Crappy Groups

[Magyck]

I'm fresh out of a weekend of crappy groups on my healer, who is now level 70 (yay!). There were so many bad groups that I can't remember them all, but here are a few of the fun ones:

Steamvault. My guildie (dps) and I zone in and find the DK tank decked out in level 70 purples. As I'm getting ready to buff he runs into the first pack, and says "hope you don't mind big pulls" as he continues running (out of my range) and picking up everything in about the first half of the instance. Given his gear we do surprisingly well, until we start getting pats and other links. Our already borderline too large group becomes unmanageable, and aggro is everywhere. We wipe, and run back to the instance. The tank doesn't release and waits for me to come back and rez him. After I rez him, he blames the dps for the wipe, saying the reason we died was because a couple of them are only doing 300-400dps, which "smacks of noob." Cue him dropping party.

Shattered Halls. I'm in there with my dps guildie again, and we're plugging along quite well until we get to the little stretch of hallway that has four alcoves, each with a little pocket of mobs in them. The tank decides to start trouble at this point, and told the hunter to "turn your damn pet's growl off." The hunter said it was off. We pull the first alcove and kill them without incident. The tank then says "you can leave growl on but I'm not fighting your pet for aggro." The hunter said "it's f'ing off, I hope you all die" ran out and pulled, then dropped group. We did indeed die, and the tank dropped shortly thereafter.

Magisters' Terrace. I'm in here with the same guildie from the other two instances, and we have a level 76 DK tank, a druid, and a pally. Some of the mobs in there drop stationary magic dampening barriers that reduce magic damage by 50% and healing by 75%, and they enjoy dropping those on the tank. The first time it got dropped I told the tank to get out of there, because he was taking a lot of damage and I was doing everything I could to keep him up with my spells healing for 75% less than usual. He didn't move, and he went down when I went oom. After the wipe he asked what happened, and I repeated myself about how the barriers reduce healing, and he agreed to stay out of them. We were doing fine for a while, then got to one of the last room where there are several groups of mobs. The tank kept trying to sneak around the group in the middle to pull the ones on the side, which was resulting in the middle group linking. We wiped twice there, once because the tank was under a magic barrier (again), and the second because when the middle group linked it ran straight at me and killed me within seconds. As I'm running back to the instance, the druid initiated a votekick for me (my guildie told me they were trying to kick me), and then the tank dropped party when it didn't pass. I find that instance harder than all the other BC ones, but I'm not sure what I could have done differently really.

So, those are the stories from the groups that actually got past the first pull. I had dozens of non-starters where milliseconds after entering the dungeon, the tank drops group. Sometimes without a word, sometimes saying things like "sorry, gotta go to work now." Why would you queue up if you have to leave for work in 2 minutes?!?!

Argh.

[Sarayana]

I had dozens of non-starters where milliseconds after entering the dungeon, the tank drops group. Sometimes without a word, sometimes saying things like "sorry, gotta go to work now." Why would you queue up if you have to leave for work in 2 minutes?!?!

I heard that's the new "trolling" people do. Tanks have pretty much instant queues, so if they're not planning on running anything anytime soon they'll hop in queue and drop, just to I dunno, laugh at the thought of those four frustrated people perhaps?

[Kalliope]

I'm fresh out of a weekend of crappy groups on my healer, who is now level 70 (yay!). There were so many bad groups that I can't remember them all, but here are a few of the fun ones:

Grats on getting most of the awful BC ones. >_< Pretty bad luck there. I don't think there was much you could do differently, without knowing more specifics.

I'm shocked, though - I never got any of those while leveling. It was always Sethekk/crypts spam as randoms, then directly to UK.

[Magyck]

Grats on getting most of the awful BC ones. >_< Pretty bad luck there. I don't think there was much you could do differently, without knowing more specifics.

I'm shocked, though - I never got any of those while leveling. It was always Sethekk/crypts spam as randoms, then directly to UK.

I did all the BC ones on purpose in order to get the achievement, and there seemed to be a fairly even spread of jerks throughout them all. You can bet I'm never going into Shadow Labyrinth or Magister's Terrace again. Ugh.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

Had a really fun time on my mage Friday. It was mana tombs, started off with a death knight tank and a priest healer. Except that the death knight couldn't tank. And the priest couldn't heal. So this resulted in me doing what I lovingly refer to as 'mage tanking'. I am fire specced, so what this boils down to is me playing keep away while praying I can deal enough damage to finish off the mobs coming after me. This was surprisingly effective. It got easier after the first tank left and our gnome warrior took over, though the priest was still bad. I still spent a bit of time tanking, and that was with me throttling my DPS.

