How do you deal with criticism?

[Morssoe]

I usually know my mistakes, then I'd do better next time. I won't turn down suggestions if they'd improve me.

Usually ppl get bad critic just saying what they have done wrong, when they should give you an idea also how to do it better.
I wouldn't say that it's leaders job to tell you how to play your class, but in tactics area, sure.

[aziras]

If you are in a guild like that something is wrong. Min-max guilds usually expect all players to do their own min-maxing and often each raid member know they are 2% short of potential before the class leader does (which 25-man raiding guilds has "class leaders" anyway? that was something of practical value in 40man raids). Non-min-maxing guilds have no business dealing with their members in that way at all.

In this kind of cases the raid leader (or whoever gives such feedback) should be a lot more specific. If the person genuinely believes that going from 300k to 320k dps will allow them to progress, he has a bad case of "no-f'ing-idea".
Feedback should be something like: On boss-something-something, during phase-something-something your effective dps is lower than normal. You might need to look at your cookie-cutter rotation and stack some cooldowns or prioritize different abilities instead. (substitute with bad healing, poor tanking, or shitty execution of encounter mechanic if applicable).
Doing the wrong thing better almost never leads to overall improvement.

I am a little damaged when it comes to feedback. From professional life I learned years ago that "do better" almost never leads to any positive results. What you need is what the "experts" call constructive feedback, or in other words: concrete examples of what you did wrong and suggestions to how you could have done better. Most people respond rather poorly to direct criticism, so it is not constructive at all. In fact the only ones that are good at receiving criticism are the personality types that don't give a shit, and they will not learn anything from it any way.
Add in: Internet, semi-anonymous, and raging teens. And you get a very difficult feedback environment.

On-topic: I react to poorly delivered criticism by pointing out the feedback givers own flaws. And no, it hardly ever turns out well. But that's how I am. Been trying to fix it for years, but without much success.

[Irian]

I've never actually been criticized in WoW for performance, but if I treated it like real life as long as I thought the criticism was warranted I'd just assure them that I will do or have done everything I can to improve.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Hey guys, I have a question for you (as in the community):

How do you deal with criticism in raids? Imagine you just raided and after the raid your class/role leader whispers you to say:

"Hey man, I noticed that your numbers tonight were not very good. You need to improve if we are to progress."

What would your answer be?

Tell me why this is so - and how you'd proceed to fix it.

[Dug]

I'll try and improve and do some research but I'm also not huge on min maxing or being compared to 90th percentile whatever the hell mythic raiders so either bench me or just deal with my mediocre ass

[unbound]

Hey guys, I have a question for you (as in the community):

How do you deal with criticism in raids? Imagine you just raided and after the raid your class/role leader whispers you to say:

"Hey man, I noticed that your numbers tonight were not very good. You need to improve if we are to progress."

What would your answer be?

Well, that isn't much to go on.

I would have to ask myself a few questions. Is it a fair criticism given my gear level? If I'm running at 90% or better of people with the same spec and equal gear, then I will just ignore the criticism. If I'm running below 50% under those same conditions, then it is a fair point, and I would look to improve.

Were there any mitigating circumstances? Was I not where I should have been? Was the tank or healer not doing their jobs appropriately? Did I not follow the raid leaders directions resulting in excessive running around lowering my dps, or were there insufficient directions provided?

You have to ask these kinds of questions and be honest in the replies. If your answer is always, "It is someone else's fault", you are almost certainly wrong. There is always room for improvement...but you have to ask in that circumstance what is the right answer.

[zvr]

If criticism is constructive - I always thank for it and read everything I can about encounter / train rotations to improve.
If I know that I won't get very far with it (for example - I'm a DK and I just know that I won't surpass good spriests' single target damage no matter how hard I try) I politely explain everything and provide numbers / logs to my superior.

If criticism isn't constructive, just rude hating, I simply ignore loudmouths and move on - I'm playing this game for far too long and I don't have time nor energy to deal with shit like this anymore :P

[Deleted]

Try first to look at how your doing compared to other people playing your spec. If you in the higher percentile of other players playing the same spec you probably can't do much about it. Let the RL/CL/Officer know this, since you can't improve behind class balance.

If your in the lower percentile you obviously want to do something to fix it.

You want to let the person know that you will try to improve (if this is possible) and then do it. Most guild will try their best to avoid letting go of you, if they like you and you are dependable. (Even if you are a bad player)

[Deleted]

Well, that isn't much to go on.

I would have to ask myself a few questions. Is it a fair criticism given my gear level? If I'm running at 90% or better of people with the same spec and equal gear, then I will just ignore the criticism. If I'm running below 50% under those same conditions, then it is a fair point, and I would look to improve.

Were there any mitigating circumstances? Was I not where I should have been? Was the tank or healer not doing their jobs appropriately? Did I not follow the raid leaders directions resulting in excessive running around lowering my dps, or were there insufficient directions provided?

You have to ask these kinds of questions and be honest in the replies. If your answer is always, "It is someone else's fault", you are almost certainly wrong. There is always room for improvement...but you have to ask in that circumstance what is the right answer.

Well I didn't want to make this a personal kind of thing. But I can go into specifics:

Our guild has HC EN on farm for a couple of weeks. We went there last week 1-shot everything in 90min and left. However, according to warcraftlogs I was performing on the 15% percentile. And that earned me some mentions in the guild.

Now, I admit its quite horrible but it did not hinder us, and also did not hinder us the following week when we killed Nythendra Mythic. I am (I think) doing a good job, I was in the middle of the pack (according to Skada) on healing done, it just seems that the ranks for my class (resto shaman) are super inflated and I cannot reach those values.

Now, I took the criticism and am looking at how I can do better but I also had to wonder to myself... If we get the boss down, isn't that enough? Why do I have to measure up against the whole pool of players?

[melodramocracy]

Hey guys, I have a question for you (as in the community):

How do you deal with criticism in raids? Imagine you just raided and after the raid your class/role leader whispers you to say:

"Hey man, I noticed that your numbers tonight were not very good. You need to improve if we are to progress."

What would your answer be?

Never happens to me. Having said that, if it did I'd be open to suggestions, etc etc. In many cases, openly discussed criticism is misplaced (for example, people linking meters when wipes are very apparently happening due to execution).