Tuesday, January 19, 2010

January 19, 2010
13
Of Warcraft... nah that joke is getting old. However, some tanks in random groups make it out like it is. Ok, so in raids we generally either mark up the kill order like Star, Orange, Pink, Green, etc, etc. At other times there's too much messing around and only a single target to kill anyhow, so we mark up the tanks instead. Easier for the healers to see where the important players are, and easier for the melee to see what's the front or back side of a mob. Since I'm so used to the tank having a mark for trash, I prefer to mark up my focus target in 5 man random groups as well. This seems to lead to plenty of funny situations. Seriously, not just funny, but absolutely hilarious how some kids get their pants in such a knot that they fake disconnect, or start pointing a finger at the poor healer for "targeting" them. Here's a situation: I join the random 5 man heroic dungeon queue thing for the daily frost badges. A group is found, and we're teleported to Violet Hold. I look for the player with the most health and check whether he's using some defence gear to determine whether he's indeed the tank. Some times it's rather obvious, some times it's not. Then, I do "/focus". Now I have the tank on focus target so my tricks of the trade macro can do it's job. Feel free to copy it, it's nice. #showtooltip Tricks of the Trade /cast [target=focus, exists] Tricks of the Trade; Tricks of the trade It basically shows the tricks of the trade tooltip, and casts tricks of the trade on your target if you have a focus, otherwise it just casts tricks of the trade and you can use it as you normally would. Next I mark the tank up with a green triangle. Not the old fashioned way, no way, using a macro that also uses the focus target. Again, feel free to copy it and annoy tanks with it later. /script SetRaidTargetIcon("focus", 4); Next, one of a few things may happen. #1: The tank ignores the mark and the run proceeds smooth and fast. #2: The tank comments about the mark, asking what it's for but does not remove it. I'll tell him it helps us see where he's running off since random tanks all look different. Also, that it helps the melee with positioning. Thus ensuring more dps, and a higher survivability rating for himself as the healer can find him more easily as well. The run takes a few seconds longer to get started, but after that it's generally a smooth ride. #3: The tank removes the mark, after which I re-apply it, after which he removes it again, after which I re-apply it, after which he gets frustrated and starts cussing about it in party chat and removes it, after which I re-apply it, etc. Eventually the tank will either randomly start pointing fingers or simply quits the group. The first two situations are generally fine. After all it's not the end of the world to have to run through a 20 minute instance with a mark above you. Right? Funny enough, it seems situation three occurs more often than you'd think. Gundrak I made a screenshot. I'm quite sure of it, but sadly I can't find it again right now. So, you'll just have to take my word for it. We went in, and it was a classic situation-3. It was a plate user, quite a few weeks ago now, so the memory of the exact event is slipping somewhat. We had a druid healer, poor guy. Anyhow, we went in and I did my usual thing, focus, mark, start dps. Sure enough the tank didn't agree to my methods, but I wasn't about to tell him that I was the one that was marking him up. It took about ten minutes of him threatening to leave if the marking continued (I do SO love it when they claim that, after all we can just get another tank in his stead, and he gets no marks and can't sign up for the next 15 minutes), obviously I keeps marking him. My favorite disclaimer is always "I'm not even targetting you", which I obviously don't need to since I have a focus target, but I wasn't about to tell him that EITHER. After a while he started getting really paranoid, looking for whoever was targeting him. He noticed the healer (Druid sorry, seriously, but it was fun to see him squirm so much) was targeting him pretty often. Well duh, he's HEALING YOU you mongul. And he proceeded to threaten to kick the druid if he kept marking him. After which I happily continued doing exactly that. After the giant dino boss the poor druid got frustrated with the tank, (I think it was a death knight actually) and switched to bear form and refused to heal any longer. Death knights being overpowered don't need that much healing anyhow, so we continued on to the last few packs while the druid lagged behind calling the tank names and the tank calling the druid names. Right after the third before last pack the tank vote kicked the druid. (I did vote no, but alas, he still got kicked) Some priest replaced him, and we killed the last boss. I'd have re-marked the tank after the priest came in, but that'd mean I wasted 30 minutes to get the two frost badges, can't have that :P Pit of Saron Not so much a Situation-3, but I still felt like naming and shaming these two idiots. Comedy either way. A tank and a dps left after the first boss in the Pit of Saron (normal mode) while I was on my alt DK (Geshrat). I figured we'd complete the run, but the tank ran off. Two other players joined, and left, and joined, and left. You'd think when the PoS confirmation menu shows up people read the "1/3 bosses killed". Axidd and Alnadr get the big finger for the world to see. Enjoy. I'd name and shame the mong tank that left after boss two, but I sort of forgot his name. *Beats himself on the head* It was a paladin at any rate. Idiot had a big mouth and ninjapulled both of the two packs after Ick to try and wipe us and then ran off. He died, I did not. The Nexus Stormchief from Arathor was another classic Situation-3, though. Sadly he didn't go completely mental, but simply exited the run right about after boss two. He was feeling all big and mighty with his "leet gear", and started pulling no less than 5 packs at once, with a boss at the same time. We had a good healer and survived, but a bit later he decided to pull half the zone near boss three (the tree boss, with slowing trash), which resulted in the healer getting slowed and thus being out of range of the tank. I vanished and survived, but the rest of the party didn't fare too well. My props to Bryte who was totally cool and as amazed at the tank's immaturity as I was. We then got three replacements and proceeded to clear the instance as normal. With a tank that didn't care about having a green mark on his head. Violet Hold Today, a paladin and a druid. (See screenshot below) Both from the same realm. It didn't take more than a few seconds before the Paladin tank started making trouble about having a mark on his head. Surely the game must be bugged, for there was a mark on his head in a 5 man dungeon. O M G, the world would end. He fell for the classic "I'm not even targeting you" excuse, and we proceeded and killed boss one while he was removing the mark, and I was re-applying it to him. Right around wave 8 he "disconnected" and the druid took over tanking in bear form instead. Just before the second boss we finally managed to kick him out so we could replace him, but the druid who was apparently a real life friend of him left right along with him. Some people, seriously. It's just a green mark, not the end of the world. I do SO love messing with their minds though. :)

