Tales from the PUG Stone

[endev8003]

My main has 6062 gearscore, and therefore I can claim to be completely unbiased when I say that gearscore sucks big hairy monkey balls. Worst addon ever made.

:jawdrop: I've never seen anyone on our server above 6000. The highest tend to be around 5600.

I've got 4950 now. I can push it to 4971, but it's one of those cases where a lower level item is better than a higher level one.

I am getting my Vestments of Spruce and Fir on Thursday. I still need 6 badges to get it. Also means that I'll need to swap my gloves for slightly worse ones to keep the 4T9 bonus though.

 

[Darksnider05]

My main has 6062 gearscore, and therefore I can claim to be completely unbiased when I say that gearscore sucks big hairy monkey balls. Worst addon ever made.

Probably a war stupid 2H DW.

YOU TOOK MAH BRYNTROLL!!

 

[akun50]

Well, I've made a Titansteel Bonecrusher to be my main hand weapon for my DK, and I'm going to make another for my Priestess, and a Titansteel Shanker for my Rogue. I'll make a good 1-handed sword for my Warlock once one becomes available in Blacksmithing.

I'm starting to dislike having tanks. I had a solid one earlier this morning, and we did Azjol-Nerub fairly easily once the kinks were worked out. We died once because I kept getting webbed early on and the DPS weren't rushing to free me >_O , died again against Hadronox because we were testing a trick the Warlock knew on trying to get rid of the mobs that normally swarm Hadronox, but cleared the rest without any more deaths once we got it to work the second time.

Unfortunately the tank and one of the warlocks had to go after that, so we requed and hoped for the best.

Got a level 70 Frost-specced DK tank after about five minutes of waiting, and good god were they squishy. After damn near every fucking fight, I was out of mana. At 9988 mana, I was OUT, and I'd likely used up Inner Focus and Arcane Torrent during the fight.

Just so you know, we didn't make it to Ingvarr during that run. I don't know what the hell it was, but she kept taking tons of damage and even with Greater Heal doing about 5-6K every time, 2-3 stacked Graces, a Renew AND a Prayer of Mending, she still died at least 5 times; and we wiped twice (thank Blizzard for Shadowfiend or we would've wiped 3 times)

OH FUCK ME! I just noticed what her problem was: HER DEFENSE IS 392! Enemies must've been critting the shit out of her! >_< She has 3 items that give defense bonuses, and everything else is fucking DPS gear!

Just a point of reference for everyone: my PRIESTESS'S defense is 358, and SHE doesn't have 102 bonus points of defense!

 

[Darksnider05]

Meh miss post

 

[endev8003]

Must have leveled by doing dungeons in a dps role. That's about the only way I can think of for a melee class to NOT have max defense or close to max defense. The only other way is to kill them at a range, and thats only possible for a ranged character, preferably with a pet.

Her defense skill level (without points from gear) is the max level for a lvl58 character, which means she has rarely been hit since finishing the DK starter quests.

 

[Kayeich]

Actually, their defense skill is about right for their level, maybe a little low, but still close.

You subtracted 102 defense rating from 392 defense, which is incorrect. Should only subtract 43 defense from 392 defense and then divide by 5, which is about 69.8. Given he's level 70, that means he's fairly near maxed out. Their talents are pretty decent tank-wise (it's a pretty cookie cutter frost 2h tank), and I'm assuming they switched to UK since akun mention Ingvar, so it wasn't like he was low-level for the instance like he might be for AN.

UK -is- tankable by lv 70 DKs, even with dps gear (hell, remember that akun's DK used to tank that stuff in dps gear).

The likely cause of the trouble is that the tank would just run in and not reposition enemies, meaning he had them all around him.

Unless it's changed: Enemies behind tank = Tank can't dodge/parry = Tank getting hit a lot more often.

It's not a big deal if there's only a few of them, but it's very dependant on gear of tank and healer. At level 80, tanks often don't even watch out for mobs being behind them or strafe while in a gauntlet event (generally the correct course of action to set mobs at your side while moving forward, instead of your back).