[VelkynKarma]

I had dozens of non-starters where milliseconds after entering the dungeon, the tank drops group. Sometimes without a word, sometimes saying things like "sorry, gotta go to work now." Why would you queue up if you have to leave for work in 2 minutes?!?!

I heard that's the new "trolling" people do. Tanks have pretty much instant queues, so if they're not planning on running anything anytime soon they'll hop in queue and drop, just to I dunno, laugh at the thought of those four frustrated people perhaps?

I've had groups like this before. Only sometimes, the tank runs forward, makes the first pull, and then drops group. Which can be especially deadly if they pick something like HoL where the boss is right at the front (no joke, it happened to us once, he pulled General Bjarngrim and then disappeared somehow).

I don't understand why people like ruining the game for others, though

~VelkynKarma

[Sarayana]

I know Velkyn, it really makes no sense. I posted about this elsewhere, but I had a feral tank that zoned into Gundrak in a level 40 robe once. Ran ahead and pulled the first couple of trash groups, brought them back and hurricaned them in caster form, then laid on the floor, complaining that he got no heals. Pure trolling.

I've gotten a lot less tolerant about this type of shit. Now I ticket it every time - though of course a tank that drops so quickly you don't see his name/server you can't report...

[Saturo]

I've gotten a lot less tolerant about this type of shit. Now I ticket it every time - though of course a tank that drops so quickly you don't see his name/server you can't report... :|

Don't you get a "Retard has left the party." when he leaves?

[Sarayana]

I've gotten a lot less tolerant about this type of shit. Now I ticket it every time - though of course a tank that drops so quickly you don't see his name/server you can't report...

Don't you get a "Retard has left the party." when he leaves?

Do you? I haven't noticed but you're probably right. (I usually keep open a chat only window when I'm in dungeons because I'll miss tells due to the scrolling announcement/loot text.)

[Kalliope]

I've gotten a lot less tolerant about this type of shit. Now I ticket it every time - though of course a tank that drops so quickly you don't see his name/server you can't report...

Don't you get a "Retard has left the party." when he leaves?

Do you? I haven't noticed but you're probably right. (I usually keep open a chat only window when I'm in dungeons because I'll miss tells due to the scrolling announcement/loot text.)

Also, if you run Recount, you'll have their name and server logged.

[Sarayana]

Not if they drop the second they zone in.

[Kalliope]

Not if they drop the second they zone in.

Well, no, not if they never even get hit. >_<

[Magyck]

I know Velkyn, it really makes no sense. I posted about this elsewhere, but I had a feral tank that zoned into Gundrak in a level 40 robe once. Ran ahead and pulled the first couple of trash groups, brought them back and hurricaned them in caster form, then laid on the floor, complaining that he got no heals. Pure trolling.

I'm sure that was frustrating, but the mental image I'm getting of him laying on his back on the ground whining about no heals is hilarious.

I post in this thread too much, but I got another crappy group last night that didn't do much for my confidence in my healing abilities.

I was in Utgarde Keep as my holy priest, with a rogue, shadow priest, DK dps, and DK tank. I've found UK more difficult to heal than BC dungeons (I don't have much WotLK gear yet, majority of my stuff is still from outland - but I'm steadily replacing it). I can do it, I just have to pay closer attention. I do prefer a warrior or pally tank, however. No offense to DKs, but I find them ridiculously hard to keep up in there if they're 68-71 or so. I don't think I'm an inefficient healer, but I continually have to dump 11k mana into them on trash pulls to keep them up if the dps are lacking and stuff is staying alive for a while.

Anyhow, in this particular group, I was having a much harder time than usual keeping him up. I was managing, but it wasn't fun. He was dropping to 25% health regularly, and aggro was all over the place; mostly on the leather wearing rogue who could take about three hits before dying. No one died, but I think I broke my flash heal button in the process.

