How NOT to Treat a Tank

I’ve been sick the last few days… sick enough that I didn’t log onto WoW till late in the day.  I felt like crap so I decided to queue as dps for VP… that way in case I did have to make a sudden exit/afk I’d be less of a hindrance to the group or could easily leave and not cause a problem.

Zone in – Halls of Origination.  The tank’s first words are “OMG I HATE THIS PLACE”, followed by “brb phone” and then he suddenly had to go.  I actually feel sorry for the people that actually happens to because I’ve seen that song and dance too much to actually believe it, but what the hey… we requeue and get a pally tank to replace him about five minutes later.  Not bad… until neither the tank nor the dps knew how to do the first boss… we managed it.  Me doing 25k didn’t hurt I suppose… and killing the snakes and hitting a lever… etc.  The tank naturally drops after that.

Well… I’m feeling okay at this point, so eh, I respec and requeue as tank.  We pick up a dps dk and continue.  We pull the next couple packs and get to the next boss room… where the healer is going  “WHO IS THE TANK?!?!?!?!”.  Okay, well maybe addons are screwed up or something.  I indicate I’m the tank now.

So we tackle the boss room with little issue and then come to the boss.  He does a decent aoe as he comes in that destroys all the troggs but also damages the party.  I give the healer, who has had a lot of mana trouble thus far, a moment to put it right and get their mana back [I sit and eat as well].  The healer then jumps on me about how now I need to be pulling the boss and gogogo!  He’s at half mana… which is not nearly enough… but okay.

I pull… he dies in the first set of alpha beams.  I rez him and get snarky comments about “threat fail”.  I’ve had the boss the entire fight… solidly… no moment of the boss running off right at the start or nothing.  But yeah, he dies again to the alpha beams and naturally that’s my fault.

I manage to finish the fight… through a very creative series of CD uses and Death Strike [how I loves that ability!].  Everyone else survives and the boomkin [doing a very decent 12k] drops party.  Okay, regroup and I attempt to vote kick the healer whose healing is subpar, but he’s become abusive.  Vote kick fails.  Fine.  I take the group to the last boss…  cue the 4k dps dk having a fit.  Not ASKING mind you for us to tackle the other bosses.

After all this, heck if I’m staying one second longer than I have to…  I’ve got an abusive healer who dies to bad and blames me for “threat fail” when the boss isn’t even near him or on him…  I’ve got a 4k dps dk who doesn’t have a clue and is becoming abusive…  And the hunter was decent, but nothing to write home about either.

Well the new person dies on the first inferno leap on Rajh… easiest VP they ever got.  The other dk either can’t be bothered to rez them or doesn’t know to and mine is already on CD from popping the healer back up.

Guys, seriously… if you want a full boss run, I’m one of the more accomodating people you’ll find.  But when I’m already feeling sick, waited a dps queue to tank and on top of that, am getting abusive language from the party for things that are beyond my control?  Yeah, not staying for that mess.  Good luck finding a tank who will.  The only reason I stayed as long as I did was because the rest of the party was happy for Rajh.

Maybe I’ll just stick to running instances with hubby from now on like he suggested…  At least I’ll have one ally then.

Random Thoughts…

Well, I took part of my morning and cleaned my account of most of the extra toons.  I kept a few on servers where I have friends [ie the Effers] but other than that I went through and deleted all the extras…  I still had level one toons that have been sitting for two years and never even played.  I deleted total about 20 toons.  The lowbies just got deleted and all the extra death knights picked someone at random and traded them the gold they had.  Someone might as well use it right?  And with the BoAs supposedly becoming bind to BattleNet, I may want to roll some new toons at some point, or develop the ones I have on other servers first :P.

My priest is 3 Tol Barad commendations away from having her spirit trinket.  It’s a little frustrating as we’re sure not to win today again.  The win quest alone would get me what I need.  But alas, I shall get the trinket tomorrow for sure.

Cardboard Tanks
I’ve discovered a new phenomenon.  The “Cardboard” tank.  We all know what a tank is, and what a “dps tank” is.  But what is a “Cardboard tank”?  They are a special breed with decent gear and appropriate tanking specs that are insanely squishy – as in, I have to dump most of my mana bar each pull – on just the tank.  When I run across one of these on my healer, I just bow out of the instance.  To be fair, I always give them to the first boss, then politely bow out.

