Bad Groups

[Zetor]

There also used to be legitimate cases of downranking before wotlk. On my lock I had rank 1 corruption on an alt-modifier (for spell reflects), and only used rank 1 drain soul; on my priest I had rank 1 psychic scream for soloing (much less mana, same duration, only affects less targets). As it turns out, as of 2 weeks ago I was *still* using rank 1 drain soul. 

[Lantyssa]

No it's some kind of bug with dual spec. Like if you upgrade the spells while in one spec, your spells in your toolbar on the other spec don't upgrade to the next level automatically like they should. I had done a few heroics on my freshly 80 Druid before someone pointed out two of my spells weren't the proper rank.

In addition to that, the default interface has gotten me a couple of times.

If you drag a new rank of ability over the old one, it slots it and puts the old one on the cursor, without a sound or other indication.  If you then swap them, you do get a sound like it did something, only you just slotted the old power back.  It turns out I had been running my Moonkin with downrank powers for a month because of this, and I never knew it until I was in a Wintergrasp battle with someone using Rankwatch.  The 10% damage bonus on top of three new emblem items made for a nice performance boost though.

[Hutch]

So you are saying there are players either too lazy or too cheap to buy skills as they level to 80?  Yet, they care enough about those characters to take them through random heroics?  I'm having a hard time understanding that mindset.

No it's some kind of bug with dual spec. Like if you upgrade the spells while in one spec, your spells in your toolbar on the other spec don't upgrade to the next level automatically like they should. I had done a few heroics on my freshly 80 Druid before someone pointed out two of my spells weren't the proper rank.

I actually ran on my main with Black Arrow (hunter survival tree) at rank 1 for, God, I don't know how long. Then one day I'm at the trainer for a respec and I see all my missing ranks. Talk about embarrassing. But I had to catch it myself; I don't think Rankwatch had been invented yet.

I was in a random heroic pug this morning, and my Rankwatch was going off all over the ret pally in our group. He had at least 4 things that were downranked. And he started making excuses like "it won't let me get Rank 6" (or whatever the number was). I thought to myself, it won't let you? Shenanigans. That was code for "I have a level 80 ret pally, but I never figured out how to accumulate gold in WoW."

Same kid ninja-needed both of the end boss drops. I didn't say anything, but I wasn't surprised either. I'm sure he'll sell them and then use the money for training 

[Dren]

I do believe I'll be getting Rankwatch tonight.  Thanks for the heads-up.

[Rasix]

I do believe I'll be getting Rankwatch tonight.  Thanks for the heads-up.

Helpful bit of advice, do a "/rankwatch none" the second you're in game, after installing it, on every character (outputs results to your chat screen only).  Otherwise it spams the shit out of people for lower ranked spells.  Really surprised they chose "giant paragraphs of condescension" as the default setting.  Well, given the nature of the program, perhaps I shouldn't be.

[Ingmar]

Yeah it is pretty amazing just how enormous that tell it sends is.

[K9]

I have it reporting to say, the tell function is overly patronising.

Say is good, but not too overt.

[Jayce]

I was a little embarrassed by the tells too.  Thanks for the tip.  I guess the author was good at lua, bad at composing non-condescending verbiage. It looks like he tried to be apologetic but shades of U SUCK NOOB came through anyway.

[apocrypha]

Helpful bit of advice, do a "/rankwatch none" the second you're in game, after installing it

Oh how I wish I'd read that BEFORE joining that 25 man Ulduar pug yesterday, just after installing Rankwatch.

All was well until we started on Razorscale. Still, most people were fine about it 

[Draegan]

I just got kicked out of a group after going through half of COS because I was dpsing in frost presence and didn't turn it off.  I was still doing 3k dps.  Not sure why I was in frost presence.  I guess I wasn't paying attention.

For some reason it really pissed me off.  Sigh.  We were basically at the end.

edit:
Oh I remember why I was in frost, the tank was moving slow and didn't know where to go in waves and went and pulled 20 zombies to get to the next group of mobs.

[Rasix]

I think I should get a ribbon for keeping this guy vertical in HPOS.  He was good at tanking, it's just everything from his low HP to his talent spec have me a bit off balance. I declined to continue on to HHOR.

[Jayce]

I think I should get a ribbon for keeping this guy vertical in HPOS.  He was good at tanking, it's just everything from his low HP to his talent spec have me a bit off balance. I declined to continue on to HHOR.

