Bad Groups

[Ingmar]

You forgot DKs. 

[bhodi]

DKs are just assumed to be awesome by default. They have Will of the Necropolis, which is an ardent defender analogue, sort of.

It's true though, it's Paladin > Druid > DK >> Warrior  right now.

[Dren]

My warrior isn't even close to being able to tank yet, but one of our best guild tanks for high end content is a warrior.  He's always mentioning the cds he uses when in a tight spot.  I've seen him survive all kinds of situations that would have eaten most.  Isn't Shield Wall one of them?  Isn't that much like Ardent Defender?

[kildorn]

My warrior isn't even close to being able to tank yet, but one of our best guild tanks for high end content is a warrior.  He's always mentioning the cds he uses when in a tight spot.  I've seen him survive all kinds of situations that would have eaten most.  Isn't Shield Wall one of them?  Isn't that much like Ardent Defender?

AD is automagic. "would this hit have killed you? Well howabout we heal you instead!" once every 2 minutes, iirc.

[Ingmar]

The warrior "equivalent" of ardent defender is last stand, not shield wall. There are some corner case situations where last stand is better but not many.

That said all this talk of warriors being much below everyone else is overstated, at least post-pally-nerf. The big inequity that needs to be solved is our lower dps, not anything to do with survivability.

[K9]

Last Stand is better when you can anticipate the need for it
Argent Defender is better for unexpected spikes in damage.

[Simond]

DKs are just assumed to be awesome by default. They have Will of the Necropolis, which is an ardent defender analogue, sort of.

It's true though, it's Paladin > Druid > DK >> Warrior  right now.

haha what.

DKs are flat out the worst tanks right now - Blizzard went way too far with all the nerfs in every. Single. Patch. Since. 3.0 and are now desperately running around backpedaling and trying to bring the class back up to the level of druids/warriors. (See: Changes in 3.3 and more coming in 3.3.3).

It's all just re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic until paladins get balanced, though. They are the real "Hero Class" at the moment - outright best tank in every single respect, best healer in most respects and totally competitive DPS. Why bother rolling anything else?

[Selby]

Why bother rolling anything else?

Boring as shit to play? ;-)  My pally is 21 and it was... painful... to get that far.  My first ever character over 4 years ago was a pally and it sucked then too (much more then than now).

[Merusk]

Once you hit 30ish Pallies get more fun and MUCH easier.   At 40 it's "I wonder how many mobs I can pull on me THIS time." as you tank them down if you're Prot.  At least it was when I leveled mine.   I'll grant you those first 30 levels got painful at the end, but it was still better than the priest.

[Evildrider]

Why bother rolling anything else?

Boring as shit to play? ;-)  My pally is 21 and it was... painful... to get that far.  My first ever character over 4 years ago was a pally and it sucked then too (much more then than now).

Seriously, I started a pally... I got to level 11 and I just got tired of only being able to autoattack mobs to death.

[bhodi]

My pally was INCREDIBLY fun and fast to level, moreso than any other character I have ever played.

It helped (read: requires) to have a bloodied arcanite reaper with crusader on it and both +xp heirlooms.

However, if you have all these, you can literally wade into groups of mobs and annihilate them. You can chain pull and kill everything in two hits, forever, all the way until level 80.

"Pull" with HoR, judge, autoattack once, proc art of war, use insta-exorcism, dead. Sometimes you have to hit them twice if art of war doesn't proc. Next!

It gets even more fun when you get the whirlwind attack thing. Unlike my mage or my priest or my shaman, you have about 3 different "oh shit, I got an add, save me" spells which makes things even more better. I think I died twice, maybe three times in my path to level 80.

The thing that really makes the paladin superior is the fact you have an instant cast pull and that all your abilities/spells are instant cast as well. You don't ever have to stand still, which is absolute TOPS for leveling.

Having a +mountspeed and a free epic mount is just icing on the already laden cake.

[Minvaren]

PuG for HCoS.  We try for Zombiefest at the start, fail.  Pally healer/raid tanker alternates between tanking and healing on first few waves, so I'm blowing cooldowns and potions left and right to stay over 10k HP on each fight.  Questions a single gem I have misslotted - think I needed it for the meta at one point and forgot it was there.  DPS DK is thinking he's tanking as well, doesn't assist, spend lots of time pulling threat off of him.  Another DPS leaves right after Chrono-Lord.  About 6-7 minutes of another DPS afk before we can re-invite.  Group gets antsy about time, we decide to skip trying Zombiefest on this part and just go.  We just go, and slowly ("goooooo") but surely we clear the gauntlet.  DPS DK starts giving me flack about not scraping stuff off of him fast enough or rounding up enough stuff at once, can't tell which, but the heals had gotten more reliable at least.

