When I put myself into the LFG channel, this means that within five minutes or so (just a quick trip to the vendor, and I'll even hearthstone to one if I'm not near a town), I will be ready for summons. Most of the other folks I've encountered seem to have very different philosophies. Unless I'm a mid-instance replacement or the 5th addition to the group, I'd say that 9 times out of 10 I'm one of the poor saps standing there by the summoning stone, scowling at one or more of the following comments, usually beginning "Just a sec..."
1) "I just leveled so I want to go train first."
Ok, this is really annoying. Although training seems like a speedy thing to the person doing it, that 15-20 minutes during which you deliberate on which talent tree to put your gold into is like forever to those people standing there waiting for you. Sometimes I wonder if I'm waiting for the person to train in every profession they have, check their auctions, and reorganize their bank space before they are ready to be summoned. Times slips by when you're actually doing something in the game (boy, does it ever), but to those waiting for you, it's much longer than a "sec."
2) "I just need to turn in this quest first."
Once I was standing by the summoning stone at RFK with my group, waiting for the last guy to "just turn in this one quest," and we watched him fly over our heads, back and forth, at least three times, between Thousand Needles and wherever he was turning in his quests. I'm sure it was one of those Fed Ex chain quests where you rack up some experience just by delivering letters back and forth. We kept asking him if he was ready for summoning, and he kept saying, "lol almost." Dude, we are not lol-ing. In fact, it took us so long to get this group going, that partway through the instance, someone had to leave and so we had to go back out and get a fifth. When we ran out to summon him, this Fed Ex guy said, "hey I leveled, do you mind if I go train real quick?" The leader of the group said, "NO," to my relief, but then said, "jk sure go ahead." "Please, no," I said. "Let's continue." Not kidding!
3) "Just need to finish this quest and I'll be right there."
I know how it is. You're sure that next murloc you kill is going to drop that last eye the witch doctor asked you to collect for him. You've spent the last hour killing them, so just one more... one more... ok, the next one... I'm so close... certainly the next one will... no, just one more... (do none of these have eyes?) I've stayed up hours past my bedtime to finish a collection quest like this, and it always takes longer than you think it will. Plus, you're never done when you collect the last item because your reward is to go turn it in. Just stop before you even type that sentence. It's not going to be quick.
4) "I need to fly around and pick up all the quests first."
Ha! I don't think so.
5) "Can I just finish this BG first?"
I'm not kidding, someone actually asked if they could finish running the battleground they were in, and the leader of our group said it was fine. We did the usual ritual by the summoning stone while we waited... buffing, rebuffing, dancing, telling jokes, clucking like chickens, falling asleep, etc, while we watched this person's health drop all the way to nothing and then spike up again as they were healed. We saw them die a few times, get their body, repeat... arrrrgh. I can't even believe we waited for this person.
It takes so long to finally get a group in the first place, and then all the time wasting. Gah!
So, why do I wait for any of these people? *Sigh* I really like running instances, and it takes us sooo long to get that fifth person, that I may as well wait 15 more minutes because it could be another hour or more before the next group of five is gathered, and then another round of "Just a sec..."
Some of this time wasting may be over soon, thanks to my guild. I was a little slow to take advantage of our guild website for organizing instance runs, but some of the newer folks have been more assertive, so I'm starting to join their groups. I imagine some of the level 70 folks that have started playing their alts might join us in these runs as well. I'm really looking forward to it!
I won't stop pugging anytime soon though (despite all the complaining). In fact, stay tuned for info about a companion blog, coming soon...
Showing posts with label pugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pugs. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
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.
===
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.
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.
===
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.
Monday, November 12, 2007
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!)
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!)
Friday, November 9, 2007
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?
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?
Monday, November 5, 2007
The Good, the Bad, and the Inconsistent
= The Good =
After playing my priest all day Saturday (now at 33 -- woo!), I decided to take my hunter out for a spin on Sunday. To take full advantage of the huge amount of double experience I'd racked up, my cat and I wandered to the Alterac Ruins to kill elite ogres and finish the last quests in the chain The Crown of Will. My mission was to find and kill Mug'thol inside a building with tight corridors, teeming with ogres. The layout of the building made it a tad challenging, because often you didn't know how many you were pulling until you actually walked in the room and they leapt upon you, but was fun and I was doing fine, even taking on several mobs.
Then, I got a whisper... "You have all the heads?" Heads? What heads? Was I in the LFG for Uldaman, because I'd considered trying to get a pug together for that? No, I wasn't in the LFG channel and there was no Uldaman quest involving heads. Then, a Tauren hunter appeared from around the corner with his cat. Oh! That's right... the quest before this one involved collecting the heads of a few other baddies in the area. I whispered back and said I'd done that one, but that I'd be happy to help him with it, so we partied up and headed upstairs for Mug'thol.
We did pretty well together, killing our way up to the third floor where Mug'thol was. The Tauren drew aggro a few times and he died twice, but seemed to take it well. We cleared the two mobs in front of Mug'thol without drawing him, and then sicced our pets on the big guy. No problem.
The Tauren asked if any of his kills were in this building, and they weren't, but I remembered where the others were, so we marched north, stopping in buildings to collect the heads that he needed. I then agreed to help him go back in and kill Mug'thol so he could complete the quest, too. All in all, a good time, with good banter, and mostly clean pulls. I added him to my friend list, and will look for him again for group quests, I'm sure.
= The Bad =
Of course I had to run into at least one jerkface over the weekend. After turning in Mug'thol's head in Tarren Mill and then the Crown of Will in the Undercity, I added myself to the LFG list for Uldaman. While I was still clearing out my inventory from the last quests, I got an invite to a group. "u want 4 ulda?"
I think I'll spare you the play by play on grouping with this guy. The summary:
1) When we still needed one more for the group, he asked me specifically to advertise this in the trade channel since I was in a city. The trade channel?! I suggested he advertise in LookingForGroup instead. General is one thing, but the trade channel? That is so annoying.
