…it’s not worth saying.
This is a post where I don’t link to BigBearButt (or his Trollinator App post), Larisa (bet she’s already itching to write again) or Euripedes (who has always done his own thing).
No, I’ve done enough of that lately so I promise not to do it in this post.
Nor will I link to Runzwithfire with his Frost rotation flow charts (definitely not his AoE flow chart because that may leave you with a coffee spat keyboard) or Vidyala and her Fire rotation flow chart.
To do so would be to indicate that Mage blogging is still alive. Since I refuse to be the Gnominator, busting rumors across the WoW blogging community as was suggested on TNB (who I wouldn’t link to either), there is no need for me to tell you that things are alive and well in the community.
I will be linking to Arioch because she inspired this post with her very articulate comment on my last post which explained the strat for the dastardly dragon duo.
Which in typical Gnomeaggedon fashion I trivialized with a 3 line version, which got me thinking (always, always dangerous).
If you can’t say it in a macro, it isn’t worth saying!
Borrowed without warning from DM of the Rings web comic
I’ve been in lots of PuG instance runs where at least one person doesn’t know the fight and asks for it to be explained. Often this is the tank… don’t know how they got geared enough to tank heroics without knowing the encounters, but whatever, I still don’t know the strats, I am too busy reading webcomics (for which I am not going to provide links either) to know what really happens.
Anyway, while someone furiously types the essay about the encounter specifics, I normally throw up something like this:
Tank boss, dps boss
Say out of bad
Stay alive
Profit!
Which I think pretty much sums up 90% of the encounters. Understand that is a template, so it might be more specific, but really, what else do you need to know?
Message in a bullet
I figure that communication is about what is received not what is sent.
Also borrowed without warning from DM of the Rings
You could (like a certain long time friend of mine) spend 30 minutes explaining the fight + 15 minutes after each wipe reexplaining the fight, or you could JUST DO EET!
Where nearly every man and their three legged dog was clearing Kara in one night, my mates could never get past Curator, because for some reason, after months of clearing past Curator, we still needed the 30 minute lecture prior to each and every boss. (and we only had ONE raid night per week)
What he said:
We need to engage the boss in the left side of the room. Gnome you counterspell, Ari you interrupt, Deady you dispell, Harls you bubble…
What I heard:
Blah blah blah blah Gnome do your job a you already know how to do without being told for the freaking millionth time blah blah blah blah
What I said:
I’m off to make a coffee, watch some p()rn, have a shower, vacuum the house… Give me a call on the mobile when he’s finished.
We won’t even get into the fact that his knowledge of my class meant he attributed abilities to me I didn’t have… surprised he didn’t ask me for lock rocks and summons.
Anyway… message for receiver with limited attention span who is trying to buff up (probably himself and the raid) means… don’t waste your breath.
So let’s see…
A “proper raid” guide says:
Valiona at Wowpedia
An excellent raid leader (like Arioch) guide says:
The twin dragons aren’t so bad. The council fight afterwards (there’s actually 5 different named creatures you fight – four combine into 1 with the average of the health remaining) is much trickier.
Pink swirlies are the new void zones and will make another appearance in the Cho’Gall fight. Learn them well here and do not dance in them.
Assign ONE person to dispel Blackout. Have anyone else turn off their Decursive, remove all their dispel abilities from their action bars, and break their thumbs when they continuously dispel Blackout too soon. Valiona will breath fire on half the room right after Blackout, be prepared. She also likes to do a Blackout during the second and later transitions as Theralion is becoming active, dodge crap on the ground and stay close enough together to soak the damage.
Theralion will face the ranged group as he casts his big void zone. Watch the dragon and don’t be caught off guard when the ground underneath you turns black and starts killing you.
Engulfing magic: stop casting and GTFO ASAP. Once free from the group, start casting again. You will not take damage, just any one near you, and you gain a buff while the debuff is on you. Smite healing with EM is sweet. Alternatively, if you have no HoTs, no DoTs, and no other random spell casts that you cannot control, you can stay in the raid but you can’t do squat. Maybe wand. I haven’t tried that yet.
A Gnomeaggedon macro’d guide says:
Some bad stuff you want to stand in.
