Bad Groups

[Rasix]

So after a month of this, I hit the 540 def cap last night, 22K hp unbuffed as well.  Check a couple sites - yep, just barely cleared for heroics.  I research online as to where to start, and a few sites agreed : Violet Hold.  Skim some stuff on it, just looks like stronger mobs and an extra boss.  Well, about the same as Heroic Ramps back in the day.  I take a deep breath of courage, and queue for it.  Whoa!  They weren't kidding about tanks on heroics - it was about 3 seconds and a group was up.  I check ready and we all pop in.

Oddly enough, I was doing a regular FOS about a week ago when I ran into a low HP tank that did really well.  I get into the group and there's a terribly geared DK at 25k HP and a paladin with 22k HP, low mana, and a shield on.  I asked who's tanking and he pipes up.  I give a skeptical 'ok' but decide to continue on as the guy seems pretty confident.

He did great.  Guy held aggro and really never got in trouble.  He and the healer seemed to know each other.  He must have been a competent player's alt because he performed like someone totally overgeared for the instance.

Did a heroic HOR where I ran into a prot DPS pally.    Guy had the one handed DPS Quel'dar and a pretty high gear score. Ended up doing 4.1k DPS to my 3.6.  Still, I wonder what he could have done as ret.  

My groups lately have been pretty good actually. I've been running a lot of HFOS for specific items on alts and it's always amusing to see who the laser gibs.  

[Gobbeldygook]

Do Moonkin have shitty aggro control and/or was he specced wrong?  I've never had a DPS pull aggro from me unless they were retarded and attacked before I did.

They do have the standard .70 threat modifier, but Moonkin don't have any sort of aggro dump and depending on eclipse procs can have huge DPS spikes.

[Morfiend]

I got in my first terrible "elitist" group the other day.

The setup. Myself and 2 guild members queue up. I am a Ret pally, and do roughly around 4k dps. The other two where a Prot pally who was tanking and a mage who just dinged 80 on his first character a few days previous.

We get a DPS warrior and a druid healer with the random system.

We havent even finished buffing when the druid starts in on the mages gear "Whats up with this scrub mage in greens and blues?" and "Well, I guess this warrior is just going to have to make up for his crap gear". The warrior was rocking all 250+ ilevel gear. This prompted a quote from me "Gundrak is serious business".

We havent even finished the second pull and the druid and the warrior start complaining about the tank. "Can you possibly pull any slower" and "faster plz tnk". Now, the tank wasnt pulling slow, he just wasnt pulling more than 2 pulls at one time.

We continue through the instance and these two are just feeding off each other "Hey mage, how does it feel to know this warrior is doing twice as much damage as you?" and "pull fster tnk".

At this point, I tell the pally tank to remove Rightous Fury and let the warrior kill him self a few times cause he is being a real cock. The druid healer is refusing to heal anyone except the tank and the warrior, and its just a huge cluster fuck. We kill the last boss, and they start in again "You guys are such assholes". "You dont know how to play" and on and on.

It was really amazing what cockbags these guys where. I left the instance and put them both on my ignore list.

[Khaldun]

What I'm not liking: pugging Forge of Souls, thinking the Scorpion trinket is one of the few remaining plausible upgrades for me until my guild seriously starts running ICC 10 (I think this week, maybe). Five times it's dropped in a pug, five times I've lost it to the same kind of toon, also rolling need:

a paladin tank.

For whom armor penetration is totally suboptimal.

I really don't mind when people are low dps, or are struggling a bit with tanking or healing. I have never said boo about that. I do mind when some cuntwhistle doesn't know his own class to the point that he's grabbing any shiny shit that drops. Fuckers are just going to bank or sell the goddamn thing.

[Nevermore]

That Paladin tank was likely rolling on the trinket for his DPS spec.

Out of courtesy I don't roll on tank drops if they need it when I'm DPSing with my DK (even though my tank spec is technically my 'main' spec) but apparently I'm one of the few people left who retain any kind of manners in random PUGs since this weekend on three different occasions a tank has out-rolled me for the DPS plate boots in RoF.

[Soulflame]

Last night, was running PoS as dps (boomkin  ) for a guildie who was also alting (holy paladin!) and wanted the shield from the last boss.  We get first boss down, he drops a 2H, the ret gets it, although I missed that the tank (DK) had also rolled on it.  Next boss, a plate belt drops, the ret wins again, and that's when it all went south.

DK starts whining that the paladin won the 2H, and he deserves the belt.

