On Flexibility, Emotional Attachment and Mister Spock. With Ice Cream!

"Thus, flexibility, as displayed by water, is a sign of life. Rigidity, its opposite, is an indicator of death." - Anthony Lawlor, A Home For The Soul

Those of you who follow this blog closely and spend just a little too much time obsessing over it (and you know who you are) may have noticed that there has been a distinct lack of Paladin related posts around here recently. In fact, looking back at my archives the last post that talked about Paladins specifically was way back in July.

There is a good reason for this: I'm not raiding with my Paladin any longer.


A DISCLAIMER

You know, I started this post with the best of intentions: A short, to-the-point post about what I've been up to in WoW and why I'm not posting about or playing my Paladin. Half-way through it turned into something completely different. I guess you and I will both find out what the hell I'm talking about when we get to the end because I have no idea where this is going any more than you do. Maybe there will be Ice Cream and Whisky. Goodness, that would be nice, wouldn't it?


SHAMAN: The new Battle Medic? At least this one's actually a Dwarf.

With Dragon Soul on the PTR, I was approached by our Guild Master who asked me a question that took me by surprise: Would I be willing to switch my raiding main in order to help with raid healing? It turns out that our guild is so full of main-spec Holy Paladins that it is a little bit like a large, overfilled doughnut—taking a bite of which will get Holy Paladin goop all over your shirt. And that shit is hard to get out.

In the interests of trying to avoid a 10-man raid with three Holy Paladin healers—which would strain just about anybody's tolerance for egocentrics in a raid, I imagine—I switched my Raiding Main to my (then) newly 85 Restoration Shaman.

My GM's reasoning was pretty straightforward: Dragon Soul looked to be a very raid healing intensive series of fights and even with the strength of the 4.3 Holy Radiance changes it seemed as if our normal Paladin/Paladin/Priest setup wouldn't be ideal. This was made especially clear when we found that some of the fights would require only two healers, and neither Paladin had a DPS off-spec. My Shaman provided my GM with a different option.

So, the week before Dragon Soul opened I was running through Firelands, healing on my Shaman. I admit, it felt odd at first. Even though I had levelled her completely through dungeons I was woefully unprepared to take her on a raid. My understanding of the subtleties of the class were at a very basic level, my UI was not set up properly and her gear was, shall we say, eclectic; an odd mix of items cobbled together from every possible source and not powerful enough to even qualify her for the new Looking For Raid feature.

She's nicely geared now, although there are still some problem spots due to some very bad loot luck in Dragon Soul. I'm not sure why, but in our raids the only Tier Token that ever drops is Vanquisher tokens—we literally had a new Death Knight alt get his 4 piece in a single night, and the only reason he got each token was because all the other Vanquisher eligible players already had theirs. Meanwhile, I, along with a lot of other people in my raid group, are organizing strange voodoo rituals to influence the gods to drop something—anything that we can use. Now, I know that no one really cares about other people's loot problems, but that night made me want to roll a Druid just so I could actually get a drop.

THE SPOCK PRINCIPLE: The Needs of the Many, blah blah blah

Imagine, if you will, a dwarf lying on a brown leather couch, a worried expression showing through his beard and his armour poking holes in the leather and setting it smouldering because the shoulder piece is on fire, which for some inexplicable reason is perfectly normal. Next to him, seated at a comfortable armchair is a bald man with a white goatee neatly trimmed into a point and a notepad on his lap. He leans over towards the dwarf, and in a thick German accent asks, "Und how doez ziz make you feel?"

A long time ago I wrote an article entitled What Makes a Main?, in which it I talked about the emotional connection to a character as the fundamental element that determines which character would be a person's "Main Character". While that criteria certainly wouldn't apply to everyone (there are people who change their mains constantly due to many different factors, for instance), but it is absolutely true of me. My Holy Paladin is my main because I am emotionally invested in him, both in terms of character as well as the play-style and mythos of the Paladin. My Paladin just feels right.

So when Mylindara asked me to switch for the good of the raid, I felt a little conflicted. From a dispassionate point of view he made a lot of sense because even while temporarily undergeared, my Shaman brought something to the raid that we were lacking. Emotionally, however, my main is still my Paladin, and is the character that I am most interested in playing and progressing. Not only that, but I enjoy healing on the Paladin more than the Shaman.

So the real question that I, or anyone in a similar situation must ask themselves is: When does the needs of the group trump the desires of the individual? Should we always be selfless in order to help the group, or is it alright to say "No" so we can play the game the way we want to? Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one when the ultimate goal of the game is individual entertainment? What would Spock do?


FLEXIBILITY: When is it okay to take one for the team?

I think the answer greatly depends on what type of player a person is. I believe that there are two extremes to this question where the answer is obvious and unchanging, and then there is a vast grey area in between where a large percentage of the player base sits.

