Bad Groups

[Paelos]

In general my biggest problem children personalities in my raids have belonged to healers. I've never had a DPS bitch at me over much beyond a few items, mostly because they know their place. When you are a good dps, you know it by the meters, and you also know where the raid stands. However, they rarely complain about loot to me in a raid. The healers complain all the damn time about fairness and drops.

In essence, I never thought about it that way, but I think it's because they know they are doing a job not many people want to do that they can hassle me about things. That doesn't really work as I really don't give a shit and will toss somebody out on their ass even if the raid has to shut down. People need to learn they no matter what job they do, they are not beautiful and unique snowflakes who can never be replaced by someone else. I can find people just as good if not better than myself to tank or dps. I can certainly find as good if not better people to heal by looking around a bit.

What really drives me crazy is there is often an inverse relationship between how good the healer is and the more bitching that is done.

[Fordel]

The big suck I find with healing is you are "useless" without your tank/dps buddy. Mind you, a WoW healer is a long, loooooong way from something like a DaoC healer class, but it is still the same issue.


Duel Speccing should alleviate some of that.

[Vash]

The big suck I find with healing is you are "useless" without your tank/dps buddy. Mind you, a WoW healer is a long, loooooong way from something like a DaoC healer class, but it is still the same issue.


Duel Speccing should alleviate some of that.

With the change from +heal/+dmg to spellpower for Wrath that isn't really much of an issue anymore for anyone other than possibly holy paladins.  I respec'd my 70 shadow priest to disc and had no problem leveling via quests to 80 with the occassional instance whenever I wanted to run one.

These days healers can kill stuff almost as fast as pure dps and the difference can more than be made up by easily getting an instance group whenever you want one.

It's just the endgame PvE that quickly becomes a snoozefest, that is typically the hardest hurdle to overcome for people considering playing a healer full-time.

[Sparky]

In general my biggest problem children personalities in my raids have belonged to healers...

Healers get the most abuse from retarded PUG DPS who feel they should be able to nuke away without regard to aggro and survive every time.  So it all balances out.

[Dren]

The big suck I find with healing is you are "useless" without your tank/dps buddy. Mind you, a WoW healer is a long, loooooong way from something like a DaoC healer class, but it is still the same issue.


Duel Speccing should alleviate some of that.

With the change from +heal/+dmg to spellpower for Wrath that isn't really much of an issue anymore for anyone other than possibly holy paladins.  I respec'd my 70 shadow priest to disc and had no problem leveling via quests to 80 with the occassional instance whenever I wanted to run one.

These days healers can kill stuff almost as fast as pure dps and the difference can more than be made up by easily getting an instance group whenever you want one.

It's just the endgame PvE that quickly becomes a snoozefest, that is typically the hardest hurdle to overcome for people considering playing a healer full-time.

My holy pally did fine solo'ing.  I wasn't really afraid of anything and could handle mass pulls.  I've been able to solo all of the elites for quests until Icecrown (at the higher levels.) 

While true that my priest can solo, it is not even close to the shadow priest experience.  While I was an SP, mana was not an issue.  Plus, DPS was substantially better.  So, time-to-accomplishment was very different.  Plus, there is absolutely no way my holy priest can solo elite mobs to end many of the quests out there.  Too low of DPS and too squishy.

[Vash]

I didn't mean to imply that holy paladins were terrible for soloing content, just that with limited dps abilities their dps and thus time to kill a given mob would be noticeably lower than other healers who have more dps abilities and those abilities scale better with healing gear.

I'm pretty sure Holy Shock + Judge + lol caster weapon dps is the watermark for boring a mob to death, not that it doesn't get the job done eventually.

[Soulflame]

My "rotation" is actually Judge, Holy Shock, Shield of Righteousness, Consecrate, followed by (if necessary) Holy Shock, Judge, Shield of Righteousness.  It's rare I need to do more than that, unless it's an elite mob.  Typically I seal wisdom, judge light, and I can go without stopping ever.  I could boost my dps by sealing righteousness, but it would potentially involve downtime.

I probably will dual spec Ret with 3.1, but that's not a given.  While I can burst mobs much faster as Ret, it's also more annoying due to having to heal every couple of pulls, and Holy is a bit more durable, to say the least.

