Why is it so common to join extremes without watching a guide first?

[Packetdancer]

I can tell you point blank: watching a video does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for me. I could watch a video 500x it probably wouldnt make a lick of difference to my performance in the actual fight. That doesn't make me stupid, its just the difference between my learning style and someone else's.

I mean, I will certainly not actually properly understand a mechanic until I see it in play in the duty. Partly because I don't find videos are easily internalized, but also because many videos explain the strat, not the mechanic.

That may seem like an inconsequential difference, but it is not. At least not to me.

If I understand the strat, I can execute it. If I understand the mechanic, I can adapt to whatever strat gets thrown at me in PF, because I understand the mechanic, thus I can see why the strat works, which makes it much easier to remember/internalize.

I'll still watch videos if I'm not going into blind prog, because it's useful data to take in (and helps my understanding of the mechanic gel much faster), but I certainly don't learn the strat just from the video.

1 week in or more and its basically expected that you watch a guide, or join a 'blind prog' party finder.

This is, I think, also partly a datacenter culture difference; here on Primal, it takes about 6 hours after something comes out before PF expects you to have watched all the strat videos. I actually really enjoy blind prog; I've just resigned myself to the fact that if a patch lands at 6am, by noon -- 3pm at the latest -- the only way I'm going to get a blind prog party is if I make it myself and hope enough people actually want to do that that it fills.

Usually I just sigh and go watch the strat videos. I like blind prog, but I like doing content at all better, so.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