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!
I really really hate heroic Gundrak. Not because it’s hard or that there is loot there I want but can’t seem to get to drop, but because it seems like every time I queue for a random, I get it. I’ve done it at least 40 times, and the vast majority of those times have been through the LFD tool. It’s not a bad instance I’m just tired of seeing the insides of it, and I think this last time my group was agitated as well.
It started out pretty normal, warrior tank, ret paladin, mage a boomkin and me. Pretty solid setup, everyone had gear that hovered around at least ICC10 so I figured it would be a nice, quick run. In and out of Gundrak, I’m all for that! Down the first boss like normal and we’re moving onto the second boss when something odd happens. The boomkin pulls threat off the tank on a trash pull. Tank re-establishes aggro and we move onto the next one. The boomkin pulls aggro once again but this time the tank doesn’t grab aggro. I heal the boomkin like crazy and keep him from dying and everyone stops after the trash is downed.
Boomkin: What the hell man? I wasn’t even doing anything to pull aggro! Did you forget how to tank?
Warrior: If you learned how to manage your aggro this wouldn’t be an issue.
Boomkin: Yeah but you just sat there while I was dying! WTF is wrong with you? Learn how to tank
The warrior runs forward and pulls ALL of the trash leading up to the second boss and then shadow melds as the boomkin is in the middle of AoE. All the mobs go hell for broke after the boomkin. I toss an Earth Shield on the druid and nuke heal until the pack is down.
Boomkin: Seriously? What the hell is wrong with you?
Warrior: Shouldn’t try telling me how to tank then
Me: Fine, fuck it. If you two are going to fight, I’ll just tank.
I switch to my PvP gear, run in and ES myself while frost-shocking the boss. I nuke heal myself and keep shocking and lava bursting on the boss.
the DPS starts in slowly and I’m holding aggro pretty well and eventually the tank runs in and grabs aggro off of me. I let him take it and switch back to healing. The boss is downed and we are all sitting there.
Me: So, we done fighting? I already hate this place, I just want to be done.
Ret Pally: Dunno, but watching a healer tanks was pretty funny. Think you could do that again?
Me: Sure, unless mr. tank and mr. boomkin want to play nice so we can just be done.
Warrior: Fine, proved your point.
Boomkin: Fine.
Rest of the run is done without any hiccups, no one is openly aggressive to each other and the rest goes smoothly.
The sad thing about this isn’t that the fight happened, but the fact that it is not the first time something like this has happened. I’ve seen players go at each other’s throats for seemingly small things or mistakes. It boggles my mind how people playing a GAME for FUN can have such a stick up their arse and be so aggressive. This has happened at least 3 times this past week, not me tanking (although I do threaten it from time to time), but the bickering. If you can’t play well with others, you shouldn’t be playing a game that relies on OTHER PEOPLE to do part of it, or just avoid that part of it.
So how about you? Any good pug stories this week? Any horror stories?
Well that’s it for today, until next time Happy Healing!
Great post. People getting upset over small things is quite nerve wracking.
I have the same LFD issue with UK. I seem to get the place 9 times out of 10. I’m always sad to see it.
.-= Nochecazador´s last blog ..Tuesday Kill Shot =-.
… I wanna see shamtank.
Now that’s just badass Lodur.. 😉
But well done!
Halls of Stone can collapse in on itself, for all I care. It’s my “Gundrak”.
.-= Darthregis´s last blog ..Ask a Tauren! =-.
I’m another in which Halls of Stone is equivalent to your Gundrak. At least with Gundrak you have control over how fast each boss fight is, whereas with HoS you could be in Tier 25 gear and it will still take 5 minutes or whatever to complete the Brann event.
I like Gundrak. But thats prolly cause as a bear I can solo most of the place.
I honestly think most of the issue is the underlying frustration needing to run heroics to get gear. Most people have run these things 100 times and now are just going through the motions to get their daily badge. I know I don’t look at heroics as any type of adventure anymore but just a time burden that I want to minimize. I have been guilty in the past of trying to down mobs too quickly as a dps and pull aggro. Most tanks/healers just grin and bear it as I do on my druid/paladin. DPS should be wary though as it really isn’t worth it to upset a tank/healer because DPS queue times are getting pretty long these days.
Note: 57 Ley-Guardian Eragos kills (Herioc Occulus). I’ve not once zoned in then left group, I get this place literally 5x/week. So much for freakin’ random!
It’s funny that a lot of people complain that pugs are too quiet, nobody talks, but then we see why. When they do often they are bickering little girls. I feel for you, I witness this kind of crap all too often.