Now how can someone have the right spec and gear but still be squishy as a tank?  It’s very easy!
1. Don’t use your cooldowns – AT ALL.
2. Stand with your back to half the mobs
3. New tank.  [not a bad thing to be new but new tanks do tend to be more squishy]
4. Don’t take the talent in your tanking tree to be uncrittable
5. On top of any and all of the above – refuse to use CC.

Now your healer is dumping BIG heals on you and draining their mana each pull to keep you alive.  Even worse, Cardboard tanks RARELY watch healer mana.

On an aside, Lost City of Tol’Vir is also the bane of my existence as a disc priest because of the aoe damage, especially on the third boss.

Why Guildies Kick People And Bring in Guildies

Yesterday I was sitting and leveling my shaman and on vent hanging out with guildies.  They were doing a regular random and got Grim Batol [2 enh shaman and a holy priest] with 2 pugs – a boomkin and a dk tank from different servers.

The dk tank was doing the now normal run into a pack and expect it to A. magically stay on you and B. that the dps know the order to kill stuff and C. No CC.  The holy priest, a guildie of mine related asking the tank repeatedly to use CC because it was rough going for him.  It didn’t help that the tank was a bit squishy.  Even the boomkin was asking for CC.  The tank flat refused and just kept dashing ahead headfirst into groups.  At the second boss, he rushes a group of adds as the boss is patting back and dies.

It was painful enough at that point that they elected to kick him and asked if hubby or I would bring a tank to come help them finish the run.  I hopped over to Askevar as hubby was finishing some dailies and they kicked the dk and invited me.  We kill the second boss, and move quickly through, using CC.  I probably could’ve taken most groups without it, but they needed the chance to practice their CCs and there’s no need to stress a healer and hey, I don’t mind a relaxed pace myself!

We get to the group right before the third boss and the boomchicken runs ahead and face pulls.  I drop a DND and round up what I can.  One of my guildies died because I literally couldn’t see what was hitting them but fine recovery.  Now to the boss fight.  I pull the boss.  Boomchicken gets an add and goes and stands on top of a dps and explodes.  He does the same to a second dps and then the healer.  I mean, seriously?  After the first explosion they’re screaming at him to move away from the people with the add.  I watch him specifically get on top of the healer and BOOM.

By this point, all the kicks allowed to a group have been used [they’d gone through a drunk dps  and a dps tank before this I think they said].  Well, a couple of us dropped group [one of our people was the lead] and he refused to requeue until the boomchicken left – and left immediately.  We were invited back, picked up hubby on his offspec and breezed through the rest of the instance.

It took us NO time to finish the rest of the instance, especially with a heroic geared tank and a group of people who are working together well.  Why in the world would you go out of your way to wipe the group and give up your chance at a quick, relatively painless finish?  Especially after having been in the instance a bit?

Lessons from Lowbie LFD or how to get on your healers bad side.

1. Never watch your healer’s mana.  And then whine at them if you die.  Bonus points if you give them a long speech about how it’s their responsibility to let you know when they need mana, despite you not reading party chat.

2. Post meters and make fun of your disc priest for doing 36 dps.  When they ask if you’re for real, call them a crybaby and jump group despite them having supported you against the rude dps [looking at you Epicdruid of Elune].

3. Don’t have a tank spec.  Resto druid in bear form ftw!  Bonus points if the healer asks you to pull smaller since you’re squishy and you call them fail heals and use how awesome you are at tanking in resto spec as proof.

4. Demand that your priest cleanse poison [priests can’t].  Bonus points if you’re a class who can.

5. When your healer says they’re drinking and to not pull, pull anyway.  They have a hundred mana – that should be fine right?

6. Run out of the healer’s LOS repeatedly.  Be surprised when you die.

Many Random Things…

Had a few interesting things go on this week.

LICH KING:
First off, we got the Lich King down to 30%.  We’re making progress every week and we can all taste it so badly it’s not funny.  Right now the second transition phase throws us off balance.  And whoever gets taken into the sword seems to just die.  It can be frustrating wiping for a few hours but it’s also exciting… because we’re working on the end boss of an expansion for the first time!  We have been scheduling a second night when we can manage but it’s dependent on everyone showing [I’m not going to replace someone and cheat them out of a LK kill].

