A Hunter's Story

Ok, Maybe it’s me, but all the jerk DK Tanks have become jerk healers. And idiot ones. I mean, seems the remaining DK Tanks are a lot nicer than they used to be. And the healers all seem to be on xyz alt, well geared, and have no clue how to heal. Like the Tree that complained they didn’t have enough time to get any heals off on the tank. Seems strange when you have an ICC geared healer and a Defense Capped tank w/ 32k health. But when you realize the healer was using Healing Touch only, and never even tried any instant casts like Rejuv… Yeah, no wonder the tank was dieing before the healer could heal them!

Another one that was annoying, was the one that got into the group and 5 seconds later said “Tank’s not geared enough. Bye”. So being defense capped and geared well enough for Ulduar isn’t good enough for a heroic anymore, eh? Oh well, we moved on at a pretty quick clip anyway with the new healer, so I’m glad the stupid healer wasted their dungeon timer CD. I’d be willing to bet we would have gone slower with them healing anyway!

But in short, these things keep happening. I guess it’s just the natural rotation of what we need most and what people gravitate to without learning the necessary skills. I mean, I play a healer, tank & 2 dps. But I spent the time learning how to play them so I do it decently or better. Or more importantly, I’m nice. I say hello. I say thank you. And if someone says “mana”, I wait for them, not run off like mad. And if I’m a healer and feel like the group could go faster because I’m barely dipping below 98% mana… I help DPS. I don’t sit there and yell “go faster, go faster, go faster” every fight. Even when the pally tank and all dps are out of mana… Yeah. Quite simply – “Xanther says Play Nice!” And I can’t wait for Cata so our friends all come back & play w/ us, lol.

Yay, finally picked up the last two pieces for my T-10 last night. The hands & chest. So cool! Actually, it was a little uncool. I’ve been saving up the badges to get the 2 pieces at the same time, because one piece would have broken my 2-piece set bonus for the T-9 which would’ve actually lowered my DPS. So I saved up, though I was going to get it WED, but my ICC pug stopped before Fester. Yeah, tank had to go, so raid broke up. /sad. But I still thought I was fine anyway and had enough. Until I remembered the chest was 95 badges, not 90… So I was 2 short. Ugh. But after waiting a long time anyway, and considering it was rather late at night… It was fine. I just got the gems & enchants all ready so that yesterday after logging in & downing Ahune, I could buy & equip right away. Had some fun w/ the gear too! Always fun to see a noticeable rise in your DPS!

Except there was that messed up PuG for VoA-10 first. I got in a group, and after a little bit we’re sitting there w/ 8 people. Just need 2 people. Well, 2 healers since we had none. Sitting, waiting…. waiting…. Finally, I figure what the heck, and volunteer to switch to my healer. So I do. Big mistake. Apparently they really could have used at least 1 smart DPS more than they needed a healer… You see, we couldn’t take down Toravon. Why? Because DPS was mostly ranged, and was all stacking together on top of the other healer and I. And then dragging the orbs into everyone. And taking forever to kill them. Now me, I see this as a ‘DPS not knowing the mechanics’ problem. Most of the raid saw it as a ‘Healers not healing’ problem. Well let’s put it this way: every time an orb came out, the entire raid dropped to 10% health. I was looking at the stats from the raid and comparing it to successful runs. Successful wind up taking somewhere around 350k dmg from orbs. In this wipe run, we took 500k. From the orbs alone. Seriously, who can heal through that? Take 10 people, give them an average of 25k health (some less, some more, obviously. Tanks at 40k, clothies at 19k) and that gives you a total health pool of 250k health. Insert orbs, all drop down to 10%, so essentially the group takes a collective 225k health dive. Now, if you paused all damage and let the healers catch up, that would take (at roughly 8k effective HPS combined) 28 seconds to get everyone back to full. Almost half a minute. And that’s if they don’t take any extra damage, which of course they are!

So normally I’m fine with wipes. I mean, yes, I don’t want to wipe, but if a group wipes, it usually means people learn from it and improve for the next time. And this would have been a great chance to teach everyone there how to kite the orbs away from the group, or kill them before they get to the group. But instead they just said “why aren’t we getting healed” and other similar comments, and just ditched the group. That’s why it was a pain. So I logged back on Gal, popped into LFR again, and wound up in a group with about 1/2 the same folks that were in the previous group. But now as a DPS I was able to pull the orbs away from the group, taking minimal damage myself. And we downed him pretty darn quick. In fact, had roughly the same total DPS, roughly the same total HPS, but far less Orb damage. Kinda funny that when DPS do their job on fights like this one… they’re so much easier!