I kept thinking that he must not be his feral spec (he is) or not in his tank gear (he is).  Does the armory show true armor value for bears? 23,000 health is one thing - 6k armor?  Really?  It seems like he's wearing about half dps gear.

[Jeff Kelly]

Had one bad group last night. Random HHoR. When I zoned in there were already skeletons lying on the floor which iis always a bad sing because it meant the prior healer has left the group.

Big mouthed hunter kept telling everybody how to play although he only did 1500 dps, which was about the same I did with my dots that I kept up while healing the group. Less than the tank did and about half the DPS the other two DDs did.

Focus targetting was not something any one of them had ever heard of which meant that the mobs kept running around and hitting everybody in the group and because the hunter lacked dps every wave took longer than it should and the first boss nearly killed us because of his damage and heal reducing debuff.

I killed the first boss with my last dots because I was last man standing after everybody else had died from the boss debuff. (Greater Heals that only give back 2000 hp are not fun). Also I had used up every cooldown in the book including trinkets.

I tried to tell the hunter that he would need to bring more dps to the table if we wanted to get throught the dungeon. Unfortunately every time I did that he just posted the current recount ranking in party chat (which clearly showed everybody just how bad he was).

Best comment from him as everybody else sudfdenly decided to leave: "Come on guys I've managed to get through HdR with worse groups". This guy was in serious denial.

[Nevermore]

I think I should get a ribbon for keeping this guy vertical in HPOS.  He was good at tanking, it's just everything from his low HP to his talent spec have me a bit off balance. I declined to continue on to HHOR.

I kept thinking that he must not be his feral spec (he is) or not in his tank gear (he is).  Does the armory show true armor value for bears? 23,000 health is one thing - 6k armor?  Really?  It seems like he's wearing about half dps gear.

It does not.  Talents and Bear form multiply the amount of base armor and Armory won't show that.  I don't think it shows the extra armor in Frost Presence for DKs, either.

[Selby]

I'm learning tanking on my 66 warrior.  I'm not bad either, I've talked to enough tanks and studied enough that maintaining aggro on mobs is easy for me (provided the DPS doesn't unleash as I am charging in).  I've been running random BC dungeons with a healer from my guild, so we have both been remembering instances that we may or may not have run in years.  Saturday night, we get Underbog, which I haven't seriously run in almost 2 years.  I start pulling mobs and we're doing fine, except I choose to go the long way around (bad memory) and suddenly 2 DPS start mouthing off about "what a shitty tank" I am since I "obviously don't know where the fuck I am going" (their words actually).  So we had to kill some mobs for extra rep, so what?  Then the enhance shaman (with 2-hander) starts pulling mobs ahead of me since I'm obviously not going fast enough.  The healer says "pull ahead of the tank and I'm not healing you" to which the hunter says "F U, the tank is too stupid to know the right way" and the shaman says "ooh, tough guy aren't you?" at which point I tell them to enjoy their 30 more minutes in the queue and the healer and I both leave.  Granted, if we had been going on for half an hour like this, I could understand the complaining, but we hadn't been in the instance more than about 4 minutes and it was just some extra mobs that were on the way anyways.  And once our timer was up, both the healer and I got an instant-queue =P

Yesterday with the same makeup in Mana Tombs we had this special level 62 Hunter with us who kept having his pet taunt mobs off of me (I stopped taunting them back and let the pet die) and kept pulling ahead when I was waiting for patrols (resulting in 3 patrols of 3-4 mobs each all at once) or multi-shot-ing right as I was charging in and causing mobs to miss my Shockwave and other aggro-grabbers meaning I had to do some serious running around.  After he wiped us once, we kicked him when he refused to run back with the rest of us.

[fuser]

Fun playing my lowbie Pally in heirlooms this weekend when I ran into a hunter doing around 100dps and constantly afking in LFD upper city BRD (300 was on par for others in the group but the constant AFK had him low in the charts).

So we're clearing the room with the two brazier's you need to use the torch on and after yelling at the hunter to loot the flame keeper's corpse a few times I notice he's afk following the priest with no warning again.

Ffffffuuuuuu  

[Ironwood]

A ton dps in BRD ?

Ouch.

[Minvaren]

Yesterday with the same makeup in Mana Tombs we had this special level 62 Hunter with us who kept having his pet taunt mobs off of me (I stopped taunting them back and let the pet die)

I've started noticing this trend more and more as of late - Hunters/Warlocks playing pet tanking.  They'll pull something off of my stack-o-mobs and run over out of the way and play with it by themselves (naturally, just out of stomp range  ).  They generally live, which is a good thing, except that it takes noticeably longer to kill stuff with only 2 DPS on target...  I'm sure I'll change my opinion on this after the first wipe it causes.