2) He is one of those people that just cannot stay put. While everyone else is sitting, drinking, rebuffing, and waiting for the leader to mark the next pull, he is wandering off way up ahead. He was a rogue, so he was often sneaking around invisible right next to the next set of mobs. He did a few accidental pulls this way when nobody was ready. Again, very annoying.
3) In one part of the instance, rather than clear all the mobs in the area before summoning the boss (as the leader asked us to do), he just walked right up and summoned it. The leader of the group was like, "oh well, I guess we're done here... you just ruined the instance." I thought this was a bit dramatic (though never having done Ulda, I had no idea whether it was true), but the rogue said, "no just pull the boss." Turns out we'd cleared enough that we could just pull the boss, so it did turn out fine. After that, for the next 10 minutes we got to hear from the rogue, "so did i ruin it? huh?" over and over.
4) A strong iron lockbox fell at one point, and we all rolled greed except for the the rogue who rolled last: Need. "Mistake," he said. So, all this and a ninja, too. Brilliant. At about 5 o'clock this morning, when I was lying in bed wondering if I'd remembered to change the time on my alarm clock, I was thinking about this again, and I realized that if you are a loot ninja, particularly a rogue, this is the ideal drop to make your "accidental" need roll, because presumeably, you can just unlock it and whatever is inside will not be bound to you. I know he could unlock these, too, because earlier, when I won the roll on a lockbox, he said to me, "I unlock 4 u." I said no thanks, that I'd take care of it later. Sounds like I made the right decision.
5) At the end of the instance, he was complaining his head off about how much it was going to cost to repair his armor. (I whispered to the leader that maybe whatever was in the lockbox he ninja'd would cover it.)
Anyway, this guy is on Do-Not-Party List now. What an ass.
= The Inconsistent =
So, this would be our entire Ulda party, myself included. I mentioned before that I was nervous about my role as a hunter in instances, and someone putting me in charge of trapping something since I hadn't practiced it much yet. When the leader explained the marks he was going to use and the kill order, he said, "blue square = freeze trap." Hoo boy, I thought. Here we go. When he marked our first big pull and I saw that blue square, I felt a jolt of adrenaline, but I was pretty sure I knew what to do. I laid the trap and selected the mob, and waited for the tank to run in before shooting the square to lure him to me.
The leader wanted the moon sheeped, the star sapped, and the square trapped. The kill order was skull, x, star, square, and then moon. Charge! *insert Benny Hill music* I shot the square, but someone (I'll just assume it was our rogue friend) drew him away and he was diverted. The tank was getting a huge beatdown from the skull, the x, and the star. I sent my pet into assist the tank and resumed trying to draw the square. Then I saw the moon chasing the mage, and they ran right at me and into my trap. Wow... it was a complete and total mess. We managed to kill everything and stay alive, but this did not bode well...
The second pull, same general theme. We seemed to be completely failing at crowd control, as the sheep and square kept getting hit before or while they were trapped. I whispered an apology to the leader, and mentioned the problem of folks breaking the trap, and he reminded the whole group that they should be wary of what they were hitting, and to be careful not to break the cc traps and spells. The following pull went much better, but then the one after was as bad as the first. As we got deeper into the instance, we were terribly inconsistent and did not seem to improve from pull to pull. There was just no telling what was going to happen. We wiped at least three times before getting to the final rooms.
I did get some successful trapping done in there, but I admit a few bonehead maneuvers where I accidently broke my own trap. By the end, I was pretty comfortable with what I was supposed to do, but had to improvise many times when the trap got broken or resisted. In one terrible pull, both the trap and the polymorph spell were resisted, and everybody died except me and the rogue. (I thought for sure we were going to die, too, because the rogue kept messing around in stealth mode near our next set of mobs while the others were still running back from the graveyard. Argh.) As we approached the final boss, it was pretty clear we were not going to be able to complete the instance. Two wipes in a row in the room after the one where the stone statues come alive one by one, and we decided to call it a wash. Our crowd control skills weren't strong enough, our DPS wasn't high enough, our healer (a non-holy specced paladin) couldn't keep everybody healed because we were all taking too much damage, and our tank wasn't holding aggro. Alas. I did level in there though... that was nice. (45!)
It was fun to try a new instance, and one where the pulls were quite challenging. I'm frustrated that we didn't seem to improve over the course of the instance though, like as a group, we weren't learning anything about how to do these pulls better as we went along. In the cases where things did go better after a wipe, it was only because there were fewer mobs, since we managed to knock off a few in the previous battle. I look forward to trying Uldaman again if I can get a group together, hopefully with a more consistent performance from myself as a trapper and the group as a whole.
After playing my priest all day Saturday (now at 33 -- woo!), I decided to take my hunter out for a spin on Sunday. To take full advantage of the huge amount of double experience I'd racked up, my cat and I wandered to the Alterac Ruins to kill elite ogres and finish the last quests in the chain The Crown of Will. My mission was to find and kill Mug'thol inside a building with tight corridors, teeming with ogres. The layout of the building made it a tad challenging, because often you didn't know how many you were pulling until you actually walked in the room and they leapt upon you, but was fun and I was doing fine, even taking on several mobs.
Then, I got a whisper... "You have all the heads?" Heads? What heads? Was I in the LFG for Uldaman, because I'd considered trying to get a pug together for that? No, I wasn't in the LFG channel and there was no Uldaman quest involving heads. Then, a Tauren hunter appeared from around the corner with his cat. Oh! That's right... the quest before this one involved collecting the heads of a few other baddies in the area. I whispered back and said I'd done that one, but that I'd be happy to help him with it, so we partied up and headed upstairs for Mug'thol.
We did pretty well together, killing our way up to the third floor where Mug'thol was. The Tauren drew aggro a few times and he died twice, but seemed to take it well. We cleared the two mobs in front of Mug'thol without drawing him, and then sicced our pets on the big guy. No problem.
The Tauren asked if any of his kills were in this building, and they weren't, but I remembered where the others were, so we marched north, stopping in buildings to collect the heads that he needed. I then agreed to help him go back in and kill Mug'thol so he could complete the quest, too. All in all, a good time, with good banter, and mostly clean pulls. I added him to my friend list, and will look for him again for group quests, I'm sure.
