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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Spill your 5-man PUG stories here
by Allison Robert 
Jan 26th 2012 at 8:00AM
I'll start. I usually tank heroics but decided to heal recently (that was my first mistake), and I landed a group of guildies from another realm in a Well of Eternity PUG. Now, the average Cataclysm heroic isn't all that tough to heal these days as long as you're sensibly geared, but it didn't take me long to realize that this group was blowing through an unusually large percentage of my mana pool. They stood in front of the Dreadlord Defenders' Carrion Swarm, couldn't find an interrupt button with two hands and a guide dog, and seemed to DPS at an unusually slow rate even with the crit buff given by Illidan's Shadow Walk.
It was around the time I noticed most of the group sitting in Peroth'arn's Fel Flames that it occurred to me that either this was the most legitimately incompetent group I've ever had the misfortune of encountering, or they were doing it on purpose. But because they never quite managed to get themselves or myself killed, I let it slide. I left at the end with 50 gold and a Forest Emerald from my Satchel, wishing for a Dungeon Finder system sufficiently advanced to recognize that some groups are definitely worth, say, a pony.
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 8 of 9)
ceinwyn_huntress Jan 26th 2012 12:39PM
A guildie and I PUGged End Time a few weeks ago and got Jaina as the first Echo boss. Everyone's phased in, and the other DPS accidentally backs into one of the mobs. Whatever, it happens. But the tank just stands there LOLing as first the DPS, then the healer, then my guildie and I, then HE dies.
Healer says, "Tank, why didn't you jump in there?"
Tank: "LOL, sorry."
So we come back in, get buffed, and it happens again, only this time the TANK draws the mob and just stands there getting whaled on.
Healer says, "WTF, tank?"
Tank: "LOL."
Healer: "Dude, the hunter and the mage have more health than you. You're not even wearing tank gear. Drop the group, please, so we can grab another tank."
Tank: "LOL."
In the meantime, we've all phased back in (again) and buffed up, and the tank pulls ANOTHER mob and just stands there as we die (again).
Healer: "Kick the tank, please."
Tank: "Y U SO MAD, BRO?"
My guildie and I were furious until he said that, and then we laughed so hard we nearly fell out of our chairs... after we kicked the tank, of course. Now "Y U SO MAD, BRO?" is our go-to expression.
Caseygraham90 Jan 28th 2012 10:56AM
Ive had plenty of horrible experiences but id have to say that the most annoying was right after 4.3 hit. The patch wasnt even 24 hours old and i get into end time for the first time. I repeatedly asked the tank to explain the fights only to get silence in return. At the very end he said "L2Play noob". People were already expecting you to know how to everything and the patch hadnt even been out a full day.
Tauren Fan Jan 26th 2012 12:44PM
With most people sharing horror stories, I'd like to take this chance to say that honestly most of my PUG experiences have been pretty good (from late-Wrath up through the 4.3 heroics). There have been frustrations at times, like the shammy who would pop thunderstorm every time I'd wrangled all the mobs together as tank, or healing a tank who queues for heroics in pvp blues and Wrath trinkets. However, if you look at these situations as opportunities to hone your own skills, I find that perspective can make these things kind of fun to deal with.
I sometimes imagine that the unskilled player might be a 12-year old kid who gets picked on at school and really doesn't need any abuse when it comes to playing games which might be his escape. Sometimes the tank in pvp-blues also a very skilled player without the time to grind a set of JP gear or gold to buy BoE's, positions mobs perfectly, uses all his cooldowns, and just needs an extra heal here and there to get through the run.