Woohoo! I have a new pet! Was doing the blood fishing quest down in Borean Tundra and Lady X suggested I fly up and check for Loque. So I’m flying around, NPC Scan goes off. I figure it’s just some hunter with a tamed Loque out, and then I realize it’s Aotona. So I look around, figuring no one really has him as a pet, and sure enough, just northeast of the Frenzyheart area, he’s flying around. I quickly tag him, to make sure he’s mine, and start taming. Of course an extra mob agros, so I had to kill it first, and Aotona did his nice little wing buffet thingy to make me go flying, but after losing a few extra heartbeats, he was mine!!! Now named Vree, he’s probably the prettiest pet I have. Now I just need a Hyacinth Macaw to tag along with us, lol.

So long post today, since I’m on vaca this week and Lady X is afk. Anyway, a good addon to get if you use the auction house is Postal. I won’t tell you what it is I’ve been making & selling so you won’t fight me for it and bring the price down, but the short version is that I sell 40+ of this item each day pretty much. So previously I had to open each piece, collect the gold, open the next, etc. But at the suggestion of a guildie, I downloaded it and it is SO nice! Just click “open all” and it collects all your gold for you. Quick couple tweaks to the settings, and you can make it only open the AH mail, leave X number of slots open in your bags, and so on. Postal. Good addon.

So final part I was going to talk about, are jerks. Two guys actually, that were such jerks I’ll even call them out by name. First is Bodie-Antonidas. I was helping a guildie out by running a low level dungeon with her. Took my 80 tank so we’d get in the dungeon quick, and could fly through it pretty fast. Of course, at the same time I was also on my main & running Lady X’s main to grind some rep back with Booty Bay & the other 3. But it’s a lowbie dungeon, so pretty easy to have a divided attention. When we get to the end and down Anub’Arak, and he says “Scrub-ass pally that just had a 74 out damage you”.

Now yes, that was true on that one fight. Considering it’s mana intensive for the tank, I’m a TANK and don’t do much dmg, and I was tri-boxing all at the same time, yes, a 74 out damaged me. I averaged 931 dps and he had 1120. Wow, big gap. Of course, he didn’t bother to check overall damage where he would have seen I did 38.3% of the damage in the dungeon and he only did 29.7%. But tbh, that’s hardly the point. What a jerk! Why would you say something like that? An 80 just ran you through a dungeon and made it easy for you. Just helped you out. Even if you are an idiot and think you did more dmg than him/her, why would you say something like that and ditch immediately after? The guy was being nice and running you through – be nice back! UGH. I hate jerks.

So jerk #2, Maglin-Garrosh. Running HoR, and notice the tank is taking forever, just standing at the entrance. After a few minutes, we ask if the tank is ready, and she replies “Sorry, my guildies and I were busy laughing at the shammy” and then starts the dungeon. We’re all like what? So my wife says “At me?” since she was on her shaman. Tank says yes, “Your gear and weapons are hilariously bad”.

Isn’t that just plain mean? I mean, seriously, if that’s true do you really have to say it? Jerk! Especially considering that she’s wearing all 200+ epic gear. Like, has 232, and 245 gear even. So she’s not poorly geared, that tank was just being a jerk. How mean is that?!?! I mean, if someone’s gear was really bad, then talk to them on the side or something. Don’t just be like “my guildies and I were too busy laughing at you to start the dungeon”. Especially when it’s not true! UGH, I hate jerks. So we figured rather than run with the jerks, I said “Well, that comment just lost you your healer too” and we both dropped group. Not our fault that the tank waited 5 minutes to start the dungeon, and then after starting it proceeded to insult one of the DPS, who happens to be in the same guild as the healer. I wonder how many waves they got through before wiping, but however many it was, I hope Bliz gave them double repair costs just for being jerks.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the very helpful tip I wanted to get up on the web! If you are thinking about the insane title, or the bloodsail one, when you want to get back rep with Ratchet, Booty Bay, etc… Yeah, go to the place just south of Ratchet. Kill the Southsea guys. If you have some way of not dieing when jumping off cliffs, it’s fast, easy, and awesome. Start in the south next to Northwatch Hold. If you run north along the coast, then up the hill, then south, then jump off the cliff and start over, it’ll go real fast. The respawn timers are short and you’ll be able to go nonstop, or until you get hungry/thirsty and need to make a trip to the kitchen, lol. It does not hurt your Bloodsail rep, so the only downside is that it’s boring. But then, so is every grind, but it’s a lot better than the Evacuee’s in Grizzly Hills. Zomg, we killed those for ages, but their spawn timer, while quick, is not very quick. Plus that little ship gets real boring real quick. Great way to level Vree though! Lol. Got him up to 80 by grinding rep there. But seriously – the Barrens is really the place to go. I think there’s another place or two similar, but those level 13 mobs go down real quick, lol.

