Happy Groups!

[Kalliope]

To counter (or perhaps act as a companion to) the crappy groups thread, I figured we needed a thread for sharing GOOD experiences with groups.

Tonight, Sili was helping me (on Kallimon) out with AoA on her tree. Gumbo tanked! A human prot pally turned up and was hanging around waiting for a friend to get there. He decided to jump in and help us with the last couple of bosses. (Which is good, cause I'm not entirely certain Gumbo could tank all that, though he did a FANTASTIC job with the earlier bosses with Sili's heals.) There was a lot of emoting all around and Gumbo did the croc dance for the pally (who was appreciative). As I was turning in the last quest, the pally's buddy turned up....and it was a tauren death knight! Sili and I had been expecting more alliance. xD We helped the two of them with the dk's quests and got to pass along gratitude in both directions via whispers.

Good times!

[Lisaara]

This was definitely needed.

Opalrose, my mage, got randomed into Black Fathom Deeps. I groaned at first. Got randomed with the druid that I ended up actually completely SFK with. that druid left in the middle of the instance. We got another dps. All of us were chitchatting, and become actually very good friends within that short time, talking about roleplay and generally just having fun in the instance. x3 We all ended up exchanging realIDs so we could keep chatting. XD

[Sarayana]

Great idea Kalli! I have to say though, that about 95% of my groups are good and roughly 3% are amazing groups where I really find myself wishing you could friend people cross-server (without using your real name!!) and random together again.

I queued into H PoS as heals on my brand spankin' new disc priest who's a healing fiend (she's gotten a few upgrades since then) and man, those first trash pulls were brutal. We got through Garfrost with one dps death (sorry rogue!!! ) and I asked the DK tank if he was def capped. He said he thought so, he was at 525 (man, I felt those crits!!) and his friend said that was heroic cap, so that started a whole discussion about caps, and the tank admitted he was new to tanking and 80. He had gotten a new upgrade and PoS opened up for him, so he figured he'd queue. The warrior dps was great, tanking off spec, so he gave tons of advice. We played smart (though the rogue died again to poison nova) and everyone was super friendly. We wiped twice in the tunnel because I had to heal the tank and pulled healing aggro, so the warrior donned his tanking spec and tanked it, and we went back to the first tank again on Tyrannus. In the end, we all had a great experience, nobody got snarky or mean over low geared heals or a new tank, and there was a nice tanking sword for our tank at the end of it.

[kamoodle5]

I did have a time with a good group in ST several nights ago that more than half the time we did well with just the four of us. Our main tank, a warrior, kept being afk (as it turns out, he was having a problem with his dog), so our off-tank, a pally, took over. Her tanking went flawlessly, and the healer and two of us hunters had no trouble with mobs. Hey, how could that go wrong; there were still the six of us. The main tank has come back to tank mobs, although I think the pally did a better job of it. The warrior did ditch us after we cleared the room of the undead trolls. Wasn't too bad actually but I still hate that part of ST. So, we four-ed the final boss, with a small group of dragons afterward, and the others had no problem with taking a tour down the basement for kicks. By this time, I remembered the order from the back of my head, and we downed the big troll elemental boss easily.

Actually, uhh, I think Wowwiki has it a bit wrong. From what I discovered, the healer did use the north one first, but it didn't work, so I went to the south and that worked then the north. Wowwiki says north then south. The rest is correct.

[VelkynKarma]

Oh this is a good idea

Last week, I think it was, I did a random on Taigi so I could get her some badges. Random'd into Old Kingdom (again, I've done that one so many times by now I loooooooath it). Anyway, the other four people in the instance all seemed to know each other, 'cause they were referring to each other by actual names and not chara names, and kept calling me 'hunter.'

I figured it'd be pretty crappy since I was kinda outnumbered, but it turned out to be really great! I think I surprised the tank when we got to that one ledge you can use in OK and he told me and the warlock to 'put away our pets.' Instead I popped EotB and ran my (at the time, Artcuris) up to him and waited. Once he saw this, he didn't mind jumping and pulling the first pack, and I set Arctica to attacking before jumping down myself and contributing. They also seemed impressed by the fact that I used Misdirect for all the big tashpulls and the boss, that my pet was on defensive, that I didn't run ahead of the tank and pull stuff, and that I actually knew how to fight the final boss and was able to not only take down my own set of illusions but also go help everyone else. At the end of the instance one of them said "It's really good to see a hunter that doesn't suck," and they invited me to do another dungeon with them. I was quite proud of myself

(They also asked where my ghostbear came from, which always tickles me XD)

~VelkynKarma

[Kalliope]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one itching for a thread like this.