[Vash]

To be fair, you don't get shield of righteousness till 75 and it doesn't scale with healing gear at all (spellpower).  The scaling of consecrate with spellpower is pretty miserable too.   Without actually testing it I still have confidence in my claim that holy paladins have significantly less single target dps than other healers in similar gear and fall further behind as they all gear up.

I'm not knocking them at all I'm just suggesting that they are probably the only healer left that still feels a little behind the curve w/o a dps or tank buddy, especially when it comes to leveling.

[Soulflame]

The solution to that is to level as ret.  When I switched from holy to ret at 73, the difference was astounding, and even infuriating.  Killing mobs went from drudgery to tolerable, or I daresay, even fun.

Geared out at 80, holy is... ok for doing dailies, or grinding through quests.  It's worlds above what holy was at 70, I assure you.  Especially on the blasted island.  Stupid mana draining mobs.

I do imagine it's still sheer drudgery for leveling though.  Particularly since quests are faster than instances when it comes to leveling, and who wants to heal sub 80 instance PUGs?   

[K9]

As a holy priest in semi-decent gear I do ~1.3K DPS on stuff like dailys. It's enough not to warrant respeccing every time I want to grind something.

[Soulflame]

Really?  1.3k dps?   

After some tinkering today, I top out at 1.1k dps, and this is in mostly 25 man gear, with 10 man filling the rest.

Blizzard has some 'splainin' to do.

[K9]

Got 1.1 on the heroic dummy with 2150 SP and ~19% crit. Daily mobs are a little higher due to having more CDs up and being lower level I guess.

[Fordel]

Normal mobs don't need very much hit rating.

[Rasix]

I seem to always get in the worst Naxx pugs.

Some Naxx pug with a bunch of raider alts and various others had 4 horse and Construct left.  I sent a tell saying they could have my shaman (elem) or DK, and they chose the shaman even though I told them the DK does at least 1K (or more depending on the fight) dps more on average.  They were a bit caster heavy so that may have played into their decision although I also told them my shaman has been 80 for 2 days (crafted epics and good luck have helped make him decent fast).

Since they only have 2 healers (yes, pug nax with 2 healers) I end up having to heal the OT in the front of four horsemen and they decide to start on the right leaving me having to heal Thane Korth'aaz and his fucking meteors by my lonesome for a few switches since our DPS is terrible. The OT is some shaman's alt and quite frankly stinks. So I end up biting it on just about every attempt. Luckily it only takes about 3 to get them down.  There's also 2 folks from some guild (DK and shaman) on their mains that can't seem to take any direction in Vent and keep doing dumb shit that causes wipes or slows down the dps considerably.

This pretty much persists throughout.  1 wipe on Patch. 1 on Grobb. OT kept dropping fart clouds in the middle, it was a miracle we got him down.  At least 5-6 wipes on Gluth because of trouble with the kiting.  The paladin MT couldn't do it and they couldn't keep the OT and a DK up during decimates. Finally we got a combination that worked (OT managed to kite it with his shaman).

1 wipe on Thadd's trash.  One shot on Thadd  himself after the terrible enhance shaman nearly wiped the raid because he didn't know his right from his left (there was even a demonstration beforehand but the guy couldn't even understand "you're on the wrong side, move").  And I decided to sleep at 3am instead of seeing what fun we could get into with Sapp and KT.   It took over 3.5 hours for just those bosses. 

That wasn't even the bad part.  The paladin MT this entire time was going off on anyone that messed up at all, except for the mage alt of some guy in the guild he likely wants to be in.  He was the kind of player that says "Good job. Congrats on sucking" after wipes.  I recognized his voice too from back in TBC.  I'm pretty sure he was kicked from my bad casual guild at the time for just being a wanker.  He wasn't even a good player.  His tank had gear, sure, but his positioning on Grob was some of the worst I've ever seen (he was moving him large distances at a time, wasn't long before clouds were overlapping).

At least I got a few upgrades. 

Edit:  But at least the paladin got yelled at for allowing me in his Vent.  Apparently one of the guild leaders or officers doesn't like much or something from our times together in another guild.  Beats me, but it's kind of funny when you hear a muttered "fucking Rasix" followed by "Asshole Paladin, one channel down, I need to talk to you".

