Bad Groups

[Shrike]

Apparently Avenger's Shield is some secret code-spell for "Let's start AoEing the shit out of everything before the tank is actually even at the mobs" as well.

You mean it isn't? Actually, I don't mind this too much as long as the pack of pissed off mobs runs through the consecrate patch on its' way to stomp that mage. Generally, mage-stomping fantasies end at that point. Generally. And if they don't, well, a dead mage is never a bad thing (or rogue).

From where I sit, the steady parade of underequipped healers and non-defense capped tanks continues. You know it's bad when your new tank keeps asking why your dk is in their defense gear but in blood stance. I keep answering "Insurance" and it keeps paying off. I guess this is a clue, but some nights I just don't feel like tanking, but seem to end up doing it anyway as often as not.

[Selby]

Generally, mage-stomping fantasies end at that point. Generally. And if they don't, well, a dead mage is never a bad thing (or rogue).

I only AoE and not worry about aggro yanking (which happens ALOT on my mage now) when I know I can kill the mob before it gets to me.  95% of the time it dies before it hits me.  It drives tanks and healers nuts, but my DPS is quite insane these days so I know I can get away with it.

I guess this is a clue, but some nights I just don't feel like tanking, but seem to end up doing it anyway as often as not.

My DK has the same problem.  I run in half tanking gear due to laziness on the DPS set and still am def capped, and people get annoyed why I do it.  "Insurance against crappy PUG tanks" offends quite a few people.

On a side note, my healers are all well geared and have noticed this annoying trend of late of bad DPS continuing to stand in AoE effects rather than interrupt the casting mob or move out of them.  Yeah, I'm well geared and all, but are you seriously going to make me work that hard due to your laziness?  I let people get *real* close to dying and let the whining commence before I point out that every bit of the damage they are taking is avoidable and they should learn how to do that.

[Merusk]

You're seeing that stream because that's the only ones who are queing up at this point- folks looking for gear.  You've got to figure most T9 or partial T10 folks certainly don't run Heroics beyond the first because they don't need the Triumph badges.  Hell I don't even run the daily every day anymore because I don't need the frost badges, either.   End result? Lots of undergeared healers/ tanks filling those roles for the overgeared DPSers who are still running.

[Sheepherder]

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Uldaman&cn=Pour&gn=Keepers+Of+The+Nut

Just so wrong on so many levels.  I asked him if he's new to the game.  Apparently not.

[Lantyssa]

I'm not seeing what's so bad (other than the colors ).  Then again, I have my hunter in non-optimal gear just so she's color coordinated.  It doesn't really matter with characters in that level range.

[Zetor]

I think the gear is actually ok (you can't be picky at that level, though having vendor-bought whites is  ), but that spec looks like a trainwreck.

[Shrike]

That spec is a trainwreck.

If arms is his focus, then that's where he should be focused at his level. I mean you can slop through world quests with about any stupid thing, but it'd be painful with that setup. If he were to hit the 49 bracket set up like that, he would be in for a very ugly surprise.

[Sheepherder]

I'm not seeing what's so bad (other than the colors ).  Then again, I have my hunter in non-optimal gear just so she's color coordinated.  It doesn't really matter with characters in that level range.

No Mortal Strike / Bloodthirst - pick one, build to it.  Anything else is gimp or Prot.
No Taste for Blood despite maxing out Imp Overpower
2/3 Deep Wounds
3/5 Weapon spec (I could see skipping some points in a specific spec if you constantly change weapons)
Took every filler talent at the top of Arms
Took the two filler points in top tier Fury

Vendor weapon and chest (the two largest contributors to stats, incidentally).  Also vendor ranged slot. (EDIT: He finally equipped the weapon he won in Sunken Temple)
Vendor weapon didn't match his weapon spec.

Stuff you don't know from his Armory:

He didn't bother equipping that blue when he rolled need on it, favouring his Zweihander instead.
Mocking Blow, lots of it.
No Slam.  At all.