= The Bad =
Of course I had to run into at least one jerkface over the weekend. After turning in Mug'thol's head in Tarren Mill and then the Crown of Will in the Undercity, I added myself to the LFG list for Uldaman. While I was still clearing out my inventory from the last quests, I got an invite to a group. "u want 4 ulda?"
I think I'll spare you the play by play on grouping with this guy. The summary:
1) When we still needed one more for the group, he asked me specifically to advertise this in the trade channel since I was in a city. The trade channel?! I suggested he advertise in LookingForGroup instead. General is one thing, but the trade channel? That is so annoying.
2) He is one of those people that just cannot stay put. While everyone else is sitting, drinking, rebuffing, and waiting for the leader to mark the next pull, he is wandering off way up ahead. He was a rogue, so he was often sneaking around invisible right next to the next set of mobs. He did a few accidental pulls this way when nobody was ready. Again, very annoying.
3) In one part of the instance, rather than clear all the mobs in the area before summoning the boss (as the leader asked us to do), he just walked right up and summoned it. The leader of the group was like, "oh well, I guess we're done here... you just ruined the instance." I thought this was a bit dramatic (though never having done Ulda, I had no idea whether it was true), but the rogue said, "no just pull the boss." Turns out we'd cleared enough that we could just pull the boss, so it did turn out fine. After that, for the next 10 minutes we got to hear from the rogue, "so did i ruin it? huh?" over and over.
4) A strong iron lockbox fell at one point, and we all rolled greed except for the the rogue who rolled last: Need. "Mistake," he said. So, all this and a ninja, too. Brilliant. At about 5 o'clock this morning, when I was lying in bed wondering if I'd remembered to change the time on my alarm clock, I was thinking about this again, and I realized that if you are a loot ninja, particularly a rogue, this is the ideal drop to make your "accidental" need roll, because presumeably, you can just unlock it and whatever is inside will not be bound to you. I know he could unlock these, too, because earlier, when I won the roll on a lockbox, he said to me, "I unlock 4 u." I said no thanks, that I'd take care of it later. Sounds like I made the right decision.
5) At the end of the instance, he was complaining his head off about how much it was going to cost to repair his armor. (I whispered to the leader that maybe whatever was in the lockbox he ninja'd would cover it.)
Anyway, this guy is on Do-Not-Party List now. What an ass.
= The Inconsistent =
So, this would be our entire Ulda party, myself included. I mentioned before that I was nervous about my role as a hunter in instances, and someone putting me in charge of trapping something since I hadn't practiced it much yet. When the leader explained the marks he was going to use and the kill order, he said, "blue square = freeze trap." Hoo boy, I thought. Here we go. When he marked our first big pull and I saw that blue square, I felt a jolt of adrenaline, but I was pretty sure I knew what to do. I laid the trap and selected the mob, and waited for the tank to run in before shooting the square to lure him to me.
The leader wanted the moon sheeped, the star sapped, and the square trapped. The kill order was skull, x, star, square, and then moon. Charge! *insert Benny Hill music* I shot the square, but someone (I'll just assume it was our rogue friend) drew him away and he was diverted. The tank was getting a huge beatdown from the skull, the x, and the star. I sent my pet into assist the tank and resumed trying to draw the square. Then I saw the moon chasing the mage, and they ran right at me and into my trap. Wow... it was a complete and total mess. We managed to kill everything and stay alive, but this did not bode well...
The second pull, same general theme. We seemed to be completely failing at crowd control, as the sheep and square kept getting hit before or while they were trapped. I whispered an apology to the leader, and mentioned the problem of folks breaking the trap, and he reminded the whole group that they should be wary of what they were hitting, and to be careful not to break the cc traps and spells. The following pull went much better, but then the one after was as bad as the first. As we got deeper into the instance, we were terribly inconsistent and did not seem to improve from pull to pull. There was just no telling what was going to happen. We wiped at least three times before getting to the final rooms.
I did get some successful trapping done in there, but I admit a few bonehead maneuvers where I accidently broke my own trap. By the end, I was pretty comfortable with what I was supposed to do, but had to improvise many times when the trap got broken or resisted. In one terrible pull, both the trap and the polymorph spell were resisted, and everybody died except me and the rogue. (I thought for sure we were going to die, too, because the rogue kept messing around in stealth mode near our next set of mobs while the others were still running back from the graveyard. Argh.) As we approached the final boss, it was pretty clear we were not going to be able to complete the instance. Two wipes in a row in the room after the one where the stone statues come alive one by one, and we decided to call it a wash. Our crowd control skills weren't strong enough, our DPS wasn't high enough, our healer (a non-holy specced paladin) couldn't keep everybody healed because we were all taking too much damage, and our tank wasn't holding aggro. Alas. I did level in there though... that was nice. (45!)
It was fun to try a new instance, and one where the pulls were quite challenging. I'm frustrated that we didn't seem to improve over the course of the instance though, like as a group, we weren't learning anything about how to do these pulls better as we went along. In the cases where things did go better after a wipe, it was only because there were fewer mobs, since we managed to knock off a few in the previous battle. I look forward to trying Uldaman again if I can get a group together, hopefully with a more consistent performance from myself as a trapper and the group as a whole.
Monday, October 29, 2007
WoWeekend
I had one of those glorious weekends that didn't require that I go to work, so I essentially did nothing but play WoW. I mostly played my priest (who is now at 30), hunter (now at 44), and our paladin/shaman duo has shuffled along to The Barrens, now in the early teens.
Early on Saturday, I started looking for a BFD group for my priest. I was available on the LFG list for most of the morning while I popped around, questing in Ashenvale and Thousand Needles, and finally got a note from someone just after lunchtime. It was a name I sort of recognized, but he wasn't on my list of people to avoid, so I joined his group. Long story short, is paladin is on the list now. He screamed at people the entire time in all caps, calling them idiots and so forth. To be fair, we did have at least one person in the group who didn't know what they were doing. It was a hunter (I think people use the term "huntard" too liberally, but I think that in this case, it may have applied). Her pet ran all over the place, attacking things willy nilly. Instead of screaming, I asked her nicely to please turn off growl, put her pet on passive, etc, etc, etc, but she never responded in any way (not a verbal acknowledgment of the request even). When we got to the bit where we all had to jump across the platforms in the water, she did so without dismissing her pet, and so the cat ran all the way around, bringing a trail of murlocs behind it. Greaaaat. After this, one guy left the group, and I really wanted to leave, but it had taken so long to get a group together, I was determined to stay on.
