Healer Agression

Why do most people blame healers upon their deaths? I wasn't the one healing at this Underbog run - but as I saw, "ffs do your job healer" from a very dead warlock we invited as one of the hunters left before Swamplord Mussek, my temper flared. Let me state beforehand that this healer is awesome - he keeps people alive by keeping me alive, and he didn't bat an eyelid as I start running around CCing stuff, he, by short, though a shadow priest, is the healer of my dreams. And I treat mediocre healers like gold. So he would probably be a precious Thorium or something, for me.

So I saw that message, and my previously light mood turned dark. This stupid, stupid lock who spams that orange thing RaW thing on the middle of the screen (did not quite catch its name), and who yells, and who gets lost dared be rude to my healer? The healer was clearly out of mana, obviously only enough to keep me alive. If you don't want to die, then install Omen and stop being an aggro whore, thank you. You and your pet, both.

The party chat was silent after that - until he asked for a rez (when priest was still OOM). The healer replied, "no, your rude," and I swear I would've hugged him right there for not taking any shit. Before I get any satisfaction from kicking the locktard, he left the party, and the only satisfaction I get is that I have yet another person on my ignore list - and the good news is, there are around five people there. Which means that PuGs aren't that bad. Let's just say I let out a yelp of happiness as I saw the events unfold.

Healers are rarer than gold. When you piss off one and end up on ignore, you've pretty much decreased your chances on getting a group... quite significantly.

Oh. And trapping. One of the hunters were going crazy with traps - unasked. So when it broke, it would immediately head to the healer. It wastes my taunt, the healer's mana, and when I decide to be nice and not break it, it risks other party members, and it's just plain stupid. Huntards, if you want to trap when there's no pretty moon on top of any heads, then do it right. If you trap, you chain-trap. Stop being so paranoid. I'm trying hard to do my job and you show your trust by placing traps left and right? Gee, thanks. Next time I'll just forget to taunt that thing that's coming to you. And of course I'll remember to ask the healer to forget healing too.

In the end, with a help from the healer's guildies, we downed the first boss, and Pauldrons of the Brute Force dropped. It seemed I ended up as the happiest member in the run at that time. By the way, healer and me ended up adding one another to our friend list, and after chatting for a good few hours (criticizing the party was one of the topics, of course) let me say - that guy is a nutcase.

Seems like I won't have so much trouble trying to find a healer, after this :)

And at 187 spell damage, I have concerns about holding aggro to non-Omen party members.

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.

4 A.M for Sunken Temple run

For some reason, the logon server is down, so I'm either a) Stuck reading forums and in consequence be exposed to more idiots b) finish up the rest of The Sword of Truth series and The Wizard Knight or c) Blog.

I chose blogging for now, and hope vainly that it'll be back to normal after I finish this post. So yesterday, for the first time with Shor (I'm using 'with Shor' instead of 'this toon' because it adds more intimacy. Like how some people refer themselves as the guardian of a pet, instead of the owner), I ran BRD and ST. Both as a healer.

Result = LOTS of blue healing gears + Thicker friends list + Healing burnout

BRD was quite literally a crawl in the park. The tank, a prot specced warrior was nothing short of mediocre. He couldn't hold aggro, he tanked with duel wielding, he wouldn't pull. So after a few times of watching him go, shaking my head, and smashing my flash of light key repeatedly, I told him to pop his shield, use thunderclap (won't help much, but he was only focusing to one single mob. That, sir, would not do), and oh for god's sake, pull. My leadership is a bit messed up now; it would simply grey out when I would attempt to transfer leadership to someone else, thus I was stuck with marking.

So I would mark a skull, then waited for one of them to pull. And waited. And waited. So I said, "Go.", then they'd pull. And always the hunter. So I said, "You're the tank. You have a gun. Pull." Things went considerably faster after that. I literally told him how to do his job throughout the run, albeit in a polite (and often curt) manner. I don't care. I just want the party to advance to a walk instead of a crawl. Then he left due to GF yelling. Okay, so I'm left healing 2 hunters and their pets, and a rogue. This rogue, while a decent person, is an absolute nutcase on somehow getting aggro. I guess I forgot to tell him that we have an /assist command.

Oh well.

Pulling problem arised again. Everytime we finish up a group of mobs, I had to mark and constantly say, "Go." before they would start to pull. If they're considerate to wait for me as the healer, then I thank them for it, but as long as my mana is above 50%, I'm ready. I felt like a queen, right then, with them obeying my orders with resolution. I mean a (first-time) healer. Ordering tank(s) and DPSes around. AMIRITE?! Ooooh, the ugly head is rearing!