[Ginaz]

I had a tank and his pocket healer leave a H. Forge of Souls because there were 3 other people (including me) that were going to roll on the ArP trinket from the last boss.  He didn't want to "waste" his lockout timer if he wasn't guaranteed to get it if it dropped.  The rest of the group dropped quickly so I had to wait another 10 mins or so after using the LFG tool.  I got back into another HFoS, the trinket dropped and I won the roll.  If I had remembered what that guy's name was, I would have rolled an alt on his server and sent him a /tell to let him know all about it.  I think I would have done it the same way Matt Damon's character in Good Will Hunting did it when he knocked on the window to that pretentious Harvard douche bag to let him know he got the girl's number.  "Hey, do you like apples?"  "Yeah."  "Well, I got that trinket you wanted after you and your buddy bailed on our group.   How do you like them apples?"

[brellium]

I'm not seeing what's so bad (other than the colors ).  Then again, I have my hunter in non-optimal gear just so she's color coordinated.  It doesn't really matter with characters in that level range.

No Mortal Strike / Bloodthirst - pick one, build to it.  Anything else is gimp or Prot.
No Taste for Blood despite maxing out Imp Overpower
2/3 Deep Wounds
3/5 Weapon spec (I could see skipping some points in a specific spec if you constantly change weapons)
Took every filler talent at the top of Arms
Took the two filler points in top tier Fury

Vendor weapon and chest (the two largest contributors to stats, incidentally).  Also vendor ranged slot. (EDIT: He finally equipped the weapon he won in Sunken Temple)
Vendor weapon didn't match his weapon spec.

Stuff you don't know from his Armory:

He didn't bother equipping that blue when he rolled need on it, favouring his Zweihander instead.
Mocking Blow, lots of it.
No Slam.  At all.

yeah, that's a dps spec, and a bad one, he doesn't need the arms or prot talents, if he wants to tank he should go dual spec

[Sheepherder]

He didn't queue as a tank.

Incidentally, Improved Thunderclap works for Arms AoE DPS.  But what also works is putting points in Arms.

[brellium]

He didn't queue as a tank.

Incidentally, Improved Thunderclap works for Arms AoE DPS.  But what also works is putting points in Arms.

Yeah, but it's better to go deeper into the Arms tree, Thunderclap is good when you're filling out talents for later.  I would give second wind a higher priority than thunderclap.

At 50ish you should just go going cleave, cleave, cleave, until everything dies.

[Shrike]

If you're leveling up as arms, then all your friggin' points should be in arms. Later on--when you're done with arms--you can branch out and make a call if you're going to slam (sucks) or do the incite thing (where's mah rage?!?).

Arms is a weird spec these day. My 58 bracket warrior leveled up purely as arms and it's not hard and really kind of fun. But it's an odd playstyle with a lot of conditionals and rend/TfB-pumped OP are your primary killers. MS you can kinda get along without (though why you'd want to is another issue), unless you're going PvP. Then you'd better damned well have it.

However, if you're doing the LFD thing, best just suck it up and go protection and have done with it. Trying to half-ass it with weirdo hybrid specs isn't going to get it done.

Edit: ImpThunderclap is fundamental to incite builds. It's good. But...this is something you'd do when you're 80. When you have enough experience playing as arms that you know what you're doing and why. It's also gear dependent. Much as I hate slam, it's simpler and works better for new 80s.

[Lantyssa]

Did he die repeatedly?  Did other group members?  If not, I really don't see what the deal is.  He's a mid-50's character.

[Selby]

Did he die repeatedly?  Did other group members?  If not, I really don't see what the deal is.  He's a mid-50's character.

The issue comes from people who actively are not contributing much to the party.  Sure, he didn't die or cause others to, but if his DPS is less than the healer or an underleveled tank, people are going to start getting annoyed.  Especially when they see he is using vendor bought whites and spec'ing in such a way that his DPS is suffering considerably.  No one likes carrying other people around and when you get people who are totally clueless, it causes resentment from those who like things more efficient.  We can all say that his play style is just as valid as anyone else's, but it's the same thing as the mage that only casts Arcane Missiles, the melee hunters without pets, or tanks who just walk up to mobs without any sort of thought regarding pulling style.  Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean it's a good idea or helpful to the rest of the class.  And in an MMO, you can play however you want to solo and no one is going to care.  Once you start involving other people who's success depends on you, that is when people will start criticizing (and rightly so in some cases).