When I've been new to dungeons or unsure of boss mechanics, I've found that the vast majority of players are happy to offer a word of advice if you ask politely before a boss pull. I'm sure I've had bad experiences, but I can't really remember them off-hand, and certainly never anything approaching the level of abuse I'm seeing others recount in their posts.
adriand Jan 26th 2012 1:05PM
a few months ago, i (tank) was queuing with a guildie (healer), and we got three DPS (dk, rogue, lock) who queued together from another guild. we were doing halls of stone and the dk and rogue were running ahead pulling whatever they wanted, expecting me to pick it up, and both my healer and i told them to wait, let me pull, etc, but of course they don't listen. then after we down the first boss, the healer notices that the lock isn't even in the dungeon, probably questing elsewhere and talking to the other two in guild chat to figure out when to zone in to pick up loot.
so i say to my healer, after i pull this next boss let's both drop group so they wipe, which we did. possibly a dick move on our part, but i wish i could have seen them wipe.
pedrobranco1 Jan 26th 2012 1:09PM
Heroic Vortex Pinnacle, if memory doesn't fail me I was DPSing. Get a trio of death knights from my realm.
Sounds fine. That is, until I notice that they're all the same person, having similar names and sharing a guild, all of them mimicking each other's movements, among other indicators, triple boxing them. One of them mostly only auto attacked. Could not kick any of them due to there being THREE of them controlled by a single person. Still managed to finish the run though, but some pulls were nightmarish.
Sunaseni Jan 26th 2012 1:12PM
Not exactly a 5-man PUG story, but I'll tell you guys a story of how I made a LFR tank really happy. I was on my Frost DK alt and we were on Madness, after obliterating every previous boss. During the fight, the top DPS (warrior) died and I rezzed him within a few seconds, and we defeated the fight without further incident.
From the jaw, two Souldrinkers dropped, and of course I roll need along with a handful of other DPS plus the tank. The tank starts getting pissy about never winning obvious tank sword (despite it being the only strength 1H sword to drop from Madness), and generally calling me and the other Frost DKs bad. Winners were: me, and the warrior I rezzed.
The warrior I rezzed gave me his Souldrinker, thanking me for the fast rez, which I didn't need since my MH was from normal Morchok. I decided to give that Souldrinker over to the tank because even if he was a little pissy, he probably needed it. Hopefully, I didn't encourage him being a whiny little brat. Remember guys, don't demand or expect favors from people who you insult or berate.
mageyalook Jan 26th 2012 1:17PM
So, the other day I was in LFR (the first half) and we had gotten to the last boss when my son pulls a smooth move. I was on my mage. I had to afk so I asked my 6 year old daughter to play her and just shoot fireball at the boss and run around the circle and stay with the group. I left to help my son (3yrs old). When I came back, not only did she survive the fight, they didnt wipe, she scored 11th in dps and rolled appropriately on the need/greed drops!!
So, DS is soooo easy... even my 6 year old can do it!! LMAO!!
jrc2687 Jan 26th 2012 1:58PM
So this was back in early cata. I waited the usual 40 min queue for my mage. I make it in to brd with the first boss down. the rest of the pug was a guild run. the run was going fairly well. i was ccing where needed and was actually toping dps. just before the last boss i randomly get vote to kicked. of course not b4 i see in chat "bye loser" or something to that affect. i was already having a less than great day so i made a toon in the realm that guild was in and wisp the tank y i was kicked. appartenly one od their dps was to lazy to run the dungeon so they pug 1 person to fill in the spot till last boss then boot to bring in their ppl for loot.
Bruce Jan 26th 2012 2:13PM
Funny that this one should come up today.
I was just in a 5 man PuG, just to get some JP for BoEs for my alts, and hone some healing skills... I find doing "normal" heroics best for this as you get some of the worst offenders of standing in the fire and you learn how to clutch heal. I do my best to keep people alive no matter how stupid they are being playing wise.
Anyway, we are on Lady Naz'iar. Obviously, no one is CCing any of the ads, I am being beaten on by one and people are going in all directions in the water tornadoes. I manage to keep people alive, except for the hunter who goes out of range and dies.
First thing he does is start swearing me out for being all sorts of incompetent for letting him die. I tell him actually, he was out of range and I couldnt get to him in time, so he tells me to "GET IN RANGE THEN!". I had BRed him at this point, no idea why, just habit I suppose.
