Richness is being OK with what you have.
I'm not saying one shall ever stop to want more. But a rich man is separated from a poor not by an artificial $ number. The rich man believes that he has everything he needs and now only goes for things he wants. The poor man believes that he don't have things he needs, usually by someone else's fault. A man with very little money but "rich" attitude is a happy man who will sooner or later get the money. The man with lot of money but "poor" attitude is a man who will spend lot of money on medical bills related to coronary and ulcer issues.
I wanted to write about it long ago, motivated by punks who "needed" gear to perform. They were unhappy players who felt hopelessly behind without the "needed" gear. What reminded me to write this now was this post whose author is QQ-ing how much druid healers need damage mitigation cooldowns. She does it when druids just get an awesome buff: 3 mins Tranquility CD. No it's not enough, because a paladin/priest combo has better mitigation. She mentions shamans too, who are also undesired for healing, especially now that mages and BM hunters have BL. Oh poor poor us.
I never felt poor or behind. I never felt the need of mitigation talents. Actually I always felt shaman healers overpowered. We have variable totems, providing half the available buffs. We have the awesome Healing stream totem that provides both resistance and about 1/3-1/4 of another healers output for a single click. Poor priests only have lightwell that stays up unused since the DD won't click on it unless shouted by the RL. We have self res. We have mana tide. We have wind shear that throws me to the top of interrupt list practically every fight. We have purge to annoy Maloriak, ghost wolf for Atramedes, earthbind totem to the various oozes. We can keep a DoT up on the boss for little damage all the fight and fire elemental when burst DPS needed.
Whenever a buff arrived like +10% CH effectiveness, +15% passive effectiveness. I received them as unneeded gifts. I never felt that CH or the overall healing was weak, as I was always on or near top healing. I was rich before and I got more gifts to make me even more rich! And in next patch wind shear won't miss any more. Great!
The only situation when I felt poor was Chimaeron. I simply couldn't heal people up after a decimate as a CoH priest or a druid. But this feeling last only until I learned to use my abilities: start casting CH on tank when boss starts decimate, so when everyone at 1 HP the tank, the offtank and some melee gets it. With a healing stream tick 3 of them are already over 10K. Also I stopped using riptide on every CD on low HP people (as everyone was) and used it as 6-seconds switfmend-like instant ability on someone who was at 1 HP. When the boss died I no longer felt poor, I felt stupid for feeling poor for a second.
I'm a rich man.
I'm afraid lot of people would remain poor if they'd have a Lamborghini and instant cast damage mitigation spells.
PS: I have no idea about the loot table of bosses. I don't know which boss would drop an epic to a slot where I have a blue. I go to raid when I want to. If something drops, it's always a pleasant surprise. No I don't need that loot. After all, the boss died without it. It provides me the genuine fun when someone (who can't use it) bids against me to get a juicy second bidder's gold. I just let him have the item and laugh (usually I buy it from him for half the bid later).
I'm not saying one shall ever stop to want more. But a rich man is separated from a poor not by an artificial $ number. The rich man believes that he has everything he needs and now only goes for things he wants. The poor man believes that he don't have things he needs, usually by someone else's fault. A man with very little money but "rich" attitude is a happy man who will sooner or later get the money. The man with lot of money but "poor" attitude is a man who will spend lot of money on medical bills related to coronary and ulcer issues.
I wanted to write about it long ago, motivated by punks who "needed" gear to perform. They were unhappy players who felt hopelessly behind without the "needed" gear. What reminded me to write this now was this post whose author is QQ-ing how much druid healers need damage mitigation cooldowns. She does it when druids just get an awesome buff: 3 mins Tranquility CD. No it's not enough, because a paladin/priest combo has better mitigation. She mentions shamans too, who are also undesired for healing, especially now that mages and BM hunters have BL. Oh poor poor us.