While levelling though, it really does matter, unless you happen to outlevel the instance because it's a 'green' instance.

 

[Kayeich]

So I got hit with H-HoR for my daily pug to get my frost emblems. We get through Falric okay, with a couple of close calls, and my spell chest doesn't drop, sadly. Tank asks people to please hit priest+merc first before other stuff. On 6th wave, rogue dies. On 7th wave, lock dies. Doesn't look good as we're low on health and 8th wave is about to start. I wipe it and DI the remaining dps (a priest). After reviving with soulstone and rezzing DK and lock and getting everyone to full, I start to drink when the rogue runs in and starts event again, despite all the mana users having basically none.

He just retorts "Divine Plea, idiot"

"I -did-, that doesn't get me to full, asshole, nor the other dps, and nobody's buffed" (I buff everyone but rogue soon as I can, focusing on getting kings on tank)

We proceed to go through it, and somehow I keep everyone alive through most of it despite dps being all over the place despite DK asking repeatedly for focused fire, only warlock dying at the last wave before boss. We actually had two waves where priest died second to last or last and merc was running loose whenever I wasn't using turn evil.

Once we're done, ephemeral snowflake (which I have) drops, and I can't roll disenchant on it because I'm using it. Nobody wants it either, which is lame.

As we're recovering, rogue starts laying on me about my spec and everything despite the dps nearly getting themselves killed (I didn't start playing pally until recently and have a spec from early ulduar, when crit was still very very good, and I like having PoJ for traveling).

I just start to ignore him. Got through the hard part and I don't want to go through another pug to get frost emblems. At the end, the tank doesn't need the defense neck that drops, so I state I'm rolling need for that.

Rogue rolled need on everything and vanishes after winning the defense neck. Wow.

And this is a rogue in ICC-10/25 gear. So much for people raiding knowing what they're doing, there's as good an example of someone who surely bought their way to high level epics.

Edit: Just looked at his armory, hadn't noticed but he also grabbed the ilv 232 dps ring that dropped. Despite, y'know, having an ilv277 and 264 ring.

 

[Belgarion213]

More likely he was just an asshole who needed them then vendored them.

 

[akun50]

I'm pretty glad that I've been running in more and more considerate Warlocks as of late. When one drops a Soul Altar or Soulstones me, I tend to keep a Renew on them after most of the fights so they can Lifetap their mana back.

I also tend to be quick to toss my Power Word Shield on them if they draw aggro.

Though I have to wonder why Imps are so popular. I know they give a health boost, but I ran with two 'locks recently and both had Voidwalkers out when they ported in, then both switched to Imps. Mind you, they didn't swap at the same time, rather they swapped one after the other had. :hmm:

To be honest, I'd figure a Voidwalker or a Felhound would be preferable.

 

[Unknown-common-827]

Imps are becoming more and more popular in instances nowadays for the extra ranged firepower they bring to the table. Now, that doesn't mean having more than one is always best. If possible and having more than one warlock, trying to have one imp and then a voidwalker/felguard seems ideal to me so you get an extra ranged and an extra tank/melee DPS.

 

[Bjorn]

My main has 6062 gearscore, and therefore I can claim to be completely unbiased when I say that gearscore sucks big hairy monkey balls. Worst addon ever made.

Probably a war stupid 2H DW.

YOU TOOK MAH BRYNTROLL!!

lolwut? No, I'm a rogue.

 

[Darksnider05]

Personal pet peeve sorry.

 

[violinmana]

My main has 6062 gearscore, and therefore I can claim to be completely unbiased when I say that gearscore sucks big hairy monkey balls. Worst addon ever made.

Probably a war stupid 2H DW.

YOU TOOK MAH BRYNTROLL!!

lolwut? No, I'm a rogue.

YOU DO IT FROM BEHIND!

 

[endev8003]

Had an interesting experience in HoR today. My healing addon (Vuhdo) kept bugging out and disappearing on me, and reloading the ui didn't fix. I had to heal most of it by clicking on the portraits and using shortcuts. All things considered, it didn't go too badly.

