group epeen… Hell yeah! Publicly… never. The biggest competition between our healers seems to be how many toons they can keep up multiplied by how many beers they can down.
It should be pointed out, that while we all (most) encourage each other to do better, there is one amongst us that criticizes the weak dps in the rest of the group, the same one that has rolled over another party member, with a greater need, even when discussed on vent about the merits for both just to ensure that they have received loot.
This same person once accused me of offspec rolling on a +spelldamage staff back in the days of Kara. This was all the stranger because there were no dual spec systems, and the spec I played (Fire) was the same spec I had played since I 1st rolled Gnomeaggedon. It was only a minor upgrade on spell damage, yet it was a massive upgrade on stamina, especially for the spellfire/spellstrike wearing Mage that I was. The amount of grief I received over that decision to roll, was matched, if not beaten, by the grief I had received over the preceding months about being too low on health. I was rolling for Main spec, he was rolling for Offspec. Yet a transcript of the conversation at the time would have suggested the reverse.
Frogger
The thing is, I will never be in a position to leap frog the top 2 on the damage meters. I have known this from near the end of TBC, when Mr Offspec 1st appeared with his (2nd) toon. With his lack of time limits, he was better geared than me in badge gear, than I was after 6 months of flailing about in Kara. Nowdays, he can’t spend the emblems on anything, is raiding the other 10 and 25 instances during the week. I will never leapfrog my DPS foes on the meters, but then I will never have the wealth of loot opportunities that they have.
Of course if an item dropped in our normal 10 Man Naxx that was a significant upgrade for all, my attitude is quite simply, “Bring on the rolls”. Remember we have no loot council, no loot limits. If you need it, NEED it, if you want it GREED/Offspec it.
Earn your rewards
To quote one specific line from Finnigan’s comment:
People who work hard and put in the hours deserve *at least* a fair chance at rewards and people who sit back on their ass should not be unfairly rewarded for their lesser effort.
You will find no disagreement from me on this one, although I sense that you are suggesting that I am less deserving as I can only play very limited hours.
The way I see it, is that during our common raid allotment time, we all put in an equivalent amount of effort.
Did I arrive at my 1st level 80 raid under geared… sure, but not through any lack on my part (with the exception that I was 3 months behind the grind due to real life commitments, and I can really only promise 6 hours per week).
The 1st thing I did when I logged on at 80 was purchase any gear I could, which was immediately gemmed or otherwise enhanced to the best of my ability (ie: excepting faction requirements or enhancement availability – which I have since ground up).
The 2nd thing I did was draw up a list of upgrades. Where ever possible those upgrades have been obtained off my own bat, either through questing, crafting, PuGing instances, or grinding rep with the required faction.
You will note in my posts the common thread of “I just dumped X amount of gold to buy favor with the RNG gods”. Of course this is ludicrous… you can’t buy RNG favor, with imaginary gods… However, I guess you could say that the likelihood of an upgrade can be directly related to the effort one has gone to achieve the closest equivalence.
Boosted kicking and screaming
So, I haven’t been dragged through instances and raids by my mates, without going to any effort to be ready, per se.
Rather, my group of friends (some of whom I have known for as long as 30 years, others as little as 10ish years), run raids and instances on a Friday night as a form of social gathering. Why Friday night? Because that is the one night of the week I have a leave pass for, so in that sense alone, my mates are dragging me (and others) through.
Of course the other 6 nights (and to some extent) days of the week, the others run all the other raids and instances that they can.
Should I stay, or Should I go, let them decide
Recently, while trying to decide whether I would continue with WoW, I suggested to my mates that I actually step aside to enable them a faster progression rate. To allow them to spend their Friday nights with their guilds busting Ulduar into little pieces. Several weeks down the track, I have yet to hear from any of them that I should step aside, rather the only reference made, was a request for confirmation that I was resubscribing to that I could be included in our raid calendar.
The beginning of my Good Gear Fortune
That very 1st night when I hit 80, while I was buying, gemming and enchanting my gear to be raid ready, I received a guild invite to Naxx25. I protested that I was neither geared or experienced, yet the invite was given and accepted. I believe this is because the (then) Guild Leader knew that no matter how badly geared I was, I will still give my all, I would still be an asset.
There could be no better start to level 80 as a casual player… Not just naxx 25, but 2 loot drops.
Loot and Run, or Stay and Fight?
The following weekend was a LAN weekend with my mates. I had 2 options:
- Screw my guild, take my 2 upgrades and use them with my mates, or
- Acknowledge the generosity of my guild and raid with them over that weekend instead to give some return on their investment.
The choice was difficult, and I don’t think it was well accepted by some of my mates, when I chose to repay my guild through my presence. However it was important for me to ensure that my guild knew that no matter how limited my play time was, no matter how rarely I would get to run with them (as my friends come 1st), I would be available and I wasn’t just looking for a free loot ride.
