For those who might not know yet, my gluttony for abuse knows no bounds. As a result I find myself in a rather large number of P.U.G. groups. At the end of the day I bring you, my readers, the stories of my travels in the random grouping of Azerothian adventure in It Came From The P.U.G.!
Love is in the air and the Lunar Festival has begun, and the P.U.G.s keep rolling. This week I have two very distinct stories to tell you of my travels. The first is a story of an interesting origin. Last Thursday my first article went up on WoW.com (and yes there will be further explanation of it in upcoming posts for those asking), that night I got home from playing Mekton with friends and hoped online. My random of the night? Heroic Culling of Stratholme. First thing I see when we’re done loading in?
Seems I had made a fan. At first I wasn’t sure where it was directed at because this is the second time this has happened in this instance in the same week that someone has opened up with “I hate you” but the first time was towards the instance. The next set of comments involved the phrases “you suck as a shaman and a healer.” and “I might as well drop this group now!” so I’m pretty sure it was directed towards me there. You might ask yourself why I didn’t just initiate a vote kick right? Well if you didn’t know, you can no longer vote kick someone as long as they have the random debuff up. Not that it would matter since two of the other people in the run were from this persons guild. Second question you’re probably asking why didn’t they just kick me when my timer was up? Well my guess is they wanted to bash me on the back end and show me how bad I actually am. The reason I say this? While the majority of the instance is timed, the end right after the third boss can be pulled at the pace of the tank. That tank who told me he hates me? Pulls everything from the bottom of the stairs all the way through to the first rest area. I manage to heal through all the mobs piled on the tank and then sit down to drink. I ask if they are still so certain that I am a horrible healer. We finished the run with them pulling the last section of street in it’s entirety and then the last boss. The offending party then quickly left group and I got my frost badges.
Directly after that I queue back up into a random but this time I hoped on my Disc priest. I’ll freely admit I’ve never played her as discipline and leveled her from 1 to 45 as shadow. I decided to give healing a try and see how it was, leveling her through the LFD system. What do I find in this group? First of all I get Maraudon, which is one of those instances I’m loathe to run. Secondly I pipe up and say “this is my first time healing on this character and I’m trying out discipline, so I’m sorry if there’s any complications while I figure it out.” The mage in the group pipes up and tells me his main is a discipline priest. He helps me get setup with a priority and rotation and we’re off running. The tank pulls at a reasonable pace and continues to check my mana and make sure I’m good before pulls. It was honestly one of the greatest dungeon runs I’ve ever had. Everyone was understanding and talkative and nice. Everyone was helpful and what started out as a purple crystals run turned into the entirety of the instance. I left that run feeling better than I have in a long, long time, and a run like that proves that even late night, you can still find one hell of a group.
Any stories to share this week about your LFD groups? Good? Bad? Ugly?
Until next time, Happy Healing!
A good and a bad.
The good was in Uldaman, a dungeon I was scared of because I haven’t run it more than a handful of times and I was imagining PUG hell. I got a nice talkative group, with at least 2 people who knew what they were doing, and it was a blast.
The bad was a SM Cathedral with a bunch of pricks (sadly, from my own realm) who first booted the paladin (admiteddly hopeless, but I think it was a kid, and we didn’t have problems with the DPS), then when I didn’t want to queue for another DPS (we only had half the room to clear+bosses) they started bitching. I left, so one of them went to the trouble of whispering to tell me I suck and putting me on ignore. I then whispered one of his guildies some snark and put *him* on ignore. Childish but I felt much better.
.-= Jen´s last blog ..Enter the cows =-.
@jen: I’ve never understood the insult->ignore mindset that at least 30% of the people playing this game tend to have. I can say at this point I have honestly never put anyone (minus gold spammers) on my ignore list, but I think that comes from an overwhelming belief that given enough sentences, I can win any argument. =)
Still, I can relate to your SM run, it seems a good chunk of my PUG’s are just like that as of late and while I love the Dungeon Finder tool, it seems like playing russian roulette with the next half hour of my life every single time. Maybe some future iteration of it will have some XBox Live (there’s a good example =( ) functionality implemented where I can mark people I would rather not be matched up with.
.-= shieldbreakr´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at =-.
