My resolution to be more assertive in pugs is not going well.
In fact, I’m wondering if I’m turning into one of those over-geared, arrogant wankers I hate so much. I screwed a group over at the week for being horrible to me.
The heroic was Gundrak, I don’t really need the badges but, hey, it was something to do. For the record, the heroic has been Gundrak for the last few days and I’ve decided I hate Gundrak, even though it is full of comedy rhinos, because it highlights everything that pisses me off in certain types of player.
Take the first boss. These days I can usually heal through his poison nova. But the thing is, you’re not MEANT to be able to heal through it, it’s that nasty if you’ve got no poison cleansing abilities. So I can heal through, but it’s a “bite nails, cross fingers, hope for the best” kind of healing, and chances are I’ll lose somebody. But nobody ever moves, even if I ask them specifically to do so before the fight starts. Seriously, what does it cost you to run away when the poison nova emote flicks up on the screen? And why are even casters hugging up to the big nasty snake guy. The last time we had this conversation, somebody piped up with “but you healed through it, lol” which made me grit my teeth. Not the goddamn point. So not the goddamn point.
On this run we had two rogues and a mage (and a tank, obviously, and me). Why the mage was even in the vicinity of the poison nova I have no idea but, as the guy with hardly any health clad only in sissy robes, he bought it. I couldn’t rezz him afterwards because the game bugged out and decided I was still in combat. Very strange. With the benefit of hindsight, it occurs to me that maybe he thought I was lying about that in order to make him run as some kind of Getting Off On My Resurrection Spell power trip. Anyway, I apologised for it, and, to stop the poison nova festering inside my heart, I made a fairly frivolous comment about wishing people wouldn’t stand in the damn thing, especially if they’re fragile. I think perhaps, again, thinking back on it with the benefit of hindsight, the mage thought I was getting at him personally.
Anyway, we came to the second boss and, for the record, this group wasn’t easy to heal – there was damage all over the place, people kept standing in wee, the rogues kept attacking different targets to the tank, there’s no marking … but, hey, I can heal ToC with my fishing rod so we know I’m totally imba, and I was getting them through it. Not enjoying myself very much, admitttedly, but, hey, who expects to have fun in WoW. (Yes, that was sarcasm).
During the phase shift of the second boss something happened to me that has never happened before. He charged and one-shotted me. Whut? The tank said her taunt was on CD. Whut? WHUT?!! I don’t know much about DK tanking but WHUT?? I’ve had bears, DKS, pallys and warriors take me through Gundrak and, although I think the boss’s aggro table resets between phase shifts, I have never ever ever died in that fight. I’m the fucking healer for fuck’s sake. I should, under no circumstances, be generating more threat than 2 rogues and a mage. If anyone dies in that phase, it’s THEM, not ME. Dying in the place of the healer – that’s what mages ARE FOR!
So, we were jogging back and I noticed the tank still hadn’t released.
“Gief rez plz,” she said, I think ironically.
“Sorry,” I replied, “but if we wipe, we all run.” And, hell, it’s Gundrak, not HoL, we were just inside, it’s not like it was going to take long.
“Sure thing,” said the tank, or words to that effect and immediately released.
This, naturally, made me feel as guilty as anything. And I was just dashing forward to rez her anyway when the mage said: “Just rez ffs.” And that was that.
I just … couldn’t. Not after that. The gosh damned principle thing of the thing.
I know the “should the healer rez everybody after a wipe” thing is controversial. Well, when I say controversial I think healers are generally against it and everyone else is generally for it… but, actually, I think things have been getting better on this score. Nobody has seemed to expect it of me for a while, or maybe we just haven’t been wiping as much. But I still felt rather awkward insisting on my right not to rez. And then I feared I was just stuffing my WoWcock down these people’s throats in order to make a point.
“Sorry, it’s just the principle of the thing,” I said, trying to explain. “I didn’t mean to be dickish about it.”
“I think dickish is an understatement,” returned the mage.
I didn’t really know what to say that. Well, no, I knew plenty of things to say to that but all of them were dickish. Besides, we had a boss to kill.
So we tried again and the exact same thing happened.
Like … whut? WHUT?
I didn’t say anything, afraid dickishness would come pouring out of my mouth in a silver stream, but then the tank suggested I stop healing during the phase shifts. I was healing a fair amount due to folks standing in mana-wee but even so I shouldn’t have been healing enough to generate THAT MUCH THREAT. And surely “stop healing” is rarely an approved strategy for anything? In fact, healing is generally the one thing you never stop doing.
Seriously – asking the healer to manage their threat is whacked in so many ways. Oh, for the record, I was hitting fade at the phase shifts in an effort to help whatever the hell was going on with the tank and her aggro.
“Isn’t this,” said the mage, smugly, “rather like being killed by the poison nova.”
And that was kind of it for me. I mean, actually no … it wasn’t. Getting killed by the poison nova is pure laziness, plain and simple. Getting killed because the tank can’t do her job properly is something else entirely. So fuck you mageface. I didn’t think there was any point in trying to explain that, though, and I doubted my ability to express it politely, so I just said instead that I was sorry but I didn’t need to this crap and I was done.
This lead to a world of woe. A world of woe.
The tank was, to be fair, sweet. Clearly incompetent but sweet.
The mage had me pegged as Satan’s arsecrack.
And the general feeling was that I should just shut up and do my damn job. I pointed out that my job didn’t include being badly treated.
This whole conversation was slightly weird and guilt-trippy – not only was I wanting to leave the group, which was bad enough, but I was also delaying them in their progress through the heroic by the discussion itself. I don’t like to just hearth out and quit without a word, I tend to explain my actions, when they involve other people, before I perform them. But they were so aggresssive by this stage that they were actually prioritising speed-through-content over the comfort/happiness of another human being. How fucked up is that?