We got a fifth person to join, and so the jerky paladin ordered me to come help him summon them and ordered everyone else to stay put. The hunter, of course, followed. Again, a rollicking all caps berating, but it did not deter the hunter. So, he told me to stay behind since this hunter was so insistent upon coming with him. Soooo... hunter got yelled at for the entire run back to the stone. The person they were going to summon must have taken this as a warning sign and dropped out of the group, as did the other guy who was waiting in the instance with me. So, I dropped out of the group and decided to try for another later on. (Oh, and why I recognized the name in the first place -- turns out he'd hassled my husband before about joining his group for an instance, though my husband declined and was spared the experience I had just had.)
An hour or so later (after this paladin had logged off), I put myself on the lists for SFK and BFD. I got a bite for SFK first, and it was easily the highlight of my weekend (pug-wise). I was a mid-instance replacement and I was the second priest in the party. They asked what my spec was, and I said shadow, but that I'd mostly been healing in instances so far. I said I'd be fine with either role. The other priest was lower level, and she suggested that she heal since I could deal out a lot more damage. "You'll probably end up tanking, too," joked the rogue in the party. Heh... anyway, it was a total blast playing in a group as a shadow priest, and I'm actually questioning now whether I'll respec her to holy later. Still plenty of time to decide...
After that lovely group finished, someone asked if anyone would like to stay on for BFD. (Hey, sounds like a story I told before!). I agreed to stay on, since BFD was the instance I'd hoped to do in the first place. Again, one person had to leave, so I crossed my fingers for an equally nice/competent replacement. While we were waiting at the summoning stone by BFD for folks to finish their training and repairs, one of the other remaining people left and were immediately replaced by another person from the rogue's guild. I wondered why they weren't added as a fifth. It came out shortly after that this new person was the one I'd replaced in SFK. Huh. And then, a level 70 joined the group. Grr...
I fired a quick message to the group leader, the rogue, saying, "Oh, so we're getting a walkthrough?"
"Yeah!" she said. "[Her Guild]is so AWESOME." Um, perhaps. What is not awesome is not asking everyone in the group if this is how they'd like to proceed. I actually like to play through instances. I want the experience points, I want the practice. But, I decided not to be a baby about it. I'd just do a real run later. (When you turn in one of the quests, they ask you to go back in again anyway, so, no big deal.)
Somehow, even though we had a full group now, it was taking forever for us to get started. The rogue was waiting for her dad to call her (for "just two minutes"), and so we were left to sit by the stone watching the new arrival (level 25 or so) duel the level 70. It was funny for about the first 10 minutes, and then I just started to get bored. Again, knowing that the instance itself would be quick, I tried to control my impatience. We finally got going and the level 70 totally blew the doors off the place.
Seemed unlikely I'd be able to get another BFD group together right away, and my priest had gotten to the point where all her regular quests were group quests, or quests she wasn't strong enough to complete alone (yellow quests can be tough when you're squishy), so I set her aside to play my hunter a bit.
The first thing my hunter did was trick-or-treat and get turned into a frog. I hopped my little froggy body out of the inn in Grom'gol and ran to the mailbox. As I passed by the bonfire, someone cast a buff on me and my giant cat, who was running behind me. They said the sight of the two of us cracked them up, that it was the funniest thing they'd seen all day. I said I was just grateful that my cat still recognized me...
I'm still a bit nervous about doing instances with my hunter, because I'm still not comfortable doing much beyond letting my pet tank for me. I know how to let the cat hold aggro and so forth, but I haven't played around much with traps or anything like that. BRK's videos have been eye opening. It's clear that there's a lot more to being a hunter than siccing my pet on a mob, waiting a few seconds, and shooting at it.
But anyway, I did run Scarlet Monastery (Cathedral) with my hunter, and everything went fine. (Well, except that everyone else in the pug thought it was fine for people to roll greed on BoP items, even if they couldn't use them. I can't wait until I get to a point where I can run more instances with my guildmates...)
Early on Saturday, I started looking for a BFD group for my priest. I was available on the LFG list for most of the morning while I popped around, questing in Ashenvale and Thousand Needles, and finally got a note from someone just after lunchtime. It was a name I sort of recognized, but he wasn't on my list of people to avoid, so I joined his group. Long story short, is paladin is on the list now. He screamed at people the entire time in all caps, calling them idiots and so forth. To be fair, we did have at least one person in the group who didn't know what they were doing. It was a hunter (I think people use the term "huntard" too liberally, but I think that in this case, it may have applied). Her pet ran all over the place, attacking things willy nilly. Instead of screaming, I asked her nicely to please turn off growl, put her pet on passive, etc, etc, etc, but she never responded in any way (not a verbal acknowledgment of the request even). When we got to the bit where we all had to jump across the platforms in the water, she did so without dismissing her pet, and so the cat ran all the way around, bringing a trail of murlocs behind it. Greaaaat. After this, one guy left the group, and I really wanted to leave, but it had taken so long to get a group together, I was determined to stay on.
We got a fifth person to join, and so the jerky paladin ordered me to come help him summon them and ordered everyone else to stay put. The hunter, of course, followed. Again, a rollicking all caps berating, but it did not deter the hunter. So, he told me to stay behind since this hunter was so insistent upon coming with him. Soooo... hunter got yelled at for the entire run back to the stone. The person they were going to summon must have taken this as a warning sign and dropped out of the group, as did the other guy who was waiting in the instance with me. So, I dropped out of the group and decided to try for another later on. (Oh, and why I recognized the name in the first place -- turns out he'd hassled my husband before about joining his group for an instance, though my husband declined and was spared the experience I had just had.)
