Breakfast Topic: Calling it quits

by Elizabeth Harper Jan 2nd 2009 at 8:00AM

If you've ever played in a group or run a dungeon, then you know the nuisance and frustration of playing in a bad group. I'm sure most of us have been there -- a dungeon run that seems a never-ending string of wipes, a PVP group that's unable to stick together long enough to accomplish any objectives, and the inevitable repair bills that arise from a group of players that doesn't quite mesh. At this point in my healing career, I practically never group with people I don't know. Too many things can go wrong and any rewards that might come from running an instance aren't worth the sanity that would be lost by trudging onward after the fifth or sixth or seventh or eighth wipe. (And even sticking with people you know doesn't always lead you to pain-free groups -- I'll just say that Loken and I are never on friendly terms.) But a thousand complants about bad group experiences aside, when you're unfortunate enough to find yourself in a bad group, how do you know when to cut your losses and call it quits? Do you flee at the first sign of trouble? Hang in until the group leader calls it quits? Or do you have some other breaking point?

Tags: group, grouping, groups, instance, instances, pick-up-group, pug

Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Analysis / Opinion, Instances

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)

marcaras Jan 2nd 2009 8:07AM

I usually wait for someone else to break first, be polite thank the remaining group for trying and go on my way, usually I find I get invited back to another run later as being a 'good person' and more often than not the re-adjusted group gets the job done ;op

Jonny Dale Jan 2nd 2009 8:07AM

I've been in groups where we've wiped more than 10, 12 times...

I don't mind, nobody was getting frustrated, it was just a bit of fun

I don't like how people take these things so seriously, and after the fifth wipe they are like "OMG I CANT HANDLE IT ANYMORE, MY REPAIR BILLS WILL BE THROUGH THE ROOF!!"

If you take virtual money that seriously then you need to get out more

Tumleren Jan 2nd 2009 9:57AM

I would go nuts after that many wipes. I go to instances to get what I'm there for and then leave.
I'm well-prepared and expect the same from other people, and if we wipe more than, say, 3 times on the same boss, I'm usually on my way out.
It's not because I care about the bills, I just don't want to waste hours wiping on something that should take no more than an hour.

Sharkhunt Jan 2nd 2009 10:08AM

The only way I would have the patience to make it through 10 wipes on the same boss is if we were making progress and nearly killed it.

When I PUG, I usually bail if we wipe five times on the same encounter and its obvious that no one is improving or that the people in the group are unable to learn from prior mistakes.

There's only so many times I can tell someone to do something differently and then watch them fail. The end of SL was like this in BC, either you were able to move when needed and avoid bombing the rest of your party or you weren't.

havitech Jan 2nd 2009 10:16AM

I have to respectfully disagree.

If certain people can get through an instance after a dozen wipes and still manage to have fun, much less not pull all of their hair out, more power to them.The rest of us, however, like to eventually conquer an instance and not blow our entire evening doing graveyard runs.

When I'm in a failing pug, I stay or leave depending on why the group is failing. A couple weeks ago I tried running Nexus on my mage, and on every pull the tank kept tanking the mob marked for sheep while skull, X, and an unmarked mob killed the rest of our group. When I finally did speak up (and I was polite), I was told to "relax." That's when I said "good luck and goodbye," and ported out of there.

Not every situation is like that, of course. Sometimes, a group is banging their head against an instance because of a difficult strat, lack of gear, and/or the group composition is bad for the instance (MGT was hell if you didn't have at least 2 reliable CC). In those situations I try to tough it out as long as possible, but sometimes you just have to count your losses and come back with better gear or a different class combination.

Starfiyre of Shadow Council Jan 2nd 2009 1:27PM

We seriously had somebody leave in the middle of Kara because they apparently couldn't afford the repair bills.

Oh, but that's not the entire story. We had wiped 4 times before, once we had a 1% wipe on Illhoof in which the Mage in the group insisted it was the two Warlocks' falt. As the raid lead, I told her it wasn't anybody's falt, it was just bad luck to wipe on 1%. She got pissed off I wasn't taking her advice about the Warlocks and started to give me the silent treatment. We got to Shade of Aran and one of our healers just bit it. The mage then stated in party chat "Sorry guys, I can't afford another wipe." and then dropped group in the middle of the battle while the rest of us continued to fight. I was pissed.

Our GL kicked her afterwards for this because she saw no wrong in abandoning her guildies and her raid members. As we were in the middle of doing Shade again after the gkick, she hopped into our vent channel and started screaming again. Fun times.

Graham Jan 2nd 2009 1:38PM

I agree with Jonny Dale. I will stay in an instance as long as it takes to get it done so long as there is not a clear reason why we are wiping.

I remember my first run through Nexus. I think we wiped on every boss at least once (and usually more), and we even wiped on trash mobs a couple of times. Do we suck at instances? Yes. Are we the kind of people whom raiding guilds want to have if they need someone to fill a spot? Probably not. But none of us got frustrated and we eventually made it through the whole thing. I got new boots and a new belt I believe, and it was fun. We may not have made it if Nexus had not been a brand new instance that none of us had done, but it still would have been fun for me.

