In yesterday’s breakfast topic we talked about what dungeons you’ve had to relearn — how to deal with people in them and how to deal with all the pulls. Right in hand with that is the various ways people play their class. Prior to patch 3.3 WoW players could be rather insulated in their groups and techniques. For example, on my server the hunter would always misdirect to the tank. It was a standard thing, and if the hunter didn’t do it, he’d be griped at right away by the entire group. Tanks on my server also generally marked the first kill target, regardless if the tank was a pally tank or a warrior (or death knight or druid or shield-wielding shaman).

Enter patch 3.3 and cross-server grouping via the dungeon finder. Each person from each server now brings with them sometimes extremely divergent styles of play and ways they handle their class. I’ve found the number of hunters that don’t have Feign Death on their toolbar to be astounding. On my server that kind of behavior would be shouted down in a big way. In cross-server groups, it almost seems acceptable.

A successful group leader, especially a successful tank that’s aware of everything going on, will have to strike a balance between getting members to fall in line (for lack of a better phrase), or just ignoring the problems and dealing with poor game play. It’s this coping technique — the ignoring part — that we’re here to talk about today. What are the class and game play mechanics you’ve learned to ignore and just deal with players not understanding?

As a tank I’ve “given up” trying to get people to DPS the right mob, which is something that I’ve more or less demanded previously. Instead, I’ll tend to watch meters and focus my threat generating abilities on the mob the highest DPSer is going after — thereby ensuring, hopefully, a clean trash clear. Of course this isn’t always possible, but I’ve found that since I’ve started to deal with the lack of general understanding of mob kill order my runs have been much less stressful for me, and much less death infused. Of course, a complimentary issue to this is people not understanding threat, but that’s always been the case in every MMO.

As a DPS, I’ve found that not all paladins buff correctly. The number of times I’ve been given Blessing of Wisdom on my hunter is amazing. Kings, please? But alas, it’s just easier to ignore players not knowing how to buff correctly than attempting to correct it.

My views on the issue might be a little fatalistic, since if prompted most players will change their ways. But the point of heroics right now seems to be to farm as many badges as fast as possible. There’s little to no consideration given to loot and general good game play, leaving many of us to have to ask ourselves — what class mechanics are we just going to have to deal with?

Child labor laws have no standing in Azeroth, so Louis of <Dragons Teeth> on Wyrmrest Accord saw no problem with having his squire do all of his fetching, lifting, and trudging through swamps looking for rare herbs for him. Until the squires formed a union, that is. “One part Baby Spice, three parts Papa Hummel’s Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuits, three angry Argent Squires, one frightened warr… <squashed under the biggest boot you’ve ever seen>,” wrote Louis.

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word “Azeroth” in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val’kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here.