Putricide makes me crazy. Not like completely batshit crazy, or even foaming at the mouth crazy, just… crazy. I realized after a raid one night, when I had to take a drive to calm down, that some fights just bring out the worst in me. Those little personality flaws I’d rather not mention. Of course now I’m mentioning them to all of you lovely people, so clearly that idea went right out the window.
Here’s how it is: Team-That-Was got used up. We moved out – built up a replacement team. Some, rich and flush with raiding experience. Some… not so much. The core raid group – them as formed our crew – decided all members had to join up and hit the Plagueworks.
There was some disagreement on that point.
After the Lower Spire, many of the disgruntled badgers who had fought and lost drifted along with the rest, far from the Blood wing. Out here, people struggle to get the hell out of the slime. A bouncing goo will make you look like an idiot, an unstable experiment will help you stay that way.
A healer’s goal is simple(ish): stay out of the green shit, don’t get hit by goo… and keep healing.
Yes, I fully admit to being one of the disgruntled badgers. I wanted to duck into the blood wing because I figured we might have an easier time of it there. Alright. I’m lying. I wanted to duck into the blood wing to throw stuff at the sparkly vampires. But the raid leader decided we should work on plague again, and I followed to do my cleansing duties.
We got to Putricide after some rough showings on Rotface and Festergut. [Rotface still makes me feel like a possessed squirrel on meth, for the record] Unlike the last week we did this, we only got him to Phase 3 twice, and both times it was a fairly insignificant dent.
And let me tell you, I was wigging the fuck out. I’ve gotten used to being able to heal someone out of trouble, and there’s just too much going on during the Putricide fight for me to manage that. Even on Rotface I can control the main mechanic of the fight – the slime spawn. Putricide I can do… what? Beacon the abomination so they stay up long enough to do their job. Sacred Shield the experiment target. Lay on Hands one of the tanks during the third phase. Move my own butt when I’m supposed to move. And heal… anybody and everybody, really. All of our healers were putting out insane HPS.
So every wipe I’m getting more and more stressed. I’m giving it my all because we only have one day and limited attempts, and no matter what I tweak it just doesn’t seem to help. And there’s nine other people I can’t help tweak and it, as I mentioned, wigs me the fuck out.
I realized about an hour after the raid that the Putricide encounter really brings out the control freak in me. The part of me with the ‘I’ll just do it all myself’ attitude. I really don’t like that part of me. She’s a bitch who has no friends. So I apologized to my raid-mates, and took the night off.
But that fight (and a healthy daily dose of LFD) has helped me realize a few things. I’m not the raid leader. I’m not a class lead. I’m not an officer. I did not write the book on raiding. I don’t even think I’m mentioned in the third appendix. And I’m sure as hell not anybody’s mother.
The more I worry about people sniping my cleanses or not kiting the gas clouds, the more I get hit in the face with Slime Spray and Malleable Goo. The more I obsess about people getting back on time and buffed up, the more likely I am to forget my own buffs. And the more I bitch about the fact that a disc priest is tanking better than the paladin who signed up to do it in Maraudon… Wait. No. I’m not letting you have that one. That disc priest was awesome, and that paladin was an extra special brand of snowflake.
But for the most part, getting bent out of shape about these things just makes me into more of a useless ass than I already can be at times. And while I’m sure the control freak in me would have a field day with that, I’m trying to remember what my mom tells her second-grade class: The only person you need to be worrying about is you.