I also learned never to try healing an instance without an addon.

Also did some Naxx10 on last night. Went well until Heigan, where the tank decided to keep him on the platform during the first phase.

 

[Kayeich]

'Cause your tanks don't dance and if they don't dance well they're no friends of mine!

 

[Darksnider05]

That was my favorite fight in Naxx

 

[akun50]

Last night, I had probably the best run through Gnomeregan yet on my Warlock (at least the best where I wasn't healing or running with a 60+ character); we had a Paladin, a Mage, a Druid, a Priest and me as a warlock with a Voidwalker. Only two deaths.

I offer healthstones to everyone, but no one seemed to want one at first.

Then the healer died once during a rather chaotic battle where, for some reason, aggro was all over the place (yes, I'd turned off my Voidwalker's two threat-gathering abilities WELL before that fight), but I'd soulstone'd the healer before said fight, so they were able to get back on their feet instantly.

Everyone wanted a healthstone after that. :snigger: Thankfully, I tend to keep a large stock of soulshards on hand (Frostweave Bags FTW), so it was no trouble to get everyone one.

The tank died near the end, where the Dark Iron Agents and Magic Nullifiers are and we almost wiped, but the druid went bear and between him and my voidwalker, we were able to kill them and rez the paladin.

After that, we kicked the boss' ass with no trouble.

 

[Kayeich]

So annoyed!!! It's the 4th week in a row where pug for ToC-25 falls apart on faction champs. I've yet to even SEE the ikaruga/valkyrie fight or anub fight outside of videos.

Also, I keep losing out on pally healer items that drop of the two bosses I -can- fight to pallies that do less healing than me.

And pug leader always just gives the Trophy of the Crusade randomly or something. Let me ROLL dammit! Let me get -something- out of that crap besides a repair bill!

:headbanger:

Weekly was Jaraxxus too, so no freaking chance of group reforming. It's getting to be very frustrating.

 

[The Eromancer]

Boys and girls do I have a tale to tell ya'll.

Now mind you there's been a LOT of weird ass shit that's happened to me over the coarse of my years playing WoW but I'll start with the semi-most recent. One I'm rather proud of actually. :lol:

Now see about a couple of months ago I and my two real life friends of mine desided that Bloodscalp was no longer the bustling server that it used to be, with all the server transfers that had happened at the time all the GOOD players ALLIANCE SIDE (yes Horde-scum I'm a human Rogue!) had basically skipped town.

We made our way over to Stormreaver (which is awesome btw) and over the next couple weeks carefully got to know the server and their guilds before we extended our hands to see which guilds we could get into. Mind you we were seeking RAIDING GUILDS, we expected them to e picky and it was quite the shock for us to see the program GEAR SCORE play a major role on the server here.

Eventually we found one known as Section Eight, let me tell you these guys were supposedly GOOD, they have the record of WORLD FIRST to take down Festergut in ICC 10man.

When we got in we thought we'd hit jackpot.

Let me tell your however the truth of the matter is rather different. Turns out that was a FLUKE on their part. As it stands right now the Guild has been around since WoW first hit retail, its an old fucking guild with equally old members They've had their drama's before and survived several guild fallouts before... They have all their bank tabs, over 200,000 gold at any given time in the bank open to raiders during guild raids to pay for wipes AND have all their tabs filled with USEFUL and VALUABLE things. They have a private website, the website sends NOTICES to the guildmaster via his cellphone. This is one solid guild that doesn't look to be dying anytime soon.

Then he gets me and my friend in. :sweat:

See my friend and I have a bad habit of taking over guilds, we like to talk and get to know the other guildies, Vent is crucial for us. We like to get personal and get to know you, you likes dislikes, you get it.

For the last 4 server jumps we've been slowly but surely gaining some followers, people we've never met of like mind to follow us when the faction or server finally knows us a little to well to trust us anymore.

12 guilds I have joined with no intention but to raid with them and 12 guild have all died a premature death to be forgotten by the masses. :evil2:

My friend and I easily started to see a trend in the guild we didn't like and immeadiatly set out to correct such flaws because we like to actually advancing in a raid rather than wiping on trash mobs.