The tank then ttried bit of emotional blackmail, explaining that she just needed one more emblem for an upgrade and that she’d be sad if she couldn’t get it. I can’t remember how I responded, apologetically probably because I don’t like to fuck the game up for others, but then she snapped: “Who do you think you are” at me which suggested she had joined the Tam is Satan’s Arsecrack Club.
I said “pardon?” Yes, I know, I do an excellent job of withering putdowns when I’m cornered.
And then the mage said: “just kick him.” So I left to save them the trouble.
I felt bad enough to try to apologise to the tank but she had /ignored me.
I’ve never been ignored before.
…
…
It’s so easy to remember bad PUGs as rip roaring comedic experiences, sitting around the blogging campfire, but, oh sometimes they’re just so bitter. And quite frankly there’s always the paranoid fear that there’s somebody on trade slandering my name right now … or worse … warning people about that ‘absolutely’ dreadful guild, which vomited up from its member list such a wanky priest. But mainly it makes one second guess oneselfm or at least it does if you’re me.
Also I think I can probably see their side of it – I mean, I came in there, swinging my WoWcock around like one of those incense-burning thingies they have in churches. During the World of Woe stage of the business, the mage did make some quip about me insisting people play the game my way – I replied to the effect that running after a wipe was merely good manners and not standing in dangerous stuff was considered advantageous in most circumstances. So, yes, in that sense I suppose I did want them to play the game my way – in a way that didn’t make me doing my job any harder than it had to be.
And, again, there was that insistence on getting through it and doing our jobs.
Doing our jobs? Doing my job is something I do during the day, and I get paid for it.
Playing WoW is something I do when I’m expecting to relax and have fun, and for which I don’t expect to be paid.
Also why should one “put up and shut up” when people in the game treat you badly? No amount of emblems are worth that. Equally, as a healer, I am not public property. Healing is something I do because I enjoy it, not to facilitate the game for others. I owed them nothing… yet they very much thought I did. In fact, they thought my duty to them extended to beyond healing – into taking shit from them as well.
Possibly it was just an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances. Maybe if I hadn’t had a tedious VoA run beforehand. Maybe if it hadn’t been Gundrak. Maybe if the mage hadn’t interpreted my previous words and deeds in the worst possible light, maybe if M’Pocket Tank hadn’t been getting angry on my behalf and telling me to ditch the fuckers … and so on and so forth.
Okay. I can see their perspective but I stand by my actions.
I do feel bad about it, though, that’s the annoying thing. Also my first /ignore. Nobody has ever thought me that much of a twat before. Is that some rite of passage? Or like a first kill – possibly I’m going to agonise over this weeks and months, but further down the line I’ll be having people /ignore me left, right and centre… being /ignored in Reno just to… okay I’ve made that joke before.
I think what we healers need is some kind of Manifesto. Something like this…
I am not public property.
It is not your right to receive healing from me.
I do not owe you anything.
Healing is not a job, it’s a choice.
I heal because I choose to, not because nobody else will.
I do not have to take shit for you.
I do not have to take shit from you.
Two legs good, four legs … oh wait, that’s something else.
Okay, I simple to have to edit this at Grimmtooth’s suggestion because this version is WAY better. I really need to practice brevity. Here it is:
I am not your bitch.
If you’re healing is causing aggro during the phase shifts, just let the DPS die if they insist on standing in the wee. That golem and elemental will pick a random aggro target -really fucking quick- and the tank needs to retarget and hit taunt, which, including human reaction time (can’t taunt ’til it activates) and lag, will leave a window of opportunity for the damn thing to frag you senseless.
That said, the tank should not have a taunt on cooldown unless one of the DPS ripped aggro just before a phase shift.
Trust me, you are not turning into an arrogant wanker just cause you have some standards. The phase-shift that has taken place is that you have gone from being eternally grateful for anyone taking you under your wing because of your eternal suckiness to being competent and well-geared enough that noone can protest against you being there with a straight face even in higher end raids. Well done!
I have never had a tank who hasn’t been able to get the boss back on their case between phase shifts. Never. In fact, I suspect re-targetting and taunting really quickly falls into the “goes with the territory” category for Tanking 101 – also I was standing there self-shielded and everything, and I was still blatted. Gah.
And I’ve always had standards, dear boy, I’ve just never had opportunity to enforce them
Mages.. lemme tell ya.
I was in a onyxia 25 pug yesterday. And there was this mage… Grrr (yes actual growling)
He too had decided that I was a complete asshole. You see, I had the balls nay, i DARED join the group when they asked for a dps, and then i was okay with tanking when they found out they only had one tank. (i know, im such an ass). And i had this weird title on my name, that proved I had done something in a raid that was hard (im very proud of my starcaller title (-: )
Afterwards I could do nothing right. when the ret palas decided to stun the mobs so that they where rooted and we got two mobs at once (and the healers couldnt figure out how to heal two tanks) and we wiped, he started ranting (in caps) about how the tanks sucked).
Afterwards my positioning of onyxia was “weird” (yea tanking her away from the raid is bad) and it seemed I was such a bad tank, that he could only put out 2k dps (less than me, and i was.. tanking) on the fight. Which included the aoe dragonlings.
And when the dps died to the flames in p2, guess who’s fault that was? (you guessed it).
What was weird was, that I just took it. It must be a leftover behaviour from when I was a healer. Back then we just took the crap and complained in healer channels
Anyways he left the raid fairly quick. And like you the only thing that bugs me, was that now he is out *there* firm in his conviction that he is imba, and that I was a horrible tank. Dispite the fact that I have the achievements and personal reference to prove him wrong (he hadn’t completed any raids worth mentioning).
