Valuing Myself

If last Tuesday was one of the best days I've had in weeks, yesterday was one of the worst. I do my best to keep up the sunny, happy persona that everybody loves, but the truth is, I'm caught in a major depressive episode, triggered by the stress of dealing with my father's illness and all of the complications involved. The first part of an episode is always the hardest, because you remember how it felt to be happy. So, I keep myself going until I feel I can take the time to get help for myself.
During times like these, as much as I'm struggling, WoW becomes my lifeline. There are people there who ask me to run stuff, and people who make me laugh without acting like they're trying to cheer me up.
One of the things I struggle with is learning to value who I am and the contributions I make. I may not have stellar dps, but I do very well with what I have to work with. I'm willing to run instances to help people out. I'm willing to come in and step out depending on the guild needs. In short, I'm a member of a team of people, and I'm willing and able to support the team. That, in itself, is valuable.

Does Character Matter?

Two exciting things happened last night: my husband (and I, over his shoulder) got his first look at Hodir on the PTR, and I confirmed that I can consistently do 2.5k dps. The Hodir fight contains the most annoying parts of Keristraza, Gruul, and KT, plus some extras that will be fun to learn to manage. 2.5k dps would be acceptable and valued in a lot of guilds, and I know I can improve.
A conversation came up last night that got me thinking about the importance of character in WoW. I'm not going to go into details of the conversation, just my thoughts. In an MMO, you are playing with people from all different viewpoints, which is one of the things that makes it fun for me. Some people don't care about character, as long as bosses go down. I do.
When I look at character, especially as it relates to WoW, there are a couple of things I look at. The first is: do you put your ego aside when you need to? I play with people who have huge egos, and my ego is pretty large as well. That's how I made it through engineering school as a disabled female, and that's what drives me to improve my dps. However, if my ego gets in the way of helping the guild, or just being a decent person, I need to set it aside. Similarly, the people I value most bite back comments that they realize will be hurtful.
Secondly, how do you treat those with less skill than you? Are you willing to reach out to someone who needs help with advice and encouragement? If someone comes to you, will you answer their questions without being condescending?
To me, character matters because without it, you lose yourself. Plus, character is attractive. Do you want people in your guild because they like you and want to follow you, or do you want them just to kill bosses and pick up loot?

Staying Positive

This post is actually replacing the one I wrote first - decided I was tired of whining. So if you read my original post and want to talk about it, ask me in game. If not, read on.
I'm on the world's biggest emotional roller coaster right now - so much is happening in WoW and in life that it's a wonder that I am handling it as well as I am.
I remember early in my relationship with Bryan, I didn't feel like he deserved to have a disabled girlfriend, and that he could pick a better woman for his wife. I expressed that to one of my friends, who has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair. His response was, "Stop that right now or you will lose Bryan. He picked you because he loves you and you are being unfair to him by questioning him on it." Ever since then, I've appreciated the love that we share, and the fact that Bryan was willing to promise to stand by me whatever happened.
I see a parallel between that and my current guild situation. I've been in guilds before where I felt like I was resented for making the guild deal with the effects of my disability. I don't feel that here, and yet, I keep asking, "am I being fair to my guildies?" That's when I take a step back and look at the times when I've gotten a tell saying, "We need you, will you come?"
I hate being carried, I want to contribute as much as anyone. However, I can only do what I can do and hope it's enough. Remembering the good times always helps when I get down. Being tenacious enough to get in there and bring it helps too.
Positive CRC memories:
1. Archimonde first kill - right before he went down, I was blown up in the air. I hit my tears, hit levitate, and healed myself just as Dev was saying, "Heal Carol, don't let her die"
2. Malygos first kill and feeling like I really contributed.
3. Patchwerk - Heroic: Make Quick Werk of Him Achievement.
4. Loatheb - Spore Loser achievement on 10-man. My poor imp felt so used, since I only had him out for Dark Pact.
5. The first time I made the jump on Thaddius, and the first time I survived the Safety Dance on Heigan.
6. The first time I saw Kel'Thuzad go down.

You can dance if you want to...

but you can't leave your friends behind, because then who would shield and heal you?
I didn't get the achievement, but I survived the safety dance on Heigan. I also made the jump on Thaddeus and survived it also. Plus, I'm seeing dps gains. Small steps, small victories.
Thank you to Bastianelle, Prynts, and anyone else who healed me for helping me take this step. Thanks to all the members of CRC for their encouragement. I'm not ready to look to Ulduar yet, and I'm not sure I'm ready to look to 3D, but I'm getting there.