Grats on the UBER-AWESOME dwarf priest, Sara! (Aisling approves!) Really awesome of the warrior to help out with tanking and advice; there are tons of people who have the ability to do these things, but don't, just cause they're in pugs and can't be bothered putting in the effort.

Heee, Vel! I know what you mean. Hippomenes always got attention. It's pretty amazing; I'm not used to having head-turner pets. Positive stories of running with guild runs of four make me happy, since I tend to actually run in groups like that and we appreciate when our pugs know what they're doing.

I like how in both Tal and Kamoodle's cases, potentially bad situations didn't stop the goodness of the group from showing. BTW, Kamoodle, WoWWiki DOES have south listed first, so I guess the healer just had it wrong and blamed the site. xD

[Lisaara]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one itching for a thread like this.

Grats on the UBER-AWESOME dwarf priest, Sara! (Aisling approves!) Really awesome of the warrior to help out with tanking and advice; there are tons of people who have the ability to do these things, but don't, just cause they're in pugs and can't be bothered putting in the effort.

Heee, Vel! I know what you mean. Hippomenes always got attention. It's pretty amazing; I'm not used to having head-turner pets. Positive stories of running with guild runs of four make me happy, since I tend to actually run in groups like that and we appreciate when our pugs know what they're doing.

I like how in both Tal and Kamoodle's cases, potentially bad situations didn't stop the goodness of the group from showing. BTW, Kamoodle, WoWWiki DOES have south listed first, so I guess the healer just had it wrong and blamed the site. xD

Hee. I had another good group last night. We were doing Stockades and while it wasnt a talkative group, the lock was very sweet. She needed help with a quest and I offered to get on my druid to help her finish it(it was killing the captives). Instead, the group agreed to re-que again(this time not a random) since she wasnt lvl 31 yet. So it shows working together makes good friends. she got her quest completed and we made some new friends. ^_^

[kamoodle5]

I have another happy group. Actually, it is funny at some points.

Last night, I was queing in the dungeon finder while killing furbolgs in Felwood in the process and was waiting for a good 10 minutes at least. However, a guildie was needing to get a quest done in ST (he was a pally). For the moment, a higher guildie at level 62 offered to help but when the pally said he was already in dungeon que, I had a thought of whether he and I should group for ST since I was level 55. I had to go to the restroom before I asked, and then when I came back, ST popped up. I ended up making a big 'Ah-haa!' in guild chat. Yes, the guildie and I got grouped together and I couldn't even ask.

Both ST and eventually BRD went well for me and my guildie (and he got his quest done in ST), although BRD was a riskier experience since we decided to do the whole instance when only me was at level 56 (I had just hit that once we started BRD); everyone else was in the higher 40's, lower 50's. Yeah, we qued for the prison part. There were two wipes, both of which I survived from and the rogue survived the second one (can't tell you how). The second one I survived from was because I had to make a very quick afk after we downed a boss and the rest went without me for a bit. I had the very same experience Cartman did in that episode where he had to have the runs while they were trying to kill that guy. Those two wipes resulted in some folks leaving the group, thus we had to find more. By very accidental coincidence, when our healer left the group after the second near-wipe and we were queing for a healer, we got her again but only very briefly. My guildie said he was gonna laugh hard if she shows up a third time but she didn't and we got another druid healer. We went through the gnomes, the seven dwarves, the dwarf swarms, Magnus, and the king's cronies with no problem, although my bat did nearly die from Magnus when he had bigger aggro for a bit.

As we were killing the last group of cronies near the lord, that was when the lord decided to take action. After I brought down a non-elite, I accidentally shot at the boss and I got aggro. I instantly turned my Bartok's growl on just to get him off of me and I FDed. During the whole time the boss was fighting against Bartok, but I forgot to turn off Growl half the time and I did that by the time the healer reminded me. By then, my guildie couldn't pull the aggro from Bartok, but he probably wouldn't hold it too well anyway since he was five levels lower than the boss. That's what happens when a hunter decided to use both BW and the hunter pet trinket, the Devilsaur's Tooth, at the beginning. Still, we downed the boss with not a fuss and Bartok was owning him easy. Nobody said anything afterward but I bet I really impressed my guildie.

[cowmuflage]

The group that let my mate have the blue proto was nice. Even tho i really really wanted it i let him have it. does that count?

[Kalliope]

A couple of buddies and I have been spamming heroics and just started the ICC 5s today (regular). We had an owl and rogue random in with us for our first run through the ICCs. When we got to HoR, the rogue said he'd never been there before. So I gave a breakdown of the instance while we sat through the early RP. We knew the owl was going to be a nub due to his behavior in FoS and PoS, but because the rogue was good about listening (and my bf has leet dps on his lock), we were able to four man at least half of the first part of the instance. We kept the rogue on for our random heroic of the day and would have run more with him if he hadn't had to go. Good times.