My next run into Gundrak I’m gonna throw on my earth shield and volunteer to tank that boss, that’ll be awesome! I would have loved to have seen you do that!
That is awesome! I’ll have to try that as a healer! Although I’m not sure my cloth (disc priest) healer would be as successful!
Nicely done!
Just a horror story in Utgarde Pinnacle. Myself(healer), my wife(tank), my friend(DPS), and his wife(DPS) had to use the dungeon tool for our 5th. We were in Vent together, and always make it a point to tell anyone we group with that we are, and invite them to use it as well. We got a warlock from another realm assigned as our party leader. Before we could even say hello, he runs down the side, terminating the skeletons and bypassing the first room entirely. Now, my friends wife is a new 80, and we’re trying to teach her the various dungeons, so I say “Excuse me, we have a new 80 here, and would like to go slowly to teach her” to which we get “You ain’t gotta pull every %%^$ piece of trash. Just because 2 uv U R in the same guild, don’t mean you can %$#@ tell us what to do ” Vent is totally silent for a moment, then my friend asks what this guy’s problem is. I have no idea, and try to tell our ‘leader’ that we’re all grouped together and would like to teach our new 80 how the fights go, and possibly get some random drops… The response? “^^%## you all. You don’t like my $%#$ style. Vote to kick you $%$% %^$## you ALL ”
People like that make me hate the dungeon tool. Thank god for Vote to Kick. Next party member was a hunter, who just said “Hi”, passed on gear he couldn’t use, said “Thanks for the run.” And then left. Didn’t aggro off the tank. Just hunkered down and killed stuff at a nice, safe pace. Didn’t say a word when we explained fights to my friend’s wife. So, I guess, sometimes it does work.
Please note that the ‘leaders’ comments were liberally laced with profanity, which cannot be posted here.
My personal albatross is HoS. I don’t mind Gundrak, but I’ve had the worst luck getting Halls of Stone. I’ll even get it twice in one night between the two 80s I regularly play.
.-= Hana´s last blog ..[Druid] Settling in as a Tree =-.
As a healer at level 78, this kind of thing makes me pretty darn nervous about soon hitting 80 and heroics in my fresh iLvl 200 stuff …
.-= Mzungu´s last blog ..The Air Up There =-.
@Mzungu Don’t be nervous this is just a worse case scenario. when you hit 80, sure it will be a bit of a different game, but it’s not that bad. I seem to bring out the worst in people though. Just be aware that stuff like this CAN happen, but it’s not the general rule.
My main character is a paladin tank. I have an alt DK that can also tank, and for the most part, in farming emblems, I tank (I also have a mage, and I don’t tank on that toon). I can definitely see where the the warrior tank is coming from. I generally try to get along with the pug seeing that I’m never going to see them again, but if a pug is going out of his way to pull aggro, I will let the pug die.
After the first time that happens, I press my pug tanking macro: Hi, I’m your tank for this instance. Please hit my target. If you pull aggro, you’re the new tank.
Love your post. I think the worst thing, is that DPS is at the mercy of tank and heals getting along and further more no one else pissing on each others shoes.
For me, it’s Nexus. I feel physically ill when I see it come up. A combination of this and the kinda problems you describe above mean I just don’t do H dailys with randoms anymore — I’ll go heal for a guildy group who need one more, but no more volunteering for runs with a possible stranger-danger component.
.-= Xeppe´s last blog ..Misconceptions and Myths =-.
I saw this for the first time yesterday, in a regular OK run. Warrior pulled two groups at once, we wiped, and on the way back the warrior asked if the healer was there. (because he wasn’t running with the rest of us). Healer interpreted this as “Tank blaming me for wipe” and decided to refuse to heal. Tank and healer bicker at each other for a bit while we (the dps) headdesk.
Long story short, we dumped the healer, my baby pally went holy, and we cleared most of the rest of the dungeon with only one minor hiccup. It ended up being one of the best runs I’ve been in.
Heckl, I stopped pugging back in Dire Maul 3+ years ago because of this kind of drama.
.-= Kazark´s last blog ..World of Workforce =-.
Boomkin are horrible lately, damn starfall changes turned them into aggro magnets as bad as mages- and without an aggro dump really. As a tank I usually put up with it- but they could just wait 2 seconds and let me get more solid aggro.. Patience is a rare commodity these days.
Well, problem is, most people aren’t running randoms for fun anymore, they’re running it for the 2 daily frost or even for triumph badges. They’re sick of instances, they’re annoyed and they just want a smoooth, quick, painless run. A boomkin that can’t manage aggro (as most DPS seem to think it isn’t their job to manage their own threat) can be enough to make an already irritated tank fly off the handle. This coming from my experience as an ICC 10/25 geared Hunter. I usually pull aggro because an auto-shot and a chimera are usually enough to pull threat off the tank, though I don’t blame them. If I get aggro, it was my fault.
