Bad Groups

[Selby]

Noticed I listed that last?  It just compounded the above.

I know, it was supposed to be a joke ;-)  And a comment on the lousy PUGs I run with that ridicule anyone not in full 264 gear for a heroic we were doing a year ago in 200-213 gear (if even that high).

[Rasix]

Noticed I listed that last?  It just compounded the above.

I know, it was supposed to be a joke ;-)  And a comment on the lousy PUGs I run with that ridicule anyone not in full 264 gear for a heroic we were doing a year ago in 200-213 gear (if even that high).

And they were easy in that level of gear.  A full ICC geared person seems to be an extreme rarity in groups I've been in and usually if it's DPS it's a bother for the tank to retain aggro.

The new ones can be difficult if people are severely undergeared or overly retarded.  They're a definite step above HTOC, which has been reduced to a live DPS meter exercise. For a rather poor metric, if you can break 4K GS intelligently you'll be more than fine for HFOS/POS. Maybe a bit higher for tanks in HPOS, since almost no one bothers to interupt and tanks don't kite the Scourgelord at all.

There's no shame in doing TOC or the regular ICC 5 mans.  But for whatever reason, you rarely see the people that need the gear in there.

[Selby]

There's no shame in doing TOC or the regular ICC 5 mans.  But for whatever reason, you rarely see the people that need the gear in there.

I've found that those doing the regular versions of those instances to be either guild runs farming for someone in them (which means the only way you get in is if you agree not to roll on whatever it is they are after), or they are really really really bad PUGs.  I PUG'd regular PoS looking for the shield for my shammy that drops off the end boss and ran it 3-4 times, and every time I had THE worst DPS (1100-1200), tanks that didn't manage aggro well, and just all around dumbassery (like everything you mentioned about that warlock).  I got frustrated and stopped running it, eventually picking up the shield that dropped off of XT as a suitable substitute.

[K9]

Pulsing Spellshield is way better than Protector of Frigid Souls for a shaman.

[Ingmar]

Pulsing Spellshield is way better than Protector of Frigid Souls for a shaman.

Quite a lot harder to get your hands on unless your server gets XT as the weekly a lot and there are a lot of PUGs available for it.

[K9]

True, I was fortunate to pick it up while my guild was still running Ulduar. It is a fantastic shield though, ideally itemised for both Elemental and Resto. The next real upgrades are off Thorim (25) Hard, Champs 25 or Marrowgar 25.

[Selby]

The next real upgrades are off Thorim (25) Hard, Champs 25 or Marrowgar 25.

Yeah, I'm in a long line of guildies for that upgrade on Marrowgar and Champs ;-)

[K9]

I'm actually using the heroic version of Enlightenment (Staff off Valkyr 10). Since paladins have even worse weapon options than us Shamans, I'm not holding out for Marrowgar's shield and frankly the Staff is beautifully itemised for a caster shaman.

[Selby]

As many times as I've run TotC-10, I've never seen that staff drop on any of my characters.

[Rasix]

Giant purple shit on ground.  DON'T STAND IN IT.   

[Lantyssa]

Pulsing Spellshield is way better than Protector of Frigid Souls for a shaman.

Quite a lot harder to get your hands on unless your server gets XT as the weekly a lot and there are a lot of PUGs available for it.

Amusingly enough, I think this is what dropped last night when we did XT for the weekly.

[kildorn]

Giant purple shit on ground.  DON'T STAND IN IT.   

General rule: if something appears on the ground, GTFO of it.

Your raid/group leader will advise if it's one of the few fights where that is not true. But 99% of the time, the game isn't changing the ground color to add mood lighting to the fight.

[Lt.Dan]

A group I was in last night was in HOK.  It started off pretty good with the tank skipping a lot of the trash and going straight to the first boss - Elder Nadok.  Then it was pure fail.  The tank pulled the boss but didn't gather the the adds (normal or elite).  I'm throwing out heals on my fresh 80 druid (with 1200 SP) and inevitably get swarmed with adds from all the heal aggro.  Wipe. 

The tank says "You guys are lucky I'm feeling kind, otherwise I'd just afk for the rest of the cooldown and leave the group". 
We say, "could you grab the adds this time"
So we go back in and exactly the same thing happens.  Exactly.  Once I can understand - tank thinks everyone is overgeared and expects a faceroll 15 min run.  But twice?

