Tales from the PUG Stone

[violinmana]

~snip~

I do that almost all the time.

Fun story though, the other day, I tanked almost naked, with just enough Defense to be just under 535, because I couldn't find the right gear to make me exactly at 535. (The group waited for literally 3 minutes watching me switch gear around.)

Needless to say, it was one of the most fun runs I've had in a long time.

 

[Kayeich]

More monday night raiding fun!

So our guild leader was going on vacation this week, and scheduled ICC-10 for monday, so he could join in, we were planning for a no HM-mode, so we'd actually down LK this week and we could focus on HMs and achievements instead of getting there late and not finishing up.

Instead, the bastard doesn't even show up. So by 8:30pm, we decide to start our own. As we're forming the group, we decide that hey, we're really mostly interested in just downing the lich king, right?

Well, our main tank had his holy paladin on LK, and the pug he'd done it with had made absolutely no plans to finish. We decided to grab that ID and finish there, even talking with one of the guys from the saved raid, who joined in. We're filling up some pug spots and grabbing some of the people that were already saved, in fact we were SAVING spots for two of them, as they were doing ICC-25.

Instead, when the 9th member joins the raid group, he instead tells us that he's decided to start the raid up again, makes the guys previously saved leave and join his new raid group, then tries to sabotage us/make us leave AFTER WE HAVE GOTTEN SAVED AND HAVE BEEN WAITING IN THE LK'S ROOM WITH LOCK TO SUMMON HIM.

Yeah, fuck that. We corpse camped there when he tried to get us to scram by starting event and zerging his 10 men in. So now they're stuck with 7-manning that if they really want to give that a shot because there's three corpses there.

If (a) they had plans to continue from the start or (B) said something earlier, like BEFORE we zoned in and were expecting just two more of them so we'd be ready to go... we'd totally have stepped back, and started a fresh run.

Really, we all mostly blame our guild leader, but these guys were just assholes about dealing with this. For all their talk about getting us 3-day bans? I am really NOT sympathetic.

 

[endev8003]

Did HoR HC yesterday on my elemental shaman. On the last wave before the second boss the healer dies. I just started casting chain heal on the tank and hoped the jumps took care of anyone else. Luckily the tank was good enough to keep aggro and and it went all well with the boss.

We did wipe on the escape part at the final wall. One of the more experienced guys gave some instructions to the tank on which mobs to hold aggro and the second time we managed to go though quite easily. Overall a fun experience.

 

[Kayeich]

Most awesome of awesome GDKP run. ICC-25, 12/12 kills, with heroic: Marrowgar, Gunship, Rotface, Dreamwalker. Total Pot at end of run? 204,320 gold.

My share of 8,173gold was lowered by 3k, since I also bought myself: Heroic Leggings of Dying Candles

So I came out 5k richer, and with ilv 277 pants -and- lich king kill as opposed to my usual 4/12 or 6/12 runs.

I am -extremely- satisfied. =)

 

[violinmana]

Most awesome of awesome GDKP run. ICC-25, 12/12 kills, with heroic: Marrowgar, Gunship, Rotface, Dreamwalker. Total Pot at end of run? 204,320 gold.

My share of 8,173gold was lowered by 3k, since I also bought myself: Heroic Leggings of Dying Candles

So I came out 5k richer, and with ilv 277 pants -and- lich king kill as opposed to my usual 4/12 or 6/12 runs.

I am -extremely- satisfied. =)

Goddamn, that's awesome.

 

[Kayeich]

Yeah.I'm totally glad I missed Iron Fic for it. Signing up for next week also, as it's a weekly thing being hosted. They have sign-ups, so there's always a chance I won't get to go next week, though I hope I did a good enough job healing that they will certainly want me coming again.

It does bug me a little that a heroic kill doesn't count for a normal kill though. I'm not getting my "Fall of the Lich King (25)" achievement simply because I did Dreamwalker in heroic and have never done her in normal mode. So ridiculous...

 

[The Eromancer]

What server are you on and what group runs this?!

 

[Kayeich]

Ero: US-Mal'ganis, horde side.

It's a pug organized by a priest named Lindt, with sign-ups on the official realm forum. It's not really hosted by any guild, since outside of 2-3 core people, everybody else is selected from the sign-up pool.

 

[endev8003]

Got CoS HC last night on the randoms. Went through quite easy and with 4 minutes to spare for the extra boss. Except for the ADD huntard that started the event for the final boss just as the rest of us began fighting the extra one.

Sad to say, he didn't survive very long :snigger: . Luckily, we managed to down the extra boss and get there before Arthas got his face pummeled into the ground. Also don't think any of us bothered to res the huntard afterwards either.