An hour or so later (after this paladin had logged off), I put myself on the lists for SFK and BFD. I got a bite for SFK first, and it was easily the highlight of my weekend (pug-wise). I was a mid-instance replacement and I was the second priest in the party. They asked what my spec was, and I said shadow, but that I'd mostly been healing in instances so far. I said I'd be fine with either role. The other priest was lower level, and she suggested that she heal since I could deal out a lot more damage. "You'll probably end up tanking, too," joked the rogue in the party. Heh... anyway, it was a total blast playing in a group as a shadow priest, and I'm actually questioning now whether I'll respec her to holy later. Still plenty of time to decide...
After that lovely group finished, someone asked if anyone would like to stay on for BFD. (Hey, sounds like a story I told before!). I agreed to stay on, since BFD was the instance I'd hoped to do in the first place. Again, one person had to leave, so I crossed my fingers for an equally nice/competent replacement. While we were waiting at the summoning stone by BFD for folks to finish their training and repairs, one of the other remaining people left and were immediately replaced by another person from the rogue's guild. I wondered why they weren't added as a fifth. It came out shortly after that this new person was the one I'd replaced in SFK. Huh. And then, a level 70 joined the group. Grr...
I fired a quick message to the group leader, the rogue, saying, "Oh, so we're getting a walkthrough?"
"Yeah!" she said. "[Her Guild]
Somehow, even though we had a full group now, it was taking forever for us to get started. The rogue was waiting for her dad to call her (for "just two minutes"), and so we were left to sit by the stone watching the new arrival (level 25 or so) duel the level 70. It was funny for about the first 10 minutes, and then I just started to get bored. Again, knowing that the instance itself would be quick, I tried to control my impatience. We finally got going and the level 70 totally blew the doors off the place.
The first thing my hunter did was trick-or-treat and get turned into a frog. I hopped my little froggy body out of the inn in Grom'gol and ran to the mailbox. As I passed by the bonfire, someone cast a buff on me and my giant cat, who was running behind me. They said the sight of the two of us cracked them up, that it was the funniest thing they'd seen all day. I said I was just grateful that my cat still recognized me...
I'm still a bit nervous about doing instances with my hunter, because I'm still not comfortable doing much beyond letting my pet tank for me. I know how to let the cat hold aggro and so forth, but I haven't played around much with traps or anything like that. BRK's videos have been eye opening. It's clear that there's a lot more to being a hunter than siccing my pet on a mob, waiting a few seconds, and shooting at it.
But anyway, I did run Scarlet Monastery (Cathedral) with my hunter, and everything went fine. (Well, except that everyone else in the pug thought it was fine for people to roll greed on BoP items, even if they couldn't use them. I can't wait until I get to a point where I can run more instances with my guildmates...)
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Venting = Good
It is good to vent, and I suspect that the more instances I run, the more I'll make use of this blog for exactly that purpose. The Delusional Hunter was just reflecting upon this as well, and also on the types of behaviors that can really rankle a person in-game as much as they do in real life. It also takes just one person, I've noticed, to destroy the dynamics of a group.
My mage once ran SFK with an excellent pug. A dream pug! Everything went smoothly. Everyone was polite, and treated each other respectfully. The tank held aggro, the healer kept everybody healed. When it was time to stop and drink and rebuff, everybody stopped and sat down together. When it was time to move on, everyone was paying attention and we got going immediately. We rolled on all chests, and people were conservative with greed with bind-on-pickups. If nobody could use the BoP item, someone disenchanted it and we rolled for the shard. Nobody died during the entire run, and we downed Arugal with no problems. It was so fun! So, at the end of it, after we all congratulated each other, I asked if anyone cared to run BFD, too. All but one person could stay on and play, so the healer invited one of her guildmates to join us...
The new addition to the group was also a mage. At first she seemed quite normal, and I shared some extra green cloth gear with her that I happened to be carrying. As soon as we got into combat, however, my opinion of her changed. The main thing that bugged me about her was that she was not assisting the tank. I often saw her on the edge of my screen, attacking mobs nowhere near our group. Talk about poor grouping technique. Her guildmate healer kept healing her and didn't seem to be running out of mana or complaining about it, and we didn't seem to be having trouble killing stuff without her, so she was just allowed to keep doing it.
This behavior was made even more annoying by constant commentary suggesting, "You should all stop and appreciate how much dps I am doing." Some of it was was just excitable smack talk at the monsters -- that I didn't mind so much. What I did mind were the comments like, "don't forget to thank your mage! aren't you glad you brought a mage along?" (uh, you're not the only mage), "I am just doing too much damage! stupid crits!" (no, it's because you're attacking different mobs than the tank), and "why do I feel like I'm the only one doing any damage?" (because you are going off on your own instead of killing with the group!) I normally don't pay that much attention to the damage I'm doing compared to everyone else, but it filled me with passive aggressive DELIGHT at the end of the instance when the leader posted the damage stats and I topped the list.
She also got pouty over loot rolls. If anyone else rolled greed on a cloth item, there was whining. Finally, the healer said "if it is an upgrade for you, roll need," but still... lots of sighing and so forth. (I do understand that it gets frustrating when the rolls don't go your way turn after turn, but let's all be adults about it.)
I was relieved when the instance was over. Normally, at the end of a run, there's a lot of... "hey, if you ever need another for an instance, etc, etc," but not after this one. I was happy to see this other mage's name disappear from my screen, and it will be too soon if I see it again. It's not the worst pug I've run with, but it was night and day compared to the previous SFK run, which had 4/5 of the same players. It was impressive that the behavior of just that one person made it all less enjoyable for me.
But, venting is good. I regaled my husband with every detail, every comment, every sigh. Then, refreshed, I returned to the LFG channel for another pug. Illegitimi non carborundum...
My mage once ran SFK with an excellent pug. A dream pug! Everything went smoothly. Everyone was polite, and treated each other respectfully. The tank held aggro, the healer kept everybody healed. When it was time to stop and drink and rebuff, everybody stopped and sat down together. When it was time to move on, everyone was paying attention and we got going immediately. We rolled on all chests, and people were conservative with greed with bind-on-pickups. If nobody could use the BoP item, someone disenchanted it and we rolled for the shard. Nobody died during the entire run, and we downed Arugal with no problems. It was so fun! So, at the end of it, after we all congratulated each other, I asked if anyone cared to run BFD, too. All but one person could stay on and play, so the healer invited one of her guildmates to join us...
