03-25-2005, 07:50 PM
TotoGuy,Mar 25 2005, 10:24 AM Wrote:Just before the EU beta ended, I had a fantastic DM run with 3 friends and a random guy. All of us were at 20-22, I tanked, rouge and warlock damaged, priest healbotted, and the random druid supported nicely. Each did his job to the fullest. Couple of hours and the instance is done, not a single wipe, good times.I was in one of those type of groups heading into the DM with my hunter who was in the mid 20's. I was working on soloing DM with my hunter and so after a mistake with Gilnid and a run back to the instance, I saw and had pity on this group of three that had been spamming for 15 minutes to get additional help. At the last moment they added a 5th pickup player, a level 15 rogue.
Then came retail... Sadly, as retail came, so did my army service, meaning I didn't have time to play with those friends anymore.
"Oh well, guess I'll do pickup groups on weekends". Ohh boy..
First came RFC. Being on a small server I wasn't too picky on who I'd do it with, so I was looking for people to do it with. All I could find was a group of 3, a shaman, warlock, and warrior, all of them around lvl 20-21.
Usually I'd avoid joining a group that overleveled, especially since RFC is pretty easy. But I was getting tired of looking and they really insisted I'd join, so what the heck...
They were already inside the instance, somewhere after the troggs part. I go in and see the mobs at the entrance respawned, and they tell me to wait while they run back to help. After a minute of waiting I ask why can't the warlock just summon me. "Oh right, I can do that." . I shrug it off as they summon me hoping he didn't remember that because he got the skill just now or something like that.
After a couple of fights I realized why they couldn't manage around here themselves. Although they were all above lvl 20, they were playing like they were lvl 5 (and their gear was about right for that level as well...).
Shaman insisted on pulling everything with his lightning bolt (Note that I was a hunter. And that we had a warrior, more on him soon), as well as tanking, while being the only healer. The warrior didn't really care, he just ran around hitting stuff, barely gaining any aggro whatsoever.
After several horrible pulls, in which I kept suggesting I'd do the pulling and he refused, we wiped. Then I waited for the shaman to rez himself with a soulstone. Noticed his soul wasn't stored. When asked why, the warlock replied "What's a soulstone? Got a skill to make them but I never really used them".
After a corpse run and a short 5 minute talk about soulstones and why they should be used, the warlock made one for the shaman, and we continued. Around that time the warrior got disconnected and never returned. This affected nothing.
Somehow we managed to make it through the rest of the instance, probably thanks to their higher HP that was somehow high enough to balance out their level of skill and keep them alive through many, many horrible pulls. By horrible I'm talking about 3 adds to pulled groups of 3.. Oh, and the shaman allowed me pull the last boss :P
Couple of weeks later and I head out to do WC, hoping for a better experience.
Formed up a group of random guys (another hunter, 2 shamans, and somewhat higher leveled warlock) and headed in. One of the shamans, named Trolly, a name I'll make sure to avoid in the future, kept rushing ahead, even before we got into the instance. Many times we'd find him fighting 4 raptors alone by the time we manage to catch up with him. He didn't seem to mind though, since we kept barely saving him over and over, so that must mean such strategy works.
Had nice tactics as well, Frost Shock-> walk back while hitting-> Frost Shock-> etc.
By the time we got into the instance, with him still refusing to even respond to our cries for reason, we decide to just let him die and get back out to find a replacement. He then blurps out "K GTG" and vanishes. Woo.
We get out, find a warrior, get back in. I wish we kept Trolly.
Things went along fine after that, the warrior didn't really do his job well but we had 2 pets and a voidy to tank so we managed fine, and the shaman did a great job keeping everybody alive. Thing is, almost every green item that dropped, the warrior would roll for.
Some pattern dropped, "Hey I can sell those", some bow dropped, "Hey I can use ranged weapons", some cloth shoulders dropped, "Hey I have no shoulders, I can use those". If that wasn't enough, he kept winning most of the time.
We tried being nice though, since he seemed pretty young, so we just explained how even though he CAN use just about everything, doesn't mean he should roll for them since other people need them more than he does.
Didn't seem to help much since later he started rolling on blue items as well. Including some nice mage staff because it's better than his cracked, 9DPS hammer, and he can use it, if he trains in it...
Since everything else was going along so well, we tried being nice and kept asking him over and over not to roll for stuff WARRIORS CAN BUT SHOULDN'T USE. He seemed to get the idea after about 2-3 times.
Then came the final tree boss, and since that battle can get tough, we made sure to tell the warrior to use Taunt when possible and keep the aggro. After a not-so-surprising "what's Taunt?" we just stared at the boss, sent off the pets, and started attacking. Boss dead, I'm still somewhat calm since we're all alive and none of the drops the warrior took was good for me anyway. Almost done.
We do the extra quest and get to the murloc boss. We kill it. Blue cloth shoulders drop. He rolls, he scores. Hey, they're better than the green ones he took 20 minutes ago after all...
Thats about when I start losing it, yelling at him after staying silent for the past few hours. But he says "Ok we're done here, GTG" before I manage to relieve any stress.
So we're all done, still happy that we finished it nicely, even though we ended up with barely any new equip. Stuffed the other guys to my friend list, stuffed him to ignore list, and noted to self to kick people out of groups after a 2nd foul...
I miss that DM run... :(
Bleh. This came out long. At least I feel better now :P
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The rogue insisted on trying to sap everything, but since he was lower leveled ended up pulling 4-5 adds every time. I couldn't believe it when we had difficulty killing the shredder and Mr. Sneed (which I had solo'd 15 minutes earlier), looking around after the fight, the rogue turns out to be off in town repairing his armor, the paladin was dead trying to get back, the warrior's connection bagged, me and a lvl 18 warlock are standing in the mast room and end up killing 2 or 3 patrols before the paladin gets back.
Finally, I just said "Guys, this isn't' working -- I must split." From my earlier runs, my loot bags were stuffed so I didn't roll on anything that run and left it for these lower leveled people who needed it, but again before I left, I had pity on the Warlock and the Paladin who had some sense of what to do, so I split up what goodies I had that seemed appropriate for them. I only needed the Spreckle Sprocket, but if it had been a more together group I would have taken them through to the end.