Bad Groups

[kildorn]

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

It takes a few minutes of raid intensive healing to run a geared healer out of mana and tricks. I hate hate hate when tanks insist I be at full mana for heroic trash pulls. ><

[Rendakor]

If he wasn't on your server, the bet was moot anyway, as you cannot trade gold across servers.

[ezrast]

Just got back in on a scroll of resurrection; I figure I'll sub for a month and try to get my resto shammie up to cap and into some raids.

Healed Stratholme deadside with this level 65 warlock in tow. He and his felhunter (which was set to aggressive the entire time) managed to dispense about half the damage of the level 55 paladin tank. I begrudged every point of mana I spent on him.

Fortunately, I just hit the point where I can do outland instances, which are so easymode compared to the classic endgame stuff. Sort of a shame; I was hoping to see all of Dire Maul before I moved on. Finding decent groups in that level range is just impossible though.

Also had a tank pull out the classic "One wipe and I'm gone." at the beginning of Dire Maul North. Sure, we're going to just breeze through (former) endgame content that nobody remembers how to do anymore in a PUG. How the hell can you even queue for that without expecting to take a durability hit or two? My friend and I told him to stuff it, he left, and the group fell apart.

[Rasix]

For the first time I had to leave a group because the people were too damn annoying (helps that it was HOS).

First we're sitting around for like 5 minutes after the entire group is there.  Tank, healer and mage are just chatting (same guild).  I ask if we can start killing stuff and the tank finally pulls then offers up some dumbass retort.  

Pulls are really slow.  Tank and mage chat a lot.  We do maiden first where of course someone dies because the tank always gets stunned. Warrior paused to get a beer (announces it of course).   Mage and tank have some really stupid back and forth insult talk.  I think the tank is flirting up the mage. Then we pull to the rock guy where it's REALLY slow again.  So slow that I just start popping ToT on the tank and running up and AEing the shardling packs.   Almost everyone dies on the rock guy boss because apparently putting hots on people when you're a 5k GS druid is HARD WORK (never bothered to heal people between shatters).  

So, during the recovery, the hunter gets lost and can't find their way into HOS.  The tank starts talking about it being "shot time" and busting out his Soco.  The mage and him start bantering back and forth like retarded frat kids and I've finally had enough.  

"You guys are way too annoying.  Later."

Group before I was a DPS fill in because they couldn't finish H Nexus.  "Maybe we should jump around this time."  Well, it was pretty easy to find out why they were dying so much.  Paladin was healing with spells 2 ranks or more lower.  I didn't check their gear, but I'm pretty sure it would have been greens and blues.  Paladin managed to let the tank die but at least it was near the end.  And my rogue (in like his 3rd instance ever) was top DPS.. yah, I bet these guys had a fun time getting to the end. 

[Dren]

I swear it is either all or nothing now.  I'm either in a group that is annoying and/or can't finish even a standard heroic or we just blast through the instance with little to no trouble.

That latter case actually turns out to be better than a full guild run.  Full guild runs now are not great because everyone is *too* laid back.  It turns into what Rasix described.  Then people fail and we wipe on some of the easiest encounters!  It doubly sucks because you don't have anonymity with them.   You can't complain or just drop without serious repercussions.

It is werid how that has come full circle.

[Nebu]

Here's an interesting question that came to mind last night: Do you think that the improved LFG tools will disrupt some guilds? 

I can envision a scenario where you meet some folks that really know what the hell they're doing and it causes the better players in some guilds to second guess their affiliation with that guild.  It used to happen a lot in DAoC, but pvp tends to breed some pretty competitive asshole personality types. 

[Soulflame]

I had a terrible group on my hunter yesterday, it managed to fail in HUK.  A druid healer could not keep up a 41k hp tank.  To be fair, the druid looked like a relatively fresh ding, and the DK kept overpulling.  Plus it was slow going, the tank would pause between pulls, the druid wouldn't pre-heal (I always toss at least a rejuve) and I think he was healing wrong anyway.  I think he was spamming nourish without running any hots on the tank.  On top of that, the tank wasn't that hot at threat, the mage kept pulling mobs on himself, which of course ended up with him dieing horribly.  We suffered at least three wipes, then the tank decided to drop, and I followed right after.

Queue up again, dungeon group is in progress.  Uh oh.  Pop in, it's HHoS, and they're on the last boss.  I'm pretty sure they kicked some terribad DPS, because I don't see any skeletons.  Burned the boss, frosties for almost no effort!  So it all worked out in the end.