[Ingmar]

If you get swarmed by the adds on Elder Nadok as the healer, it is probably your fault, not the tank's. Stand up the tank's ass so his AE stuff will pick up the adds - they spawn and instantly run off to healers, especially those with HoTs ticking; if you stand at a distance it is extremely difficult for the tank to pick the adds up on that fight, especially warrior tanks. If you stand right on top of him and the boss the adds will stay at ground zero and the tank will be able to pick them up easily.

It is pretty stupid the tank didn't tell your group this after the first wipe, though.

[Merusk]

^

I explained how I was "the suckass tank'  a few pages back.  Exact same situation, but the healer was the overgeared "do it my way" jerk that time, expecting me to wander around and pick up everything while his ass stood in a forest of totems. 

[SurfD]

Kind of reminds me of ranged people who stand in swarms of zombies in CoS, veritable miles away from the tank, and then bitch about people not pulling the zombies off them.

[Selby]

It is pretty stupid the tank didn't tell your group this after the first wipe, though.

Exactly.  While I can understand the tendency of someone who has done it a lot to not understand why people wouldn't stack on the tank (since almost all raid bosses you don't stack on the tank due to cleave), I never assumed in PUGs that people can read my mind or have done an encounter the exact same way I have.  I always tell people what I am going to do if there has been a wipe, and what I expect they should do (if they need to do anything besides "keep people alive," "DPS more," or "don't stand in stuff" since those are assumed).

[Lt.Dan]

Yeah I thought about running over to the tank but in 99% of circumstances this is really bad - be it cleaves, novas, or cones.  He didn't grab the elite adds though which means that others in the group were eating attacks and no one could dps down the non-elite swarmers.  About the only way his strategy would work was having enough dps to burn down the boss quickly.  The other dps were in 5man/badge gear so that was never going to happen.

[K9]

If you have aggro moving closer to the tank improves your odds more often than not. The worst thing you can ever do is backpedal. There's very few 1-shot cleaves and such around at level 80 as it is.

[Sjofn]

If you have aggro moving closer to the tank improves your odds more often than not. The worst thing you can ever do is backpedal. There's very few 1-shot cleaves and such around at level 80 as it is.

YES TIMES A BILLION

[Fordel]

That's what Typhoon is for, blowing the mob closer to the tank! 

[Lt.Dan]

Yep totally agree and that's been my strategy for some time in normal instances.  I've been caught out a couple of times in heroics on my 15k health druid (exploding trolls in ZD and snakes and nova in Gund for example) and have been second guessing running to the tank as a strategy.  On my 21k health priest I always make a bee-line for the tank if I get aggro (or dump aggro with fade for that matter).

[Selby]

If I get aggro I run to the consecrate or D&D and pray ;-)

[Lt.Dan]

I don't have pray so sometimes I hit Tranquility to save my skin instead ;)

[Rasix]

I don't have pray so sometimes I hit Tranquility to save my skin instead ;)

Mob's still punching you, genius.  

Taking my 3rd character through the paces of the RFD tool is turning me into a picky (and prickly) asshole. After doing a HFOS where I did over 50% of the total damage (got to love players that can't stay alive for shit), I took one look at my prospective H AN group and decided to work on holiday achievements with another character (helps that I recognized 3 people as members of a guild of terribads from my server).  I never feel like I'm carrying a group when I'm playing my healer, but when you're paired with two overly retarded DPS, you feel a giant weight on your shoulders.  

Tanks must feel worse.  I haven't even entertained the idea of tanking on my DK with what I've seen.

[Merusk]

I had a Nexus group two days ago where I was top Damage Dealt/ DPS by about 20% and I was the tank.   You REALLY feel like you're carrying the group at that point.

Other than that, it hasn't been too bad, and since I'm only doing one a day for the frost badges the bad experiences fade quickly.   On my Pally that still needs gearing-up, however, I've gotten frustrated and only go in when I'm in a decent mood.  It seems to vary by gearscore of the group, or my own gearscore's ability to make up for it.  I don't get nearly as many horrible groups on the DK or now-equipped priest as I do on the "barely qualifies" Pally.

