Bad Groups

[WoopeeTuralyon]

:( That's sad. If I was on Whisperwind I'd raid with you, poor healer-deprived fellow.

[Ginaz]

I've been doing some tanking the past few days as a paladin and I'm finding it much easier than my warrior.  That said, I still need time to get agro, esp. for groups of mobs.  I had a dps warrior in a HFoS that decided that when he saw my Captain America shield go flying, that meant he could charge in and whirlwind.  I need to at least lay down a consecrate before dps can start up, esp. being a tank with a GS of 3200.  Same dude on Devourer of Souls bitched at me about holding agro after a mirrored soul.  That boss jumps around during the mirrored phase so he was a fair distance away from me.  Warrior decides to open up even though he could see I wasn't near the boss yet.  Warrior dies.  Yeah, totally my fault.

[Shrike]

Been quiet the last couple of weeks. No real group misbehavior, so I got nothin'.

Most of my tanking recently (well, all of it really--aside from somewhat unintentional shaman-tanking) has been with my protection paladin. Paladin tanking is stupid easy, which I like since it allows me greater situational awaremess. What I have noticed is that even paladins generally require a few global cooldowns to get the 969 thing cooking and lock down aggro on a group. I've noticed that trend to unload as soon as ranged dps sees the avenger shield fly. Generally, it's not a problem since consecrate is usually next up and anything planning on ripping the face off the hunter/mage will aggro-lock on me as it runs through (and I have taunt ready to go, just in case). Sometimes, though, it can get exciting if I get a knockdown effect or a silence before I can use consecrate or hammer.

On the other hand, I consider it an even more successful run if I can get a dead mage or rogue in my group. Just icing on an otherwise perfect cake.

Ah! Just remembered. I did do a UP run last night with a fury warrior. This guy was pretty much a cornicopia of fail. Firstly, sub-1k dps throughout the dungeon. Fury!    Secondly, died to about every boss AoE/trickiness we ran into. Died on Skaadi? Check. Stood in whirlwind. The inevitability was pleasing. Died on Ymiron? Check. Kept unloading (such as it was) on him even after bane went off. This one was especially amusing since I was making bets with myself how long he could stay up. Was quite a while, but we did have a pretty good tree druid healing. Good times.

[Azuredream]

Tanking as a paladin is easier. There's so much AoE you have you don't even need to switch targets. I have noticed though that the boss threat of a paladin is significantly less than on my warrior. And I do kinda miss spell reflect.

[Shrike]

I haven't tanked on my warrior in so long, I can't really compare. I do know as a paladin I use a different priority in abilities on a single target/boss than I would on a pure group type pull. If it's a boss, it's all SoV and SotR. SotR in particular is used as fast as it recycles, since it's massive threat. Otherwise, hammer would get the nod, combined with SoC.

[Paelos]

Paladins are the EZ mode of tanking, yes. This doesn't apply AS well in raids, but it's still better than trying to tank as a warrior when there is more than just a boss.

[Ginaz]

Even with crappy gear (I'm up to 3700 GS now) I haven't had too many problems tanking the 15-20 heroics and numerous regular FoS and ToC.  Only one we couldn't get done was a HToC.  We kept wiping on the third stage of the Black Knight.  Of course, the healer was almost equally as poorly geared as I was.  An undergeared tank + undergeared healer doesn't always end well.

[Selby]

We kept wiping on the third stage of the Black Knight.  Of course, the healer was almost equally as poorly geared as I was.  An undergeared tank + undergeared healer doesn't always end well.

That's a serious DPS race at that stage with not so awesome gear.  If the DPS was poor that's part of your problem.  I've found a lot of REALLY bad DPS lately, I mean 5.3k+ GS people doing less than 2k.  I don't know whether it's clueless people or just plain laziness.

[brellium]

We kept wiping on the third stage of the Black Knight.  Of course, the healer was almost equally as poorly geared as I was.  An undergeared tank + undergeared healer doesn't always end well.

That's a serious DPS race at that stage with not so awesome gear.  If the DPS was poor that's part of your problem.  I've found a lot of REALLY bad DPS lately, I mean 5.3k+ GS people doing less than 2k.  I don't know whether it's clueless people or just plain laziness.

I never understood the poor dps thing.

My undergeared mage with a bad frost spec was doing nearly 2k the minute I hit 80.  The boomkin was a little different, however I was pulling 1.5k+ right off the bat and 3k in healer gear.  The only charecter I sucked with dps was the warrior doing 1.2k as dps.

[WoopeeTuralyon]

Yeah, if your dps aren't good even a well geared healer can have to work.

