Compassion

(Someone else's learning curve)

Last night was the big April update and this time I had two systems that needed updating on my slowpoke internet. For Jesup’s sake, I started TheFunMachine as soon as we saw the server up status on POL. It finished at about 10 and he played a little but apparently spent more time wandering town than fighting.

Ape and I hung out until a little after midnight and then I logged in. As is my custom lately, I flagged up on Bard. Or tried to – it turns out TFM doesn’t have my latest macros from TheAlmighty and so I had to make due. I soon got an invite from Conflix for a 10-sync in the Dunes. I wasn’t jazzed about going all the way down to 10, but what the hey, I wanted moar XP.

As we gathered at the OP, there was a vote to go 14, even though Knighthawk, our WAR, was 10. Concern over his life expectancy aside, that’s what we did. Con asked Knight his tnl and was told 1k. We grabbed our pages and moved to camp near the ledge.

And things went south. Poor Knight ^^ - he didn’t seem to understand we were doing an FoV page calling for crabs and lizards. He kept pulling hard-hitting mobs we didn’t need to mess with. Algorin and Con kept telling him to stop pulling as Alg was the nominated puller. He didn’t listen. Ultimately, he got us half-wiped and I had to change jobs to raise. 500-odd book XP tossed…

Ultimately, he wound up dead again at the Oasis after a relocation. This latest pull-mishap earned him a kick. Con found a rep quickly and we resumed action, with a much better level match and role fulfillment. However, the whole time, Knight is begging me in PM to raise or cure him. I had to explain I wasn’t changing jobs again.

I shouted three times and just after the third one a very nice RDM on chocoback rode up. Slyfox raised him and took off before I could do anything about him losing his bird. I actually thought he had been kicking in some cures and when we finished a pull to thank him he’d gone.

There was a lot of commentary in party chat about Knight’s performance and I called for compassion, seeing that Knight was likely on his first job, had no sub, and clearly had not yet learned the Warrior’s ropes. Compassion aside, I was relieved when we were able to resume full-powered battle.

The night ended exhaustingly… I feel for Knight and hope he’s learning what he needs and wasn’t too put off by what happened tonight.