The Activity-Centric people amongst us will look at this question as absurd because min-maxing every aspect of an encounter is fundamental to their play-style. Changing their character to bring that one extra buff or cooldown to the raid in order to gain any advantage—regardless of how small—is far more important than the attachment to a certain character or class. For them the emotional need is to progress at a personal level, and which character they do it on is only a secondary consideration; a tool used to achieve the desired end.

"Please don't shoot me"

The other extreme is the Character-Centric people. These folks form an incredibly strong emotional attachment to their characters, and asking them to switch their Main Character—or even to change their character's hair-style—is like asking them to shoot a puppy. It'll break their heart and the aftermath will be very messy to clean up. Not to mention that I like puppies, and well, shooting them is just wrong. I mean, look at those eyes.

The vast majority of us, I think, fall somewhere in the middle. I have always considered myself more of the activity-centric type, but again, if I am to be truly honest with all of you, I tend to let myself get attached to my characters quite a bit and was a little bit annoyed when I was asked to not bring my preferred character to the main raids. There is a constant battle raging between the two sides when I'm making the decisions as to what to play.

In the end I made the change and the raid team is the better for it, I think. We have a good core of raiding healers now, with a lot more flexibility than we would have had otherwise. I may not be playing the character I would like, but the decision was right because the activity, in this case, was more important than my personal need to play the character.

And I suppose that's the fundamental answer to the question of when it's okay to make a personal sacrifice for the team, and the answer is a lot more simple than the length of this post would suggest. Simply put, if the goal is more important than which character accomplishes it, make the change and be happy about it.

Now, as I'm writing this I'm thinking to myself, "Damn, you've really outdone yourself in stating the blindingly obvious. Should we do a section talking about the different ways water is wet? Way to spend 1400 words talking drivel, dumbass".

It is a pretty straight-forward concept, but I think that everyone is going to approach it differently and everyone is going to have a different reaction to being asked to change the way they like to play the game. It all depends on the balance between the activity and the character within a person.

For me, the activity of seeing our raid progress smoothly won the day over my own desires to play the Paladin. So for now at least, the Battle Medic is a Shaman.

Have you ever been asked to play a class or role that you didn't prefer so your group could move forward? How would you react? What sort of balance to you have?


OH MY GAWD, WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS POST AGAIN?

Oh yes, Ice Cream and Whisky. Excellent.

There ya go. Ice Cream and Whisky all in one.
It doesn't get much better than that.

What's Up, Dwarf?

"Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean, like butter that has been scraped over too much bread." - Bilbo Baggins, Fellowship of the Ring

It's been a while since I've posted anything substantial and I thought it time to catch you all up on what I've been up to lately. I have never been one to do the more personal posts, but I'm getting sick at seeing this blog wither and die like a spring flower in the harsh bitterness of an approaching winter. Cheerful metaphors aside, I need to get some things out of my head and onto the blog. I apologize in advance for the distressing lack of WoW content in this post.

"Omnomnomnom"
The face of pure destruction has never
looked so danged cute.

It feels like life is getting more and more hectic everyday around the Fannon stead. The Dwarfling is a very robust 9 months now, in perfect health and fully mobile; she's crawling and scuttling around like a famished Zoidberg going after a discarded hamburger. Nothing is safe from her wrath, and a rapid and frantic baby-proofing of our house is taking place at all hours of the day as she finds new and wonderful things to get her hands on to destroy.

I'm realizing that this parenting thing is a marathon that I have not trained for; my stamina is not nearly buffed enough to keep up with a rambunctious child. And it's only going to get worse as she realizes her legs are not merely for kicking the dogs when they get too close. Once she's walking, I'm doomed.

I know all the other parents out there are reading this with a bemused, knowing smirk on their face, and a feeling of pity mixed with a certain smug satisfaction that the hell that they went through is indeed universal.

Still, she's a treasure. The best part of my day is seeing her face light up when I get home from work. Nothing in this world beats a child that's happy to see you; I look forward to it all day.

Really, being tired from chasing a kid around isn't really the major stress source in my life at this moment. That honour definitely goes to my job. If you are a reader of my Twitter account you've no doubt read my many vitriolic tweets threatening to walk out. Well, dear reader, I am still in the same job I have been for the past two years. I haven't made a move yet because the hours are really quite cushy, but there isn't a day that goes by where I don't want to punch all the things, jump in a rather expensive vehicle and drive it through a plate-glass window. I'd love to just rage quit, but knowing that the Dwarfling is depending on me for everything she has means I can't be hasty when it comes to the major source of income in the family.

I bring all this up on Battle Medic because all this real life stress is affecting how I perceive this game. Frankly, I think it's clear that I've been going through a rather serious bout of depression for the past couple of months which has been negatively colouring my attitude and sucking the fun out of most everything in my life. I feel deflated and helpless when I log into WoW and look at the character screen these days - knowing that no matter what I try to do I will likely get interrupted by family matters and be unable to finish. I don't think I've done anything on my main other than raid in over a month because I just don't have the time. It's a terrible feeling and it has turned my stress-relief activity into an actual source of stress. I hate that.