[Khaldun]

This more subtle kind of "standing in the wrong place" drives me nuts (e.g., people who stand far away from the tank on pulls where adds are coming from all over). Another version of it: we have one guy in our guild who absolutely will NOT stay close to everyone else on Marrowgar, and he's one of the healers. So if he gets bone spiked, the melee dps have to run across the room to him, which often provokes a wipe or near-wipe because his heals aren't going out to the tanks. I'm getting close to the point that I'll find an excuse not to do ICC in a week where he's one of the healers. I think the reason is partly that he's new to healing and finds it really difficult to pay attention to toon location as well as to stay on top of the heals, but still.

[Selby]

Another version of it:

I've been in guilds that have broken up over people like him.  Refuse to stand where they need to, don't get out of the fire in time, can't react fast enough to changes, etc.  When 9 or 24 other people are consistently wiping all night because of 1 or 2 people like him and entire groups of players are making excuses not to come along when he does, you know you have a problem.  Unfortunately this guy happened to be RL friends with a tank, DPS, and a healer, and they refused to come along unless he did.  So they eventually formed their own guild so they can wipe on Marrowgar for 3 hours together while my guild gets through Festergut down in less than 2.

You can't gear for raid awareness.

[Rasix]

That's pretty much how my first guild in WOLK broke up.  Casual raiding guild, where things fell apart rapidly when they moved to 25man Naxx.

Neither GM was a good player.   One was a priest that couldn't stay alive in fights.   I remember in Kara she'd die on trash constantly.   It was just impossible for her not to stand in shit.  Plus: drama magnet.   Single mom that flirted up every lonely guy in the guild.  The other was a druid who unforuntately was also a healer.  He was bad: he performed poorly no matter what metric you'd use.  Bad on meters and his groups basically played like they were a healer down.  He also died to anything.  You'd often have to rez him past frogger and he couldn't ever make it onto the pipe before Fido.  In TBC he switched to a warlock and everyone was so happy, but it didn't last.

To top it off, the raid leader was just a horrible, horrible tank.  Case in point: he flat out refused to do Heigan.  Also was a drama magnet because he was one of the mouthiest players I've ever met.

Of course, the above 3 rejects had raid spots and were a massive drain.  They may have kept the guild moving, but they did their fair share to frustrate those that knew they should be beating this content.  They set a direction and a goal that with their personal involvement would have been near impossible to achieve.  To put things in perspective, the "B" Naxx 10 team got KT weeks before their group did (with me subbing in).

[fuser]

Quickdeath you fool.

Just was graced by this DK in The Violet Hold (normal). My pally tank is now 74 and pretty well geared but a bunch of 79's and this guy would be testing my threat generation. Proceeded past the first boss fight and noticed keeping aggro off of the DK was getting tough. Figured it was mob level or such until I noticed he was in Frost Presence.

Me: "Do you want to tank this? If not get out of frost presence"
Him: "Oh sorry didn't see you there"

He proceeds to leave up frost presence for the rest of the dungeon. With no time to explain the mechanics of his class I just taunt random mobs off of him for the extra DPS.

We get to Cyanigosa, I throw down cons. What's the first thing the DK throws down?

Army of the dead  

[Selby]

Army of the dead  

Ever since my DK made 80 I love to toss out "ooh!  I got this new ability I want to try!" in party chat just to see people's reactions.  I've never used it and don't bother, but it's hysterical to see some people flat out go into nerdrage while others laugh (most people fly into nerdrage I've seen).

[K9]

Quickdeath you fool.

Wow, he almost has as much HP as my priest...

[fuser]

Ever since my DK made 80 I love to toss out "ooh!  I got this new ability I want to try!" in party chat just to see people's reactions.  I've never used it and don't bother, but it's hysterical to see some people flat out go into nerdrage while others laugh (most people fly into nerdrage I've seen).

I don't care if it's used on straight tank and spanks etc, but on a boss fight that has two cone AoE's? It's just pure FFFFFFuuuuuuuuuu as the dragon starts spinning round killing the little guys hitting everyone in the group almost wiping us. Thank god for divine sacrifice and a good shammy healer.

[Merusk]

I made that mistake once.  I'd just hit 80, LK had been out for a week and it was my first HVH.  I didn't know AOTD taunted, and wiped the group.  Whoops.

[proudft]

I did that too, but on Keristraza in Nexus.  Spinning chaos everywhere!  We managed to live, though, and the bear tank was really nice about it.