[Rendakor]

Here's an interesting question that came to mind last night: Do you think that the improved LFG tools will disrupt some guilds? 

I can envision a scenario where you meet some folks that really know what the hell they're doing and it causes the better players in some guilds to second guess their affiliation with that guild.  It used to happen a lot in DAoC, but pvp tends to breed some pretty competitive asshole personality types. 

If the LFG tool was server-based, you'd probably see that happening a lot. However, it's pretty rare now for me to see someone from my server, so I don't think it will be an issue. I can't imagine someone paying $25 for a server transfer because they grouped with some guys who were pro in H HoL or something.

Now, if they ever figure out a way to make cross server raiding a possibility...

[Jayce]

Queue up again, dungeon group is in progress.  Uh oh.  Pop in, it's HHoS, and they're on the last boss.  I'm pretty sure they kicked some terribad DPS, because I don't see any skeletons.  Burned the boss, frosties for almost no effort!  So it all worked out in the end.

Those are the best.  I came in for Paletress in a HToC group a while back; 2 bosses, 2 drops I could use, 2 Frost emblems for about 5 minutes of work. The most concentrated purple in 5 minutes I've ever had.


I ran Nexus on random last night.  We had a serious problem of healers dropping everytime they noticed it was Nexus, one who disconned and we couldn't kick him for a few minutes, and the one DPS who barely cracked 500 dps (who we kept anyway). I had to remind him (warrior to warrior) to keep up Battle Shout.   As the tank I was out dpsing him by 1000.

Even with all that, we one-shotted the place and collected our extra loot.

[JWIV]

It cracks me up that people bail out of Nexus.  It's really not that long.   I'm more surprised that people don't immediately drop out of Old Kingdom since wiping on the third pull seems to be almost typical for most of the PUGs running it.   I swear that instance just brings the retard out in people.

[Rasix]

Here's an interesting question that came to mind last night: Do you think that the improved LFG tools will disrupt some guilds? 

I can envision a scenario where you meet some folks that really know what the hell they're doing and it causes the better players in some guilds to second guess their affiliation with that guild.  It used to happen a lot in DAoC, but pvp tends to breed some pretty competitive asshole personality types. 

Like someone else said, not likley.  5 man stuff outside of HHOR is so easy that it's not any sort of true barometer of player skill or group cohesion.  There may be the odd situation where person looking to quit guild gets paired up with competent people in similar gear and decides to inquire.   But that would be extremely rare and as has been pointed out, would likely require a server transfer.

Of course it may result in some "good god, you're a fucking douchebag.  No guild is worth this. /ragequit".  But I'd be fairly certain the guildies may be exposed to other guildies lack of social graces before they hit the 5 mans for faceroll badges. 

The funny thing is when my guild does a 4 man (that's everyone) group for heroics and we got someone I knew from my server "Ohh Shu'halo people, I guess I better try."  And knowing the person, he was likely dicking all of his other groups.  It's still the best if we can get everyone together, because it's really easy to marginalize one shitty dpser, but everyone's not always just looking to grind heroics when we're on (everyone PVPs).

[Gobbeldygook]

Now, if they ever figure out a way to make cross server raiding a possibility...

Blizzard's said cross-server raids are coming, they just need to figure out how to deal with raid IDs and lockouts.  I'd bet money on cross-server AH's in the not-so-distant future too, but they've said nothing about that.
---
I have no idea why you'd drop from Nexus.  Most of my groups take just over 15 minutes to clear it.

[Dren]

Here's an interesting question that came to mind last night: Do you think that the improved LFG tools will disrupt some guilds? 

I can envision a scenario where you meet some folks that really know what the hell they're doing and it causes the better players in some guilds to second guess their affiliation with that guild.  It used to happen a lot in DAoC, but pvp tends to breed some pretty competitive asshole personality types. 

Possible.  For us, it has been more about getting more inquiries on requirement.  We get 10x or more the exposure to the general masses now.  So, if people with no guild have a good experience, they ask if they can join.

[Selby]

Here's an interesting question that came to mind last night: Do you think that the improved LFG tools will disrupt some guilds?