After the fight, it carries on, I am getting fed up by now, so link the DPS meter, he had 3K DPS on that fight, he blames it on me because I let him die obviously... I then announced he was not getting any more heals. We managed to get all the way through the gauntlet without me using any AOE (Again, quite interesting to try as I am so used to using Wild Growth and Swiftmend on CD). He just about survives... Start on the final boss, and I noticed the priest in the group has now started healing him. So unfortunately he doesn't die again.
The hunter ended the pre uber-buff phase with 3K DPS, but obviously denied it afterwards.
I know people say that PuGs aren't that bad, but at least one in every 5 PuGs has one person who will blame the healer for absolutely anything... if you "let" someone die because you didn't heal them through that 150K one shot where they stood in the bad spot, well, you are a terrible healer.
I honestly think that every DPS should spend some time tanking and healing (I have done both as a druid, and admit I was a terrible tank in PuGs... raid tanking was much easier) as you learn so much, and you suddenly look at things you did as DPS in a very new light.
Teni Jan 26th 2012 2:31PM
I'm leveling a prot warrior at the moment (learning the other side of the game, since I've played a healer most of the time)--and now I can greatly sympathize with tanks who complain about out-of-control DPS. I was in Maraudon when a pally who had queued up as the healer, decided he wouldn't wait for the group, and just kept running ahead and trying to DPS everything himself. He wouldn't bother healing himself, and he wouldn't heal ME. I warned him once, and got zero response. I finally said, "Well if you think you can tank, DPS, and heal at the same time, why did you even queue to pug this? Have fun soloing!" and I left group.
In another instance, this time in Undead Strat, I had a lock who had zero notion of how to work as a team. That one corner before Baroness where you've got two flying pats, a spider, a banshee, and 2-3 groups of adds, he says, "Pull them all so I can AoE!" and then proceeded to dot them all. We actually survived thanks to an awesome healer... but when we got to Baroness and he decided to send his felguard to attack that banshee off in the very left corner (the one you normally just ignore) instead of knowing enough to send his pet in to hit the boss, that was it. After the boss went down, I said, "Look, you have three choices: Follow the tank, drop the group, or I'm out of here. Your choice." When his response was, "Listen, you!" -- I /waved, and dropped. I would've just voted to kick, but a few of his guildmates were in the dungeon and I assumed they would veto the kick.
Cathubodva Jan 26th 2012 2:43PM
I had a group who wiped repeatedly in the Black Rock 5 man encounter chew out my friend's lock because she couldn't battle rez.
After she explained that she had a soul stone on the healer (me) but it had dropped 2 minutes before the wipe and she didnt get to reapply it, however, a soul stone is not a battle rez.
The DK tank (thats right, the class WITH a battle rez) reamed her out, name called and he and the other 2 booted her.
Mind you this tank is the tank who was so bad that the first 2 people tried to boot him and my friend and i voted no because he could be new.
Won't make that mistake again.
Gennifurfur Jan 26th 2012 4:20PM
I don't condone name calling and general bad behavior. However, it also irks me when someone doesn't know their class to a point that it can hold up a group. Warlock soulstone does work like a regular battle rez. Target the dead player, click the soulstone that you left in your bag. I know this isn't a case of the story happened before the battle rez changes because it happened the same time Death Knights got a battle rez (which you mentioned in your story).
tpcole1113 Jan 26th 2012 2:45PM
i was doing the first 5 man of HoT on my fury warrior pulling 10k to 13k sitting third on dps (they were only a few hundred ahead of me and i knew what do to cause i read up on the fights) just above the tank (as long as im close to who is in second and above the tank, im good) plus first time in this dungeon. we get to second boss and i get kicked for no reason. my brother was tanking and ask them but got no response so he just said FU and left. Next dungeon we qued in he announced that if they kicked me for lack of dps, then the group would lose the tank. needless to say we got through with no problems or issues and no wipes.
