Bad Groups

[K9]

In my experience 99% of our loot drama came from 25 mans, generally because we had to use a DKP system and the terribles we ended up using to fill out numbers either won loot or whined endlessly about not having enough DKP to hoover up loot items. Also, due to slower progress in 25 mans the rate of loot items per raider per hour is way below what kept people happy.

As it has been said, in 10-mans so much loot is split between max 2-3 people, and generally we have a much more sane group of raiders. With craftable gear and badge items, there is a steady gain of items that keeps most people happy.

[Azazel]

Something that I'm enjoying as a tank is that if someone is being a dick, whether they are dps or even the healer, I can kick them/get the group to kick them. It makes runs much more pleasant not having jerkwads in the group. Luckily, most people are polite/pleasant enough, or don't say anything at all. A far cry from having to bite my tongue and put up with wankers as a DPS.
 

[Sheepherder]

The way it is now, with points + drops, is a lot more appealing to me than any of the alternatives so far suggested. I get points, so I am still getting something.

I think rep is the better system, solely because you don't burn it, so it's a better mechanism to open access to loot from content you've already done to death without getting into cost/benefit analysis (do I burn these points on T8, or save up for the more expensive t9?).

Of course, they could also incentivise low tier raids better.  Like granting extra JP for boss kills when you select the "pass on loot" option.

[dd0029]

Noticing that about every other group one person waits until everyone else has greeded and then needs anything they can regardless of actual use, like the 58k kingslayer pally I had in the Nexus this morning needing every piece.

[Sjofn]

The way it is now, with points + drops, is a lot more appealing to me than any of the alternatives so far suggested. I get points, so I am still getting something.

I think rep is the better system, solely because you don't burn it, so it's a better mechanism to open access to loot from content you've already done to death without getting into cost/benefit analysis (do I burn these points on T8, or save up for the more expensive t9?).

Of course, they could also incentivise low tier raids better.  Like granting extra JP for boss kills when you select the "pass on loot" option.

If they did it based on rep, I would really, really, really resent having to go back to that goddamn place after I'VE hit exalted. Getting JP, I'm always getting something. I prefer spending and wanting to gain more.

Plus if they did the rep thing, they'd have to take out the human +rep racial, and I fucking love that racial.

[apocrypha]

Noticing that about every other group one person waits until everyone else has greeded and then needs anything they can regardless of actual use, like the 58k kingslayer pally I had in the Nexus this morning needing every piece.

Yeah this is happening more and more since they made the RDF work across *all* servers, not just within your own battlegroup. People know that they have almost zero chance of ever random-grouping with anyone ever again. No accountability at all = Need on everything they can.

I suppose that heroic dungeon loot now isn't really needed by anyone and hasn't been for a long time. It's so fast and easy to get to iLvl 180 average to get into heroics and once you're there then all you care about is JPs really. Minor upgrades from drops are, well, minor.

People will get insta-votekicked from Cata levelling dungeons for it. 

[Ironwood]

That's less of a problem, since it happens about twice before you kick the cunt.  The worst is the chaps who wait till the last boss (who usually harbors the good shit) and then just needs on it all and bb's.

Fucking bastards.

That said, I got a tank that did that and then got me in the very next group.  He went five minutes before realising that I wasn't healing him, nor was I going to.

 

[dd0029]

The last boss in the Stonecore just brings out the tard in every tank for some reason.  When she flies away to throw rocks, two waves of two groups come.  The first time the tank is usually good.  But once the first wave is dead, the only thought that runs through the little tanky mind is, Nothing here, better go run and flail ineffectually at this mostly immune boss while the healer tanks the second wave that shows up just about the time they get up on the altar.

[lesion]

So there I was, in H-Deadmines...after numerous wipes I take reaper duty because, surprise, folks are retarded. So now I'm sitting at the forge killing adds every 10-15 seconds, mostly just standing there. DPS warrior dies almost at the start of the fight, which I didn't even know was possible even with standing in cleaves. That leaves a single hunter and the tank to do 4.2 million damage. Five minutes later the hunter dies. It's now the DK tank beastmoding this thing to the ground.

