Aggro in Ulda

I played my hunter all weekend, soaking up the last of the delicious double experience I'd saved up with her. I had a couple things to do in Uldaman still, since my last pug there was unable to complete it, so I put my name on the LFG list first thing on Saturday.

I got an invite after an hour or so, and joined a group consisting of a mage and another hunter. I recognized the other hunter -- we had quested together briefly in Stranglethorn a while back. I don't remember which quest specifically, but it was one where we had to kill a bunch of trolls, and we got our butts kicked. We'd send our cats in, and within moments, we'd be stormed by angry mobs that had been standing just around the corner where we couldn't see, I guessed. After a final suicide run to retrieve our bodies, we fled the scene, getting chased by a pack of gorillas as we tried to get to safer ground. I thought it was completely hilarious at the time.

So, recalling that fondly (unsuccessful though it was), I was looking forward to this Ulda run. When I joined, that made the group two hunters and a mage, so as far as I was concerned, as soon as we picked up a tank and healer, we'd be ready to go. Moments later, the hunter invited another mage. Hmm. I supposed my cat could tank, but I'd never be the first to suggest it. I just made my way toward the summoning stone and thought I'd wait to see what happened.

It seemed like it took a very long time to get a fifth. I think this is in part because we somehow were no longer on the LFG list for Ulda, and when I suggested that the hunter advertise in the LFG channel, he said he didn't know how. Instead, I think he just started looking for folks in the right level range and whispering to them. Must have been successful, because we finally got a fifth, a druid, who greeted us by saying, "Um, guys, I can tank or heal, but not both." Yeahh....

I seriously considered dropping from the group so they could find a fifth that would be more appropriate, but since it had taken us so long to get five together, I decided to go ahead and give it a try. At least if I stayed we'd all be playing instead of waiting, and if it was clear it wasn't going to work, we'd just call it quits. One of the mages pointed out that we should have pretty good DPS and crowd control capabilities, so as long as we communicated well, we should be fine. (I liked her!) I suggested that the leader (the other hunter) mark the pulls so we'd all know what was what. This ended up not happening.

Instead, it was decided that the other hunter and I would have our cats each tank a different mob to split up the aggro. So, at the beginning of each pull (some of these with six mobs ready to charge us), the plan was that we'd each mark a mob with our hunter's mark, signifying we were ready. Then, we'd release the cats and ideally, the DPS could focus on the two marked mobs first. In theory, this probably could have worked. The problem, however, was that the other hunter was specced Marksmanship, not Beast Mastery, so this meant that he was doing a lot more damage than his cat. He possibly could have compensated for this by delaying his fire and letting the cat build up some aggro, but he didn't make an attempt to do this at all. Each pull went like this:

1) He'd put up his hunter's mark, and then I'd put up mine. We'd both send our cats in.

2) I'd wait a few moments for my cat to growl before shooting. He would start shooting immediately, sometimes before his cat even got to the mob.

3) My cat would effectively tank its assigned mob. He would pull aggro on his mob and usually most of the others in the area, and they would come rushing over to our party.

4) My cat and I would kill the one mob I'd marked, and then I'd hurry my cat back to try to help sort out the chaos in the area where we were standing.

5) Lather, rinse, retrieve corpses, repeat.

The mages did try to sheep whenever they could, but mostly it was futile. At one point I asked the other hunter if he was using multi-shot, given that he was pulling so many mobs to the group on every single pull. He said he wasn't, so it just must have been due to poor decisions in timing/choosing his other shots. One of the mages finally asked to be leader so that she could mark a few mobs for sheeping. This helped quite a lot, but I swear, this other hunter pulled every single mob that my cat wasn't tanking on every single pull. It was unbelievable.

(Note, I did download AuldLangSyne, and while it isn't quite what I expected, it is kind of cool. Whenever you apply notes to another player, it includes them when you hover your pointer over them. So, in this case, hovering over the other hunter would make it say:

HisName
Level 43 Blood Elf Hunter
Moron

It made me smile every time.)

