Saturday November 6, 2021
“And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change…”
There’s a certain level of kindness in every social interaction. It can vary from being a complete prick (lowest level) to exceptionally helpful (highest level). Sure, you can be low, and that pretty much leaves both parties worse off than before the interaction. You can be high, which usually leaves both parties better off. It’s not a zero sum game. I’ve met people who play the zero sum game, we all have, but it never sits right with me.
A Day of Kindness
The other day there were 3 newer guildies running something with 1 of the older veterans in the guild and myself. The veteran is one of the most easy going people I’ve ever met in WoW. He never seems to get phased by anything, which makes him an excellent tank. Situations like dps being aggravating never bothers him, it’s like water off of a duck’s back. Me, on the other hand, tend to get grouchy when dps make my job harder as a tank. We all know how they do it, jumping the gun on the pull, not helping with an interrupt when you’re trying to gather mobs, charging into mobs when you’re trying to do a line of sight pull. Those things, they happen, and it’s a cumulative effect for me. The more it happens, the more I struggle, the more I get aggravated. By the end of an instance those things make me not want to tank another run.
They wanted to run Normal Slave Pens, and my paladin is 62, good enough to run it. 2 of the newer guildies, a husband and wife team, are returning to WoW after about a 10 year layoff. They ran BC original, so they’re familiar with the game as it was. The 3rd newer guildie has been playing constantly, and is working on multiple alts, My kind of player. He was healing the group. The veteran was on his shaman, and enjoying not tanking for a change.
The run went very smoothly, no deaths, no craziness. I finished the run feeling calm and relaxed, the perfect wow experience. The wife, playing a 70 mage, got a little jumpy on the pulls, but I calmly explained that if she waited until the mobs started hitting me, they wouldn’t go ape and run at her. A couple pulls later she commented that she didn’t know that and what a difference it made. Awesome!
The Second Run
At the end of the run the healer asked if he could switch to his mage and could we run Underbog, to finish his quests in there. Absolutely not a problem. I suggested I heal, and the husband said he’d like to try tanking it on his Feral druid. He asked for help with the pulls as it had been a while.
The run started off well, we were on discord so I was able to talk him through each of the pulls, and showed him where to make line of sight (los) pulls to. The veteran threw marks up to help him as well. The run went smoothly throughout, the tank got into the groove of pulling. He had a very good run and even when mobs got away from him, he would recover. The veteran, who has a top tier Bear tank, pointed out the mechanics behind growl. The tank was using it on mobs he had aggro on. Once that was clarified, he mentioned how much easier it was now that saving the taunt for needing it was fanastic! A simple explanation was all it took. A little kindness.
Near the end of the run, one of the newer members said they could listen to my explanations all day long, my way of speaking was like listening to an audible book. The tank said he had a lot more confidence because of the way I was talking to him while explaining. Kindness all around. A happy group leaving an instance better than when they began.
It’s all a person can ask for.
Wylset