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.

Oculus Insanity

Queued up on my druid…  got Oculus of all places.  Cool, she still needs to ride a green drake for the experienced drake rider – [and I’m not going to ask for the voids in a pug].  As a tank and as a healer, I’ve helped numerous people – guildie and non, get this achievement.  It’s a small thing that can make someone’s day.  So I do what I expect pugs to do – and ask in party if anyone minds me getting the green drake as it’s the last one I need for the achievement.  No one objects and we begin.  We down the first boss without incident, I snag my green drake and move to the middle platform.  In the middle of the second pull, the healer asks

“y u got gren drak?”

I reply that as I said earlier it was the last one I needed for the experienced drake rider achievement and I really would like to get that done if possible.

“When?”

“Earlier in party.”

“Where?”

“In party chat”

*silence*

I do notice that I stop getting heals from aoe damage.  Okay, cool.  I have cooldowns as a kitty and I can heal myself if need be.  The healer does actually heal me on the bosses…. I guess my 6-7k boss fight dps was important since the two locks in party were doing 1300 each, but who knows?

We fly through the instance – get to the last boss, get up there and begin.  Since the healer insisted on staying on a green drake, I figured I’d keep the damage debuff up on the boss and let her handle her forte – the healing.  Well, mid fight she stops healing anyone but herself – so I start healing.  She’s sitting off the the side firing the poison at the boss – that’s it.    Boss goes down handily as everyone obviously knows what to do.  We land and loot… just in time to see the healer diving into a group of whelps and dying… to try and kill me apparently.  I looted the chest and dropped group so fast – ended up in Dalaran with 200 health left.

Seriously, what was the point?  I wasn’t asking for anything extraordinary, and no one else had issue with it.  I’ve swapped with someone who needed the green or red a number of times in oculus – since I get that all the time as a random and as long as they asked nicely, was more than happy to do it.

Please don’t do this!

I just met a tank in a random who trod on every last bit of patience I have.  He was a pally – in an assortment of epics, half of which were dps.  Plus the 264 pally tanking leggings from VoA25 – ungemmed/unenchanted.  In fact, none of his gear was gemmed or enchanted.  He pulled a whole 400 dps on the first trash pack, and I knew I was in trouble.  On my dpser’s I start off with my typical “rotation” as it were and adjust to the needs of the tank.  Since instead of catching his threat, I instantly had it, and he was just standing there meleeing, I scaled back.  Still pulling threat.  I made a couple recommendations about abilities to use – I have a pally tank myself.  Some consecrate, hammer of the righteous and shield slam are excellent…  No, we’re going to just melee…  Well, in truth, he started using consecrate – once every four pulls or so.  So okay, why don’t I just melee?  Still pulling threat…  So, I finally just shifted out of kitty form and started wrathing stuff…  I didn’t pull threat there 🙂

Deja Vu… All About Lag

Last night I tried to random on my priest and got what amounted to a group of very juvenile teens from 4 different servers.  The tank decided to pull 2 groups at a time in H-OK, while not putting any damage on the spellflingers and saving both for last.  I asked them to target the spellflingers first and explained briefly why.  Second pull – same thing – only this time it killed me.

“Idiots, kill the spellflingers first or they’re going to kill me”.

“Sorry, that was my bad – I had lag”

“So lag caused you to twice pull 2 groups and kill the spellflingers last?”

“Yep lol – just shut up and heal.  It’s a heroic and just a game – I’ll do what I want – u r fail if you cant heal thru it.”

[All this whilst I’m laying there dead waiting for the pally to decide to rez me or whatever]

“I didn’t come here for a bunch of repair bills due to stupidity.”  I don’t honestly begrudge people new to an instance a wipe… OK is fraught with peril for the uninitiated…  A new tank might run into the wrong group, or pull 3 etc.  I DON’T tolerate wiping because “I’m going to do what I want regardless of all else”.

They finally rez me and actually stand there for five minutes telling me how stupid I am and how fail I must be not to be able to heal through two spellflingers wailing away on me… how it’s just a game and it’s past my bed time etc and so forth.  Some of it was even sexist diatribe.  I’m busy showing hubby the stupid – he advises me to leave – I probably should have as at this point they haven’t pushed the [VINDICTIVE DK] button.

I respond that the fact that I am geared does not give them license to be moronic and contemplate leaving on the spot.

One of the four responds, “hey, let’s finish.”  [Okay – I don’t have time to requeue so perhaps I can tolerate this a wee bit longer if they’ll focus on the dungeon].

“No, the healer has to promise to finish the instance or we kick.  Don’t you dare leave midpull!!!!”  says the tank.

Gee…  not that it had crossed my mind to leave mid pull…   I’ve done that a total of once – when the tank dropped mid pull in an instance one time, I left to avoid a repair bill.  That group was in heroic toc and all three of the dps together equaled about 3k.  But yeah, why WOULD I EVER want to leave an awesome group like this?  A group who stopped the instance run to tell me how horrible I am and call me all manner of names?

I replied that I’d stay and finish if they would start paying attention to important mechanics.  I just wanted my frost badges at this point.  And therefore they launched yet another diatribe at me… telling me how fail I am and it’s just a game and they want to do what they want to do.