On a side note, I'm beginning to get the Zen of PUG Tanking - just keep pulling.  It seems that people have a harder time telling you how you/your gear/the dungeon/etc.. sucks if they're too busy trying to keep up with you.  Except for that guy in most every group who uses "gooooooooooo" like some people use their car horn.

[Rasix]

Yesterday with the same makeup in Mana Tombs we had this special level 62 Hunter with us who kept having his pet taunt mobs off of me (I stopped taunting them back and let the pet die)

I've started noticing this trend more and more as of late - Hunters/Warlocks playing pet tanking. 

I've taken player pets off my Grid.  Pets that pull aggro die. I'm not going to heal Fido, you have tools for that shit.  If it gets hit by a chain heal, well, good for it.

[Dren]

Tanked HUK and had the warrior in the group continuously pulling ahead of me.  I basically over threated him, but it wasn't easy since he was pulling over 5k dps compared to my just under 2k.  My feeling was that if I couldn't hold it off of him and the healer couldn't handle the stress he'd be dead and left behind.  That never happened  though.  Kind of a pity.

Not sure what the rush was.  I only stopped to lewt cash/junk, otherwise was nonstop running through the instance.  I mean, are we getting to a point where 15-20 minutes is too long for an instance now? 

[Ironwood]

Yes.

There are badges to collect Bitchfist.

 

[Slyfeind]

A lot of my fails are coming from tanks.

One of my first random Deadmines. The guy was just standing there.
Me: Why are you not tanking? And why are you wearing a ROBE?!
The Tank: ah i dont no
Me: (Quit)

Last night, in Scarlet Monastery, adds were running around all over the place.
Me: Um...do you even know how to taunt?
Tank taunts you. Bring it on!
Me: ... (Quits)

[Selby]

I mean, are we getting to a point where 15-20 minutes is too long for an instance now? 

Seriously!  We were clearing BC instances in around 20-25m, which could probably be faster if I wanted it to be but I also want to make sure I don't wipe us by being overconfident (my healer gave me the "pull till I say 'mana'" signal and was keeping up).  I wouldn't do this with a PUG healer - a PUG priest I tanked for constantly went OOM healing, I suspected she was spec'd shadow but was trying to heal anyways but didn't bother to look.

Not to mention the sheer amount of DPS that are not focus firing the healers or CC'ers of the mob packs...

Questing for me is still faster than instance leveling, but when you're leveling a tank and anyone is near you level-wise, they want to run instances ;-)

[Jayce]

Tanked HUK and had the warrior in the group continuously pulling ahead of me. 

You pull it, you tank it imo. 

[Rendakor]

Tanked HUK and had the warrior in the group continuously pulling ahead of me.

You pull it, you tank it imo. 

This. Letting impatient DPS die is really my favorite part of the random daily; it's even better when I'm queued with a healer, that way they get to walk back and think about their mistake.

[apocrypha]

This. Letting impatient DPS die is really my favorite part of the random daily; it's even better when I'm queued with a healer, that way they get to walk back and think about their mistake.

Funnily enough I had the exact same experience with a dps DK lastnight in HUK. He died in the first 20 seconds because he just ran ahead and pulled the entire first room, leaving the tank way behind him. I tried to keep him alive the first time because I thought maybe he *was* the tank, but no, the tank said "let me pull lol".

DK does it again after I rez him, starts mouthing off about "fail healer!" when he dies the 2nd time.

6 deaths in and he ragequit the group and was replaced in <5 secs by someone with a brain 

[JWIV]

Yesterday with the same makeup in Mana Tombs we had this special level 62 Hunter with us who kept having his pet taunt mobs off of me (I stopped taunting them back and let the pet die)

I've started noticing this trend more and more as of late - Hunters/Warlocks playing pet tanking.  They'll pull something off of my stack-o-mobs and run over out of the way and play with it by themselves (naturally, just out of stomp range  ).  They generally live, which is a good thing, except that it takes noticeably longer to kill stuff with only 2 DPS on target...  I'm sure I'll change my opinion on this after the first wipe it causes.