Ret points out the DK rolled on the 219 2H, and was rocking a 232.

Ret then points out the DK already has an epic belt, and the ret is rocking some blue.

DK has a fit, and leaves.

Oh but then it gets better.  Turns out they're both in the same guild, and the DK starts whining to the GM.  According to the ret, the GM basically tells the DK he lost fair and square, and to stop being a problem.

We wait around for about 20 minutes queued up for a tank while the above story unfolded in bits and pieces, until one of the offtanks in my guild logged on, at which point the holy paladin alt recruits him to finish up the instance.

Shield drops, holy paladin wins it, everyone goes home happy.

[Draegan]

I'm soooo looking forward to getting enough defense gear for my warrior as I roll with my alt fury spec.  Yee-haw.

[Rasix]

What I'm not liking: pugging Forge of Souls, thinking the Scorpion trinket is one of the few remaining plausible upgrades for me until my guild seriously starts running ICC 10 (I think this week, maybe). Five times it's dropped in a pug, five times I've lost it to the same kind of toon, also rolling need:

a paladin tank.

For whom armor penetration is totally suboptimal.

I really don't mind when people are low dps, or are struggling a bit with tanking or healing. I have never said boo about that. I do mind when some cuntwhistle doesn't know his own class to the point that he's grabbing any shiny shit that drops. Fuckers are just going to bank or sell the goddamn thing.

To pour some salt in the wound, I saw a mage wearing that yesterday.  It's odd playing my shaman and DK in that instance because there's certain offspec items I really want but I always defer if I'm not in the right spec for it.  I just won't roll need against a tank for tank items on my unholy dps DK or against a melee for melee DPS items when I'm on my elemental shaman.  I just can't mentally do it.  It would have no reprocussions likely as I could just finish, drop, ignore the whiners and I'd never see any of them again.  Oh well.

I've lost the roll on the hilt twice in 2 days.  Both Forge of Souls on my shaman.  My dice usually rock, which is causing me much annoyance here.  I have no idea what character I'd give it to really, as I'm not sold on what class is going to be my main in Cat.  

[Evildrider]

What I'm not liking: pugging Forge of Souls, thinking the Scorpion trinket is one of the few remaining plausible upgrades for me until my guild seriously starts running ICC 10 (I think this week, maybe). Five times it's dropped in a pug, five times I've lost it to the same kind of toon, also rolling need:

a paladin tank.

For whom armor penetration is totally suboptimal.

I really don't mind when people are low dps, or are struggling a bit with tanking or healing. I have never said boo about that. I do mind when some cuntwhistle doesn't know his own class to the point that he's grabbing any shiny shit that drops. Fuckers are just going to bank or sell the goddamn thing.

To pour some salt in the wound, I saw a mage wearing that yesterday.  It's odd playing my shaman and DK in that instance because there's certain offspec items I really want but I always defer if I'm not in the right spec for it.  I just won't roll need against a tank for tank items on my unholy dps DK or against a melee for melee DPS items when I'm on my elemental shaman.  I just can't mentally do it.  It would have no reprocussions likely as I could just finish, drop, ignore the whiners and I'd never see any of them again.  Oh well.

I've lost the roll on the hilt twice in 2 days.  Both Forge of Souls on my shaman.  My dice usually rock, which is causing me much annoyance here.  I have no idea what character I'd give it to really, as I'm not sold on what class is going to be my main in Cat.  

The battered hilt weapons, while nice, are comparable to the 251's that drop out of ICC 10.  I was trying hardcore to get a hilt, but then I got a Axe drop out of ICC 10.  Now if I got one, it'd be AH fodder to buy me some primordial saronite.

[Rasix]

Eep.  Got your quotes messed up there.  

Hilt would be nice, because I'm never going to do any raiding outside of one-off bosses and pug Onyxia runs (which can be dreadful) never seem to be going when I'm on.  Weapon upgrades are always the hardest for those of us that don't do any significant raiding.  They really did awesome with this for the ICC instances, where you can get almost any kid of upgrade just by doing the regular versions.

[Evildrider]

Ugh stupid quotes.  Ya ICC 10 was actually first successful raid.  I got lucky and got a new trinket and axe though.

[Ingmar]

Eep.  Got your quotes messed up there.  

Hilt would be nice, because I'm never going to do any raiding outside of one-off bosses and pug Onyxia runs (which can be dreadful) never seem to be going when I'm on.  Weapon upgrades are always the hardest for those of us that don't do any significant raiding.  They really did awesome with this for the ICC instances, where you can get almost any kid of upgrade just by doing the regular versions.