We wiped only once, but like I said, those poor mages had to collect their bodies many times during the instance. It was taking us long enough, too, that those retrieving their bodies had respawns to deal with, so the whole group had to go back to help at one point. The mage who was leading us showed us the back way in to speed up later body retrievals, but I was beginning to doubt our ability to handle the final boss, given the way things had gone up to that point.

We made it to the final room, and the mage now in charge suggested that the other hunter have his cat tank the boss while mine took care of all the adds. Seriously? I whispered her and said I thought my cat might be able to hold aggro better on the boss. I told her I was worried about the other hunter's cat doing any major tanking because the other hunter had pulled aggro to himself on every single pull. "Hold up," she said, and whispered a thanks for the suggestion. The way she said it, I thought she might be discounting the idea at first, but then she reversed her orders. My cat would tank the boss, and the other hunter would take care of the other stuff. Whew.

It was really a very close fight, but we brought down Archaedas in one attempt. It was awesome... my cat managed to hold his attention through lots of growling and some well timed intimidations. Both the druid and I kept her healed enough that she was still there at the end of the fight. She was down to 10% of her hit points as Archaedas fell, and I was down to less than half of mine thanks to some roaming adds I happened to engage during the fight. One person died (either a mage or the druid -- can't remember now), so ... not too bad. Way better than I was expecting.

Archaedas dropped the Stoneslayer, and again, in this group, everyone was rolling greed on bind-on-pickups whether they planned to use the items or not. I really prefer to pass on BoPs unless I plan to use them, but I finally said, "what the heck" and rolled greed and won it. I didn't feel too badly about it since it's doubtful that anyone other than the other hunter or I could use it, and the other hunter had just won Grimlok's Charge earlier (in a roll that I passed on).

Anyway, it makes total sense to me why that hunter and I had such problems in Stranglethorn Vale before. It's also becoming clearer to me why hunters have such a reputation for not knowing how to play their class. Seems like I've run into so many clueless ones recently.

(My hunter is now at 47! Whee!)

The Do-Not-Party List

Last night, while questing around Desolace with my priest, I got two unsolicited tells from a certain jerky paladin whose name is on my Do-Not-Party list. The first time he just said, "RFK?" The second time, just "SM library." Of course, I recognized the name immediately and turned him down. In each case, I thanked him for asking, as I always do, and wished him luck. I really was busy questing with my husband's warrior toon, but after my last experience with him, there is absolutely no way I would have joined his party even if I had the time to spare.

After his second tell, I was browsing my blacklist a bit. It's a short list (which may surprise you given all the whinging about pugs here so far), scrawled on a pad of paper next to my computer. It's arranged in the order I ran into each person, and next to each name, there are just a couple of words to describe why they're on the list. Ninja. Jerk. Yells at everyone. Runs ahead and wipes the party. Not too many details, but I hoped that in each case that it would be enough to make me remember why I wouldn't want to party with them again. It looks a little worse for the wear, given that the cat has overturned at least two glasses of water on it, but I can still make out most of the names.

With the jerky paladin, his name is weird/recognizable and my memories are fresh thanks to writing the blog entry, so the decision will always be clear on that one. For others, I found that the memories were hazier. What instance did I run with them, and what, more specifically, bothered me? I'm pretty sure I don't add a person if they are simply annoying. They need to be a special kind of annoying to make the list, a kind that says I could not stomach another instance with them. Some offenses are definitely worse than others though. For example, take "runs ahead and wipes the party." What if the leader was very good, and they were able to keep the person under control? Or, what if they'd learned some better grouping practices since our last meeting? It might be ok to party with someone like that again. On the other hand, I absolutely want to steer clear of the loot ninjas, because I know I'll just get mad if they do it again. So, it seems I need a better way to keep track of people, perhaps something better organized (and more cat-proof).

After reading Nibuca's thoughts on WoW player ratings, I casually looked into addons for keeping track of other players and storing notes on them in the game. One that intrigued me was DiggKarma, which also allows you also to share notes on players with others who have the addon. I wouldn't mind being able to warn others about the jerky paladin, but I'm not sure that I'd really want to share my friend/ignore lists. I'd have to see what kind of settings it has for privacy.