Then there is also the crowd who like their dungeons quick.  A party member like this can cause a 30-45m instance to turn into a 90m instance if the rest of the party isn't picking up the slack for them.

[Rendakor]

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that vanilla dungeons in the 50s are particularly long compared to BC and WotLK ones; if I'm going to be stuck with someone for 1h+ he better be pulling his goddamn weight. A bad spec is forgivable, but using a white vendor bought weapon (after rolling need on what, a blue?) is beyond awful.

[Ingmar]

Possibly he needed to skill up (or train) to use the blue, but even so, why anyone would still have a white vendor weapon by that level is beyond me.

[Lantyssa]

If his gear and build bother you that much, you're welcome to mail him stuff from the AH with a passive-aggressive note, "Your gear and build suck.  Here's some gear to fix that and gold to respec exactly how I think you should be.  See attached for point distribution.  Hopefully the gear helps you put up with me be a controlling ass.  xoxoxo"

[Ironwood]

Scary lady.

[Sheepherder]

Possibly he needed to skill up (or train) to use the blue, but even so, why anyone would still have a white vendor weapon by that level is beyond me.

Same weapon type.

If his gear and build bother you that much, you're welcome to mail him stuff from the AH with a passive-aggressive note, "Your gear and build suck.

No, I'm not.  Cross-server.  He didn't stop using Mocking Blow for DPS after I told him he'd be better off with anything else either.

[fuser]

This guy leads a VoA25 with MS>OS looting rules. Ice boss goes down and NBG loot was still on. Needless to say T10 raiding pally tanking gloves drop (my pally was MT on the run) and 5 pallies roll on it. The raid says to give the loot to me, and the pally that won it gave it back to the raid leader to redistribute after Milhouse whispered him. Milhouse says "wtf your delusional" when questioned and disbands raid.

He just specc'd prot today this all happened two days ago when he was holy only. Needless to say his prot gear is a mess.

[Shrike]

This guy leads a VoA25 with MS>OS looting rules. Ice boss goes down and NBG loot was still on. Needless to say T10 raiding pally tanking gloves drop (my pally was MT on the run) and 5 pallies roll on it. The raid says to give the loot to me, and the pally that won it gave it back to the raid leader to redistribute after Milhouse whispered him. Milhouse says "wtf your delusional" when questioned and disbands raid.

He just specc'd prot today this all happened two days ago when he was holy only. Needless to say his prot gear is a mess.

Good lord. What's with the spellpower? His gemming and enchanting are fine for holy, but almost completely useless for protection.This isn't TBC and hasn't been for a year and a half. PvP ret gear is fine a a PvP protection type, but it's not fine for PvE. Schizo toon.

I don't know about you all, but when I switch a character's spec, I tend to optimize them for it. If I can't afford or can't find the materials to make a complete switch, then I don't switch until I can. I guess some don't feel the same way. Lack of pride in their character? Bad play ethic? Heh. All I know is I can't play that way.

[fuser]

Good lord. What's with the spellpower? His gemming and enchanting are fine for holy, but almost completely useless for protection.This isn't TBC and hasn't been for a year and a half. PvP ret gear is fine a a PvP protection type, but it's not fine for PvE. Schizo toon.

I'd say he's looking for best GS maybe to get in a raid hoping to get carried. Either way filed a petition with Blizzard and had a prompt response (within an a couple of hours) the ticket was escalated and then the following day a mail stating it was going to be be investigated. Oh well probably nothing will come of it, but all the more reason never to run any sort of pug's.

Ninja edit:
Forgot to mention this is after our ICC 25 pug was ninja'd on loot ship, sigh what a bad week.

[Paelos]

If his gear and build bother you that much, you're welcome to mail him stuff from the AH with a passive-aggressive note, "Your gear and build suck.  Here's some gear to fix that and gold to respec exactly how I think you should be.  See attached for point distribution.  Hopefully the gear helps you put up with me be a controlling ass.  xoxoxo"

Have a Coke and a smile. Yeesh. 

