Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Pug Tanking, Deathknights, and You

I have been in the process of getting my DK Tank raid ready. It is going rather well and I am full of anticipation for 3.0.8 to come out.

About the only way I have of getting my toon raid ready is through the running of pugs...repeatedly.

I have also been reading a lot of blogs about pugging and decided to chime in with my thoughts.

I pug a lot, and thus I get the full spectrum of groups. Usually you can tell before the first boss is down what kind of group it is going to be. If I can tell from the beginning that a pug is destined to fail I bail quickly and have no second thoughts.

The worst groups are the ones that seem to be going smoothly, maybe even down a boss or two before you realize that the group is full of fail. Today I had a couple of these. How a decently geared group can wipe in UK is beyond me. The last boss managed to kill me twice... both times I went upwards of 12 seconds with no heals at all. The Paladin healer claimed "my heals were on global cooldown" Wtf that is supposed to mean, I have no idea.

After we down the boss, the real drama starts. Plate DPS legs drop. "FUCK YEA MY PANTS DROPPED" shouts the other plate wearer. I tell him I have to roll on the pants. I win the roll and all hell breaks loose.

"YOUR A NINJA"
"IF I KNEW YOU WOULD ROLL ON DPS GEAR I WOULDN'T HAVE INVITED YOU!"

to which I respond "If I knew I wasn't allowed to roll on these pants from the beginning, I wouldn't have joined the group, In fact the only thing that drops in this instance I can use is those pants"

The argument rolls over into trade chat and of course people fall in on
on either side of the argument.

Don't get me wrong, I see his point. I tanked the run, then rolled on DPS gear. If it were a guild run or a raid I surely would have passed. But it wasn't. It was a pug heroic.

People have rolled against me for tank gear on pug heroics, and I said not a word. If I am forming the group, I do not include people who would want the same gear as me. If that's not possible? I accept the fact that I may lose a roll. It happens. Get over it.

This guy of course would not get over it. 2 hours later and I am still getting random whispers of congratulations and of ninja hate.

What do you people think? I think its pretty clear where I stand =)

Meanwhile I will be enjoying Staggering Legplates every time I PvP or DPS.



There are good pugs out there. All my gear aside from my shoulders are from pug heroics.
You know the runs where half way through everyone is asking about running more heroics? It seems rare that I am not out dpsing at least one of the "dpsers". When it happens though it is sweeeeeet.

God Loves Good Healers.

Peace.


@ thedoctor

"You stole my fucking cloudsong!"

10 comments:

WTFspaghetti said...

hahaha...

Man, when I read your post, I thought about that guy that was flipping out on vent on youtube that you showed me a year or so ago.

Some people take this game a little too serious. Like you, I have gotten out rolled on healer gear from a dps and I have won dps gear when I was the healer.

That is FUNNY that it went to the extend of the trade chat. Now that is just outrageous.

What guild was the dude in I wonder...

good read

Anonymous said...

Now while it may suck for that other person to lose the roll - it was the RNG that decided who got them. I wouldn't consider it a ninja since you didn't need after all passed or master loot or some other ridiculous thing. You could have lost the roll, but got lucky.

To freak out that much is ridiculous. I mean, if I was in a PuG (but I hate them, so prolly not xD) and some rolled on the gear I was rolling for (especially for off-spec) and it peeved me off, I wouldn't really say anything. I'd just make note and choose not to group with them again. But in general, not a huge deal, imo.

But hey, at least he provided some entertainment for your readers, yes? :P

Anonymous said...

I hate PUGs. As a healer I don´t have problems to get into one but I would rather not run an instance and wait for some guildmates to show up than running a PUG.
There will ALLWAYS be some discussion about loot, even if it´s just the one about sharding things no one needs.

The most terrible thing is not even the fact that someone might be rolling on stuff you need (or vice versa). In like 90% of all the PUGs I had people were b*tching about loot BEFORE the instance even started...

A: If the uber-sword drops I´ll take it.
B: But I can use it too. I´ll roll.
A: No way. I´s mine, I have need, you don´t.
B: It´s an upgrade for me so I WILL roll.
A: (insert random curse) I´m gone...
A just left the group.

There are good PUGs out there but they are few and far between ;).

Anonymous said...

@Arthak

Yeah, that type of scenario is why I steer clear. No reason to stake claim like that. If you both can use it - roll. Let the dice decide. When I said about getting peeved and avoiding group with said person again - I wasn't meaning just because they rolled on the same thing as I. It's if they make a huge deal about it, because that is just... not cool.

Darraxus said...

Lol I picked those up in a guild run last night. Was just running for rep and got a nice upgrade ov er my season 4 pants for DPS.

Anonymous said...

I've gotta say I do somewhat respectfully disagree here. As a tank, would you expect the tank leggings to be yours? I would expect that.

It sucks that you have previously been outrolled on tanking gear. I honestly do expect people to pass on tank gear if I was the tank through that entire run.

This is why I do discuss minor loot rules, etc. pre-instance run. "I would like x-gear. Anyone else rolling on that?" If I don't care that 2 other people also want that item, great. They can either leave or stay. Etc.

The reason I really don't agree with any of it; I don't fight fire with fire. I don't want to be "that guy" who took the dps pants that the dps'er REALLY wanted (for the past 5 runs) when I'm a tank 99% of the time. If he didn't want them, I would gladly roll for "off spec".

I just assume avoid it all together with a short discussion ahead of time - avoiding the "bitching" and merely discussing loot so no unncessary (and tiresome) drama ends up occuring.

The fact that he took it to trade chat is slightly hilarious. I'm sorry were those pants a life or death situation? Get over it! lol

But I dislike drama/arguing in a virtual world. I just assume avoid it.

Anonymous said...

Disclaimer : my practice of the game is drama free .. it's just a game, isn't it ?

You're wrong though. Unless an agreement was dicussed, mainspec roll for the loot. You get to roll for offspec only if there was no taker.

Otherwise, you're a dork. That's it, that's all.

Potts said...

Well I think there are a few things to consider.

First off it is a pug. The reason you pug is to get good enough gear to run with your guild. There are courtesy rules but that is about it. The reason the roll is there is to give everyone an equal opportunity. Everyone should be able to roll on whatever they want regardless of spec.

Second, I think that any plate wearer that is in a group strictly for dps is annoying anyway. I am sure they do their fair share of dps but with all the "LF1M Tank" in the chat it's annoying to go to lfg and seeing 10 Warriors and 10 Death Knights with "dps only" by their name.

Lastly this is the tank we are talking about. Who wants to go in an instance, most likely spend 30g on repairs and be told that can't roll on the only piece they can use. I am not totally familiar with the loot available in this instance but if the dps pants were the only plate loot available in the instance what do they expect? They want you to pay to get 3-4 shards and no loot?

Maybe next time this guy gets a group he should find a druid tank.

Fish said...

A) I have a rule, when I'm tanking, the only other plate wearer allowed is a holy pally, if the healer is not a pally, no one else wears plate. (this is pugs of course)

B) there is NO tanking gear that drops in normal dungeons, so if you didn't roll on DPS gear, you'd practically never be rolling (and the only people I tank for out of the good of my heart is guildies)

I don't see anything wrong with what you did. You did the run, plate dropped, you rolled on it. Its not like you were rolling on leather or daggers or something like that.

Fish said...

Oh yeah, and I bet this guy is prolly one of those "LF2M tank and heals" groups.

All you need is a tank and a healer? Really now?