[kildorn]

Pug Naxx <3

I've done it Once, and it failed right where I thought it would: monumental inability to not suck at Heigan. Like, half the DPS dead on the first goddamned dance, and the other half only alive because the two priests were pulling heroic level shit just to heal them while dancing.

Mine was the opposite though. Pally tank was solid and knew the fights, but kept getting fucked up because the mage raid leader would try and have her switch tactics mid fight. So we'd be healing through locust swarms, then suddenly he'd bitch at her to kite, and the healers would wind up having to chase someone while healing because it was too late to start kiting, etc.

I like guild runs. At least for the most part those aren't irritating and make me want them to end. I keep that from being a "never irritating" because, you know, fuck comcast.

[Zetor]

My favorite pug story involves a warrior who 'tanked' a live strat run using nothing but charge and thunderclap, circa march 2005. It was a 10-man pug, and aggro was all over the place; some dpsers were dying almost every pull. When we noticed what he was doing, and asked about defensive stance, he said "never did quest lol". Our feral druid 'healer' silently took over tanking at that point, and somehow we prevailed. 

More recent: I've been in naxx precisely once so far, on my holy priest. It was a guild-run naxx10 with two pugs (one of them me as healer #3), so I figured I'd get to see some bosses and stuff. Then the raid proceeded to wipe 6 times on anub'rekhan. The warrior tank would try to kite anub, but still eat every single tick of the swarms, and invariably die on the second, since I'd have to use guardian spirit to keep him up during the first one (and burn almost all my mana gheal spamming him, since the other priest mostly just spammed COH at the spider offtank and the druid HOTs weren't enough to keep him from dropping). Nobody said anything other than 'oh wells let's try again', then the tank/leader called it. Good times.
Of course this was fairly early into WOTLK and most of those people have champion-of-the-frozen-wastes titles by now. Even though I'm probably geared enough to run nax10/25 without problems (from os25, heroics, voa, etc), know how to not stand in fire, etc, people aren't willing to take pugs without a full-clear achievement. Somehow, I think this is a blessing in disguise.


-- Z.

[Paelos]

Anub wiped my 10 man group when we started at the beginning more than any other boss in the place. If given the choice between equally geared tanks, druids generally fare better at that fight than a warrior, and a pally simply should not tank that fight due to silences.

[kildorn]

What killed one of our priests in that pug attempt was both priests chasing the tank, and getting clipped by a silence. *sigh*

We tended to use a DK tank when first dealing with that fight. Since then I think anyone's been able to tank it with our better gear, but IBF always being ready was a lifesaver for hanging out through the swarms. I have pain supp now, though! <3

[K9]

During the kite just have a priest pop GS or PS on the tank and you can more-or-less forget about them while you reposition.

[Rendakor]

Long qqing rant inc.

So Ulduar's out now, which automatically makes Naxx25 ezmode, right? Following that logic, I see a group LFM for a mostly cleared Naxx; this was yesterday, 2 days before reset, and the only thing I need out of Naxx25 really is the Betrayer of Humanity. Upon further inspection, it appears to be a joint run between two guilds, which (to my niave little brain) makes it better than the average pug, so I assumed an easy win. Boy was I wrong.

I find out they have both 4h and Thaddius up, which set off an immediately flag: they didn't just wipe once on either of those bosses and call it, they wiped on one, then cleared through an ENTIRE wing to the next and failed there too. When they started asking about flasks and food, I just sighed. Who knew there were still guilds for whom Naxx25 was progression content? So, we clear the trash to 4h, explain the fight, get into position, pull. We get Thane to about 25% when someone in the back dies and Lady B starts going apeshit with the AOE. Wipe 1. Repeat, Wipe 2.

Next pull we get Thane down, then when we try to tag out from Rivendare to the back the tank drags the Baron back there with us. Wipe 3. After that we finally get the first two down with minimal hassle, then the 10 of us who knew how to count to 3 and switch targets manage to down the last two.

After that, we move to Thaddius, who, it is becoming very clear, the majority of the people here have never downed. First pull we wiped during tank toss because the rdps clustered on the ramp and he lost Tesla Link. We gave him three more attempts thereafter, with an average of two people missing the jump and 3-4 dying to the first polarity shift. Our last, most "successful" pull we had him to about 60% when we hit his enrage timer. "Wow, good try guys, we almost had him. Next time we'll get him, everybody release." Sigh, /leave.