[Sheepherder]

Yes, this is the bad groups thread, where you mention people and groups that are horrible.  He is horrible, to the point where I have a hard time imagining how he could be worse without convincing me that he is an elaborate troll.  As it is I'm still unsure.

[WindupAtheist]

If his gear and build bother you that much, you're welcome to mail him stuff from the AH with a passive-aggressive note, "Your gear and build suck.  Here's some gear to fix that and gold to respec exactly how I think you should be.  See attached for point distribution.  Hopefully the gear helps you put up with me be a controlling ass.  xoxoxo"

I'm hardly some WoW PVE Nazi, but this guy was just plain Doing It Wrong.

[Sjofn]

Did he die repeatedly?  Did other group members?  If not, I really don't see what the deal is.  He's a mid-50's character.

I have done instances where there wasn't repeated death BUT it was still a bad damn group because we were effectively four (sometimes three!) manning an instance. That turns a fun time into a god awful slog. Being a special butterfly is all well and good until you start affecting other people with it. Even then it's all well and good if you're only affecting people who know your need to be a special butterfly and are cool with it. And it's even kind of OK if you push it on strangers if it's hard to tell you're a really special butterfly because you're the best damn special butterfly ever. But if your special butterfly-ness makes other people have to carry you (and I don't mean losing DPS slightly to the other DPSers, I mean having to cover for you the way you'd have to for someone who insists on spamming mocking blow as much as it can be spammed), it is not reasonable in any way, shape or form to be mad at other people for thinking you're an asshole.

I know I, for one, don't even look until someone sucks so hard and so bad I have to find an answer to why. WHY. WHY IS THIS PERSON SO TERRIBLE. Sometimes it's as obvious as that person's armory. Sometimes it isn't. 

[Zetor]

I just levelled a hunter from 15 to 80 almost exclusively via dungeon finder and haven't really had any problems (other than the path-of-frost ragequit which was... interesting). Sure, sometimes I'd get the 200 dps DK, but the rest of the group made up for it. For (almost) everything else, there is MD.

... Then yesterday I figured I'd give the fire festival boss a try on my geared feral tank, and watched the 2 melee in the group immediately gib themselves. I made the mistake of using Rebirth on one of them who then proceeded to charge at Ahune and die AGAIN.

(ok, not everyone's familiar with the fight, but 'this boss just did a massive knockback and a ton of damage to me... let's do it again!' would probably not be my normal thought process)

[Shrike]

One trend I"m noticing more lately is raid makeup idiocy. This generally involved VoA, but I've been noticing it with ICC pickup raids, too.

What usually happens is you see some RL in /trade (yes, /trade is general communications on Whisperwind) spamming for dps. I'll use my shaman as the example. I'll whisper that I'm enhance and interested in whatever he's up to. I almost inevitably get one of two replies. One is we're full on shaman. The other includes some bullshit about gearscore. Or both. Whatever. My reply is, hey, this is a pickup, do you need 10k+ dps now, or do you want to spend the next 20 minutes still looking for whateverthehell it is you think you need? Empirical evidence tends to suggest they really like spending half the night in /trade spamming a text macro.

I mean, it's past stupid. First, the GS crap. I can do 10k+ dps in 10 mans. Who the fuck cares what my GS is? My average item level is like 260. So what? Then there's the special snowflake dps thing. Do you need high end dps or not? It's one thing if you really need ranged (like in, you have none) for Saurfang, but just to get rolling? Or something like VoA where it's so trivial it's a joke? This more than anything is turning me off on the game at the moment. It's not directly comparable to the CC thing in TBC, but it brings back those very bad memories.

Oh, and something very similiar to this did happen to me this last weekend. Karma worked out in my favor when the raid in question tanked at Rotface. Had guildies there and got a blow-by-blow in /gu. They had some ugly repair bills, too. Mainly because the RL was a 5k GS tank that couldn't hold aggro from all the 6k GS dps he recruited.

[Rendakor]

Shrike, do you lead PUGs? I'm guessing no.

VoA (25) is actually one of the more difficult raids to form for regarding class composition, because all the loot is class/spec specific and no one ever wants to roll against anyone. Say I already have 3 shaman, one of each spec, when you want to join. If I invite you, I risk losing my current enhance shaman, which is zero sum and not worth it. However in that moment where I have 4 shaman in the raid, I risk the Ele and Resto shaman bailing as well, due to excessive competition for PVP gear. So, it literally could hurt the raid more than help by inviting you.