At that point Pally healer realizes that noone started Arthas on that run to Mal'Ganis.  I get frustrated, and simply state "you said go" (which he did, while standing on top of Arthas).  Pally runs back, starts Arthas and immediately leaves the group.  DPS DK spouts off at me again and also leaves.  2-3 people join and quit on requeues.  Group falls apart after that.

 

(edit : speeling r gud)

[Lt.Dan]

I know we bitch and moan about PuGs in the LFD tool but imagine having that experience after trying to start/join a group after 15-30 mins of spamming/watching the trade chat channel.

[Rasix]

I know we bitch and moan about PuGs in the LFD tool but imagine having that experience after trying to start/join a group after 15-30 mins of spamming/watching the trade chat channel.

Oh, I still love the tool.  I'm just running into the same issue when I raided in a "casual" guild.  After a while the opporunity to raid was completely overshadowed with having to tollerate morons that were beyond awful at the game.  

Easily fixed by just backing off a bit until my blood pressure can take another blitz of the badness.

edit: Yah, I'm cursed.  LFD tool hates me.  HPOS where a tank drags his two buddies along: a 1K DPS DK and a 1.3K DPS hunter.  DK did give me a laugh when he rode straight at the first mob and got one shot off his horse. 

[Dren]

Got on late last night and missed a ICC10 guild run.  I'm dissappointed and need something to do so I decide to tank a random for the frosties on my pally.  We get HoS.  That's a longer one, but if we skip ahead, no big deal. 

Start off with somebody almost instantly pulling that first group of 3 patrols.  No problem, I grab them and nobody dies.  I do notice it takes a considerable amount of time just to get them dead.  Check DPS, 1.5k to 2.2k.  Pretty low these days, but I've seen worse.  It just means we'll be in the instance all night if we do the entire thing (read: 40 minutes.)  I don't have that kind of time, so I decide that we are going the quick route.

After yet another noob face pulling a group, the others start noticing I'm skipping to the end.  One after another they start complaining that they want to do it all and that I've decided for the group.  Something about them doing this while I was in the middle of a fight, their low DPS, and my already bad night made me drop group mid-fight.  Screw em.

I can understand people want triumph, but not everyone does.  It would be smarter to just continue to do randoms quickly rather than bring the drama upon themselves.

I think I'm done with PuG randoms for awhile.  I went right into a guild raid to get the weekly done.  5 of each emblem in the same amount of time.  Win.

[Selby]

Maly was the weekly last week, and I helped a friend's guild out on my druid.  I was the 2nd healer and was supposed to heal the raid.  Well, I notice the tank is taking major damage the entire time so I am tossing heals his way.  The DPS isn't exactly stellar (~2.5-3kish) and everyone's gear would qualify them for TotC-10, barely.  I still just sit there and say "it's fine, this is a 200 level raid and we did this in much worse gear then."  We don't get to the vehicle fight part and wipe right before it.  I check the healing meters and it shows me at 5k HPS and the other guy at 900.  Ouch.  He was also the first person to die every time there was a chance that someone was going to die.  So essentially I was solo-healing the entire raid.  We get to the vehicle part the next 2 times, but only 2-3 people are putting stacks on Maly and we wipe to enrage twice.  I point out that if we are going to do this, EVERYONE needs to stay alive AND keep DoTs on the dragon.  Then some random guildie goes "well we're only 9-m this so we're down 1 DPS and you shouldn't expect much" to which I reply "so I should see 6 stacks at all times instead of 7, but I'm seeing 2.  That means the rest of you need to get with it or this is a waste of time and repair bills."  Needless to say on the 4th try we get him down (they had been in there for 45 minutes already when I joined).  It reminds me of how glad I am to have a guild of semi-pro players who don't screw around and get stuff done.

[Nevermore]

I can understand people want triumph, but not everyone does.  It would be smarter to just continue to do randoms quickly rather than bring the drama upon themselves.

Except the DPS can't do them 'quickly' because of how long they have to wait around in the queue.  You were pretty much being a dick.

[Zetor]

Yeah. When I tank pugs on my drood, I always ask the group if they want to do the optional bosses or skip; most of the time they want to do them. It's not a huge detour, anyway... killing the three 'optional' bosses in H-OK is like 4 extra minutes now, including the trash. Crystallus in HoS might be a bit more annoying, but the maiden is what, 3 trash pulls + 30-second boss?

[Dren]

I can understand people want triumph, but not everyone does.  It would be smarter to just continue to do randoms quickly rather than bring the drama upon themselves.

Except the DPS can't do them 'quickly' because of how long they have to wait around in the queue.  You were pretty much being a dick.

