Horror tales from PUGlight Zone

[AboriginalFactory]

Today's tale begins in heroic Grim Batol whose namesake, unbeknownst to me at the time, would be a foreshadow for the events to come.

it began well, my warrior friend and I had just finished a Heroic SFK with Tinuviel; Tin had to go so before he left he helped us get an instance random heroic queue then left, boosting us to the front of the line for a tank. Within 2 minutes we had another tank and the ill fated venture into the batol began.

The party make up
Tank - Warrior
Healer - Paladin
DPS - Hunter
DPS - Warrior
DPS - Shadow Priest

Not the best composition for cc in a heroic but with caution we could make it work I thought to myself, until we did the first pull...

The healer says to the tank "lets use some CC in here"
the tank says "ok" and then charges the nearest pack without so much as a target marker.
being the resourceful hunter that I am I lay down a trap, pick a target without dots on it and distracting shot pull it to my trap, cc accomplished

after the pull I say to the tank, hey this aint gonna work if you keep chargin in like that, mark the cc target with a square and trap it"; before I could get the sentence out the tank was flying face first at the next pack of 7... /facepalm

I would like to say that we masterfully handled the situation and ended the combat without a scratch but that would be far from the truth. We died horribly. The tank went down before the first mob quickly followed by my warrior friend. On a hunch I Feigned Death at the start of the pull and avoided combat, the shadow priest was the next to go. the paladin popped her bubble and headed for the door and almost made it too until the bubble wore off and she was hit with a frost bolt, by that time she had made it near the entrance portal... just as the shadow priest zoned in to rez. Needless to say there became another shadowy stain on the floor of the batol. The shadow priest promptly left. So we queue for another member.

The new party make up
Tank - Warrior
Healer - Paladin
DPS - Hunter
DPS - Warrior
DPS - Balance Druid

Ahh a druid, not the best cc but better than none I think to myself. After being yelled at by the healer the tank had agreed to stop pulling with his face and cc. Generally, since the tank handles the mobs it is traditional to let the tank decide the cc targets and do the marking so we wait in front of the next pack of mobs for a good 5 minutes before asking the tank what the holy fuck was taking him so long when he promptly responded that he was not going to mark targets... /sigh. Wanting get moving I take up the job o marking the targets. Square for freezing trap, skull and X for first and second kill targets, and moon for druid cc. you know, standard target marking procedure. Since druid have 2 forms of cc (roots and cyclone) I give the druid the instruction to use cyclone if I make moon as a caster and roots if it’s a melee... simple... so I thought...

The first pull the only cc was my trap but we get it down, the second pull went down easy cause it was a group of three, freed the dragons, did the mini fireball game yadda yadda. Now we get back to doing pulls. Only one ob was left from the pull, easy. Second pull, only 2 were at half health, needed cc for this one. I mark em up, shoot my trap, we go...splat. what could go so wrong with 2 cc's? well, the druid had taken it upon himself to decide his cc target, he picked X, which is not only not his cc target but was also a caster upon which he casted roots... god fucking damn it.

We zone back in, do the pull, down it cause we killed 2 from the first try and move through the next few. Then we get to the bridge and the patrolling group. I’m standing on the bridge out f harm's way marking the targets for the pull, I made sure to put the moon on a melee target since the druid seemed incapable of casting cyclone. No sooner had I finished marking them when the tank decided it was time to pull and aggroed them... I thought we had gotten this straightened out that he was to wait for the mother fucking cc. needless to say I am getting frustrated at this point.

I scramble to get my trap launched and end up freezing the moon, seeing how I had gotten his target I thought the druid would then cc a different target... which he didn’t. is thinking too much to ask for of pugs? We survive the pull. the druid then says "wtf, you keep yelling at me to cc the moon then you can’t even cc the right target". I explain that the pull was premature like him and that I didn’t have enough time to properly cc the right target. Calling him a prema baby went right over his head. I start marking the next mob getting pissed at the lack of coordination and getting even more pissed that this druid was literally too stupid to insult.

The pull is simple, two caters a melee and a felhound, I mark one of the casters for trap, the melee for the druid, the felhound and other caster for first and second targets. I launch my trap, the mob comes, I wait for the roots to go off... roots go off but not on the moon... on the god damn X again which is a caster...

we kill the pull and I ask the druid "WHY THE FUCK DO YOU KEEP ROOTING THE X" he says "roots last longer than cyclone noob" I say "ITS A FUCKING CATER ROOTS WONT STOP IT FROM FUCKIN CASTING, THAT WHY YOUR CC TARGET IS THE GOD DAMNED MOON! M - O - O - N THAT SPELLS MOON." he then says that I need to lrn2mark. I then spout a long line of expletives at him. in fact my exact words were "holy mother fucking Jesus Christ Mary Joseph Lazarus watermelon batman, you truly are retarded". We do the next pull, last pull before the first boss, I mark up the targets and.... wipe. On the way back in I put up a vote to kick the druid, reason: "CANT TELL WHAT THE FUCK A MOON IS". Kick vote unanimous.