 

[akun50]

A buddy of mine had his account hacked, so he was running a new lowbie until he got his shit back. He was playing a Dranei Priestess and I opted to play my level 20 Dranei Hunter to help him level.

So, we're doing quests, waiting for a run. First run we get is a surprisingly solid one through Deadmines, with only one death (mine, but that was due to the fact that we somehow aggro'd a massive group on the ship). Despite the hectic pacing, we cleared it fairly well, but before anyone could mention a second run, the tank and one of the DPS ditches.

Second run we got was for Shadowfang Keep.

First group we get is two mages, me, buddy with the priestess and a paladin who is tank.

One of the mages ditches, and a kinda whiny warlock pops up in his place. Warlock wasn't too bad, but he seemed rather childish. Almost made me think he was playing deliberately dumb for sympathy or lulz.

Tank says nothing the entire time and ditches us the instant he dings, which is just before the top of the first flight of stairs. We discuss trying to go on without a tank, but we opt not to because the lock was only level 18 and I wasn't confident that my pet would be that good.

Ten or so minutes pass before we managed to get yet another tank.

Second tank we get is a warrior and though he was seemingly suicidal in his aggro-gathering, we proceeded fairly well until we'd cleared the courtyard. Then remaining mage commented that he didn't have a very good spec for tanking.

At first, warrior shrugs it off. It was the first one he'd run. No big deal, he was pretty competent. Then he starts getting pissed off when the mage made a suggestion for tank spec and screamed "Since you guys know so much about tanking, I'll just leave you to it." and ditched us after aggroing a number of monsters.

We manage to finish off the monsters and sat around for fifteen minutes before we called it a night.

I think what disappointed me most about the two fail!tanks was that we'd had such a good run to start the night. That and the fail!tanks' complete idiocy. :no:

 

[mgsaintz]

I don't think you can really blame the warrior tank being a bit miffed, at those levels you don't have duel specs to switch between roles. And it was too early to really create a defined role so he probably have something of a hybrid build to help in questing and probably tank every once in a while in a dungeon.

 

[Kayeich]

I'll agree with mgsaintz.

Actually, you can dps-tank all the way through a fair chunk of Northrend, as long as you're realistic of how much you can pull, your healer's mana pool, and that you do use defense gear when it's available (by Northrend, you have no excuse not to have a tank set. It's a joke to build a tank set before you even set foot in there, even if it takes buying a cobalt set from the AH).

The lower the level of the instance though, the more ridiculously easy it is to tank in a dps spec.

 

[akun50]

To be honest, I didn't give a crap about the warrior's spec. He ran well.

But his hissy fit over the spec comment made him a fail.

Seriously, if someone comments on my spec, I'd just shrug and say "I'm running off Elitist Jerks and it's done well for me."

Grabbing a mob and then rage-quitting is fail regardless of the reasons.

The fact that we decimated the mob without trying indicates that we probably should've tried going on without a tank, but I was too frustrated with the tanks.

 

[Kayeich]

Oh, yeah, heh.

Always sucks when people pull crap then hearth/disconnect/leave group in attempt to wipe everyone else.

 

[endev8003]

Not going to say much about it either. I agree with mgsaintz that the tank had a right to be angry about being harassed, if he was managing the instance. But quitting on a pull wasn't the right thing to do. I would have put the mage on ignore and continued on.

Had a funny Ahune run this week. We started without any problems, but as soon as the nuke phase started, one of the dps left, and the leader requeued us in the middle of the fight. Just after we down him a new dps joins and goes "huh..." while looking at the dead boss.

 

[Kayeich]

So my guild failed me (again), and it was just me and the tree on tonight, so we pugged Ruby Sanctum, even though we were -supposed- to have a guild raid.

It was actually kinda fun and challenging as we figured things out, and while we had some deaths along the way, no wipes.

Until Halion's phase 2. Oh dear god, that laser is a nightmare. I don't know if it was the tank's positioning or general raid awareness, but people kept dying so, so much. Even I ate a faceful of lasers on occasion (I do pride myself in dying to them less than all but one other person in that pug at least).

And somehow, someone always let the mark go off in the middle of the lasers, pulling people into them. BOOM.

We couldn't even consistently make it to phase 3. It was annoying. :headbanger:

I do think it's a fun encounter, but uuuuuugggggghhh at my repair bill. We spent about 4 hours wiping on Halion.

 

[violinmana]

So my guild failed me (again), and it was just me and the tree on tonight, so we pugged Ruby Sanctum, even though we were -supposed- to have a guild raid.

It was actually kinda fun and challenging as we figured things out, and while we had some deaths along the way, no wipes.