Kudos to you! I see absolutely nothing wrong with how you proved your point. Shaman were tank back in the day and even with that being said, cooler heads prevailed and you got the children to play nice LOL.
Moonkins have a really hard time with aggro: Starfall and Starfire are a little too powerful, they have no real aggro dump.
I fade on my priest, soulshatter, iceblock or go invisible, feign death (I play most ranged classes), but my poor bear-bird can just barkskin and pray.
Lately I’ve had a series of “tanks” who I believe were the little players’ kids: DK without a tanking spec or kit, never talking in chat seemingly not understanding English.
Last one I had yesterday, we had a 3800 GS ank of this sort with a 5900 healer, 2 dps about 5500 and my druid alt at 5200. It was a huge pain, as it was absolutely impossoble for ANY of us not to grab aggro at every pull – the DK was deathgripping one mob and only hitting that.
I normally don’t mind inexperienced players, but this time I asked the group in party chat if we could kick him, and everyone agreed. I respecced as bear (little experience there, but decent gear and spec) and we finished the instance in 4 without issues.
pfft! at least GunDrak is easy, I keep getting put in HoR, after a long nights raiding, it’s the last thing I need. Would love to see the shammie tank tho hehe.
The LFG tool has removed the need of niceties in the game. There are so many people who play guildless now, I’ve noticed. In itself it’s not a problem. People are guildless for many reasons. But it’s so widespread that it seems to me an indication of how you can be solo playing an MMO.
I used to LFG often using the old tool and trade. You want to behave, and get on people’s friends list, to get invited again to do heroics. Now you can be a jerk, and the system will just requeue you. There’s zero consquence to be nasty. I don’t like it a bit.
I get DTK every.single.time I queue. 🙁
Agree with Lilham here. I meet a fair amount of rude players, keep seeing foul language, arguments about nothing, people fighting over supposed skills or lack thereof etc.
There are some jerks on every server of course (Though Stormscale EU seems to win on that section, considering what I see in battlegrounds), but those who have annoyed loads of players end up having to transfer, change faction or at least change name and start behaving, because they can’t fiind groups easily.
LFD allows them to ruin 15-30 minutes of 4 other people’s lives, as many times as they like. So much for “teamwork” and “grouping”.
Great story Lodur & kudos to you for stepping up and busting some heads. I was casually levelling my DK alt through some instances over the weekend and got a Mana Tombs. Prot warrior, resto shaman, Warlock, mage and myself (Blood DPS). Before the first pull, Prot warrior begs us to let him have the shield off Pandemonius… only other person in the group who can even equip it is the healer and why would he want a tank shield (maybe he reads your blog and wanted to be prepared for heroic Gun?? 😛 ) So naturally, everyone agrees and off we go. Healer warns the tank at least twice before the 1st boss that he needs to watch the big pulls (tank was pulling 2 or sometimes 3 packs of mobs at a time.) Tank lol’s. No problems on Pandemonius, moving on to 2nd boss.
We get to the 1st set of pulls in the 2nd bosses room and the tank charges the patting Void Horror, which in turn facepulls the 3 mobs standing behind it, and the other ethereal pat wanders into us. Wipe.
Tank immediately blasts the healer, “Your heals F*#&ing suck!” Only to have the 3 DPS simultaneously reply “Your Pulls F*#&ing suck!” Even though the pug as a whole was doomed to fail thanks to mr. loltank, it was kinda nice to see 2 other people besides me immediately take up for the healer and not let the tank (who was obviously the problem in the equation) talk down to him. Still – gotta love those Outland levelling instance pugs.
Had a heroic Nexus run with one guildie as the tank. I’m a fairly new 80 blood DK (an alt) getting gear and emblems through heroics. There’s me, guildie tank (bear), a ret paladin, and a shadow priest. We get a shaman healer who has some ICC gear and proceeds to rip the dps for doing sub-2k. First of all, I could hit 2k, but I wasn’t really trying because–heroic Nexus. The shadow priest was way over 2k, and the ret paladin couldn’t break more than 900. He was clearly new to the class and undergeared, but instead of being nice about it, the healer decided to post damage meters and tell the paladin to just stop playing. Everyone started asking him what his problem was and why it was such a big deal if the run was going well. He didn’t have an answer. My guildie wanted to vote kick him but no one else did. I assume it’s because they assumed we’d have to wait forever for a new healer. That’s the only thing that would make sense the way this guy was acting. The shadow priest, after the run was over, proceeded to be nice to the paladin telling him where to get help and that sort of thing (because he obviously needed it). The paladin was receptive to it, and he asked where to get help. Oh, and the healer started the last boss while we were still killing the mobs in the room. Classy.