We enter the dungeon queue again
Tank - Warrior
Healer - Paladin
DPS - Hunter
DPS - Warrior
DPS - Mage

Thank you good lord baby Jesus, a mage; I proclaim as the new member joins. Sheeps, best cc in the game. I thought our luck had changed... I sure do hate being wrong.

We do the pull again, goes off without a hitch thanks to both target getting cc'ed.

Now it’s time for the boss. It was me and my friend’s first time in heroic Grim batol so I ask if anyone else had run this place on heroic, no one had. So I alt tab to look up the fight. I learn the mechanics and alt tab back in to tell the rest.

I tell them the first part about getting out of the way of blitz or you die; then I go to tell them about the purple trogg and look down at my key board for a second, when I look up the tank has pulled the boss and we are engaged. I cancel out the text box that I was writing the second most important part of the fight and simply type "god damn it"
and fd. Sure enough when the purple trog spawned the tank ran right to it, the mage killed it and the toxic splash enraged the boss. He then proceeded to slaughter the group.

I say "now that we are all dead would you like to listen to the rest of the fight?" I then explain the purple trogg mechanic. in vent, my friend and I are trying to reconstruct the logic that went through the tank's head at the time of the pull, was probly something like this; "run out of blitz, ok ITS GO TIME!... oh god it burns, it burns like fire!"

General Umbris: take two

didn't get very far. On the first blitz, the boss targets the healer, the healer moves, but not before the tank intervenes to him and ends up in the spot the healer was just leaving, the same spot the boss was blitzing to, the same spot that there is now a green smear that smells like an orc warrior. After this wipe my friend and I get fed up with the fail and leave.

This run was so vexing and horribly bad I just had to share it with you guys, partially for the lulz and partially to vent.

this has been a true story from The Puglight Zone, Aboriginal, signing out.

[elesxliv]

-HUGE QUOTE REMOVED-

umadbrah??

User was banned for this post. Huge wall of text quote plus meme usage plus 1-word spam with two question marks equals ban, every time. - Simca

[AboriginalFactory]

yes brah, i was mad

[Bloodrose]

Wow, seriously, out of that whole thing, that's all you say? You could have at least just said you didn't read it, say something like tl:dr, or just ignore it... Go back to 4chan.

OT: Wow dude, that is bad. Yes, the new heroics do involve actually putting thought into it now. It is definitely quite a contrast from WOTLK, a good contrast though.

[Effervescence]

I feel for you, OP. Almost all of the pugs that I have attempted have been complete failures similar to the one you mentioned here. I admire your efforts to salvage the group! I'd suggest running with your guild as much as possible until people get better geared and realize CC is sometimes a good thing!

Sidenote: Just to clarify about druid CC, druids do have two CC options: roots (which you correctly described how to use on melee mobs), and hibernate (on beasts/dragonkin). Cyclone is not really usable as cc [minus catching a stray mob until the tank can pick it up] because it has Diminishing Returns in PVE, which means after 3 (4?) casts the mob will be completely immune to the spell.

Cheers!

[Bluey111]

that was a very long post to qq about something

[shadowboxer123]

I thought it was a hilarious story, because I have run with good groups, and on a few occasions I have run with groups just like the ones you have described.

[mtr]

You could've typed while shooting, @ the first boss, ain't that hard imo Also feign deathing right as the tank pulls does not help your group eh?

[Dedweight]

I thought it was a hilarious story, because I have run with good groups, and on a few occasions I have run with groups just like the ones you have described.

Same, the bad tank part anyway... I suggest CC while on my mage, tank marks and gives me Moon for my target. What does the tank do? Charges into the group before the CC lands and spams TClap breaking every CC that hit causing a wipe. Sadly I got kicked for "not cc'ing."

[Arrowstormen]

wall of text crits for over 9k

its not a wall of text if you is as smart as him and part the text up. so not a very clever reply.

OT: the druid you described must be a kid, not 8-10 but maybe 11-13. i could clearly see it, not reading fully up on spells andthink some is better because it maybe lasts longer, instead of checking up on if it actually is better, bad insults and such.

the Tank is what a choose to call a "Rambo Tank" it seems. what he did last can mean he wasnt sure what you said and just thought he would be fine to check out for stuff like fire, or misunderstood what you say, and didnt wanted to admit it because that would he would have found embarrasing (weird, but works sometimes that way). he might also just have been dumb, and/or still living in WOTLK with bossfights were the few mechanics in hcs was either easy to see or stuff you didnt needed to care about even.
but it was indeed one of the terrible runs.

---------- Post added 2010-12-28 at 08:54 AM ----------

Same, the bad tank part anyway... I suggest CC while on my mage, tank marks and gives me Moon for my target. What does the tank do? Charges into the group before the CC lands and spams TClap breaking every CC that hit causing a wipe. Sadly I got kicked for "not cc'ing."

sadly, the world is filled with morons (my signature even says so!) and its easier for the group to not see a sheep than Thunderclap it seems. and maybe it was the tank who saw he made a mistake and fast pushed a Kick on you, and the others in the group might be some of those who just click the "I wanna kick this guy" kind of button without really caring because "oh its so easy to get a dps" or "dont know if he did that, but if he did, just kick him" and then those who just click because they triggerhappy (casters and tanks fits best for triggerhappies).