On a side note, I'm beginning to get the Zen of PUG Tanking - just keep pulling.  It seems that people have a harder time telling you how you/your gear/the dungeon/etc.. sucks if they're too busy trying to keep up with you.  Except for that guy in most every group who uses "gooooooooooo" like some people use their car horn.

That only works when you have a healer that doesn't think he has to be at 100% mana before every pull.

[Arrrgh]

If I random with my tank I very rarely get a bad healer. I've put only one on ignore so far.

If I random with my healer I often get  bad tanks. And despite all the complaints I've had bad tanks of every sort and not just the endless string of dual wield DKs you'd expect from reading this thread.

So you have an idiot who's never tanked or healed and isn't geared properly to do either, and he wants shorter queue times I suppose so he decides to tank or heal. Why does he always choose to tank? I can't decide if it's DPS bias against playing a healing class, or if it's because tanking looks easier to people who've never done it.

[JWIV]

If I random with my tank I very rarely get a bad healer. I've put only one on ignore so far.

If I random with my healer I often get  bad tanks. And despite all the complaints I've had bad tanks of every sort and not just the endless string of dual wield DKs you'd expect from reading this thread.

So you have an idiot who's never tanked or healed and isn't geared properly to do either, and he wants shorter queue times I suppose so he decides to tank or heal. Why does he always choose to tank? I can't decide if it's DPS bias against playing a healing class, or if it's because tanking looks easier to people who've never done it.

My guess is the latter.  A good tank really makes it look easy - charge/throw,  spam aoe, call it a day.  It's the positioning and situational awareness that everyone fucking forgets. 

[Dren]

Jeez, bad groups are now a daily thing for me.  Last night:

- Tanking HoL.  Healer (druid) pulls first two groups by dropping from tree to hit them with wrath.  The healer.  I kicked him.  Immediately got a new one and we one shot the place in record time.  Me: "Stop doing that or I'll replace you."  Healer: "Doing what?"
- Healing OK. Tank doesn't know kill order on first groups so the flinger is wiping us.  Also starts clearing EVERYTHING!  Goes around the horn and starts in on that first boss you can skip.  A guildmate and I are telling him the right order and how to do things, but he keeps saying "Leave me alone."  Finally wipe on the first boss because I'm taking agro the entire fight.  Tank does absolutely nothing but attack the boss (obviously doesn't know the fight.)  My friend and I drop group.
- To show the difference a tank can make, I also tanked OK that night and we did it within 15 mins and no deaths.

[Minvaren]

If I random with my tank I very rarely get a bad healer. I've put only one on ignore so far.

I say, good sir, I agree.  Then again, as the tank, I'm generally first in line for the heals...   

Did (reg) PoS last night for the second time ever - no daydreaming allowed during that instance.  On the third attempt, LOLDPS figured out that maybe they shouldn't cast/wand spam on Tyrannus during the dialogue...  Good times, more emblems.

[kildorn]

A good tank is so trivial to heal that I doubt you'd notice a really bad healer (barring the new 5 mans)

Most disc priests I've played with lately have taken to smiting things at random for laughs. As much as mudflation has made everyone's favorite 5k heroes, it's also made tanks near indestructible in the older heroics.

I did have a tank who was doing something odd to wind up taking half his 48k health bar in damage suddenly every 10ish seconds in old heroics, but that was just odd.

[Dren]

Most disc priests I've played with lately have taken to smiting things at random for laughs. As much as mudflation has made everyone's favorite 5k heroes, it's also made tanks near indestructible in the older heroics.

My disc priest did a HPoS random last night and ended up doing 1600 dps.  Most of it due to using aoe on large groups.  Might as well, nothing else going on while the good tank is shielded and has refresh on him doing 1800-2000 per tick healing.  We flew through that instance.

[Slyfeind]

A good tank is so trivial to heal that I doubt you'd notice a really bad healer (barring the new 5 mans)

Most disc priests I've played with lately have taken to smiting things at random for laughs. As much as mudflation has made everyone's favorite 5k heroes, it's also made tanks near indestructible in the older heroics.

Yeah, I've got my restodruid up to 36 now. With good tanks, I'll toss a rejuv/renew on them then zap things with my moonbeams and stuff. A lot of bosses I'll turn cat then run up and pound on them. A lot of tanks aren't even taking a shield with them; they don't need it.

There are a LOT of idiots who think they can pull. I think I'll start every group with "If any one but the tank pulls, at any time, I am dropping the fuck out!"

[Jayce]

I had a geared healer in HNexus say he'd give me 100g if I could run him out of mana.  I failed.