There is a druid in Section Eight that is terrible at dps, let me lay it down for you.

She has two specs, one is a tree - she is VERY good at healing I would swear by it.
The other is an equally geared OOMkin for dps.

SHE. SUCKS. AS. DPS.

Imagine this if you will, she's got 6k Gear Score in either spec, comepletely different armors to boot. She's GREEN for ICC 25man

She can only get 4.7k DPS even blowing all her cooldown AND raid buffed for 25man.

I get 3k dps just AUTO ATTACKING

Well she didn't take it too well when after months of playing with her and always POLIGHTLY asking her to just heal I just flat out conned her into coming onto MY vent and got her seperated from everyone and flat out told her -not very nicely- that she SUCKS as dps and should stay heals as far as raiding goes. I also informed her I'd be having words with the guildmaster with HIS performance as well becuase he is THE best geared hunter I've ever seen and he's doing LESS DPS than "I" am!

Not. a. word.

So I think to myself "I finally got through to her!" yaaaaaaa, no :mellow:

Well next day I get on vent and the guildmaster gets me and the other officers into a private channel. :huh.: I Polightly inform the guildmaster that my friend and I would be leaving the guild since the guild wasn't delivering as advertised. Of course he asked me what I was talking about. I tell him, "as a serious raiding guild that wants to progress in ICC" - mind your that is exactly what the GUILDMASTER told I and my friend a few months back.

Well, not the guild has appearantly always been and always WILL BE a laid back social guild.

:huh!: WHAT?!

Ahh and that's when Katina (the fail druid) gets online. :sweat2:

She of course took my telling her how to better play her class in a raid as an insult - and was you could litterally picture the tears running down her face as she told the guildmaster and all the officers how horribly I treated her. :crazy:

<_< Really? Come on I don't fold when that happens!

I digger a deeper grave! :evil3:

So right then and there I tell the guildmaster, Kat, her husband and all the officers exactly what I think each of them should be doing in reguards to their class to IMPROOV themselves during a raid, that the guildmaster was doing shitting for his gear and that NO, I was NOT going to say sorry for being completely honest in my honest opinion of what I thought NEEDED to be said.

I got kicked out of the guild before I finished as you can imagine. :sweat:

On a side note however I made a big enough impression that 9/10th of the guild LEFT the same day, almost all their officers, their best players, half the bank :sweat: if IF they somehow recover from that I'll be impressed.

 

[Darksnider05]

Just did my 1st RotFace kill tonight was fucking fun but I hate that bitch more then any boss ever. I'm sure down the road I'll get over it but right now fuck RotFace and his slime.

On to his Daddy now!

 

[Kayeich]

You didn't like Rotface's slime? Aww...but his daddy has not one, but two slimes!

 

[jdmeyer79]

I've had my share of good and bad pugs, but got one earlier that amazed me with the warrior tank I had. I have a pally that has a mix of ICC/HeroicTotC/25TotC healing gear, get in this PosS pug with 3 rather low geared dps and a tank with a 5600 GS. (And it was tanking gear, I checked.)

Figured we would be in for some long fights, but oh well. First boss, no one but me runs behind the boulder thrown to drop the debuff. DPS dies but we finish it. Scene repeats itself on Ick, dps wouldn't keep moving as much as they needed to but no one died, just heal as fast as I could.

Then came the kicker on the group pulls up the path. First time we wipe, tank complains (to the sub-par dps) to give him more time to build aggro. Second time in, dps waits and all but one mob runs straight to me. When I asked the tank what happened, was informed by him that warriors can't AOE tank, just single target so I had to deal with it.

Granted, I know warrior tanks aren't as good at aoe tanking as some of the others, but to get mobs pulled off of you by a holy light? Thats not even trying. And this is a tank in ICC gear.

Only good thing was, I had an alt on the realm he was from, and actually knew someone in his guild. Popped over to that realm and wispered my friend, turns out he's their number 4 tank and hardly ever actually tanks, they just feed him their extra gear.

