The Slightly Clueless

The other day, a former co-worker came to lunch at the local grill.  He is one of the few people I know in real life who plays WoW.

As I have had much more experience in the game than he has, I have tried to be helpful when he has had questions.  I have pointed him in the direction of guides, I have helped him understand basic game mechanics, and I have given him tips on class abilities . . . or I have tried to do so.

He is one of those people who does not believe he needs a lot of help.  The obvious corollary to that is, of course, that he does not know when he simply does not know something.

Not too long ago, he found himself a guild which actually raids.  (He plays on a different server, thank Goodness . . .)  I was happy for him, because he really did want to try his hand at raiding.  Every so often, he would make some sort of comment which reminded me that he really needed to read a guide or two, but, hey, you can lead a horse to water, as they say . . .

He had recently told me his guild was working on Rotface (regular) and asked how we did it.  I explained the fight to him, and he said, "Great! That sounds like what we are doing."  I reassured him that some time, it would just click, and they would be wondering why they ever thought it was hard.  The other day, at the grill, he told me with shining eyes that last night, they finally got down Rotface.

"But that Professor Putricide," he continued, "wiped us all over the ground."

"Yea," I said, sympathetically, "That fight takes a little learning.  But it is fun once you get the hang of it."

"The real problem we had," he said, "was the skeleton dudes which do all that aoe."

/blink.  Huh?  "Skeleton dudes?  Do you mean the abom?"  Perhaps he was confusing skeleton dudes with the raid member who drinks potion and turns into an abomination, although the abom doesn't do any harm to the raid.

"Well, we have the aboms down, but the skeleton dudes and all those other adds were giving us a lot of trouble."

The more I tried to clarify the situation, the more he insisted that, yes, the Professor Putricide fight included one member of the raid becoming an abomination, but it also included large amounts of undead adds.  I asked him if he was really talking about Valithria.  No, he insisted, it was Professor Putricide.  I actually went so far as to remind him that I had killed Professor Putricide in 10-man Heroic mode, and there were no skeleton adds doing area effect damage, but he simply refused to believe me.

I finally gave up, realizing that there was no point to arguing about it.  Either he had entered some other Professor Putricide fight, his mind had become so mixed up he was confusing the two fights, or he had thought he was fighting Professor Putricide when his raid really headed to the Frost Wing.

Now if my raid heads tonight to Professor Putricide, and skeleton adds come out of the walls, I will be prepared to apologize.  But I suspect that in the future, I will simply offer reflective words of encouragement and not try to correct any of his misconceptions.  He doesn't want it, anyway.