Monday, January 7, 2008

I'm a Jerk

Is what I kept thinking to myself after I saw that hunter leave. It happened during a Slave Pens run, with a holy pally and three hunters. Despite my initial fears of having three hunters in the same party, I braced myself and accepted the summon. Some of them were already in, and as I ran in to join them, I noticed that they were already attacking stuff without me, the tank, and HunterA was dead. Okay.

/p Can't you guys wait?
HunterA: Nope.

I took that as a joke. We went in, and because of the party leader's lacking marking system, I took over, and explained it to them. All went fine, until I noticed that my mob kept having that three red streaks on top of its head. One of the pets and me were literally competing for aggro. I told the owner, HunterA, to turn off growl. It got ignored. I figured he did. He didn't. I asked again and again, soon that smiley turned into curt orders. Then, as I wondered whether he spoke English, I barked off another 'turn that growl off' order, and lo, he left.

/p ...I only wanted that growl off... I'm a jerk.

Let me clarify this, I've never, ever caused anyone to leave like that in my gaming life. Ever. It made me feel bad for a while, I mean, this isn't my group, but rather one that I hijacked, and I caused an original member to leave. I got into a state of guilt. I didn't even shout at him, only told him curtly to turn that stupid pet's aggro off. Did I do the right thing? Should I just have ignored it and kept everyone happy? :(

On the other hand, I also /ignored a priest because he invited me multiple times without whispering first when I've specifically stated on my LFG, "Prot pally - please PST before invite."

PMS Shorsha = Fail.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Having your pet compete with the tank for aggro on the main DPS target is among the most stupid things a hunter can do. Even if you discount the impact of the loss of aggro (hence loss of the damage->healing->mana regen cycle which is at the base of the pallie tanking) on the tank, it's a total waste of 15 focus every 5 seconds, which isn't being used to generate more DPS.
If I were you I would stop shedding even the slightest tear of remorse over causing a useless can't-listen won't-improve utter failure of a huntard to leave your group.

Anonymous said...

It's -possible- the hunter did have growl off. As far as I can tell there's no outward sign that growl is on (except for ripped off aggro) though Fiancee says that you can hear the "growl" (I've never heard it). The "three little red streaks" sound like Claw.

That said, if the hunter is constantly ripping aggro of you then he's sending his pet too early. He needs to hold back a little bit longer. You as the tank have two choices, fight the pet for aggro (not a very good choice as a paladin because we have very poor threat generation if we're not being hit) or let the pet have it. My theory is that pets are secondary. If the hunter is going to rip off aggro, let the pet die. Do not taunt off it, do not heal it. After it dies a few times (and you politely ask the hunter to hold back his pet until you have established aggro) hopefully he'll get the idea.

That said, you're not being a jerk.. you're doing your job and trying to get him to let you do your job. If he won't let you and leaves.. bully for you. He was a drag on your game and it's better without him. As to the "well I was a jerk and ruined his day".. he was a jerk first. Not that it justifies your jerkiness.. but he sounded like he was destined to leave anyway.

MarcusMaximi said...

WELL DONE!!

You got a pr*ck to leave a party WITHOUT shouting.

I have to resort to shouting at them before they get the hint.

Ruined their day? They need to L2P.

:)

Don't feel guilty.

BTW, did you finish the run?

Shorsha said...

@Holy: Nope, we got wtfpwned by the last boss. Flawed strategy regarding LoS was used. Wipe occured. Got him quite low too. I never really shout at anyone, for that matter. I'll just /ignore them after the run. I need em, after all :)

@Nibu & Gwaen: Possible, but from the sign you stated (ripped agro) then yes, it's indeed growl. Actually, let me fiddle around with my hunter to determine it. Either way, yes, I actually sat half-way through the first boss fight to see the pet take a beating. I lost my heart and joined in mid-way. Now that my mood has greatly improved, I can see that I was not as 'jerky' as I thought.

That being said, a hunter's pet would *never* be able rip aggro away from me unless growl is on. And if I somehow had misunderstood (and just suck as a tank), then he could've had the courtesy to at least type a few words on /p. I didn't get anything else from him besides the 'nope' throughout the whole thing.

Anonymous said...

I think all of the previous comments really summed it up. Not much to add to them except that from the description you did nothing wrong, just another huntard, the game is full of them. So he left the group, your better off in my opinion, I keep of list of these special people so I don't make the mistake of grouping up with them again. I call it the "Black-List".

Kinzlayer said...

Sadly there are reasons to why people are and will continue to be labeled "huntard."

On a side note, never feel guilty... it is your gold that is paying for your repair bills. A tank that has to compete for aggro from a hunter's pet is not an efficient tank and a hunter's pet that is growling in a 5-man is wasting their focus.