Although I wear plate gear, I never worry about repair bills. The rewards from getting through the instance and completing those quests or getting that loot or getting that achievement always outweigh the repair cost in MY mind, and I can just sell a stack of Saronite and the bill is taken care of.

It drives me crazy when people leave without saying anything. Just the other day I was tanking heroic Violet Hold. Everyone else in the PUG was from a fairly new raiding guild on our server. We ended up with the purple ethereal boss, who is very hard on heroic. The leader of the group explained the tactic for killing the boss, which involves kiting him away from two orbs that he spawns. We ended up getting trapped on the upper level of the Hold with an orb on either side of us. I tanked us away from the closest orb, but then he yelled "TAKING WRONG WAY!!!" so I took his advice and tanked us straight into the other orb and we wiped. Everyone left. I know that it is Violet Hold and people don't want to do the whole thing over again, but I would have been willing to stay longer than we did.

Joshua Smellie Jan 2nd 2009 6:35PM

I have to agree. I don't mind wiping myself, tbh. Repair bills mean nothing to me, it's not that hard to get money on WoW and if losing virtual gold on a video game is my biggest problem then I have problems.

FoxOfWar Jan 2nd 2009 8:12AM

Very rarely it is me that is the first to quit. But sometimes, some people are just downright impossible.

Take for example last time I was in Heroic UK, as tank. I saw that the healer wasn't exactly well-equipped. No matter, we can do this, I thought; we can use more CC.

But would the dps go with that? No. They didn't follow the CC, not even the kill order. At least one of them were too busy doing much else than insult my tanking.

Then the healer either disconnected or left for an alt. One of the wise-ass dps then said: "The healer left."

I couldn't resist. I said just then and there: "I can see WHY." And left without another word. ;)

Robert M Jan 2nd 2009 11:50AM

You couldn't have hit the "bigger" problem better. DPS need to understand that most tanks and healers understand their limits. I recently ran with a pug who needed a healer when our's got DC'd. I was at the time specced as a boomkin for dps, but knew that I could heal Nexus and the Old Kingdom. One of the DPS insisted that we do Nerub, and I said I cant keep up with all the poisons on the first pull as a boomkin.

After we ran the other 2, they decided that my healing was good enough to do Nerub and got our asses handed to us. @ of the DPS then accused me of not trying hard enough and left.

Lich has completley ruined strategy in the game because everyone wants to AoE. I know there have been tons of posts on here about the lack of healers, but I, personally, think one of the problems is there are no hybrid healing specs anymore because you need to be a true healer for instances with the sloppy AoE that everyone has fallen in love with. I leveled all the way to 70 with a DS/NS build and grabbed the one point for boomkin so I could actually level with some ease. I never had a problem healing any regular up to 70 where I went full resto, but now with the lack of CC or intelligent DPS if the tank does try and CC based on my build makes it nearly impossible.

As a tankadin, the first thing I tell the healer is that we are gonna AoE things down and if a pull is sloppy and they don't think they can keep up to tell me and we will CC, and that the first bad pull is on me and I have a lay on hands to save my us, but after that we will CC to make everyones life easier. Almost always the healer says we are fine, but if we aren't they know we wont be b4 the first pull.

Good healers and tanks know their limits, the DPS have got to learn to respect that again.

DataShade Jan 2nd 2009 6:00PM

> 1-02-2009 @ 11:50AM
>
> Robert M said...

Exactly! I play a ret-pally, and ret pallies have a CC ability, Repentance. Most other retadins I've seen *don't even know its there,* and every time I've run a heroic where I said "I'm going to CC that mob," if some sloppy AOE doesn't break it, half the time the tank will run at it and thunderclap or consecrate.

I've actually started to hate pally tanks because too many of them are so in love with AOE tanking that they don't even check for sap/sheep/etc before throwing down.

Schadow Jan 2nd 2009 4:28PM

I absolutely agree with you. DPS in PuGs can be terrible. They ding 80 and are off to heroics without the necessity Tanks and healers have to gear up before doing heroics.

To prove they have the DPS to be doing heroics, they do nothing but AoE all the time to pad their stats.

There is no consideration that maybe reducing the number of mobs in the pull would help the tank to survive or the healer to keep up with the damage.

I know it seems counter-intuitive, but AoE, while doing more DPS than focus-fire, is slower to kill the first mob. Focus-fire will help an undergeared healer or tank by thinning out the pull as quickly as possible, reducing the incoming damage and allowing the tank to last the distance.

FoxOfWar Jan 2nd 2009 7:50PM

I fully agree on all points above. DPS needs to learn that maybe they cannot just aoe everything down. This isn't pre-Wrath aft-lolpatch anymore. Heroics are not easy with idiot dps.

But there are bad, and I mean BAD tanks out there too that have caused grief to me. Not a lvl 80-example, but idiots occur at all levels:

After doing a PuG Sunken Temple(yes, I'm that suicidal sometimes) on my healer-to-be shaman yesterday, I can fully attest that my level wasn't the problem. Not in the least.