To concur what others have said, it's not raids.  Raids are where the high end guilds show whether they are worth it or not.  An old guild affiliated with my last 2 is a great example.  They are decently geared, but killing Marrowgar in ICC-10 is an hour and a half experience for them.  My current guild we clear through Saurfang in less than that time.  They run steamroll heroics great, but as a raid guild they need loads of work.  And everyone who PUGs alts on the weekends or off-nights finds out quickly which guilds that like to be called "raid guilds" are truly worthy of the name or not.  I know that if I get into a PUG 25-m run with mostly 4-5 guild names that I know, it's going to be a most excellent run.  And I know if I get with a bunch of unguilded people or guilds on my shitlist, I know it's going to be horrible experience.  With 4 raiding characters doing top tier content, I get exposed to a lot of good and bad that you just don't see in heroics.  The LFD tool didn't really change this, you already knew which ones are run by assholes even if they are stellar and which ones are worth it.

The weekly raid is a GREAT expose of who sucks vs. who has their shit together (Ignis 2 nights ago had a 5k DPS, a 4k, and the rest under 2k).  It's also a way to get known to the big name guilds when you are in a "casual" guild as they run alt runs all the time and need quality healers, etc and will ask you to come fill in.

[Rendakor]

Holy fuck, awful group in H UK. With no warning, warrior tank pulls the whole first room (both sides) and wipes us. Healer bails; before LFD can find us a new healer, the tank is already pulling the rest of the mobs, wipe #2. We finally finish the entrance trash after getting a new healer, move into the first large room. Down the first trash no problem, and I start to think things might be ok. Then the tank DCs. I immediately begin attempting to votekick, but there was a loot roll so I wasn't allowed. He logs back in, starts pulling again, overpulls, gets the healer killed because Mr Overzealous can't hold hate. Healer bails, tank does not stop pulling. With lots of CC we manage to clear up to the first boss, when a healer finally joins. Captain Impatient, however, aggros the last pack of trash AND the boss with the healer still at the entrance.  Tank pops all his cooldowns and manages to live just long enough to put the healer in combat. Tank dies, healer dies, I invis and run like a scared little forest blood elf. Everyone zones back in, we get to the boss, the skeleton adds kill the healer because the tank doesn't touch them, tank dies, I mirror image, pop my CDs and blow the boss up, then bail, after putting Tanky McFail on ignore.

[Jayce]

Holy fuck, awful group in H UK.

...

after putting Tanky McFail on ignore.

This made me thing 2 things - 1) you're way more patient than I would have been.  15 minutes is a small price to pay.  2) If this is a failtank, then I'm Mr. Incredible by comparison. I often doubt my abilities, especially if I let an add get away for the 8 seconds it takes taunt to cooldown, but now I feel pretty good.

[Rendakor]

Well, to be fair I was 3 triumphs away from my t9 head; I had just left a fail H HoR after two wipes, so I really wanted to stick this out and get my goddamn hat. It was also late, and I didn't feel like sitting out for 15m from deserter, then 10m more in queue.

I also have two tank characters (a raid geared DK and a poorly geared Warrior) so I try to give people a little leeway, because I know that tanking isn't easy. If an add gets loose but no one dies, no big deal. The shit this guy was doing though... 

[Soulflame]

Something neat I learned not too long ago, you can leave group in mid-combat.  Which will instantly port you out of the instance.

[Merusk]

I've noticed if I dump group in priest holy form, I don't get the deserter debuff.  I'm not sure but I think the same is true if you dump on the rez run as well.

[Selby]

I've noticed if I dump group in priest holy form, I don't get the deserter debuff.  I'm not sure but I think the same is true if you dump on the rez run as well.

You can dump and not get deserter, I've noticed this several times.  I am still not sure what exactly are the requirements.  I know for sure if you are the last one in the group left, you don't get it (all 4 others leave first).

[Rendakor]

I believe one (or maybe two?) wipe allows you to drop group without getting deserter.

[Minvaren]

Note to self : never attempt AQ40 again in a PUG unless you're running it.  The twins seem to warp people's minds.

[Selby]

The twins seem to warp people's minds.

The twins eat PUGs regularly.  All the time.  C'thun ate guilds for breakfast too.  That raid is just flat out evil and horrible.

[Merusk]

Yeah, I finally got that raid on my DK by going with a partial PUG.  It was 12 people, 1/3 of which was a guild. They required us to get on vent to explain shit to the folks who hadn't been there before.   Even with all that when we got to C'thun we wiped about 7 times before EVERYONE wholly understood "oh, everyone has to run in AT ONCE."

[Rasix]

The twins seem to warp people's minds.

The twins eat PUGs regularly.  All the time.  C'thun ate guilds for breakfast too.  That raid is just flat out evil and horrible.

Twins and C'thun only got to eat guilds if they managed to get by Princess Huhu without killing each other.  Three guild destroyers where BWL really only had one (Vael).  It was brutal.