Regarding the GS thing, it's a much better measurement than we had in the Naxx and Ulduar days. The problem with your assertion "I do 10k+ dps" is that there is no way for me to verify that; you could be: lying to me, talking about an AOE trash pull, using a boss that artificially boosts DPS (Loatheb, Thaddius, BQL), etc., and I wouldn't know one way or another until we kill (or at least attempt) a boss. And if I see that some chucklehead parsed 500 dps I can kick him, but it is much more difficult to replace someone once a boss is down. With GS, there is less wiggle room: you can still lie, but you'll be called out when you get here and kicked then; you can pad your GS with PVP gear or high ilevel poorly itemized loot, but again, you'll probably be noticed before the raid goes.

And honestly, you have to consider your own attitude; if I was forming a raid and asked some prospective member for their GS and got a reply like "Who the fuck cares what my GS is, I do 10k dps, invite" I'd just Right Click, Report Spam. If you're going to be a jerk before the raid even starts, no way am I dealing with that for the duration of the raid (ICC more than VoA here, but the point stands).

[Shrike]

I don't lead raids in WoW. I have neither the time nor the patience (which you've probably figured out).

I don't accept GS for anything other than an average item level. It's a borderline useless mod. You can look at me standing there and see what sort of gear I have. I'm good for anything in the game right now. The only way you'll actually know what I can do it try me out. I'm an enhancement shaman. That pretty much tells you want I'm good at: static single target fights.

I wouldn't say my attitude is bad, but I don't suffer fools at all, and you probably won't see it, regardless. Venting here is one thing, but I generally don't say much in raids (not to say I'm not thinking it). No reason to, unless something truly egregiously stupid is underway. If you're asking me stupid questions I'm probably losing interest very rapidly anyway (and asking my GS is a stupid question). I wouldn't bother at all, but my guild's schedule and mine do not match up very well, so I'm forced into this crap more than I'd like.

My real point is you have way too many people looking for some magic 'mod' to tell them, yes, this PuG is going to succeed. There isn't any such thing, and trying to make a crude tool like GS serve is just insulting.

[Paelos]

I don't lead raids in WoW. I have neither the time nor the patience (which you've probably figured out).

...

I wouldn't say my attitude is bad, but I don't suffer fools at all.

Yeah, as for part one, anybody that hasn't led a run should try it before they start bitching about composition. Which they almost never will because it requires part two. Seriously though, try it for an eye-opening experience if you want to deepen your understanding of the game.

As for the rant on GS, any good raid leader will tell you it's mostly useless beyond gauging simple potential. I personally don't use it because I never do any PuG raids as the leader. However, in a PuG it's probably the only thing you have to go on outside of the persons class/spec.

[Ingmar]

Yeah, people seem to get personally offended on some level that PUG leaders don't TRUST them to do good dps or whatever when asked for GS, but why *would* you trust some random dpser in WoW after running a few PUG raids? My experience with raid PUGs tells me there's at least a 1 in 4 chance that any random person who you pick up is going to cause issues of one kind or another, so why not at least try to minimize that a little bit by doing some gear screening?

I mean if it was me, knowing your average ilvl would be just as good, so I can see complaining about someone refusing to accept that and demanding the actual GS number, because that's just silly. And certainly the threshold is usually set higher than it needs to be, if you're doing Naxx for the weekly setting anything at all is probably just going to be a waste of time. But I'd absolutely be using it as a tool if I was going to run a PUG raid ever again. It may be a crude tool but even crude tools have some use.

[ezrast]

I don't have a problem with GS on principle, but it's a pretty inaccurate tool even when used for its intended purpose. If you're going to put any effort into screening there are better things out there - nothing as braindead simple as GS' single number, but considering how srs bzns a lot of PUG leaders are I'm surprised more don't use mods like the one I linked or just check wow-heroes.

[Ingmar]

I like EG a lot, but it doesn't do much to tell you what some dude 4 zones away who wants to join your raid has going on sadly.