BTW, it should be noted at this popped up on a blue post yesterday about 3.3.3:
Random dungeon 15 minute vote kick limit gone in 3.3.3
It’s not mentioned in the notes, but the Vote Kick option no longer has a 15-minute cooldown. Enjoy.
.-= shieldbreakr´s last undefined ..Response cached until Tue 23 @ 14:30 GMT (Refreshes in 23.86 Hours) =-.
Oh Gods, I could go on all day about some of the stuff I’ve run into. I think my best parties, though, have been in Drak’tharon Keep with Disc priests and shamans as healers (Matojo, my 77 warrior, tends to get that one and Gundrak *all the time*). I hardly take damage, they hardly use any mana, and a lot of the time the groups have been fairly chatty and friendly.
The most memorable was when my DK tank was still a blood tank and was dumped into Heroic FoS. I freaked, “I’m not geared for this! Why LFG why?” just as one or two of the other dudes started to question my tanking. They took pity on me as I said “Look, I’ll drop so you can get a decent tank, ’cause I know I can’t tank this. Idk why LFG put me in here, i’m not geared for it.” and the party’s DPS druid went bear to tank while I was told I could DPS. I passed on all the loot and thanked the party (all from Mug’thol, I think, and all in the same group) repeatedly for being so kind.
Matojo does have a heart!
Glad to see you proved the jerks in the first run to be wrong. Will we see you Disc priesting more often in the future? 😉
I’ve had a lot of good luck with the LFD system at lower levels. I’ve run into a lot of good groups doing SM, Uldaman, etc who go out of their way to help out someone if they seem to be having trouble. A lot of the people that do this are using Heirloom gear, so they are not new themselves.
Very different from the random heroic scene in my battlegroup.
Here’s one that was so bad it was almost good:
Queued for a random and got Halls of Reflection. I’m playing a disc priest, so i’m queued as a healer. My gear isn’t terrible, and i’m confident I can heal any heroic in the game (with the exception of HoR because I never successfully healed it). Pally tank, rogue, hunter, warrior dps. Not a bad makeup, lot’s of interrupts. The whole group looks about equally geared. First 5 pulls go surprisingly well, i never dropped below 70% mana and nobody died. Rogue died on the 8th wave, but we killed Marwyn no problem. Wow, I thought, I might actually do this. We get up to the Lich King encounter and start it. First thing, the hunter and rogue use aspect of the pack and started running as the event started. They get stuck behind the first wall. We got all the way to the last wall, but ran out of space and got killed by Arthas.
Try 2, the warrior goes, “I dont think we have the DPS for this” (Which I was thinking as well). He then says, “I need to leave after this pull”. So when we get to Lady Sylvanas he starts the encounter. No buffs or anything. I quickly throw up Fort and Spirit and Inner Fire. I sat to drink real quick and managed to get to 60% mana. Popped a mana potion and we were in business. Got to the last wall and died yet again to Arthas. The warrior says, ” u all suk. l2 dps.” and leaves party.
The kicker: He was barely pulling 2k DPS, the tank was around 2500, and the other DPS was pulling close to 3500. He was wearing 2pc tier 10.
As a disc priest who is running around in pretty decent gear, I can say that until this weekend, I couldn’t remember the last time I had actually run out of mana. On Saturday, I hopped into a random PUG and got FoS. Okay, no problem, I kinda like it. Sure enough… it was awesome. Awesome because the group was good but also because the group was NOT overgeared. I actually had to work at healing and about halfway through the instance, I had to toss out a “Just a sec, mana.” And they waited for me to drink real quick before finishing the instance. Granted this was ICC, but still…
…wow. Is this what it felt like when instances were actually challenging? I can’t remember that far back. 🙂
.-= Jennifer´s last blog ..Two Paladins and a Warlock. =-.
I queued my holy priest (lv74 at that time) for the random and got put in a group for Old Kingdom. Firstly the shaman was afk but the paladin (his guildie) promised he’d be back soon. The tank was a DK with a grand total of 3 pieces of tanking gear! Oh joy! He dithered for ages before pulling the first group, and then seemed to just go AFK for 1-2 minutes before pulling the next group. After 10 minutes the shaman still wasn’t back so someone tried to kick him.. didn’t work. The tank was just standing around and didn’t pull the next group and THEN the warlock said “afk 2 mins”… So I told them I was sorry and would try my luck elsewhere. (BIG LIE I WASN’T REALLY SORRY, SHHH DON’T TELL ANYONE!)