Being masochistic, I went back today to similar results. Now, I'm not in a real guild at all; we have 4 level 80s, about 10 people total who are mostly RL friends. I'm not exactly used to super fast clears where we try for achievements. But I've PUGed Naxx 10/25 for the past few months with MUCH more success than this "guild" run. 

[Rasix]

RISE!

So, who'd have thunk that putting an ilvl 226 BOE drop in a repeatable daily might cause some drama?

Here's a replay of the events:

Warrior: Alright, everyone roll need on the mace.
*Two people had already rolled greed, including myself.
Warrior: Shit, everyone greed.
*Paladin needs and wins mace.  There was one other need (hunter).
Warrior: Ok, everyone roll again.
*Everyone rolls again.  Warrior wins with a 95.
Warrior:  Pally, can you give me the mace.
*Pally is afk.  A minute or so goes by.
Pally: No, my alt needs it.
Everyone in group: it's BOE.  You don't need for BOE and you only roll for your own toon in a group.
Pally: I'm not giving it back, I won the roll.
Hunter: Fucking ninja, I'm going to spam trade when I get into town.  (same hunter that needed on a stam trinket "for pvp")
Warrior: GIVE ME MY FUCKING MACE.
Me (on my shaman):  It was a mix up, there were need and greed rolls.  We rolled again and the warrior won.  I don't remember if you rolled, but roll and if you beat his roll you can keep the mace.
Pally: No, I won, I'm keeping it.
Me: This isn't worth ruining your rep over.
Hunter: How's this macro: "/2 Nuksukow is a ninja.  Do not group with him.  He just ninja'd the Tankard O' Terror in Direbrewfest."
*repeat the above for about 5-10 minutes*
*Paladin finally rolls and loses.  Argues for another 5 or so minutes and then hands over the mace.
Pally: I'm so fucking pissed right now.  I can't afford buying that on the AH.
Me: You'll live.

Apparently the warrior gave him the mace later.  I have no idea why, other than whatever that mace is going to end up being sold for at the end of tihs event isn't going to be significant to a lot of people.  Hell, I might pick one up.

This quest has a lot of people just needing on everything or greeding on shit they can't even realistically use.  Hell, I tanked one on my DK (horrid tank gear + frost presence + randomly hitting keys + boss that hits like a gnome) and two of the dodge trinkets dropped.  I didn't win either one as everyone in the group greeded on it including a hunter and resto druid(which I understand). A paladin was going to give one to me (after I made a sarcastic comment), but he was a nice guy during the group and I told him to keep it.

[Thrawn]

On my server I have never killed any VoA boss in 10 or 25 man in any pug I have ever joined.  Enough said.

[Rasix]

On my server I have never killed any VoA boss in 10 or 25 man in any pug I have ever joined.  Enough said.

I haven't done one in like 4 months.  My gear is so behind the curve, and I don't need some raider alt bitching about my DPS.

[Lantyssa]

This is why I love my guild.

A warrior trinket dropped, and with me being 74 I asked the warrior if he could use it, so I just passed.  It dropped again, so I got this one.  A third weird, but eventually useful for me, trinket dropped.  Someone else got it, but they were just going to sell/DE it, so they gave it to me.  Now I've got two purple trinkets for when I hit 80.

Reached 75 last night, so hopefully I can actually do the daily now.  It gave me the breadcrumb, but wouldn't allow me to do the actual quest. 

[Morat20]

This quest has a lot of people just needing on everything or greeding on shit they can't even realistically use.  Hell, I tanked one on my DK (horrid tank gear + frost presence + randomly hitting keys + boss that hits like a gnome) and two of the dodge trinkets dropped.  I didn't win either one as everyone in the group greeded on it including a hunter and resto druid(which I understand). A paladin was going to give one to me (after I made a sarcastic comment), but he was a nice guy during the group and I told him to keep it.

Can't do that quest yet (stupid level 69), but now that makes me wonder if my standard loot behavior is acceptable:

I need shit that I plan to equip on the toon I'm playing -- either equipt it right away  or, sometimes, after sockets and enchants. I won't need on something that I am more than a level short to wear.

