How To Tell Someone Stubborn How To Play

[Jonnusthegreat]

So, my brother has been away from the game for long time. 10+ years. He recently came back and is enjoying it for the most part. However, he gets upset when he isnt doing very good damage. And he honestly isnt doing good damage. He has gotten a lot of the Pre Shadowlands catchup gear and his ilvl isnt terrible. But he frequents the bottom of the damage charts by a lot.

He plays Frost and Fire Mage, Ret Paladin, Affliction and Destruction Warlock.

I suggested he just doesnt know how to play the spec or is out of practice. To which he sharply responds with "Im not dumb i know how to play" Which he isnt dumb, but he refuses to look up anything on how to play the specs.

How can i go about telling him that he clearly is doing something wrong?

When I was in high school a friend called me a pussy about 8x a day. I got sick of it, so I started responding "you are what you eat." And after a few days he said that my comeback was getting old. I explained how I only do the comeback to the insult, so if the comeback is getting old, so is the insult.

The reason I share this story is because the only way he is going to change is through him wanting to. I suggest you do something similar - if every time he complains about bad dps, say the same canned response. Make it repetitive so he starts to get sick of it and wants to change on his own.

[Dazmalak]

Better advice would be "lol, who cares. You don't have esscences and azerite traits. You've got shit trinkets. Of course you're going to suck" and then link him some SL guide and say "This is what I'm looking at myself for SL."

You have to make people think it's their idea. If you say what you're doing then he's more likely to check it out.

This. Anyone without cloak, neck, azerite traits, trinkets, and essences is going to have underwhelming dps no matter how well they play a spec. So unless he does have all those things already, it's kind of a moot point to try and improve his dps until shadowlands.

[kranur]

So, my brother has been away from the game for long time. 10+ years. He recently came back and is enjoying it for the most part. However, he gets upset when he isnt doing very good damage. And he honestly isnt doing good damage. He has gotten a lot of the Pre Shadowlands catchup gear and his ilvl isnt terrible. But he frequents the bottom of the damage charts by a lot.

He plays Frost and Fire Mage, Ret Paladin, Affliction and Destruction Warlock.

I suggested he just doesnt know how to play the spec or is out of practice. To which he sharply responds with "Im not dumb i know how to play" Which he isnt dumb, but he refuses to look up anything on how to play the specs.

How can i go about telling him that he clearly is doing something wrong?

Catch up gear is by no means good. At least not comparable to people who are decked out. BfA also relies a lot on essences and azerites.

Shadowlands launches in a week. Current dps doesn't mean shit. Just enjoy until lvl 60 and thrm worry about numbers.

[Yavimawa]

There are people to strive to reach a certain level of skill, taking pride in their accomplishments. There are people who like "doodling", they don't care how they do stuff, they just enjoy doing it. When these two people meet you better start recording because you gonna have materials for 10 seasons of sitcom.

- "You are doing it wrong, you should be putting this here, and this here" - a guy explained
The other guy stared at him silently for a moment and returned to his work.
- "You can't do it like this, it's supposed to be done like that! Look." - the guy tried to take the tool away from the other guy, but he quickly moved it out of his reach. - "Let me show you how to do it."
- "No" - the other guy answered - "I'm doing this."
- "But you are doing it wrong." - The guy said.
The other guy started feeling mildly angered.
- "I don't care. I'm doing this."
The guy huffed impatiently.
- "But you are doing it wrong!" - he almost yelled - "Just... just let me show you!" - the guy tried to snatch the tool out of the other guy's hand.
- "For f***s sake stop!" - The other guy yelled angered - "I don't care! Get your own tool and do it however you want yourself, just leave me alone!"


I've been there so many times just let him be, I know it can be frustrating to look at someone being completely wrong but sometimes people just want to enjoy things. For example, I knew a guy who was only levelling toons in WoW, and he was doing it by killing mobs with higher levels (so he was doing it sloooooooowly) because he liked it. He was not interested in any kind of endgame, he just wanted to kill Plainstriders 4 level higher than him with his 2h prot warrior. And you could not explain it to him. He just liked it.

[Djuntas]

Mate just give him a icy veins link. Its not rude to link to a site...This site is GOLDEN tier for any wow learning, use it my self all the time.

[ThiagoTorres]

So, my brother has been away from the game for long time. 10+ years. He recently came back and is enjoying it for the most part. However, he gets upset when he isnt doing very good damage. And he honestly isnt doing good damage. He has gotten a lot of the Pre Shadowlands catchup gear and his ilvl isnt terrible. But he frequents the bottom of the damage charts by a lot.

He plays Frost and Fire Mage, Ret Paladin, Affliction and Destruction Warlock.

I suggested he just doesnt know how to play the spec or is out of practice. To which he sharply responds with "Im not dumb i know how to play" Which he isnt dumb, but he refuses to look up anything on how to play the specs.

How can i go about telling him that he clearly is doing something wrong?

Well, let him play for a wile, use some addons to help him on rotation like weak auras and his game will flow

[natpick]

tell?surely you mean advise yes?.

