Wiping. That wonderful process whereby your raid becomes nothing but a pile of corpses, and you have to pick yourselves off the floor and start again. It's an essential part of raiding, whether you're dying to well-known content or progression bosses, and some people are even rumoured to enjoy it. However, repeatedly wiping on something for various reasons can really lower your raid's morale, and presents an interesting problem for any raid leader.

Let's take a look at the problems and challenges arising from wipe nights, or even a failed try or two at something on farm.

Hey it's been at least a few days without a patented "Mike Schramm Troll Post," so let's go at it. Xylox over on the forums says that if a PUG wipes, 99% of the time it's because of the warrior. He says it's the hardest class to play within "a group environment," and that if you're a warrior who thinks you don't have to be prot and you don't need a shield to tank, you're the reason your PUGs keep wiping.

Now, I don't know if I'd go all that far-- my warrior has tanked plenty without being specced protection, so that's definitely possible. But he does have a point-- a shield is just plain necessary for tanking. If a tank doesn't know how to keep aggro, isn't ready to take damage or pull mobs off the healers, or thinks taunt is a damage spell, the group is in trouble.

Of course, most players aren't so nice to Xylox-- they say that though warriors do need to know what they're doing, so does everyone else. If a warrior can't keep aggro because the DPS is clueless, or doesn't get heals because the priest is in shadow when heals are necessary, it's not his fault. And still other players say that the reason lots of warriors don't know what to do right away is because tanking is one of the only skills in the game that you can't learn solo-- you've got to have a helpful group to teach you how to do it the first few times.

No one actually calls Xylox out for posting like he's the warrior master on his level 10 Shaman (that's what I'd do), but the thread really does provide some interesting thoughts from both sides. Bottom line: the best way to keep from wiping is to make sure everyone in the group knows what they're doing. All should be responsible for aggro control, all should know where to target DPS and when, and everyone should play their part well. It's true that an unskilled tank can be the first to mess up a group (because if she can't hold aggro, it's over right then and there), but everyone's got to do it right to get it done.

As a priest, pally or possibly a lower level shaman, you are often bestowed with the responsibility of a soulstone, giving you the ability to self-rez. And as we all learned from Uncle Ben in Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility. If you have never had the chance to be on the receiving end of a soulstone, it is easy to make a rookie mistake. While it is by no means complex, there are certain do's and don'ts that aren't always obvious. With that in mind, here are some things to remember if you are given a soulstone...

• If you are new to the soulstone business, odds are your warlock is too. If you have never played a warlock, you might assume that when a soulstone expires some kind of elaborate fireworks display appears in the warlock's UI, informing them that the group is screwed if they wipe if he doesn't conjure another stone. Without a proper mod, this is not the case. Odds are your new level 21 warlock friend doesn't have the fancy mod. So pay attention to your soulstone, and when you see it expire, or a minute or two before it expires, let your warlock know in party chat or in a /whisper. Your lock will usually appreciate it.