[Deleted]

There are 2 dungeons which when I see popping up as random dailies am thinking "oh well... another 35min questing aint bad":
- stonecore
- grim batol
Never ever any chance to get past 1st boss within a PuG

[gibbie99]

Its a learning curve. Sorry it's a brutal learning curve, but its still there. It'd be more helpful to the group instead of going apeshit explain that rooted mobs can still dps, and cyclone is the better choice. Or the tank could LOS the rooted mob. And two tries on a heroic boss, that's just about the typical learning curve for most bosses. It really seems like you should avoid heroic LFG and run with your friends until everyone learns all the fights to save yourself frustration. That or roll a tank yourself, then you can be the guy being blamed for everything.

Its great that you took the time to tell us what a hero you were, but the attitude that 'well everyone sucks except me' isn't going to win you many friends. Fact is, you were once a newbie too.

[Enkidulgaa]

Its a learning curve. Sorry it's a brutal learning curve, but its still there. It'd be more helpful to the group instead of going apeshit explain that rooted mobs can still dps, and cyclone is the better choice. Or the tank could LOS the rooted mob. And two tries on a heroic boss, that's just about the typical learning curve for most bosses. It really seems like you should avoid heroic LFG and run with your friends until everyone learns all the fights to save yourself frustration. That or roll a tank yourself, then you can be the guy being blamed for everything.

Its great that you took the time to tell us what a hero you were, but the attitude that 'well everyone sucks except me' isn't going to win you many friends. Fact is, you were once a newbie too.

Theres a difference between being new and willing to learn, and being a moron that doesnt listen to anything and just charge into groups.
Either you have the patience of a saint, or you never met people like the OP has.

[evan_s]

I feel for you, OP. Almost all of the pugs that I have attempted have been complete failures similar to the one you mentioned here. I admire your efforts to salvage the group! I'd suggest running with your guild as much as possible until people get better geared and realize CC is sometimes a good thing!

Sidenote: Just to clarify about druid CC, druids do have two CC options: roots (which you correctly described how to use on melee mobs), and hibernate (on beasts/dragonkin). Cyclone is not really usable as cc [minus catching a stray mob until the tank can pick it up] because it has Diminishing Returns in PVE, which means after 3 (4?) casts the mob will be completely immune to the spell.

Cheers!

Cyclone does have a relatively short duration and does suffer diminishing returns but it is still a viable cc in a dungeon. Especially Grim Batol where the mobs should be softened up a bit by the bombing run. Even the 6 seconds from a single cast can make a difference but you are right that hibernate another option and probably the best option given the dungeon does have dragonkin.

[eternalwhitemoon]

I started giggling like a schoolgirl at the "the same spot that there is now a green smear that smells like an orc warrior" part. I don't know why, but that line just gets me.

Thanks for the lulz, and you have my deepest sympathy. Grim Batol is quite grim for everyone sometimes. (Pun intended, I'm sorry.)

If it makes you feel better, our hunter in Grim Batol decided it would be a good idea to trap mobs by using Camouflage and literally walking right up to his target. After his near-death experience I calmly said "I don't mean to insult so don't take this the wrong way...but it's MUCH safer to just use Trap Launcher instead of Camoing to the mob >.>" I guess he wanted to be a melee hunter or something O.o

[Agetro]

Cyclone does have a relatively short duration and does suffer diminishing returns but it is still a viable cc in a dungeon. Especially Grim Batol where the mobs should be softened up a bit by the bombing run. Even the 6 seconds from a single cast can make a difference but you are right that hibernate another option and probably the best option given the dungeon does have dragonkin.

I was going to put what Effervescence typed, and you also mentioned the cyclone. Its really good when you notice something is about to be cast by an npc that isn't in the immediate kill order or if CC breaks prematurely . If you can respond quick enough you can interrupt and save that one headache.

On my second HGB run we had a Balance druid that just did awesome with the CC in there. I don't remember who else was in the group, but that was good enough to get through it all.

[Mjölnïr]

The Intervene part was full of epicness!

[Tierbook]

i felt sry for you up untill i saw that you were a hordie, also its a heroic you cant excepect people to know what they are doing

[eadorin]

Sad group is sad. You probably wouldn't be surprised at the number of shadow priests who forget they can MC humanoids (except those crazy gals in Deadmines....yeesh) and the druids who never even knew they had a spell called "hibernate" (worthy of GB runs, btw).

Cata is requiring players to relearn the game. While I agree that players should listen and getting super frustrated may give you cause to remove your monitor from a fail-a-player's posterior, screaming at them probably doesn't help

[dnamixer]

You probably wouldn't be surprised at the number of shadow priests who forget they can MC humanoids

Are there any mobs in Grim Batol that a priest can CC? All the humanoids I have tried to MC have been immune and no undeads in the zone to shackle.