Back when i first was running new SFK i was on my holy paladin and while on the last fight (tank was an a** and i found out i was 3rd healer for this group and not the last healer) the tank (dk) just pulled him down the stairs and pointed him at the group. well the hunter didnt move and got smoked by pistol barrage. i moved out of pistol barrage but still managed to die, so we wiped. well i got blamed for the wipe because the hunter was to stupid to move and for me getting unlucky with game mechanics. i left cause i was not taking full responiblity for the wipe. I havent healed since 4.3 cause i havent had reliable internet but i plan to stay on course with my 4 85's and keep trucking.
Moral of the story is to let it go in one ear and out the other when you have a stupid player.
milar71 Jan 26th 2012 2:56PM
Here's my story, from last week
Decided to run a normal dungeon on my resto shaman alt to grab some JP (can't remember why anymore). Got into a regular Halls of Reflection with a DK tank, a melee druid dps, a mage and a hunter.
We pull the first group, the druid pulls off the tank, and promptly starts calling the DK a bad tank. DK offers to switch roles with the druid, and they do so. We get to the first boss, down him no prob.
Then we get to the Hall of Lights (where the 4 mini bosses are) and things go to shite.
DK runs straight while the rest of the group turns left. Dies. I rez him.
Then the now-druid tank goes "Hey! I wanna try something! You guys all stay there!" and attempts to pull BOTH the fire mini boss AND the earth mini boss at the same time.
DK dies again, as he followed the tank to the second MB. I'm stuck trying to keep everyone alive, and running away from the AOE fire.
DK leaves at this point, and we go to the next two mini-bosses.
As we're fighting the air boss, I'm noticing he's dying very slowly. Reason? The hunter is doing extremely low dps, and the mage is AT THE OTHER BOSS. I ask him what he's doing and his reply is, "Waiting for you guys."
I yell at him to get to the group. "Fine"
Kill the last two, and iirc, we get a warrior tank at this point. So, druid goes back to kitty and we kill the main boss extemely quickly. (I had noticed that both the tank and the mage were the same as me--way overgeared for a regular dungeon.)
So then we get upstairs with the four bosses. Everyone but the warrior tank goes to Rahj. Warrior politely asks if we can do all four bosses. Hunter says "Sure", I say "I don't care" and I run to the warrior, who's at a different boss.
Druid pulls Rahj's trash. The warrior tank and I just stand at the other boss and watch them die.
When the three of them run back, the druid asks why we're all seperated. I tell him the tank asked to do all the bosses.
Druid's reply? "Well, I'm a tank too, and I'm going to do this."
My reply: "Well, have fun doing it without a healer."
Mage pipes up and points out how he's groupe with the druid and they'll blow thru the boss really easy. Warrior comments how he really want's to see that happen.
So the druid pulls Rahj, (with the tank and myself still at a different boss). I had been psting the tank (who confided in me that he didn't trust the dps to not leave after killing Rahj), and told him he was better off to just leave group. Then, not knowing if Rahj's AOE would also affect me, I dropped group.
Looking back, I don't know if I was in the right or not, but IMO, if you queue as dps, you don't get to pull a prima donna and tell the group what they're going to be doing. Hell, even if he had queued as tank, it still wouldn't have given him the right to not accomodate the requests of the other players.
Draelan Jan 26th 2012 3:01PM
God... I've got so many stories to tell on this subject... Let's see...
Back during Wrath, I was running heroic Drak'Tharon Keep on my bear druid. Throughout the first half of the dungeon, the healer and a DPS shaman (from the same guild) kept pulling. I eventually politely asked them to stop. Neither of them said anything. After a few more pulls, while it was apparent that the healer had done as I requested, the DPS Shaman was still pulling packs of mobs. So, I asked again. This time, he responded by mocking me and continuing what he was doing. By this point, we had just killed King Dred and were heading up the stairs to the large trash packs. Predictably, the DPS shaman pulled the first pack just as I was reaching the top of the stairs. I ran over to the mobs, but "forgot" where my taunt button was. The sound of the shaman dying, though, reminded me that it was on my main action bar, silly me, and I immediately picked up the mobs. Proving that, while an utter jackass, he was not 100% stupid, he didn't pull any more packs after that.