Until Halion's phase 2. Oh dear god, that laser is a nightmare. I don't know if it was the tank's positioning or general raid awareness, but people kept dying so, so much. Even I ate a faceful of lasers on occasion (I do pride myself in dying to them less than all but one other person in that pug at least).

And somehow, someone always let the mark go off in the middle of the lasers, pulling people into them. BOOM.

We couldn't even consistently make it to phase 3. It was annoying. :headbanger:

I do think it's a fun encounter, but uuuuuugggggghhh at my repair bill. We spent about 4 hours wiping on Halion.

I had a PUG like that yesterday. Phase two is utter /hell/ on Halion. We got Phase 1 down pat, but my god, the laser? Utterly fucking insane. The thing basically facerolled all of us, the tank couldn't get the rotation timing down right, and everyone loved getting pulled into that fucking LAZER OF DOOM.

I'm just starting to think that the best way to tank Halion is to pull him out of the center and kite him around the edges of the damned circle. Seriously.

 

[violinmana]

On a side note, 10-man Lich King drops a staff named Halion.

Can anyone say Blizz Lore Fail?

 

[Kayeich]

I'm just starting to think that the best way to tank Halion is to pull him out of the center and kite him around the edges of the damned circle. Seriously.

That's actually a problem, as constant moving hurts tanks' threat generation. Recall that sort of issue used to happen with Malygos early on because tanks had to keep repositioning him for the sparks. We did briefly try that too, and the bear couldn't keep up, even with misdirects/tricks.

But yeah, while the raid was honestly kinda fun for the most part, the lasers are extremely annoying with pugs, and they ruined the feeling of fun after a while (admittedly, so did some of the more elitist pug members, bitching out others, even when they also screwed up sometimes).

I was also bothered that I was the only person that could be bothered to get rid of marks and was bitched out when I didn't. Gee, that mark looks like it can be treated as either a magic and curse effect, so can be cleansed or decursed.

But it's obviously my fault when the raid has: a mage, two druids, a priest, and a tankadin.

One of the druid -was- a tank, but he could have decursed himself during the fire phase when he wasn't tanking, the tankadin ditto during the shadow phase where the bear was tanking. Only the mage bothered decursing himself, though he never did it for anybody else. I also often complained that I -couldn't- target some people because they'd go out of range. But no... I'm the only one on cleanse duty.

You know what the worst part is?

The raid leader was asking on invite, not for GS, but for achievements showing you can do raid coordination, listen to instructions, and just not fail. We had people with stuff like Death's Demise title, herald of the titans, yogg+0 kills, firefighter, etc.

And we wiped over 30 times.

Can anyone say Blizz Lore Fail?

I stopped taking lore seriously since they decided trolls hadn't recaptured Echo Isles back in early level 10ish, despite having stuff like oh, the death knight trolls' quest talking about that (there are some others, but that one's the most recent quest they added that gave that impression).

'Oh, that never happened, you actually only ever killed some coconuts.'

Wow, Blizz, that's your explanation? As far as retcons go, that was absolutely the weakest thing they've ever pulled out of their asses.

 

[violinmana]

I think I might be able to pull the kiting Halion around though, DK tanks have utterly insane threat output.

I'm using Shadow's Edge with 2 Str gems and Rune of the Fallen Crusader as my tanking weapon. Yeah, the same weapon I use for dps. >_>

I find that the healing and +Str of that weapon gives me much, much more threat than +2% stam and +25 Def. My Def is so far above the cap that if I used Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle, it would be 591, and Stam is pretty much negligible after you hit 41k health unbuffed.

Horray for 12k Rune Strike crits that generate 30k+ threat. Horray for 5k Icy Touch crits that generate 35k+ threat.

 

[Kayeich]

There's something horribly retarded about the fact that I continously fail to down shit in 10-man, and get it done in 25-man, but damned if I care. Woo, 25-man Halion is my bitch!

...Even if it did take 6 wipes.

 

[akun50]

Had some smooth instance runs the other day.

Okay, so my buddy finally got all his gear back, so we decide to run his highest horde character, a Tauren Druid, with my 80 Blood Elven Death Knight.

I'm running tank, looking for a replacement two-hander for my DK (so I can respec and reallocate the points that went into Threat of Thassarian), he heals.

We get Heroic Halls of Lightning. Run was fairly smooth, with only two deaths. I don't know exactly what happened either time, but only one person died each time, so no party wipes, which is fairly good, considering the General and Ionar can be a pain if certain people don't know how to handle them. One of the deaths was at the top of the stairs right before Volkhan, and the other was in the second to last area before Loken himself.

Right before we fight Loken, I use Army of Dead, and basically chase after him as he walks around, spins wildly, and is at 1/3rd health before the last of my ghouls finally drop, after which, he drops like a punk.