I never felt poor or behind. I never felt the need of mitigation talents. Actually I always felt shaman healers overpowered. We have variable totems, providing half the available buffs. We have the awesome Healing stream totem that provides both resistance and about 1/3-1/4 of another healers output for a single click. Poor priests only have lightwell that stays up unused since the DD won't click on it unless shouted by the RL. We have self res. We have mana tide. We have wind shear that throws me to the top of interrupt list practically every fight. We have purge to annoy Maloriak, ghost wolf for Atramedes, earthbind totem to the various oozes. We can keep a DoT up on the boss for little damage all the fight and fire elemental when burst DPS needed.
Whenever a buff arrived like +10% CH effectiveness, +15% passive effectiveness. I received them as unneeded gifts. I never felt that CH or the overall healing was weak, as I was always on or near top healing. I was rich before and I got more gifts to make me even more rich! And in next patch wind shear won't miss any more. Great!
The only situation when I felt poor was Chimaeron. I simply couldn't heal people up after a decimate as a CoH priest or a druid. But this feeling last only until I learned to use my abilities: start casting CH on tank when boss starts decimate, so when everyone at 1 HP the tank, the offtank and some melee gets it. With a healing stream tick 3 of them are already over 10K. Also I stopped using riptide on every CD on low HP people (as everyone was) and used it as 6-seconds switfmend-like instant ability on someone who was at 1 HP. When the boss died I no longer felt poor, I felt stupid for feeling poor for a second.
I'm a rich man.
I'm afraid lot of people would remain poor if they'd have a Lamborghini and instant cast damage mitigation spells.
PS: I have no idea about the loot table of bosses. I don't know which boss would drop an epic to a slot where I have a blue. I go to raid when I want to. If something drops, it's always a pleasant surprise. No I don't need that loot. After all, the boss died without it. It provides me the genuine fun when someone (who can't use it) bids against me to get a juicy second bidder's gold. I just let him have the item and laugh (usually I buy it from him for half the bid later).
31 comments:
i find the constant need for gear and especially the complaining about the lack therof mostly being a compensation for a lack of skill. It is just a lot easier to blame ones low performance on the lack of gear rather than saying "sorry raid, i have to improve my gameplay".
in my opinion for Healers it is much more important to have a good overview, to understand the encounter and just plain speed than gear (with some exception for example when the Holy Priests average Heal only heals an average 9200 on Chimeron and two or three better items would bump it to 10100, thus saveing him a humongus amount of Mana)
Really enjoyed the post Gevlon. I agree that emphasis on gear is exaggerated but also recognise that, for the majority of people, the more they earn the more they want to spend and will always find something to QQ about.
Personally speaking, I am always third on the healing meters out of three. Yet I am always praised and top of the list when invites are going out. I'm in two epics and the other healers are in 6 or 7 - gear is a factor in output numbers, as Riptor points out above.
However, our RL can open up Recount and see exactly what I've been doing and knows it's spot on. I use my toolbox, I'm on the ball with my utility abilities, I gel with the other healers styles. Almost more importantly I'm on time, prepared, educated on tactics, I listen and have the capacity to adapt to new situations quickly.
Sometimes I get a little down about my position on the meter, but then I think about the above and get told I'm missed on the days I don't raid. And I realise that I'm rich.
~Reala
While you usually prove a point with hard numbers and facts, you now seem to prove the viability of restoration shamans with your own sentiment. While you might get away in normal / casual raids with it, on progress fights (i.e. heroic content) the shamans were putting out numbers way below other healers. And in these situations that means the difference between a kill or a wipe.
The buff was more than needed, the more because Blizzard went for the 'bring the player not the class' principle. Leaving out a class/spec because it's under performing is in contradiction to that principle.
Basically, you're saying that you should be happy with what you have. You say you don't know the loot tables so you can be surprised. Yet, you repeat raid after raid on the same bosses. Is that fun for you? Repeating content over and over until there's no more surprise?
There's a difference between being resourceful and being rich. Usually, only the poor have to be resourceful because they have very limited tools. The rich waste resources and slack a bit.