Enter a bear tank, that is not only annoying, but tank bad. Like, bad bad. Note that gear is not an issue - he seemed to have pretty decent feral "tank" gear(since they're one and the same almost these days, particularly on leveling). No. On the average four-five mob pull, he tanks one and the rest of the mobs come onto me after single Lesser Healing Wave. He used no CC at any point(we had two mages and rogue as dps...). When I asked him to try and keep the mobs off me, he just said "druids don't have aoe threat." I almost quit at that point, but because one of the mages seemed nice(not to mention that he took more mobs off me in a single average pull than the bear in the whole instance), I stayed to see it to the end. What a bitter end it was.

In the end... rogue decided to "slow fall" down the middle whole to the bottom, and then call me to res "when we get down there." The two mages afk in turn to go get food. Nothing really unusual, just tad annoying. But.

The tank, in his great wisdom, decides that after we activated the Atal'Arion(or whats-his-face-was) statues and thus summoned the boss, we would JUMP DOWN to the middle so we wouldn't have to clear the trash on the stairs. Even better, he jumped while one of the mages was still afk, and the rogue had been lying on the floor, dead, for at least half an hour.

But the best was, that in the end of it all(the run ended in that wipe), he blamed //my healing// for it all. *rolleyes*

Now, I know druids DO have problems with keeping the nutty dps at bay, but a healer getting aggro of five mobs out of six when the first heal lands - especially when the tank overlevels the healer by six? Sheesh.

And no, it wasn't level issue either - the tank was 53. Some people just have no clue, eh? In the end I just wonder I had the patience to last there that long. Well, the mage that saved my ass on about every pull(ended on my friend list) probably had something to do with it.

Butts McGee Jan 2nd 2009 8:17AM

I was told by a healer in the middle of a 5 man to heal myself. As I was the MT. I asked him if he was being serious, which he showed by letting me die in the middle of 20 mobs, and at that point I hightailed it out of there.
If a pug I'm in wipes for a real reason, I.e. first timers running though, threat gets pulled from me, etc, then no problem. We'll learn from our mistakes, dust ourselves off, and go on our way. When asshat healers tell the MT to heal himself for the instance, I'm hearthing.

NoTomorrow Jan 2nd 2009 8:58AM

I understand how stupid he was being, but help me figure out how stupid he really is: are you a paladin or Druid tank? If not, that guy has some serious problems.

Zane Jan 2nd 2009 9:19AM

EVEN IF you were a druud or Pally, that healer was a moron. I hate it when someones ego is all that they count on. I am all for bailing if you have morons, and I mean of the epic variety. I have done so without so much as a notification when I have had repeat offenders constantly badmouth when it is their lack of attention span be the reason for the wipes. A mage who dosen't pay attention, a hunter leaving their pet on aggro, or even a DK DG/D&Ding everything as though they are the tank. I feel your pain, and that is to all who have endured such situation! :)
Zane

Dere Jan 2nd 2009 9:49AM

Maybe next time don't pull the whole instance?? I mean 20 mobs it would be a good idea for the healer to try and not aggro since there was a clear wipe afoot. Just saying the AoE happy tank and DPS are making a single target healer a dead duck. Maybe if you would use the group dynamics the Blizz give us there wouldn't be a need to heal through a gross pull like that. Just saying. I don't blame the healer for letting you die so you can learn not to pull that many at a time.

FenSat Jan 2nd 2009 11:32AM

20? Elites or non-elites? If you pulled 20-elites in a five man...well, as a DPS I would /applaud the healer for letting you die even though it mean I had a repair bill to pay myself. Cockiness and aggrogance lead to just as many wipes as stupidity and incompetance, imho.

But, how do wipes happen in most of the PUGs I've been in? Here's a pretty typical scenario: tank goes in and starts pulling everything, demands AoE, we AoE because we are "nubs" if we don't (according to him), he can't hold aggro, DPS gets creamed, healer gets creamed for trying to keep the DPS up because tank couldn't get aggro back on such a large pack of mobs...we wipe. Second try, same group: we go back in, tank pulls large again "I wanna get this instance done fast plz thx", we are reluctant to AoE as heavily because we know he can't hold aggro, so we DPS but more slowly, healer goes OOM trying to heal through all that damage on the tank, tank dies, group wipes. Rinse, repeat, but after three strikes, I'm out.

FYI, I'm not saying DPS can't cause wipes (they often do, particularly when two or more DPS in a group get it in their heads to get into a DPS race), but tanks who overpull can be majorly bad news.

Calybos Jan 2nd 2009 12:30PM

That's a good point. I can't tell you how many times I've grouped with an arrogant paladin who pulls DOZENS of mobs and then complains when the healer can't keep him vertical through all of that.

"It shouldn't be a problem if the healer knows what he's doing--I'm a paladin! Don't you know how to heal, noob? LOL."

Bye-bye, Mister Paladin.

Kyane Jan 2nd 2009 12:40PM

Butts McGee Said:
"I asked him if he was being serious, which he showed by letting me die in the middle of 20 mobs"

I'd have let you die too. And you did die for a "real" reason. You pulled too much.

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