Failure

I'm not very accustomed to fail. You know those kids you went to school with, the ones that always got good grades, that were the stars of the basketball and other teams, the ones that all the girls thought were cute? It's a bit of a stereotype, I know, but I think we all know or knew someone like that. If there's one thing I am it's honest. Not modest, unless I'm in the mood, and today I'm not. I was one of those kids, and I was proud of it.

The thing about being the kid who succeeds at everything, is sooner or later you begin to think that you can't fail. Until you do. As this isn't exactly the time and place to list all of my life failures, rather a silly little World of Warcraft blog, I think I'll limit my comments to this silly game instead of confronting the more frightening reality of how totally unsuccessful I have been at meeting many personal life goals.

DPS to Heals to Failure
I would tend to guess that many newbies start their wow careers as some sort of DPS. Some may have started as a Holy Pali thinking that that would provide them the best chance at being awesome at swinging a big mace. But let's not pick on those silly little Paladins today, they have a hard enough time as is. I thought the point of the game was to hit with a stick. Then I experimented, learning took the place of ignorance, and in time I realized that I could do various things.

My road to becoming a healer has been treated on this blog, so for time's sake I won't rehash the past. Let's just say I found myself in ICC with my Resto Shaman chain healing my way to victory. That is until I had to give it up for a while.

So Cataclysm comes and I start reading how healing is hard, how it sucks, how people are giving it up because it's unreasonably difficult. I read how the devs think "healing is in a good place right now, where we want it" (not actual quote, just paraphrasing multiple quotes). I switched my shaman back to Enhance for Cata, not because of the supposed healing difficulties but rather because I wanted to have fun in a more seflish way this time around.

But my Priest, oh, my Priest kept a healing spec. And this past week I healed something for the very first time. And I failed.

Horribly failed.

And when I say failed, I mean I really was aweful. Even my own guildies didn't want to be patient after two wipes, they just thought I sucked. It hurt, mainly because these particular guild mates weren't a part of the guild in ICC, they didn't seem me almost single heal Festergut. They had no idea how good I was, (or how good I thought I was). Now in their eyes I suck, I'm a terrible healer that probably doesn't deserve a spot in the guild. As for me? What do I think?

Well I failed, and no I don't think I'm unworthy. But chances of me logging into my Priest again any time soon is around 3%. I don't take failure well. I didn't fail much as a child, or a teen, or in college where every professor wanted me to follow in their footsteps and choose THEIR discipline of study. I didn't fail when I programmed amazing financial models that improved the productivity and efficiency of my accounting department by measurements unknown to human kind. Ok, hyperbole, more like by about 500% increased efficiency. And a system that saw a 60% error rate to less than 1%.

I won't blame my back pain for any goals not attained, some things are just out of our controls. Even being unemployed doesn't make me feel like a failure. But for some reason, I felt like a failure this week when I couldn't even keep a tank alive for more than 20 seconds.

Odd, really, how something so silly, a game, can make you feel such things. I guess my specs will be Shadow PvE and Shadow PvP from now on. Screw healing!

Don't look at me like that! Don't you dare call me a quitter! I think I fight quite hard every day in RL to make up for EVERYTHING I may choose to STOP doing in a game. One thing was obvious to me about healing, I had no idea what I did wrong. What I didn't understand was why I couldn't keep a tank alive when I was healing every second. Health was dropping too quickly and I just couldn't keep up. Perhaps the tank was doing something wrong? I won't know, really, because he'll never admit to it. I kept my shield up on him, along with the Grace buff, Penance on cooldown, even Pain Suppression to reduce damage taken - not to mention Inspiration (another damage reducer). It's not as if I didn't now HOW to heal as a Discipline Priest, but it's obvious to me that there was something that I clearly didn't understand. And that bothers me.

I've read enough about healing to know what I needed to do, and I thought I was doing it. I've done it before on my Priest, A LOT in fact, just not in the Cataclysm era. And that's my undoing. But that's in the past now, I guess, and that failure will stick with me for a while, which is something I'm not looking forward to. I suppose I could try it again, a chance to redeem myself. But what if I fail again? Can my pride take it if I try again and fail again? What more trauma will that unleash on me?

We've seen the number of tanks and healers recently, and there's a lot of reasons for that, all of which we won't discuss today. There are even solution, which we definately won't discuss. I wonder how many stopped because they failed and, like me, are just too afraid to keep failing. Maybe it's irrational, but try being rational with the irrational - it's not an easy thing, ya know.

Where I Sum Things But Come to No Conclusion
All this talk about failure, though, is just too heavy for a Monday. But since I don't really care and this is what I felt inspired to write about today there you have it. I've been mulling the idea for a really long post on Success, I think I'll write that, it's all cheery and happy stuff.

Some fail and get back up and succeed. Some fail and get back up and fail. Some fail, which failure frightens them into trying again. I won't say if one is worse than another, all could happen to you or me at any time and any place in life, so I won't judge (although I'm sure somebody will be more than happy to). As for my healing failure, it won't mean I won't heal again on any toon, just that one...for now...maybe. I can't see the future.

Two's Company

Every post for the next two or three weeks will have a dual purpose.