The Destruction Experiment

I don't normally talk about playing a warlock here, because my issues are there no matter what class I play, some classes are just more adaptable to the effects of CP. However, in my quest to get ready for Ulduar, I spent this weekend thinking about whether the affliction warlock is the best class for me. Deep affliction has a great dps potential, but it is complicated. I asked one of my guildies who plays several toons if there is a class that doesn't depend as much on reaction time. He thought a mage might be better for me, as there are fewer buttons to push. I ran this by my husband, and he agreed (and he couldn't have said something when I was frustrated with the priest?).
Before I pulled my level 35 mage out of the role of designated bank toon, I decided to experiment with destruction, which is similar in play to a mage. I armoried a lock in my husband's guild who does very high dps, modified his spec to suit me, and asked his advice on spell rotation. Then, after getting Dev's blessing, I took the plunge and headed for the target dummies. I learned two things: (1) it's easier to keep up dots than keep track of cooldowns, and (2) if I switched my corruption and shadowbolt keys on the action bar, I can spam shadowbolt more efficiently. I'm back to affliction, but I'm noticing better and more consistent dps with the new configuration.
Will these changes give me 3.5k dps on drakes? I don't know. What I do know is that my warlock is better than my priest (thanks for the talk, Scott) and that the Sarth encounter with 3 drakes up is the best sensory integration therapy you can get for 15 bucks a month.

Sometimes Goodbye is a Second Chance?

I'm up early for work, checked the update website, and found that the project was cancelled. Bummer. I'm thinking about crawling back in bed, but I'm not sure I really want to wake Bry up with bad news, especially since last night I did what I thought I wouldn't, and told him that this wonderful 4-month respite from my depression appears to be over.
This weekend has been interesting. I've mostly been running with alts and pugs, and I've confirmed that damage potential is not infinite, and what the damage meter shows is how much of the pie you can snag. Yesterday, I got into a conversation with the main tank and one of the mages that made me realize that I don't know as much about neurotypical people as I thought I did, in particular, how fast they can react to things. I mean, I've watched Bry raid, but it didn't click with me somehow until they were talking about choosing spells based on procs without using a conditional macro.
This led me to an interesting conclusion: If I went to a more casual raiding guild, I would probably be one of the top dpsers, similar to the situation I was in when I left the last raiding guild I was in. There are probably people outside of CRC who look at my guild tag and think I don't belong there.
So I asked myself why I felt that I belonged in CRC. Truthfully, the last time I really wasn't sure if I belonged or not was when my guild rank was New Recruit. The officers saw me raid (and these were the Mount Hyjal/Black Temple days, where it was impossible to hide the effects of my disability) and promoted me to Raid Member anyway. My guildies know my limitations, and invite me to groups, the officers give me opportunities to get in and work on my gameplay when they can, and most humbling, I know of 5 guildies who read and/or follow this blog.
In short, I belong because they make me belong, and that's enough. I would not be happy in another guild, and I know it. So I muddle along, and push myself to be the best raider I can be. I do it for me, of course, but I also do it for them. /salute

DPS: what's in a number?

My daddy is 77 years old today. So much of who I am has been influenced by him.
To say that my life has been a bit stressful lately would be putting it mildly. I consider myself fortunate to have guildies that understand that, while I will come into a raid absolutely fried, I will probably not be at my best, and I need to not be yelled at.
After the raid last night, I went into heroic violet hold with a couple guildie alts, and two pug dps'ers. Other than the fact that I kept thinking I could tank in cloth, it went fine. During the run, Boom (who was healing) asked if I was running a meter. I always run a meter. I hate them, but they do provide a good measuring stick. My dps was the lowest i've seen it in a long time, and yet, I did about a third of the damage. That made me start thinking about the value of dps as a statistic.
In Elsia's FAQ about Recount on CurseGaming, he says, "DPS is a poor measure". So, I would say that for recount, I need to see how much damage I am contributing in the raid.
WoW web stats defines dps as damage done divided by the dps time, dps time being based on a 5 second window following each damage done. Anyone doing damage every 5 seconds or less would have 100% dps time.
DPS time is my biggest opportunity for improvement, and also my most challenging. Tuesday on Patchwerk, I had 95% dps time, and 3492 dps. That's my damage alone, my doomguard contributed more. I need to find those 5 second windows where I'm not damaging, and eliminate them. Here we go!