Everything but a 232 weapon for elemental shamans /fistshake.

Minvaren: next time wait for one of them to drop group first, and you won't have to eat the 10 minute wait. Once someone ditches a group the rest of you lose your queue debuff.

[Khaldun]

Armor penetration even for a paladin *dps* is not a good stat.

[Nevermore]

But the gearscore, man!  THE GEARSCORE!!!

[WindupAtheist]

I have no idea what character I'd give it to really, as I'm not sold on what class is going to be my main in Cat.

It's going to be replaced by some quest blue at level 82 or something anyway.

[Ingmar]

I have no idea what character I'd give it to really, as I'm not sold on what class is going to be my main in Cat.  

You give it to your ele shaman of course, since its his only post-219 non raid upgrade. Unless you count that stupid mp5 dagger.

[Evildrider]

But the gearscore, man!  THE GEARSCORE!!!

Lawl.  I hate the infatuation with gearscore and crap that alot of players have.

[Selby]

Lawl.  I hate the infatuation with gearscore and crap that alot of players have.

I have Nibelung equipped purely for the novelty factor of it and that being a 264 item it makes my gearscore look l33t.  I don't even raid in it because it's a 100DPS drop compared to 2 251 pieces from ICC-10, but I think it's fun to game the system and annoy people in my guild.

[Evildrider]

Lawl.  I hate the infatuation with gearscore and crap that alot of players have.

I have Nibelung equipped purely for the novelty factor of it and that being a 264 item it makes my gearscore look l33t.  I don't even raid in it because it's a 100DPS drop compared to 2 251 pieces from ICC-10, but I think it's fun to game the system and annoy people in my guild.

There are a couple of people in my guild that everytime they log off, they put on all their best gear so that it shows on WoW-Heroes how leet they are.

[Selby]

There are a couple of people in my guild that everytime they log off, they put on all their best gear so that it shows on WoW-Heroes how leet they are.

The only reason I do it.  Not so much about "look at me!" or to advertise anything as about the "Fuck! The #1 guild gearscore again?" comments from the number crunchers in the guild.

[Azuredream]

I had a group dissolve upon formation in H CoS today. I know the 5 minute intro is kinda boring, but it is 7 badges if you stick it out.. /sigh

[Simond]

I had a group dissolve upon formation in H CoS today. I know the 5 minute intro is kinda boring, but it is 7 badges if you stick it out.. /sigh

Blizzard are working on it

DW Tanking is perfectly fine..  if they spec the DW talents, meaning they need to be Frost Tanks.  The number of DW Blood Tanks I've seen lately has been mind boggling, though.  Just because you can equip a weapon in each hand doesn't mean it's always a good idea to do so.  I hope I get grouped with one of these innovators once my Shaman is 80.  I'll start whacking things with a staff in my Enhance spec and wait for them to say something.   

They also really should be using slow DPS weapons (i.e. shaman weapons) with +def runes rather than tanking weapons as a dw frost tank, or otherwise threat can be a little patchy.

[Khaldun]

Got in a random yesterday with a paladin tank who was mostly in ICC-10 gear with a few ToCG-10 things. It was UK. He takes off at a clip through the instance, running all the way to the first boss without stopping at all. Not once. There was me (combat rogue), warrior and mage on the mobs, all three above 4kdps. We were managing to take shit down--I was doing blade flurry + killing spree or fan of knives when that was on CD, mage was nuking, warrior was whirlwinding, since we were dealing with packs of 20+ trash trailing behind the tank. Naturally he wasn't doing a tight job of holding aggro, he hardly could have. So sometimes a not-quite dead mob would turn on me or the mage. Everything was dying so fast that it couldn't do too much to us, and the healer was doing an awesome job of keeping us going.

So we get to first boss and the tank says, "Rogue and mage u guys need to stay on my target n00bs or u die". I was like, "Yeah, son, let me explain a few things to you here. You either get to focus fire or you get to crazy-ass chain pull, you don't get both". He says, "I kick u now noob, vote kick plz". Of course the others don't kick me. He shuts up and just keeps going, fine. I assume basically he's just running shitloads of randoms to get triumphs so he can sell crusader orbs--I suspect this is probably the new gold-farming standard, in fact, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's exactly what he was.

