Last week when I had the opportunity, Vid was extremely busy with pugs. The queue times were pretty much instant, so it made for some fast and furious pugging. First I went to Mara – Orange and decided to take a stand against tank asshattery.
“OOM,” the moonkin said. “Yes, wait please,” I echoed.
“its fine,” the tank said, running ahead to attack the – water elemental boss-type thing. With a sigh, I jump up from drinking and sprint after him and start healing. I was at about half mana anyway, so it was okay, but I prefer to have a bit more going in. You never know what’s going to happen.
“Please don’t pull when your healer needs mana,” I repeated.
“I told you it was fine,” he says.
Feeling more belligerent than usual, I told him shortly, “It was fine because I came and healed you anyway. Or did you think that healers are merely decorative?”
“I had lay on hands so quit your whining,” he said, and he marks the second pug in which I have apologized to the rest of the group, but left because I won’t put up with people who not only have a God complex but are also jerks about it. I could’ve voted to kick him but finding tanks takes an eternity and I just didn’t want the hassle, so I left.
Immediately after, still a bit stung, I joined a group to find an unfamiliar load screen. Could this be… Sunken Temple? It was indeed, and glorious fun was had by all. The tank said, “Let’s makes this a quick run, ok?” and I agreed. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever done ST so fast, we didn’t stop (or need to stop) the entire time. Chain-pulling pally tanks make me so happy. I can only hope that other ST groups I join know their way around as well.
I capped off the pug session with an uneventful Pristine Waters run. Vidyala is 48 now, creeping ever closer to the 50-60 range. You all know what that means… Death Knights. Soon.
Funny enough, this entry in my pugging annals isn’t really about Vidyala, but it does involve a paladin, and pugging, so I hope you’ll bear with me. I haven’t really changed names to protect the innocent, except my own, and I couldn’t remember the troll hunter’s name so I gave him a name in honour of Tam.
The Story of Hellfire Ramparts, A Drama In Three Parts
Dramatis Personae
“Gankmytaint” – A paladin queued as a healer.
Kali – Intrepid Trollish frost mage, aka yours truly.
Gorlock – a trollish shaman
Greenhots – Inexplicably, an orc deathknight.
Humsomethingorother – Forsaken deathknight
Cumin – Troll hunter of little words
Moohealz – a Tauren druid. I may have made that name up.
A bunch of other people whose names I’ve forgotten, alas, they will be named only by role.
Act I
Scene: The entrance portal of Hellfire Ramparts. Our actors gather to pit themselves against foes of untold multitude and strength.
Moohealz: Oh sh***
Everyone else: Um…?
Moohealz: Give me a minute guys I need to respec
Tank: *ignores the druid and begins pulling*
Utter chaos ensues, though no words are spoken for a good minute or so. Somehow the group survives the first pull, but the druid is yelling.
Moohealz: OK NOW GIVE ME A MINUTE PLEASE
Tank: *doesn’t*
Within moments, two DPS are lying dead on the ground. The only remaining, live party members are the tank (but not for long) and the druid himself. Various swears. It looks as if the group might manage to survive even this pull, until Kali sees something that makes her blood run cold. (She’s a frost mage, too, so it takes a lot).
Kali: Where is my water elemental goingohcrap.
The water elemental scoots around the corner and begins to shoot at a new pack of orcs. Half the group has ragequit by this time as a mob of orcs rushes towards our two-toed cloth-wearer and she flees for her life as only a frost mage can, leaving her water elemental behind to bear their wrath. She laughs so hard at the sorry debacle that it takes her a few minutes to resume working on professions, before she can queue once more for Hellfire Ramparts. There’s loot there to be had!
Act II
Scene: The same instance portal, now with a fresh group of cheery adventurers. Another DK tank (surprise) we’ll call him Hum, and a healer by name of “Gankmytaint.” Kali expects great things from this young worthy. She will not be disappointed.
Gorlock: Greetings!