I had to wait out the 5 minutes of the debuff but man was it worth it. Got Old Kingdom again with an awesome group! Really good dps and a well geared and experienced bear tank who was a speedy puller and innervated me every 3 minutes so I never had to drink!
I have been leveling my warrior through the LFD system and, by and large, I have found the groups better and more encouraging than the heroics I run on my main.
It was also in Maraudon where I got the confidence to learn tanking. I was in there fumbling around right after dual speccing to prot where a priest called me ‘terriber’ (sic) and left group. I was then told by the other members that I was doing fine and that she was an asshat. We ran several more times through the random finder and really that was where I began to believe that I could do it. He is now 55 and has tanked every run since then.
I think the LFD system is a God send to leveling. And to end game really; I have gotten many more of the Glory of the Hero achievements done (only 5 left). I have had by far more positive experiences than negative.
The LFG system works really well for my baby DPS. I’ve healed since I started the game and worried about learning to switch targets, when to AOE, when to single target, kill order, etc. In most heroics the groups are there to get it done quickly, but at the lower levels, people seem to take the time to help each other. Tanks don’t pull the entire room, DPS doesn’t pull before the boss and healers try to keep everyone alive. Best part of the “normal” dungeons is that people don’t get ticked and mouth off if you wipe. I don’t mind the heroics and try to find amusement when tanks pull everything when I’m not even in the room to heal or hunters pull before the tank is there and ends up dead, but it gets old. The normal instances really are about learning the class/role and trying. If I knew I’d get groups like this for heroics I wouldn’t think twice about doing random dungeons to get her gear; but given the tendencies of most random heroics …. she may have to stay in guild for the first few of those.
I was running on my disc priest with my son this weekend. I’m in full heirloom, and have RaF with my son’s account. So lot’s of leveling going on. We get into Gnomergan (priest starts at 27, son’s pally tank is 26). We semi-wipe, me and the boy, and a shadow priest run back in and while trying to get back to the hunter and rogue we get trapped by a bunch of mobs on a ramp. Both me and the sPriest hadn’t drunk to get our mana back up, so start the fight at about 50%. Oom very quickly as there are 5-6 mobs pounding on the boy. So I start fearing mobs, which of course means they bring back more. So about 5 or so minutes later, we’re still standing, no mana for anyone, everyone below 25% health, and the floor is littered with about 15-20 mobs. The boy says – “No way we should have survived that”. We were chatting later and both agreed that it was the most fun we’ve had in game since we started playing.
Best part, hunter and mage didn’t budge from where they were. Just the 3 of us not breathing and taking on the fight.
Blizzard seriously needs to make lower level fights harder, we were burning down stuff so fast it was ridiculous (only me and the shadow priest in heirloom gear). Semi wipe happened due to mage dying and not waiting for rez, so he was ghost running back, shadow priest was off exploring for some reason and pulled 6 mobs back on us while we were in the middle of the fight that killed the mage.
Mostly I’ve had great experiences (or neutral experiences) with LFD, and enjoy levelling in instances.
But every now and then you just have an absolute shocker, like when I did Maraudon the other day on my mid-40s disc priest.
The boomkin takes aggro off the tank, slowly gets beat on (very slowly, it wasn’t a big deal), and calls for healing. I say, “Please don’t tell me to heal.” He apologises and says “but I needed a heal badly.” I tell him I was watching him, he was fine. He rolls need on Khoo’s Point (stam/spirit polearm) and says “awesome, this is a big upgrade for me.” It’s clear he is a fairly new player, so I go easy on him.
The DPS warrior then tells the boomkin he is a “downey” and starts insulting him. I tell the DPS warrior to be quiet and that there is no need to be a jerk about it.
The tank warrior runs WAY ahead of me all the time, so that I have to run around corners and shield/flash him in a panic pretty much every pull.
He charges into the slow-moving slimes – the ones that move extremely slowly but do big proximity damage, so you can’t tank them – you just have to kite them. Ok, easy mistake to make – most stuff gets tanked. He tells us something like “HEAL ME F#$K!!!!” I TRY to heal him, but it’s in vain and we die.
