Pug Species #19: Runinicus treadmillia

Yes, time for another pickup group story. (I know, I know, I should probably rename this blog if I'm just going to blather on about pugs the whole time.) I encountered a new species of pug last night.

I decided to take my mage out for some questing, and since my husband had decided to do something non-WoW for the evening, I looked to see if anyone was looking for a group for RFD. There was nobody, so I flipped through the other lists, Scarlet Monastery and some others, and didn't see anyone there looking for a group either. Oh well, I thought, and closed the LFG window. A few moments later, I got an invitation to a group. I declined, thinking it was a Level 1 Orc in Orgrimmar wanting to sell me some gold, but then clicked on their name, and they were a level 30-something rogue. Oops!

I sent them a note, and asked what instance they were doing, and they said Scarlet Monastery. I was the final addition to the group, and everyone else was already at the instance, so they were able to summon me. Sweet.

The rest of the group included two rogues, a paladin, and a priest. It was a just-run-in-and-fight kind of group, with no discussion before any pull. I assumed the paladin was tanking, but it was difficult to tell sometimes. There didn't seem to be an agreement about who was doing the pulling as we approached each battle either, so I just stood in the back, tabbed through the mobs to see who was taking the most damage, and targeted them for my spells. I improvised with the sheeping and polymorphed casters who were standing away from the centers of the battles. I also sheeped mobs that were after the priest when she drew aggro, if her fade was unsuccessful.

This all worked fine up until a point. We killed Loksey, but shortly after that, as the pulls got bigger and the monks hit harder, we found ourselves outmatched. As we entered a long hallway lined with monks, a combination of folks running too far ahead and being sneaked up on patrols resulted in our being attacked by about ten mobs. Wipe!

There were just a few respawns at the beginning of the instance, so we fought our way past them and finally hit the empty halls that we'd cleared earlier. We got to the same area where we'd wiped before, and wiped again instantly. "I think we need a new plan," I said, adding a smiley.

Again, body retrieval and running. As we were running through the halls, stuff was respawning behind us. We tried to move quickly, but found ourselves surrounded by angry monks at one point. We survived a rather large battle that drained all the mana users. The priest cast renews on everyone, and then she, the paladin, and I sat down to drink... while the rogues ran ahead into another battle. The paladin jumped up to join them as soon as he was finished drinking, and the priest and I sat there finishing our water. We hadn't even had a chance to rebuff everyone, I noticed. Nobody could hold still long enough! I asked everyone to please wait.

As we stood up, another respawn attacked the priest and I. =baa= "Hey guys, there's a really vicious sheep attacking us back here," I said. I saw the rogues' hit points getting lower and lower wherever they were fighting up ahead (with nobody to heal them). They managed to get back to us and help us safely kill the respawns that were cropping up again.

We continued along quickly as we could. I'm not sure what happened with the priest at this point, but she seemed to be lagging behind a bit. All through the instance, I tried to stick with her when she had to drink water, usually because I needed to drink, too, but also because when I'm the healer, I hate it when everyone runs off ahead. Anyway, as we got to the site where wipes #1 and 2 occurred, I noticed that the priest was way, way behind us. I asked if she was ok. "Respawns again," she said. "Wait up, guys," I said to the others, as they were about to go into the hallway with all the monks again.

I'm sure you know what happened next. They did not wait. They ran right into the same corner that they'd run into twice before, this time with no healer to back them up. They managed to just engage three mobs, and the four of us were able to finish them off. I said at this point that if we were not going back to help the healer, that I was done and leaving the group. (I didn't think there was any way we'd be completing the instance anyway, and it was pointless to continue without a priest given how much damage we were taking.) One of the rogues ran across the hall and engaged a group of mobs. "I guess we're done," I said, and started to run away to find a safe place to get out of combat so I could hearth out. "O sry" said the rogue (or should I say rouge). As I ran, I saw the rogues and the paladin die one by one, and then I saw the monks on my heels. I was clobbered within a few hits. I went back to retrieve my body in the instance, and again, respawns right in the front! Damn! So, we probably would have had to completely kill our way through the instance again if we wanted to keep going. I wished them the best of luck and left the party.

I swear, it was like running on a treadmill, we made so little progress in the instance, and moved so slowly that we were just barely ahead of the respawns. So, I pronounce this sad little species Runinicus treadmillia. I've encountered many a Runinicus before, but this was a whole new one for me.

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I should note here that while the rogues were moderately annoying, the whole situation really didn't bother me that much, not compared to some of the other pugs I've run with. Maybe I'm mellowing out, getting used to the idea that dealing with clueless people is just part of pugging, that generally, people aren't paying attention to how their party members are doing in terms of mana/health or whether they're even in proximity of the group, ready to go, etc. Or maybe it was that I went into the instance very casually and I didn't have the specific goal of doing SM last night, so I wasn't disappointed about not finishing, in addition to all the rest. In any case, I got some nice experience from the run, so it wasn't a total loss.