Does anyone have ‘that’ friend who complains about not getting invited to keys, but plays a non-meta spec, even when their class has other spec options that are considered meta?
How do folks deal with that guy?
Yes and I still invite them because I enjoy spending time with them much more than any pug
How to deal with them if they want to come to your 12, is you say “sure” and invite them, the only reroll spec is aug and even that has timed a 15 
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I’m never going to dissuade them from playing something else, I’d more than likely be playing with them anyway… so we’d still get whatever we need to get done, done.
They just gotta get used to the sweatlords enforcing meta and not inviting them. He’ll find people who are cool with it and he should befriend them.
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What’s the context because off meta doesn’t strictly mean bad
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I got declined on my Assassination Rogue for a 6 Darkflame. My Rogue is 653 iLevel. My main (whose character name and realm I listed – this character) has KSM and has timed 11s. I wanted to take a crack at the neck piece since the one she’s wearing is Vet track. Extending the “meta” to lower keys is asinine. Play what you want to play. The “meta” is flavor of the month, and has zero bearing on how well you can do at higher keys.
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When we ran M+, we took our friends.
I will never stop someone from enjoying the spec they choose just because some people fawn over the meta.
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I am that friend. Fight me, I’m not swapping off of Outlaw until they physically remove the spec from the game.
I also do more damage than most people you’ll PuG.
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I might know the friend.
Honestly I just temper my expectations. I let them come as DPS because tanking ‘caused too much stress’.
(Oops… wrong character)
Suboptimal spec often means suboptimal player.
If you haven’t taken the 10 seconds to look up your highest performing spec, I can safely assume you haven’t looked up any of your other personal responsibilities to the content.
Unless you and your friend only push high-level keys, it shouldn’t matter if he prefers to play a non-neta spec.
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I am that person. Its pretty fun to play the nons and out play the metas.
Even better when you make your own groups too. Especially when you pick the metas that are 10+ ilvls above you and watch them bomb.
So glad we only pick metas 
/s
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Lol, what? So, because someone isn’t choosing the meta spec, but a spec they like more… you automatically assume they don’t understand what to do or responsible for in the content? That’s just some super weird logic.
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No, because I don’t have a walking talking personification of these forums as a friend. Every class and specialization is more than viable in M+ at every difficulty up until you start getting into “pushing for the sake of pushing keys”-range.
The people who complain about not being able to get into keys are typically people who have other issues. Such as not wanting to do keys and thus don’t build up their score, their gear, or even have a +2 in lower keys but still fully expect people to bring them into a +10 that people are aiming to time.
The particular type of person I described, since the other one doesn’t really exist, is on a case to case basis. If the person is simply someone who doesn’t like lower keys but knows how to perform, you bring 'em along for mid keys so they get familiar with the mechanics and then you go to +7s and +10s as an example.
But the reality is that folks who endlessly complain but aren’t willing to entertain solutions are people who will annoy folks and eventually end up antagonising people to the point that friendships end. So the real way of “dealing” with that guy is to be polite, explain the situation, and try to help but understand if this is a systematic issue of the person then eventually there’s a high likelihood that the guy will just sour things for everyone else. At which point you talk with the person as a friend and try to get 'em to understand, to get them to accept compromises - but that’s way beyond M+ at that point.
But yeah, folks who complain about “I’m not meta” doesn’t really exist in the game. They do, but mostly as caricatures. Because the reality is that at a +10, every class is represented with only a few outliers being overrepresented.
But when you compare those representation levels they seem to be in-line with how popular the class is. Not their particular performance level. Meaning that they are, for all intents and purposes, fine.
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I’m surprised you have friends.
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i wouldn’t want to be your friend if you’re gonna make a post about me over a class choice in a video game lol.
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Happens all the time, but it does not really matter to me since we clearly are not pushing so high keys that would require meta comps.
It just works.
Ironically, this attitude is why we can’t find groups as off-meta stuff. Not because the spec is performing significantly worse (Aug being the exception at the moment), but because people have been trained to THINK that an off-meta spec is somehow harmful and universally everyone playing it is bad.
To the contrary, I find people playing the meta chasing game to be subpar and below average players for the most part. All of these people chase a spec thinking their problem is that they aren’t playing the correct class this patch, when they can’t even figure out why their previous class’s rotation wasn’t giving them the correct damage. What makes you think I believe they can suddenly pull more damage out of a Mage/Warlock when I just watched them do tank damage every class they’ve tried previously?
Skill comes from repetition and practice. One does not get those things en masse by meta-chasing every patch.
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From my personal experience people tend to care more when they’re playing something they enjoy and it usually shows. When people care, they tend to apply more effort into things, as someone who took a very long time to find that one character you really vibe with… it’s a world of difference.
I don’t think the meta-chasers are wrong for pushing meta… but the thought process of that person is just odd and lacks any validity.
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I respectfully disagree that their thought process lacks validity for playing a meta spec and wanting to play with others who play a meta spec. Though I will add that I am not one of these people.
First of all, people can enjoy a given spec for years and get lucky that the spec they are playing is suddenly meta. If your spec can be part of the strongest composition, able to survive bigger pulls and do more damage, and generally be more successful, it makes sense that people would want to try it out.
Second of all, there are many players in the game who understand how to read the icy veins rotation guide, set up weakauras to track the buffs mentioned as conditionals, and pick up a spec at 90+% simDPS, especially if the spec is also easy. For example, I have done three keys on Beast Mastery, an 11, 12, and 13, and there are players far better than I am who could probably do the same in 16s.
Third of all, sometimes players enjoy 5 or so characters and have for years, and do keys on the character out of those five which contributes the most to their success.
I agree that it is illogical to play something that you do not enjoy, but there are also many players in the game who enjoy playing several characters, including meta ones, and it’s logical for them to play the meta ones to achieve their goals more quickly. Note that I am not saying it is illogical to play a non-meta character that you enjoy.
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Spec tank or heals and bring him with you
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