The epic raid AFK
by Adam Holisky 
Apr 26th 2008 at 5:00PM
There are few things more frustrating in the game than a person going AFK in the middle of a fight. Sometimes there are good reasons, and sometimes the reasons are...less than adequate. But no matter what, we all have an epic AFK story that makes us laugh and cry all at the same time.The ultimate AFK (so far) in my WoW career happened while we were on Illidan last week. Uly, a good Mage in our guild, was standing with the ranged group dpsing Illidan during phase 1. He was a little high on threat, so he switched to his wand. Nothing wrong there.
So he's standing there, wanding away as I'm moving Illidan across the terrace to avoid the fire. It looks like he's doing his job. He get the parasites.
"Uly," the raid leader calls out.
A second goes by.
"Uly, move," calls the class lead.
Another moment.
"Oh $!@# he's AFK."
Our Mage has gone AFK to get a drink. At this point it looks like we're going to wipe. There's only 5 more seconds on the parasites, and Uly's not back. Even if he was, he probably wouldn't make it to the parasite spot in time. Then sometime miraculous happens.
"Everyone move away from Uly NOW," yells the GM over vent. Every person in the ranged and healer group moved away from him, and just in the nick of time as the parasites spawned. Ranged DPS was so focused on what was going on that they were very quickly able to push down the parasites and get back into position - finishing off phase 1 without missing a beat. The attempt ended with a wipe at 45% during phase 4, so not a terrible attempt overall.
Uly eventually came back and apologized profusely. I talked with him later about this when I wanted to write up the story, and he was pretty humble about it. He's a good player, and we've all had these moments. I used to go AFK when tanking Garr's dogs in MC, for instance. But that really doesn't compare to turning on the wand and going AFK during a fight where you probably will have to run out of the group with little bugs growing in your stomach.
What are some of your most epic AFK moments? Share and enjoy!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
maddy Apr 26th 2008 11:29PM
i fell asleep a lot of times in raids of parties when after a wipe i wanted to just lay down and close my eyes for 5 minutes.
spiegel Apr 26th 2008 5:16PM
We were raiding in Naxx in October '06, myself (warrior class lead) and the other warriors were in a private vent channel while phantoming the raid channel to hear instructions. All of a suddon one of our warriors is speaking when we "pop pop pop pop pop....pop". At first I thought to myself whoah that sounds like gunfire, but that can't be. The warrior stops talking after the sounds then he comes back and says "AFK GUNFIRE". He ended up leaving and coming back in a couple hours, what happenned was the Police killed a man in the street in front of his house, the man was waiving a gun around angry that his wife had just left him and was wanting to "commit suicide by cop" aka he wanted the cops to shoot him.
Adam Holisky Apr 26th 2008 5:18PM
That beats my story... =)
Vegnagun bwf Apr 26th 2008 5:38PM
Epic afk.
Psychosis Apr 26th 2008 6:15PM
Holy cra-!!
win.
Ian Apr 26th 2008 5:37PM
I have a friend afk in Kara once because some one in his hall set off the Fire Alarm. In he went "afk a bit. Fire Alarm". from then on he was known as the Fire Alarm boy.
JessPachWay Apr 26th 2008 5:48PM
Someone in my guild had a fire alarm emergency too. He came back, got on Vent and we heard him say "*WERRR*Just *WERRR*a *WERRR*false *WERRR*alarm. *WERRR*I'm good.*WERRR*"
Combatc87 Apr 26th 2008 5:59PM
@4
You weren't ever by chance in the guild Sedition on Icecrown, were you?
I've done just that. I was tanking Moroes when someone set off the alarm. I tried to ignore it as long as I could because I was sure it was a false, but then the fire department showed up, so I figured I better get out just in case, so I told the DPS to hold back a few seconds and I generated as much threat as I could. Apparently we made it to 10% before my threat was overcome.
Aler Apr 26th 2008 6:13PM
The first time our guild downed Gruul, the fire alarm in my apartment building went off the moment he fell. I spent 40 minutes shivering outside, but when I came back, I found the Collar of Cho'gal in my pack. I love my guild!
