Anger Isn't Helpful

We were doing ToC 10, and by "we" I mean me and another guildy were in someone's PUG ToC 10, me on Sugar and him on his Tankadin. Group got together, entered the instance, and we downed it without wiping. I got a pretty new sword and thus was rather pleased with the whole experience.

However, during the process of the raid, there were some issues. A certain Mage within the group had never been there for more than Beasts before, and kept having some issues. Many of which were loudly pointed out and bashed upon.

On Beasts, he died in the beginning in a fire. Which, you know, is generally bad. After the fight everyone seemed to be rather upset with him, telling him not to die the next fight and how could anyone die in a fire? And, since they had apparently missed it the first time I said it in chat and we weren't using Vent, I said, again, "He got headcracked in the fire. That's why the snobold was chasing you on the ground and not humping your face after he died."

Okay, I didn't say the last sentence. But I should have.

Anway, people shrugged it off and we go to Jaraxxus. The Mage speaks up: I've only watched the video for this. Now, honestly, I'm pretty impressed. PUGs without experience generally don't even bother looking up strats or videos, so at least he tried to do his homework before the beginning of the raid.

Here's where the problem enters: since we're not using Vent and the raid leader is trying to get this done as quickly as possible, he gives the Mage the most extreme annotated version of the boss strats. Basically: red fire means stay, green fire means go. And the Mage, suspiciously, asks if we're messing with him (this is legitimate; I have known many people to joke about how "standing in fire gives you a buff"). I whisper him giving him the full details; if he runs out with incinerate he's likely to kill us because he'll explode, but if he stands in green fire he'll die.

Now, of course, having never played a Mage or Shaman on the fight, I forgot to tell him to spell steal the buff. In fact, no one told him to spell steal the buff until we were halfway through the fight and suddenly my Tankadin friend is raging at him in raid warnings. And just at him, not even at the DPS shaman who could have been purging.

It is rare to find a PUG who tries to prepare before a fight and readily admits "I don't know this boss, please explain." So, once again, I jumped in and said how it was not only his responsibility to purge it off, and no one told him to do it when he asked about his job for the fight.

What in the world does yelling at him for it do?

The rest of the raid I spent the time between bosses whispering the mage to explain the boss fights in more extensive detail than what the raid leader was managing. After all, expecting someone who has never done Twins before to understand "switch colors and shields when you're supposed to" is possibly putting too much faith in their psychic abilities.

The Mage never messed up for the rest of the raid. Afterward, he thanked me for my help; apparently a lot of people weren't even willing to give him a chance.

I've gotten angry at PUGs before. It's pretty easy, especially when they challenge you when you point out their mistake, or are annoyingly obtuse about their own failings. Hell, I fail plenty of times, but I always try to admit it, as I'd honestly rather own up to it myself than have someone else point it out. Sometimes they won't even tell you they don't understand the fight and just assume they can pick it up as they go. That, really, is probably the most annoying thing a PUG could do.

So what made this PUG different?

They had tried to learn before the raid. They had admitted that they didn't know. And when they were given proper, detailed instructions? They did well. They never blamed their problems on someone else, nor did they whine or pout because they were being yelled at. They didn't make excuses; telling someone "you didn't tell me I was supposed to" when they had specifically asked pre-fight what their job was is not an excuse, it is a legitimate point.

Getting mad at them was pointless. Just a waste of energy and emotion that could be channeled into actually helping them, and therefore helping the raid overall.