On the run back, the DPS warrior starts spewing garbage about your mother and some really revolting and graphic things that he wanted to do to her. I pasted it into a ticket and he left the group, thankfully.. since we couldn’t vote-kick him yet (bring on 3.3.3!!!!!)
We gently explain to the tank that you cannot tank those mobs. I think he just ignores this.
We run back in, buff etc, and he immediately does the same thing – tries to tank them. He screams for heals and dies in a few seconds (hahaha, what an idiot), while the rest of us kite and successfully kill the slimes. I tell the group they did a great job. All the while he is screaming things like “F#$K YOUR ALL SH!T” and “JUST F#$KING HEAL ME NEXT TIME C%NT” (niiiiiiiice).
We tell him again that you can’t tank the mobs, and he says “JUST F#$KING HEAL ME, I HAD AGGRO FINE.” (Sigh.)
We tell him AGAIN that you can’t tank the mobs, and he says “whatever just rez me, I want to ding.”
I say I’ll rez him but only if he doesn’t speak to us like that again. Again, “whatever, just rez!!!”
We keep going, kill a few trash mobs, and he levels.
“DING, CYA!!” and he drops group. We hadn’t even killed a single boss.
I hope he got a nice ban from the transcript I put into a GM ticket. I included alllll of the really nice names he called me. 🙂
.-= Keeva´s last blog ..Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation and 25man raid healing =-.
There are times when ALL you want to do with a player is drop kick them out a window. I’ve been having problems in general with a certain realm out of my battlegroup, it seems as though whatever player from that realm is hacked up by the system is rude, crude, or just generally a jerk.
My husband and I queued up for a Sunken Temple run, I on my 50s hunter, he on his mage. We got a tank and a healer from the aforementioned realm. We also got a very nice boomchicken from a third realm. We load in and the first thing out of the HEALER’S mouth is profanity laced “you are not the tank rant” at the boomchicken. I basically tell the healer to shut it as soon as I see the tauren sprout feathers.
Since my husband needs ST for his mage quest, I grit my teeth and settle in, willing to deal with any group just to help him get this done. We don’t even get to one of the mini-bosses when we suddenly realize the “tank” doesn’t have Righeous Fury going, is trying to 2 H tank and the healer has insulted me at least four times in fewer minutes.
The tank drops suddenly like a rock, I flip growl back on on my pet and throw her at the mobs that remain. My husband is doing a frantic mage tank dance, and both of us are just -trying- to kill everything before we die. In the midst of this, I realize that the boomchicken is in cow-mode trying to heal my husband while I juggle the pet…. and the “healer” is just sitting there, watching and tossing out profanity at us.
We kill everything after the boomchicken becomes steak, give our good-byes to the boomchicken and then both drop group. I’ve come to get a group like that once in a blue moon… but that was just aweful. Nobody should have to deal with that. I also know which realm to NEVER roll a character on.
.-= Tzia´s last blog ..Rhok’delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers =-.
And then every now and again, very rarely, you’ll get those stars – the boomkins that drop to heal you, the pally tanks who see mobs running for you and bubble you, while they’re tanking.
I mean, I don’t think all the puggers out there are awful. I would say 70% neutral/normal/nothing to write home about, 25% bad/mean/unskilled/no clue, and 5% people who take you by surprise by doing those little snap things to save the day. I love those moments.
.-= Keeva´s last blog ..Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation and 25man raid healing =-.
I just switched my shaman over to resto 3 days ago, with my only healing pieces being the heirloom items + mace and whatever hodgepodge of AH greens that I was able to find. Unfortunately that still left me with 4 pieces of +agi gear. Luckily enough I have ONLY gotten good groups. The first group I ever joined into as a healer pitted me in the Underbog (was 62, now 65) with a DK tank and collection of good DPS. After explaining that I had never healed before, they understood and began the instance at a decent pace, paying good attention to my reaction time and heal strength. After the first boss, the tank must have decided that I was better than I gave myself credit for and pulled the entire walkway leading up to the 2nd boss. After we made it through with only a few close calls and zero deaths, the tank laughed it off saying he was “making sure I was still awake.” Apparently he could see me fixing my macros/clique setup while Earth Shield kept him alive on the small pulls.