The new addition to the group was also a mage. At first she seemed quite normal, and I shared some extra green cloth gear with her that I happened to be carrying. As soon as we got into combat, however, my opinion of her changed. The main thing that bugged me about her was that she was not assisting the tank. I often saw her on the edge of my screen, attacking mobs nowhere near our group. Talk about poor grouping technique. Her guildmate healer kept healing her and didn't seem to be running out of mana or complaining about it, and we didn't seem to be having trouble killing stuff without her, so she was just allowed to keep doing it.
This behavior was made even more annoying by constant commentary suggesting, "You should all stop and appreciate how much dps I am doing." Some of it was was just excitable smack talk at the monsters -- that I didn't mind so much. What I did mind were the comments like, "don't forget to thank your mage! aren't you glad you brought a mage along?" (uh, you're not the only mage), "I am just doing too much damage! stupid crits!" (no, it's because you're attacking different mobs than the tank), and "why do I feel like I'm the only one doing any damage?" (because you are going off on your own instead of killing with the group!) I normally don't pay that much attention to the damage I'm doing compared to everyone else, but it filled me with passive aggressive DELIGHT at the end of the instance when the leader posted the damage stats and I topped the list.
She also got pouty over loot rolls. If anyone else rolled greed on a cloth item, there was whining. Finally, the healer said "if it is an upgrade for you, roll need," but still... lots of sighing and so forth. (I do understand that it gets frustrating when the rolls don't go your way turn after turn, but let's all be adults about it.)
I was relieved when the instance was over. Normally, at the end of a run, there's a lot of... "hey, if you ever need another for an instance, etc, etc," but not after this one. I was happy to see this other mage's name disappear from my screen, and it will be too soon if I see it again. It's not the worst pug I've run with, but it was night and day compared to the previous SFK run, which had 4/5 of the same players. It was impressive that the behavior of just that one person made it all less enjoyable for me.
But, venting is good. I regaled my husband with every detail, every comment, every sigh. Then, refreshed, I returned to the LFG channel for another pug. Illegitimi non carborundum...
Monday, October 22, 2007
re·pug·nant
(from m-w.com)
1. incompatible, inconsistent
2. archaic: hostile
3. exciting distaste or aversion
---
I decided to spend some time leveling my li'l priesty this weekend in an effort to catch up with my husband's warrior toon, which is in the early 30s. I think she was 24ish on Friday night when I logged on. I decided to knock off a couple Stonetalon quests, hassle the Venture Company, and collect cloth to level up my tailoring.
Within an hour, I had a random invite to Shadowfang Keep. I decided to take advantage of it, since it seems like whenever I have time to run an instance, I can't find a group. (And then when I don't have time, I get a million invites.) I joined the group and seeing that there was only one person even on the same continent as the instance, I started making my way there so that I could help summon folks.
The group was composed of a warrior (tank), a mage, a druid, and a shaman. (Note, some classes have been changed to protect the innocent.) The mage was the first at the summoning stone, and she (alone) was trying to summon all of us. We explained several times that she would need to wait for one of us to come help her, that it required two to summon. Then, moments later, she'd say, "it not working." Yes, yes, so we'd explain again. Moments later: "im cliking." (Where is that goddamned zeppelin.)
During all this, the druid kept saying, "u want me go get shaman?" Uh, no. Druid is fine. "i have shaman." Ok, thanks, for the info. At this point, the mage started to doubt herself, I guess, and asked if we really needed a mage. I told her that there were some nasty curses laid down in SFK, so it would be very handy to have a mage to remove them. "me get shaman?" At this point, I noted that if you just imagined the chatspeak with a Cookie Monster voice, it wasn't so painful to read. Made it funny, in fact. Anyway, I guess he must have been lured away by some cookies, because he left the group before I made it to the summoning stone. No great loss, I think. A paladin took his place.
I finally got to the stone and we got everybody summoned. At this point, there was some kind of scuffle/duel with someone else by the stone. I wasn't really paying much attention, as I was trying to get everybody buffed. The tank's personality started coming out in full force at this point. Apparently he'd dueled the guy and talked some smack, and there were a lot of censored %^&! types of things coming up on my screen. I tried to ignore the situation and focus on getting ready to go in. I asked the mage if she could conjure some water for me and the other mana users. She said not until the tank apologized to her friend, the one the tank had just dueled. Uh, ok. So, we waited. "Dude," was all the tank said. I waited a moment and again, politely, asked for some water. The mage just stood there. The tank ran ahead into the instance. Oh-kay. Mana conservation mode.
We entered SFK, and the paladin let us know that he might not be able to stay for the whole thing, and asked if this was ok. We all said fine. The tank asked what we all thought of him drawing all the aggro and killing everything for us. Well, have at it.
Things actually went pretty smoothly for the first part of the instance. Aside from a few "line of sight" issues, I was able to keep everyone healed, no problem, and even toss out some shadow words. I don't think the tank liked what the mage was doing, because he kept telling me not to heal her. Whatever. I wasn't having to heal her at the expense of anyone else in the party, so I ignored him. He also yelled at the paladin to stop doing some particular attack (I can't remember what it was). The paladin asked why, and the tank said, "it draws aggro." The paladin pointed out that the tank was still drawing way, way more aggro and not having trouble holding it. "i know lol," said the tank. Gah. He then whispered to me with a lot of winking emoticons and asked if he was "easy to heal," and was I enjoying myself. Well, at least we were moving along pretty well.