Today, I was in not one, not two, but THREE fail HoR randoms! After the tank died in about 10 seconds on the second trash wave, taking more damage than even spam Healing Waves could overcome, I dropped. I mean, really. Healing wave is ~14k non crit more than 20k crit, every 2 seconds, and it isn't enough?! The second annd third runs both struggled through the trash waves (run 2 was so slow on Falric my heals did literally nothing, and we wiped twice, end of that). The third run managed to get allll the way to the last group before the exit when LK caught us and insta-gibbed our pathetic asses. All 3 runs had sub-2k dps, 2 of which were hunters in T10. WTF?

[Minvaren]

Low DPS = fail HoR.

Bad tank = fail HoR.

Actually, just about anything (including cosmic rays) seems to make you fail HoR.   

[Selby]

Actually, just about anything (including cosmic rays) seems to make you fail HoR.   

It's really odd.  I've found that a great tank and 1 good DPS with a "just okay" healer can make the run just fine.  The other 2 DPS are really irrelevant to the situation provided you have one person doing decent (4k+) numbers.  The tank is really the key element.  A poorly geared tank can do it with superstar healing and DPS support (my warrior tank got in there with like a 4100GS once and we came out just fine) when they know what to do and how to react.

Yesterday I ran it with a guildmate who is a great tank yesterday who was DPS at first.  The tank we got was... about as minimally geared as you could be to actually get into it and wanted us to kick him.  We told him not until he gave it a try =P  As expected he did not so stellarly, but my guildmate and I really pulled out some nice DPS numbers.  We still wiped on the first boss when he had 900HP left...

The 2nd try, guildie goes to tank and the run is SO smooth.  But only because I was doing more damage than the other DPS and the tank combined.  Stuff was just destroyed in my wake.  I get REAL nervous on the gauntlet when the DPS is poor and I can't do anything about it, but when I DPS on my mage I don't worry so much since I can really make or break a run with such high and effective placed damage (all these guys were doing 1000-1500DPS and I was doing 6500).

[WoopeeTuralyon]

I have definitely had more fail HoR's than any other heroic. If I get in there with a tank with 32k or so buffed I think... crap. I'm going to have to work. And if the dps are bad, I REALLY have to work, and despite being, I think, a very good healer, no amount of healing saves you if LK catches you.

[Ginaz]

I have definitely had more fail HoR's than any other heroic. If I get in there with a tank with 32k or so buffed I think... crap. I'm going to have to work. And if the dps are bad, I REALLY have to work, and despite being, I think, a very good healer, no amount of healing saves you if LK catches you.

I tanked a HHoR last night with around 34k health and we only wiped once because our top dps (hunter) lagged out or something druing the LK chase.  We did all the rest with very few problems and only one person dying on.  I didn't think I did too shabby considering it was my first time tanking it on Heroic and with the gear/health I had.  Whats funny is a dps bailed right before the first wave because he didn't think I'd be able to tank successfully.  To be fair, though, tanking as a paladin is stupid easy.  That place was made for pally tanks.

[Ingmar]

Tank survivability is not really the deciding factor in HHoR, honestly, so I'm not surprised you did fine at 34k. As long as you can wrangle the ghost adds acceptably you can tank HHoR. Much more important is DPS in that particular fight. Bad DPS in there will kill you every time, whether it is from ghost waves taking too long to die, failing to outrace the first boss's debuffs, killing the chase waves too slowly so Arthas catches farther up in between wall casts, etc.

[Morat20]

Dammit yesterday sucked on LFG. 78 hunter pulled Drak'Thanon (it's the one with the guys and the black clouds of death early on, whatever it's called) and had two wipes because the fucking healer STOOD THERE IN THE CLOUD. And didn't heal himself, either.

Finally just disbanded that, pulled the one with the dwarf guy and that annoying fucking bit with all the guys rushing you as some NPC hacks something. (No, I don't bother remembering names). We get halfway there when we wipe because someone decides to stop following the group, go off, aggro a dozen mobs, lead them BACK to us where we're already working on some mobs. Not like "he stood too far back and aggroed a patrol" but literally "Went the wrong way, started fighting mobs, realized we weren't there, ran away to us and got us all killed".

Finished that, went to my mage. Pulled Maradon again (fuckit). Kill Landslide, the tank dings, and quits the group. Fucker. So we wait until we get another tank to finish it.

Best group of the day was Sunken Temple where we merely got lost, since no one had done it in forever. Other than that, the run went fine.

[Shrike]

Halls of Stone is your dorf/wave/whatever dungeon... 

Actually, I used to friggin' hate that place. Now, I seem to get it about 4 times a week between my paladin and DK. I've tanked it so much now I can about do it in my sleep (I can sure as hell do it practically blind drunk). It's like a zen experience now. As long as my healer is moderately capable, we're good to go. And I've had clueless dps bring me all sorts of "presents", but so far they haven't wiped a run. Yet.

Hmmm. Can't think of any bad groups last few days. Been pretty good really. Even had an Occulus run that went so well I about fell out of my chair at the sheer perfection of it. About to log back in, so I might get a trifecta of wankers to report in on.

