I remember when I first started playing this game 5 years ago that people went out of their way to help one another and since we were all noobs that no one looked at how other people played but focused mainly on killing the enemy. I'm sure the fact that at the time no websites existed to tell everyone of the proper specs or that dps meters hadn't been created had a large part in this. Contrast that with today where if you want to run a heroic, many people expect huge dps and the tanks to chain pull with a goal of a 15 minute clear. If that doesn't happen then the drama starts.
I have been both a hardcore raider and a casual pugger. To me there is a definite line for when dps meters should come out and that is in the 10/25 man content (with the possible exception of the 5 man ICC stuff). It annoys me that people turn into idiots in the 5 man heroics but today I had a first, a hardcore idiot in a level 60 regular dungeon.
I am leveling a deathknight and decided the best way to do this is by grinding and running dungeons. My DK is currently level 61 and so this has meant that I am primarily running Hellfire Citadel and Blood Furnace. It has been a long time since I ran these instances but I know the heroic versions very well from my BC days. Most of the runs were very clean which surprised me as these days many people leveling don't often learn how to play in a group until max level. I credit the dungeon finder for part of this as it has made it much easier to find lower level groups which hasn't happened since the vanilla WoW. Unfortuately every group can't be perfect.
My run in the Blood Furnace started pretty well as we had a pretty decent group makeup of Warrior Tank, Warlock, Rogue, Deathknight (me), and Shaman healer. After the first pull I realized a few things. 1) the tank couldn't hold aggro very well, 2) the rogue didn't have great dps, and 3) the lock was a bit of a loose cannon. The other thing I remembered is that Blizzard has really dumbed down content in WotLK compared to Vanilla and BC. Mobs in the older dungeons are very close together and one of Blizz's favorite tricks is to have patrols go in between two mobs which aggro multiples. The timing of pulling mobs was a lot tougher back then and it is especially true when you have noob tank and a lock that can't control aggro. We blast through the first area and get to a truly hard part with a pat and two mobs. As we approach the lock's imp casts a fireball at one of them and so all 3 mobs are active (7 total enemy). The warrior does his best to bring the mobs together but the mobs consist of ranged casters which are tough to move into melee range and melee that are easy. The tank focused on the melee and 1 of the casters but that let other casters target whoever got the highest on their aggro table. This usually means it is the healer and in this situation the best course is if possible for the dps to Off tank the ranged dps for the tank. Deathknights are ideally suited for this purpose so I chainpulled one to me and attacked another ranged and quickly killed them. Then I ran back to the group to help the tank. It went off flawlessly and I was a bit happy with the result. The healer started complaining about the tank's inability to hold aggro. Nothing was said about the lock so I asked him, "Can you put your imp on defensive?" He answered, "Se puede ... " and I lost interest after this as it has been too many years for me to remember my high school Spanish. For what it is worth, the dps on this fight was something like DK (me) 600, lock 500, rogue 150, and tank 100. We continue on past a few more easy mobs and get to a real tricky room with 3 3 man packs and a pat and again as we approach the imp casts at a real bad time and we get all 4 groups. I try to do my trick from before but this time there are too many and soon some of the ranged casters are pounding the healer. The healer does a great job keeping himself alive but unfortunately the lock is soon dead as he decided to max DoT all the groups pulling some of the melee to him. The healer is typing in chat, "someone get these things off of me" and after I get the ones I initially targeted I kill the 3 targeting him. The whole process doesn't take more than 30-40 seconds and then only the melee are left that are beating on the warrior. A bit later and they are dead and as the shaman is rez'ing the lock he makes the comment, "can't you hold fucking aggro?" I'm just stunned as I was in the middle of typing, "Nice heals" when I changed it to "Tank aggro wasn't the issue on that pull". He replied, "Bullshit, I got hammered the whole fight." The tank remained silent so I responded with "The issue was the lock pulled and did it a a supremely bad time which surprised the tank and he had difficulty rounding up the mobs." What I didn't say is AOE tanking is a relatively new concept, it is especially hard for warrior tanks, and the way Blizz had the mobs set up in this dungeon made it even worse. The healer responded, "That wasn't the issue." to which I replied, "Then you are an idiot and don't understand the mechanics of the game". The healer responded "Fine!" and quit the group.
If you have read any of my past articles you will see a trend here as this is probably the 4th time in the last month I have caused someone to leave my group with only my words (I felt bad again which is partially why I'm writing this as penance). The healer was right that the warriors threat generation wasn't as good as I'd expect in a heroic or raid. But we weren't in a heroic as we were in a level 60 regular level dungeon. I saw the same things as the shaman and while my hardcore side was annoyed by it, my casual side realized we were in a regular dungeon pug and this was just par for the course. The healer decided instead of asking a question to be very aggressive and my nature is to respond in kind. 5 man dungeons are for learning and frankly as I don't know much about warrior tanks I couldn't help him much. I could help the lock and despite our language difficulties I realized his issue wasn't his pet setting but that he had autoattack set on and after I explained how to set it off we didn't have a repeat of the surprise pull.