I have only had one fail group, and that involved a DK tank that refused to use death and decay (I think that is their AOE) and could only maintain aggro on a single target at a time. Slave Pens is terribly difficult to heal when the tank can only hold 1 guy. Only group I have ever dropped out of. And so far, in 3 levels, I have yet to wipe, though I have lost individual players. Gotta say that I am really enjoying the switch to healing after being a melee DPS since BC came out.
I love the lfd system. And as everyone ive had my goods and bads. I would have to say the best was on my 77 pally just last week. Learning to tank after mostly just leveling and a lil healing when i could duel spec and got put into halls of lightning. died the first 3 major pulls and told them i wasnt ready and going to drop so they could get a real tank. DK pipes up with “you can handle it, you just gotta learn the pulls and theres alot of pats in here” he explained every pull and fight through the rest of the instance and we managed to survive without another wipe…. noone complaining and really giving a lot of great advice. Im loving the tanking but there is definitely a major learning curve from standing back healing 🙂
The problem that I have found with the LFD system in Old World content is that players have even less patience than they do in heroics.
Tanks pulling like they are in T10, but don’t have any of their AoE aggro abilities yet. And at the first sign of trouble people immediately drop group. So, I have a love/hate relationship with the low level LFD. I love the XP gains and getting a break from questing with another alt, but I hate the way people are behaving.
.-= Jason Z´s last blog ..WoWphiles Podcast Show #20 =-.
A point that’s come up in guild conversation lately is how impersonal the LFD tool is, or rather how it seems most players try to make it impersonal. It also seems to give added excuse for some players to become as abusive as they can be. I was previously guilded with a person, the guild leader and tank (looks at Thespius’s most recent post), who spoke aloud that he felt that he could “dish” as much dirt at as many pugs as he wished simply because of how unlikely it was that he would ever see them again. And he said this as if it was his given right to do so. Needless to say I did not stay in that guild. But I find that the more people I speak too the more I run into that whole idea. Plus the older the LFD tool get’s the more widespread it gets.
But I guess that’s enough about the LFD tool, and back to what I first had in mind after reading the comments. I’ve had the unluck of never seeing an Ephemeral Snowflake drop in H HoR on my druid. So I’ve been trying to at least run it once everyday, well that was until “that” Day happened. The day where I sat in LFD, getting qued into a group that at the beginning already had 2 bosses down. Decline, I need the second boss, I’m not getting saved to one that already has the boss down. Reque, wait wait, then accepting a fresh dungeon, walk in and have the tank and another DPS drop without word. Reque with what’s left, and continuely getting tanks who won’t do it or say they can’t do it. This goes on for what seems to be an hour, with some of the orginal players leaving. Eventually I get my group. It’s not very pretty, but from the look of things we can get it done. I’ve healed inexperienced tanks through it before I can do it again. And it goes amazingly well on the first boss and his waves. Then we wipe on the last wave before the second boss. I think to myself, “this is fine we’ll just have work better together and get it done.” I release and I’m heading back to the instance then as I enter I realize something. The tank left group. I enter the instance, the tank is standing there. Then I get the “this is not your instance” warning. And in 60 seconds after trying to invite the tank back to group twice, and whispering him, I get teleported to the nearest graveyard. This also happens to the rest of the group. I tell the group just stay together and he’ll log off soon I hope or leave. So we keep trying to go in. He’s still there. I keep trying to whisper him but before I know it I’m teleported back out. I’m looseing patience and well I do start bad mouthing him. And by the time I start bad mouthing him the rest of the group is gone. And here I am saved to an dungeon I can’t do. I can’t reque to get more players for it, I ask my guild if anyone else wants to finish it with me. But most of them have either done it for that day or are busy, which is understandable. I finally try to walk back in, just to see if they guy is trying to finish it or not, but I walk in to see a Death Gate. He went afk in the dungeon for 15 mins then took a death gate out.
Maybe he did it on purpose, the evil side of me wants to believe that, or maybe he didn’t realize that standing in the dungeon out of group like that would have that effect. He did seem “new” to the game, and sometimes you just don’t know what those funny game mechanics do until you experience it yourself. Needless to say no matter what the intentions of the tank was, I don’t que in LFD for H HoR anymore. If it turns out it’s my first heroic for the day, great! If not I try to ask my guild if anyone wants to do it with me, which sometimes is just as hit and miss as the LFD tool.
