On Criticism

Picture the scene, Alterac Valley in the level 70-74 bracket. One tower still remaining and you are wiping on Drek’thar. Some bright spark calls out in the aftermath, “There was a priest and shaman here”. Naturally someone (currently playing a warrior) turns to me and promptly starts questioning my ability to play. All fine and good, only I wasn’t anywhere near Frostwolf when they wiped, I was up Tower Point being zerged by 10 Horde. I ended up in Frostwolf because that was our closest graveyard and according to the scoreboard, I was the only Alliance healing Priest.

What would you do?

I (being rather insecure at the best of times), pointed out that I wasn’t there and thus, couldn’t have possibly been responsible for the wipe. All fine and good, however the conversation then took a slightly nastier turn. After naming half our spells, they started quizzing me about my rotations whilst we were fighting and I freely admit, I’ve never really mastered the art of typing and fighting at the same time, pesky keybinds tend to get in the way so I was slow in responding. Next thing I know I’m being told I’m arrogant and stupid for rejecting advice on how to play a Priest from someone with a Priest main.

Now this was the first time they had mentioned a Priest main and since they hadn’t actually offered any advice, I was a bit taken aback. Arrogant is the last thing I think I am and had any actual advice been offered, based on my actual witnessed play, I would at least have listened even though I’ve been playing a Priest since the game went live in Europe because I do subscribe to the general principle that you can always learn something new.

However it got me thinking, is offering unsolicited advice a good thing in any circumstances?

I can understand wanting to be helpful, but surely the right thing to do is assess whether the person you are trying to help is at all interested in your advice before you start and certainly before you call them names. For example if he had been looking at recount and noticed that 90 percent of my healing came from heal, then yes, he would have been justified in saying something. Or if I were trying to tank an instance as say a Prot Paladin and never used Righteous Fury then as a victim of my sloppy tanking, sure but without a reference point, it just comes across as insulting and condescending.

Yes, he got my back up right from the start. Being accused of causing a wipe when you were half a map away is never a good way to start a conversation but even if this was my first ever Priest, would I want help from someone who started out that way? Probably not. First up, any one can claim to have a main of a certain class but that doesn’t mean they know what they are doing. Secondly, healing in PvE and PvP are different beasts so just because you’re good at one doesn’t mean you are good at the other. Thirdly, before you offer advice, it rather helps if you actually have something the person you’re offering it to did wrong (in your opinion) as a baseline.

I’ve always helped people who have asked for help but I’ve never been so confident in my own “awesome” abilities to feel happy dishing it out unasked.

Replaying the conversation, I can’t help but think he or she is the arrogant one, assuming that A. I’d never played a Priest before and B. that I’d made it to lv 72 without having looked at Elitist Jerks or any of the many Priest resources online and thus needed the help in the first place.