13 comments:

Flyhard said...

When I am tanking, I'd be happy to have a mark over my head, if you use Tricks of the Trade. So many Rogues/Hunter don't use their TotT and MD in 5-mans these days - but proceed to hit the only Mob that is not hating me - just having a slight dislike of me... They always find them.

I would be only anoyed if there are 2 or more ppl fighting over which symbol to set...by setting them...

bbr said...

It's the only way I can keep myself from getting gibbed :P
Most average tanks in pugs don't produce enough threat to keep up with a T9-10 rogue.

Tott + aoe on packs, works good.
On bosses it's just mandatory.

Brajana said...

But by your own argument, it's just a green triangle. I think if the tank has asked that people stop marking him, it's rude to keep doing it. Seriously, it's just a green triangle. Can you really not find the tank without an arrow pointing at him?

Kulat/Kriyet said...

I just don't understand why you try to hide who's doing it. Why don't you just explain it?

I'd be annoyed too if I didn't know why someone was doing it, and when I removed it they just popped it back up without a word. Frankly, I'd think some idiot kid was dicking with me. Random PUGs are showing enough asshattery these days that I'd be expecting that over someone actually being tactical (gasp! a DPS actually knows his class!).

Now, if you explained it, and they still got all prissy, that's totally different. But I have to wonder how many of your situation 3s would be 2s if you just explained.

Anonymous said...

Yeah you are the dick in these cases. Thinking you are so leet that everyone has to do it your way. Plenty of DPS out there. The reason you don't fess up is because you would get dumped.

bbr said...