I have to say, I’ve seen more of the good than the ugly when it comes to the LFD tool.
Pretty much the worst I’ve seen are people going in just to get a drop or an Elder, then leaving group when the get it. Or, after a final boss, someone will need something they clearly can’t even use, then leave group, just because they hadn’t won anything the whole run. Those ninja’s get added to my lovely “ignore” list, because, as an enchanter, I want my fair chance at the disenchants.
Believe it or not, I have yet to have a group “blame the healer”, me, for a wipe. ::knocks on wood::
Wonderful post!
I healed a heroic run the other day that was so bad it was actually quite funny.
It started with the first trash packs in HOS being pulled within seconds of entry, apparantly by the hunter’s gorilla, and the tank stood there..that was cool, we made it through OK, except the warlock, the tank reemerged and apologised, saying that his UI had played up and could he have a minute to fix it.
He was given time, the warlock told the hunter off and the hunter said “What?”
Back comes the tank and we pull another pack, which at first seems to be OK, although I thought I saw the gorilla taunting off the tank. Then the tank stops again. Lucky we had that gorilla, and we make it through OK, except the warlock.
The tank apologies again and drops group.
In less than a minute we have a new tank (a really nice and competent one, as it turns out). Off we go again.
I see that the ret pally for some reason is just standing on the stairs watching us a lot of the time as we clear trash going to Krystallus. But we make it through OK.
Then the warlock looks at recount and says “You have got to be kidding me…” to the hunter, who said “What?”
The warlock said “Let’s kick the 300 dps”. I thought perhaps he was exaggerating, because even I do more than 300dps in a heroic and that’s just with the occasional magma totem when bored.
Then I realise the hunter is wearing a mix of quest greens, a resto shaman hat, a defense ring, another ring from some OL quest reward, and for some unfathomable reason, the Unfinished Headpiece from a Shadowmoon Valley quest in a trinket slot.
Still, he is at least not being rude or pulling aggro, and we’re getting the mobs down.
We get to the Elder and the ret pally graciously rejoins us. We grab the Elder, the ret pally completes the meta, we all stop to say Grats and pull another mob.
The pally waits till we’re halfway into the pack before dropping group. I guess the lure of the violet proto drake was just that compelling.
The tank admitted to being relieved, as when not standing on the steps the pally had been attacking wrong mobs.
Despite the pally and the 300 dps hunter we make it through OK (even the warlock). We get a new Plate DPS Guy (a well behaved one).
And we make it through the rest OK. Although as a final gesture the hunter needs the mana regen caster trinket from the last boss…and I see from his armoury page that not only did he equip it (well, at least it was definitely an upgrade to the SMV quest item), he’s since added to it with a spellpower/MP5 neck.
And the tank said, “That was good, shall we do another?”
Believe it or not? Most of my PuG experiences have been mediocre to “auuugh” levels of horrible. The contrast was perfectly clear with two different PuGs last night.
In one run in WC, I (as a non-specced healer) had to deal with: a primadonna tank; an idiot hunter who demanded on kicking the only decent DPS we had; a second hunter who kept pulling before the tank; and both DPS having no knowledge of aggro. Our second tank, thank God, was one of the nicest and most patient people I’ve ever met.
On the flip side, the Blackfathom Deeps crew were highly efficient, funny, and willing to put up with a player just learning the ins and outs of tanking. We cleared the entire place in under an hour. Best damn crew I’ve ever run with, hands-down.
Discipline priest here, been healing since Burning Crusade as disc.
I’m decently geared (2556 GS) 32K mana, 26K health, and 728 Mp5 self buffed/ W kings.
Last time I ran out of mana was in TOC 5 man; unholy DK tank with NO tank gear.. haha.. wasn’t pretty, but pulled it off.
I am also a glutton for punishment. I have been leveling my druid as a healer in random pugs since the LFD came out. All I have to say is that elitist players exist at all levels. I have been through some painful groups and I will drop if people are complete idiots or jerks.
Now that I am in the Outlands dungeons, I’m getting grouped with gogogogo tanks. Now, I can heal them just fine, but the frantic pace is not for me. Just this morning, I had a tank who ignored my request for a quick bio break several times. Finally, I typed it out in caps. He then berated me for using caps. I explained why I used caps and promptly left the group.