At around 600k, the healer dies. I'm still kicking slag ass, wondering when we're gonna wipe. Boss gets to 300k and the DK finally gets chopped down. Now it's me, the slag and the boss cleaving all over the place. It's like blenders furiously making out. Boss gets down to about 100k and the reaper gets junked, popping my vulnerable magey ass onto the ramp. Throw down mirror image to keep them all busy while I run away firing scorches and pyros. Boss and company finally reach me with a few hits left, so I fire off every instant I've got and we die at the same time. Loot sparkles mean that 8-minute fight was not for nothing.

[apocrypha]

See, that's not a bad group, that's an epic battle! 

[Shrike]

I've had a lot of epic battles so far this expansion. Most end with the shaman tanking. Some even end well. Some. 

[Paelos]

So there I was, in H-Deadmines...after numerous wipes I take reaper duty because, surprise, folks are retarded.

Hilariously, that happened to us as well, and by accident we found out the hunter's pet could tank the last 20% of the boss because he does no straight on attacks. All Reaper's hits were cleaves, which the pets had 90% reduction. So, the pet took almost no damage and the hunter nuked him down while our add guy just stayed on slags.

[lesion]

Ha, that's pretty awesome!

[kildorn]

Man, I tanked a normal HoO pug this weekend that was special. The three dps combined put out 12k on Rajh. For the entire instance I had at least 35% of the total healing done with my DK. And my favorite bit was the Boomkin rolling need on any leather item because "I need it in my bags so I can run heroics" while putting out 3.1k dps. Look, you need things you plan on equipping to run heroics, and a dps rotation. :(

[Arrrgh]

I'm tanking. Mages insist on freezing/rooting everything in place. Frozen mobs can't be moved and if I get out of range they attack whoever is in reach instead of me. I ask the mages to stop freezing/rooting every thing. I'm told that I'm an unreasonable bastard out to kill their DPS.

Who's right here?

[kildorn]

Snaring/rooting things on the pull was a total pet peeve of Ingmar's way back in the day <3

I had that issue in HoO with the rogue using a snaring poison on everything. Normally, totally okay! In this case, making it kinda hard to move things out of void zones.

Normally I'd say freeze/root is fine once the melee huddle is established. Only not fine on mobile fights where the tank needs to keep moving around. The mage SHOULD be breaking those freezes almost immediately, though.

[Drubear]

I had that issue in HoO with the rogue using a snaring poison on everything. Normally, totally okay! In this case, making it kinda hard to move things out of void zones.

It might have been that the Rogue had the Deadly Brew http://www.wowhead.com/search?q=deadly+brew talent which has a chance to apply crippling. Or had his/her poisons setup from PvP.

[Zetor]

I have 2/2 desecration (puts a 50% slowing zone on the ground when I use plague/scourge/soon necrotic strike) on my unholy DK spec. It seemed like a good idea since a lot of fights involve kiting, plus it's nice for pvp as well. No tank complained about it yet, but I wonder if there are specific situations where it'd screw things up...

[Rasix]

Heh, desecration used to mess up the visibility of certain ground effects, if I'm remembering correctly.  Somewhat important for raiding.

[Shrike]

Desecration has a variety of side effects ranging from simply annoying to rather nasty. It's just something you'll have to learn to work around as you raid. I don't recall the encounters, but we had a couple of bosses last expansion that the RL had banned desecration from.

[kildorn]

I have 2/2 desecration (puts a 50% slowing zone on the ground when I use plague/scourge/soon necrotic strike) on my unholy DK spec. It seemed like a good idea since a lot of fights involve kiting, plus it's nice for pvp as well. No tank complained about it yet, but I wonder if there are specific situations where it'd screw things up...

Mostly it's fine. In this case (HoO trash pull) the mobs put a 10% heal/sec zone under them that expands. So you have to keep moving them around. It meant that pull took a lot longer than it should have due to all the snared mobs taking longer to get out of the healy zones.

My dps DK setup includes pretty much perma snaring everything once I open up as well. Because it's useful sometimes!