Hum the Tank: Heal me please
Gank: ok
Hum the Tank: I’m dying over here where’s heals?!
Gank: Sorry, I’ll try 2 pay more attention
Hum the Tank: ty
The group actually continues in this vein with reasonable success until Watchkeeper Guy And His Two Henchmen.
Gorlock: afk a second guys
Watchkeeper What’s-his-name: “Heal me, quickly! Ah man, what the heck? I just hired those guys, what’s with all the turnover—” *dramatic death*
Kali: Look, cloth shoulders! Dis is great, mon.
Hum the Tank: *inexplicably leaves group*
Gank: I can absolutely tank this, can someone keep me healed?
Kali: No.
Act III
Amazingly, it only takes about a half minute to find another Death Knight tank. I hear those guys are really rare at this level…
Greenhots, the Orc DK Tank: Hey Gank, ur main is from my server, blahblah lists all my characters incomprehensibledudespeak
Gankmytaint: hey no kidding, u r the blahblah more dudespeak
Greenhots: Oops, I’m in the wrong spec, brb. *hearths out to DK treehouse*
Greenhots: OK, who’s the healer?
Gorlock the Shaman: Hey guys, I’m back from AFK, what’d I miss?
Greenhots: who is healer
Kali: Gank
Greenhots: He has a two-hander?
Kali: *wisely says nothing*
Greenhots: OK, let’s do this! *immediately loses aggro on several mobs while water elemental tanks them*
Greenhots: lol I need to remember how to play this toon
Kali: Yes, an instance is absolutely the best place to do that! <– didn’t actually say this
Greenhots: I’m not really getting healed a lot
Gankmytaint: Hey guys, I’m OOM
Greenhots: *pulls anyway, dies a horrible death*
Gorlock: *dies*
Kali: *dies*
Gankmytaint: *proceeds to finish off pack of mobs after most of party has died, and does not die*
Gorlock: Rez please?
Greenhots: Who’s the healer?
Kali: Gank.
Greenhots: THEN TURN OFF RIGHTEOUS FURY.
Gankmytaint: give me a sex
Gankmytaint: im also holy
Gankmytaint: I mean sec. *switches, only now, to Holy spec, but gear remains a two-hander*
Conversation and combat proceeds in this vein for a few more trash pulls, now outside of the corridor leading to last two bosses. Fortunately the pause gives most of party time to type various versions of “LOL” and “ROFL” because OHMYGAWD YOU GUYS HE SAID SEX! and other witty repartee.
Gank: Sorry I keep running out of mana
Greenhots: Then put up mana seal and buff yourself with wisdom.
Gank: *put up Seal of Wisdom, buffs tank with Blessing of Wisdom*
Greenhots: Not me, u
Greenhots: give me kings again
Gank: *buffs self with Blessing of Wisdom*
Group heads towards Big Orc Guy On Dragon.
Gorlock: Great work, team!
Kali: (I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not, but I don’t think he was.) <– didn’t actually say this, either
Greenhots: *loses aggro on orc and mage nearly dies. Nazrudan descends from the sky!*
Greenhots: lay on hands!
Greenhots: *dies*
Greenhots: dumbass pally
Kali: omg the tank is dead omg omg he’s coming for me.
Nazrudan: *eats the shaman*
Kali: Better him than me. *casts frantically*
Nazrudan: *dies*
Gorlock: Rez please? *Needs on ring with int, sta, spellpower and spirit*
Kali: *rolls…poorly*
Gorlock: Wow, guys, that was fun! *observes that the rest of the group is not near him*
Gorlock: Is there more?
Kali: *can barely believe her good fortune*
Group moves on to attack Omor – miraculously, not a single member dies during final encounter. Much rejoicing! A spellpower mace that the “holy” paladin with the two-hander does not roll on drops.
Gorlock: *need rolls on mace* Woo! Great group, everyone. Be well.