No, I didn't have the time they wanted.  Their 2 extra triumph badges rank at the very very bottom of my list of priorities in life.  Seriously.  I was not the tank they wanted.

[Dren]

Yeah. When I tank pugs on my drood, I always ask the group if they want to do the optional bosses or skip; most of the time they want to do them. It's not a huge detour, anyway... killing the three 'optional' bosses in H-OK is like 4 extra minutes now, including the trash. Crystallus in HoS might be a bit more annoying, but the maiden is what, 3 trash pulls + 30-second boss?

Point of my post:  Their DPS wasn't high enough to assume what you said. 

[kildorn]

2k dps isn't that bad to take out trash packs in an old heroic. 5k dps will pretty much waste a trash mob in 5 globals. So 2.2k in what, 10-15?

Depending on the DPS makeup and the healer, just bulk pull everything and AE if you're ICC geared. Low DPS can be compensated for by just letting AE inflate it.

Really though, the end result was simple: you only wanted the 2 frost badges, they needed triumph gear. I think the real solution would be to stop the shortcut instances like H-HoS where you can skip 50% of the instance bosses for the LFD tool reward.

[Nevermore]

I can understand people want triumph, but not everyone does.  It would be smarter to just continue to do randoms quickly rather than bring the drama upon themselves.

Except the DPS can't do them 'quickly' because of how long they have to wait around in the queue.  You were pretty much being a dick.

No, I didn't have the time they wanted.  Their 2 extra triumph badges rank at the very very bottom of my list of priorities in life.  Seriously.  I was not the tank they wanted.

If you don't have time to do a heroic then don't queue for a heroic.  They obviously needed the triumphs to get better gear so they could do more than 2k dps.  What if you had drawn CoS?  Or HoR?  Or PoS?  The odds aren't very good that you'd get one of the fast instances.  Queuing and dropping until you get an instance you like is a dick move.

[Ironwood]

I'm also going to weigh in with 'you're a dick'

Sorry.

/Logan.

[Soulflame]

I'm going to weigh in with "you people who expect a tank to do shit he doesn't want to do" are dicks.  He's there for two frost badges.  Period.  If he doesn't feel like doing more than that, it's his call, not yours.

The sense of entitlement I'm getting from you people is simply awe inspiring.  Seriously, get over yourselves.

[Ironwood]

After yet another noob face pulling a group, the others start noticing I'm skipping to the end.  One after another they start complaining that they want to do it all and that I've decided for the group.  Something about them doing this while I was in the middle of a fight, their low DPS, and my already bad night made me drop group mid-fight.  Screw em.

Yeah, it's all about MY entitlement.

Go fuck yourself.  I'm a tank and a damn good one.  I don't think it gives me the fucking right to decide how we play the whole instance for 4 others.  I don't think I should judge 'Low DPS' when we're winning fights.  I don't think I would drop them in the middle of a fight, knowing full well they'll wipe and have a repair bill just cause IT'S ME IN THE BAD MOOD BECAUSE I COULDN'T RAID THAT NIGHT.

But, hey, screw 'em.  Just fucking pixels, right ?

Shut the fuck up Soul.

[kildorn]

I'm going to weigh in with "you people who expect a tank to do shit he doesn't want to do" are dicks.  He's there for two frost badges.  Period.  If he doesn't feel like doing more than that, it's his call, not yours.

The sense of entitlement I'm getting from you people is simply awe inspiring.  Seriously, get over yourselves.

How is "you signed up for the instance, run the instance" more entitlement than "I feel I only signed up for the frost badges, and I will screw the group if I don't get my way"?

edit: this is the same issue raid guilds had with drama-tastic tanks and healers before so many specs could tank or heal. Due to demand/need for the slot someone could act up in ways that would have had DPS gkicked in 15 seconds.

[Ingmar]

I'm a tank who only needs frost badges, and I'll still run the whole thing if people in the group need it. DPS have to wait in a queue for a long time to even get in a group in the first place, and by choosing not to spend 15 minutes of my time and ditching them in progress I'm basically costing 3 other people a half hour or more each. That strikes me as pretty damn rude.

Incidentally I think *this* is the reason for the 30 minute requeue timer, not people dropping instances they don't like. It makes the consequences for bad tank behavior worse, which is good, because that is on the rise.

[Nebu]

I guess we're witnessing a downfall of the LFG tool.  When making groups of random individuals, you're likely to encounter people with different goals.  When grouping with friends or, at the very least, guildmates, you're likely to be on the same page with goals... and if not, you're at least willing to help out a friend. 

