Flaming Egos, or "What the Hell?"

I don't understand egos. I really don't. Some people can only make their lives meaningful by putting other people down, and even though I see it regularly enough to know it happens, it always surprises me just how stupid and petty people can be.

Some people, if they've decided you are Full of Fail, will never ever admit you aren't. Not if you throw the whole book of achievements at them. Not even if you have achievements they haven't accomplished yet. Not if your gear is better, not if your friends are cooler, not if you get official sanctions from God Himself for being L33T.

The Contestants

My guildmate is a raiding warrior who hasn't done all of the 5-man heroics yet but who is a sensible, nice guy with a respectable work ethic. He tanked Heroic Azjol-Nerub with this DK as dps.

I'm not going to link to my guildmate for gear comparisons, but I can report (after checking his armory) that he's a warrior in all blues and purples, every piece that can be gemmed and enchanted is (head, shoulders, back, chest, bracers, weapon, shield, hands, legs, feet), with a focus on stamina, dodge, and defense.

The DK's shoulders are unsocketed, unenchanted PVP gear (Savage Gladiator), though other gemmable pieces are gemmed and his feet, legs, hands, and head have enchants (his sword is runed).

Here are my guildmate's tanking stats at the time of this story (click to view larger):


Here are the DK's dps stats (click to view larger, I have no clue which panel is relevant, so you get them all):


As of this post, my guildmate has 10 Wrath normal raid achievements to the other guy's 8. My guildmate has 4 Wrath heroic raid achievements to the DK's 1.

My guildmate has blacksmithing and mining (plus all three secondary professions), and the DK has NO professions at the time of this post except for the secondary profession First Aid.

I do not know whose gear is better or whose stats are better. All I know is that I've been reading (for fun as a former recruiter and guild structure blogger) what hardcore raiding guilds look for in an applicant, and fully gemmed and enchanted gear is a HUGE factor.

The Failbag

My guildmate, we'll call him Warrior, is having an off day. The pick-up-group he's with wants to do the Azjol-Nerub achievements, which a 5-man group of some of our guild's best raiders wiped on countless times -- guys who are not scrubs (guys that other guilds try to poach from us).

Now, I don't know anything about Azjol-Nerub or its achievements other than what people tell me. So I'm not going to say "Oh, it's impossible" or "Oh, people are lame if they can't do it." All I know is, players I know to be very competent (and persistent) have failed to do them so far.

Warrior's group keeps wiping. Warrior has never done Azjol-Nerub on heroic before, and he knows he's not giving his best game because he's still learning the encounter, plus the added difficulty of trying to work the achievement in. But he's game, and he keeps going back and throwing himself at the challenge.

Warrior explains at this point in his story that DPS keeps pulling aggro: "Not much of an excuse, was just having a bad time of it for some reason. It happens."

So they give up on the achievement and do it the normal way with a few minor hiccups.

Apparently, this entire time, the DK has been talking trash to Warrior and finds a line of attack he likes: insisting Warrior bought his account on eBay. Warrior has "had about enough of his meaningless taunting, and very respectfully stated so, left group, and hearthed."

"Afterwards, he sends me a tell again, 'you never answered me if you were an ebay warrior' and I, once again as respectfully as possible, explain that I had just never done that instance before and was having a hard time especially getting flustered and sloppy after being told what a terribad tank I was. Of course I knew better than to believe that I'm the worst tank to grace the server. I linked a couple of achievements and in particular he scoffed 'Sapph and KT? What, were you carried or something?' and I said 'No, I main tanked Saphh and picked up adds on KT.'

We both were pretty insistent of our opinions, mine that I am far better a tank than that run happened to imply, and his that I was a waste of space and should /wowquit."

The Contest

Warrior offers DK a challenge. They'll do another heroic, Warrior pays repair costs for all wipes. If they don't get through in a reasonable amount of time, DK gets "several hundred gold in auctionable goods."

If they do get through reasonably, and Warrior proves he's not the worst tank on the server, the DK must "apologize, say that I was not a fail tank, and leave it at that."

DK brings in a group of guildies and insists on another heroic Warrior hasn't done before, explaining, "No, [Gundrak] doesn't prove anything other than you can repeat the same thing over and over like a robot. If you were really skilled you could do something new without any trouble." They pick Halls of Light. Warrior sighs and figures he'll just be on top of his game and it'll "make revenge that much sweeter."

The warlock in the group is doing something else, so they four-man through the first boss.

Once, the healer gets knocked across the room, causing a wipe that Warrior gets blamed for.

The DK keeps proximity pulling mobs with the excuse that Warrior isn't fast enough.

The DK refuses to get on the skull target and so keeps pulling aggro and dying, then blames Warrior for it. His excuse is "You've never been here before, I have. I know what the kill priority should be on the mobs. I was just killing what's SUPPOSED to die first."

They wipe a few times on the last boss, Warrior is always the last alive, and when the boss finally goes down, Warrior finds himself with 3 shiny new conditional achievements in addition to the achievement for completing HoL on Heroic.

DK starts the final conversation with "I guess that was a good run by your standards huh?"

Warrior replies with "We made it to the end in a reasonable amount of time, how was it by your standards?" and gets a laundry list of things he did wrong, including all of the things DK did wrong but blamed on Warrior.

"All right, but where's your end of the deal? You owe me an apology."

He doesn't get an apology at all. He does get a grudging "You are not the worst tank I have ever seen......but you are far from the best."

Warrior: "Okay, sure. But there's room to learn. I don't need to be the best as long as I can play and have fun."

DK: "So you settle for mediocrity then? In my guild, that's unacceptable. That says a lot about you and your guild."

And DK's final parting shot: "If I were you I'd do the smart thing and end this conversation and be glad that you got you and your guild taken off the blacklist."

Granted, I didn't have screenshots to reconstruct the conversation, just my guildmate's quotes from memory. But, really, that's not the kind of stuff you get wrong. Plus, my guildmate is a respectful person, he recounted the story in a factual tone, included his own personal mistakes, did not at any point rant and rave, and I trust (with my instincts as a writer and English major, as someone who spent college and her entire recruitment position looking for bias and deeper meanings in other people's writing) that he stayed true to what happened.

My Response

*stare*

*blink*

*stare*

*blink blink*

(Source: Penny Arcade Store)

Yes, Tëmpus. They're talking about you.