Beware of people who don’t answer in party chat in random dungeons also when directly queried.
I had 3 failed LFDs on 3 characters in one day yesterday, all due to players from EU Stormscale:
1) tank left after Falric after the item he wanted hadn’t dropped, leaving us to wipe on the wave after the boss
2) shaman “healer” in 2100 gear score (lev 65 greens, pvp gear, 0 gems and enchants) in VH, 3 wipes at Xevozz and we had to give up
1) mage in HoS complained that tank was pulling too fast – Stormscale tank pulled 4 groups of mobs and dropped out of group killing all party on purpose.
The 3 had in common that none of them wrote a single letter in party chat, though the shaman could actually be a little kid not knowing English.
Then I realized: I can’t put those guys on ignore and avoid grouping with them again if they don’t write in chat?
@jo
There is a way to ignore people that don’t chat. If you are running Recount, you can get their name and server from it. That’s how I do it.
.-= Nochecazador´s last blog ..Kill Shot Tuesday =-.
I got thrown into a run in H UK, which I have been seeing a great deal of lately, mid fight. I have no idea why, but I was on my pally and just started flashing everyone up as fast as possible. I lost the mage in the chaos, tank and the rest of the dps stayed up, and I rezzed the mage. I have learned not to question why the last healer left. You will never get the truth, or you won’t believe it. (The healer ^%#$^%# sucked. Or some other such nonsense) I say, “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.” And that goes double if you won’t believe the answer anyway. I look at a half finished run as that much closer to my frost badges.
Sad, but true, I know.
.-= Arkaneena´s last blog ..I am Iron Man =-.
I hate to say it but I’ve gotten pretty nasty when pugs do a constant mob pull or constantly over threat the tank. People forget folks are all differently geared and not every tank can hold aggro well.
So if you want to continually step on the tanks toes and pull, then I won’t be healing you on the final boss. Yes I’ve done it several times with no regret. Perhaps its the daycare provider in me putting them in timeout..not sure, but it does bring a smile to my face. That gotta count for somethin:)
.-= Cathy´s last blog ..Cataclysm – 5-mans =-.
HOS is my Gundrak as well. I don’t play as often as I used to, but when I do log on and the guild asks me to tank heroics, it seems like every other time it’s HOS we’re running.
As for the dps tanks, mages are my nemesis (with a few exceptions). Not sure why, but every time I get a random mage in the group, they want to jump out in front and facepull. I warn them the first time, yell at them the second time, and if there is a third time I just sit my character down and watch them die.
Drak’Tharon is definitely my Gundrak. Fortunately it is a quick run, but why is it that even some of the best geared tanks can’t seem to successfully tank the abominations in the room leading to Trollgore? More often than not a tank will run in and aggro the whole room. What happens? Both Wretched Belchers end up facing the group and spraying it with Bile Vomit. That, combined with their Disease cloud AoE, can quickly overwhelm a group. Most of the time you don’t get a chance to spam “Turn the mobs around” in chat before everyone starts to go down. My choice is to let them die for their mistake (and shadowmeld out to save from a complete wipe) or blow Divine Hymn, and any other cooldowns that will keep them alive through it. The problem with the later is that it ostensibly masks the tank’s poor tactics and gives him the false sense that everything was just fine. That reinforces their failed play style.
On one occasion I was running DTK with a guild member who was accruing emblems to gear his fresh 80 Pally healer. Whenever I run with him I go in Shadow form to afford him time to polish his healing skills. So, we get to Trollgore’s room and what does the tank do? Aggro-fest. Bile vomit everywhere and the Pally healer can’t hack it. I stop attacking and throw Abolish Disease down on everyone and then start spamming Flash Heal. We survive and everyone is happy. Except me, who knows that having kept everyone alive I probably did a bigger disservice. The tank may not even know about the mechanics of Bile Vomit and thinks that tank and spank is the way to go. My guild member, oblivious to the fact that I was back-up healing (I was standing behind him) thinks he’s healed the fight successfully, and loses out on the lessons a healer learns from a wipe.
And when I communicate these problems everyone just lols and says “it’s fine.” Obviously smashing your way through things is far superior to thinking a fight through. When I let the tank die I just get :
Tank: I didn’t get heals. WTF?
Me: You rushed the Belchers and didn’t turn them around. You need to face them away from me and the dps or we wipe.