[kildorn]

I guess we're witnessing a downfall of the LFG tool.  When making groups of random individuals, you're likely to encounter people with different goals.  When grouping with friends or, at the very least, guildmates, you're likely to be on the same page with goals... and if not, you're at least willing to help out a friend. 

It's a definite issue with the reward structure (fixable with some absurd up-conversion from lower ranked badges in this case, like 10/20 to 1 but that will never happen). Or make all bosses mandatory to get the Frost Badge reward.

The problem I have with the behavior is that it's very much avoiding the "what do these 5 people think about the situation" and turning it into "what are my needs. Okay, well, I'm in a position of power here, so I run this shit." It's just as annoying as 5k hero running to the next trash pack and pulling because he thinks the tank is going too slow.

[Nebu]

It's still a better option than not being able to run the instances at all (something I've encountered).  I guess if you're DPS, you just have to take what you can get.  Tanks and healers will always be controlling the flow as long as the game is ruled by diku convention.

[Ingmar]

While rolling a tank isn't an obligation to help everyone farm their shit at all times, neither is it a license to trample over everyone else in the group's desires. Unfortunately a lot of the random tanks I've seen treat it as such.

I think it is reasonable to tell people in randoms that you're not going to help them do achievements, for example, but it is not really reasonable to skip bosses if the other people in the group want to kill them.

Hopefully the 30 minute dick penalty will reduce this sort of behavior.

[kildorn]

While rolling a tank isn't an obligation to help everyone farm their shit at all times,

I don't know who told you this, but they're dirty dirty liars. 

[JWIV]

While rolling a tank isn't an obligation to help everyone farm their shit at all times,

I don't know who told you this, but they're dirty dirty liars. 

I think my wife would agree with you Kildorn. 

[Rasix]

I guess we're witnessing a downfall of the LFG tool.  When making groups of random individuals, you're likely to encounter people with different goals.  When grouping with friends or, at the very least, guildmates, you're likely to be on the same page with goals... and if not, you're at least willing to help out a friend. 

Downfall might be a bit dramatic, I'd consider it  more of a specific downside.  Tanks have a lot of power; too much as it currently stand.  They have instant queues and everything stems from that.  Right now it's not conflicting goals as much as it's whatever the tank wants, rest of you fuckers be damned.   There's a greater conflict perhaps with sticking casuals and more serious minded gamers in the same soup, but really, it just comes down to one player simply being able to lord his ability to instaqueue over others.  

Tanks can be terrible and people are afraid to give them shit.  Because they can simply quit and fuck your group.

They can drag in their terrible buddies into their instant queues.  Like the retard DPS sporting his quest greens and the healer that's TOO STONED DUDE to effectively heal.  Because if you walk away, it's a deserter or simply waiting out the rest of the queue debuff and if you're a DPS another 15-20 minutes in the queue.  While the next DPS joins the second you're gone.

They can be a complete dick.  Overpull.  Fuck around and run and instance the way they want to instead of what the group wants to do.  Because they can quit and fuck your group.

I've hit a point where I don't hold my tongue anymore if a tank is using his position as the group single point of failure as an excuse for being bad in a way that would get easily replaced members quit.  Maybe some of them will stop tanking (please god), but more than likely they'll just requeue and get a group that's willing to put up with a player that's functionally retarded.  Myself, I should probably take a good 3 week break and recharge my batteries, because by insulting some thin skinned, cock of the walk, terrible tank, I'm potentially hosing the rest of the potentially innocent group members.

My personal problem though, extends beyond the dick tanks I've been running into lately.  It's what you describe.  I don't fuck around in groups and I don't go in under prepared and waste other's time.  Others have no problem with this and it drives me nuts.  "It's OK to be bad" is an attitude that drives me up the wall and is why you'll never see me raid again in a situation where people aren't coming in with the same attitude.  

[Nevermore]

I'm going to weigh in with "you people who expect a tank to do shit he doesn't want to do" are dicks.  He's there for two frost badges.  Period.  If he doesn't feel like doing more than that, it's his call, not yours.

The sense of entitlement I'm getting from you people is simply awe inspiring.  Seriously, get over yourselves.

Spoken like a dick tank.  Guess what?  I also run a tank but I happen to remember there's 4 other people in the group running the instance with me.  I'm pretty much on the same page as Ingmar:  if people in the group want to do all the bosses, I'll do all the bosses.  If they want to do some obscure, pain in the ass achievement then perhaps they should get a guild group for that.

What's really fun is when I queue as a dps while I'm doing my tourney dailies and end up with one of those self important ass tanks.  I just tell them to go ahead and quit, I'll just switch specs and tank it myself.  And if I get one of them on my healer, I just let them die.  There seems to be a priority system that puts tanks into established groups first over new groups so the wait for a new tank generally isn't very long.