[zedxrgal]

Nothing beats the dungeon group I had recently!! The whole team just meshed so well. Healer was spot on and quick, tank was holding aggro beautifully, and the dps was knocking stuff out of the park. Everyone was fun and jovial and talkative but not to the point of interference. There was no deserting or ninja-ing items. Even mats were politely shared amongst the group. Instead of rolling it was agreed early on that sharing would happen if there was more then one person mining or skinning etc. The group worked so amazingly well together we all ran continuous dungeons the whole night! Then we were sad players when someone had to got to bed after staying up way later then they planned. Crappy part of it was everyone was on a different server so there was no way we could meet up and group again.
It was so flawless. Honestly the best group I've been in in the history of my playing.

[Kalliope]

I've been gearing up my draenei warrior with my bf's lock and a mutual friend's pally. Neither of them were around tonight, so I decided to knock out my random heroic alone. Instant queue, of course.

Pit of Saron.

Tingles of dread go up my spine. I've been having terrible aggro issues lately, especially in PoS. And this time, I wouldn't have a healer and a dps I knew I could count on.

Fortunately, this was a good group. The pally healer was fine, the hunter misdirected, and the shadow priest pumped out quite a bit of dps (as did the hunter, but the spriest was better geared). The only weak spot was the dk in tank gear and what was clearly his offspec (he told me to turn off rankwatch in party chat, which was pretty much the only thing actually said during the run). It was a quiet group, but all business. Except that dk, who also popped army of the dead on the first boss, which made controlling him and the adds quite difficult. So I got fed up and initiated a kick. There was a bit of a delay, but at least two of the others in the group agreed and the dk was history. We then picked up a much better dk, who immediately topped the meters. I was a little nervous, but I left vigilance on the priest, which ended up still being the right call, as the dk only pulled a couple of mobs off me throughout the rest of the instance. Even without being chatty, the group knew what it was doing. We avoided three of the four groups on the hill without any trouble (which is so often not the case in pugs) and Tyrannus didn't bug out.

As an added bonus, the tanking and caster dps trinkets dropped. Both were needed. Win.

[Golden]

So I've started to get into leveling my Holy Priest again - she dinged 72 earlier today, and the Northrend instances are starting to get healable.

For the past two runs, I've had awesome and understanding groups - the most props go to the extremely skilled tanks, but the dps have also been great whenever I made a mistake or they simply got roflstomped. (I now know that Ingvar's Dark Smash CAN oneshot a Retri Paladin...)

[Mockingbird]

So I've started to get into leveling my Holy Priest again - she dinged 72 earlier today, and the Northrend instances are starting to get healable.

For the past two runs, I've had awesome and understanding groups - the most props go to the extremely skilled tanks, but the dps have also been great whenever I made a mistake or they simply got roflstomped. (I now know that Ingvar's Dark Smash CAN oneshot a Retri Paladin...)

God... UK as a freshly dinged priest is HORRIBLE.

I was so happy when a friend with a 71 warrior came and tanked for me - as Disc I was finding it absolutely hellish with PuG tanks (no mana breaks, awful gear) - my friend had nearly double the HP of most of the tanks I'd picked up because, are you ready for this... he was wearing tank kit!

I had a great group the other day - enormously undergeared PoS group (except me doing decent damage) - all had to work together and share cooldowns/trade aggro. Was really, really fun!

[Kalliope]

God... UK as a freshly dinged priest is HORRIBLE.

Or a shaman. Ugh. Nas had the CRAPPIEST mana regen until I got some Northrend greens and blues. I'd imagine that this was true for the other healing classes too.

[Sarayana]

I couldn't agree more Mockingbird - I actually had a near "I'm never healing again" breakdown after failing to disc heal UK when I was just around 70... But a long conversation with a buddy who's disc in ICC helped. <3

Another thing I noticed (having leveled three healers through Northrend now) is that the very undergeared tanks you get just as you get there are often very open to gear advice! I've gotten very warm thank yous from a bunch after mentioning the cobalt tanking set. The ones that aren't wearing a proper tanking set are probably the ones that aren't aware of the crafted gear and just stacked stam through Outlands.

[Kaswryn]

Yay, happy groups!

Hmmm, I haven't done any groups recently so I'll just name a couple few of mine.