Ok, back to gaming and… grinding… Oh well, better than work! Lol.

You know that bug where you could let the LK go first in HoR, and then follow behind him? Yeah, fixed now. He’ll just do his massive AoE spell and wipe the group. I know from experience, lol (thank you patch day…). But that was only part of what I was going to write about today… Had some real winners last night…

So I figured I’d gear up my healer a little more, so I’m doing randoms with him. Wind up in The Nexus and think ‘cool, 7 badges’. Right after I zone in, I see the tank only has 1700 health. A little confused how he’d be starting the dungeon that way, but w/e. I figure I’ll be nice and just heal him up real quick before buffing and all. So I start healing him, and get him up to 67% before he goes out of LoS. A little annoying, but hey, it happens. He might not have been paying attention to see I was healing him, or he just got a little too far. But I was wrong – he was already pulling the first trash.

Really? I mean come on. He wasn’t even starting the dungeon at full health. Plus, I was in the middle of healing him back up. I mean, it worked out fine because I was able to heal him back up the rest of the way, and buff, but still. That’s just plain rude in my mind. He then proceeded to chain-pull the entire dungeon. As in – before the group we’re working on is down, pulling the next group. And he did the infamous idiot tank move on Commander Kolurg where he tried tanking him in the middle where he starts. You know, he does have a fear. And if you tank him there, he WILL fear someone into the next group. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that NOT happen unless you tank him away from that spot, over in a safe corner. Yet we got through it anyway. And of course before CDR Kolurg’s body hits the ground, he’s already pulling the next group. So we get through Telestra and then through Anomalus, then he drops party.

Wtf?

So he’s a jerk for starting before any form of a buff is cast or being at full health, he chain pulls the whole thing, does a crappy job of tanking bosses, downs 3 of them and then just leaves party? Jerk! I mean seriously, at the speed we were going, it only would’ve been another few minutes and we’d have finished the dungeon. Even a ‘oh crap, gtg’ would have been nicer, even if it was a lie since he apparently wanted exactly 3 badges as quick as he could get. Geeze I hate jerks like that.

So, next dungeon, it’s on to HoR. And actually, the dungeon after was HoR too, and it was the pretty much same exact situation, so I’ll just explain them together, lol. In short, first part fine, LK not fine. I got some good practice with my brez. I don’t like locks that try to tank that first part (he did much better when I asked that he let the tank do the tanking). I don’t like tanks that tell hunters to MD them or tell druids to give GotW. I mean seriously, people in general know to do it, so give them the benefit of the doubt first off – let them prove you wrong. And if you don’t have a buff, and the person who can give it has no mana and is sitting down drinking… Be patient!!! Maybe they just healed everyone up after a wipe, have no mana, were drinking, and were waiting until the whole group was in range before casting a group buff. Oh, and if you enter a dungeon and it’s halfway done, and your first comment is about your shock about how a druid healed the first part? You can go die in hell. If you really think that a class can’t do something, and they just proved they did? CONGRATULATE them. Don’t make a condescending comment that makes them want to drop party and let you find a new player. Also, if the group wipes because the healer can’t heal themselves while half of the mobs are attacking them… It’s probably the tank’s fault. Just dumping group after the first wipe (well, second. first one was when we discovered the LK was fixed) when we wiped because half the mobs were hitting the healer… Yeah, kinda rude. Oh, and by the way, for any tanks out there reading this. In HoR, please have everyone kill the witch doctors first – they AoE damage the group real bad. And aside from the obvious ‘keep threat on the mobs’, please turn the dang Abominations. They puke in front of them, doing 10k dmg, and the rest of the group is not geared to mitigate that. And I still can’t believe I got in HoR twice, and that it was back to back, and that the dungeon went the exact same way both times with different people. In fact, in both groups the dps was fine. They were all nice, and willing to give it a couple tries. It was just the tanks that were jerks who were incapable of tanking the LK run.