Tank: Whatever. It’s fine. Just heal through it.
I refuse to drop group over such nonsense, but its sad when you have to use your oh-@#$% button on trash because your tank neglects his responsibility to think before acting.
LFG tool is wonderful and yet horrible. Some groups are just a delight. We join we say hi. We clear the dungeon. Perhaps a fast funny comment along the way and then we part again with a bb. But occasionally I bump into these groups were chemistry just isnt right. Some ppl always likes to play bully/act as leader/or bringing other ppl down. The fact that theres a good chance they never face the ppl they are trying to bully is only encouraging them to this behaviour.
Today I cleared Oculus with my warrior tank .. (for some reason I always get occulos) went smooth so I wanted more and went on my mage alt. After some time I got a group and we zoned into Azjol-Nerub. It went really fast the tank was literally pulling everything before the first boss. All went nicely until the pack of 2 mobs right before Anub. I accidently hit blizzard but quickly changed to single target dps. The tank asked me “Do you find it wise to blizzard 2 mobs”. I thought he was joking so I said something like “nah it was a mistake but I just changed it” Then the bullying began “stating that I was an idiot with a small brain” I got an easy lit temper so I answered back something like “Just because you had a bad day theres no reason to take it out on me. Go punch at a bag instead” to my big surprise the others ganged up on me on behalf of the tank chiming in that I was an idiot and had low dmg done (that mustve been a real offense in their eyes) which wasnt true. After Anub was dead the tank warrior ninjaed the item cuz as he said “its worth 15 g”.
Sigh sometimes I feel that Im getting to old for this game. In line with the original post I just ask. WTF did just happen there :S I know I shouldnt let it bother me but I do. And it makes me pissed because it means that he won over me and I hate when that happens.
I can deal with the tool bags and the smart remarks from players that clearly don’t have a smart gene in their body. What I simply dispise is when a party member (especially tanks) just up and leave group after we down a boss and said boss doesn’t have the item they were looking for.
Hello?
There are 4 other people here trying to finish this thing. Thanks for leaving us, with the next trash already engaged. Blizz should make a tool where if someone abandons group and the group wipes soon after, the abandoner has to pay the other 4’s repair bills.
So annoying….the “me first” mentality. Oh, I didn’t get my item? Ok, none of you get any items then because mine didn’t drop and I’m leaving. Lame.
Nice Lodur,
I’ve tanked some stuff on my shaman before due to awful/afk tanks including Voa trash but the way I’ve made heroics more interesting is by running on my dk – in dps gear with frost presence as the tank. With a healer from guild who hates slow heroics and actively encourages me to do so this form of tanking is a breeze. Add in 2/3 alts from my guild and we’re a machine with all 4 of us pumping out the dps. Leads to some laughably fast heroics.
Currently farming on my shaman for the last bit of pvp gear I need to do arenas. Still getting the facepalm moments, like the people who chewed out a dk for not interupting a heal (1st bos TOCHC) even though the other 2 dps in the party, myself and a mage were perfectly capable of doing it too but weere slacking.
.-= Echo´s last blog ..Update! =-.
As I have three healing characters and do my dailies on them all every day…I’ve gotten used to getting every type of group. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accepted a queue just to find a dead group or group at half health that obviously just rezzed after a wipe, and then I know that either their healer left them or they vote kicked the healer, it always leaves an ominous tone to joining.
But I enjoyed reading all these stories, I’ve been on both sides of the fence. Most of the time I get a group, no one really says very much but everyone goes through the motions and successfully downs each boss. I’ve gotten groups where members were new to their class or the dungeon, and if someone is receptive to help I’m usually patient and willing enough to help them out. I run into bad dps all the time, but I’ve never commented on it.
It’s only when someone else starts acting like a jerk that I feel the need to say something back, and it’s usually me putting up with them enough to get to the end of the instance and then telling them off and leaving group. If they’re bad enough though, that’s when it’s easier to just either vote kick them or leave the group instead of putting up with the frustration.
Got a lovely Oculus group the other day that I queued in on my disc priest with my ele shaman fiance (who pulled 60% of the dps) and got a 2700 GS bear tank, a 3k gs rogue and another 2k gs dps. Didn’t say much the whole time to the last boss…get to the last boss and proceed to wipe because the tank has no clue how to work the red drake. I simply say to him “Pls let ele shaman take the red drake because he knows how to do the fight and you don’t” and got a tirade back that included calling me profane names. I attempted to vote kick him but the dps obviously didn’t want to wait for someone else to join because they veto’d it. So we did the fight successfully, and that’s when I told him off and left. 😛