The Cranky Old Gnome

My brother and I used to play a game as kids (that I would imagine lots of you reading played too) called the floor is lava.  The basic premise is fairly simple.  The floor is lava, and if you touch it you die.  That meant if you wanted to cross a room you would have to stay on the furniture or get real creative with couch cushions.  If you wanted to go down a hallway you could use the laundry basket ferry boat, which required a toll, or you could try and spider walk down the hall.  For those of you who don’t know what that means–you stretch out your arms and legs until either your legs are on one wall and your arms on the other or your right arm/leg are on one wall and your left arm/leg is on the other.  Then you ‘walk’ your way down the hall, only touching the walls.

This lead to hours of fun, fights, and arguing over whether someone really touched the floor and if they really are dead or not. “You touched the floor!”  “Nuh-uh!”  “Yes-huh! I saw you, your toe touched.” “No it didn’t you big fat doody head.”  “You’re a doody head!”  “Fart sniffer!” “Lint licker!” “Buttmunch!”  “Sissy!”  The insults would continue until either one person gave in, or somebody threw the first punch.  Ah.  Good times.

Anyway, it has become readily apparent to me that my childhood game prepared me quite well for their instances and raids.  The floor is lava. Or poison. Or ice.  Or something else very bad.  The floor is death.

Say that again, with me this time.

The Floor is Death.

If you are fighting along and suddenly the floor changes in any way, be it a thick black cloud, a change in color, a rune type thing, or…well, lava, then it’s time to move.  I cannot stress this enough.  Get. Out. Of. The. Floor. Death. Seriously.

It’s a lot harder for me to keep track of it when I’m tanking, because most of the time all I see is the bosses kneecaps or bootstraps, but as a healer I’m in the back and I can see what’s going on, and it’s ridiculous how many people will stay in the same place when the floor changes.  I really don’t know how they have never picked up on the floor is where death comes from.

Maybe it’s the fact that on very rare occasions (Hodir comes to mind) there are spots on the floor that when they change, that’s the only safe place to be.  And maybe the first raid they ever went on and the first boss fight they ever fought was one of those bosses where the changing floor wasn’t death.

But that seems very unlikely.

Just remember boys and girls, all you would be raiders and heroic runners:

The floor is lava.

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”

~Fizz