One Among Many
Now the thing is, most of the 6 people I play with every Friday are not looking for a free loot ride. Most of them will not just gladly pass, but proactively pass, on an item that has a greater benefit for another.
Most, but not all…
For we have amongst us a…
Mr Offspec.
Why I list gear I have collected while being carried through raids or deafening whines about gear that I didn’t get
On a final note, my trials and tribulations were originally posted more for my benefit than anything, a living document of my Northrend experiences. In fact the 1st few started with a “Please ignore this post if you are bored by loot haul posts” disclaimer. What I discovered was that people enjoyed the stories, but the gains and the losses. Some people use them as inspiration for the day they will have their level 80 toon ready to roll. They are in a way proof that you don’t need to be 80 within the week of the release of an expansion to be a valuable member of your party/raid.
Gnomer and Out!
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/06/02/mr-offspec-i/
Dear Mr Gnome! You’re killing me with all those posts. Two a day, is that your new standard now?
You’ve apparently had enough of upgrades giving you insane amounts of +blogpower and I expect you to pass the next drop so that one of your fellow mage bloggers could have a little boost as well. Zupa is probably the one in most need. I’ve seen a few posts but he isn’t as regular as he should be.
lol… not enough fiber in Zupa’s diet.. though i think he nearly got the runs at the thought of old world raids…
I intend to give him enough to write about…
anyway, I have passed one +blogpower item to Razorbax today… surely that’s enough…
2 a day…. what am I going to do with the one coming in 5 hours?
Although I guess it is a bit of a confession post…
Posts about loot are fun.
It’s rewarding for me as a fellow mage to vicariously live out getting loot that I’ve had to watch go to a PuG or heard about dropping in the raid I didn’t get to go to.
They also serve as a sort of diary for you to look back and see what you’ve accomplished and when. I would have already forgotten how I felt about some events if I didn’t have my own blog to glance at once in a while.
It’s your blog and your opinions. You can QQ all you want. Besides, bitching and whining are class-skills for mages.
I have to say im rather jealous that you get to play with so many of your mates.
I have one of this server, one on that server, one who doesn’t play anymore, one who is going to reactivate RSN (Real Soon Now)… You may not get much playtime but I think you squeeze the maximum fun out of it!
meanwhile… I’m not as regular as I should be!
ouchies! shame on me!
inc. post on how I’m not as regular as I should be.
I promise no references to diet or fibre or anything of the sort. Oh too late Gnome already went there.
I gotta say, I really appreciate all the Mr/Ms Offspecs these days because I often have to ask people to switch to their offspecs so that we can overcome our slightly weird class balance for raids.
So it actually is really cool that a lot of my friends put the time and effort into getting offspec gear and learning to use it. I would never stop people rolling for offspec, you never know when it might be useful!
I’m finding the whole Mainspec/Offspec thing to be getting a little obsolete these days with the advent of dual specs. Loot homogenisation helps a lot too, all that cloth with spirit on it isn’t just for priests anymore, for example. My priest raids Ulduar 10 as a Shadow Priest, but has switched spec to Holy and healed on at least two raids in the last few weeks because it was needed. She wouldn’t be able to do that if she didn’t have a strong Holy gear set as well as her Shadow set, and the result of her not being able to do that would have been at least one cancelled raid.
Admittedly, a lot of good Shadow gear is also good Holy gear, so much of the shadow gear I’m bidding on can also be used for healing. On the other hand, my warrior’s in a tricky situation on those fights in Ulduar 10 that only require 1 tank (Hodir, I’m looking at you). Since it’s far easier for a druid tank to stack frost resistance and still remain crit-immune than it is for a warrior, the Druid gets to tank and I switch to Arms spec and dps. But because I refused to roll on any dps gear for Gorn until all the melee dps already had it, Gorn’s dps gear is an embarrasment. We can still down Hodir, but I definitely feel as though I’m not pulling my weight.
On the other hand, if I was the Ret Paladin looking at the best in slot 2-handed weapon drop and being outrolled on it by the Protection Warrior, I guess I’d feel just like the Gnome Fire Mage seeing his best in slot dps trinket go to the Resto Shaman.
There aren’t any easy answers, I guess. Probably the best way in your case is exactly what you’re doing: If I get the loot, is the best for the raid? If not, pass. If it works, it works.
Once again someone else has said this better than me (another complain from my wife.. I will write a book, and need to write a sequel to explain the 1st book)…
THD (Of Mr. Tree as he now wants to be known after Mr. Z! was named… Does that make me Mr. G! ?) suggested that this was my real point…
Of course, this is clouded by the fact that the personality type is evident in my group of friends in someone that is Mr Alt-Offspec.