Last night was a bad night for groups.  First group had an impatient and snotty tank, who when he failed to get a mage kicked (for not putting up with his shit), tried to wipe the group on the end phase of the Prophet.  Luckily the DK just popped army and we were through.  

Second group was a HFOS group where half of the group was under geared (including me).  The shadow priest and the paladin were just horrible and no shock they were in the same guild.  The warrior tank was sturdy but rarely bothered holding aggro on anything and didn't seem to every pay attention to health bars before pulling.  To top it off, the shadow priest and boomkin (who after he group posted the recount and said everyone was terrible) never paid attention to mirrored soul and kept splatting various dps.  And for such a "badass" the moonie only pulled about 2.3k single target dps with a GS of about 5K and on trash was barely a hundred over my gimpy rogue.  I'm not even sure what the paladin did, he rarely healed anyone except 5-10 seconds after they got damaged. The tank kept getting so low it was incredibly distracting.  But the worst part was the shadow priest.  Guy wouldn't shut the hell up about what loot he wanted, what addons people should be using, etc.   Talkative bads are 200% more annoying than silent bads.

[Selby]

Twins and C'thun only got to eat guilds if they managed to get by Princess Huhu without killing each other.  Three guild destroyers where BWL really only had one (Vael).  It was brutal.

That is true.  Such commentary on a raid that even after 20 levels and many tiers of gear more, people still can't regularly complete it.  Any time a PUG says "LFM AQ40" my first question is "what's your strategy for the twins?" and if I don't get an answer I like, I don't go along expecting it to be a win, just a rep run for Nozdormu.  I also love it when they bring a few 60's along and the 60's bitch about how long it's taking or how come we aren't zerging everything down to their liking.

[Minvaren]

I also love it when they bring a few 60's along and the 60's bitch about how long it's taking or how come we aren't zerging everything down to their liking.

Most-heard quote from the 60's on the two different attempts I've been on: "res plz."

[Dren]

I had forgotten about the "talkative bads" that Rasix mentioned.  Yes, those suck indeed.

The last bad one I had was a 1200 dps mage that kept asking, "can I have that?" at every.single.lewt.drop.  I ignored him completely, but apparently he was panhandling for selling random items for cash at the vendor.  I hadn't run into that before.  It was incredibly annoying.

[K9]

Twins and C'thun only got to eat guilds if they managed to get by Princess Huhu without killing each other.  Three guild destroyers where BWL really only had one (Vael).  It was brutal.

That is true.  Such commentary on a raid that even after 20 levels and many tiers of gear more, people still can't regularly complete it.  Any time a PUG says "LFM AQ40" my first question is "what's your strategy for the twins?" and if I don't get an answer I like, I don't go along expecting it to be a win, just a rep run for Nozdormu.  I also love it when they bring a few 60's along and the 60's bitch about how long it's taking or how come we aren't zerging everything down to their liking.

My strategy for twins is to let all the people below level 80 die and then 5-man it to victory.

[Soulflame]

Last night was absolutely grand in terms of bad groups.   

First up:  The paladin.  Queue for random, get HNexus.  Zone in, not everyone is at the entrance.  Uh oh.  So I follow people, and sure enough, there's a pile of skeletons before the first boss.  I check out the tank, and notice he's a druid with 18k health unshifted.  So...

1.  This group has already wiped.
2.  Their healer has already left.
3.  Their "tank" has 24k health in bear form, with kings.
4.  HNexus is a 15 minute run, except when it isn't, in which case it's probably a half hour to two hour run.  Especially with a fresh 80 tank with low health, and probably little experience in tanking.
5.  I'm here for a fast run before raiding for 2 frost badges, I have two other chars I would like to run through, and I'm not really in the mood to carry an undergeared tank on a two hour tour of Heroic Nexus.  Pretty much ever.

Given the above, I drop group before the first pull.  Yeah, I was the bad person in this instance.   

So, swap over to the druid to wait for dungeon timer to tick down on the paladin.  HOK!

I'm not sure I can accurately convey my dread of doing HOK on the druid properly.  I absolutely hate this instance on him.  I'm not sure if it's the poison spitting spiders that I get to cleanse, the nuking mobs that hit for 20k that no one interrupts, or the guardian that I invariably tank while everyone else is pew pewing the invulnerable boss.

The tank is a paladin with 43k health with buffs, so... this won't be a problem, right?  Wrong!   

Everything goes okay for the first couple of pulls, although, as always, no one interrupts the nuking mobs, and the tank goes low a couple of times.  Then we go right, and in the room before Elder Nadrox (or whatever) Something Goes Wrong.  We get two groups.