The latest one was a couple months ago on my draenei shaman. I got pulled into a black fathom run, zone in and say hi as usual. Then notice another player's comment "Got enough draenei?", look at the group line-up....one pally (tank), one priest (heal), 3 shaman (dps)...all draenei =3 we all thought it was awesome. Once we finish having a good laugh about that, we begin running and everything goes smoothly until we get to the part with the four torches that you light. Someone accidentally lights all four, "we're screwed" is all I could think as waves of mobs came rushing at us...but all 3 of us shammies drop our totems and we actually manage to kill them all without a single death /flex Most awesome group ever!

Another black fathom run was back on my main, WAY long ago, over a year or so, but it was so awesome cause it's one of VERY few groups that I was in back then that actually finished an instance. The line-up was me on a druid, my friend on a trial account pally, another pally, and his friend a warlock. We couldn't find a healer so we winged it. Mostly the pallies would alternate as main tank and the other off-tanked and healed themselves and it worked until we got to the bridge before the second to last boss. First problem was that while we were swimming back after the hidden thresher boss I (who was hanging back a bit to watch out for the warlock who was the lowest level of the group) suddenly saw all the mobs on the bridge start running. "That's odd...." is what I thought...until we all realized they had somehow aggroed and charged into the water and killed us After a bit of confused muttering we run back and recover, then head up to the bridge. We weren't sure if the pallies could keep themselves up for the bigger groups so I suggested that I join in as a third tank...it worked beautifully and we got through to the last 2 bosses without another wipe. XD first totally awesome group I ever had.

As an added bonus story, before the last black fathom run I mentioned, my friend and I had tried to duo the instance the day before We did pretty well until we got to the twilight hammer mobs (where we wiped due to a runner...then called it a day), but we managed to take out the murloc boss!

[kamoodle5]

I got a happy group run from just a little while ago. Well, half of it wasn't exactly happy but it wasn't bad either...until a half-wipe happened.

When we all first started, it was me and my wolf, Calamity, a DK, a healer pally, a warrior, and a mage and we did regular Mana-Tombs. It did go smoothly for a bit until after the huge rocky boss. Somehow, when we were hanging around near the dead boss with the pally asking if he could have the spaulders that dropped (he eventually went back on that when he found out it was mail), we didn't realize the DK went ahead and aggroed the mobs. By the time we took action, the DK died. The warrior died next and the rest of us handled the remaining mobs without too much trouble actually. After the DK was rezzed and then the warrior, the DK ditched us. It wasn't long until the mage and the warrior decided to bail out, too. The pally was thinking the run was over, but I said I wasn't going to give up and would end up immediately requeing anyway if he bailed, too.

So, the pally and I kept going while we were waiting for a lax tank to fill in the remaining spots. The tank never came, but the pally and I ended up downing the rest of the instance together along with my scorpion, Vile, whom I replaced my Calamity for. All it took was some well-timing CCing I did with my freezing trap, my newest snake trap, my tank pet and her Thunderstomp, pet steroids (a.k.a. BW), and the pally to pull it all together. We did have to handle four mobs on two occasions, but it still didn't prove too hard. Even the big demons that fear weren't too bad seeing as BW made that look easy. When I was skeptical that we couldn't down the last boss with just the three of us and Thunderstomp doesn't produce tons of aggro, we did it anyway and it actually became a cinch. The pally kept all of us including himself healed while Vile was battling the boss and the sparks (I did have some of those sparks on me). He never went oom, which was very good. I was healing Vile also so her health never dropped too much. Occasionally, a spark did go for the pally a few times, but I knew he could take care of them himself while I kept healing my pet. We downed the boss. The pally said, "Now, don't tell me that wasn't fun." I laughed then we waved good-bye and parted ways afterward.

As much as I thanked the pally afterward for sticking around for us to finish the rest of the dungeon together, Vile took the cake. This is why I love scorpions because I have profound faith in them being good tanks, regardless of ability. As much as I think it was an awful idea for Blizz to replace the scorpion's DoT they used to be so famous for with a PvP ability, that ability did help in our situation. It would be neat if they had a bonus ability of a DoT. So weird how the tail is never used. Okay, rant off-topic. Sorry about that.

[Azunara]

So, I log on my lock and queue for a random. Shadowfang Keep. It's going well, and we're all chatty, tank is asking how they're doing, stopping for mana, I ask if they want imp or Maxwell, and laugh when I explain his name. All in all, smooth sailing the entire run, even when the priest had a nasty lag spike and DCed, then came back.

Following SFK run, (queue again with priest and a DPS.) and half way through, tank drops. So Maxwell bravely tries to tank up to Arugal, when a tank shows up and we finish the instance.

*pats her felguard.*

[Kalliope]

Okay, I'll bite - why is your felguard Maxwell?