At one point, the mage said she needed to leave for about 20 minutes, so we left her behind, and had surprisingly little problem killing stuff. Then, the paladin had to leave, so I suggested the three of us wait for the mage for few minutes, buff up, and so forth. As soon as I got everybody buffed and sat down to drink some melon juice, all hell broke loose. We got jumped by a patrol and someone must have drawn a few mobs around the corner from where we were standing, because suddenly there were four mobs attacking the party. It was at this point that the mage rejoined us, and I can only imagine the chaos she saw when she walked in the door. With no mana to protect myself or anyone else we all got totally smushed within about a minute. Wipe #1. This was actually the first wipe during an instance on my watch as healer, and I didn't take it as hard as I thought I might. We did get jumped, I didn't have mana, we didn't have the full party... I'm not sure there's anything I could have done differently. Folks seemed to take it pretty well, too. I still apologized, and people kind of chuckled over it. Whew!
Ok, so after all the body retrieval and resurrecting, we continued. I noticed that the battles felt a lot tougher with the paladin gone, and I was running out of mana for healing a lot more quickly. I stopped casting anything other than healing spells, just to be safe. I also noticed that we were dealing with a lot more curses from the mobs. Earlier in the instance, when we were all stopped, someone asked the mage to remove a curse, and after several requests (over several minutes), she did it, so I knew she was capable of it. When I ran SFK with my mage, I remember entire battles that I spent removing curses from the group, so I recommended that she just keep an eye on the party icons, looking for the purple halos around our pictures. It was clear this mage was not paying attention because we all walked around with five minute curses on our heads all the way up to the final boss. I thought, well, maybe she's distracted because she's trying to do damage, so I kept an eye on her. No, she was not casting anything at all, it seemed. Hm... so, Arugal was going to be a three man job with a warrior, a shaman, and a priest. Great.
Before we tackled the final boss, I asked the mage several times if she could please remove the curses. Again, she just. Wasn't. Paying. Attention. She did nothing. "Guess not," said the tank, and ran up to kill Arugal. ARGGHHH. We all followed, because we basically had no choice. I ran up behind the group and missed a couple heals due to line of sight problems, and then the shaman got smushed. I kept the tank alive as long as I could, and then tabbed to Arugal to see how much damage we'd done. We hadn't even cut his hit points half way!! That plus the bursts of damage due to the curse, and we were pretty much doomed. Wipe #2.
We tried again, and I was hopeful we'd make more progress since we didn't have the curses on us, but this next attempt on Arugal went pretty much like the first. Shaman got squished and the tank alone simply could not do enough damage to him to kill him. Wipe #3.
"I think we're going to need some help," the shaman said. I agreed, and the tank said he needed to go afk a bit, but would be back when we found a fifth. He promoted me to leader, I kicked the absent paladin and started looking for someone on the LFG channel. I also chatted with the mage a bit. She said she was having trouble getting close enough to Arugal to hit him with her frost spells. I questioned her a bit about this, because it seems like you could shoot a frostbolt at him (I've fired many a frostbolt at him with my own mage in that same little room). "He keeps moving," she said. Oh no. So, did she not know how to select a mob and cast a spell on it? Now I was thoroughly convinced that she had not done any damage to any mob during the entire instance. No wonder we'd had so much trouble. "Every time I get close to him, he moves." Ughhhh.
There was a hunter waiting in the LFG, so I invited him to the group. He was available immediately, so we summoned him, and he joined us. Some of the mobs at the beginning of the instance had respawned, so we killed them while we were waiting for the tank to come back. I promoted the tank to leader again, and off we went. (After the first battle, the tank said, "oh man, my arms are messed up because of all the weights I just lifted." Heh... yeah, sure thing, buddy.) We got to Arugal and completely destroyed him. He dropped the [Robes of Arugal], which, of course, bind on pickup. The tank passed, the shaman passed, the hunter rolled greed (!!!!!), and the mage rolled need. The shaman said to me, "If you would like that item, please roll need." So I did, and I won the roll. Hot damn.
Getting those robes (and knocking off the quests) made the whole thing worth it, but that was one annoying pug. The tank was a bit of a jerk, the mage didn't know how to play her class (or so it seemed to me), and although the shaman seemed to know what he was doing, it just wasn't enough for us to complete the instance.
I'm sure it won't be the last pug I complain about, and it's certainly not the first that's had me yelling at my monitor. (It would be best if I never picked up a mic, I think.) At times, we were incompatible, inconsistent, hostile, and there were definitely moments where I felt aversion to some of my party. Even so, I confess it made for an entertaining evening.
So, my priest is now at 27. She'll soon be caught up to my mage...
1. incompatible, inconsistent
2. archaic: hostile
3. exciting distaste or aversion
---
I decided to spend some time leveling my li'l priesty this weekend in an effort to catch up with my husband's warrior toon, which is in the early 30s. I think she was 24ish on Friday night when I logged on. I decided to knock off a couple Stonetalon quests, hassle the Venture Company, and collect cloth to level up my tailoring.
Within an hour, I had a random invite to Shadowfang Keep. I decided to take advantage of it, since it seems like whenever I have time to run an instance, I can't find a group. (And then when I don't have time, I get a million invites.) I joined the group and seeing that there was only one person even on the same continent as the instance, I started making my way there so that I could help summon folks.
The group was composed of a warrior (tank), a mage, a druid, and a shaman. (Note, some classes have been changed to protect the innocent.) The mage was the first at the summoning stone, and she (alone) was trying to summon all of us. We explained several times that she would need to wait for one of us to come help her, that it required two to summon. Then, moments later, she'd say, "it not working." Yes, yes, so we'd explain again. Moments later: "im cliking." (Where is that goddamned zeppelin.)
During all this, the druid kept saying, "u want me go get shaman?" Uh, no. Druid is fine. "i have shaman." Ok, thanks, for the info. At this point, the mage started to doubt herself, I guess, and asked if we really needed a mage. I told her that there were some nasty curses laid down in SFK, so it would be very handy to have a mage to remove them. "me get shaman?" At this point, I noted that if you just imagined the chatspeak with a Cookie Monster voice, it wasn't so painful to read. Made it funny, in fact. Anyway, I guess he must have been lured away by some cookies, because he left the group before I made it to the summoning stone. No great loss, I think. A paladin took his place.
