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Mike Preach has another video up on his view when it comes to diving into Heroics. This comes in direct contrast to the way I handle heroics and gearing. His belief is that you should just head straight into Heroics without spending a dime on the Auction House or doing anything beforehand. While I appreciate his viewpoint, I think one aspect that needs to be addressed in his video is the question: who is his audience in this video?
First, let me preface this entry by saying that Mike and I have two separate philosophies when it comes to gearing and playing the game. My philosophy stems from the viewpoint of a casual player, one who typically ends up soloing a lot of content or not having a good, friendly guild to perform a lot of the group oriented activities. Mike’s viewpoints are derived from an excellent player, someone who is definitely a more pro-gamer with a great deal of knowledge about the game mechanics, classes, etc. For myself, I consider myself a relatively decent but not outstanding player. I put in enough effort to do above average but do not want to be on the bleeding edge of dealing with all the intimate details of the game because I simply feel that most end up being a waste of time.
Next, I think I mirror how many people who stumbled late into this game feel where the general lack of guidance and overall cold community have created an alienated division of player types in this game. Also, I have to admit that I am somewhat sensitive in what people tell me. I’ve had some poor experiences with socially inept players in the game.
Mike’s play style I feel gives him a sort of immunity against those socially inept players. On top of that, he’s just got a great attitude overall. However, for someone like myself, one negative comment can be a huge turn off. Many players in this game can just be downright mean and for those who wander in and find themselves unnecessarily insulted, the game can be a downright brutalizing self esteem experience.
And it’s not just myself. But I know plenty of other people who have experienced this issue. Not just bad players but good to excellent players as well. It’s these poisonous players who really disease the game in a quagmire of their stink and self abnegation. But at the same time, people like myself are the ones that attempt to find ways to avoid them at all cost.
Now, what has this to do with heroics in MoP? The reason why I’m addressing this issue with regards to MoP is that Heroics can be unnecessarily unforgiving if you enter with the wrong group. While the vast majority will tell you that Heroics are easy, the reality is that you’ll always find someone complaining about something. If you could get a group of like-minded players together with good attitudes, I’d stick with them and just spam heroics rather than use my methodologies for gearing.
But that isn’t reality. The reality is that you have that chance of getting the asshole that rips on your tactics, lack of experience or dps (or whatever). It’s an unnecessary pressure that stigmatizes 5 mans because of the visibility and accountability compared to LFR which has 25 people. Rather than trying to encourage players to do better, you often will hear (or better yet remember) the negatives, which just discourage people like myself from participating in them.
I still advocate my mechanisms for gearing. I still think that you should pre-optimize your toons before doing any heroics rather than diving straight away. Until there’s a guarantee to get away from the boneheads in pug situations that make the game miserable, you’ll always have to keep on your toes.