1) Continue doing what I do, writing about the connection between WoW and life and thier resulting issues (that and complete nonsense for the fun of it).
2) To give updates and ask for advice on my newly announced song project: WoW, The Musical.

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Should you look for a new job?
I'm curious, have any of you ever attempted to play in a role (tank, heals, or DPS) where you discovered that you were just not that good? I don't mean that 'it didn't feel right' or 'doing X didn't really click with me', what I refer to is a very real ineptitude despite hard work at researching and practicing.

For a long time I thougt that was going to be me as a healer, but I stuck with it longer than I originally wanted to because not only was there a need but I was grateful for a challenge. I wanted to quit, I believed myself really bad, but all it took was one small change and suddenly I became pretty good.

I tried tanking while leveling, but I found that I wasn't very good. I understood the priciples involved and knew my toolbox very well, but I don't think I had a good balance of awareness and quick reflexes to react to things when they went bad. I got too nervous and couldn't keep my cool. Bad traits for a tank.

DPS is natural and easy for me. Rotations make sense to my analytical mind, I find an ease in following a routine. Healing is in between tanking and DPS, and for a while I couldn't find that balance, but eventually it became a natural extension of what my eyes and brain processed, and I could react swiftly to problems.

Maybe I should go back to tanking now I have a handle on healing. Perhaps I wouldn't suck as much now that awareness has been learned. I still wonder, are some people destined to be 'bad' at a certain role because of some trait or characteristic of their person that is a barrier to success? I really don't know, I'm just thinking out loud.

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Now for the update on the musical.

I want to create a trio of singers, which may end up straining my voice a bit, but some lemon juice should help with that. I want it to be kind of a funny but dark song. In one corner there will be a Doomsayer who is mocking a poor, innocent Gnome about the impending Shattering. A struggle of wills, so to speak, will be the main theme of the first part of the song.

Just when it appears that the Gnome has found the courage to stand up to an elemental invasion, Deathwing himself appears to taunt the Gnome and bring him to his knees, all the while the Doomsayer laughing in the background, continuing to mock without remorse.

The conclusion is a surprise (or maybe I haven't got that far, you'll never know).

Of course this is what I have right now. I'm working out the lyrics and the melody currently, I'll figure out a way to mix some music in there as well. All of this, remember, is comletely subject to change at will. All I'm doing right now is to let you in on my creative process. Often when I start writing a story I think I've got a great idea but then it all comes crumbling down when I realize that I forgot a small detail. But this detail ends up being the cornerstone for the inspiration of a new idea or new story, and everything changes for the better. So please allow me to change my mind at will, as it may inevitably lead to something far better.

Remember also that I am open to suggestions, and will give full credit to any and all that help make this come together. I realized this morning when I woke up that I put myself in a pretty big hole, needing to deliver on a promise of something I haven't attempted in, well, never anything LIKE this. I have written songs before, but not with the aid of a computer. I shall do my best and hope it doesn't completely suck.

That's What it Feels Like

The first few times in ICC, that is when it was first released and I wasn't as well geared as I am now, I ran as my preferred spec...Enhancement Shaman. It was great, we wiped on Marrowgar over and over, but that was ok. As a guild we were inexperienced and undergeared, but we had fun trying.

Quickly people began gearing up more and a few top geared people got experience with other guilds for a few weeks, experience they brought back to us lowbies (how generous). It was about this time that my guild lost some people and I was called on to heal.

I had only commenced down the road of Restoration shortly before this request was made. True, I had been saving some gear for the occaision, but never intended to use it. But I was either going to heal in this guild (as there was no active recruiting going on) or I wasn't going to be a part of any raiding unless I wanted to pug or /gquit.

So Resto I went, and continued until Saturday. We organized a pug 25M, mostly with my guild and one other with a few scattered true puggers to fill it out. I was given the chance to DPS.

I was so nervous I made a deal with a druid to heal the first 3 fights then switch to Enhance while he went heals from the 4th fight on. Good thing it was Saurfang, I just had to stand there and bash my axes into his rear side. (As an aside, it would hurt to be hit in the butt with axes, daggers, swords and maces. I and my wife like my butt).

It was great, my kids loved it, it felt like the good'ol days when I was doing what I loved the most. We got to Rotface and wiped (btw I was around 5-7th on dps). Suddenly there were voices on vent saying:

"I think we need Gronthe to switch back to heals. Absolutely no offense to your dps, it's just that I don't think we can do this without your absolutely kick @$$ heals."

There were a few other comments along those lines. My kids hated that! But I realized as soon as it happened that I had just been paid an incredible compliment by these people. As a healer I can't stress enough how underappreciated we feel. Rarely do people mention us unless they wish to complain about not healing enough, or blame for a particular wipe is laid on our doorstep. To be shown such appreciation and admiration for something that I never wanted to do in this game...EVER...made me feel like I had finally made the transition, and that makes healing that much more palatable for me.

I still love to play with my Enhance spec, I run my daily random as DPS just to keep up with the feel and play of the spec. I wouldn't want to forget how to play him, you know, just in case I was asked to DPS in, let's say, ICC on a random Saturday!

For as grateful as I was to have earned the compliments of my healing prowess, it was nice to know how it feels to contribute in a more brute force sort of way to raid success.