Breakfast Topic: How do you let off steam?
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We've all had those nights. Whether it's an obnoxious PUG from the Dungeon Finder, a string of losses in battlegrounds or the arena, a comment setting off a drama storm in guild chat, or a night of wiping on a raid boss you should have on farm ... Every once in a while, you're going to have an incident in the game that will put you in a bad mood.
We had a few of these this week. Our normal 10-man raid group had been stirred up by some people not being able to raid, and we had to take some newer players to kill Cho'gall who didn't know the fight. After three or four wipes on a boss that we typically kill in one shot, it became clear that it wasn't going to happen. Our fill-in tanks were undergeared, we didn't have strong enough AOE to deal with adds, and single-target damage on the boss was lacking. It also only took three or four wipes for our disc priest to start getting snippy in Vent, and he's usually such a joy to talk to anyway. /sarcasm
By the time we had disbanded for the night, I'd gotten pretty worked up myself, and I needed to blow some steam before logging and going to bed. So what's a blood elf to do when he's ticked off? I switched over to my night elf druid and took to the skies. Above the rooftops of Stormwind, I picked a direction, turned off my interface, and just let the proverbial wind carry me away. I soared over Ironforge, Stranglethorn Vale, Swamp of Sorrows, and all the way up to Tirisfal Glades. Over mountains and cliffs, down between the trees of the jungle, and skimming along the waters of the coast, just taking in the sights and sounds of Azeroth and taking my mind off the frustrating night of wipes and personality clashes in Vent. Eventually, I made my way through the dark portal and over to Nagrand and Blade's Edge before finally landing in Shattrath and logging for the night, much more relaxed than I had been 20 minutes earlier.
Frustration is a reality of any activity that requires interaction with other people, and WoW is no different. Whether you're hardcore or casual, someone at some point is going to push your buttons. So what do you do about it? Do you gather a few friends and steamroll a raid boss from a previous expansion? Do you queue up for a random unrated battleground and devastate the opposing team? Or do you just wander around?
