Sunday, August 01, 2010

August 01, 2010
6
I'm sure everyone's done (or tried to do) Pit of saron "normal" once or twice. Perhaps even a bit more than once. Perhaps you've even run into the situation where suddenly players have to "leave" after having killed a boss. Most likely, that person was your tank. Most likely, your group then fell apart, and you didn't even get to try Ick or Scourgelord Tyrannus. Well, my shaman reached level 80 last week and has been gearing up quickly. (That's 8 characters at level 80, for those of you interested) I've not had much luck with weapons sadly, so while all other pieces were a mix of mail and leather ilvl 200, 219 and 232 items he was still stuck with hierloom maces. That aside, he was saved to the heroics and Pit of Saron seemed a good idea. So, you guessed it, I signed up and waited and waited. Around 19 minutes later the familiar "you got a group" sound came up and it was onward to slay some undead. One of the members remarked early on "Gee I hope the tank stays this time"... Yeah, the tank stayed pretty quiet at that, and we all knew what time it was. The group consisted of me, a dps DK, a warrior tank, and then two others. Think it was a priest and a warlock. As we reached Garfrost the tank spoke his first words: "If I get the axe I'll tank whole instance". Not exactly in proper english like I just wrote, but yes, he did write "axe". Does this look like an axe to you? At any rate, we killed Garfrost without deaths and obviously no Axe dropped. He did drop the MACE however, and it soon became clear that this was as expected the object of our tank's prime desire. Unlucky for him however, both the DK and myself also rolled on it. (I know, it's junk to an enhancement shaman but like hell I'll let that fool get it) Now, the funny thing was, that I actually won the roll. The first thing the tank does was whisper me "trade me :)" like he already owned the item. Hum, no ragequit, no cursing, but no "please" or anything of the sort either. The Deathknight didn't have anything to add, nor did the other members as everyone but the warrior proceeded to move on to the next mob to kill. His next words were something along the lines of "give me weapon and ill finish run". Meaning, if the mace hadn't droppped he'd be gone already. Rrrrrrrrright. How many of you here, would actually believe this guy at his word right then and there? Ok, so he might be honest, but being realistic, I suspect he'd just bugger off as soon as he received the item. So, I tell him I'd like to try it out for dps a bit, since my weapons suck. If it doesn't look good I'd still be able to give it to him when we finish. Again, I'm aware that two-handed weapons for an enhancement shaman is pretty pointless, and my weapon skill at that time was about 348 so it wasn't going to go anywhere really. He must be desperate though, as he actually agreed with something like "ok, trade after ick", and grudgingly continued to clear trash at a breakneck speed, moving faster than any tank you've EVER seen before, and pulling 3-4 mobs at the same time. He must be in a hurry or something. Meanwhile, I come up with an idea and after a quick inspection of his gear decide to whisper the deathknight. He was using a blue two-handed sword, so the mace should be a massive upgrade to him, rather than the offspec of some greedy tank. I inform him to "stick around" as I'll hand him the mace later on. He happily agrees and the run continues. We kill Ick, I get a nice belt to replace a leather one and my shaman is totally happy. Until the tank whispers again. "Trade now". A man of few words apparently. I inform him we've gotten this far, and we may as well continue. This time It took a bit more persuading, and he comes up with the idea of "trade before boss, or I don't tank". Which is fine with me, as I've now got a deathknight willing to help out the cause. I inform him he may want to switch to frost presence at the last boss as the tank probably won't be tanking. Clearing the fire packs, frost packs, and the tunnel of undead lovin' went smooth and fast like you wouldn't believe. Heck, it IS normal after all. Once we exited the cave the DK immediately switches to frost presence and proceeds to pull. Apparently he informed the healer, as he doesn't seem bothered by this strange behavior. (or the healer was just good at rapid switch healing) I mounted up and proceeded to position myself to the other side of the boss, where the warrior followed me, opened a trade window about three times in a row and plainly spoke the words in party chat "ok I no tank boss". If the healer had any doubt before, now was his confirmation. I stuck the regular tank on ignore to kill the trade screen spam, and we all went into the fight as normal. The "tank" proceeded to follow me around for another five or so seconds until he decided he should probably tank the boss after all. Meanwhile the boss was already at 50% of his health and we'd probably have finished the run with or without him either way, but blackmail in any form has a way of annoying me. Once the boss was dead I beckoned the deathknight over and handed him the mace. Happy as a squirrel who finds a stash of nuts he was. The boss even dropped a pair of legs for me, to which I won the greed roll. Good times. So you see, it's easy to make a friend in a pug. But, just as easy to make enemies. I suspect that warrior won't want to pug with either of us ever again. I can't really blame him either, but seriously, if you're a tank and join an instance for one item from one boss please think of the other four people in that run. Just because you got two second queue times doesn't mean everyone else does.

6 comments:

Typhron said...

Quite an interesting tail, there.

Such comradery(?) is, thankfully, found with players with mutual experiences. He's probably been dicked over more than a few times.

Codysseus said...

This is why, up until recently (yes, lovely SC2 but graduating also) I instanced quite a bit with my two tank characters (and hope to do so with three next expansion) - because I like to help out good folks, and to show people that there ARE good-natured tanks out there. : )

Maybe four..if I can live with the bear experience long enough.

Poptart said...

It's entitlement like this that angers me. My rogue, being "rather" overgeared for 5 mans, queues up for Halls of Reflection. I am making a low itemlevel set for an achievement (Herald of the Titans), so when someone asks why I am rolling on low level gear I am happy to explain. I have never, though, told another person they "can't" have an item because of this - it's just ridiculous. In fact, it's ironic you post this because a day ago when I was in the HoR mentioned above, a ret paladin zones in. They ask the tank if they are going to roll on the shield. The tank says yes. The ret paladin leaves. I don't understand, since when are people not filling a role ENTITLED to all loot? I understand wanting to be geared enough, but isn't it counter productive preventing people actually QUEUEING for that role from getting upgrades?
*sigh*
/end rant

On a positive note though, I suppose when some people are a-holes and the rest of the group rallies with the nice people it's a bit comforting.

Izzie said...

oh man, that's rough. I think it's funny although I do sort of get his PoV. He went about it the wrong way, though.

I have a tank and healer and have also been in a situation where there's one item I really need. It's really frustrating to run the same thing over and over and over again and never get what you're looking for. Sometimes it never drops, sometimes you have really bad roll-luck, sometimes some newb needs it when it's a side-grade or useless to them...scores of reasons.

It's a rough call, cause I know I can get into instances almost instantly, but I know how rough it is for DPS.

Usually I will announce my intentions as soon as I get in: "I'm here for this, is anybody else planning on rolling?" If more than 2 others say they are, I will apologize and leave. Otherwise I'll run it like usual and 98% of the time stick around unless I lose the item to stupidity.

Anonymous said...

PUGs are a challenge. You'd never do what you did to that tank to a guild member, but you'd probably go in with an understanding about who gets the items in question first. I know that I've often queued as a healer to get DPS upgrades, so rolling out of spec is not completely unreasonable.

I do think it's respectful to finish the instance. I don't think it is fair to refuse to complete a run unless you get a piece of gear.

Refuzake said...

i don`t have friends in pugs :D