How to tell a IRL friend they are bad

[Lobstarrr]

I have the same problem, i run icc25 11/12 heroic every week which i consider decent, and next to that i have a few irl friends who actually have no guild at all, and spend their time running fail icc pugs or pvp around a bit.

On occasion i join them in icc10 since i dont need anything from there anymore, but it gets old soon when we are on ventrilo and they bitch about every mistake a pugger makes, and then they themselves fail horribly on fights like festergut non hm and laugh about it, not realising they are bad.

I feel your pain OP, my friends also think they are good players while they actually suck.
Then againn, they all play dps.

Best you can do is suck it up, think ''haha you suck'' to yourself and play on. Works for me!

[trakker]

Trus me . Even the god-like-dps Mage can loose sometimes dps (if using downranked spells)

P.S: lol

[Jarhead]

We had a person in our raid that had the same problem once. She was doing her rotation right, and cooldowns, but she wasn't casting efficiently. She would cast, then wait a few seconds after the spell finished, then cast again, which is obviously a stick in the gears of a caster's DPS. No idea if this is your friends problem, but try and ask whether she 'spams' her abilities?

Might work

[Qtulu]

You don't have to say she's bad. You can just advice her how to dps better. If more experienced people tell me I'm doing something wrong, I'm glad because then I can become better.

[Tueland]

Hey dude, about that friend mage of yours.... Just check if she is using the latest spell ranks... I had a friend who had the same problem with his mage and it appeared that half of his spells were downranked. GL hope it works

This^

[Deleted]

Maybe she doesnt use cooldowns? Icy Veins, Arcane Power, Mirrors. Especially thosee 1st two are what make arcane do some serious dmg. Then again even without CDs 2.5k is not even bealiveable. It cant even be explained by her slacking (as in not casting 100% of the time) because that would only have impact on her dmg done, not dps. I would say try to watch her play if you notice something weird. Also does she have the highest ranks of abilities? This is just from the top of my head really.

[Lyrix1]

Show your friend parses of other players who are doing it "right", and like previous posters said check if your friend isn't down ranking spells.

[Devlin1991]

Link her this thread. Seeing everyone's post might get a laugh out of the situation, If she respects you as a player and as a friend I don't think she will refuse a helping hand from you, as other's have said Get her to wail on the target dummy for a while and watch her casts and Cooldown usage and see what it is that is draggin her dps down. An even better idea would be to get her to your house or go to hers and get her to let you play the mage on the target dummy and see if there is some hidden stupid thing like Downranked spells that is causing the low dps. If she watches you play she will pick up what you are explaining (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T BE PATRONISING YOU WILL GET SLAPPED) and hopefully she should improve.

[GISP]

If you realy are her friend you tell her, but do it nicely.

[XtreO]

If this person is actually your friend, I'd suggest being a little more tactful than just "u bad".

Quite the opposite I'd say. I say anything straight out to my friends. It's not needed to silkwrap it, since if they are indeed you friends they'll handle it.

[Catta]

oh yea, should defo ask ppl without any experience at social skills about how to do something involving other ppl in rl... especially girls...

either u help her... and not call her bad... doesnt help any1...

or call her bad through a text message... with smilies...

[aaaaaack]

If you're running 25 mans, someone is going to nerdrage her soon. So better you tell her nicely now and not wait.

Had this happen in a guild. Ran with a DK tank and his brother who was one of the most god awful rogues ever. Ran Nax25 six weeks in a row with him picking up gear and was still only doing 1.6k dps. GM failed, someone nerdraged, and the guild split up. Notably that same rogue went on to become one of the worst hunters ever.

[Salarius]

I was in a guild that had a bad hunter in it despite gearscore. My husband and I both tried to give her correct advice on stats/rotation in whisper which she refused but she responded well to the guys that she let scream at her in vent, though we all had to listen to her I'm gonna commit sucide because I can't play bullshit. As a woman I would have voted her off the island.

Most likely your friend has bad gems, is low on spell power in lieu of hit and has a boatload of lag. But an armory link would answer almost all of this.

[Aviana]

This is how you play a mage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34mS5GK--cQ

[The Painkiller]

Begin by taking her out to a fancy restaurant. Compliment her constantly and refuse to not pay for it all. Next take her to a romantic movie, and do the old yawn hand to shoulder trick. Finally go back to her place and open a bottle of wine. Get her to talk about how stressful her work is and begin massaging her shoulders. Let the wine do it's magic and take her upstairs. Slowly seduce her into your arms. And as your caressing her hips and taking off her clothes, whisper in her ear "You suck at WoW".

[Sir Slack A Lot]

Dont tell her she is bad, but give her tips to play better :>

[Xheoul]

oh yea, should defo ask ppl without any experience at social skills about how to do something involving other ppl in rl... especially girls...

either u help her... and not call her bad... doesnt help any1...

or call her bad through a text message... with smilies...

Send that bitch a smiley face...Bitches loooove smilie faces.

[Findus707]

"You suck in wow. Now, TITS OR GTFO"

This ^^
My friend chosed Tits <3

[Kysimir]

You don't, at least if you value that friendship. You just don't.

[Mackeyser]

Firstly, maybe she's not bad, maybe she's uneducated.

There's a difference. Baddies are incorrigible players who revel in having the wrong gear for awful, illogical reasons and are happy to underperform because "it's only a game".

Several things have been mentioned that are likely the cause. ABC is key. Cooldowns are key. MAX RANK SPELLS are key. I was really surprised that a few patches ago, Bartender wasn't putting max rank spells back on my bars when I'd switch specs on my alt mage from frost grinding back to arcane for raiding. My dps was in the toilet and I couldn't explain it. It wasn't until someone has tattletale or some such addon that I saw I had downranked spells on my bars.

My advice? ASK first. ASK what she is doing. ASK what she thinks is going wrong. ASK what she thinks good DPS is. She may not have any idea what her spec is capable of doing. She may not realize how bad the movement penalty is or how important it is to not let the AB stack fall off.

If she's a friend, have it be a conversation, an ongoing conversation, rather than some overwhelming "you have to get better all at once" information overload session.

Also, once you find something that is a clear area she needs to fix. STOP. Let her fix that. Encourage her to practice that fix. THEN continue. Too often, us guys want to give the whole solution at once. Most girls don't tend to be wired that way for whatever reason. Ever heard a woman talk about being in "overwhelm"? Best way to turn this into a bad thing for both of you and your friendship will be to have all of this be good advice given in a good way... all at once.

Trust me. Married 20 years and I'm in the process of helping my wife transition from holy priest to shadow priest.

If you treat her like a "bad", you've lost before you started. If you treat her like a friend you want to help because you want to see her do well FOR HER well-being and enjoyment (not your embarrassment), and help her at her pace (which amounts to being a good friend), then you should be successful.

Good luck.