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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Your random dungeon experiences
by Matt Low 
Dec 14th 2009 at 8:00AM
It was a dark and stormy night. It all started with a one drink. Isn't that how it always goes? One tough raid is followed up with some drinks to calm the nerves. One drink leads to another and you start thinking about doing crazy things.
Crazy things like jumping into pugs using the new random dungeon finder tool.
I hadn't done it yet myself and I know the people I've spoken with said they've had nothing but good things to say about it. But I'm a skeptic. What's the worst thing that could possibly happen? Maybe I'll get stuck with a party that has never done Oculus before with a tank that's no where near defense capped. But what are the odds of that happening, right?
I'm not much of a talker when it comes to dungeon running. My job is there to heal and ensure a stable run. I enjoy the silence and the peace. One of the things I like to do is inspect people just to check them out, you know? I like to see what kind of gear players are packing. It's not indicative of their skill, but it kind of represents the time investment they've spent on their character (usually, anyway).
The tank? He was sporting a nice shield and tanking weapon at the ToGC 10 level. The mage and warlock seemed to be acceptable enough with assorted emblem gear and a mix of ToC 10. But the hunter? My heart just about stopped.
He was using a Shattered Bow.
Yes, that is a gray quality bow. I almost ran away screaming. But nah, that's totally un-Matt-like. I bit my tongue and healed through Forge of Souls. It could've been worse. It could have been Oculus (even though it's been nerfed).
How about you guys? My horror story was pretty mild, but do you have any at all?Any that were worse?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 15)
Sean Dec 14th 2009 9:00AM
I've had many just like that. The healer and tank were focused on their jobs and had no desire to talk. They were there for Emblems, not to make new friends. (Especially since you can't friend people from other servers)
The vast majority of my LFG Tool experiences have been extremely smooth and rewarding. Heck, I'd have a new raiding guild by now if I were on the same server as some very nice people I met.
Worst thing I saw was in Forge of Souls just a couple of hours ago. Paladin kept giving everyone 10 minute Kings. I asked for 30 minute Greater Blessing of Kings, and the Paladin had NO IDEA what I was talking about. The pally also NEEDED on a caster sword with HIT RATING on it. I ignored him quickly.
Muse Dec 14th 2009 9:19AM
I've noticed that even in silent killer groups, if someone *starts* to talk, odds are pretty good at least one of the others will reply and form a basic rapport, and the others might chime in. It's the groups where nobody takes the first step that stay silent.
DeathPaladin Dec 14th 2009 9:44AM
I'm one of those people that tries to start at least a basic level of chatter while running a dungeon. I also find that even though I don't get myself assigned as a leader, I sometimes take up that role unofficially in the Icecrown dungeons, giving tips and basic strategies for people who haven't done the fights yet.
My greatest pug group occured this weekend, though. I did the random queue, and got into Gundrak. As soon as we buffed up, the tank pulled all the snakes in the room, then pulled the boss as soon as they were dead. Cleared the entire instance, including Eck, in 11 minutes. It was so great, we queued up for another random heroic. Then another. Then another.
Cleared Gundrak twice, Halls of Stone twice, Drak'Tharon Keep once, Azjol-Nerub once, Utgarde Pinnacle once, Trial of the Champion once, and Forge of Souls once, all with the same group and over the span of 3-4 hours. 2 Emblems of Frost and 55 Emblems of Triumph, if I recall correctly. Plus I got 3 Heroic achievements out of the deal (Good Grief, Consumption Junction, and Lodi Dodi. Just barely missed getting Less-rabi, too). Definitely not silent, but extremely deadly.
Second greatest pug group was last night. I wasn't in the best mood, but wanted to do the random heroic for the 2 Frost emblems. End up getting into Oculus. As soon as I zoned in:
"Hey, we've cleared up to the last boss, and want to try for Amber Void if you don't mind."
10 minutes later, I am up 2 Frost, 1 Triumph, and another achievement.
schmO Dec 14th 2009 10:44AM
@DeathPaladin: Holy crap! WTB your PuG(s).
Qexy Dec 14th 2009 12:37PM
This has been my experience too :). I like to keep the chatter to a lull when running dungeons as healer.
But for some reason in every pug, when H UK comes up, it becomes this massive sh*t show. The tank pulls damn near the whole furnace area in one pull just for funsies.
I do have to admit its fun, but it's just funny that its this particular instance that every pug i'm in has the same mentality of 'let's steam roll through this entire instance kbai'. haha
Mandrill Dec 14th 2009 1:59PM
Unfortunately, I've had a couple rough experiences with the "silent but deadly" types. The worst came as I was healing with my holy priest. The DPS (blood) DK insisted on making all the pulls out from under the frost specced DK tank, causing 5+ player deaths and 2 near wipes. Fortunately for him (and unfortunately for me), it was a tolerant group that seemed to just want to get through the instance without any fuss. Repeated requests of "1 sec, need mana" lead to big mass pulls. Even the 'ol "no heals for you" after bad pull only elicited a "rez plz" from the offender (the only thing he said during the dungeon). Vote to kick? Rejected. We finished the run (and I managed to somehow keep myself and the warlock alive throughout).
Sommetimes, "silent but deadly" stinks the worst.