After the drama we re-queued and waited about 10 seconds to get another healer and we were off again to finish the instance. I'm sure the shaman was sure that the group would disband without him but our replacement was good and I was quietly proud of our teamwork. I was especially encouraged that by the end the warrior was marking targets and telling us to stay back while he pulled the mobs to us. It was obvious that he was learning and using the skills he will need if he ever wants to raid. Isn't that what 5 mans are all about?
I have been both a hardcore raider and a casual pugger. To me there is a definite line for when dps meters should come out and that is in the 10/25 man content (with the possible exception of the 5 man ICC stuff). It annoys me that people turn into idiots in the 5 man heroics but today I had a first, a hardcore idiot in a level 60 regular dungeon.
I am leveling a deathknight and decided the best way to do this is by grinding and running dungeons. My DK is currently level 61 and so this has meant that I am primarily running Hellfire Citadel and Blood Furnace. It has been a long time since I ran these instances but I know the heroic versions very well from my BC days. Most of the runs were very clean which surprised me as these days many people leveling don't often learn how to play in a group until max level. I credit the dungeon finder for part of this as it has made it much easier to find lower level groups which hasn't happened since the vanilla WoW. Unfortuately every group can't be perfect.
My run in the Blood Furnace started pretty well as we had a pretty decent group makeup of Warrior Tank, Warlock, Rogue, Deathknight (me), and Shaman healer. After the first pull I realized a few things. 1) the tank couldn't hold aggro very well, 2) the rogue didn't have great dps, and 3) the lock was a bit of a loose cannon. The other thing I remembered is that Blizzard has really dumbed down content in WotLK compared to Vanilla and BC. Mobs in the older dungeons are very close together and one of Blizz's favorite tricks is to have patrols go in between two mobs which aggro multiples. The timing of pulling mobs was a lot tougher back then and it is especially true when you have noob tank and a lock that can't control aggro. We blast through the first area and get to a truly hard part with a pat and two mobs. As we approach the lock's imp casts a fireball at one of them and so all 3 mobs are active (7 total enemy). The warrior does his best to bring the mobs together but the mobs consist of ranged casters which are tough to move into melee range and melee that are easy. The tank focused on the melee and 1 of the casters but that let other casters target whoever got the highest on their aggro table. This usually means it is the healer and in this situation the best course is if possible for the dps to Off tank the ranged dps for the tank. Deathknights are ideally suited for this purpose so I chainpulled one to me and attacked another ranged and quickly killed them. Then I ran back to the group to help the tank. It went off flawlessly and I was a bit happy with the result. The healer started complaining about the tank's inability to hold aggro. Nothing was said about the lock so I asked him, "Can you put your imp on defensive?" He answered, "Se puede ... " and I lost interest after this as it has been too many years for me to remember my high school Spanish. For what it is worth, the dps on this fight was something like DK (me) 600, lock 500, rogue 150, and tank 100. We continue on past a few more easy mobs and get to a real tricky room with 3 3 man packs and a pat and again as we approach the imp casts at a real bad time and we get all 4 groups. I try to do my trick from before but this time there are too many and soon some of the ranged casters are pounding the healer. The healer does a great job keeping himself alive but unfortunately the lock is soon dead as he decided to max DoT all the groups pulling some of the melee to him. The healer is typing in chat, "someone get these things off of me" and after I get the ones I initially targeted I kill the 3 targeting him. The whole process doesn't take more than 30-40 seconds and then only the melee are left that are beating on the warrior. A bit later and they are dead and as the shaman is rez'ing the lock he makes the comment, "can't you hold fucking aggro?" I'm just stunned as I was in the middle of typing, "Nice heals" when I changed it to "Tank aggro wasn't the issue on that pull". He replied, "Bullshit, I got hammered the whole fight." The tank remained silent so I responded with "The issue was the lock pulled and did it a a supremely bad time which surprised the tank and he had difficulty rounding up the mobs." What I didn't say is AOE tanking is a relatively new concept, it is especially hard for warrior tanks, and the way Blizz had the mobs set up in this dungeon made it even worse. The healer responded, "That wasn't the issue." to which I replied, "Then you are an idiot and don't understand the mechanics of the game". The healer responded "Fine!" and quit the group.
If you have read any of my past articles you will see a trend here as this is probably the 4th time in the last month I have caused someone to leave my group with only my words (I felt bad again which is partially why I'm writing this as penance). The healer was right that the warriors threat generation wasn't as good as I'd expect in a heroic or raid. But we weren't in a heroic as we were in a level 60 regular level dungeon. I saw the same things as the shaman and while my hardcore side was annoyed by it, my casual side realized we were in a regular dungeon pug and this was just par for the course. The healer decided instead of asking a question to be very aggressive and my nature is to respond in kind. 5 man dungeons are for learning and frankly as I don't know much about warrior tanks I couldn't help him much. I could help the lock and despite our language difficulties I realized his issue wasn't his pet setting but that he had autoattack set on and after I explained how to set it off we didn't have a repeat of the surprise pull.
After the drama we re-queued and waited about 10 seconds to get another healer and we were off again to finish the instance. I'm sure the shaman was sure that the group would disband without him but our replacement was good and I was quietly proud of our teamwork. I was especially encouraged that by the end the warrior was marking targets and telling us to stay back while he pulled the mobs to us. It was obvious that he was learning and using the skills he will need if he ever wants to raid. Isn't that what 5 mans are all about?
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