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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

How on earth...

I dug Laiskajaakko out of the dust again, after running with Pupunen through the Love is in the Air quests and collections. Ran some nice quests with a completely random PUG, which really made the questing a blast. Even though this warrior of mine is already lv65, I took the call for tank in ramparts.

And to be honest, it was the worst nightmare of my PUG experiences so far.

First of all, there were two DK's, one of which was the know it all. I was the highest, but this DK was lv63, and the next 62. So we were already out levelled the content, anyhow. And they started yelling for marking the targets...

Ok, I mark, I charge, I tank.

Wait. 

I mark. Check.
I charge. Check.

And I find out that the DK, who isn't tanking, has pulled the one I'm charging with his darned Death's Grip, and pulled the rest of the mob to the rest of the group! "Tank, attack the skull!" is what I get in the party chat.

"The Skull FFS!!!"

Yea. Right.

So the next marks I made deliberately so that I charged the secondary mob. And took care of the 2/3 of a normal group in there, rest of the group dealt with the single mob the DK Gripped. 

What I didn't tell you is that in the group the healer was a druid who had just switched to resto, and was healing his first instance. And he was doing very nice job, though overhealing like no tomorrow. I, as a good tank and healer lover, made sure he had enough mana to burn through the mobs, so I waited for him to gain some...

"Speed up", "If this tanking takes this long I will tank", and so on from the DK.

So I speeded up, but that wasn't enough for the DK. He took up marking, tanking, dps and ran the show alone. Well, I have to admit that the rest of the team bit their lip nicely and patched the blotched mistakes this know it all made.

Just to show what the mess was: the party almost wiped at Nazan, the dragon, the final boss. Why? The DK stole the aggro from me when the dragon started spewing fire, pulling the fire on our clothies.

It was my fault, naturally. But what I still don't grasp is the fact that why did he die as he knew it all so well?

And how on earth can one tell these guys to stuff it and play in the group?

8 comments:

Sara Pickell said...

Last time I played WoW, all I did was tank instances with pugs. Personally, it was my policy to stick to the pace the healer was comfortable with. Of course, there were always people who just knew that they would be better tanks, and our pace was always too slow for them.

So yeah, I guess I'm just commiserating with you. Unfortunately, no amount of skill can make up the gap with someone like that. Even worse, the more slack you give 'em, the harder they jerk you around.

Gamer Hudson said...

The issue is not the know it alls, the issue is exactly what I blogged about and how crappy warriors are in WoW right now.

Welcome to the hell, and it only gets worse when you hit Northrend in the 70's. Single target tanking is dead, AOE tanking and the OP'd pallies and DK's rule the day.

I mentioned it here

http://hudshideout.com/blog/?p=1848

The game has sped up in the 60's, it is faster and no one takes their time anymore because the content can be blown through. This will be the status quo all the way up into your high 70's.

Hafrot said...

Playing a DK is a lot like playing golf. It's a lot of fun and easy to play... but not easy to play well.

I pugged an Utgarde Pinnacle on regular mode with a 78 prot warrior tanking that I out geared by an obscene amount. I was pulling about 2300dps overall and the only times I was ABLE to pull off of the tank was when I was in the wrong presence on the first pull (a leftover from soloing Onyxia earlier in the day) and when I went a little overboard with AoE because we were breezing through the instance so quickly.

I doubt very much that the issue, in Copra's case, is with threat as a warrior... more likely it's an issue of a bad player. It's funny that the DK was using Death grip (basically a temporary taunt, like Mocking blow) then complaining about the pace. Keep the damage and heals on the tank and the healer won't need to stop to drink as often, thereby keeping things running smoothly... but I suppose not everyone thinks of these things. /shrug

Unknown said...

So here we have a recap of some earlier post topics, which seem to cycle around the interwebs about WoW PUGS:
- PUGging
- Grouping and how hard it is for some to play in group
- Player skill and bad attitude

Thanks for the comments. I read your post Hudson and coincidently I had already written this one: I might have linked you to this. But there is no amount skill which can replace a crappy attitude in groups and inability to play in groups is the result of power levelling the content and constantly overpowering the mobs.

So the question is, as Halfrot pointed out in his first sentence, is Deathard the new Huntard? Or even worse, as they don't have to plunge through the Old World content to play even adequately?

Copra

Gamer Hudson said...

Well I can tell you that a well played DK is a scary thing and a great addition to any guild, our main tank on 10 mans right now is a Deathknight but he has put the work in to get where he is defense stat wise.

Almost every other DK I have run into has has been a miserable player however.

They wont pay attention to agro and the nature of the class makes it easy for them to over agro and just not care.

Crucifer said...

It's generally just bad attitude to be honest. There's not much you can say or do besides not running with the player.

Usually, as Tank I've said that if anyone else draws aggro [again], either they kill it or they die. Get the healer onto your side helps a fair bit.

Hafrot said...

It can be argued that DK's are the new Huntards, simply because they are so accessible to everyone.

To be honest, I just make the assumption that all the players in my groups are good players until they prove otherwise. I have put some people on my ignore list as a result... but I've added way more friends to friends list than I have ignored. So, try not to hold it against all of us that there are some bad players out there.

Anonymous said...

"And how on earth can one tell these guys to stuff it and play in the group?"

Just like that. No editing required.

Jason (resident drunken idiot of Channel Massive)