[Dren]

I'm tanking. Mages insist on freezing/rooting everything in place. Frozen mobs can't be moved and if I get out of range they attack whoever is in reach instead of me. I ask the mages to stop freezing/rooting every thing. I'm told that I'm an unreasonable bastard out to kill their DPS.

Who's right here?

I haven't played frost spec on my mage in a very long time, so things might have changed, but basically freeezing/rooting is all part of the standard rotation.  The talents in that tree do it automatic for frost bolt and some of the other abilities.  The frost mage can't help that.  Also, the DPS mentioned is affected because they get a 100% crit on frozen targets.  Turns out for good dps on the main target, but that is also the target for the Tank while the rest of the mobs are moving at normal speed.  Yeah, frustrating.

In cases like that, mages should switch to arcane or fire.  Frost is great for PvP, but annoying in some raiding situations.

[Merusk]

Heh, desecration used to mess up the visibility of certain ground effects, if I'm remembering correctly.  Somewhat important for raiding.

Yeah, and now there's a number of them that screw it up.  D&D, Desecration, Priest Healing Field, Priest Barrier, Druid Healing Field.. whatever that blue one is that I keep seeing.  They all make it damn hard to see what's going on.

I haven't played frost spec on my mage in a very long time, so things might have changed, but basically freeezing/rooting is all part of the standard rotation.  The talents in that tree do it automatic for frost bolt and some of the other abilities.  The frost mage can't help that.  Also, the DPS mentioned is affected because they get a 100% crit on frozen targets.  Turns out for good dps on the main target, but that is also the target for the Tank while the rest of the mobs are moving at normal speed.  Yeah, frustrating.

In cases like that, mages should switch to arcane or fire.  Frost is great for PvP, but annoying in some raiding situations.

They removed the root effect from mage talents.  You now get "Fingers of Frost" which does the same thing but without the root.  You can still freeze them in place with ring of frost or the pet's version but fingers is just as effective without killing group mates.   

[Rendakor]

The blue circle on the ground is a resto shaman thing; it's exceptionally unpleasant on the first boss of H TotT, because geyser looks almost identical. This results in either DPS running out of healing, or standing in geyser.

[Khaldun]

I had that issue in HoO with the rogue using a snaring poison on everything. Normally, totally okay! In this case, making it kinda hard to move things out of void zones.

It might have been that the Rogue had the Deadly Brew http://www.wowhead.com/search?q=deadly+brew talent which has a chance to apply crippling. Or had his/her poisons setup from PvP.

Almost certainly Deadly Brew. Kind of annoying in that I can't turn it off without not having poison on weapons at all, which is pretty much necessary for Assassination builds.

[Paelos]

Got a priest today who refused to heal me until I got under half health, even if I was getting spiked in a large group. Twice I died while she had full mana on her bar. I caught her looking the other way at times when I was getting ready to pull. I was so worried about living that I had a hard time holding aggro on anything. This was a regular GB, and she had full heroic gear. I have no idea WTF was going on.

[kildorn]

Got a priest today who refused to heal me until I got under half health, even if I was getting spiked in a large group. Twice I died while she had full mana on her bar. I caught her looking the other way at times when I was getting ready to pull. I was so worried about living that I had a hard time holding aggro on anything. This was a regular GB, and she had full heroic gear. I have no idea WTF was going on.

Disc priest used to healing epiced to hell tanks, maybe? I know disc is into HUGE HEALS again, while holy is all about rolling renew with Heal. That said, half health on a current tank is way below where I'd start dropping gheals. You're into 'going to get spiked randomly and die' range there.

I had a normal (because I'm a PANSY about tanking pugs with my DK) HoO where I was at 46% total healing done because the paladin was too busy meleeing things and trying to use his cone heal and holy shock as his only spells it seemed.

[Furiously]

My worst was two or three days in a ret pali (In RET gear) signed into be the healer.

After a death where he was like, "I wanted to queue faster." I kicked him.

[Khaldun]

One thing that's kind of fun is that I have a few new tools for emergency survivability as a rogue, so in a group with a bad tank or healer, I often have a situation where I have to take over as a tank for the last 10% of the boss' health and I can actually do that if I use all my tricks and tools right. So in a weird way even being in a mildly bad group has become more interesting than it was in Wrath, where it was more like, "I didn't even know that you *could* wipe on that boss".