So, its pretty much a repeat of the story, just because a toon has good gear, doesn't mean the toon is good at it.

 

[endev8003]

Last night I got in a group with our server's dumbest tank.

We got in HoS. It was ok at first, with some minor confusion and me getting close to pulling aggro a couple of times on my moonkin.

It went to hell when we got to the cave part with the shardlings. The tank (NE warrior), would just run ahead and pulling mobs, but without hitting or thunderclapping them. And she doesn't stop at a couple of them, she pulls about 30 trash mobs.

Of course when she stops pulling, half of the mobs haven't reached her yet and she was minimal threat on them, so when the healer starts to heal her, necessary with 30 mobs pounding on her, he pulls aggro from the rest that hasn't reached her yet. Same with the rest of us. We had to pull mobs of the healer the whole time.

After the second wipe where she did the exact same thing, she called us noobs and left the group :crazy: . I'm not an expert on tanking, but afaik, when you pull multiple mobs like that you have to generate some threat on them, and you don't pull 30+mobs. Not to mention that warriors aren't great at aoe tanking.

At least we got a pally after that and managed to finish the HC without any problems afterwards. And I managed to get my highest DPS count yet on Sjonnir at 10k dps, which was double than what the hunter managed on that fight. I was quite pleased with myself there.

 

[akun50]

Last night I got in a group with our server's dumbest tank.

We got in HoS. It was ok at first, with some minor confusion and me getting close to pulling aggro a couple of times on my moonkin.

It went to hell when we got to the cave part with the shardlings. The tank (NE warrior), would just run ahead and pulling mobs, but without hitting or thunderclapping them. And she doesn't stop at a couple of them, she pulls about 30 trash mobs.

Of course when she stops pulling, half of the mobs haven't reached her yet and she was minimal threat on them, so when the healer starts to heal her, necessary with 30 mobs pounding on her, he pulls aggro from the rest that hasn't reached her yet. Same with the rest of us. We had to pull mobs of the healer the whole time.

After the second wipe where she did the exact same thing, she called us noobs and left the group :crazy: . I'm not an expert on tanking, but afaik, when you pull multiple mobs like that you have to generate some threat on them, and you don't pull 30+mobs. Not to mention that warriors aren't great at aoe tanking.

At least we got a pally after that and managed to finish the HC without any problems afterwards. And I managed to get my highest DPS count yet on Sjonnir at 10k dps, which was double than what the hunter managed on that fight. I was quite pleased with myself there.

Gotta wonder if the NE Warrior normally plays a Paladin, considering that pull-style seems to be the favorite move of a lot of pallies... though I suppose a DK might also be able to do that.

 

[violinmana]

Last night I got in a group with our server's dumbest tank.

We got in HoS. It was ok at first, with some minor confusion and me getting close to pulling aggro a couple of times on my moonkin.

It went to hell when we got to the cave part with the shardlings. The tank (NE warrior), would just run ahead and pulling mobs, but without hitting or thunderclapping them. And she doesn't stop at a couple of them, she pulls about 30 trash mobs.

Of course when she stops pulling, half of the mobs haven't reached her yet and she was minimal threat on them, so when the healer starts to heal her, necessary with 30 mobs pounding on her, he pulls aggro from the rest that hasn't reached her yet. Same with the rest of us. We had to pull mobs of the healer the whole time.

After the second wipe where she did the exact same thing, she called us noobs and left the group? :crazy: . I'm not an expert on tanking, but afaik, when you pull multiple mobs like that you have to generate some threat on them, and you don't pull 30+mobs. Not to mention that warriors aren't great at aoe tanking.

At least we got a pally after that and managed to finish the HC without any problems afterwards. And I managed to get my highest DPS count yet on Sjonnir at 10k dps, which was double than what the hunter managed on that fight. I was quite pleased with myself there.

Gotta wonder if the NE Warrior normally plays a Paladin, considering that pull-style seems to be the favorite move of a lot of pallies... though I suppose a DK might also be able to do that.

DKs can do that, but it's hard. Very hard.