On the flip side, I have had some awesome groups with really nice people. When that happens, I try to run a few in a row with the same group. I wish I could put these people on my friends list 🙂
Pugs are how I learned to heal on my shaman and how I am learning to heal on my druid. By the time I hit 80, I will know my role inside and out and will be a valuable asset to whatever guild I decide to join. I will have developed the thick skin healing requires and will be able to handle “oh shit” situations well. I whole hardheartedly recommend that anyone who wants to be an end-game healer to pug until they want to scream. Then pug some more.
I’m a person who usually gets annoyed very easily by incompetence, except when a person apologizes or warns at the start of the run that he’s new to tanking for example, in which case I can immidietly take a liking to the guy and overlook any mistakes, and do all in my power to keep them alive.
Heck, with heroics nowadays I sometimes will prefer a newbie tank. At least it will actually give me something to heal!
My favorite random happened in Halls of Lightning about two or three montths ago. The tank in the group disconnected right after zoning in. We all sat around for a few minutes waiting in the queue for a replacement and then a DPS bailed on us. The mage in the group said, “who needs a tank?” and then proceeded to start pulling.
I jumped to life, threw him a Rejuvination and a Regrowth. I kept the three of us alive for the pull and then we started talking about how to continue with the bigger packs. We actually 3-manned all of the mob groups down by planning CC and other strategies until we were faced with the first boss heading our way down the walkway. Just as we’re working out how to take him down too we got our new tank and a fifth DPS.
They zoned in and we ended up blazing through the rest of the instance without a word to each other until the last boss dropped. Then the three original players /highfived each other before heading home.
I recently dusted off my old, pre-WotLK main after leaving her dormant for almost 2 years. She’s a level 70 Combat specced rogue in late Tier 4/early Tier 5 epics – mostly Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, and some SSC/Eye items. It’s good gear, but nothing really amazing in these days of heirloom-laden rerolls.
So I queue up while questing and get Utgarde Keep as my random. The paladin tank is obviously friends with the shaman healer, as the two of them are trading inside jokes non-stop as we start buffing up at the entrance. The other two dps are a mildly-heirloomed Death Knight and a warlock in a rough, random collection of questing greens. Everyone has to start somewhere, but the lack of spell power and crazy jumble of stats on his gear should’ve been the first clue to what we were in for.
By the time we reach the second pull, it’s pretty clear the warlock has zero clue about what to do. The tank has half a dozen mobs on him and everyone is AoEing like crazy, while the warlock is Shadowbolting random single targets. The tank and healer both beg him to use Rain of Fire or Seed of Corruption or anything to help kill faster, and he replies: “were doing fine they r dead ne way so leave me alnoe and play ur own character”
That sets off the tank and healer duo. They both lay into this warlock and tell him if his dps doesn’t improve, they’ll vote kick him. We keep going, and by the time we reach Keleseth, the warlock declares: “ur just being asses my dmg is fine bc the guys are all dying”.
That’s when the tank responds: “thats because we’re carrying you, see?” and he posts the Recount for the run so far. I’ve done about 45% of the overall damage, at around 1700dps, followed by the DK at around 1000dps and the paladin tank at 800dps.
The warlock was doing barely 300 dps.
Embarrassed, the warlock then turns on me and says: “i cant do taht kind of dmg because i have a life and i dont spend my life palying wow liek the rogue does”. Surprised, I respond: “Uh, I haven’t played this character in almost 2 years, and most of this gear came from pick up groups through Karazhan and SSC.”
“i don know what that is but ur in full epixs so ur a loser”
The Death Knight, who has been silent through the instance pipes up: “How can the rogue be a loser when he’s doing 5 times the damage you are? If someone’s losing at this game, I’m pretty sure it’s you.”
Humiliated, the warlock charges Keleseth, presumably to wipe the group. Of course, Keleseth just stands there and Shadowbolts him to death as he tries to run back to us. We let him die, kill the boss, and boot the warlock before we loot. We then got a very nice boomkin a minute later and had a fun run through the rest of UK as we told him about the warlock who’d gone through 72 levels and not managed to learn a single thing about the game.