Now, two hunters is already a bad composition to start with. It is unavoidable that in the end we wiped due to mass dwarven gang rape, around 2/3 in the instance. I was tired of healing and that instance, so we disbanded. It was around 11 P.M when this happened.

Unfortunately, immediately after, I got a tell asking me to come heal to ST. I was already planning to sleep, but come on, how can I not accept this? I've decided that I would see all Azeroth instances at least once before hitting outlands anyways. I got an invite, and after running around for 15 minutes or so trying to find the entrance to BRD and retrieve my corpse (getting lost in-game. I fail.), I clicked on the accept summon, and off we went to ST.

The leader, this awesome ret pally, was tanking. Originally I argued for that position, because, alas, I hated healing with a pally, and BRD burned me out, but she defended because of her lack of healing gear. Fine. Sure rets are squishies, but at least they're the threat machine at this level. My god, she was good. The party kept commenting on how they've got a good PuG for once, and I believe this feeling is mutually shared upon each member. We were a happy bunch.

My healing - though I was commented as being an amazing healer more than enough times today, in each run - was horrible. In the 2 runs of ST I did, I let the tank die thrice. First, because I have my usual late-night lag, second, the mobs put me to sleep, and thrice, because... well, it was 3 A.M. I cannot possibly be on my full alert self then. My control freak nature simply cannot accept my (or my net's) blunder, and after that I simply mashed my flash of light (and sometimes holy light) button, disregarding whether I was overhealing or not. I believe I actually healed her when she was in full health a few times. Anything to prevent death.

That happened in our second ST run. I was ready to fall asleep on my keyboard anytime. I didn't know how she managed to drag me in there for the second time, actually, but as a fairly responsible person, I hated seeing a group disband when I could've been there and prevented it. I sacrified half of my sleep that morning and ran in with them. And loved it. I met an awesome ret pally, an awesome mage, a lock with actual wit, and despite my critiques to that BRD group; a group that entertained me with their humor.

I heart good PuGs.

On the other note: we had a less than likeable hunter on our second ST run that day. This screenie actually made me smile everytime. Yes, that teeny tiny blob is her corpse.

dose hu tip liek dis r tardz

I'm curious on what other players do when they encounter a bad party. Do they stay there and hope for the best? Do they grind their teeth and try to refrain from pounding their keyboard? Or do they bail?

I bailed. My 3-man guild's GM; Nazzy and I were LFMing for Maraudon -since he was too low to really go to ZF- when a hunter joined. Okay, hunter. I try to avoid them most of the time, but alas, no one else was online. So. (And believe me, this isn't as bad as how he typed. I don't have the flair for bad typing, sadly, but I'll try my best to recreate. Oh, sometimes even I couldn't understand his 'english'.)

[Hunter]: ill be weeding here till u gayz com

I immediately hit guild chat.

/g I've got a bad feeling here. Kick?
[Nazzy]: Kicking him for bad grammar would just make us jerks.

Fine. Then that hunter told me to invite another warrior, and lo and behold, warrior only types slightly better, with all those intentional misspellings that every 10 year olds think is cool (some. Not all. Some. Met some really cool ones before.), and I asked him what his spec is. So he got into a full paragraph on explaining how he's fury but he brought a shield yadda yadda battle stance yadda yadda i can tank wid defen-

/p I'm prot specced, I'll tank.

Okay. So I kinda skipped what he said due to... well, utter lack of capitalization and bad grammar. I don't require my party members to type like I do, but for my sake, don't start typing like that. I'm prone to explode. So in a while, after guild chatting for a bit about how we're stuck in a potentially bad party, those two asked for another member to join. At this point I'm starting to have big doubts about their recruiting ability. Yknow, idiots always attract other idiots? We must be quite a big idiot magnet. Okay. So a druid comes. He types juuust like that. I didn't really seriously consider bailing until this point.

[Warriortard]: dis doesnt seem liek a good instancing group with 2 halers

2 healers? I glanced up at the party and only found a druid. Ok, so he meant me. I thought I said that I'm prot specced? I was pissed.

/p I'm not a healer, I'm a tank. Get your facts straight.

So this guy thinks a fury warrior can tank better than me? One who types like that?

[Warriortard]: lolol k 2 tanks then

/facepalm

[Guild]Nazzy: I thought we decided that you were tank 10 seconds ago?

My god, another subtle tank envy going on. Did the fact that I've mentioned the fact that I'm a tank more than a few times somehow eluded his simple mind? Yknow. Me prot. You fury.

/g Bail? Get an excuse, quick!

