As pretty much anyone who blogs about WoW or reads other blogs that are about WoW likely knows, Windsoar over at JadedAlt kindly offered to take on the role of muse as a celebration of 6 months of blogging. So, grats and many thanks to Windsoar. Here was my muse:

/cast Muse
We know you’re an angry raid leader at heart: list your top pet peeves when walking into a raid.

I love that this is when walking into a raid. I really had to stop and think about that, since I tend to end up ranting here more about stuff that goes on mid-raid, when tempers might be shorter and the men might be manlier and the women might be womanlier or we might be more tired and thus making silly mistakes.

So my top pet peeves when walking into a raid are thus:

Needing to get the children settled.

I feel that if someone is going to be raiding at all, never mind end game content, they ought to have some notion of what is expected of a raider come raid time. As raid leader, I don’t think I should have to say things like “Get in there and start buffing,” or, “Get in Vent if you’re not.” Yet I end up having to say these things about every week.

More than that, with a smaller group like ours, we tend to have the same people do the same things every week and I rather expect that it should be second nature for, say, At to set up pally power before someone else is asking whether he has or not. By the same token, I don’t get why any other pally couldn’t do it. We’re all used to working together, surely even the paladin that doesn’t usually set it up, could?

Along with the buffing frenzy (or lack thereof as the case may be), we often get a few people a bit overeager with their fish feasts. It makes me cringe to see two or three go down at a time. I’ve done it, too, and I want to kick myself (or the other person, because clearly, it’s all their fault!) every time.

Ready? Set? Oh, false start!

It’s always someone in either the healing or tanking group that does this. I think it’s because they know that, between their roles, they control the pace of the group. I can fire off as many ready checks as I want and have everyone come back as ready but then someone in one of these two groups will usually say, “Oh, wait, I have to _____.” By the time they usually share this information, however, the pull has already been made and so we’re starting our raid off with a bang. And sometimes some cursing.

The babbler

This sort of thing sort of gets my back up no matter where we are in the instance, but prepping to pull and trying to briefly talk over basic strategy (we use CC on some of the trash in ICC, true story) does not need to be overlaid with lols and descriptions of food one is eating and how cute the kid/animal/spouse was just now. By all means, tell me…. after we’re engaged with the mob(s) and they seem to be under control.

Finding my wine glass empty

This is the worst. It means that I’m already so stressed at the prospect of leading the night’s foray that I’ve gone and polished off an entire glass of wine without even noticing. Fortunately, I can always dispatch At to fetch me another. Hi, my name is Alas, and I’m a functioning raid leader.

The call to mark tanks

I get that tanks need to be marked so it’s easier for healers to find them and heal them. I also get that tanks need to have the ability to mark targets. What no one else seems to get is that I don’t have time to do it between the summoning stone and the instance door. I mean, really, I just got everyone invited, sent out another invite to that one guy who almost never gets the first one, helped to summon about 7/10ths of the raid in, including summoning that At guy something like three times because he’s always dicking around in the bank with something or other, and then on my way in the door, it’s invariably: “Mark tanks please!” I know. I know. Give me a minute.

But the absolute worst thing

I hate it when someone doesn’t show up. Or they show up late and you had seriously just replaced them and there’s a flurry of conversations in tells and in officer chat and in the raid with the one person who just got in offering to step out for the person who was late and the late person apologizing or giving excuses and everyone looking to me for a decision. I hate that more than anything.  I hate being the cold-eyed bitch who has to enforce the rules with my, “Well, sorry man, but you were late.” (I’m as forceful as a drifting snowflake) And then to go into the loot lists and suicide the person who didn’t show up. I just had to do that last week and it was a lot harder than one would think. I’m seriously something like 95% bark and not much interest in actually biting. I’ll do it, but oh God, I do not like the taste it leaves in my mouth. (/Perpetuate the stereotype that gamers don’t bathe regularly)

Those are my pet peeves. What are yours, whether you’re a raid leader or not?

Thanks again to Windsoar for being my muse!