Normally when I write something like this I try to broaden the topic a bit to make it less about me and a little more universal. But in this case I can't. I can't tell you how I'm going to work myself out of the funk that I'm in, nor can I offer any advice if you're going through something similar. I don't have any answers this time.

But what I can tell you is what I've been up to, trying to keep myself distracted.


WHAT'S UP WITH THE BLOG, DWARF?
(Are you still posting about WoW, or what?)

I'm not going to deny that I have been feeling very lackluster about posting Battle Medic these days. This post took me more than two weeks to finally finish, and I'm still not really happy with it. Looking at the blank post-entry page gives me the same feeling as when I'm looking at the character selection screen; a deep sigh and an immobilizing sense of panic.

The invent of the IntPiPoMo challenge that I have been tackling has been relatively lackluster in terms of generating traffic to the blog, but if it has accomplished nothing else it has got me posting again. It's been nice to be able to talk about something that I'm passionate about that is related to the game but not necessarily about the game - if that makes any sort of sense at all. It's been nice to get back into my image archives and show my faithful Battle Medic readers some of the other images that I work on and to talk a little about how I make them.


WHAT'S UP IN WARCRAFT, DWARF?

I have still been playing WoW over the past while, even though I haven't really been posting or Tweeting about it. I have a lot of posts in the works with my thoughts and reactions to the upcoming 4.3 patch and the new expansion which will hopefully be insightful even if they aren't exactly timely. Raiding is proceeding well enough, and I'm starting to get the itch to take my recently 85 Resto Shaman into the Firelands now that her gear is approaching acceptable levels. Not that I have time to raid with another character, mind you.

What I have been doing with my playing time is to work on some side projects.


The Deadman's Challenge

I started Vrykerion and Pysnister's Ironman Challenge as well, creating a soon-to-be-dead Orc named Grykthar. I plan to post more about this in a bit, but my spin on it makes it a perma-death challenge. So no items other than white and grey, no heirlooms, no dungeons, no nothing - and when the character dies he's dead for good.

I don't think that Grykthar will ever survive to be max level - in fact I fully expect to be writing many tales of woe and misery as I kill off character after character in ever more gruesome and entertaining ways. Look for a detailed introduction to Grykthar and my Deadman's Challenge coming soon.


Gnome Clone

Lillifleur the Gnome Clone
Fear our spiky and flirty Hair-dos!

More recently I have joined the Gnome Clone Army of [ Punt This ] with my lovely little clone mage Lillifleur. If you haven't heard of this before, it's a project started by Alas; the goal of which is to create an army of Gnome twinks, all with the same look, "uniform" and similar names, that will run roughshod over the Level 24 Battlegrounds. The idea has exploded on Twitter, and the Glorious Clone Army has surpassed 100 members, none of which are more than three feet tall.

Personally, I've been having a blast with my little clone. Levelling as a mage is fun and I think I may become addicted to blowing stuff up. She's an absolute beast and has already reached level 20 - by far my highest mage to date. Not only that, but the Clone Army is filled with scores of intelligent, witty and fun people, mostly culled from Twitter. Guild chatter is fun and lively, and I have been enjoying the levelling process.

Given my current state of mind, this project couldn't have come at a better time. I've tried starting other lowbie characters (my Druid is still languishing at level 24), but the prospect of levelling a character to 85 is a very daunting thought when time is an enemy. Getting a character to a "Level Cap" of 24, on the other hand, is simple, quick and painless. I'm excited to log in and play my little clone and I'm looking forward to getting her into some Battlegrounds and burning some Horde faces. I can't say that I have been excited about much of anything lately, so this feeling is a nice change of pace.

The highlight so far happened last night: A spontaneous flash mob of Gnome Clones descended on the unsuspecting denizens of Stormwind and entertained the bewildered spectators with Gnomish dancing and formation marching accompanied with loud and vociferous proclamations of gnomish supremacy. It was probably the most fun I've ever had in game, to tell the truth. By the end we had about 20 Lilli's precision marching from the Dwarven district to the Cheese Shop by the main gates, followed by a large crowd of very curious and fun-loving converts to the gnomish cause.

The Gnome Clone Army invades Stormwind to start a Dance Party

Quite a sight to see.


WHAT'S UP, DWARF?

Hopefully, my spirits. It's funny, but since I started writing this post several weeks ago, I have hit lows and highs - my mood has been quite variable and unpredictable - but I'm feeling a little better these days. Work has been less than completely awful the past few weeks, and the constant stream of house-guests, events and other time-sinks that have been eating away at my soul are done at least for the near term. And last night I actually managed to force a little alone time where I could just sit back and enjoy myself. It was nice and desperately needed.

With any luck your favourite Battle Medic will be back in good spirits and posting more soon. Thank you all for your patience, and perseverance to actually read through this rather whiny post. Writing it seems to have helped; I hope it wasn't too painful to read. But at least you've got a bit more insight as to what I've been going through personally the past while.