Before I go further, I should note I always toss a rejuve on the tank before he pulls.  Always.  It's never been a problem before.  Until now.

So I toss the rejuve, the tank pulls... and suddenly I have one or two mobs hitting me in the face.  I live, although I think it's because DPS pulled them off of me.  All the DPS dies, but I manage to keep the tank and myself alive until he grinds them down.  While all the DPS lies dead, waiting for me to ress them, no doubt!

After the mobs are all dead, the fun really begins.  The tank starts telling me not to put any heals on him before he pulls, that I'm bad, I need to learn to play, and I caused the wipe.  I should point out again, the tank is a PALADIN.  I make a number of rude comments about a paladin losing aggro to a healer, and I'm now convinced I'm going to die on the Elder.

Group finally filters back in, and we pull the Elder.  Sure enough, the guardian spawns, beelines for me.

1.  The tank does not pull the guardian off of me.
2.  The DPS is stubbornly DPSing the invulnerable boss.
3.  I've seen this song and dance before, and it ends in my miserable death.

Right before I would have died, I leave group.  Back to the paladin, where I wait for a couple of guildies to finish dailies, so I can actually complete an instance tonight.

[Dren]

The only time I HoT the tank pre-pull is when:

A. I know the tank is good. This rules PuG's right out.
B. I have a quick LoS spot to use if A. fails.  Typically, pre-Hot's fail on caster types because they stop where they are and cast on you the whole time.  Pop into a LoS corner for a few seconds to make it come closer to the tank and even bad tanks will get lucky and pick them up, especially Pally Tanks.

Why why why even kill the Elder?  I always skip that.  It isn't worth one T-emblem for the time and pain.

I always mark the spellflingers (nukers) in those first pulls.  They are way over powered for that instance compared to everything else.  They will bring the best 40k+ hp tank to his/her knees immediately.  They must go down FAST and FIRST.

There is a way to avoid the double pull, but it takes a tank that knows the technique and can communicate it well.  You actually skip the group on the edge on the left and the group on the wall on the right.  Have everyone go straight between them in a line and catch the patrol group when they are furthest from you.  If you pull that off, it makes HOK really fast!  Yeah, doesn't happen often.

[Rasix]

Got the ultimate ebayed player/noob yesterday.  Cast 3 spells as a frost mage: frost bolt, blizzard, fireball. At the end when he of course stood in the laser "so, what dropped?"  Me: "don't you know how loot works?"  Him: "I'm a newb." (with a 4.4k GS)

Group itself was pretty bad mostly.  Fight ended with myself and the paladin tank alive spamming heals on himself.  I think I dps'd down the last 160k or so by myself like this.  The shaman was using all downrank spells until I told him about it and died by just standing in that crap on the ground Devourer leaves.  Somehow an ICC10 geared DPS DK managed to do the same thing. Sad, sad state of affairs.

[Soulflame]

It took me something like three random groups to get through FoS normal on the huntard.  Primarily people who would not stop DPS during mirrored soul.  Particularly aggravating, since I was only in FoS normal so I could attune to do PoS, on the offchance that Tyrannus would ever drop his rifle.  He hasn't yet.

My PoS normal groups have been nuts too.  I had a druid tank leave after the first boss, people who die to various things on Ick, etc.  I'm pretty much ready to give up on runs on the hunter, mostly because I'm not the healer, and apparently random healers aren't much better than random tanks.  Not to mention waiting 10-15 minutes to be placed in a random group via the LFD group roulette.

I'm also getting aggravated about runs on the paladin and druid as well.  It's to the point where I wish I could heal and tank.  My experience recently with tanks has been just that bad.

[Dren]

I got my Pally to ICC10 lvl tanking AND ICC25 lvl Healing.  I'm pushing to get my DK to heroic tanking levels.  Ultimately, I'd like to get my druid there too.  I find that groups fail less often with a good tank/bad healer combo more than the bad tank/good healer combo.  So, I'm trying to make more good tanks. 

[Minvaren]

Before I go further, I should note I always toss a rejuve on the tank before he pulls.  Always.  It's never been a problem before.  Until now.

Maybe I r n00b tank, but I sometimes have problems when the healer does this.  It seems to vary by where I am relative to mobs when the HoT is tossed, where my rage is, and exactly what is on cooldown.  The latter two can overcome initial aggro, but if enrage and shockwave are on cooldown, good luck with DPS not pulling while I fidget for 5-10 seconds.