"Newbie" vs "Noob"

I've been cheating on Peashooter lately.  I know, I know, it sounds terrible... but I've been leveling up some alts. I've observed that the player attitudes during the leveling game seem totally different than in the progression end-game.  How?

Leveling
By the very nature of where your character is, you're still leveling up with respect to skills, talents, gear and experience (for both new levels and actually how to play the class). Who should reasonably expect that your play mechanics are fine-tuned during the leveling process? That's why you're leveling and questing to learn those very mechanics.

End-Game Progression
However, once you've hit 85 and learned all the goodies your class trainer has, you should have a very good idea on how all of your abilities work and should be accomplished with fulfilling your character's role in an instance or raid.  Obviously, a freshly minted 85 is not ready for heroics and gear does factor, but as far as how to play?  That should be mastered by now.

Leetist Jerks
Then you meet one of the "leets".  For me, they've been the result of the random instance queues.  All they do is point out how sub-par your DPS is or make fun of your tanking gear selection or tell you "lern to healz". I loathe these folks -- their misuse of English for chat-speek wrankles my nerves on top of the sheer obnoxiousness they exude for claiming to be right and insisting all others are noobs. These players think they are top dog and can do no wrong. I want to strangle them -- not for being top in abilities, but for being ass hats.

What's the difference between the terms?
A "newbie" is forgiven mistakes because they are an honest to goodness new player -- whether to the game or just to that class and/or role combination.  A "noob" is a player that is just screwing up in the insulter's view. A "nub" is chat-speeek insult for noob.

Why does this chafe me?
Name calling accomplishes nothing except raising blood pressure. If a leetist has a legitimate issue with a player, then educate them.  Ridicule accomplishes nothing. Explain why what they did was poor and how to do it better next time. It makes you come off so much better and helps that player correct a bad habit.

Story Time
I was DPSing as an enhancement shaman at level 59 in Hellfire's Ramparts. Three of us actually say "Hi" in party chat, and I let everyone know that I'm still playing around with abilities and combos but that I'm on an alt character.  No further chatter until we get to the final boss fight and my shammie died.  No biggie.  Then we have this jewel of a chat exchange:

HEAL: Sorry, Sham.  Rez inc.
TANK: dont. he's a nub.
TANK: only did 500 dps in BoA gear. lolz.
TANK: ltp dude.

Are you friggin kidding me?  That does nothing but piss me off! It doesn't offer any insights into how I can improve, or do better, or anything other than drop an insult and then leave group. What made this more frustrating was that I indicated I was learning and experimenting, and we had the whole instance run to make adjustments to my spell/ability usage. Our healer felt the same way.

HEAL: Dickheads! How about offering feedback instead of insults?

Yay! A like-minded soul!

Paying it Forward
On Peashooter, I don't claim to be the hunter expert. I'm not even in the top 1000. However, I am accomplished in my class and I do have a great command on the abilities Hunters have and what they can do with those abilities.  When I see a Hunter wailing away on something with his melee weapon, I'll stop and offer suggestions.  When I see a Hunter pulling sub-par DPS, I'll offer recommendations.  Note -- these are offers!  Not "you suck, do it this way".  Most players are open for suggestions to improve their game. But at the same time, nobody wants to be called out negatively.

And, as far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as noobishness under level 85.  Any character from 1 to 84 is simply a newbie learning to play their class. That's kinda the point of leveling, ain't it?

Guilty!

I've made it my mission as a hunter to follow in the footsteps of Big Red Kitty and other Hunter bloggers (too many to currently name, check the blog roll) in respect to eliminating huntardism where I see it. I've helped new players learn the beauty of kiting. I've explained trapping mechanics. I've commented on gear choices and helped eliminate intellect and spirit from hunter gear. I've encouraged folks to try out rotations, gears and talent tweaks by personally checking numbers on the target dummies.

But Saturday night, I was just a plain Dummie.

In what was probably the most frustrating instance run I've ever participated in, I violated several cardinal rules for huntering within a heroic instance group (Throne of Tides).
1) Failure to crowd control my assigned target (or the corollary that forbids breaking CC on something already controlled!)
2) Pulling before the tank was ready
3) Pulling aggro off the tank

Honestly, it was a chain of errors, that under other circumstances, would have been funny. However, I was tired, and getting frustrated and down right pissed off with myself, which then spiraled into making more mistakes.

The Cardinal Rules

Let's talk about those cardinal rules for a moment, shall we?

1. If you're assigned a target, CC the bugger. With a Freezing Trap.Any spec hunter can pull this off, but Survivalists will get a bit of a boost with lessened resistance (Survival Tactics) and increased duration (Trap Mastery) via talents.
   Again, any spec can pull off a freezing trap.  At level 85, pop Camouflage, activate Trap Launcher, put the cross hairs of the circle under the marked blue square (at least on my server), and then fire off Freezing Trap. Boom! Done!
2. In my opinion, the Hunter should pull, but NOT until the tank (and by extension, the healer) says "Go". Why does the hunter pull? Because that is the best chance for the trap to actually trap the intended target.  Sure, you can still trap it on the move, but it takes better reaction time and placement when things are moving, and my argument is that any hunter can pull this off, even a slow reacting one.  Besides, the other thing hunters are doing when they pull is Misdirecting onto the tank so that all that aggro runs right at the pile of plate (or fur if the nameplate is all orange). With all the threat still hitting the tank, why shouldn't the hunter pull?
3. There is no excuse whatsoever for pulling aggro off the tank.  We have too many tools at our disposal: Misdirection, Feign Death and the fact that we're at range so we actually need to get 130 % of threat (compared to a melee that only needs 100 % of threat) to actually pull aggro.  Get a threat meter, use it, and use abilities.

These rules are ingrained within me. I pride myself on trying to surprise fellow puggers by showcasing really what a hunter can pull off... trapping two mobs? Sure thing, one's iced and one's asleep due to Wyvern Sting! Line of sight pulling?  No worries! Filling the role of DPS! Sure thing!
But being an idiot? <sigh>

What did I do?

1. A) In the hallway leading up to Lady Naz'jar, casters weren't being marked, but I was asked to CC casters.  I didn't do that, and we got almost overwhelmed by adds.  When in doubt, toss out a trap!
2. B) On the first attempt to kill Lady Naz, I didn't drop my trap before she got to 66%, so I spent several seconds chasing my adds, only to have them dotted up by another player before I could get 'em trapped and negating any CC.
3. C) On the second attempt, Tank asks "Ready?"... and I misread that by launching a Serpent Sting and start on a rotation.  Meanwhile, healer is still AFK because the "Ready?" was actually a question, not a statement.
4. D). On the final attempt, I successfully place my freezing trap, grab the first, wyvern a second, and then screw up my targeting by hitting a wrong key and retargeting my iced mob... which gets scratched by an autoshot and wakes up. Not much reeks of ineptitude more than breaking your own CC prematurely.

Add to my screw ups, we had issues interrupting her Shock Blast in time, so we kept losing people early and often.

The run was with two other guildies and two random players. I felt horrible: not only had I let my guild mates down, but I embarrassed myself in the process and I always feel that one players performance impacts how a guild is perceived by others. I know it was a PuG, but the point remains: I wasn't at my best and those other players probably said to themselves, "What a fail guild".  Not cool.

Time to get some rest, regroup, and log back in to prove to me, and my guildmates, that I'm not a total noob-cake and that I can actually play the game.

Wish me luck!