Then there was the time in Pit of Saron when I was, again, tanking on my druid and I met an interesting ret pally... Now, this guys DPS, while not "dear god, we'll never do this" awful, was nothing to write home about. Yet, somehow, he kept pulling aggro, even on mobs I was focusing on myself. After a few times, I watched the debuffs on the mobs careful, and finally figured out why... He was using his taunt on the mobs. I told him not to taunt, and his immediate response was "its part of my rotation". This was back when the pally taunt also did some holy damage, so, apparently he thought that meant you were suppose to use it to DPS. The healer, who was doing his job well, exasberated the situation by laughing it off and assuring me that he was having no issues healing the pally. We hadn't gotten to any of the bosses at this point, and I tend to be a control freak when I'm tanking (after all, as a tank if the mobs aren't hitting me I don't get rage and, even if it's not my fault, I feel as if I'm failing at my job to some degree.) I explained to the pally that their taunt was NOT a DPS ability and that the should never use it as a DPS. I even pointed out that warriors, who get rage from being hit, don't taunt mobs unless they're tanking. Thankfully, though a noob, he took my gentle explanation to heart and stopped taunting after that.
More recently, I was doing a ZA run on my ret pally. (Back before HoT heroics) Now, my gear wasn't particularly great, as I had only started gearing him up recently at that point, but it was good enough to get me through the Z dungeons. For this particular run, the tank decided on his own that this was going to be a bear run. (A feat I've accomplished a grand total of TWICE in random PuGs to this day, even with people who should technically out-gear the content...) We ran through the instance as fast as we could, but ultimately failed the run by maybe 60 seconds. Although we didn't get the bear, I was quite impressed that we had come so close. As I was running towards the next boss, though, I suddenly found myself on the loading screen. I had been booted from the group, presumably because I was the lowest DPS and we had missed the bear run "because of me." I was... quite pissy, to say the least. This was in the wake of a number of bad pug experiences on my horde pally... I'd been booted just before the last boss in a random Z, had a SFK run spoiled by TWO different tanks who seemed surprised and offended that the DPSers weren't already raid geared and thus not pulling raid-quality DPS... (one of those tanks intentionally pulled several packs of mobs and then left group to kill us.) Then there was the troll druid who was trolling a ZG group I got pulled into by "accidentally" dying at the very start off boss fights, "forgetting" to heal people randomly on trash, and "accidentally" hearthing at the start of Jin'do. I play mostly Alliance, and these experiences nearly had me swearing off dungeons on any of my Horde toons. Instead, I focused the JP and drops I'd gained on my tanking set and have had mostly tolerable experiences in the HoT heroics.
I could keep going, but then I might be here all day. lol...
BipolarBoomkin Jan 26th 2012 3:18PM
I have little love for the condescending, the elitist, and those who think they know you and the level of your skill without knowing you at all.
For example, I was healing Hour of Twilight for the first time on my off-spec, as healing was something of a little break being 'just another cannon fodder DPS' for me, and I was paired off with this tank all decked out in Heroic Tier 13. The guy was impatient as all get, kicking one DPS who was just stopping to drink up his mana and scolding the rogue that replaced him for sitting around a few seconds too long.
Now, I'll be honest, I was not aware of the debuffs some of the mobs slap onto your tank, but I could heal through them just fine and I don't think the DPS noticed any drop in performance. I was only made aware of these debuffs after the fights were over, which in retrospect, didn't really help the run at all.
Simple mistake, slight oversight. I accepted that this instance, while not new to me as a DPS, was still new to me as an experienced raid healer, so I let this first terse warning from the tank slide. I needed the reminder, and I was grateful for that.