RAID ID CHANGES SUCK
The change to the raid ids seemingly killed our 25 man but several people are showing interest in doing an alt version.  Hubby and I don’t have time [or more likely energy] to wrangle a whole new set of toons together, but we’ll see how it turns out.  Worst case, we may have enough alts to do another temporary ten man on Saturdays.

LOWBIE LEVELING
I have been leveling a lowbie disc priest again.  [Wow is anything not OP at low levels right now?].  It’s been fun and mostly drama-free.  It did become a little frustrating hitting SM- Graveyard because the tank never seems to be willing to leave combat… and that can be rough on the mana regen.  In fact, one group wiped because I simply ran completely out of mana, despite me saying OOM a couple times.  Naturally, it was my fault.

The only other drama I had was in SM-Library – a boe tanking shield dropped.  The tank, naturally, needed on it – as did the druid and lock in the party.  I took a notion/chance and needed on it myself, won it and then traded it to the tank – which wasn’t a popular move with most of the party, but the tank appreciated it and equipped that thing immediately.

HALLOW’S END
At the beginning of Hallow’s End, I had 5 toons that needed either the squashling, the helm or both to complete their violet protodrake.  Thanks to some lucky trick or treating [none was completed via the HH daily], I have finished four of the five of them now.  Only my pally remains incomplete… so I shall be working to get that for her.  I will be helping hubby as well.  One of his toons is short by toothpicks of all things…  And a couple more need the helm.  So I’ll be hitting those to trick or treat some during the day for him.

HORSEMAN’S MOUNT
My shaman and Askevar2 have both gotten the horseman’s mount.  My mage has snagged it as well – twice.

TANKING
Tanking on my DK is feeling better and better – probably as I get more practice :P.  Rune regeneration isn’t a problem any longer [annoyance if that].  I am probably going to swap my paladin’s main spec to ret and her offspec to prot…  I no longer enjoy pally tanking.  If anyone thought DK rune regeneration was bad… go try pally tanking…  Sitting there and WAITING forever for abilities to come up so you can have something to do and praying you hold aggro is annoying.  I have yet to really test druid or warrior tanking.

PLAGARISM
is bad mkay?  See this and a few other most recent posts on treebarkjacket.

LINKS TO STUFF
BBB has a great post musing on the expectations we had for the quality of 4.01.  Though he got a troll or two [what blogger doesn’t occasionally?] the discussions and concerns raised in the post and the comments are worth reading.

Don’t miss Bee Pit Bingo over at Murloc Parliament.  Given that I’ve got a lowbie toon again, I might have to make more bee pit jokes…

NoMoreNoob has the work around macro for the Horseman DC issue.

For those still working on their candy buckets, Revive and Rejuvenate did a candy bucket tour post for the alliance for Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor.

And this post is a couple weeks old, but it doesn’t get old “How Leading a Raid is Like Coaching Little League” over at Forever a Noob.

Priest With a Cause created a worksheet where you can tell just how fail your Halls of Lightning Pug is…

I also wanted to put forth Looking for More’s suggestion for November activities if you’re bored with WoW.  Nanowrimo is definitely fun and worthwhile!  I’ve participated in it several years myself and it’s fun.

Dear Blizzard,

Please stop giving Askevar2 Halls of Reflections every time I queue nowadays…  I mean seriously?  Back to back queuing for a random nets HHoR both times?  She needs nothing out of the instance and I’m sick and tired of dealing with the stupid that goes on in there.  My usual 2 wipe without progress limit has reduced to one wipe at all.  It’s bad enough that I told the group this morning that I kept getting HHoR and that if we wiped I’d be out.

No love,

kthxbai.

ETA: I’ve been randomed into it about 10 times in the last 2 days… literally.  Only one of those netted an easy instance.  In the other nine, I was top dps and often times the only person doing higher than 2k dps [I was in the 3.5-4k on trash and 4-5k on boss fights].

I Belong in the Bee Pit…

I queued for a random this morning, got put in H-HoL, an annoying instance to be fair.  I could see trouble immediately.  The tank was blue-geared and the healer was a paladin with 42k mana…  And the dps [other than I] were sporting uber-titles.