So then it was on to OK. They wanted to do the achievement on Nadox. I’ve done it before, and I really don’t care to do it again – particularly with a PuG. But there were 3 guys from the same guild in the group so I figure I’ll be nice and tell them how to do it and see if we can get it. Had to explain it, because their first idea was “let’s just not kill the adds and take him down”. Yeah, he goes immune – only way to do it is with 2 tanks, and to separate him and the mobs so he doesn’t get the immune debuff. But they listened, so I figured I’d at least give it a shot or two. First try? Mobs hitting me = I can’t heal myself or the tanks well. No prob, now they understand. Well, they understood but still weren’t able to do it. Oy. Oh well, at least they figured we should just go on, so we killed him the normal way. And then wiped twice on trash. Ugh.

Seriously, what was up with my luck last night? I was looking for a few quick dungeons for some fast badges. Wound up with jerks and bad groups. I just wanted some badges! Please people. Play nice. It’s ok if we wipe. It’s ok to wait an extra second or two and start at full health. It’s ok to say “hi!” at the beginning. Most people (I hope) pop into LFG hoping for nice people, so be nice – it’s ok to not be a jerk. And it’s also ok if I get even a smidgen of good luck next time I want to do a couple quick easy dungeons!

Running VH on my tank, since it was the random. Pretty much right as I zone in, someone hits readycheck, and this stupid hunter runs straight forward. I hit no on the readycheck, and before I even realize what happened, the hunter is now dead at the bottom of the stairs.

Really? Ok, I could see that happening if you accidentally hit auto-run then went afk… Well, fine, I’ll pretend you could easily do it on accident. That’s fine, just release and run back in, right?

No.

He was waiting for us to rez him. So we figure we’ll be nice and try to rez him anyway. But of course we can’t because the mobs keep coming and putting us into combat. Thus we tell him to release.

No response.

Ask him again to release.

No response.

We give him a minute or two and finally decide he’s afk or being just plain rude and annoying. So we try to kick him from the group, but of course we can’t. Then we decide we’ll just start the instance and boot him as soon as possible. So we start the instance, mobs despawn, we head up and start rezzing him, just in case, and he releases in the middle of our casting. Not only that, but when he gets back in, he says “Jerks.”

Wtf?

So we’re goin through, waiting for the kick timer to be up, and realize he’s just standing there. As in, not doing any DPS at all! Thus as soon as we could, we dumped him from the group and got someone new in. Rest of the instance was nice, smooth, and fast. In fact, we even had a nice, if ignorant, DK!

We’re nearing in on Cyanigosa, and he asks if I want AotD on her. This is why I said nice but ignorant. Cyanigosa is a dragon. Cleave and Tail Swipe. AotD in 5-mans taunt bosses. As in, wherever the ghouls are – she’ll turn and face. There is absolutely nothing the tank can do to keep agro during AotD. Thus, on a dragon in a 5 man, AotD should be banned from use. Unless of course you want to cleave and tail swipe the whole group. I swear, if there was one spell I wish Bliz would do away with, it’d be AotD. Or at least change it so they don’t grab agro. It’s the DK version of huntard pet control – or lack there of.

But anyway, the DK was nice and asked first. So I said no thanks, and explained that AotD would pull agro and tail/cleave the group.

So at this point, you may be wondering why I didn’t whip out a Huntard achievement for the hunter. Simple – it was a noob/newb mistake and an idiot/jerk response to their own mistake. Had nothing to do with him being a hunter. If that player were a mage, lock, dk, etc. they would have made the same mistake – class had nothing to do with it. Sorry, just had to explain that to help people understand what a huntard is, versus just an idiot. And anyway, if he’d have just released and run back from the start, it would’ve been fine. A simple “oops” and we’d have been good to go. Or asking politely for a rez. Or waiting for the rez to finish and accepting it when we did give it. But to sit there in silence, making us wait when we don’t have a clue if he’s afk or not? Jerk. And even after all that, to stand there and not do DPS? Come on. Just play nice!