What really made my ears turn red though was after we downed Benedictus. I was doing my hardest in that fight, Remove Corruption and all ... and one of the DPS still went down. Turns out that I still missed a debuff, and the tank rounded on me on that one error basically saying, "Cleansing and Decursing is a very important part of healing. Learn how to do it properly." ... and then he drops group while I'm picking my broken jaw back up from the floor.
Thank you for pointing out the obvious Mr. 'I'm-a-Heroic T13-tank-and-I-will-not-tolerate-anyone-who-dares-perform-below-my-expectations'. I -so- appreciate your constructive criticism. *vents out remaining steam*
Thankfully, the above is just a rare fluke. Most runs I heal go in silence and without complaint, and I savor every moment of peaceful reprieve. I love you, tanks, I really do... We healers wouldn't do what we do if we didn't.
On a sillier note, I recall something my old guild used to do when it was still possible to pull an entire instance at once ... *trollface* But that's another story for another time.
Foster Disbelief Jan 26th 2012 4:35PM
I love these threads. I haven't had many nightmare pugs recently, since I can pretty much just brute force heal through most idiocy in the 4.3 heroics, but one does stand out in my mind.
Popped into Well of Eternity last week. I saw dead people. They had wiped on the first mob, and I'm not sure if they kicked the healer, or if the healer was just smarter than I was. First thing I heard in party chat was "Man, that last healer really sucked." The group consisted of me (disc priest), prot pally, mage, hunter and rogue. Three of them were from the same guild, a casual guild on my server.
We killed the first demon (although I can see how they wiped the first time, it took everything I had to keep them all up) , got stealthed and started destroying the crystals. Recount had my lolsmite healing landing me above the mage on the dps charts. Hmm. Must be a bug. First boss was fairly uneventful. I let the hunter die the third time he refused to move out of the fug, but all things considered, it didn't really get bad until the ramp.
Every ramp pull, the tank lost aggro. Every single one. I ask for mana, they pull anyway. Recount still has me above the mage in dps. I ask for mana before the boss event, they run in and start it anyway. I shouldn't have worried about it. Total Obedience, we're all dead. Oh well, not going to drop because someone missed an interrupt. Run back, try again. Rogue dropped group, an enhancement shaman replaces him. I ask if everyone knows the encounter, met with silence as they start the event again. Total Obedience, dead once more.
Before I dropped group, I inspected them. Not one member of the casual guild had a gem or an enchant on anything. The new shaman we got was in greens and 378 pvp gear.
I'm willing to bet the first thing the new healer they got heard in party chat was "Man, that last healer really sucked."
Garaan Jan 26th 2012 3:28PM
I just remember Wowcrendor's "Go Guy"... The one who stands behind the tank trying to talk screaming 'GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!' incessantly.
I ALWAYS get the Go Guy. If I'm a DPS, then it's the tank, running ahead and chain pulling everything without waiting for the previous pull to even die, and then screaming and pissing at the healer when they're having trouble keeping up (and not waiting long enough to let them rez the inevitable deaths that result when the tank is three pulls ahead of where the DPS is desperately trying to handle what they've left up). If I'm the tank, it's the DPS, pulling for me, pulling BADLY, and then getting butthurt when I let them die. (I don't save DPS if they're stupid. Ever. You pull it, you tank it.) Except for the asshat hunters and rogues that pull, then threatdrop, and get the healer killed. They're even worse. (And my main is a hunter, even, and I HATE the complete 100% stone clad morons that I see playing my class. >:| )
I like to CC as a hunter. 90% of the time, it gets broken within three seconds of me dropping it. Usually by the tank, but fairly often by DPS that don't understand the concept of 'hit what the tank is hitting'. After my traps get broken twice by idiots, I stop dropping them.
I hate to say it, though, for all that tanks are really scarce this expac, I think all of the good ones don't pug because of how awful the pugs are, so all you get are the self-entitled asshat who thinks they're immortal and can do no wrong even if they're still in half greens, or the guy who specced into it to get a shorter queue and free goodies and has no idea what to do and is undoubtedly wearing the wrong gear (or ungemmed gear, or...)