I guess some of us tanks, can sign onto that manifesto – at least in the spirit it was given
Honestly, DDK, you’re such a terrible tank. You’re an affront to the blogsphere. Sigh. God, that poor mage, imagine what he must be feeling, thinking he was up for a smooth 25-man and then this uppitidy dorf is all “I could solo-tank this lol” … wait! Tam, stop! We know where this ends! Heheh, actually I can totally see IMBAMAGE as writing a guest post over at Snottydin.
It’s really infuriating isn’t it, when some random player, so confident in his own unassailable superiority, decides to blame another, perfectly competant player for every single that goes wrong. So the OT doesn’t pick up the adds, its the MT’s fault, all the DPS stand in fire, it’s still the MT’s fault… And the worst of it is, you know there’s nothing you can do to change the idiot’s mind and he’s going to go around, forever, thinking you were rubbish. GRR! The bad opinion of such people shouldn’t matter but, God, it’s annoying.
(Also grats on Starcaller, it’s the most awesome title ever
)
You know, I’ve always wondered in reading your failPUG posts (which are thoroughly amusing, BTW), is if one of your antagonists ever finds their way to your site to hear your side of the story? I mean, it’s not like you make a secret of your server or character name. I’m reading your failPUG post, and picturing the aforementioned mage chatting with someone about this arrogant-ass priest in a Gundrak run last week who was too nose-up-in-the-air to rez anyone, when the friend replies, “Uhh, that’s not how Tam tells the story. Jackass. [LINK]”
Night(rush)
Haha, that’s a very pleasurable fantasy indeed but, thankfully, it’s probably unlikely to happen. I mean, a tiny proportion of the people who play WoW blog about it, or read blogs. Also it’d just wind up being embarrassing. Mind you, there is always a part of me that wants to end such tense moments with “I’m off to blog about this now” *flounce*. Except I never would.
I almost wanted to direct the tank here, to be honest, because I think she was genuinely nice (if bad at tanking) but then I stopped myself. What would it achieve, actually?
Also you have to remember that there are 2 sides to every story and I have the advantage in being able to tell mine. The other side probably involves an arrogant wanker of a priest stomping all over a PUG and refusing to do his job…
Sadly this is a story that just sounds like too many PUGs I’ve experienced. Hence why I don’t PUG dungeons.
As a healer it all comes down to you to make a bunch of incompetent lazies have a good time and get some badges, while you just sit their feeling like crap for 30 mins.
The few very rare times I do PUG I just shut up and wonder how one of my guildies has managed to convince me to do this again
And I know you feel like a epeen wanker standing up for yourself, but look at it from another perspective. It isn’t your job to let 4 other people be lazy, not learn how to play and go have a smoke while you run back and rez them. If they want to play a social game they need to learn basic etiquette!
I’ve actually had some fairly decent PUGS in my time, for all the fact I bitch and moan about them – and when they go well, it’s genuinely pleasing to gather with a group of strangers and do something together, and for everyone to find it fun and positive.
It’s a bit rare though
The problem is when four people like they’re entitled to treat you like shit and you’re obliged to take it you get into a weird headspace…. due to sheer volume. Am I the wanker, or are all these people wankers?
Wow, sounds like a delightful group.
First of all I also hate hate hate when healers are expected to run back and rez the group. I am first to call out BS on this practice and make even my guildies run. Now sure, I’ll do it from time to time for someone if they have to go afk, but in general, we wipe, we all run. It IS the principle of the thing.
Best quote of the day:
“swinging my WoWcock around like one of those incense-burning thingies they have in churches”
Makes for quite a visual.
Hehe, I like to think inappropriate visuals are my forte
But, yes, they were definitely one of those special groups – although the trouble maker was assuredly the mage. Perhaps if we’d been less inclined to wave wowcocks at each other it would all have gone a bit better… still, no point second guessing now
And ultimately I think if all healers stood up for their right not to be dogsbody of a 5-man then perhaps they’d be less of a culture of treating healers badly. Maybe.
oh and PS, the word you’re looking for is “Censer”.
That’s way less cool than “incense burning thingy they have in churches”
I’ve told you before Tam, you don’t need to feel bad because a bunch of fucktards or at least some of them. That mage was a completely dick, but tank was also incompetent. I’ve played Gundrak countless times with all roles and I never had a problemw ith the aggro. Yes as a tank I have to be quick to pick him up but never died anyone while I was tanking or healing the Colossus boss. So negative points for the tank and a huge carload of them for the dick-mage.
You should learn from the BOFHs, the Bastard Operators From Hell is the name given to computer sysadmins who have to deal with the whimpering (l)users. Yes you have to act like a dick sometimes, but it’s the only way those assholes will ever learn.
And never, NEVER, apologize unless it’s really your fault. casters standing in poison nova must die and shouldn’t be rezzed after combat.
I think the problem is navigating the line between fucktardery and niceness. If your entire group is made of pillocks, it’s easy enough to walk out of there, but if you have somebody who is sweet (no matter how incompetant) it’s easy to get cast as the villain of the piece. Possibly I should get myself a black cloak and a goatee and embrace it more
MWHAHAAHA!
I edited your manifesto to punch it up a bit. What ya think?
“Tam is not your bitch.”
That is all.
Oh yeah … that works… and is punchier to boot
WTB BREVITY!
I have a priesty-type just like you, and to be honest, in groups like that you just have to lay down the law. There’s no reason why you should have to res everyone. There’s no reason why you should have to take that garbage. I have legitimately *let people die* because they were being dicks. It’s like, fine, you want to be a jerk — enjoy your 50g repair bill after this.
It’s not like heals are ridiculously easy to come by. I don’t know why they would treat you like that. But you absolutely shouldn’t feel guilty. You know they aren’t feeling guilty for how they treated you.
Oh and if a mage eats the Poison Nova, let him die. And don’t res him. Even if you are still alive. Effers need to learn sometime.