It’s amazing to me, the spread of people you wind up with in a PuG. For instance, we wind up in HoR on our mains. Went through the usual wait for people to leave party so we can get a full group. Finally end up with a group. One of them has only done the first boss, and the tank has never tanked it before. No biggie. Yes, it’s a hard instance, but it’s not that hard. Not surprising we wiped on the first boss, but by then the tank knew what he was doing. He asked for tips, and we gave him some advice. We not only got through the whole instance, we also got him the timed achiev on the Lich King. Pretty cool, eh? Everyone had a good time and now this tank knows how to do it next time he’s in there.

So then later I’m tanking on my alt. Wow. I’ve already mentioned some of the rude tanks or annoying dps, but we had some real winners in the healer department! Enough that I can’t even remember all them! Lol. There was the one in Pit of Saron who wanted to do a full clear. I only had time to really do a regular run (which takes out almost all the mobs anyway). So after we clear about 4 or 5 of the trash pulls, then the healer decides to leave so they can go do full clears. Couldn’t have left before the first pull when we determined we weren’t going to do the full clear. Couldn’t stick it out, since most of the trash is killed anyway. No, had to wait until 1/2 way to the boss. Oh well, w/e. Annoying, but certainly not the end of the world.

Then there was the healer we had when a guildie was tanking – who came in on the last boss of Pit of Saron because the previous healer decided one wipe meant he should leave. First thing the new one said? Whose tanking? “Me” says our guildie. “Only 27k health?”. He gets buffs and things going, since we were still running in from the wipe, pops up to 36k, and says “Better? lol”. “Better, but this is still gonna be real tough” says the jerk. I think he even commented on how he has low/bad gear too. I mean, seriously? We obviously got this far, so he must have been tanking pretty decently until then. And since when is 36k health low for a tank in heroics? Sure, it might not be as nice as 42k health, but it’s still doable. And, in fact, we did get through just fine in one shot. I couldn’t help but comment how we were lucky our tank had only 36k health because MAN that was so TOUGH! But I was put in my place by the healer because we were lucky that he was one of the best healers on his server, he said. Yeah, him in his like 219 gear commenting on the tank being undergeared with the same rough level of gear. Geeze.

So another healer in Pit of Saron (can you tell which dungeon came up a lot for us? lol) when I was tanking. We go through the whole thing fine, no wipes, at a decent pace. All the sudden when we get to the final boss, before we begin, and the healer starts telling me what to do. I’m like, really? It would’ve been annoying if they did that from the start, but at least at that point they don’t yet know if I’m a good/bad tank. But when we’re at the final boss? Yeah, great way to make me happy to have come this far. But w/e, I let it slide off – maybe he’s just trying to be helpful. So we wipe. Why? Because on a boss that requires movement (kiting over the frost) – healer had the balls to tell me I got too far from him. Really? Ever heard of legs? Walking? I can’t control where the frost falls on the ground. Therefore, I can’t run in a nice little circle around our annoying healer – I have to take the boss where the frost is. In fact, if you look at where I am, and where the next frost patch is, you can probably guess where I’m headed next! Imagine that! So for him to place the blame on me for getting out of range when it’s not in my control and he could MOVE… Needless to say it kinda ticked me off. Try 2 – you know what got me even more annoyed at him? He wouldn’t stop healing everyone and topping us off to full health when he had the Overlord’s Brand on him. So he literally healed the boss from 25% health back up to 75% at one point. Then, running out of mana and all the other joys of a fight lasting longer than it should – we wiped and he blamed it on me for dragging the boss over the frost. Really mad at this point! Third try we finally got it. Probably because my wife was the one with the brand on her, and she actually knows what to do when that happens! I did pick up a nifty sword out of it though, so I can only complain a little, lol.

So anyway! Long weekend and lots of annoying healers. Why can’t people just play nice? Let the tank tank, healer heal, and dps dps. If someone asks for help and you can help, then do so. If you want to offer advice and they haven’t asked, try it politely in a wsp instead of telling them they’re an idiot in party chat, even though it’s your own fault – not theirs. Just because it’s a PuG doesn’t mean you should lose all sense of politeness. If you’re not a tank or a healer, be appreciative of the tank and healer because there are fewer of them. If you are a tank or healer, recognize the fact that the dps just had to wait 15-45 minutes for this dungeon. Seriously, just play nice! So we can have more of my first example, and less of the other ones.