Jun 8, 2010

That's what it's all about

It’s amazing how easily we become creatures of habit. In doing so, we sometimes forget the basic tenets of that which we hold dear.

So last night I was a bit tired of tooling around on the Ret Pally, so I jumped over to my rogue for a few random dungeon runs. He’d been a subtlety spec since his inception, minutely tweaked from expansion to expansion. With the coming of dual specs and a bit of coin in the purse I went dual spec: keeping subtlety and adding an assassination/mutilate spec.

I’d typically run Shadowstep/Subtlety for questing and pick pocketing, using Assassination/Mutilate for instancing or (Elune forbid) raiding. Last night I was having a rough go at it as mutilate. I just couldn’t get my openers down and my DPS was really rather lackluster. I couldn’t even discount my gear really. I’d done better in the past. It just wasn’t clicking. So mid run I swapped over to Sub.

Best thing I could have ever done! It finally clicked why I was doing so poorly before. Yeah I can do well with Mutilate. I just don’t like it. Why? Because it’s not fun. Despite being the flavor of the month and one of the preferred DPS specs, I just don’t like it. I’ve been tolerating it to do some decent numbers. In doing so I surrendered one of my longest lived Warcraft beliefs…

Fun is greater than all!

Simply because I was enjoying it more I was actually doing better. I picked up roughly 800-1000 DPS just by swapping. Is this because of a superior spec? No. Most would probably argue that I moved to a poorer (worst?) spec. But I did better because I was having more fun. Faster stealth movement? Hell ya! Shadowstep poofs? Bring it! Tricks of the Trade + Shadowstep + Shadow Dance + Ambush, Ambush, Ambush!?! Ooh yeah!

I kicked myself later for not realizing it. I’d given up what was fun for what was “expected.” Fun is indeed better than all. It’s largely why my specs are rarely cookie-cutter. I play how I want and enjoy it. I don’t need to top the meters. I don’t need to have top of the line, progression level raid gear. I want to play a game and have fun doing so. And I want to do so on my terms.

So when it comes down to it dear friends, play your way and the rest be damned. Spec how you wish.  Play what ever content makes you happy.  You will fare far better if you like what you’re doing rather than simply doing what some Jerk (©?) recommends. If your desire matches their gospel, so be it. Just don’t lose sight as I did.

It’s a game. It’s supposed to be fun. Never let anyone tell you how to do so. Fun is subjective. There is no wrong way to have fun. Well, except maybe to roll Boomkin. Other than that you’re golden. :D

1 comment:

  1. Yeah dammit! And if you want to go for "Did Somebody Order a Knuckle Sandwich" instead of doing randoms to get better gear, so be it! :)

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