Aren't you confusing "richness" with "happiness"? I know it can be the same thing for a goblin but they are two very different concepts. Usually, happiness doesn't involve material goods.
Rich man is man who can have anything he NEED, not anything he want.
On the other hand, people who "need" gear usually don't need it for improving their performance, but as collector who need to have all (at least more than others)
I think this very much describes the biggest social problem in the US today. You have union workers making 100k with fully paid benefits thinking they are poor because the unknown fat cats, 'the rich' have everything and they, barely getting by on 2x national average, are poor. Likewise all the other people who have good jobs, nice houses, and all the material items you could want.
Yes, the economy is bad, there are people suffering, but by conflating everyone into the put-upon middle class, it makes it seem like everyone wants for staple items, when the reality is that the malls are still full, the supermarkets shelves are stocked, and the majority of us aren't doing as well as we used to, which in many cases means they are driving 3 year old cars instead of new ones.
In a world where want == need, everyone is poor. Those of us who don't share that opinion are insane.
@Ayonel
So, what you're saying is that you should be content with what you have, which is what Gevlon is saying in his post. I call it bullshit. We should never be content. We should always want more. We should be greedy. Isn't this the Greedy Goblin blog? So, now, Gevlon, you're not greedy anymore? Are you the "Happy With I Have Goblin"?
I think not.
Ayonel, if i take all my money and move to Africa or South America, I'll be rich. Here, I'm just a regular guy. We're rich, or poor, by comparison. Always.
@Healer24: by comparison to Bill Gates, you are a total loser.
Gevlon, I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think you have used to wide a brush.
Your post seems to claim it impossible to be rich (in the clichéd philosophical way) and to have desires. I believe it is impossible to be rich without having desires.
A bullshit Chinese proverb says something along the lines of "If you shoot for the tree-tops and fall short you will end in the branches, but if you shoot for the eagle and fall short you will still be in the tree tops".
To me, apathy is a bigger evil than greed. To say "I am top healer/dps meters, so I dont care if I get gear" is a worse personality trait than "I am only second on the meters, gear is one of the way I can improve, therefore I want gear". The second at least shows a desire to improve, even if they are doing it for personal epeen rather than for the sake of the raid. The first person may feel rich but I wouldnt want to employ in life or in game.
@Gevlon
Correct. And aren't we all? Look at the man. He's rich. Very rich. He started with nothing and ended being one of the most richest persons in the world. Also by comparison, your theories about economics and social politics are bullshit if you don't apply them in real world and get some real money just to show that's possible.
I confess that I'm a little worried with these last posts of yours. First having doubts about how to handle social relations, now saying that you're not the Greedy Goblin anymore...
It shows that everyone can evolve, personally and emotionally. Maybe even those to whom you M&S can.
Even if it's not the intention I'm happy to see once more that not all in you is simple math.
By the way, if you don't need the loot why do you buy it? And why do you raid? If it's to play the game, to see the encounter, you just need to do it once.
@Zenga, Dangphat: you are mixing "want" and "need". "Need" is something I can't do without. "Want" is something I would do better with. Example: "I can do enough DPS in blues to be within enrage time but would do more with epics" as opposed to "I need epics or I can't do shit".
One shall always has desires. But should know that he has enough already and now he is aiming for some extra as opposed to fighting for survival.
@zenga: "progress fights" aren't necessarily heroic mode. "progress fights" are whatever fight(s) the guild in question is currently working/struggling on.
It seems that you are trying to use the word "rich" to mean content with what you have and "poor" to mean not content with what you have. I don't mind your sort of redefinition of rich and poor here, but it's worth noting that that's not generally how those words are used. Rich means having more compared to the average of those around you. Poor means having less compared to the average of those around you. Neither of them have much to do with how much you have in objective terms.
It's funny that you bring up resto shamans as example: they have actually been worse than other healers whole cataclysm, in terms of HPS. They do provide variety of buffs - but they still even after those buffs lose in HPS versus other classes on both 10man and 25man.