Some bad stuff you want to get out of.
Some bad stuff if fun, as long as you don’t share it with your friends, then it becomes bad.
No matter what actually gets said, important or not, my brain wants 3-4 short (very short) phrases to hold on to while pushing 1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,1,2,2. Really with rotations taking up 90% of my mental capacity, I don’t have space for more than 20 words.
Any guide in a bladestorm
This doesn’t just apply to raid guides, any beautifully written thorough guide needs to have a section that says something like:
Roll Mage
Spec Fire
Pew Pew
Stay alive (meh, optional)
Profit!
I’ve read lots of guides. I end up copying them, pasting them into a text editor (because MS Word is overkill that leads to too much information) and cutting them up into 3-4 lines.
eg:
/Yawn
When fighting casters ensure your counterspell is macroed to focus target. Watch target and when they hit 33% health (or within 7 seconds of death at health – current dps rate – factor for environmental damage – expectation of heal from another source), interrupt current cast, counterspell then blah blah blah blah blah…
Better
Hit counterspell on healer when at low health
Better yet
Counterspell healer’s heals
Best Ever!
Counterspell!!!!!!
I said the other day that guides spoil the magic, long guides just kill me.
They have their place, just not in my game time.
Communicating the in the real world
The same of course is true in the real world. If you send out a 10+ page document to be read before a meeting to review said document, you are playing with one hand.
In the real world, if you can’t fit it in the title of the meeting invite, it’s not worth saying.
Gnomer and Out!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
http://gnomeaggedon.net/2011/04/08/if-you-cant-put-it-in-a-macro/
PS: Yes I realise the irony of writting a Gnomewall to express my dissatisfaction at Gnomewalls.
PPS: <3 Arioch
PPPS: What links? I don’t see any links!
PPPPS: I love this DM of the Rings strip: DM of the Rings LXIII: Overly Requited Love
Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated (thanks for the revisit to Runz’ AoE guide, hahah. I love the panicky jumbled parts at the bottom).
I tend to agree with this approach to any guide, which is why my gemming guide is basically: GEM RED, maybe gem purple/orange, STOP GEMMING BLUE/YELLOW/GREEN. Done! And with a giant diagram in-case I was unclear. Red good! Blue bad.
I nearly, nearly, so very nearly linked to your Fire Mage gemming post as well… but as I had decided to make this a gratuitous link free post, I didn’t and I wont, because I am a Man of my Trollish word (Ohh I’m a Gnome… err whatever then)
I wouldn’t want you to violate your own policy to gratuitously link anything, no sir!
“Message in a bullet”
Do I even need to point out your obvious hunter-envy?
Just sayin’…..
I figure I don’t need to read the Kama Sutra to figure out how to do “IT” so I sure as hell don’t really want to listen to the raid leader’s master’s thesis to kill a boss – just point me in right direction (don’t worry, mages, I’ll throw a hunter’s mark up to help you figure out which one to kill) and let us loose. We’ll talk about what happened while we’re looting when we’re done (or having our post-coital cigarette, if applicable).
Have a great weekend!
Message in a bullet POINT… damn damn damn, I turned my back to a Hunter!
Of course your guide book might get you to the “when Harry met Sally” end point faster… it might also distract from the journey and the magic of discovery.
After seeing how small a Hunter’s Mark is with Valiona, I can understand why you guys might be a little embarrassed in public, but it’s OK… it’s not how big your Hunter’s Mark is, it’s what you do with it.
WOW! Just….wow ;p
<3
So…. much….. gnome love…. gah
Tyvm for not linking me, I was completely unsurprised and I most certainly didn’t smile at seeing me up there. It’s important that we maintain standards about avoiding gratuitous links lol XD
As long as you understand it’s nothing personal… I mean if I was to link to you, next thing I’d have to link to DRUID blogs that are doing Frost and Fire MAGE Power Aura posts.
That would never happen!
If we started going down that route, the whole country will be run by Murlocs before we know it.
And then where would we be?
If we started going down this road then the whole country go to the murlocs!
*smokes pipe*
hmmmmm
Ha!
A bit of BB code rather than HTML and now you are a spammer…
either that, or it’s something you are smoking…
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