[Morat20]

Hmmm. Can't think of any bad groups last few days. Been pretty good really. Even had an Occulus run that went so well I about fell out of my chair at the sheer perfection of it. About to log back in, so I might get a trifecta of wankers to report in on.

I've gotten spoiled by good groups. Runs where the tank pays attention to the healer's mana bar, thus not making a big pull right before the healer's ready. Or where people watch their aggro. Where someone checks to make sure people know the boss.

On the other hand, my hunter ended up with the Troll Butcherer. My two-handed skill was 1/380ish. On the other hand, it was a clear upgrade from my sword/dagger combo in terms of 'boosting ranged DPS'.

I did decide, just today, to go ahead and grab a Viper addOn. I've been real lazy and leaving viper on for everything but bosses. My gear's for shit, but I'm leveling. I'm not dropping money on enchants and the like for leveling gear. (I don't even want to hear what people think of my specs. I do my job). I got recount too, just to make sure my DPS is at least acceptable. I've had too many good groups and too many bad groups to want to be on someone's "asshole Hunter" list.

[Wolf]

I've recently been told I'm a "shit magnet" from the groups I've been getting on my 78ish hunter and 72ish DK tank.

I get Gundark (? never could tell which is which from the two troll ones) on my hunter. Shaman in the beginning fails the jump, gets spooked and pulls the first snakes. Proceeds to say "AFK", the tank starts tanking the mobs, but healer just respeced and is at zero mana. We wipe, tank leaves after res. Shaman is still AFK, so we can't requeue. Win.

Next up - the DK. I pull UK. Get resto shammy. Doesn't use earth shield, cool ill pull less. Second pull was 4-5 mobs. Health starts dropping, i pop icebound fortitude. Health keeps dropping I pop my ghoul and sack it. Health is still dropping, icebound runs out I die. Shammy says "lol glass tank" and quits the group...

[Typhon]

Reading Morat's, "I can't be bothered to remember the dungeon names" made me recall a recent rant I unloaded on my friend who is trying to keep us all in WoW (I want to quit now so I'll forget how tedious everything has become by the time Cataclysm comes out).

Here's the rant: 

"ok, so Blizzard puts in a SPECIAL AND UNIQUE ZONE-IN GRAPHIC FOR EACH DUNGEON but decides to NOT TELL YOU THE NAME OF THE DUNGEON IS AS YOU ARE ENTERING.  I guess in a world where everyone had to specifically find their way to said dungeon that makes sense, you're completely aware of where you are going.  In a world where you are queing for a dungeon and you don't know what you're going to get it makes no sense at all.  They couldn't spare 5 minutes per dungeon to put the name of the dungeon on the zone-in graphic?!  Fuckers!  THAT'S IT, this game is broken!  I'm QUITTING!"

:)  That's the kind of juvenile crap that my friends have to put up with.

[Shrike]

"asshole Hunter" list.

All hunters are on that list by default. The goal is to get off that list as quickly as possible. Easier said than done, too.

[Morat20]

"asshole Hunter" list.

All hunters are on that list by default. The goal is to get off that list as quickly as possible. Easier said than done, too.

I watch my aggro, don't shoot shit that it's the main target, don't roll "need" on stuff that's not hunter gear, always have full ammo and pet food, keep my pet on passive, and lay ice traps by the healer or send my pet to yank anyone that wants to eat the squishy priest.

Good lord, what more do you want? :)

Although, on my mage, I found myself yelling at a fucking Hunter in a group to "SHOOT IDIOT. YOU HAVE A GUN. USE IT". Instead, he's fucking meleeing down a boss.

[Ingmar]

Good lord, what more do you want? :)

We want you to turn off viper!

[Morat20]

Good lord, what more do you want? :)

We want you to turn off viper!

Fine. I'll turn off Viper. But I'll lay snake traps, just to confuse you. That's my final offer.

[Fordel]

I always demand snake trap, just because!

[Morat20]

I always demand snake trap, just because!

I added in recount just to make sure I didn't totally suck. I suspect I do. I'm level 79, and doing The Culling of Stratholme (that was fun. First time for me to run through that. I do regret not doing any of the Caverns of Time stuff in TBC) I was running like 1.6k DPS.

Of course, my gear is unenchanted, random blues and greens, but still. It seems a bit low.

[Nebu]

I added in recount just to make sure I didn't totally suck. I suspect I do. I'm level 79, and doing The Culling of Stratholme (that was fun. First time for me to run through that. I do regret not doing any of the Caverns of Time stuff in TBC) I was running like 1.6k DPS.

Of course, my gear is unenchanted, random blues and greens, but still. It seems a bit low.

You're doing fine.  My hunter was getting similar numbers (Marksman spec) using unenchanted PvP purple gear.  Granted, I was new to the dungeons and spent more time looking around than concentrating on my job.