In lowbie dungeons, you see all KINDS of stupid, like Fury tanks, Elem healers, and... I kid you not, I once got a warrior tank in normal Deadmines that was wearing cloth and leather grays, and didn't have a weapon. At all. That's right, he was trying to punch the mobs. Also he refused to switch out of battle stance and ignored party chat yelling at him to turn it on. My ele-shammy ended up tanking almost the entirety of Gearbreaker, I'm not even joking.
PuGs are so much worse now than they were in Wrath. At least they were easier back then and you didn't have to suffer the brainhurting idiocy for as long...
Quasimofo Jan 26th 2012 3:53PM
I can't really think of any good Cataclysm era dungeon experiences, they've also mostly been horror stories as told above. But the night before Cataclysm's launch I queued my death knight up to tank a random heroic to do one last Wrath-style AoE, pull mobs in a never ending chain, go go go fest to send Wrath off properly. And the dungeon I got was Violet Hold, where the mechanics made it impossible.
The shaman healer pooped out his totems, threw an earth shield on me, then lay down to take a nap. The first portal opened, the mobs died in seconds, I took no damage, the healer continued to snooze. He wasn't being a bad healer mind, he was just very aware of how unnecessary he was in a group full of Icecrown gear. So before the next portal opened I say over party chat "Too easy, Imma tank without pants" and took off my leg armor. Next portal, no noticeable difference, healer still asleep. So now "Still too easy, gonna tank naked" and I took off all of my visible armor, leaving rings, amulet, helm, cloak (both turned off), trinket, relic, and weapon. And the mobs still died in seconds, I still took no damage, and the healer woke up after the pull to refresh earth shield before laying back down.
Then the mage yells out "Dungeon naked!" and took off all of her visible armor as well. Then the hunter. And healer. Finally the entire group was running heroic Violet Hold in their underwear, and though it took longer and the healer actually had to throw out a healing spell or two, it was still ridiculously easy and the most fun I've had in an instance. It also made me realize just how inflated the stats got in Wrath, as the stats we got from the few items we were wearing were better than the combined stats of all 200 level gear that people running those heroics as a fresh 80 would have.
Gordal Jan 26th 2012 4:19PM
Lately? Nothing lately. But my worst PuG nightmare happened back in the TBC days.
As a young, strapping, handsome hunter in the days before the LFD tool I was looking to get through regular Shadow Labarynth for two purposes: The first being part of the Kara attunement quest, and secondly to see if Murmer would drop the Sonic Spear as a solid upgrade over the Crystalforged War Axe I was lugging around at the time (And still possess.). So while bumming around Shattrath as usual, I joined a SL group that was being started by a Troll Hunter.
I had actually joined a potential SL group with the very same guy the previous day, but that failed to get off the ground due to a lack of healer. When I joined the new group there was already a third DPS and a resto Shaman, who was the best resto Shaman druid in the world and I still admire her and pity her for what we put her through. A prot Paladin joined up, completing the group and even though the other Hunter promoted him to group leader he still kept backseat leading. Or rather attempting to backseat; in retrospect I realise that I was the backseater.
We make it to the SL gate and the other Hunter mentions he wants the Sonic Spear as well. Well, the RNG hated me then (and still does to this day) but I was still more than willing to compete with him for it. The group goes fine until the Paladin overpulls a with Avenger's Shield, so I offer to MD pull throughout the entire instance. The Hunter was pretty poor, constantly failing to trap and always constantly breaking my traps and drawing aggro; and every step between each pack he would not shut up about how much he wanted the Sonic Spear. At this point I pipe up and say "Yeah, I wouldn't mind that too" hoping that a deceleration of competition for the item would actually get him to shut up and concentrate on clearing trash.