I finally got to the stone and we got everybody summoned. At this point, there was some kind of scuffle/duel with someone else by the stone. I wasn't really paying much attention, as I was trying to get everybody buffed. The tank's personality started coming out in full force at this point. Apparently he'd dueled the guy and talked some smack, and there were a lot of censored %^&! types of things coming up on my screen. I tried to ignore the situation and focus on getting ready to go in. I asked the mage if she could conjure some water for me and the other mana users. She said not until the tank apologized to her friend, the one the tank had just dueled. Uh, ok. So, we waited. "Dude," was all the tank said. I waited a moment and again, politely, asked for some water. The mage just stood there. The tank ran ahead into the instance. Oh-kay. Mana conservation mode.
We entered SFK, and the paladin let us know that he might not be able to stay for the whole thing, and asked if this was ok. We all said fine. The tank asked what we all thought of him drawing all the aggro and killing everything for us. Well, have at it.
Things actually went pretty smoothly for the first part of the instance. Aside from a few "line of sight" issues, I was able to keep everyone healed, no problem, and even toss out some shadow words. I don't think the tank liked what the mage was doing, because he kept telling me not to heal her. Whatever. I wasn't having to heal her at the expense of anyone else in the party, so I ignored him. He also yelled at the paladin to stop doing some particular attack (I can't remember what it was). The paladin asked why, and the tank said, "it draws aggro." The paladin pointed out that the tank was still drawing way, way more aggro and not having trouble holding it. "i know lol," said the tank. Gah. He then whispered to me with a lot of winking emoticons and asked if he was "easy to heal," and was I enjoying myself. Well, at least we were moving along pretty well.
At one point, the mage said she needed to leave for about 20 minutes, so we left her behind, and had surprisingly little problem killing stuff. Then, the paladin had to leave, so I suggested the three of us wait for the mage for few minutes, buff up, and so forth. As soon as I got everybody buffed and sat down to drink some melon juice, all hell broke loose. We got jumped by a patrol and someone must have drawn a few mobs around the corner from where we were standing, because suddenly there were four mobs attacking the party. It was at this point that the mage rejoined us, and I can only imagine the chaos she saw when she walked in the door. With no mana to protect myself or anyone else we all got totally smushed within about a minute. Wipe #1. This was actually the first wipe during an instance on my watch as healer, and I didn't take it as hard as I thought I might. We did get jumped, I didn't have mana, we didn't have the full party... I'm not sure there's anything I could have done differently. Folks seemed to take it pretty well, too. I still apologized, and people kind of chuckled over it. Whew!
Ok, so after all the body retrieval and resurrecting, we continued. I noticed that the battles felt a lot tougher with the paladin gone, and I was running out of mana for healing a lot more quickly. I stopped casting anything other than healing spells, just to be safe. I also noticed that we were dealing with a lot more curses from the mobs. Earlier in the instance, when we were all stopped, someone asked the mage to remove a curse, and after several requests (over several minutes), she did it, so I knew she was capable of it. When I ran SFK with my mage, I remember entire battles that I spent removing curses from the group, so I recommended that she just keep an eye on the party icons, looking for the purple halos around our pictures. It was clear this mage was not paying attention because we all walked around with five minute curses on our heads all the way up to the final boss. I thought, well, maybe she's distracted because she's trying to do damage, so I kept an eye on her. No, she was not casting anything at all, it seemed. Hm... so, Arugal was going to be a three man job with a warrior, a shaman, and a priest. Great.
Before we tackled the final boss, I asked the mage several times if she could please remove the curses. Again, she just. Wasn't. Paying. Attention. She did nothing. "Guess not," said the tank, and ran up to kill Arugal. ARGGHHH. We all followed, because we basically had no choice. I ran up behind the group and missed a couple heals due to line of sight problems, and then the shaman got smushed. I kept the tank alive as long as I could, and then tabbed to Arugal to see how much damage we'd done. We hadn't even cut his hit points half way!! That plus the bursts of damage due to the curse, and we were pretty much doomed. Wipe #2.
We tried again, and I was hopeful we'd make more progress since we didn't have the curses on us, but this next attempt on Arugal went pretty much like the first. Shaman got squished and the tank alone simply could not do enough damage to him to kill him. Wipe #3.
"I think we're going to need some help," the shaman said. I agreed, and the tank said he needed to go afk a bit, but would be back when we found a fifth. He promoted me to leader, I kicked the absent paladin and started looking for someone on the LFG channel. I also chatted with the mage a bit. She said she was having trouble getting close enough to Arugal to hit him with her frost spells. I questioned her a bit about this, because it seems like you could shoot a frostbolt at him (I've fired many a frostbolt at him with my own mage in that same little room). "He keeps moving," she said. Oh no. So, did she not know how to select a mob and cast a spell on it? Now I was thoroughly convinced that she had not done any damage to any mob during the entire instance. No wonder we'd had so much trouble. "Every time I get close to him, he moves." Ughhhh.
There was a hunter waiting in the LFG, so I invited him to the group. He was available immediately, so we summoned him, and he joined us. Some of the mobs at the beginning of the instance had respawned, so we killed them while we were waiting for the tank to come back. I promoted the tank to leader again, and off we went. (After the first battle, the tank said, "oh man, my arms are messed up because of all the weights I just lifted." Heh... yeah, sure thing, buddy.) We got to Arugal and completely destroyed him. He dropped the [Robes of Arugal], which, of course, bind on pickup. The tank passed, the shaman passed, the hunter rolled greed (!!!!!), and the mage rolled need. The shaman said to me, "If you would like that item, please roll need." So I did, and I won the roll. Hot damn.
Getting those robes (and knocking off the quests) made the whole thing worth it, but that was one annoying pug. The tank was a bit of a jerk, the mage didn't know how to play her class (or so it seemed to me), and although the shaman seemed to know what he was doing, it just wasn't enough for us to complete the instance.
I'm sure it won't be the last pug I complain about, and it's certainly not the first that's had me yelling at my monitor. (It would be best if I never picked up a mic, I think.) At times, we were incompatible, inconsistent, hostile, and there were definitely moments where I felt aversion to some of my party. Even so, I confess it made for an entertaining evening.
So, my priest is now at 27. She'll soon be caught up to my mage...
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