The thing is, I’d rather not resort to extreme methods, like not healing folks, or not rezing them, because it could so easily cross the line into petty power-play … and basically I’m afraid it’ll bring out the worst in me.
Also, let’s face it, mistakes get made – it takes a very special kind of dickhead to stand there in the fire, demanding healz – but, alas, we encounter such dickehads so often that I’m afraid it impacts negatively on our attitude to other players. I mean, the mage didn’t admit later that he hadn’t played this character in half a year – it’s likely he just plain ‘forgot’ to run out out the poison nova. But since he didn’t say that at the time, or even something like “oops, sorry, my fault” … I assumed he just thought it was right to stand in death and get healz regardless.
Also I’ve found in the past that ‘negative’ feedback, like not healing people, just makes it look like you’re a bad healer – which means they show no improvement.
As far as I’m concerned, if “please don’t stand in the dangerous thing” isn’t sufficient to stop someone standing in the dangerous thing … they’re beyond help.
From the sounds of that Tam you did nothing wrong. There’s a reason I hate gundrak with a passion, apart from the fact it was the first heroic I healed in wrath in my blues and felt woefully undergeared. Simple fact is on one of three ocassions I’ve found in there you just tend to explode if you’re a clothie. If it’s a dps you can try doing something to stop it, like a well timed heal followed by pointing out that it was nubbish standing in The Bad Stuff. If it’s you though there’s very little you can do but die horribly. Happened to me a few times with our main dk tank a few nights back – I just exploded, got an apology on /o for it then sat there remembering why I hate the place.
I think you hit the nail on the head with the healing manifesto too. Sometimes people think it’s a weird vocation making bars go up instead of down but it’s a choice we’ve made; to stand at the back getting utterly confused by people standing in fire while doing our utmost to keep all the bars topped up so the big red bar they’re all focusing on goes from 100 to 0. We’re also the bunch with the hardest job to quantify if you exclude the dead bodies on the floor
To quote one of our trees “I heal damage, not laziness”
Hehe, I recognise that quote from the forums and it’s a good one
I hate Gundrak too. I mean, I’ve had fun times there – taking down the first boss the first time with the old failguild was one of those bizarrely awesome WoW moments that nobody else would get. We were all just about geared for heroics, our DPS wasn’t exactly stellar, and we kept throwing ourselves against the boss and dying like bitches. When it finally came together it felt like such a team effort, we were so damn proud
Also the rhinos make me giggle – the first time we encountered the final boss, I wiped us because I was incapacitated with laughter. It’s the moment when he says “I WILL SHOW YOU POWER!” and I was like “That’s not power … that’s a rhino”.
So I’ve had good times in Gundrak but, hell, that place seems to bring out the worst in players. And if they don’t make any effort to avoid the death, I get quietly bitter for the whole rest of the run – so I tend not to enjoy it.
Also, I think the thing with tanking and healing is that they’re both jobs that have an obvious criteria for FAILURE (we all died!) but not one for success. So, if there’s a wipe, it’s usually because healz weren’t received or the tank lost aggro – but you ‘win’ it’s because the DPS was imba. And anybody can recognise good DPS by the big numbers (although I wish we could quantify intelligent DPS, or that, like in the Crystal Dome, recount took points off your final DPS score for every bit of damage you took) but the only people who can really recognise good tanking and good healing are other tanks and healers.
When we did our 8-man Naxx run, the other healer bought it during the Grand Widow fight, and we got hit by the final enrage – and somehow, by some wild fluke and bloody-mindedness, I managed to keep the raid, and the tank alive, intovictory. Nobody else noticed but the other healer whispered nice words to me and I felt 100 feet tall.
Ohh Tam, I hear you on the Heal front. I am primary DPS as you well know, but I also heal occasionally, and I have the gear to do it, and I am fairly competent at it.
Anyway, here is my failpug story from this weekend:
I was healing for my cranky tank – Gundrak as well. My cranky tank was not, in fact, on her tank, but her oft neglected huntard (which was at one point her main). In any event, we pugged up a tank and two more dps and we were off.
Right from the start I knew it was going to be bad. I just zoned in, hadn’t even buffed up, and the pug tank had already pulled. And not just one pack of mobs, the whole DAMM room of them in front of the boss. If you know paladin heals, then you know what kind of frantic button smashing I was doing at this point. I mean, my fingers were on fire. I barely managed to keep everyone alive. And I was panting to boot. I asked if we could buff up, to which he just quietly sat there while I handed out blessings and a fishy. He didnt even partake in the fishy. GRRR.
Anyway, we pull the boss, to which I am promptly eaten by the first pack of adds. The raid, of course, wipes. We had a nosy little rogue in the group who promptly piped up and said “WTF” and a tank that said “wow…” I explained what happened. “I was eaten by the mobs. Can you taunt them off of me?”
Mr. Tank promptly informed me that the healer should stay in his consecrate the whole time, so that he didnt have to taunt the mobs. “But its a bad thing when the healer is a single target healer – poison really is hard to heal.”
From the tank “…..”
So I we released and I stood in the consecrate. The first poison nova, I was one shot. Well, not actually. The poison hit me so that I had 100 health, and then the first tic killed me off. My cranky tank on her hunter just pounded out the dps, along with the mage. They were both eaten by the adds because the tank refused to taunt. The terribad tank and rogue barely finished the boss off. The rogue had about 2k health left, the tank about 1.5k.
So, the tank rezzed me. Immediately upon rez, I of course sat down to eat and drink so that I could rez the rest of the group. No sooner had I sat down did the rogue scream for heals to fill his health. My cranky tank, being cranky on her huntard: “Do you not know how to sit and eat? for god sakes, he was just rezzed, he needs to mana up and rez the rest of us.” The rogue “……” Apparently periods are all the rage these days.