This is naturally, a recipe for disaster.  Especially when as the warrior pulled the first mobs, the holy pally runs off and snags the next group, which the warrior tank [already having rage issues] can’t get a hold of.  The warrior tank asks “why’d you do that?”

Holy pally replies “Because I can handle it” as he charges off and pulls another group.  The mage and boomkin follow him and they vote kick the tank [I voted no] and initiate a requeue.  I decline to requeue and sit at the entrance where I’d stuck with the tank.  Hubby’s looking over my shoulder at this point because I have that “I hate stupid jerk pugs look” on my face.

They initiate a requeue again and I just sit there… and toss out a random vote kick on the mage which fails [he’d been screaming gogogogogogogogogogo].

The pally and mage start ragging on the boomkin, who was decent but apparently he was the reason the three of them couldn’t handle the first boss and wiped.  I admit, I was cackling at that point, but said nary a word.

Holy pally drops group; mage drops group.  Boomkin remains.  I finally select the dps role, we get a group in moments and continue.

Probably a fine example of Bee Pit Democracy

Malygos Stupid Awards of the week:

Grand Prize:
Apparently there is a hunter on my server who will go into pugs and will demand multiple buffs from pallies in them or he threatens to leave and then does.

He demanded that my paladin give him both kings and might.  Now I was the only pally and he wasn’t asking for drums.  He actually wanted BOTH pally buffs from my paladin.

I replied that he could have the big kings or might and that I’d happily give him either one but to pick.

“I’m out then.”  And he left raid.

Um… wow.

And I wonder why a hunter of his gearing ISN’T guilded?

Honorable Mentions:

1. The hunter with the mp5 helm off Gunship.

2. The Raid Leader who insisted we all /follow him on phase 3.  He died immediately on Phase 3 and proceeded to scream at us for NOT following him during it.

3. The healers who felt no need to heal dps on Malygos…  Naturally all the dps died in or shortly after the first vortex in phase 1 because we “pulled aggro” during vortex.

4. The healer who screamed at me on my pally because I pulled Malygos to “the wrong side of the circle”.

5. The group that got Maly to 196k on first attempt and then fell apart because we’re fail because we wiped.

6. The dps warrior who was decently geared but could only pull 1500 dps… died in the breath in Phase 2 and is still sitting in trade trying to Maly after being in 3 fail pugs I was also in.  He was also in several the first day.

The PUG from Hell

Ignis is always a tricky one to pug… because everyone expects to just go zerg him and pay no mind to mechanics.

I suffer through those raids… sometimes they listen… sometimes they’re fail.  I toughed it out through raids on three alts… including a few wipes on each.  And I finally decided to bring my bank alt through.

As I join the raid, which I’m already a bit twitchy about because one of the two healers has 15k mana…  and is in mostly blues and greens, I get a whisper from someone claiming to be my old guild master – from way back when I first started in WoW.  I figured it couldn’t be too bad… I had no idea he had a bear tank, but it’s well geared…

We make it through Flame Leviathan with a couple deaths in about 15 minutes, then move to head toward Ignis.  The following hell took place over a span of 45 minutes – so an hour of my life I’ll never get back.

We wipe.  Every.  Pull.  [Literally]

Someone decides to pull XT Decon to wipe the raid – For fun.

Our dps total was 18k dps… most of the dps under 1k.  [compared to the 25-28k of the other raids I pugged into].

The tanks can’t generate any threat…  I mean myself and the other lock could barely pull 3k because we were pulling off the tanks.

The rampant sexual jokes make it obvious the raid is filled with 14 year old kids [jokes I wouldn’t tolerate in a late night adult fun run for our guild mind you].

We FINALLY FINALLY get to Ignis…  and everyone just stands there.  No ready checks, no directions, no buffs… no nothing.  Finally a “stand and burn” comment followed by inaction.

Hubby finally told me to just log off, having watched me tear my hair out the past hour.  So I did.

Cue harrassment from my old GM for bailing on the group… about how power has gone to my head and I won’t work to overcome challenges or accept anyone with less than perfect gearing.  Cue slapping ex-GM on ignore.  Ex-GM decides to send me a nastygram in the mail [I put him on ignore for nothing you see].  Copy, mail to hubby so he can read it, delete.  [I will say this old GM does have a penchant for drinking… and for being a mean drunk].