[Merusk]

I had 3 failed heroic attempts last night.  Vortex pinnacle, twice*, where people just couldn't stay the hell out of the dragon breath or vortexes and so I was trying to heal the entire group or watched the tank go sailing over the edge to be instagibbed.  (Fuck that mechanic.) 

Then Stonecore where we swapped our 3 different DPS before I bailed.  The first was a ret pally who didn't know he had a CC and had cheated his way into heroics using PVP gear where it wasn't greens.  When I bitched about it in group the rest said "but I've got a few pieces of PVP too, it's ok for melee."  No, asshats, it's not as shown by your 4kdps.  The stats you're missing for that useless resilience stat actually matter at this level of gear.  The second was a moonkin who didn't know how to AOE shards on the first boss.. the third was a competent mage but the tank couldn't hold aggro and so he wound up tanking the boss, much to the complaints of my mana bar.  I bailed after that death.

I may just go back to guild groups only for a while.  The PUGs were ok for a few weeks there, but now it's becoming apparent that the failures are finally learning how to cheat gearscore or have ground up enough points to start queuing and things suck again.

[Ragnoros]

Disagree on pvp lewt not being OK for heroics. Last night the only decent dps in my group was a MS warrior in full on pvp gear. He was pulling around 11k dps, which is more than enough for heroics. The other two were a hunter and mage struggling to top 5k.

I may just go back to guild groups only for a while.  The PUGs were ok for a few weeks there, but now it's becoming apparent that the failures are finally learning how to cheat gearscore or have ground up enough points to start queuing and things suck again.

Agree on this front though. I had less trouble in the first couple weeks learning the fights in shit gear than I have had recently with full on heroic gear and knowing all the fights.
Shock! Might skill actually matter in wow.

[kildorn]

Disagree on pvp lewt not being OK for heroics. Last night the only decent dps in my group was a MS warrior in full on pvp gear. He was pulling around 11k dps, which is more than enough for heroics. The other two were a hunter and mage struggling to top 5k.

I may just go back to guild groups only for a while.  The PUGs were ok for a few weeks there, but now it's becoming apparent that the failures are finally learning how to cheat gearscore or have ground up enough points to start queuing and things suck again.

Agree on this front though. I had less trouble in the first couple weeks learning the fights in shit gear than I have had recently with full on heroic gear and knowing all the fights.
Shock! Might skill actually matter in wow.

PVP gear can work for certain classes/specs (if it's a class where their primary stat severely outweighs secondary stats, or they're packing a way overlevel conquest point weapon), but pound for pound the same ilvl of a non pvp item will do more for your dps, tanking, or healing ability.

For tanks? No way in hell, there's no avoidance on the pvp gear beyond mastery. The extra hp from the higher ilvl will not offset missing 20-30% avoidance.

[Ironwood]

For DPS warriors, the difference is minimal.  Honestly.

Yeah, tanks that do that shit are retarded beyond maybe 1 or 2 bits.

[Ashamanchill]

It's not the worst for Feral tanks, cause, they get the lions share of their dodge from the agility provided, and much of their pvp gear comes with crit, which is a survival stat for them.

[Selby]

I still don't understand how some people's DPS is just so bad.  I've been in groups where people are pulling 4-5k tops.  I mean, my mage has mostly ilvl333 and a few 346 blues and I still am pulling 8k on most fights.

That said I really am annoyed with just how *bad* some groups can be.

One thing that's kind of fun is that I have a few new tools for emergency survivability as a rogue, so in a group with a bad tank or healer, I often have a situation where I have to take over as a tank for the last 10% of the boss' health and I can actually do that if I use all my tricks and tools right.

This has happened to me 2-3 times so far.  Once I remember on the first boss in Grim Batol, the tank died as the healer was lazy when the boss had 10% health and I popped mirror images and the dead tank commented "you guys have 30s to kill the boss or we wipe!"  It was funny to watch it work.