New Word

One of the benefits of having a blog is that I can make shit up to suit my needs.

For today’s post I was looking for a word. Of course, with ALL the words in the English language, I could not find one that I liked. So I made one up.

Today’s word of the day is: ambit.

In a sentence: I ambit an ice cream sandwich.

Ambit is a type of wanting, but it is more than just a casual, “I could go for an ice cream sandwich, but I’m all out so I guess I’ll just stay on the couch.”

Ambit is the type of wanting where you get your ass out of the chair and trek halfway across town to get the ice cream sandwich. It is a want where you have the AMBITION to get the want realized.

Ambit is not the type of wanting that satisfies basic needs or requirements of life. You don’t ambit food and water, you need those.

It is not the type of wanting that will have you running 3 towns over to get an ice cream sandwich. Items or activities that you ambit are within reason.

This does not apply to things that you want for other people. Wanting world peace is nice, but you, by yourself, can’t really ambit that.

So when you see the word ambit, think of want, but want with the willingness to put forth the effort necessary to make the want a reality for yourself. I want a million dollars, but I’m not really interested in putting in the hours to earn it.

Vocabulary lesson over.

…

I ambit success in WoW.

To that end, I research my class and spec. I seek advice from players more skilled than myself. I review parses and look for things to tweak in my performance.

I ambit Lich King kills.

This has been fulfilled on my mage and I will shortly be in position to pursue the same on my priest. I attend raids regularly. I research the fights and discuss strategies with my officers and raid leaders.

I want Lich King kills for my guild.

Note that this is a want, not an ambit. I can want to see every single one of my raiders walking around with Kingslayer until I’m blue in the face. But, I can’t raid for them, I can’t research and apply learnings for them, I can’t focus for them. They have to not only want it, but ambit it for themselves.

…

With our spiffy Kingslayer titles, we’ve been opening up hard modes in our 10-man raids with some interesting results.

The other night we were supposed to run a continuation of a 25-man raid, but did not have enough return raiders to make it feasible. 2 10-man raids were put together. Invites went out as people were logging on, it was a struggle to get 10 people in each group with appropriate tank/heal/DPS ratios.

(Side note: we recently merged with the guild we had allied with for 25-man runs. A lot of new people came out of the woodwork to raid under the new guild tag so we had a fair amount of “unproven” people wanting to raid. Some have skill and gear, some have skill with no gear, some have gear and no skill, some are… there. Pretty standard fare I imagine for the size of the guilds being merged.)

One raid group did Marrowgar (wiped miserably 3 times on HMs and went normal), Heroic Lady Deathwhisper (2 wipes), and, of course, Heroic Lootship. Attempts were made at Heroic Saurfang (2), but it just wasn’t happening and the raid was called with the “Heart of Draenor” still standing.

The other raid group decided against attempting hard modes and cleared through Saurfang in the same amount of time with no wipes. Actually, they attempted Heroic Lootship at least once and could not complete it, but WoL doesn’t track that fight so I don’t know how many times it was attempted. Eventually, it was completed on normal.

It later comes to my attention that members of the other raid group (the one that completed no hard modes) had voiced some complaints about “all the good players were in the other raid group.” In actuality, the HM raid group had the stronger DPS, but their group had the stronger tank and heal team.

If all the “good” players are in the other raid group, what does that say about you, as the complainer? If you think you’re in that raid group because it’s for the “baddies” don’t you think you should, perhaps, be examining why you’re there? (Remember, this was not a deliberate splitting of talent, this was closer to grabbing names out of a hat as they logged in, any disparity between the groups was not intentional.)

Also, if all the “good” players are in the other raid group… how insulting to the people in there that were not just good, they are excellent and I would pick them to be in my raid team any day of the week.

The strong players in that raid group were not the ones complaining, although they certainly were well more within rights to do so. So the weaker players were complaining that their group could not complete hard modes.

Hold on.

The players that are hindering the success of the raid are whinging about the hindered success of the raid.

Let’s ponder that for a second.

Those are wanters.

They want the kill.

They want the loot.

They do not ambit any of it.

Raiding is far more accessible than it ever has been in the history of WoW. Only a minimum of 10 players needed, maximum of 25. Entry-level raiding gear is insanely easy to obtain by running non-raid content. Hell, mid to upper-level raiding gear is easily obtainable if you’re patient enough with the dailies.

Encounters are designed more around broad-spectrum raid composition. While an encounter may be easier with certain classes/specs available, it is not a requirement (looking at you, Instructor Raz and Krosh Firehand).

But here’s the trade off.

Since the encounters are no longer so heavily dependent on raid composition or spending weeks farming that last piece of gear your tank needs to withstand the brutal attacks of the next boss, it means that player skill plays an increasingly important role.

And so here is the meat of the rant.

Purchasing the World of Warcraft game, its expansions, and maintaining an active account gives you the “right” to play the game. (Local laws, parents, shitty internet, and other outside forces may still impede your play.)

THERE IS NO GUARANTEE FROM BLIZZARD THAT ANY PLAYER THAT TAKES A FANCY TO KILLING ARTHAS ON 25-MAN HARD MODE IS GOING TO DO IT.

No player has a right to kill Arthas at all. Or attempt hard modes. The closest to a right we get is if you are of the appropriate level and in the appropriate type group you can set foot in a raid encounter. There isn’t even a right to get to end game.

So I get a little twisted off when someone that has been raiding for about 3 weeks or can’t stay out of fire or is in PvP blues gets their knickers in a bunch because the raid group that is so kind as to be carrying them to free kills and purples can’t get through certain encounters.

We’ll be spending the rest of this month getting as much data on our “raiders” as possible. I will set up another sign up for a hard core raiding group that wants to focus on hard modes. I will continue to support raids for the non-hard core raiders.

Anyone capable of following directions is welcome in our 25-man runs. I will continue to make sure that multiple 10-man groups are run each week.

But I cannot guarantee that every guild member will be a Kingslayer and I will not ask my elite players to grind their faces on the same encounters repeatedly because Johnny Wannaberaider wants to stroll up to Arthas on hard mode.