We rez up and buff up and get ready to go on. The tank pulls the next group, we down them, no problem. Next group, and we are working on them no problem, then he decides to chain pull, without asking the healer if it was ok (OMFG? REALLY?), and pulls three groups of mobs. Of course its the mobs that have poison. It was everything I could do to keep me and the tank alive (a few close calls). The rogue got one or two heals, but eventually decided that letting the tank do his job was just too boring, he decided to pull the group and let them chew him up. I am nearly OOM at that point, and the rogue is down, and we have 5 mobs that need to die. I don’t know how we pulled it off, but we did.
As soon as the mobs were down the rogue asked “Where were the F****ing heals?”
I was exhausted mentally (and my fingers were screaming in protest), so I just totally lost it. “I will say this once and once only – I am the healer. It is my job to keep the group alive. I know you are taking damage. I know better than you do that you are taking damage, and at what rate. I know when you are going to die at current damage levels. It is your job to DPS the mobs, not tank them. DPS will NOT scream for heals, or I will NOT heal you. I am more concerned with keeping me and the tank alive so that the mobs don’t eat the competent dps that do not pull aggro, and stay out of the damm acid. Comprende?”
I think the tank realized at this point that I was done dealing with the crap, that I wanted a proper run. He said nothing.
The rogue piped in “Well, this is the first time I have ever died in trash on a heroic due to lack of heals.” OMFG Did he really just say that?
I replied, “You want to know what lack of heals are? You got it. You are not getting any more heals for this run. You are welcome to leave if you would like, because this healer is not dispensing anymore FoL, HL, Holy Shock, Shields, Nothing. You currently have 21k health, that better be enough to get you through the instance.”
I don’t know if he thought I was bluffing or not. Everyone was buffed up, except for the rogue, and we proceed to pull the next stack of mobs. The rogue again pulls the mobs off of the boss. and it saps about 10k of his health.
The rogue: “….. Heals please?”
“I told you that I was not going to heal you.”
“I’ll leave.”
My cranky tank, while this was going on, was apparently whispering the tank the whole time. The tank passed the lead to my cranky tank.
Cranky Tank: “I have had just about enough. Ill save you the trouble of right clicking and hearthing.” Rogue kicked from group.
She then passed the lead back to the tank. Everyone was silent, and paused for a second. The rogue yelled, “Ok Please invite back, I really need this.”
Cranky Tank: “You had your chance.”
From that point on, it was a much smoother run. The tank asked if he could chain pull. After explaining to him that chain pulling is fine, just not the first part because of the poisons, he understood, and there was no speech for the rest of the run, but no wipes either. We 4 manned that place.
I am not a huge fan of gearchecking, but I did check that rogues gear. It was full T9.10, and he was pulling under 1k DPS. I have no idea how he got T9 pulling 1k, but the lesson is – don’t be an ass especially when you cant even do your minimum DPS of 1500 in a heroic.
Bravo! That’s the way it should be. Unless tank was a terrible one (and didn’t seem that to me), dps stealing aggro should die without a heal. It’s ok to steal one time if you shoot too fast before tank grabs aggro, specially in group pulls, but not several times. And this is how to deal with it: first time warn about stealing aggro/moving out of fire/whatever, then if dps continues to be a dick stop healing him. Next time just kick him out (if possible), there’re tons of dps out there. Almost everyone who cries for heals hasn’t never played a healer and doesn’t know the drill, so demanding heals has to cause the opposite: not a single hp restored to you, Mr. Aggromonkey.
During my first runs as healer way back in time I was so focused on tank and then the rest of the group that I always forgot to heal myself, so I was usually the one going down when there was massive splash damage. This taught me a good lesson and learned to set heal priorities.
Woah, that is quite a failpug. I feel quite guilty about making you relive it but it makes for a fine story, if nothing else. Also the moment when a usually calm healer just SNAPS is a thing of beauty. I’ve had such moments myself and watched groups just shrivel up like salted slugs.
When I get a group like that, I just swallow it and go to the next boss – where I bubble hearth. I also use the GridIgnore mod for my Grid raid frames. It automatically blanks out any player you have on ignore. It’s funny getting into a PUG raid (like a 25 naxx or something) and seeing a few empty spots.
Hehe, I seriously doubted the ability of that group to get to the next boss – given the tank’s inability to pick up a boss quickly…
ahh….. Mages. It’s always them
I met a couple of fail mages as well, blaming others for their deaths and misfortune.
There is a manifesto out there already that ALL DPS should follow.
1.) If the tank dies, it’s the Healer’s fault
2.) If the Healer dies, it’s the Tank’s fault
3.) IF THE DPS DIES, IT’s THEIR OWN DAMN FAULT
All DPS players should read it. If they stand in the bad stuff, they don’t deserve to be healed
And I admire your guts to stand by what you believe in 
In Gundrak of all places. I mean if I join an Occulus pug, I can expect some horror stories to take place. You really have to think twice before – are the badges really worth the risk? But Gundrak… I wouldn’t expect that kind of fail. Anyway. Don’t feel bad about yourself. Just enjoy the rage. Sometimes it can be rather refreshing just to allow yourself to get really pissed off. Just for a while. Then let it go and feel the fresh air, like after a rain.
Tam, I think you talk too much.
The more you explain, the more they’ll find a reason to blame the group problems on you for being so difficult.
I think it’s great that you’re being assertive in your PuGs (for gods sake someone has to) but maybe you need to let your (silent) actions speak louder than words.
Why ask the tank to release? Why not just run back and sit at his body, drink in hand, waiting for him to get a clue? If he asks for a res you can politely respond with “Oh I’m just waiting for everyone to get back”.
Less fuel for the fire?
