09-23-2005, 10:31 PM
Moments like these are the reason TO, and simultaneously the reason NOT TO, join pickup groups. It works both ways.
Last night I was stopping over at Nijel's Pointe to hand in a quest before heading over to Gadgetzan, when I see in general chat "LFM Mara plz help." Because I'm a sadist, and thus ignored the blistering giveaway of l33tsp34k, I whisper him and join in.
40 minutes later, we finally enter the instance after two players have extended afks and a 5th was added who had to fly out from Ironforge. Whatever.
Group makeup - me 49 (Priest), another 53 Priest (yeah, how rare is that?), a 60 Rogue, a 47 Warrior, and a 49 Rogue.
Typical for a pick-up group, the Warrior has no clue whatsoever how to tank and is perfectly content with letting anyone else pull. Highlight of the evening was, after spending 20 seconds performing /charges and /attacktargets while we all stared at a mob, I wand pulled a giant. Only to watch the Warrior BACK AWAY from the giant as it's approaching so that someone else could engage it first (the 60 rogue eventually did).
O.o.
The level 53 Priest was the typical "I'll just stand here and occasionally cast Flash Heal" variety I laugh at so much, having little to no clue how to contribute to the fight in any other way. He'd also start healing almost instantly - the moment the first player had 80% health or so, off went the heal and off went the monsters to get the aggro-loving over-healing fool. I'd pick up the slack.
So we get up to Landslide and take him down, while the Warrior and Rogues spent the entire fight attacking Landslide and ignoring the adds. The other Priest and I played ping-pong with the adds, using Psychic Scream, Fade, PW:S, and heals liberally to keep each other alive while the others ignored us. They even made sure to loot Landslide while the other Priest, too far away from the boss for the adds to automatically die when the boss did, was getting slammed around and almost died (he never thought to use Psychic Scream at all in the fight, while I used it as an offensive weapon to keep them off the tank at first, and off me from then on).
Fine, whatever. The group sucks, but we have enough firepower to take down Princess by sheer brute force, so I'll live with it. Then two members of the group decide to go for another huge extended afk. I considered hearthing right there, but I wanted a shot at an Eye of Theradras so I alt-tabbed and did other things for 20 minutes.
After 30 minutes had gone by and the other Priest hadn't yet returned, we moved on to one of those packs of silencing lizards. Again the Warrior just stood there, but as the only healer against a pack of silence-casting mobs, I knew better than to pull. After a full minute went by the 60 rogue decided he'd have to do it again, and went on in. All three players (Warrior, Rogue, Rogue) went after the same mob. I could see the wipe coming in the first five seconds of the fight, because I knew exactly how it was going to play out.
Sometimes, this foreknowledge is torture.
I wait as long as I possibly can and engage my first heal. Aggro's instantly on me from the other three lizards. I cast Psychic Scream to buy me some time. I then cast Fade to buy me some more time - by this time there were only 2 free lizards, but then again it would only take one to wipe the group. Out of options, the last 2 come back to me when the Fade runs out (remember, they were never hit once by the other party members), silence me, kill me, and kill the others.
I asked the warrior why he made no effort to get them off the only healer in the group. His response was "I can't taunt them when I'm silenced."
So, almost 2 hours after joining the group, we'd gotten only about halfway to Princess, wiped, and the other Priest was still afk up near Landslide's corpse. Plus, they were idiots.
Release, Resurrect, Leave Group, Hearthstone. Kthxbye.
You realize that compared to things like this, Lurker groups are positively boring? :-)
-Bolty
Last night I was stopping over at Nijel's Pointe to hand in a quest before heading over to Gadgetzan, when I see in general chat "LFM Mara plz help." Because I'm a sadist, and thus ignored the blistering giveaway of l33tsp34k, I whisper him and join in.
40 minutes later, we finally enter the instance after two players have extended afks and a 5th was added who had to fly out from Ironforge. Whatever.
Group makeup - me 49 (Priest), another 53 Priest (yeah, how rare is that?), a 60 Rogue, a 47 Warrior, and a 49 Rogue.
Typical for a pick-up group, the Warrior has no clue whatsoever how to tank and is perfectly content with letting anyone else pull. Highlight of the evening was, after spending 20 seconds performing /charges and /attacktargets while we all stared at a mob, I wand pulled a giant. Only to watch the Warrior BACK AWAY from the giant as it's approaching so that someone else could engage it first (the 60 rogue eventually did).
O.o.
The level 53 Priest was the typical "I'll just stand here and occasionally cast Flash Heal" variety I laugh at so much, having little to no clue how to contribute to the fight in any other way. He'd also start healing almost instantly - the moment the first player had 80% health or so, off went the heal and off went the monsters to get the aggro-loving over-healing fool. I'd pick up the slack.
So we get up to Landslide and take him down, while the Warrior and Rogues spent the entire fight attacking Landslide and ignoring the adds. The other Priest and I played ping-pong with the adds, using Psychic Scream, Fade, PW:S, and heals liberally to keep each other alive while the others ignored us. They even made sure to loot Landslide while the other Priest, too far away from the boss for the adds to automatically die when the boss did, was getting slammed around and almost died (he never thought to use Psychic Scream at all in the fight, while I used it as an offensive weapon to keep them off the tank at first, and off me from then on).
Fine, whatever. The group sucks, but we have enough firepower to take down Princess by sheer brute force, so I'll live with it. Then two members of the group decide to go for another huge extended afk. I considered hearthing right there, but I wanted a shot at an Eye of Theradras so I alt-tabbed and did other things for 20 minutes.
After 30 minutes had gone by and the other Priest hadn't yet returned, we moved on to one of those packs of silencing lizards. Again the Warrior just stood there, but as the only healer against a pack of silence-casting mobs, I knew better than to pull. After a full minute went by the 60 rogue decided he'd have to do it again, and went on in. All three players (Warrior, Rogue, Rogue) went after the same mob. I could see the wipe coming in the first five seconds of the fight, because I knew exactly how it was going to play out.
Sometimes, this foreknowledge is torture.
I wait as long as I possibly can and engage my first heal. Aggro's instantly on me from the other three lizards. I cast Psychic Scream to buy me some time. I then cast Fade to buy me some more time - by this time there were only 2 free lizards, but then again it would only take one to wipe the group. Out of options, the last 2 come back to me when the Fade runs out (remember, they were never hit once by the other party members), silence me, kill me, and kill the others.
I asked the warrior why he made no effort to get them off the only healer in the group. His response was "I can't taunt them when I'm silenced."
So, almost 2 hours after joining the group, we'd gotten only about halfway to Princess, wiped, and the other Priest was still afk up near Landslide's corpse. Plus, they were idiots.
Release, Resurrect, Leave Group, Hearthstone. Kthxbye.
You realize that compared to things like this, Lurker groups are positively boring? :-)
-Bolty
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.