I hop over to SAN to vent, after informing our officer corps of the harrassment and I vent…  And we sit there pondering what the silver lining could possibly be…

Well… I got a blog post out of it didn’t I?

Or in the words of Firefly [Pilot Episode]:

MAL: I had a good day.

SIMON: You had the law on you, criminals and savages… half the people on the ship have been shot or wounded including yourself, and you’re harboring known fugitives.

MAL: We’re still flying.

SIMON: That’s not much.

MAL: It’s enough.

I love my guild.

I’m still blogging.

And that’s enough 🙂

Buffing in Heroics

Many classes can provide buffs to their party.  Mages have Arcane Intellect;  Druids bring gift of the wild, Priest have fort, spirit and shadow resist [as needed]  and Paladins have an array of buffs.  The polite thing for them to do is to share them with us in heroics.

Now before I go further, I’m going to explicitly clarify, for the purposes of this article, we are considering LEVEL 80 instances – meaning I’m presuming everyone has the greater buffs and keeps reagents on them.  I know it’s a stretch, but it’s one I’m making.

“But they aren’t buffing me!!!!  OMG so rude!”

There are some reasons you may not get insta-buffs.  One thing I can guarantee – if you’re standing there cussing them out and calling them fail, do you really think they’re likely to buff you?  I wouldn’t.  I actually put a mana buff on a warrior one time because he started in on my paladin for not buffing before I was even zoned in.  He spent the rest of the instance cussing me out, sending me mean whispers, and doing nasty emotes [I’m told even after I slapped him on ignore].

1. Priest buffs can be done on everyone all at once.  BUT, they need to cast three spells [presuming you’re getting Shadow Resist – not useful in all instances].  This consumes a hefty percentage of their mana pool.  If you’re already pulling and they’re healing, they may need to do it gradually.  My priest’s mp5 is good enough to just throw them on and go, but she’s very well geared too.  The same can be said for mages, though as dps they may be under less pressure to be at full mana right off.

2. Some druids have a talent or glyph or trinket or something where they can cast Gift of the Wild right as the fight starts and gain some benefit [five stack of a spellpower buff or somesuch].  Yes, it’s just heroics but this is probably ingrained in some of them from raiding.  If they’re very geared, this could be why you don’t get it right away.  Otherwise, it could also be for the same reason as priests.

3. Pally buffs…  Everyone seems to want a different one.  The dk in this instance may want kings and the one in the next may want might.  I have a standard setup on mine for tanking [sanct on pallies, might on rogues/hunters; kings on everyone else] and for dpsing [might on rogues/hunters/pallies; kings on all else].  I plug this set up into pally power before I even queue.  To change pally power takes a moment and mine will not permit me to change stuff in combat.  So, if you request a deviation from my standard set up, it may take a moment.

“But the pally won’t give me might!!!”

Do you have a warrior in party?  Are they doing battle shout?  If yes, then that’s why – battle shout overrides might.  If I have a warrior doing it, I’ll buff kings on all instead.

“But what about mana!  They won’t give me that!”

Is there a shaman in party using mana stream?  If yes, then that’s why – it overrides mana.  Again, kings on all.

“The pally gave me the wrong buff and won’t change it!”

Does it really matter?  I mean, I know it isn’t your first choice and they don’t seem to be cooperative, but if that’s going to truly break your dps, then you have bigger issues – at any level of gearing.  And trust me, it’s not worth the screaming to change a buff.  Sanct/Kings will benefit you too, though perhaps not as much as might.

One other thing to consider is that it takes people different times to load their screens.  They may not be buffing because they aren’t even there yet.

Screaming  “OMGWTFBBQBUFFSFFS” isn’t going to accomplish much.  It’ll cause me to either refuse to buff you specifically or to buff you “wrong” and many other people are of that school of thought.

Politeness will get you a LONG way in this case.  Being humorous can be misinterpreted but can also work.  I buffed a dk tank with might in an instance [because the last dk had requested that] and he replied “I’m not worthy to get kings?” with a crying emote, gave me a moment to change it and then thanked me for the kings.  I was more than happy to help.  Another thing I do when requesting a different buff is to say that I’d prefer “insertbuffname” if you could and to be honest, it’s not usually worth my time to even ask.