Kharazhan as a Spectator Sport

Night before last, I was able to sit out of the first half of Kara while one of our new Druids filled the Off Tank position. This was a big deal for me as I've been running Kara since our guild started it, with the exception of a few nights, due to a lack of Feral Druids. I've gotten all my Bear gear except the T4 gloves....well, I have the gloves but, I got them back before the item re-vamp in Patch 2.something or other, and *gasp* got the healing ones because the feral ones sucked back then. And, as far as Kitty gear goes, I just need a few pieces from the later half of the instance. So, yippy!!! I get a night off from Kara!

After logging out in Kara so I can easily, and quickly, get back in for Curator, I log in my baby priest thinking I'll level her up a tiny bit while my husband slaved away as the Kara Raid Leader for one of the two groups. Well, I thought I'd be leveling my priest, but it was quite distracting as my eyes kept being drawn to his monitor.

Mainly, I couldn't keep my eyes off of my commenter, Darkriver, as he masterfully played his Resto Shaman utilizing both is healing and dps skills. (Was that enough sucking up to get my firefly now? ;p )

Seriously, though, it was a rather unique opportunity to watch the Kara action without the distraction of being there and doing my job. Since I'm the Druid Class Officer in our guild, I was able to observe our new druid rather than asking the other attending officers how he did. Since I wasn't tanking, I was able to send him tells (between pulls) to offer suggestions or advice or to give Druid OT specific instructions before boss encounters.

It was really interesting to watch the action from a different viewpoint and see all our people functioning in cohesive order; watching the response time of the tanks when mobs broke away, watching the dps and how quickly they adjusted, and the healers and how fast they responded and with what heals, etc. I know this evening, when I run the second half of Kara, I will be performing my role with a whole new perspective in my arsenal. As of yet, I'm not sure how I will apply it, but I do look forward to experimenting with my new 'detached' viewpoint.

I know Blizzard would never implement it, but it would be nice to have the ability to enter Kara as a 'camera view' only. It would really help officers observe their guildies play so they could make corrections. Raid leaders could use the camera view to run the raid thereby allowing another guild member to run in their spot. Guilds could even require that new raiding members attend raids in view mode prior to actually attending the raid so they could see how more experience raiders in their class functioned. To prevent 'cheating', Blizzard could even make it an 'Eye of Kilrog' kind of thing so people couldn't scout ahead (mobs could kill it). But, I think dreaming about this functionality is about all we can do....unless you live with or near one of your guild mates and can watch them play.

The only drawback of this was that I couldn't grab my husband's mouse and move his camera around to other views than the one he had....well, I suppose I could have done that, but I don't think he would have appreciated it. ;)