So we ended up apologizing to the party with an excuse of having to raid on a different server. We never did, of course, and later we wondered in gchat whether they had the wit to check or not. But I figured that damaged reputation with the likes of them would only be beneficial.

I miss my old rogue days where I don't care whether the group sucks or not as long as I live and we clear the instance. But then again on rogue's server, Malygos, there aren't really as much idiots there. Being a tank makes me a perfectionist, and thus a polite jerk at times.

Up and through that milestone

Yeap. You (probably) guessed right. Shorsha is a proud level 40 pally tank, and with a great ding event too. She dinged just right after Whitemane died. Pretty memorable ding with a pretty darn great party. Now I just have to get more plates upgrade, and quickly. What's with people putting level 40 plates for 20-30g (and more) anyways? One blue chest plate piece, and vying for more. I'm coming, ZF!

On a side note: I got a scarlet chestpiece in SM today. Well, actually, I unintentionally ninja-ed it; thinking it was BoP. But as I called for a re-roll, and later traded it to her, she refused, along with the warrior who originally wanted it. Probably since Shor's the only main there, and flat broke. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for it :)

After instancing pretty much from 30-40, I've come to learn and improve in many aspects of mid-level tanking, and occasionally, healing; and along with that, instancing mates. They were darn enjoyable leveling sessions, and I must say that my alt-aholism is pretty much cured. I'm pretty sure that I'll take Shor to level 70 now, hopefully in a few months' time.

Ugly horse with mail > ugly chocobo with skinny legs

WTB Night elf mount.

Burning out with PuGs

Let me just say this; bad PuGs will throw you off instancing for the rest of the day (or the week), but a good PuG would make everything totally worth it. Such case is what I've encountered during my runs on SM. First run today, I think I've encountered the most arrogant twink I've met; an undead rogue. Our conversation went like this:

Me: Pass leadership please so I can mark.
Arrogantwink: I'll mark
Me: Nah, I prefer I'll mark since I'm the tank.
Arrogantwink: Do you have a 70?

...Wow. I never knew that in order to mark you have to have a 70 toon. Truly astounding. I've learned something very valuable in that conversation. Those without a 70 toon are idiots by default and unworthy of marking. We should not tank. We should not mark. We should not show our face in PuGs. We should just /ignore Mr I HAVE A 70.

Okay. I admit, I'm still mad over that. Now this is a case of bad PuGing. Let me clarify some details. Our group was compromised of: Mr I HAVE A 70 arrogantwink rogue, a tauren warrior, a priest, and another rogue. So regardless of my seething rage, I ran with them, and Mr I HAVE A 70 (yes, I'm copy pasting.) would always sap, even if it's only a pull of 2. By then I simply did not bother to say that CCing with me in SM armory is pretty darn worthless. So oh hell, I complied with his markings like the nice angry tank that I am. Don't get me wrong, he was a good player, but any arrogant attitude immediately gets a down marking from me. Regardless of how good you are. I prefer running with a mildly bad player who's honestly learning than an arrogant twink who knows everything about his class.

Now, this is where everything became worth it. As I uttered sarcastic replies regarding his 1337 level 70 toon, I got a whisper from the other rogue. We shared a common hate, it seemed. So we bonded against that evil twink. We chatted, we insulted each other, we joked, we whispered during that whole run. We became fast friends. I was no longer the angry, lonely tank, but lo and behold, I am the still angry, but having fun tank. Everything became better. So the Arrogantwink left, and we were left with the warrior, who recruited another warrior.

Now this is where it became bad again. Warrior A kept shouting "LEEEEEEROY JENKENS!" (yes, jenkens. Not Jenkins. Jenkens.), and warrior B was... well, of one kin with warrior A. So Awesome Rogue and me coordinated bail after sticking with them enough. I feigned lunch while he feigned shower. I said, "ZOMG GAIZ! Maid been shouting for lunch!" and left. That was bad etiquette, but PuGs burned me out, and I had no patience to deal with another one. I'm sure I ended up on people's hostile list today.

So after that me and Awesome Rogue coordinated our own PuG. We 4-manned SM a few times with 2 different groups, and I've met a huntard who wanted only to be run by a 60-70 yet queued for an instance (then wanted to join after he questioned my herod's shoulder), that Arrogantwink wanted in again (I don't have a level 70, sorry), and I lost herod's helm for the second time, but by the end of the day, after multiple instances of tanking/whispering, I was no longer wary.

Bad PuGs can ruin the day, but a friend can make a whole world of difference. I thank that bad PuG for the start of a wonderful day.