Source: http://stateofdps.com/index.php?data=patch_dps&raid=10N&samples=200&spec=healer
@Healer24
He started with nothing, common misconception. His parents were rich, he got an aureate education, that is ahead of almost everyone.
I prefer the axiom "It's not what you make, it's what you spend" as a better proverb. There have been studies that point out that once you get past a certain dollar amount (I think it's 700 million)there is no appreciable difference in lifestyle to be had by gaining more money. So why do people do it? I think at that point they are just enjoying the game of gathering money. An in-game parallel would be the players who go for the million gold cap which far exceeds what you will ever need to play the game. Why they enjoy the "make money" game is a totally different discussion which would require a wall of text to discuss.
I personally have no problem with someone trying to get rich as long as they don't do it at my expense. For example, I like to buy gas for my 40mpg car and I don't begrudge the 15mpg guy who likes to come and refuel at the same gas station. But if that same guy shows up with an 18wheeler with a gas container tank strapped to it and drains all the fuel before I or anyone else get any, then I would get very upset.
The aforementioned example in-game equivalent would be the guy who insist on getting all the loot at the expense of raid progression. We all know these players - the players who insist that a healer ring would improve their dps by 1% and roll on it in order to replace an already equivalent epic while leaving his fellow guildy with a green or blue level item.
And yes I agree with Gevlon. Most players don't spend enough time learning the peaks and valleys of their class' abilities and talents and are a poorer player for it. They insist on blizzard buffing their class which of course makes some players OP who have studied their class very well and have experimented to the upmost degree.
@Campitor
"The aforementioned example in-game equivalent would be the guy who insist on getting all the loot at the expense of raid progression. We all know these players - the players who insist that a healer ring would improve their dps by 1% and roll on it in order to replace an already equivalent epic while leaving his fellow guildy with a green or blue level item."
The guys is doing what's best for him. That's what he should do, according to the goblin philosophy. Having to worry with the overall good or with the guildies is something not present at this blog.
I'm guessing that you play your class well because of this "Most players don't spend enough time learning the peaks and valleys of their class' abilities and talents and are a poorer player for it.". Where's your data? Why most?
I'm also guessing that most people don't reach their full potential.
A good post, not usual to see something upbeat and positive coming from Gevlon! And, to have the idea shat upon by moronic, immature commentors here... I really enjoyed the initial read and I always read the comments and just got more and more sad that so many people just didn't 'get it'... when it wasn't even that complicated of a post! Thanks, Gevlon, good stuff!
Zenga said that "Blizzard went for the 'bring the player not the class' principle".
Frankly, that is not the case in WoW. Blizzard may repeat that mantra in the hopes of it being believed, but it just isn't true.
Maybe when mages can tank or heal, I'll take it seriously (not that I'm asking for that, I'm just pointing out that if Blizzard were serious about "bring the player, not the class", this would be a logical consequence).
At the moment, their mantra is pure tripe.
I look at boss loot tables to know what I should roll/bid on in advance.
I would hate to win an item I really didn't need in a GDKP or normal DKP system.
It is sometimes difficult to make that decision in the short time you have after a boss kill.
Have you ever had this happen to you? Have you been stuck with a side grade item or lost half the bid gold?
You haven't yet fought the bosses where absence of mitigation cooldowns really hurts. You may feel poor once again when Nefarian's Lightning Machine strikes your entire raid for 100k nature damage on top of some 20k shadowflame barrages...
@healer24
Actually, no, i'm not suggesting that you be happy with what you have. I'm stating that in a world where happiness is measured by what you have compared to what other people have, no one will ever be happy.
Ultimately, happiness cannot be had from external sources. Nice things make me comfortable, and wealth facilitates the pursuit of happiness, but your capacity to be happy is not perfectly correlated to how much stuff you have.