Really, I just want a way to keep notes for myself. NotesUNeed seems to be a rather popular download, but perhaps something simpler like Player Notes or NoteIt would be sufficient. Oooh, wait a second, I just found a WowAce one that's FuBar compatible: AuldLangSyne. I'll give that a try this weekend and report back.

Now, the other issue... It's easy enough to avoid these folks if they are the one asking me to join the party, but what if I join a party invited by someone else, and find that someone on my blacklist is in the group? This is not something I've been faced with yet... would I politely excuse myself? (Sorry guys, gotta log...) I don't think I'm confrontational enough to actually say why I'm leaving to the person (unless they -really- pissed me off), but would I whisper my reason to the leader? (Look out for the rogue -- he's a ninja...) I think I'd have to say something to someone. I always find it annoying, even if it's clear that the pug is terrible and going to be unsuccessful, when people leave the group without saying anything, especially if you're already inside the instance. I genuinely hope I won't be faced with this, but I'm curious to see how I'll react when I'm actually in the situation.

How do you keep track of players you'd like to avoid? And if you find yourself in a group with one of these folks, what's your next move?

A Little Help from the Damage Meter

Last night, I played my level 33ish mage for the first time in ages. My hunter did the 30-40's in Stranglethorn Vale, my 34ish priest has just headed to Desolace to quest there, and so I took my mage to Tarren Mill with the intention of running to the Arathi Highlands to quest there. May as well mix things up a bit so I don't get bored leveling two toons in the same area.

Anyway, when I got to Tarren Mill, there were several Alterac quests available, so I picked them up and started wandering around. May as well take care of a few things here, too, I thought. To make a long story short, I wandered into a zone loaded mobs a few levels above me and completely got my butt kicked. It was kind of embarrassing. I was killing the green stuff just fine (and naturally, the grays), but an yellow mobs were totally destroying me. Not even elites -- just plain yellows! My priest certainly hasn't been having trouble with the yellows, so ... what the heck?

I got smushed several times before I realized I needed to take a step back and really look at what I was casting. This is where Violation, the damage meter I installed came in really handy. I found some green mobs and started playing with my spell rotation until my DPS was looking better. I also spent some time reviewing how much mana each of the spells required. I'd mentally assigned values to them (evidently based on my very poor memory) that were way off. Good to know.

So, with increased DPS and a better idea of how to conserve mana, I proceeded to the Arathi Highlands. (I might go back to Alterac some day, but I must give the mobs some time to forget, lest the coach call the outfielders in... easy out, easy out...) I found the cave with the Ogres I was supposed to kill, and made my way inside. I actually did quite well in killing them. I did have to stop and eat leftover Halloween candy a few times, and I died once after some ill-timed respawnings, but I successfully completed the quest and ran to Hammerfall, feeling very proud of myself. And boy, were the greens easy after that...

----

So, clearly, using damage meters as a diagnostic can quickly improve one's game play. There are stories stories all over the place, however, about folks using damage meters instead to try to outdo each other's DPS in a group, sometimes to the detriment of the party, pulling aggro from the tank and so forth. I do agree with BRK's sentiment that "Wow is NOT a DPS race," but I can see how people fall into this...

The game keeps you hooked by offering you goals, some big, some small. The game even tricks you into completing bigger tasks (like grinding for experience) by offering you seemingly small tasks: "Collect 10 naga eyeballs." 10, you say, rubbing your bleary eyes. I can do that and still be in bed at a reasonable time tonight. And then the drop rate isn't as high as you hoped, and you've killed 100 nagas (90% of which are blind, apparently), and you're up for an hour longer than intended... Anyway, my point is that having a damage meter there offers another small goal that you can probably achieve during the course of an instance if you're a DPS build.

I won't lie, either -- it's fun to be at the top of that DPS list. Before I go into an instance now, I reset Violation so I can check it periodically and see how I'm doing. My goal isn't to be at the top, however. I tweak my casting rotation in response to the threatmeter, not the damage meter.