Uberowns Dec 14th 2009 8:10AM
Healers who pull, then cry when the tank is too far away to grab the aggro, just to try and get a fast run.
The people who say lets have a fast run when in VH... It's on a timer last time I checked.....
Idiots...
slapchops Dec 14th 2009 8:53AM
dunno, managed to do H VH in 16 minutes yesterday, i think the timers may just be after boss portals
curtisrutland Dec 14th 2009 9:14AM
The timers are only after boss kills. Each portal will open as soon as you kill the mobs from the last portal, so the faster you kill, the faster the overall run goes. You get one minute from when you kill a boss to the next portal opening.
jrizutko Dec 14th 2009 11:34AM
I've just starting telling my groups before we pull the last boss that we'll roll need on the orb. It saves confusion and keeps everything fair.
MightyMuffin Dec 14th 2009 1:01PM
Each trash mob portal starts to spawn a few seconds after the last trash mob portal dies. The boss portal goes up pretty much as soon as you kill all the trash from the last portal. Then there's a timer after the boss pull.
There is a timer, however, but only when your dps is extremely low. On the portals where you get the single big target, adds will spawn periodically throughout the battle. If your dps is low and your group receives 3 waves of adds from portal, another portal starts to spawn. Another thing about this is that if you kill the big target, and the others are still alive, the other portal will start to spawn as well. With the 3-4 trash mobs where no adds come out from portals, I'm not sure how long it takes before another portal opens up, but I'm sure its on the same "timer" as the other mobs. However, this situation only occurs when ALL your dps are still in greens, blues, and nothing epic, or you just have lazy dps that are just doing auto attacks.
Since most groups will have at least 1-2 geared dps and won't be so lazy, you don't have to worry about the mini-timers between trash mobs. So yes, you can hurry through H VH if your dps is good, and you're only guaranteed to wait 2:30 with the boss timers (basing the 2:30 on DBM timer, which says 1:15 after each boss fight...not sure if this is based on how long the fight takes or not).
Also, my experiences with the random dungeon finder have been amazing. Haven't seen battered hilt which is loathsome since every other group I see someone has it...but all the pugs i've been in have either chain pulled through, or we've gotten through with amazing speed. Only one bad gnome tank who wasn't geared right (not sure if he was even def-capped, healer complained a lot about him being killed nearly instantly). But he dc'd for 5 minutes and was quickly replaced with a more knowledgeable and geared tank. Other then that, easy runs, easy frost emblems, had over 120 emblems of triumph at one point trying to figure out how to stay hit-capped with gear i bought. Of course...no trophies to buy better gear...stupid dice...
ghola Dec 14th 2009 8:10AM
My experiences have all been very positive. I've only tanked so far but i haven't hit a fail group yet and the wait is virtually nil when tanking. Oh and Mike Schramm is way off base when he says Need for the orbs. I did that the first time the other day after reading his article and got completely mocked for it. Orbs or Greed only, at least on the Reckoning battlegroup.
Kragragh Dec 14th 2009 8:57AM
Orbs = need. Everyone NEEDS them because you can SELL them.
Sean Dec 14th 2009 9:03AM
I have NEVER had anyone NEED on a Frozen Orb since 3.3 released. I guess the entire Emberstorm battlegroup understands that you never really NEED them.
talitha3k Dec 14th 2009 9:16AM
after having one dickbag in every single run yesterday roll need on the orb, we just started telling the groups to roll need for them. EVERYONE "needs" frozen orbs equally.
Docseuzz Dec 14th 2009 9:25AM
I've seen 90% need on frozen orbs... before that, on same-server pugs - it was 99% greed... I tend to wait to see if anyone else rolls need, if not, greed.
Mordockk Dec 14th 2009 10:03AM
I need orbs to make icy prisms and JC designs because I'm a JC
I need books of glyph mastery because I am an inscriptionist.
No one has said anything about me needing the orbs, maybe they just havent noticed? But I only try and get one a day and if they did say something I would probably just say sry /roll if you want it.
ellindigo Dec 14th 2009 11:09AM
I always used to greed on orbs until patch 3.3 came out. The first few dungeons I ran, someone always needed on the orb and got it, so I started needing myself in self defense. I use the orbs for icy prisms. I would /prefer/ to have everyone greed, but that's not how it's working. Now I just tell everyone to need it. It's a pain
Tyler Greer Dec 14th 2009 8:12AM
So far I've run enough PuGs on the new system to buy 6 Emblem items so it's obviously been successful overall for me. That being said, the one bad run I had was in Forge of Souls. A Blood DK that was barely hitting 1k dps, a Pally tank that wasn't running an aura or buffing after wipes (2 before the first boss) and then on the first boss, both those players accused the others of not knowing the fight. I was only averaging 3.5k dps while the mage was at 3k. The healer was going OOM on every fight just on the tank. So I dropped, spent about 15 minutes on Tournament dailies until my next random came up and had a good time again.
Knuckleneck Dec 14th 2009 11:58AM
You know, I have noticed that the DKs I've been set up with have fallen WOEFULLY short of the DPS I KNOW they can pump out. I have a 'Lock that I freshly leveled, bought some Ebonweave togs and had friends carry me through ToC and some others to get a few more purps, but I'm STILL sporting greens and low-iLevel blues...and i still managed to out-dps most of the raid-geared DKs I've been grouped with.