“Fine then, just kick me.”

“Leave (bad language).”  [Oh, what happened to kicking me?]

“Make me.”  [Yes, they pushed the vindictive DK button in me… and I’m much softer and meltier on my priest].

Cue another [even worse] diatribe at which point I ported to Dalaran, put them all on ignore and walked away from my computer.  And I’m not sorry.  I’m one of the nicest most accomodating players you’ll find – as long as you treat me with basic respect – I do buffs, offer to do CC as needed, dps skull first, always /focus the tank to follow their target, misdirect/tot when appropriate; so on and so forth.

Eating a debuff after soaking up that much abuse, just to try and get two frost badges?  I’m not that nice.  Not anymore anyway.

And suddenly I’m remembering why I stopped running randoms… Deja Vu

As for lag, I know it happens.  It or a random DC has happened to me at some BAD moments before… but some things AREN’T lag.  Own up to them please.  Or at least make sure it doesn’t happen again?  I’ll settle for that.

Also, mechanics STILL DO matter in some cases – please DO pay attention to them.  Your healers will thank you 🙂

Mental note to self: Leave groups before they trigger VINDICTIVE DK.  Askevar doesn’t like when that happens.

“You rolled on this server, you are required to put up with stupid.”

My husband pugged his second pally into an ICC10 run this morning, figuring that at the least he’d get a bit of rep.  He managed to also get the tanking weapon off Marrowgar and the shield off Gunship [his offtank was a druid].  He was getting on toward needing to leave [he’d alerted the raid leader before joining the run as to when he could stay] and mentioned so.  The raid leader begged him to stay till Festergut, where they were going to call it.  He agreed but said that he’d need a few minutes afk in order to stay for the rest of the run and that he’d be right back.

He walks to the kitchen, heats up some leftovers and walks back in the computer room and wolfs them down [it was getting on toward lunchtime and he hadn’t eaten breakfast].  And suddenly, while he’s finishing and talking to me [not even 3 minutes have passed], one of the rogues pulls the first trash in front of the Festergut wing because “ur taking too long lol”, wiping the group.

Now, has the go go go, aoe it down, no regard for anything mentality invaded raiding?  I mean it took a lot longer to walk back from that wipe, and cost the raid a tank and ultimately going any further.  My husband told them not to pull and reminded them that he agreed to stay but had needed a quick afk to keep going [and was back now].  They laughed at him, berated him and said that he was REQUIRED to put up with their stupidity because he rolled on this server.  Unfortunately for them, he was not.

Ugly Pug: Bad and Mean Tanks DO Exist!

I campaign a LOT in support of tanks and against tank abuse.  But occasionally I get THAT tank.  The one that makes you want to rage at him.

Stop Tank Abuse. Now.

Again and again, this issue rears it’s ugly head.  Again and again, I dig my heels in and to no avail.

This morning, I was tanking an instance on my warrior.  Warriors don’t have a butt-ton of aoe threat generation – and I’m still learning, though I’m getting pretty good.  I managed to pull H-Gundrak in the timer the other day with some sick dps…  All bosses down – even Eck.  Timer ran out right as we got to the final boss.  It was pretty epic.

Then this morning, I hit H-Utgarde Keep and start my chain pulling procedures given that the healer was ICC-geared.  And I have a cutie-pie ICC geared hunter, blasted targets full blast without misdirect just as I’m getting to the mobs.    Not good.  So I ramp up and give everything I’ve got… I’m aoe-ing as much as a warrior can, tab-targetting flurry to get a devastate on every mob, and I’m managing most of them.  Then I have my healer running ahead [while I nearly died twice] and pulling more because I’m not going fast enough.  So I skip the group he pulled and pull the next one, ignoring the ones going crazy…  I don’t try to out-tank stupidity.  They killed the rogue in the party, sadly, because he was screaming at them to let me manage things.  And the healer goes and pulls the next group [without rezzing said rogue], while I’ve been sitting here being the only person on the party of 4 I have…  Um… no.  I got us out of combat asap, and went to sit in Dalaran, whilst still in party.  I’m not going to suffer a debuff because of stupidity.  Yes, I’m just that stubborn.  I have 10 80s.  I have 2 accounts.  I have housework I can go do.  Trust me, it’s more of a time waster for you to be stupid than for I.  Healer and hunter refused to kick me because they were going to “make” me leave and take a debuff.  Good luck with that.  The healer ended up being vote kicked finally, and I went back in… only to have the hunter misdirecting to the new healer.

These incidents are becoming more and more common.  And I KNOW I’m not the only one seeing them.  My husband on his ICC geared pally got refused heals because he was pulling too slow while pulling a whole instance up to the first boss in one pull.  A guildie had a warrior queue as dps, in prot spec/gear and then keep taunting from/pulling for him while doing 500 dps, refusing to say a word – only trying to stay in combat.

Tanks, don’t take this anymore.  Please.  The more we take, the more they’re going to dish out and the worse this whole thing is going to get.  Please.  We are there to take abuse from the mobs, not other players – REMEMBER that.  Healers and dps – support your tanks.

Stop Tank Abuse.

Ugly Pug – 4th Edition

You’d think eventually I’d run into every bad player out there with my luck… but there are still more stories.