After three or four pulls of this, I realized the DK tank wasn't in a presence. Seems he switched specs and forgot to pick one. Once he put up frost things went better, he was still taking piles of damage but at least aggro wasn't all over the place. We downed the first boss but then wiped on the second due to me going completely out of mana even with 11k mana, a runic mana potion, and shadowfiend. The dps just couldn't get it down fast enough. We tried again, and wiped again - this time because the tank had switched to unholy presence for the movement speed bonus when running back, and forgotten to switch back to frost for the boss. Third time was the charm, and we managed to get him down with me out of mana at the end and everyone at 50% or less hp.

The pulls were okay from then until the last boss, but I was having to drink very often (I've gone through there a couple of times with only having to mana up before bosses). We got to the final boss, and we made at least five attempts, but we could not do it. Two dps had less than 9k hp (rogue and shadow priest), and the rogue kept getting one shotted within 10 seconds of the start of battle. I could heal through the damage to the tank, but I couldn't take much time to heal the rest of the group besides using CoH, PoM, and shielding them when they got too low.

The DK tank and the shadow priest dropped group after the fifth attempt, and we queued up for more. This time I got a level 70 warrior and a mage in place of the two who dropped. We ran back, and tried again... and again... and again. We still couldn't do it. I don't know if it was a dps problem or a healing problem. The rogue was one shotted on every attempt within the first few seconds. I could heal through the first phase, but on the second I just couldn't keep everyone up through all the damage they were taking. In the end the warrior dropped (blaming the fail heals), and the rest of the group dissolved.

I ran it twice more after that just to prove to myself that I could heal through it fine. I healed it flawlessly both times, not a single death on either run and no mana issues, and was getting whispers from both groups about how well I was doing with heals. One person was a hunter who's main was a holy priest raid healer, and he said I was an awesome healer.

I think I just need better gear to deal with the DK tanks. Ugh.

(Also, sorry for the novel length post, again)

[Sarayana]

Well I think the problem you're having with DK tanks is that they might not yet have a lot of def rating on their gear, coming straight out of Outlands... DKs do tend to tank more with their HP and emergency buttons, so they're generally more healing intensive, but regularly dropping to 25% just sounds like he was eating crits left, right, and centre.

I don't know why you think it might have been a healing problem if you ran it twice after without problem. ;P But if you find these types of runs happen too often (after all, we can't pick who we get randomed with) then I'd suggest looking into craftables. You might be able to get the inscription off-hand, and I know I already have about six tailored pieces ready for my tailor when she hits 68 and 70 in a few levels. Northrend recipes better match the Northrend quest gear, which means you'll see a massive stats boost from it.

I know Velkyn, it really makes no sense. I posted about this elsewhere, but I had a feral tank that zoned into Gundrak in a level 40 robe once. Ran ahead and pulled the first couple of trash groups, brought them back and hurricaned them in caster form, then laid on the floor, complaining that he got no heals. Pure trolling.

I'm sure that was frustrating, but the mental image I'm getting of him laying on his back on the ground whining about no heals is hilarious.

Ok, I'll admit it's funny when you put it that way...

[Magyck]

I don't know why you think it might have been a healing problem if you ran it twice after without problem. ;P

The reason I was thinking it might be me is because it only seems to happen on DK tanks. I'm usually perfectly fine with warriors, paladins, and druids, but I think I'm just not geared enough to deal with the DKs. Although I do recognize there was nothing I could do about the rogue repeatedly getting one shotted.

Before I random again I'm going to spend some time looking up what gear I have available at 70 through tailoring or other random drops (like the chest piece that king ping drops). I can probably get some significant upgrades without spending too much gold, since much of what I'm wearing is from Outland (baby priest armory - lots of room for improvement)

[Mockingbird]

UK does seem to be particularly punishing on tanks (and thereby on healers). I think it's because it's at that BC->WOLK gear changeover, so the HP, armour and defence can vary wildly just depending on whether they've done 2 or 3 WoLK quest chains or not.

Glad to hear you got your confidence back after the bad run!

[Kalliope]

Totally agreed with the analysis of regular UK. Once you get more LK gear, your mana pool will last a LOT longer. I had the same issues healing UK on my shammy. It really comes down to tanks who don't have the tools/gear/knowledge to keep themselves up and slow dps in conjunction with your smaller mana pool. I would agree that it's not your fault, or at least not solely your gear's fault, cause I went through the exact same thing with Nas. So don't worry about it.