Oh I certainly didn't claim I was being nice. At the same time they could just as easily have asked about the mark instead of starting with calling names like most the #3 ended up doing.

You'd honestly be surprised.
There are many more #1 and #2 situations than this article may give appearance to, not to worry, but I'd highly encourage giving it a try sometimes and report your findings. You'll find there are about 50-60% #2, some 25% #1 and the rest ends up in the fail category. The responses of some tanks are seriously varying in wide degrees.

And yes, the green triangle does make the job of both the dps and the healer a lot more easy. The tanks that get upset about it, generally don't have much raid gear. I expect they haven't actually don't much raiding or they're grumpy teenagers that expect to get their way "because _they_ are the tank", and _they_ are rare and hard to find, and so _their_ way is the best and only way to do an instance. It doesn't quite hold up though.

Give it a try, please.
Saying you agree or disagree is one thing, but experiencing it yourself is quite another.

Aurik said...

Whilst it can be ok to mark the tank at times, your methods of doing it are extremely petty - especially since you admit that you've actually gotten someone else kicked for it.

If you're going to do it then at least own up and tell them why as, like someone has mentioned, a lot of 'stage threes' would be fine with it if they knew why. Some tanks are complete twats with ego complexes, but so are some dps and I would be annoyed, personally, if someone was dicking about with raids marks for, to my pov, no reason.

Personally, I've tried it and whilst in a raid I guess it could be useful (I found it confusing, mostly, as I'd rather know where the mobs are and that's not always beside the tank) I find it a bit much for a 5-man. As a healer, I'm usually situationally aware of my tank and I've never had to put a green mark on their head to be so.

When, as a tank, you've had dps pulling or dpsing before mobs touch you and the like, I can see why even a little green triangle might put you over the edge.

/hug

Anonymous said...

I hate being marked with the 'nipple' ( orange circle) esp if they know I am a girl, and it annoys me and they do it to annoy me ect ect
I would ask what the mark was for but then would spend more time removing it, and then marking up everyone else then playing

Exanimo said...

Well like people before me already said so; i don't agree with your methods, i'd say you were quite a dickhead even.
Sure it's not worth going mental over (i wouldn't mind a mark on me personally) but if someone asks not to mark him then why start pestering him?
And even worse... let someone else take the blame. At least you should have kept marking after the druid got booted (because of you i may add).

What also might be an idea: ask if they mind a mark so dps and healer are better able to spot the tank, i'll bet you'll get alot less trouble.
Then again... perhaps you were looking for it.

Rightious said...

Yeah I'll have to agree with the folks above here. I'm a big fan of marking to be very honest. And I'm lucky in so far that I ussually tank while a buddy of mine is healer so we've got the 2 "big roles" filled (not devalueing the role of dps here ofcourse but it's nice to have tank/healer filled) which means we rarely end up with any trouble.

Now I don't mind someone asking me if they can mark me as it makes it easier for them to do their role (be it healing or dps-ing) but I've got to admit that it's pretty ridiculous of you to be this petty about it. If you explain that it's you and why you're doing it and people give you "shit" about it, then by all means rip into them and enjoy the storm of stupidity you'll find in the average pug nowadays.

But to secretly mark and then keep remarking a tank who is clearly annoyed at it without owning up to it being you that's rather weaksauce dude.

I'd like to consider myself a pretty friendly tank. From having groups in full boa gear to full on tier 10 folks I really don't mind. And I honestly don't mind adjusting my tanking style to suite someone else (whether it's a mark or pulling more or less mobs to suit someone's dps style) but I've got to say I'd get pissy as well about something like this.

All of that being said I'm still a big fan of the blog =P

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you just need to feel in control of something that doesn't really help the group at all. And then you're forcing 4 other people to sit through unnecessary drama. Petty, imo.

Anonymous said...

LOL Nipple. We call it the condom. But both work.

ATMB said...

I'd votekick you instantly if you ever happened to be in my pug.