The Greedy Goblin

Yes, I know he's down there on the Recommended Reading List. And yes, I know he sits on a pile of gold so tall Thunder Bluff gets a Napoleon complex. Nevertheless, Gevlon is almost always wrong.

Now time for some ferocious backpedal. Firstly, Gevlon isn't wrong when it comes to economic tomfoolery. I come from the Marko school of ebb and flow, he's the Goblin school of domination. One is Jiu-Jitsu, the other is Karate. Neither of them are wrong, despite their differences. This is provable because both stomp ass and take names, and both these gents are Rockafellers of WoW. So on that end, I read him for insight into his economic strategies (posts for which are woefully rare nowadays).

But what of his other angles, chiefly his derision of social gamers? Well, yeah, mostly wrong. Even if his conclusions are right-on sometimes, his reasons are dubious at best. I agree that you should leave a guild you're not happy with, but not simply because you will no longer boost the Morons and Slackers* through content. Because the whole point is to enjoy the game, and there IS a guild out there that will suit every individual. He believes in this objectivist utopia, where the foolish and the lazy are driven forth from the land, and the strong and cunning laugh dripping in their spoils. They made that game, it's called EVE.

So then why have him on the List? Because if he's wrong, he's wrong in very interesting ways. No one else is going to ever suggest you threaten to afk during a heroic unless the worst DPS gets kicked, in order to get a better player in, or to only own blues to avoid having to boost anyone in a PuG (LFG typically puts one low-geared player per group; if you ARE that man, your odds for encountering scrubbery reduce). That takes a mad kind of courage, mixed with a splash of sociopathy, and that makes Greedy Goblin some good reading.

I post this just to make sure people know, I do not agree with a whole lot of what he says. Yes, he has powerful secrets of gold-making to divulge. Yes, he is right on when he says bad gear is no excuse for bad performance. He says some smart stuff when he isn't foaming at the mouth from his latest munging session with the corpse of Ayn Rand. And when it isn't right, it's still interesting, thought-provoking stuff, and that is in many ways better than just a list of facts.

*M&S official trademark of the Greedy Goblin

Skip All Bosses

OK, pop quiz: you get Gundrak from the random dungeon tool. You're cruising, the group is solid, and you get through Moorabi achievement-less again. What boss comes after Moorabi?

The correct answer is Gal'Darah, the final boss that turns into a rhino. If you said Eck (and if the people I've done Gun'drak with are any indication, you DID) you are wrong, because Eck is as of 3.3 a horrible time vampire that steals emblems away from you. Same with the optional bosses in Old Kingdom, too. Oddly enough, people seem to be pretty keen on skipping the latter's optional bosses, but whenever I say "hey, let's skip Eck" everyone shouts LOL BADGES.

Let's put people in the LFG queue into two groups: those interested in Triumph emblems, and those only interested in Frost emblems. For the latter group, skipping Eck is a no-brainer, fair and easy enough. But what if you want that Triumph emblem? You still want to skip him, because it lets you queue faster to more rapidly get the two extra emblems for clearing a dungeon. The opportunity cost of that detour is greater than its rewards, simply put. Just kill the final boss, get 3 emblems, and queue up again. Eck is just not worth the detour compared to the three emblems that lie oh-so-temptingly close.

I would make a grand blanket statement about how killing ANY optional boss is a waste of time, but bosses like Infinite Corrupter and Elder Nadox are a little different. While optional, these bosses come with no trash, making blowing through them a relative breeze, and make good sense to do, if just for the cash value of 1/15th a crusader orb.

The one exception I can see is if you only have time for one, and ONLY one dungeon. Let's say you had a 30 minute window to play WoW; then killing optional bosses is fine and good, since that time doesn't delay any future dungeon or other profitable activity. I seriously doubt many people are in this situation, both for practicality reasons (if the dungeon gets stalled you're SOL) and more psychological one (you're unlikely to have fun while you worry about the clock).

Taking Responsibility

I've said it before, the vast majority of raid bosses come down to variations on tank-and-spank fight. That's not to berate them, the variety within that model is really staggering, but most come down to DPS needs to kill boss, tank needs to stop boss from killing DPS, and healers need to keep boss from killing tanks. And the variations end up being various impediments; raid healing throws a wrench into the tank healing, movement messes with DPS, stacking dots makes tank-switching mandatory.

Some fights, on the other hand, demand that all players exhibit a dynamic situational awareness, bringing a whole new ability set into an encounter. And I'm not talking about standing in fire either; I mean fights were not acting properly to a changing environment will wipe the whole raid, above and beyond the call of duty. Here's the highlight reel from WotLK thusfar, in a spirit of celebration. Celebrating Blizzard giving us a whole new kind of noob to laugh at with these challenges.

Thaddius - Naxxramas. Thaddius was the introduction to personal responsibility for WotLK, and the best part is, it was completely transparent when somebody failed at it. Blame can often be shifted from lazy tanks, to lazy DPS, to lazy healers, but not when your logs read that "Butthole the Hallowed just hit 5 people for hella damage every second of every day until they all died". It's a rediculously simple task to check and then maybe move through a boss every 15 or so seconds, those who failed were shunned forever as at best an unconscious turret covered in wasted epics.

Yogg-Saron - Ulduar. The terror of the old god Yogg was indeed impressive, and was a very creative and rich fight; rich with opportunities to wipe the raids. Quick question, when are clouds safe to stand in? NEVER: clouds rank number 2 on the most dangerous denizens of Azeroth list, right behind floors. And if you manage to heard your cats together long enough to keep them from doing their stage adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk, phase two brings INSANITY. You'd think keeping a stack of 100 above zero would be an easy task, but sometimes someone thinks "It's OK; I got this." Every time a player said that in the brain room, Yogg got a stiffy.

Icehowl - Trial of the Crusader. OK, so check this: there's a guy, he's huge, and he wants to murder YOU (yes, YOU). So he knocks you away, shouts loudly that he will murder YOU, and then jumps back and prepares to run for 10 seconds before getting to YOU. Wowwiki says to move 20 feet to the left while moving at 2x speed, let him hit the wall, and laugh at sweet double damage. Instead, YOU decide to meet him head on, cause reading is for pussies. Icehowl makes good on his promise and kills YOU, in the easiest-to-avoid death ever, then gets a damage buff and kills all your friends and loved ones. Way. To. Go.

Lord Marrowgar - Icecrown Citadel. I was going to pick Rotface, because when someone gets the dot and doesn't stay cool as a cucumber, the little ooze runs around like an autistic kid throwing hammers, kneecapping everyone who are all oh-so-conveniently bunched up. But when someone, ANYONE stands behind the tanks on ol' Bonelord Marrowbone, they invite horrible rapeflame, which in turn threatens to cause Tank Sepperation Anxiety, a condition known to lead to wipes in up to 80% of cases. My raid leader's fury at this wanton behavior is second to none, and I love every second of it. You'd think someone hit him with DI by the way he reacts.

Festergut's spores, Rotface's ooze, and Marrowgar's threat wipes and flame positioning make ICC heavier on this kind of personal responsibility than other raids, so get used to fessing up on vent a lot. If you just can't muster an ounce of humility though, blame it on the hunter; they're all retarded DPS prima-donas anyway. You could jump on a hunter for your own mistake, and odds are he and the raid leader would take you at your word.