Mages are drama queens anyway. What’s with that?
Hahaha, yes, I do, in fact, talk too much.
Verbosity has always been a problem. I’ll try to be the strong silent type but I’m not sure it’s happening any time soon. Maybe it’s Tam. I need to create a surly looking tauren
I didn’t ask the tank to release, that at least wasn’t me babbling
I was standing casually by the corpse, hoping my presence there, not rezzing, would serve has a delicate hint – but no, hence her “gief rez plz”. My first reply was simply “I’m afraid if we wipe, we all run.” And the things got a bit heated because, although the tank was fine with it, the mage was all “why the fuck what, what’s wrong you, just fucking rez” etc. etc.
Mages just like attention. It’s because they’re so small and fragile
Heh, Tam, I /feel your pain.
I just posted my first /kick experience yesterday.
After several years playing, kicked from a failpug because I had the audacity to point out their dps was not doing so well….
It’s hard not to be a dick when the pug are one big crime in action.
I read that. I tend to hate people who post recount summaries and are all wtf about it … but I think you were as close to justififed as you could ever be. I mean, those DPS pulling in less than 1k were attempting to ride the coat-tails of others, and that’s not okay.
I agree, and in pugs I never post recount when I’m dps unless asked to… that would come across as arrogant bastard jerkface, and rightfully so. (It would be a jerk move, and I AM an arrogant bastard…. mmm ever try that ale – it’s marvy)
Anyway….
A healer posting recount… well, still usually not cool so I get their ire, but seriously… wtf?
Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade my friend.
I rarely PuG for the very reasons here. Rogues, in particular, seem to believe it’s their job to pull off of me as fast as they can. And if I were that tank and my taunts [multiple] were on CD because dps was ripping aggro and my healer died, the dps would get HECK for it. I have been known to let people die who played the “pull threat from tank” game enough. When I stop taunting off of them and they wracked up some nice repair bills, it got the message across and they generally stop pulling threat on purpose [In this case I give the 'don't heal X if they pull threat' heads up in whispers to my healer so they don't panic]. I had a rogue one time with me who died almost every pull one instance because she’d either charge in first or spike her CDs and high threat attacks immediately… ugh.
@ Firespirit – as a tank I DON’T partake in fish feasts myself. I carry my own buff food around – frankly I do that on all my toons. So, eh, maybe the tank was smart enough to have their own, though from your story, I’m somewhat doubtful.
Tam…i think you actually have too much compassion. And for the life of me i cant understand why some pugs fucktard’s opinion of you should matter. Stupid people are stupid and therefore think stupid things. Dont let it bother you.
You did nothing wrong, in fact you’re way too nice. When i run Heroic Pugs, the first thing i say is (and i actually have a macro for it): “If we wipe, everybody release and run back. If a dps stand in shit that hurt or pull aggro from the tank they dont get heal. If anybody has a problem with those 2 rules, tell me now so i can leave the group. Thanks”
This way, everyone knows what to expect from me before the run start and it usualy put an end to the QQ right away and if not then i dont have a problem leave the group in the middle of the pug because they knew what to expect.
I cant remember having a bad pug in the last 4 months (except for Ony 25…but that fight is a lost cause in PuG). Either that little macro works very well or i’m just amazingly lucky with my pugs.
Too compassionate, oh dear. Sounds like one of those things you say in job interviews when asked what you think your weaknesses are. “I’m just a bit too much of a perfectionist” or “I take on too much sometimes.” Instead of the truth which is that you’re idle and rude
It doesn’t bother me in any “real” sense – I’m not weeping into my pillow at night over it, or anything, or committing to becoming a monk. But I’m often quite interested in where and why things go wrong in PUGs and I’d rather it wasn’t, well, me. Also, what can I say, I’m probably too English – terribly terribly polite, dontcha know
And actually not behaving like a dick in WoW is important to me – making a difference one PUG at a time, and all that. I have this weird idealistic conviction that if I behave well, it’ll somehow be enough to keep things going right.
I think what really threw me about that PUG was the sense of entitlement. People playing badly is omething with which we’re all familiar
But they genuinely though I *owed* them something. And actually I do feel like I’ve made a committment if I join a PUG.
Also since the tank was actually *nice* rather than self-evidently a dickhead like the mage … I found myself in a bit of a moral quandary, in the sense that doing right by me and just flouncing out of there was not doing right by her.
But, yeah, it happens, I blog, I bitch, catharsis, I move on
Ah the typical ganging situation – random comment regarding nova upset mage, random assumption of ressurection by DK upset DK, they see an opportunity to feel like they’re right, Mage jumps in calling you dickish to “test the water” with the tank, tank doesn’t defend you, mage realises tank is on his side, sees opportunity to then have sly dig with you dying from charge knowing its tank whos losing aggro (also making the tank like him more as its technically defending tank) so tank won’t defend you, you protesting you will not be treated badly, tank saw opportunity to use new mage ally to gang you from prior lack of ress+free blame shift onto you regarding dying from phase-shift as Group view is stonger than a Single persons (or atleast its easier to argue).
And there you have it, and about-turn on blame in 2 situations (mage standing in nova + tank not holding aggro) onto Single person, eject person from group = seems like problem solved and they all feel awesome and you feel crap (when in reality the 2 problems are still in the group, they feel like they accomplished something).