I got off this train a long time ago. I have a great life, make good money, etc, but realize that there is a point where stuff will increase my happiness only marginally. Being unhappy about better paid coworkers doesn't make be happier, or make me more money. Buying a new car will make me a little happier for a short time, but that's it. Moreover, to Gevlon's original point, if i can do 10k dps with my lock in 333 gear, or smoke a guy in a BMW with my Jetta, why waste time, money, and effort on something more? I get what I need, the other people look like idiots, and I just count my money.
Do I want more? Sure, that is the human condition. But maximizing the utility of what i have, appreciating what i have, and enjoying life is the trick.
Healer24 is a true example of an entitled M&S.
A ture goblin knows his associates and the fact that in order to maximize profit he needs other people (or rather, the services they sell). He knows how to weigh effort vs. profit and can tell when a situation can lead to a potentially bigger future profit.
Getting a minor dps increase at the expense of - say - a healer that needs it most is idiotic because you're essentially shooting yourself in the foot long-term. Instead you should be investing in smoother, future runs, that would mean less repairs, more loot for you and a smoother and stress-free raiding progress.
This isn't social behaviour. This is the only logical thing to do if you're interested in progress and not just "ze eppixx lewt lol".
Ignoring a large future profit for a smaller immediate gain doesn't make you a goblin. Only a moron.
@ Healer24
When you are rolling on trivial upgrades at the expense of the raid that means you are lengthening the progression curve since if everyone else is sufficiently geared (and know how to play well) you can tackle content and get upgrades that improve dps by more than 1%. I would think a true Goblin would see that since the Goblin mantra is "time is money friend". We can make more gold and get more gear but we can never make more time - its truly a finite commodity. Time can only be made efficient unless you have learned to break the rules of space/time
When I say most people it's from the progression graphs posted on Gevlon's blog. If most people were familiar with the peaks and valleys of their class, raid progression for most raiding guilds would be on par or very close to the elite guilds. Meaniful practice builds success and Gevlon's data (# of boss kills) would show that.
I'm not the most elite player but when I am raiding I study my class well. I don't raid anymore because I don't want to be held to a particular raid attendance. I'm currently happy just dabbling in the AH and getting in the random heroic.
@healer24
Sorry, I got interrupted. So what was my original point?
That when you can't tell the difference between what you want and what you need, you not only won't be happy, you won't be any good at anything.
You think you need epic raid gear to be a badass in heroics. You think you need a BMW to be faster/cooler than the other people on the highway.
But you don't. So let's differentiate between money and things. I'd rather drive an older car than owe the bank $50k for a BMW. I'd rather have 2 hours than queue for and run a heroic.
Having more? Sure. But at some point, you have to quantify and qualify your wealth. Having more money than M&S is easy. Having more stuff than them is easy too. But knowing that you get better use out of your stuff? Well, that's priceless.
Nice post Gevlon,
I wanted to say that I also rarely feel shafted by Blizzard for some change. My main is a resto shaman, and I've hardly ever felt excluded or gimped because of my class.
Granted, I was pretty upset when I came back to the game in Cataclysm and found out I couldn't cleanse diseases anymore, especially in the Lich King fight where it is mandatory.
As you said, I just took the tools I had and did my best. Sometimes it wasn't good enough, but usually I got it figured out. I'm not much of a raider, so I don't have to compare myself to other healers much.
While a defensive cooldown might be nice, it could also become another distraction for shamen. We already have shields, totems and whatever else to worry about. Another CD to manage only adds to the list, and gives Blizzard more to worry about balancing.
If we get a defensive CD, we'll learn to incorporate it into our arsenal. If not, I think we'll be fine. After all, it's not like raid leaders are dumping shamen simply for their class choice.
Recently on MMO-Ch:
"Spirit Link Totem (new talent) reduces damage taken by all party and raid members within 10 yards by 10%. This lasts 6 seconds, and every second it is active the health of all affected players is redistributed among them, such that each player ends up with the same percentage of their maximum health. This counts as an Air totem and has a 3-minute cooldown."
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