JohnC Apr 26th 2008 5:39PM
lol i havent had any funny raid afks as im not 70 yet but when in a instance group i once was with another hunter (had been with him before so was happy to agree to his suggestion) he had to go afk for 10-15mins cant remember why and what he did was /follow me and put his pet on aggresive, he then setup a macro to /assisst pet; /autoattack. not sure how he got it to continously run but it was funny because as a hunter i had to keep him out of aggro and stay back but at the same time get his pet in range so it would auto attack and mob needed, but not to near to other mobs that it aggrod by accident (that happened quite a few times but lucky we were at the high end level for the instance.
probably not "funny" but it was a good laugh for me at the time as i had to try control four characters effectively at once
Patrick Apr 26th 2008 5:51PM
I had someone go afk in my raid saying, "AFK have to go make rice for the family." A minute later he came back saying he was back. Well we had a good laugh and were like Whoa! thats some fast rice making skill. ROFL 1 minute rice.
Prauche Apr 26th 2008 5:53PM
Not a raid afk; but before TBC we're running Dire Maul and after a wipe we're getting ready to head back in when one of our dps says, "Can you guys hang on for about 15 minutes, I have to go play ping-pong with my cousin. I'll be right back."
Needless to say, we didn't wait. Of course, it was probably half of the 15 minutes before some of us picked ourselves up off the floor from laughing. We actually called it because we didn't think we could focus after that.
And I never ran anything with him again.
Neglekt Apr 26th 2008 5:59PM
Thursday on Leo (my guild's first night of doing him) after our first attempt wiped at 1% (with a hunter FDing a little early for my taste rather than trying to help dps him down) we're set for the 2nd attempt, the RL does a ready check, and then, after everyone has responded that they're ready, a member of the raid types "afk a sec, bio" RIGHT before the RL called for the pull. It didn't get anyone killed but it was funny to see the normally VERY calm and laid back RL get upset.
Charles Apr 26th 2008 6:00PM
One of our tanking was tanking Prince, everything was going great! Suddenly..."I gotta go, apartment on fire". He managed to tank for another minute or so AFK, but things did not end well. He was okay though!
Jamie Apr 26th 2008 6:24PM
Not an AFK story, but it needs airing.
One of our Shamans used poison cleansing totems on Hakkar.
No wonder we kept wiping.
quaunaut Apr 26th 2008 6:37PM
There was one AFK we had, of a warlock, on Vaelstrasz. We had Vael on farm this time, and everyone else moved away from him when he got the bomb, so not many folks worried- but he was only gone 2 minutes.
When he gets back, his explanation was "The wife was frisky."
From then on, he was called Minuteman.
Rydia Apr 26th 2008 6:39PM
I am from Old school FEST on Deathwing.
We had a Warrior named Acsido who would go AFK all the time then appear right when we got to a boss. He did this to us during BWL and AQ back in the day. For some reason we loved his ass (something to do with him raiding with no pants on)
Man I miss the old days of Level 60
Miss you Acsido :-)
jamessungkil Apr 26th 2008 6:40PM
not a sotry but reason for afk - "afk, my mom fell off the tree while tryign to get a random cat down" lawl x 10
donoteatmikezila Apr 26th 2008 6:47PM
Probably when I told my MC raid I had to go afk to help my stepdad (who had a broken leg at that time) get out of his car and into the house, and got an earful of whining and moaning that I was holding everyone up. Considering I already told them I was going to have to afk at one point to do this, this pissed me off a great deal. This coupled with the fact that people started arguing if I'd already afk'd once that raid or not, like I was only allowed one bathroom break or something.
I /gquit and hearthed, and have not raided since.
In before someone calls me a liar who's trying to make raiding look bad.
Badger Apr 27th 2008 2:28AM
Mikezila: That doesn't make you look like a bad player or a bad person. That makes the rest of your former Guild look like selfish and irresponsible peckerheads.