The way I see it, there appears to be two types of elitism . One is the type where you hold a high standard of excellence to better your chances at success. This is achieved by having knowledge in all aspects of the game, and making judgments and decisions based on that knowledge, while at the same time, professionally and politely excluding those who don’t meet the criteria of excellence based on those judgments. Bell eloquently addresses this in a recent post.
Another type is where one develop an ignorance of the game outside of what is important to him (i.e., other classes), and not only make decisions based on that flawed knowledge, but reject prospective members in a completely unprofessional, impolite way, all the while justifying his actions due to his own skill. An example of this would be a recent Maly-25 pug that I joined. Or at least, tried to.
The Story
The situation is as follows. A maly-25 pug was forming earlier this week, and the group was looking for geared dps. I wasn’t sure what their standard for “geared” was, so I simply stated that I was 5/5 T7-7.5, and the rest was Naxx-10/25 gear. It apparently was good enough for them, so I got the invite.
However, at the end of the recruitment process, the group had 26 people. One too many DPS, and most importantly, 5 mages. Ahh, the plot thickens.
How The Raid Leader Should Have Acted
“Bashertin, despite having adequate gear for this encounter, we simply have too many mages in this group. After comparing armories of all five of you, we noticed you are the only Frost Mage. It’s only reasonable to predict that you will pull less DPS than the others, who we confirmed to have more ideal raiding specs. We apologize for wasting your time.”
Or even more reasonable and justified,
“We noticed that you are specced 3/3 Enduring Winter. While that is beneficial for your own DPS, it is actually a detriment to raid replenishment, and would like for you to either respec accordingly, or kindly leave the group as to not jeopardize our performance. Sorry about that.”
How The Raid Leader Actually Acted
“Hrmm, Bash, you seem to have the lowest mana pool out of the five mages. Oh, and you’re a frost mage? That settles it. Kindly GTFO.”
Sick of Prejudice
I was seriously pissed off at the raid leader, who almost made that ridiculous judgment call to boot me from the group. Not only was I singled out and publicly flamed in front of 23 other people, but unjustly so.
In fact, the guy with the second-lowest mana pool of us mages was in fact an Arcane Mage with Arcane Mind. Checking his Armory, he was glyphed with Mirror Image, Evocation, and Icy Veins, which seem more viable in PvP than PvE, if at all. Seriously, what the fuck.
What Actually Happened
Turns out, someone didn’t have vent. So he was kicked, and I was allowed to stay. We one-shotted the boss. I pulled my weight in DPS, placing in the middleof the 5 mages, and in the middle of all the DPS classes in the PuG. Oh, and that Arcane Mage? Dead last on the chart.
Like Pike, I finally got the Frozen Wastes title.
But at what cost? That idiot arcane mage was the kicker to a seriously moronic raid leader, who supposedly was part of one of the top Alliance guilds on winterhoof. I seriously hope he wasn’t representative of that guild. With the Exodus/Ensidia fiasco considered, I am seriously developing a prejudice of my own that top-end raiding guilds are full of these idiots who don’t deserve their accomplishments at all. It’s guys like them that make me think twice about maining a frost mage and staying away from end-game content altogether.
Seriously. Before wallowing in their own asshatery, they should take the time to actually learn more about the game outside their own class before making a fool out of themselves and making bullshit excuses, hiding behind their server-firsts. If anything, they’re the ones who r doin it wrong.
Before I go on a long FML-like rant, I’ll just end it on this note. It’s one thing to say that one’s mediocre performance can slightly affect the rest of the group’s enjoyment. It’s another to say that having that showing a terrible attitude to that individual can greatly affect his enjoyment as well.
If not, moreso.
Frost is the New Black 
Amen.
I sorta feel a lot like you. Two-parter comment to this:
Firstly, I am dang proud to say that it’s been a long, long time since I, as a Beast Master, was trailing Survival and Marksman hunters in a 25man. In fact, in the typical scenario, there are four or five hunters in said group, I’ll be barely outDPS’d by some hunter who waaaaaaaay out-gears me, and all the other hunters will be well below us.
Secondly, gosh if it isn’t tempting sometimes to give up DPS sometimes because of the pressure, the way Recount is slammed in your face, and the constant “DPS is a dime a dozen! DPS doesn’t matter!” jokes which, even if they are supposed to be jokes… eventually start to grate on you =P
Anyways, grats on the title!
Thanks Pike. At least BM had a really good string of buffs coming into this patch. Frost mages got 0.2 seconds off their frostbolt, and there’s a good chance the devs’ll leave it at that.
Welcome back, and grats on the title!
Maly is the only one my hunter needs for it, but … well, unless my guild ever gets there, she won’t see it. I’m too sensitive I guess, but I can’t handle being treated like that and dealing with that many idiots, so I just don’t PuG unless I’m with some guildmates.
I’m a masochist. What can I say.
I think part of the problem here is that you’re running in PUG groups with people who make claims to being part of server first guilds.
People who actually LEAD server first guilds, in general, don’t act like this. Granted – SOME do – there are asshats in any situation – but by and large my experience with end game raiding has been that raids that last and continue to have great performance have leadership that understands both requirements AND diplomacy. (And multiple people in roles to help with making decisions like “yeah he’s a frost mage, but the arcane mage has a really dumb spec and awful glyphs”). Sure some guilds have more “in your face” attitudes – but those are with tried and true raiders who have signed on for it.
Not to mention the “supposedly part of” – if he’s not wearing the guild tag… well, it’s hard to tell. And a lot of people make a lot of ridiculous claims about what guilds they’re a part of or used to run with or whatever, in order to get more people from the LFG channel who assume automatically that “so and so is part of XYZ guild” means “so and so is a good raid leader and this PUG won’t suck”.
I only wish it worked that way! Grats on your title though, and on the successful run!
He did have the guild tag. The supposedly part is where the guild was one of the best in the server. I apologize for the lack of clarity there. Thanks for the feedback!
my boyfriend is in our server’s no. 2 guild and i have to say you’re perfectly right. that place is full of self-righteous idiots (aka guild master and officers) who feel that they know everything about every class. they’ve proved time and again that they don’t. they have zero respect for anyone not in the guild (i’ve been on the receiving end of that lovely attitude) and i have no idea why anyone would willingly join them… well, i do, of course, the shiny epixx, but i’m way more happier in my small friendly guild than i was in my raiding one with a dumbfuck officer or than i would be with my bf’s know-it-all guild master.
Funny story. Later on in the week, I ran maly-25 with my guild on the Druid. We didn’t down him, but we kept improving (despite an accidental wipe on the last attempt). The Guild Leader was tough and in everyone’s face, but giving constructive criticisms on how to improve. I’d rather have my run like this and not get the boss down than what was experienced above. At least the thrashing was fair in this regard.
It shows that playing is more fun when you’re with folks who actually think, and are not assholes. Given the choice between a fun casual guild not really progressing, and a hardcore guild full of assholes who is progressing – I’ll pick the fun casual one every time. That raid leader sounds like the perfect reason to not raid with him ever again.
I thought they fixed the replenishment problem for Frost in 3.2?
I hadn’t read anything that said it was fixed, nor did I see anything in the patch notes that said the issue was addressed.
But if it indeed was, I’d definitely like to know!
“cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds.”
Well, whattya know. Cool beans.
How does Enduring Winter affect replenishment negatively? I’m a little confused.
Chain-casting Frostbolt causes replenishment to refresh before its next tick, thereby clipping a large portion of ticks throughout the fight.
Oh I see, I didn’t know that! Does the “cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds” fix that now?