I think it might've been off Loken, but I picked up this axe. which is very nice compared to my two one-handed weapons. I just have to remember to equip the damn thing when I log on. ;;^_^;;



After that, my buddy and I decide to swap to our gnome Warrior/dwarven Priestess combo and we wound up in Maraudon.

Neither one of us had run Maraudon in a LONG time. I'd run it ONCE before, on an alt, and I'd been soloing at the time. He hadn't run it in over six months on ANY of his alts.

Those runs were smooth like BUTTER. No deaths. I only needed to stop for mana three times the first run, six times the second (we had an overly excited huntard who kept attacking enemies before our tank could get aggro), and four times the third run (BTW, seriously, Blizz, please make more instances for each of the level ranges). I only ran completely out of mana TWICE.

The only thing that frustrated me was that every time, the group wound up splitting up the instant we'd "cleared the instance" by Blizzard's standard. We took down only ONE boss, and Maraudon had more, but everyone kept ditching after the first boss went down because that's when the bag of goodies dropped.

Made for incredibly short runs, yes, but aside from my buddy's tanking and my healing skills even when things got a tad chaotic, they were almost uninteresting because we only faced one boss.

Apparently, Lord Vyletongue was the end for our particular Maraudon runs.

 

[akun50]

I finally got back on my Blood Elven Priestess and got her to level 75 (and about half way to 76).

I had about 7 runs yesterday and for the most part, they were smooth. Ironically, the one rough spot was Nexus. Both of the Old Kingdom instances and Utgarde Keep were easy comparatively.

Nexus...

I don't know if it was the fact that I was the highest level character by at least 2 levels or if we just had a few sloppy players, but twice during that run, we scraped by our teeth.

Grand Magus Telestra... once she split into three, she polymorphed me THREE TIMES IN A ROW. >_<

We managed to kill her, but our tank and our warlock fell, our rogue was at 14 health, I had about 800, and our mage had the highest health at a whopping 2500. And I was COMPLTELY out of mana. I was meleeing her because I'd wound up in front of her after her last Gravity Well and I didn't want to waste time trying to run back to try wanding her.

Next few bosses weren't NEARLY as tough, but at least twice, I was low or out of mana AND cooldowns by the time the boss dropped.

Last boss was a nightmare and again, we scraped by. This time, the rogue dropped as well. ME AND THE MAGE finished the fight, I was at 400 mana, less than half health, and it was a combo of Frostbolt from the mage and a Devouring Plague from me that finished the boss.

 

[Juubi]

Nexus is simple if you got good teammates. The mage boss doesn't polymorph me often and I'm a Death Knight, so maybe it's because of my high damage output. The energy creature boss was actually toughest. The last two bosses were easiest.

Comparatively, I ran Utgarde Keep once and the tank left after being rezzed at the end of the Keleseth fight. Then we survived a while with a warlock's Voidwalker as a tank. Then we wiped because we pulled half a room and everyone left.

 

[akun50]

:blink:

Holy shit, that was probably the second easiest time I've ever had running through Nexus.

It was a fucking JOKE with a solid team. Hell, for shits and giggles, I decided to see how long and how well I could do just running around the last two bosses and spam Holy Nova.

Turns out, most of the fight and pretty well, only needed to stop to cast Greater Heal twice during the dragon fight.

Seriously.

And I didn't run out of mana.

I was low, about a third left, but hardly out. And I hadn't used any of my cooldowns.


Violet Hold... that place is becoming the fucking BANE of my existance. Twice now, I've run it and ended up dead.

The first time, it was my modem's fault. We'd been doing well up until Portal #13 when my modem decided that it was a good time to shit itself.

I manage to log back on to find that I've been booted and am dead. No shocker there. <_<

Second time, we got up to portal 14 with no issues, but then Portal 15 started before 14's enemies were down, all four of the casters aggroed to me and killed me before I could get a second Power Word Shield up (I'd had one up while I was casting, but they tore it down AND killed me ).

Everyone else had been at full health, so I figured, "I'll just run back in. We're close enough." I run back in just as the tank drops, and again, casters fucking aggro to me, I die. Rinse, repeat THREE MORE TIMES before through brute force and luck, we managed to get the boss, I'm casting shields on everyone but the tank, tossing greater heals, renews, prayers of healing and prayers of mending left right and center, tossing every cooldown I've got, and I end up chugging a Super Mana potion before all is said and done, EVERYTHING goes to healing.

And then we win. With everyone at half health and having just bumrushed the fucking instance's ending.

And I'm left going :jawdrop:

Then I started cheering because goddamn it felt nice to beat that fucking instance after the nightmare we'd just gone through.

We went up to do four more instances and ALL OF THEM were piss easy after Violet Hold. ALL OF THEM.