I greed on anything BoE that I don't need, since I can sell it, give it to an alt, or sometimes melt it. Either way, I figure anyone that needs it will, you know, use the "need" button.

I pass on all BoP that don't fit the "need" criteria above.

[Rasix]

This quest has a lot of people just needing on everything or greeding on shit they can't even realistically use.  Hell, I tanked one on my DK (horrid tank gear + frost presence + randomly hitting keys + boss that hits like a gnome) and two of the dodge trinkets dropped.  I didn't win either one as everyone in the group greeded on it including a hunter and resto druid(which I understand). A paladin was going to give one to me (after I made a sarcastic comment), but he was a nice guy during the group and I told him to keep it.

Can't do that quest yet (stupid level 69), but now that makes me wonder if my standard loot behavior is acceptable:

I need shit that I plan to equip on the toon I'm playing -- either equipt it right away  or, sometimes, after sockets and enchants. I won't need on something that I am more than a level short to wear.

I greed on anything BoE that I don't need, since I can sell it, give it to an alt, or sometimes melt it. Either way, I figure anyone that needs it will, you know, use the "need" button.

I pass on all BoP that don't fit the "need" criteria above.

That's generally a solid way to act concerning loot.  I don't think anyone should ever need a BOE unless they're with friends/guildies, because everyone can sell a BOE item.

With the ability now to trade BOPs within your group, there's never an "oops" that can't be resolved.  Unless the offending person is stupid and/or a dick.

[Shrike]

I got my brewmaiden on the first run I did on Direbrew. That's all I really wanted, so I'm not setting foot in that snakepit again.

And why, oh why, was a paladin rolling on the tankard, if not to sell it? It's not like it does a protection pally (that knows how his class works...) much good. Furthermore, the thing is a glut on the Whisperwind AH and they're not selling for 4k gold (last I looked there were like 20 up for sale). I predict 400g buyout by the end of next week.

Edit: Just checked our AH minutes ago after running my JC daily: Tankards down to 2k buyout. Some having starting bids well under 1k already. 400g by end of brewfest, mark my words.

[Ingmar]

I got my brewmaiden on the first run I did on Direbrew. That's all I really wanted, so I'm not setting foot in that snakepit again.

And why, oh why, was a paladin rolling on the tankard, if not to sell it? It's not like it does a protection pally (that knows how his class works...) much good. Furthermore, the thing is a glut on the Whisperwind AH and they're not selling for 4k gold (last I looked there were like 20 up for sale). I predict 400g buyout by the end of next week.

Edit: Just checked our AH minutes ago after running my JC daily: Tankards down to 2k buyout. Some having starting bids well under 1k already. 400g by end of brewfest, mark my words.

If it gets that low I'll buy 2 just to have.

[Lantyssa]

I'm hoping to get one since Kali can use maces.  I'm also hoping I'm able to run it tonight since I wasn't yesterday, and probably won't be back on until next Monday.

[Rasix]

I'm hoping to get one since Kali can use maces.  I'm also hoping I'm able to run it tonight since I wasn't yesterday, and probably won't be back on until next Monday.

Aren't you a druid? Staves/polearms will likely give you a better bang for the buck.  Plus, there's several easy ones to get you won't have to spend money on.  

Don't be THAT druid.  Well, unless you're just going for aethetics.  Then knock yourself out.

[Ingmar]

Because of how stat distribution works with 2h weapons vs. 1h weapons and the fact that druids can't dual wield, there's basically no real use for a 1h mace as a feral other than looks. 2h maces are in the conversation with staves and polearms though for sure.

Its different on the healer/caster side of druids because there are actually off-hand items with useful stats for them.

[Lantyssa]

Don't be THAT druid.  Well, unless you're just going for aethetics.  Then knock yourself out.

I'm THAT druid in the sense of aethetics.  My bank is overflowing with clothes and weapons I deemed cool looking.  I certainly wouldn't need on it, and probably wouldn't use it regularly.

Maybe on my Oomkin, just so she always has a bierstein in hand.

[Fordel]

The Mug wouldn't do a Moonkin any good.

[Ingmar]

On the other hand, if it is just for aesthetics there are lots of other 'mug' weapons (and I think offhand items) out there these days, many of which I actually think have better models personally.

[Fordel]

You get a Mug for just showing up to Brewfest.