Editor's note: Ryan "Didy" Pinkham is a veteran World of Warcraft player and has played professionally with the GotGame organization.

Story Time...

Today I had the opportunity to watch my roommate's team, a fellow RLS, play a few games on live. I sat down and began to think to myself how sweet it was gonna be to watch a different RLS from a shaman's perspective. While watching, something occurred to me that I didn't quite understand. After watching a solid 40+ games, I came to notice just how different our two teams really were.

As many of you know, I recently transferred to Stormreaver to play with Gotrez and Serration, both of which came highly recommended by teams like Complexity and Gravitas. After playing and struggling quite a bit with my original teammates (Vaux, Selketh) on the American TR, I had reached an all time high of valiant, yet unsuccessful queue nights. I was beginning to think the difference between our PMR and SK's PMR was simply.... me.

I thought that because I had played priest for such a short a time, perhaps I didn't fully understand the true potential of the class. I had watched an unbelievable amount of high rated priest videos, had orangemarmelades "HON" as my default web page, and played excessively in every bracket to maximize my priest playing abilities. Still, it felt like something was missing in my team. Playing PMR's like Complexity and SK was like pulling teeth. It really felt like we were being tossed around by a team so different, yet so similar. I couldn't believe how quickly I became a rag doll to these teams that were terrified of my team just two years ago. Their switches would come fast, their pressure was unreal. They would do damage that was practically unhealable and set up massive CC rotations on what seemed like me every game.

Its not you its everyone

I will say to you that I deeply and truthfully regret leaving good friends and players behind in my search to better myself and team, however, I can say that it was one of the best business decisions of my life. You see, the road to success in this addiction we call a video game comes down to a very proportional amount of things. Players often say they can narrow down a team's weaker player and however true this may be, you can never pin all the fault on one person. No, things like team synergy, field vision, reaction under pressure, and an overall situational awareness of action by both teams share the blame as well.

It was very easy to tell the difference between my roommate's warlock, and lets say Inflame or Glick. His dispels were slow and often required calling out. His fears were sloppy and his ports were misplaced. I could tell he was having a hard time taking his eyes off his own health bar, perhaps waiting to healthstone. Watch a video like Ucks and you'll see what I'm talking about. I can't count the times he would just waddle making zero use of his GCD. Was he stopping damage? No. Was he kiting the melee? No. Did he really make much use of himself other than just soaking damage and forcing defensive cooldowns, setting himself up for what seemed like a gruel yet predictable fatality? No. Which brings me to my next point.

Gear

Gear does make a difference. I would kill to see a 10k Incinerate. I would go nuts if I could have access to the gear this guy has. 12k Chaosbolts, 11k Conflags, 10k Incinerates. Talk about loads and loads of strain removed after he forces 80% of the opposing teams defensive cooldowns... from a Chaos/Conflag combo. Even I myself am guilty of banking on gear. I can't count the times Woundman has 100-0'd an opposing rogue with half a dot and a shadow burn as I get locked into CC rotation. Knowing full well that probably wouldn't have happened if he had normal PVP gear. The truth is that live gear does both hinder and propel a teams progression toward higher ratings.