*Breathe*
i have a good one too…
so the other day HoL was the H Daily and we got a full group together. we all started out fine and got to the first boss. (yes, you read that right… the very first boss…/facepalm) the mage had already pulled aggro on the mobs and died and the tank was still tanking the mobs at the bottom of that ramp and so when the boss came down and he didn’t taunt, the boss went right for me… in all the glory of cloth armor i was one shot. Lucky for me i gor a battle rez from the druid and came back up, threw a few heals so i would have a moment to cast that mana regen spell (the name of it escapes me) and right as i start i get hit by one of the adds and knocked back. so, by the glory of well timed flash heals alone we made it through that boss (which right in the middle of the mage had run back in, got aggro again and died again).
then we all got up, dusted off the fail and rebuffed. we made our way up the ramp and the tank charged in and 2 mobs came straight to me. dead again.
we did pretty well through the next boss and i thought our fail was over when all of the sudden i get adds in the room after the second boss. and i faded, shielded and died… apparently the tank didnt notice until my big angel of fail came out.
then on the third boss, we pretty much always run down the stairs on disperse so that we are all in the same place and the healer can heal all up if needed. Tank decided to run off to the side, went too far and pulled a group of elementals back with him. he got back on the boss, i got the debuff and in all the maddness and aoe, died. again. we managed to make it through all the adds after that boss and were clear to do Loken. I called out for mana in party chat. the tank charged the boss. so i went into the last boss with under 5k mana, luckily for all my shadowfiend was not on CD and i was able to PoH the fight with no issue.
now for the WORST part. this was a guild run. the tank is one of our main raid tanks. he has 45k hp buffed. /double facepalm.
in other fabulousness, i ran again on my shammy healer in a PUG and only one person died to a whirlwind in the whole run. even though this was chain pulled throughout, nobody did stupid stuff and as a result we had no wipes and outrageous repair bills. it is just sad that i have more luck in PUGs then i do in my own guild. Darn RL friends are the only thing that keeps me from leaving.
nice punchline “it was a guild run”
Tell them to get on Vent so you can bitch them out properly!
“I screwed a group over at the week for being horrible to me.”
“I pointed out that my job didn’t include being badly treated.”
I see no issues whatsoever with your actions. There is nothing wrong with possessing a spine.
Appparently not having one (a spine, that is) is part of the healer’s job these days =P
PuGs turn me back into the bossy little prefect I was at school and as much as it pains me to admit it, it works.
People who stand in bad stuff for ridiculous amounts of time (ridiculous amounts of time is purely a mood based thing btw), don’t get healed. Then whilst we wait for them to corpse run, they told why they didn’t get healed and asked to explain themselves. Its amazing how many people can’t see the red, green, black danger spots and more importantly fail to notice their health dropping.
Tanks get told off for pulling too fast / too slow and not paying attention. Oh and Elune help them if they pull whilst I’m chilling out drinking my honeymint tea.
Everyone runs if we wipe (back in vanilla WoW when I wasn’t such a bitch I was the only nightelf priest in our raid group… guess who got to solo corpse run to BWL….).
The strange thing is, as obnoxious as I at times feel I’m being, people add me to their friends list and keep asking to repeat the experience. Which leads to me to suspect I’m providing some kind of dominatrix service and should really be charging for the privilege.
What a shitty situation and a shitty group. As a healer, I am fully on the side of, “We all wipe, we all run” so I think that the running and the Standing in Bad shouldn’t have even been brought up – it’s common sense.
I’m sorry things when downhill as they did
Tam do you use any mods to heal? Gridstatus Ignore is wonderful in those 25 man PuG VoA’s when you might run Mage or Tank again in the future.
“Oh I am sorry, I couldn’t heal you. I have you marked as someone exceptionally stupid and my heals aren’t capable of handling such a strong case. Perhaps you can seek out professional help or reroll?”
Do take into consideration though that if said tank was fairly new at their spec/gearing up a tank spec they had barely used in the past, it WOULD be a bit difficult to pick up the boss. The transition rate is fairly quick and I know the first time or two I tanked it on heroic Amaneyn took a beating while I flailed around going ‘TAUNT AMG WHERE DID I PUT TAUNT?!’. Of course, Amaneyn is in plate, so that puts him at an unfair advantage over your stylish robes.
That being said, I think you were perfectly justified being a little miffed. If your tank isn’t situationally aware or you have a mage giving the boss hugs for Big Asplody Fun, there isn’t much you can do to help beyond nudging or outright smacking them on the noses with rolled up newspaper.
I think many people are a bit spoilt in heroics these days. Heroics are considered easy so they don’t feel the need to follow any tactics. Which is ofc wrong. I firmly believe that if you stand in pools of poison and don’t even make an attempt to move you deserve to die. And run back afterwards.
I rarely leave groups even if people are behaving badly but there is a limit to what you should have to take as a healer I think.
Thank you I totally don’t feel so bad about my last Gun’Drak experience. Only you know when to call it. If your not having fun is it still a game?
Hehe, in short: no.
Gundrak really does seem to bring out the worst in PUGs. It might be the unacknowledged Occulus
I five-man with a group of friends I can drive to their houses and smack upside the head if things get that badly, but our rule stays the same:
If the DPS dies, it’s their fault. Get out of the whatever, or whatever. Even if you get one shot, it’s your fault. And if you want to be dickish about it, well, if the dickish has to come out, the dickish has to come out. ^_^
I mean, the dps warrior and I have a current tally for the ‘Derull Death Award for the Evening’ named after said warrior. We also have high on the suggestion list the ‘Rez Sprink’ macro. ^_^
That being said, all of this is done in good fun. If we wipe, we wipe. If we succeed and the mage can’t seem to keep her threat-monster abilities to herself, it’s her own fault and her own repair costs when she dies. I can’t help it if all my trinkets and talents proc at once. The Hot Streak will not be denied!
… er, back to the point. Which is, this is why I hate PuGs. PuGs have no sense of humour.
Hm, I’ve seen the healer die on that boss before. Sometimes it was me, sometimes I was the tank. The constant aggro resets are annoying, and if your taunt misses or you just burnt it on an aggro-whoring DPS just as the boss decides that he’d rather have some healer pancake… yeah, annoying. But NEVER the healer’s fault, that’s for sure.