The guy just autoattacks for the next trash pull, because he was digging through AtlasLoot. In the middle of the fight he whispers to me suggesting that some blue Strength polearm would be better for me than my current axe or indeed the Spear. It was, in fact, a statistical downgrade. I mention what he said to the healer during the mana break before Blackheart and she responds that she's not surprised by how much an idiot this guy is and encouraged me to roll on the Spear if it dropped ("Anything to shut him up."). I was messing around before the boss pull and we wound up fighting Blackheart while I was wearing the Vestements of Summer. The fight took an annoyingly long time to end, and absolutely no one was surprised to hear that when the Feral DPS posted his Recount list that the other Hunter was well behind the tank for DPS and only slightly above the healer.
I idly check his gear and he's decided to stack strength on leather and some, very little mail. Only one or two of his entire items grants agility. It was at this point that group survivability took a drastic downturn. A lot of corpse runs, and constant blathering from the other Hunter about that damn Spear. We crawl by our eyelids to Grandmaster Vorpil and I ask if everyone knows the tactics; the feral Druid and the Hunter didn't, so me and the tank give a quick rundown on the fight which the Druid understands. I tell the other Hunter that, as ranged DPS, we HAVE TO FOCUS ON THE ADDS rather than Vorpil. It's our job. We nuke them down before they can get to him or the fight goes badly. He says that he understands and I pull.
He just keeps hitting Vorpil with his crappy DPS while I'm only able to mop up half the adds by myself. Vorpil keeps getting healed, more adds keep coming, and the Shaman just about manages to keep us all up. I have to resort to setting my pet on one add while I try to DPS down another and... God. It was a complete disaster. Tank dies, and the Druid quickly switches into big ol' bearbutt form to tank. Shaman dies not long thereafter so then I throw my pet into tanking while the Druid switches into healing. I throw about as much DPS as I can handle into Vorpil while screaming at the other Hunter to actually DO some significant damage and... We. Squeak. By. Pet on about 3%, Vorpil down, and we all practically collapse.
So while the Druid is ressing the Paladin and Shammy, the other Hunter brightly comments, "That took a long time." I'm surprised nobody verbally tore him apart. The party was barely up and standing and still gasping for mana when the Hunter adds, "Come on, let's go. I want my Spear."
We should've kicked him. We really should have, but we'd all come too far through it all and were basically pulling together in an absolute demonstration of teeth-clenched teamwork. The Shaman had whispered to the rest of the group that she wasn't going to bother healing the Hunter on Murmur, and once we got to him I went through explaining the fight generally to the team with a few specific instructions to the Hunter: Keep your damn pet on standby, because I don't trust you to keep him out of the Sonic Booms; if he pulls you in get the hell away as soon as your meagre HP will allow; and if we wipe once then that's it - we're off home. Good luck soloing Murmur with your crappy DPS that didn't even cover my Auto-shot damage.
He did die, and he did die fairly quickly. But we easily spanked down Murmur with much our leet skillz and the fact that the healer had one less idiot to spend precious mana on. I don't think anyone was surprised when the Drama Spear dropped, or when the Hunter clicked Need on it about 0.0317 seconds later. The rest of the party passed on it, and then both the healer and tank whispered on me to Need on it. I did, and thrashed the other Hunter's roll of 23 with a roll of 97. And there was much rejoicing.
I equipped in straight away, mentioned that I still needed the Kara key. The tank and healer helped with that, since that was their reason for being there while the Druid took a long lie-down in a darkened room with something high in alcohol content.
The other Hunter quit the party before I activated the container. The End.
Epilogue: I never heard from that Hunter again until just before the final few patches of Wrath. He joined a random UP Heroic with me, and while I'm normally happy to see someone from my own server represent I couldn't help but be somewhat apprehensive when I saw the same troll with the same unnamed pet wearing the Wrath equivalents of his crappy strength gear take up a DPS slot.
We'd wiped four times before even reaching Svala before I managed to convince the rest of the party to kick him. We cleared the dungeon without any further incident.