[Pann]

If his damage is low why not point him towards addons like Hekili or Ovale, they will at least help him to get the basics of his class' rotation.

[Apolyc]

If his damage is low why not point him towards addons like Hekili or Ovale, they will at least help him to get the basics of his class' rotation.

When he complains about his DPS i tried offering pointers as i know some of the specs as well, i suggested guides and even a few addons. He doesnt want to look at the guides because it suggests that he doesnt know how to play, he doesnt want to install addons because you shouldnt need them to play.

- - - Updated - - -

tell?surely you mean advise yes?.

Yes i do mean that, the title was a hastily written post

- - - Updated - - -

Catch up gear is by no means good. At least not comparable to people who are decked out. BfA also relies a lot on essences and azerites.

Shadowlands launches in a week. Current dps doesn't mean shit. Just enjoy until lvl 60 and thrm worry about numbers.

Ive tried telling him that, he doesnt listen.

[RoKPaNda]

Just let him learn for himself. Honestly not worth it if he's super stubborn. I know two brothers who haven't talked in over 2 years now because they had an argument over which talent was best in a row.

[Sansnom]

I suggested he just doesnt know how to play the spec or is out of practice. To which he sharply responds with "Im not dumb i know how to play" Which he isnt dumb, but he refuses to look up anything on how to play the specs.

How can i go about telling him that he clearly is doing something wrong?

While it is nice to help someone to improve their play, the first question is, is this important? Not trying to be rude or anything, just a genuine question. Is it important that he needs to improve?

This is where meters can be a bad thing, depending on how it is used. If the group is made of friends and content is being cleared, does it matter that he is at the bottom? I use meters but only for own personal measure compares with others.

My guilds has in the past carried people through contents so they can also experience them which in random PUG they would not be able to. Their performance does not matter.

[Schattenlied]

This isn't the game he left 10 years ago. He may have known how to play back then, but that knowledge is now mostly useless, too much has changed...

[Seranthor]

So, my brother has been away from the game for long time. 10+ years. He recently came back and is enjoying it for the most part. However, he gets upset when he isnt doing very good damage. And he honestly isnt doing good damage. He has gotten a lot of the Pre Shadowlands catchup gear and his ilvl isnt terrible. But he frequents the bottom of the damage charts by a lot.

He plays Frost and Fire Mage, Ret Paladin, Affliction and Destruction Warlock.

I suggested he just doesnt know how to play the spec or is out of practice. To which he sharply responds with "Im not dumb i know how to play" Which he isnt dumb, but he refuses to look up anything on how to play the specs.

How can i go about telling him that he clearly is doing something wrong?

You step back and let him figure it out on his own unless he ASKS for help.

[Schattenlied]

Is it important that he needs to improve?

If the guy in question is complaining and getting upset about poor performance, as the OP says he is, then yeah, it's probly necessary for his enjoyment of the game.

[Devilyaki]

Who he playing with, if he just got back and running in catch up gear no shit he is at the bottom lol

[terminaltrip421]

the only time I've ever been kicked out of a group for my dps was when I was doing that one dungeon in that one desert zone (the one with the air dude as the last boss) a couple expansions back running it as a mage 2 levels lower than max with a group that was otherwise max-level and this is when +hit was still a thing so I was missing a lot. I've never read a guide on how to do rotations or pick talents. I'm also a clicker who uses the default UI. at worst I'm middle of the meters unless it's a group that's very much on their game. my point is this game is not difficult to cheese, how bad can his damage really be and if you need guides just to be passable I don't think guides are really going to help. oh I also never enchant my gear, use food etc. buffs and often run around with empty sockets unless I feel like I need the crit in which case I use uncommon quality gems unless the rare are just as cheap.

[kaminaris]

There are 3 options here:

1. His dps isn't as bad as OP tries to make it (quite honestly you wouldn't believe how average player is... average at this game). So to really be at rock bottom either his gear sucks or he isn't rock bottom. That or he competes against fully geared mythic players.

2. He is really bad at math and/or never checked his spellbook fully, talents fully including reading tooltips.

3. His motor skills are bad (but well, this is rarely the case).


So TL;DR
Yes he can theorycraft himself but if it he needs a lot of iterations and checking on dummy. Playing at random won't work, you actually have to understand math pretty well.

[neik]

Endgame is very competitive and shortcuts to glory doesn't exist.

He needs to make sure that he has his basics covered.

1. Motivation to play
2. Class knowledge
3. Muscle memory
4. Good keybinds
5. Good WeakAuras/Addons

His performance will improve if he is willing to put the work in. Point him towards mythic plus dungeons, keys are the best training grounds where you can test your skills and improve.

[Super Kami Dende]

Do it subliminally. I often have to for my friends. I'll just randomly link websites that have good guides for Classes and be like "oh cool, I just found some cool shit I can do with my class on X site. Has a far bit of good info"

Most the time their curiosity will grab them and they'll end up looking at stuff for their class and since it feels like they are organically discovering it mostly themselves they are less likely to be stubborn about it.

[Kharadin]

"You're bad, git gud."