“I Don’t Buff”

by Zejus on December 28, 2009

I was in a random PUG yesterday, doing Heroic Violet Hold. Right before the first portal opened, the warlock requested Kings from the paladin tank. No one in the group had paladin buffs. The tank ignored his request and the party pressed on. At around the third portal, the warlock commented “Paladin fail,” or some Warcraft forum lingo like that. The paladin replied with: “I’ll kill you in a duel.”  This went back and forth for a minute while the rest of the party kept silent and played the game. Finally the paladin said something that I couldn’t let go.

“I don’t buff,” he said.

“Why don’t you buff?” I asked.

“Cause I’m not a vending machine.”

Alright then. I left it at that and went back to my quiet world of healing. “I’ll buff you, but that’s it,” he added. Gee, thanks.

Our first random boss was Zuramat (the void boss). We accidentally got the achievement because DPS refused to take out the orbs. It’s Lich King Warcraft at it’s finest, “Hey, who cares if it stresses the healer and could cause an avoidable wipe? Let’s just stand in place and nuke because it’s simpler.” I miss the days of BC heroics where players were forced to focus, use and respect crowd control, and execute strategies perfectly in the more difficult heroics. Now’a days, if a tank recommends CC he’s automatically looked down upon because he’s “wasting time”.

It’s funny.  Non-CC DPS classes use to complain that they were never selected for the more difficult BC heroics because of their lack of CC. But then some of them were given CC in Wrath and they never use it! Hint hint: ret pallies and shaman.

The next boss was Xevozz, who is the ethereal boss which must be kited because his orbs are deadly. Once again, we tried standing in place and nuking him. No dice. We died when he was at about 30%, and this was with me blowing all of my cool-downs and spamming CoH and Prayer of Healing. All we would have had to do was walk backwards up one ramp and back down the other. Two rotations and it would have been over. Instead we wiped.

It is the first time I left the party before a run was over. I don’t mind wiping, but I’m not going to watch two 15 year olds bicker back and forth about who would win a duel, meanwhile we’re wiping because we’re too lazy to actually move our characters and/or select a different target besides the boss.

The next random dungeon was Old Kingdom, for what feels like the 45th time. It was a half-decent group with a little carrying-on at the end with the DPS warrior wanting to roll against the paladin tank for the tanking bracers.

“…but I need them for off-spec.”

“Ok, but I’m the tank for this run so I should get the bracers.”

“Whatever, you baby.”

Ah, PUGs.

{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Thomas Spain March 1, 2010 at 3:56 am

That sounds horrible, but there are some things you are leaving out.

Did you tell people some strategies for the bosses? Did you tell them to move and not just sit and “nuke”?

If you did and they ignored you, then I support you dropping them

But if you didn’t say anything and just let it continue, then it’s just as much your fault as theirs.

Reply

2 Zejus March 1, 2010 at 5:44 pm

Hey Thomas, thanks for the comment. I always suggest kiting him. He’s one of the few that I speak up about in heroics.

I use to constantly offer strategies for all bosses in heroics, but after awhile people out-geared heroics so much that they just ignored me and now they do what they want.

Normally I’d be happy to hang in there with a party and work through some wipes. But in this case there are players who are refusing to buff, and who are arguing over who can win a duel. Meanwhile, we’re wiping.

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3 Thomas Spain March 1, 2010 at 8:10 pm

Well then that’s alright.

And sorry if my comment seemed snippy, I was in a bad mood because of a bad experience with a priest. I was running heroic AN for the first time (I’m a rogue), and on the first boss the priest healer went down, soon followed by one of the other DPS (mage I think)

He started flipping out, complaining about how unlucky he was to get 3 horrible DPS on the run and how we should all just leave. So I did.

I was thinking about the saying “If the healer dies, it’s the tank’s fault.” But this guy was nonstop complaining for about 5 minutes

Ruined my mood and after jumping into another heroic just to get my Badges of Frost, I stopped playing for the day

Reply

4 Zejus March 1, 2010 at 8:19 pm

No need to apologize, your comment wasn’t snippy.

Not sure if you know this or not…a lot of people don’t… there are four pulls in the room with the first boss of AN. Three of the four have a mob in the group called a “Skirmisher”. The skirmishers will drop aggro suddenly, enrage, and dart for the furthest player (usually the healer) and become untauntable for something like 10 seconds.

I wrongly blamed the tank (in my head, not out loud) in my group when I died to one of those bad boys before learning about them. My advice is to always be sure to mark them with a skull and ask the group to focus them down. They ARE vulnerable to stuns, so if the party DPS isn’t through the roof you can always stun it before/while it drops aggro from the tank.

Of course this is no excuse for the healer in your group to have acted like a sissy. Sometimes a wipe is nobody’s fault, and sometimes it’s everyone’s fault. Yelling at and offending people isn’t a great way to make the run more fun or any quicker.

It’s still just a video game.

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5 Thomas Spain March 1, 2010 at 8:25 pm

Ah… yeah I noticed that the boss was immune to a lot of my attacks after awhile so I noticed the adds and went after them…

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