Kali: …
Hey, I got some cloth shoulders out of it. And I laughed so hard that my sides hurt after. I act all exasperated with it but actually it was hilariously fun, and I only feel mildly guilty about making a blog entry out of the mishaps of another “holy” pally. This stuff writes itself.
Pugging Pally 
Priceless PUG stories Vid! (Well not the first one, that tank was just an ass.) That Greenhots tank sounds like he was a hilarious blend of enthusiastic GO TEAM mixed with SEETHING RAGE. The Seal/Blessing of Wisdom debacle was the icing on the cake. Who knew WoW was so full of slapstick comedy?
Really though, influx of new/terrible DK’s notwithstanding, there’s just something about Ramparts that makes it the careening clown car of instances, isn’t there? Within the last month I ran it about 8 times as my Disc priest and it was a gong show at least half of the runs. One run the tank couldn’t hold a lick of aggro, and I subsequently learned how to “cc” as a priest by Mind Controlling a mob and desperately running his fel orc butt as far back towards the entrance as possible, just to buy us more time.
At the same time, I feel just like you about these failpugs where everything goes wrong – they’re more entertaining than stressful. And they make great stories! 😀
Ramparts is pretty straightforward. I found with my pugging ret pally that Blood Furnace was pain incarnate. Which really seems odd, because it’s about as linear and straightforward as you can get (like Ramparts). But I had some of the worst pugs there ever (wasn’t helped by the pally healer that DID NOT HAVE REZ – claimed the quest was “bugged” – ?? WTH? I just did the quest myself less than a month and no patches ago, man!).
DK tanks… bleh. As a ret pally I hate them. They either don’t have the abilities to actually tank at those levels or the people are too new to the class to know how (and I suspect most are really dps who queue for both because they heard DKs could tank and dps at same time). Any other tank, I can usually go flat out max dps with no problems. With a DK tank, I have to scale back and make sure I only do about 1/3 of my max dps to avoid threat overload. And most of them do not collect up lost aggro in my experience. I stopped pugging around 63 and just quested my way through Outlands to get to Northrend faster. I couldn’t take the DK tanks any more.
*claps* Bravo, bravo! That was an excellent play! There was tons of fail, death and even victory at the end with the loot!
I’ll always have fond memories of Ramps, from the first night BC came out, when me and 4 other excited guildies ran in and had NO IDEA what was around every corner! It was new and exciting and there were no guides or strats out on it! I even got a spiff-tastic polearm with a neat look to it off the last boss (the dragon fellow).
The stuff of Shakespearean comedy. Where two of those tanks twins seperated at birth, do you think?
How to deal with the ‘it’s all good’ tanks. Just let them pull. And keep drinking. If it is really all good they will get that LoH and you will have nicely full mana. If it is not then thye will think twice about doing it again. When my wife was healing me it took a while for her to stop complaining if I pulled while she was drinking. Actually it took until the day I let her tank die and then pointed out she had pulled when I was OOM.
It is tough to resist being a martyr and running to heal them with half mana. I think it is better in the long run though. Some tanks are really good with their cool downds and can do a whole fight without heals. Sometimes it IS ‘all good’.
See, in spirit, I totally agree with what you’re saying here — if the tank won’t play nice, they should run the same risks as everyone else. But in pugs, the healer usually gets the brunt of the group’s wrath when the tank dies, even if s/he was asking for it. Maybe I’m too sensitive, but I find it hard to face that kind of caustic assault. 😦
Like you said, a tank can pull without a healer in harness. With good use of tank cooldowns and a smart, cooperative, well-geared group, you can run many of the Northrend heroics with no healer at all — just a tank and four dps. It goes really fast that way, too! Sadly, that’s not usually what you get in random LFD groups at lower levels, though. 🙂
(As a disclaimer, not just any four dps will do for no-healer heroics. You ideally want something like a ret paladin or an enhancement shaman, who can provide some off-spec spot healing, and it helps to have someone who can kick effectively. It does work, though, and it’s fun!)