I’ve been lucky in that I can’t remember having encountered such a bad case of entitlement about healing as of late, but in a weird way I can actually see where they are coming from: After all THEY are doing all the work of killing things, you’re just… standing at the back in your sissy robe and all that, helping a little. The least you could do is res everyone, right? RIGHT? /twitch
Btw, I don’t think it’s such a bad thing that you’re trying to see other people’s point of view too (even if they are being jerks and are clearly in the wrong) – it’s a rare quality.
I am absolutely scared to death about my first group run. As of now my other half & I just wait till we’re over levelled and just run through with the two of us. If one of us screws up, oh well.
The thought of me DPS-ing in a new group is just terrifying. I don’t want to screw up and do the innumerable fail/death methods, but I know I will. Probably a lot.
And reading stories like this, (even though wonderfully entertaining to read!) make this fear just that much worse. 8-(
(that said, you were simply being reasonable, and the PUG was, well, “puggish”… *shrug* )
@ Slik
You’re missing a critical point Slik! Tam (and most sane people) only get snippy when people treat you badly. 99% of group nastiness is not caused by performance, it’s cause by people being shitheads.
I’ve done PuG runs with DPS who make tons of mistakes, do terrible DPS or get lost getting to the instance. Doesn’t bother me. But if they jump up and say “I only messed that up because YOU suck and therefore it’s your fault” then I’ll give them grief.
A nice person in a group who makes mistakes is fine (eg. you). A vocal dickhead in the group who makes mistakes is not.
/agreed.
For you SlikRX
http://www.hotsdots.com/2009/10/all-the-colours-of-the-rainbow-dungeon-groups-101/
I couldn’t leave it alone
Well damn me and my bitching… seriously Slik, listen to Cass, she’s dead right. I actually enjoy PUGing, otherwise I wouldn’t do it, and I’d say I have considerably more positive experiences than negative ones. The problem is the negative ones stand out – also if you’ve had a bad PUG, writing about it and having a big group bitch fest is really satisfying. It’s hugely self-indulgent truthfully but it’s a nice way of just putting it behind you and wriging something positive (entertainment?) out of the experience.
I used to be terrified of PUGing too but once I took a deep breath and did one, you very quickly get into the mindset. And actually most WoW players are not arrant dickheads – PUGing can be a really pleasant and social experience. Running instances is a fantastic aspect of the game.
And just from reading your blog, I know you’d be an asset to any PUG.
It’s not DPS standing in death that I mind (I stand in it myself enough), it’s that they *expect* heals, while they’re doing it and them blame the healer if they don’t get them.
I dropped group on some people today in eerily similar circumstances. It was also Gundrak, it was also an aggro-management situation, the tank was also sweet but incompetent, and there was also a dps who thought I was (as you so delightfully phrase it) “Satan’s Arsecrack.”
Fortunately, one of my guildies was there with me, and when I threatened to drop group unless the dps stopped being a jerk, he immediately backed me up. When that dps turned on me and called me a “fucking retard”, he replied “she doesn’t have to take that from you.” And we both dropped group together. Now he’s on /ignore and not vice versa.
Don’t feel bad about it, you’re NOT their bitch.
Gundrak really seems to bring out the worst in people – I all the poison sloshing around, it has psychological as well as physical side-effects and it makes groups crankly. I guess I was just lucky I got snide comments rather than actual abuse – I would certainly never ever stick wtih a group in somebody called me a fucking retard.
In some ways, though, I guess that’s more clearcut – if somebody’s actually openly rude to you, you can get out of there and nobody will think twice about it. Whereas if people are just low-key nasty you dither about, wondering if you’re just being over-sensitive.
Always helps when you’ve got somebody on your side though – well done to you and your guildie. God, it says bad things about the state of healing in Azeroth these days that we have to encourage and support teach other in not getting treated really badly =P
As someone who has played a healing Paladin for 5 years, I couldn’t agree more…
5 years?! I think I’ll be in a padded cell mumbling and drooling about not standing in fire after about five years of this
Lol dickish priest couldn’t heal me while standing infront of nova, I’d hate to see him in Naxx, I bet he couldn’t even heal me through standing in the Heigan fire.
I bet he’d then blame me xDDDD
It’s a good job you’re such good friends with a pally who can solo-heal anything, lol
I agree with the latter comments that pugging is usually fairly decent – which is why we don’t write about them. I remember an era in theatre called “fourth wall” where the “innovators” pretended that they were living their everyday lives and the audience had a peek at it. Instead of being voyeuristic, it was just boring.
My pug last night was an example of just that: A couple guildies, a couple pugs. One pug was dps warrior, and he kept pulling agro. He got one-shot a couple of times. I commented “you keep pulling agro. I can’t heal through that!
” And he replied good-naturedly that he did have that problem. Otherwise the run was uneventful and took 15 minutes. Asleep yet? 
I understand exactly what you mean about people going to trade and yelling about how bad you are. It’s one of my deep rooted fears, too. I value my reputation, and my guild’s reputation, very very much.
But I’m really glad you stuck to your principles. You’ve probably spoken for a great majority of healers, hell, even tanks, with this post. Thank you.
"swinging my WoWcock around like one of those incense-burning thingies they have in churches" -> censer, and we're all right there with you. My recent post PUGtales: Snap Judgements
"swinging my WoWcock around like one of those incense-burning thingies they have in churches" -> censer, and we're all right there with you. My recent post PUGtales: Snap Judgements
"swinging my WoWcock around like one of those incense-burning thingies they have in churches" -> censer, and we're all right there with you. My recent post PUGtales: Snap Judgements
"swinging my WoWcock around like one of those incense-burning thingies they have in churches" -> censer, and we're all right there with you. My recent post PUGtales: Snap Judgements