[Zetor]

If you're looking to measure your dps, keep in mind that gauntlet-ish instances like COT and "downtime" bosses like the water dude in violet hold, the first boss in halls of reflection or the event in halls of stone will get you lower numbers; similarly, extremely aoe-heavy fights (explosive trap + volley) will inflate your dps. Your other party members (buffs / debuffs) matter a lot too, as well as how quick stuff dies and/or how much aoe trash there is.

I think 1.6k isn't bad at all for a sub-80, especially without heirlooms. What gets you in the bad groups thread is doing like 900 dps at level 80, or 2k dps with full tier-9 level (232-245) pve gear, especially when combined with wiping the group in some spectacular way (which is pretty hard with how geared tanks/healers are nowadays, btw!) :p

[Shrike]

I always demand snake trap, just because!

I added in recount just to make sure I didn't totally suck. I suspect I do. I'm level 79, and doing The Culling of Stratholme (that was fun. First time for me to run through that. I do regret not doing any of the Caverns of Time stuff in TBC) I was running like 1.6k DPS.

Of course, my gear is unenchanted, random blues and greens, but still. It seems a bit low.

That's actually pretty decent for a 77-79 character. I'd be pleased to have a hunter (or any dps) pulling that level of damage output in per-heroic instances. I get so many (like well over half) that can't climb out of the sub-1k basement, and I know damn well the classes are capable of so much more. It's really egregious in heroics, but, again, quite common to see 1k or less even there.

[Morat20]

That's actually pretty decent for a 77-79 character. I'd be pleased to have a hunter (or any dps) pulling that level of damage output in per-heroic instances. I get so many (like well over half) that can't climb out of the sub-1k basement, and I know damn well the classes are capable of so much more. It's really egregious in heroics, but, again, quite common to see 1k or less even there.

Hunter is pretty easy. Put pet on passive. Turn off growl. Turn on cower. (I'm BM specced).

Pick target. Hunter's Mark Target. Tell pet to kill target Serpent Sting target (I have the +10% steady shot glyph if serpent is up). Arcane shot target. If target is part of group, multi-shot target, else Aimed Shot target. Fire steady shot at target, hitting arcane and Aimed/Multi when up. FD if you grab aggro. FD on wipe, hope your cables work. :)

Keep an eye on threat, and don't blow all your cooldowns at once. Through in kill command when it's up, don't stack Bestial Wrath with Rapid Fire (that tends to jerk aggro) unless you're feeling the fight's going south and speed's your only chance. Use your trinkets whne necessary. If someone goes for the healer, either send the pet to intimidate it or drop an ice trap.

I don't even use volley that much, except on trash. If I get yanked into a boss, I'll drop a fire and a snake trap under the "every bit counts". :)

[WoopeeTuralyon]

Level 70's in Kara gear could do 1k dps, but an 80 in blues and greens can't? Sad.

[Morat20]

Level 70's in Kara gear could do 1k dps, but an 80 in blues and greens can't? Sad.

Weren't people in Kara gear generally hard asses with more macros than they had actual abilities, who spent their cheeto-stained hours wringing every tiny theoretical ounce of DPS they could manage?

[WoopeeTuralyon]

Level 70's in Kara gear could do 1k dps, but an 80 in blues and greens can't? Sad.

Weren't people in Kara gear generally hard asses with more macros than they had actual abilities, who spent their cheeto-stained hours wringing every tiny theoretical ounce of DPS they could manage?

Err... uhh... what? If people in Kara gear were that, what were people in Sunwell gear?

[Sjofn]

Level 70's in Kara gear could do 1k dps, but an 80 in blues and greens can't? Sad.

Weren't people in Kara gear generally hard asses with more macros than they had actual abilities, who spent their cheeto-stained hours wringing every tiny theoretical ounce of DPS they could manage?

Kara was the baby raid!

[apocrypha]

Ditched 2 seperate groups within 30 mins this morning.

First one, OK heroic, me healing with my shaman, Kingslayer paladin tank. One of those really annoying idiots who think that being a Kingslayer makes them invincible! Pulls 3 packs of spiders at the start, doesn't interrupt a single Spellflinger cast, I only manage to interrupt 2, nobody else interrupts, tank dies, says "FFS healer", I ditch.

So, on to my lvl 71 disc priest. UK. Lvl 69 DK tank. Not in tank spec or gear. Doesn't use Death & Decay. Or Dark Command. Or Death Grip. I manage to escape before the wipe (just).

Oh and our weekly this week is Patchwerk. Joined a pug with my resto druid. Realised as Patchwerk got pulled that we only had 1 tank. Oops. All the melee DPS die within 30 seconds to Hateful Strikes, leaving me, the only tank and 2 ranged DPS. We managed to kill him with 5 seconds left before the bezerk timer