http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=20677330431&sid=1
/slowclap
I agree with everything GC says, in principle. While I’m usually top mélee and second-place overall raid DPS, I don’t expect to be. I love playing a Paladin because of all the buffs, active or otherwise, I bring to raids. From bubbling, to kings/might/wis, to righteously powerful mana regen — I’m needed. I look forward to mages beating my DPS; it only means stronger overall raid DPS and more access to higher-end lewts.
I would only add that GC needs to followup with an explanation of why there aren’t any “pure” healing or tanking classes. But I’m such a nice guy that I’ll answer for him.
There are pure healing and tanking classes, for specific roles.
- Paladins are pure tank healers — beacon? MT/OT
- Priests top AOE and, as disc, excellent single target healers (top pvp)
- Druids bring a B-Rez and other great buffs, also moar hots!
- Shamans arguably bring most buffs in a single class (manaspring! haste! poison!) among lots else
Tanks are a little trickier because they’re somewhat broken.
- Protadins are OP; bad players can tank god
- Bears are highly player/gear dependent
- DKs still seem to be having aggro problems
- Warriors seem gimped
Specialization play a huge part of Cataclysm.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/business/27delphi.html?hp
But four months later, Mr. Gump finds himself in a far more perilous condition than his neighbors.
On his street, he is the only Delphi worker whose pension benefits may be cut. His neighbors all belong to unions and have received a lifeline in an unprecedented deal related to the government-supervised bankruptcy of General Motors, the onetime parent of Delphi. (G.M. spun off the parts division as a separate company 10 years ago.)
Mr. Gump and some 21,000 other salaried workers and retirees are furious that their roughly 46,000 union co-workers at Delphi have had their benefits restored, apparently with government largesse, and they have not.
“They’ve been relatively well taken care of,” he said. “But I’m being thrown out with yesterday’s trash.”
I love my job. And when I say I love my job, let me make clear — I never love any job. But I love this job. And I love it for many reasons, but the biggest reason is that I feel respected.
My company takes its support staff seriously. Their respect for us, our work and the value we provide is reflected not only in ther highly competitive compensation but in their:
- Compliments, given as frequently as constructive critiques
- Total employee freedom: no e-punchcards, website blocking, etc.
- Insistence that support be involved in all layers of implementation
- … and involvement in every team process meeting
- General flexibility. Wife sick? Of course you can work from home to nurse her.
There’s not a whole lot I wouldn’t do for my company. I feel initimately involved in its success; in MBA terms, I’ve “bought in.”
I’m sucking in a waterfall of information in my classes and I’m feeling overwhelmed. I just don’t have the time to thoroughly examine my readings. I used to take careful notes while I was reading but I had to stop within the first two weeks because a single article would take 2.5 hrs to digest.
At hundreds of pages a night there’s no way I can remember everything I’m learning, even if I find it really fascinating. I hope to almighty I pass my first quarter with reasonable marks — I swear, if I become a leader after I graduate, I will always keep studying and learning from my notes. I just need to make it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/nyregion/22chinese.html?hpw
Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.
The change can be heard in the neighborhood’s lively restaurants and solemn church services, in parks, street markets and language schools. It has been accelerated by Chinese-American parents, including many who speak Cantonese at home, as they press their children to learn Mandarin for the advantages it could bring as China’s influence grows in the world.
You’re 4 and your parents are sending you to language school. This is why folks like these get ahead.