I also don't make a big deal out of it should I find myself at the top of the list. I've been in instances where the players beg someone to post the damage meter stats, presumeably because they know they'll be at the top. When I ran Scarlet Monastery with my hunter a while ago, a paladin, who was the sole healer, even requested that the healing stats be shared, too. "Why? You're the healer, so of course you'll be at the top," someone pointed out. "I just want to see it," they said. Somehow it makes people feel like they're winning the game, I guess. Again, the wisdom of the man they call BRK: "...topping the damage-meter is not The Goal; defeating the instance is." Well said.

Addon... addoff...

I remember hearing about of lots of different mods during my Diablo II days. They were a violation of the terms of service, so Blizzard was threatening to remove accounts that ran even a single addon. "Even Maphack?" people would say. Yes, even Maphack, said Blizzard. I was never tempted to download any of these things (even Maphack) afraid that I would inadvertantly pick up a virus, or something that would cause my computer to go up in flames the next time I killed Baal.

So, I waited a long time before running any addons with WoW. I guess I assumed they would be a violation of the ToS for this game, too, but evidently they're not. I'm sure there are some that Blizzard frowns upon (and I've read about creators that have retired addons after such frowning, as with BottomFeeder), but there are tons of useful, legitimate addons out there. I know there are some that view using any addons as cheating, but if Blizzard thinks it's ok, then I'm okay with it, too.

I got a little crazy with the addons at first, and downloaded all kinds of stuff that I've long since abandoned. I used Koordinator to show my in-game coordinates, but scrapped it once I picked up Titan Panel. Also abandoned were Cartographer (maybe this is weird, but I like having the terrain slowly revealed to me as I explore), and DamageMeters. You know, I actually really want DamageMeters, but when I installed it, the little module thing appeared in the middle of my screen, so I clicked on it with the gloved pointer to move it. Then, I somehow could not let go of it. No amount of clicking (with shifting, alting, or anything else I could think of) would allow me to get it off my glove (get it off meh!), nor could I even use the pointer any more to exit the game. I had to alt-tab out and end the game through the Task Manager. That sucked. Any insight into this one is welcome.

Initially, I picked up KLHThreatmeter, because it seemed like the most popular threatmeter at wow.curse.com (one site my brother-in-law told me it should be perfectly safe to download stuff from). I liked it fine, but heard from several (usually with a bit of superiority in their tone) that Omen was better. Sometime after the most recent patch, KTM started behaving strangely, appearing in random spots on my screen when I logged in, often just off the edge of my screen, offering barely a sliver for me to grab it and move it to a better position. (Sometimes I'd never be able to grab it, so I'd just have to give up and keep it hidden for the session, since I didn't know how to reposition it.) So, I got rid of it and have Omen now, and yes, it is lovely.

I also run Auctioneer, though I still don't think I've scanned the auction house enough times to truly benefit from this mod. I don't use the automatic pricing features, but I do use it to give me a ballpark idea of what things are going for. I have certainly made more money since I picked up this addon, but I also spend more time in the AH these days anyway.

Another one of my favorites is Lightheaded, which is like having wowhead right in the game. This is very convenient for me, because if I alt-tab out for a quest hint and open my browser, my computer sometimes makes a funny grinding sound, and the game is sluggish when I return. No matter where I am, I'm doomed to lag like I'm in front of the bank in Orgrimmar until the next computer restart.

For consolidating my bags, I'm currently using Bagnon. It broke after the recent patch, but it was updated and seems to be fine now. The only thing I don't like is that I can never see what keys I have. When I click on the key icon, it just opens my inventory. I may switch to something else when seeing these keys becomes more important.

Two recent additions (courtesy of BRK's addon list) are Autoprofit and Bartender3, and both are quite handy. Autoprofit is a bit dangerous when you have low level characters that might be carrying around gray items that they actually intend to use. My poor little paladin accidently sold her shield without noticing it when I clicked autoprofit. When she decided to put away the 2H weapon and level up the sword, well... turned out to be too late to get it back in the buyback. Heh...

I'm sure I'll collect more addons as I advance in the game, particularly as I start running higher level instances. I imagine cooldown timers and things like that can really improve one's efficiency.

What's the addon you couldn't play without?