You have some nice looking BC pieces; better than mine had been! I think you'll be good to go until you grab some of the lowbie quest chain rewards in Northrend.

[Kalliope]

Zzzzz. Another case of blame the healer.

Got randomed into H PoS on Nas. They were already at the first boss. I knew that since the healer had left (as opposed to being kicked, which I was later able to confirm), I was probably going to have issues with the tank and/or dps. The dual wield frost dk wasn't especially undergeared; he had 232 loot across the board and (claimed to be) defense capped. He just took a LOT of healing to keep up on bosses. Perhaps he wasn't expertise-capped; I hadn't looked. At any rate, dps seemed a bit slow, but nothing too tragic.

Things were a little rough throughout, but no one died on Ick, which can be a massive problem with pugs sometimes. The problem area was the hill after that. Yep, those two packs. Either the flamebearers weren't being killed fast enough or the tank wasn't popping cds correctly, cause he took a MASSIVE beating. It took two attempts for the first pack and one (maybe two; can't rightly remember at this point) for the second, which was not without deaths even when it was cleared. The tank clearly thought it was a healing problem, saying I needed to "use bigger heals." Uh, sorry, you're not going to live from one cast to the next if I cast a slower heal. Besides, I still had to heal the melee, who were also getting hit pretty hard. I suggested that he wear full tank gear, since he had a few dps offpieces. Now mind you, I did screw up on a couple of the pack attempts, including the last one. I didn't heal myself because I was too busy tunneling the squishy tank and died. So I suppose they weren't completely unjustified in kicking me....but I hate being blamed for something that isn't REALLY my fault (namely, the tank obviously not popping defensive cooldowns and the dps not focusing the flamebearers).

It worked out in the end, though. I got queued into ANOTHER H PoS five minutes later with a much better group. All pretty nicely geared guildies who didn't mind carrying me along. So I got an extra two attempts at 2/3 H PoS boss loot and much more pleasant company. I'll take it!

[Golden]

Not exactly a crappy group, more like a prejudiced healer...

Second Heroic ever on my freshly dinged Mage, UP. Noticed that there was a Shaman with around the same GS as I did, 2.9k. The Druid healer threw a tantrum, refusing to carry two noobs. After a while of everyone calling him an idiot for judging us by our GS and asking to either give us a chance or stop wasting our time, we started clearing. Long story short, we both did fairly good dps considering our gear, and we finished the instance with no problems, other than Skadi vanishing and reseting at 1%.

It's funny how people go all "WAA your GS sucks!", even after we've cleared some trash, sometimes even bosses. Had that happen in AN just before the last boss, even though we'd cleared the whole place up to that point with no problems and me doing average dps compared to the other, much better dps.

[Ryai]

Kinda can add to crappy healers. Other day I was getting Harp up from 58-60, lowbie ally hunter and wanted her to be my first official highest level ally toon too. Anyways. Queued for Ramps and had several horrible runs, mostly from fail tanks trolling us or just well they were shit.

So we get a run, get a good tank. Nice tank. Decent tank.

Get a healer who CBA to heal. Seems to afk, either wait to long to heal and several times the feral drood had to drop out and throw heals on the tank or me, and the drood had to save me a couple times too when I pulled adds off healer that tank didn't notice, but honestly wasn't his fault for that.

So we down the first boss, cloth shoulders drop. Before boss, healer doesn't ask- could anyone pass if cloth shoulders drop.

So we roll DE for them, someone gets them, they're DE'd.

Healer afks for a full minute, not healing or anything then whines I couldn't roll on them I want them gimme. I snarl Ffs less whining more healing!.

Then up until the circular area before the last two bosses, he whines and whines for the shoulders which we can't give and I explain 4 times to him they were DE'd.

Then. THEN. He stops healing me. He almost lets me die, all give me shoulders! Pretty much.

I have to scream back in caps they were fucking disenchanted, and to scroll up and look.

After the horrible run I decided, when the staff dropped, to let the feral drood have it as he deserved it. He kept the run going, he saved my ass, and he was a good guy. The healer tried to ninja.

But the drood got it.

Then later- Karma repayed me as the staff and the rogue belt dropped and the group let me have both. The group was wonderful too.