I thought Blizz did a good job kicking the economic feet out from underneath gold farmers, but 3.3 has reintroduced some serious gold-farming niches into the economy, as well as a serious driver of demand, the Battered Hilt + primordial saronite.

[Draegan]

Hey if I can roll with uber gold farmers for badges once I hit 80, I'm a happy man.

[Nevermore]

DW Tanking is perfectly fine..  if they spec the DW talents, meaning they need to be Frost Tanks.  The number of DW Blood Tanks I've seen lately has been mind boggling, though.  Just because you can equip a weapon in each hand doesn't mean it's always a good idea to do so.  I hope I get grouped with one of these innovators once my Shaman is 80.  I'll start whacking things with a staff in my Enhance spec and wait for them to say something.   

They also really should be using slow DPS weapons (i.e. shaman weapons) with +def runes rather than tanking weapons as a dw frost tank, or otherwise threat can be a little patchy.

For raiding yes, although I'm hearing you lose very little threat using a slow dps main hand and faster tank offhand.  For Heroics you can get away with two tank weapons as long as you have Threat of Thassarian.

Yesterday I grouped with yet another Blood Tank DWing two Rimefangs, complete with +Block plate gear and specced into 2H specialization.    I was ecstatic when later on that night we actually grouped with a DW DK tank with a good Frost spec!

[Khaldun]

Sure, I just don't want some farmer telling me that I have to make up for his chain-pulling and weak threat generation. I was tempted to just say in /party, "Hey, dps, let's just hang back here and let the hero kill it all". But I didn't want to spend any longer in there than he did.

[Sheepherder]

Blizzard really should redesign all instant melee attacks to operate off of a multiple of weapon DPS rather than damage, and strike with both hands if dual-wielding (with the off-hand doing 65% of normal damage).  It would uncomplicate designing weapons and talents for a lot of classes.

[K9]

Are any other healers finding DK tanks, especially blood tanks, worryingly squishy? It may just be coincidence, but I had a guild DK who is a competent play who I trust, but his tanking as blood was worrying in terms of how spiky the damage he took was. I would consider that a fluke, but I've had a string of these blood tanks now and they all seem to require more healing than prot, feral or frost tanks.

[Rasix]

I've had a lot of healers complain about DK tank squishiness in groups I've been in.

My guild has found the cure for complaining about bad DPS in randoms.  We just started all running our RDF groups together.  While none of us is godly geared (and I was using my Naxx level shaman), everyone doing 3-3.5k+ DPS makes short work of an instance even if the tank is bad.  Still sucks that we have to wait standard DPS times in the queue, but we don't get stuck with Billybumfuck the 71/0/0 DK doing 600 DPS.  Even bad tanks are barely noticeable with this.  We had a bad one for AN, but only really my feral druid friend would pull any aggro and if it was on a boss he'd just pop into bear and finish that way.

I imagine once my feral friend decides he wants to actually tank, we'll run through an obscene amount of heroics per night... bitching the entire time about the gimp healer and r-tard dps.

[kildorn]

bitching the entire time about the gimp healer and r-tard dps.

From personal experience: don't do this. It will lead to random sudden drama and years of getting shit for it.   

[K9]

I have no idea what character I'd give it to really, as I'm not sold on what class is going to be my main in Cat.  

You give it to your ele shaman of course, since its his only post-219 non raid upgrade. Unless you count that stupid mp5 dagger.

well.... this is only true is you assume Shamans have to use MH+Shield

My Shaman is using the heroic version of Enlightenment, which is really pretty sweet for resto and elemental shaman.

[Sheepherder]

DK's lack block and short cooldown damage reduction they can reliably activate prior to the fight.  Blood in particular is built around a saving throw talent that scales inversely with stamina and against heroic trash may actually do nothing if the trash hits for less than 5% of the tank's maximum health, and a low tier talent that only activates ~4.5 seconds after the mobs have begun beating on him.

[Simond]

Are any other healers finding DK tanks, especially blood tanks, worryingly squishy? It may just be coincidence, but I had a guild DK who is a competent play who I trust, but his tanking as blood was worrying in terms of how spiky the damage he took was. I would consider that a fluke, but I've had a string of these blood tanks now and they all seem to require more healing than prot, feral or frost tanks.

Well, DK tanking has had nothing except nerfs since the class was introduced so it's about par for the course.

[Fordel]

It took the entire expansion, but DK's finally lived up to the Beta worry of them being too spikey on damage intake!

[K9]

Perhaps, I find frost tanks fairly solid.