I seem to have the most interesting luck using the dungeon finder, yesterday was no different. I started the day with one group of cross server guildies and ended a few runs later with another. The runs in between blur together in a haze of healing whack-a-mole, but the two on the end stand out.
In the first I picked up a group for The Caverns of Time: The Culling of Stratholme. One of the first things I noticed was that I was the odd man out, the other four players all being from the same cross server guild. (Man, I really should take more screenshots. You guys were awesome and deserve your 15 minutes of fame.)
Anyhow, right out of the box I get asked if I have a Shadow spec on my Holy priest. A bit of an odd question, but I told them that I do.
They then asked me to swap out to Dps, keeping Vampyric Embrace up for AOE healing. Put together with a few renews and the occasional flash heal it worked like a charm.
We proceeded to tear through the place like it was not even there. Hell, I quit putting DoT’s up on anything other than bosses. Everything else was down so fast it didn’t make sense to.
The thing that sticks out most in my mind though was what happened when we (easily) beat the timer. The boss was down and as always the Reins of the Bronze Drake dropped. All five of us passed, we all have one already.
.
Now like book ends to my day there came another cross server group. All from the same server, and three from the same guild.
Actually I take that back, not like book ends at all. Book ends are the same, these were as different as night and day.
The last heroic of the day dropped me into Trial of the Champion, A short, fun, instance.
We go in and buff up in silence. Actually they were likely on vent, but I was not there to be social, I was there for the badges. Over all it was a slightly messy, but effective run.
I was having random minor lag spikes during this particular instance. I still don’t know why, as it was just that run that it happened during. Two times others paid for that with a repair bill.
No wipes, but two individual deaths.
The part that got me was what happened in less than 3 seconds from the time the Black Knight bit the dust. As he went down I was already casting a Prayer of Healing. I decided to let it finish to top folks off before hitting “disenchant” on everything and heading out for the night. I generally make sure everyone is topped off before I leave, mana is cheaper than food.
What happened you ask?
In less time than the heal took to cast I ended up standing back where I started in Dalaran.
I had been kicked from the party before the boss was looted, and was out of the instance by the time they saw what dropped.
Now that’s an interesting new way to be a ninja. I know Blizz wants doing things as a guild to be more attractive, but somehow I don’t think this is what they had in mind, so I let them know about the little exploit.
.
.
Now, not only do I feel the need to let Blizzard know about this particular little exploit I think, as a community service, I should let all my wonderful readers know as well.
The funny thing is I don’t need a damn thing from that instance except for badges. Hell, I have even stopped greeding on the frozen orbs, I have nearly a full stack in the bank for crafting already. I just take pity of people with that have so little in their life that they feel obliged to steal…. nothing.
Pixels on a screen.
.
So, here in the order of their Dps are the group of asshats that I plan to avoid in the future.
Or maybe just drop group on the first boss pull… If I ever see them again.
.
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I find it incredibly funny that the Rogue and both Death Knights are officers in the guild Axis of Justice. Oh the sweet irony.
The Ret Pally from Storm Forged was not guilded with them, but a vote kick within seconds after the last boss drops is just a little to coincidental fo me.
So congratulations to Nocando, Giantswan, and Roxanna from Axis of Justice, and to Ortherion of Storm Forged on Dethecus. You have earned you 15 minutes of fame.
I bet your Mamma is so proud.
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Filed under: World of Warcraft | Tagged: idiots, rant |
Dechion's Place 
Tossers…
I did a run of CoS the other day as the Squid, we had problems with 2 pl from the group the whole time.. DC’s, AFK etc.. it’s a timed run right… we 3 manned the joint… including getting the drake which like your run no one needed…
My “bookend”… ok 2 of them..
1) end of HVH, Mage needs frozen orb & drops grp… = bye…
2) I (Squidly) just got strenuously gear checked and Achievement checked for an Ulduar Hard Mode run (which I pointed out I wasn’t sure I could heal, but kick me if I can’t).
I slaughtered FL.. yeah, me personally…
XT wiped the raid 3 times… took nearly 2 hours for me to finally wake up…
The final straw… 2 tanks, 4 healers and 4 DPS that couldn’t crack 2,001 dps.
I dropped group and joined a Naxx weekly quest raid on Noth… I was the lowest DPS (on Gnomer) at 3k.. how in the 7 hells were these guys going to pull off Ulduar.. let alone hard mode?
Ohhh forgot.. the MT had to leave to go play Hello Kitty….
Damn Gnomeaggedon I wish you were on my server, we could run together.
It looks like our luck already does.
*LMAO at Hello Kitty excuse*
Come over to my server.. join my guild… we have a tank now (Cranky Old Gnome).. sure no one is above level 5 (except me), but I’m happy to lead some failHogger raids….
There might very well be a chatting alt there before long =)
(lord knows I don’t have enough alts)
Enjoyed the post. Again, the LFG system has proven that there are more asshats in Azeroth than initially anticipated. (How naive of me to think they were all on Fail’thas!)
On a side note from the DPS list – YOUR DPS SUCKS, MAN! No wonder they booted you! 😉
Lol, it really sucks when my Dps is not last (yes thats happened)
wow. new low. those guys fail in rl.
@Jong
Agreed.
I was too blown away by the arrogance of it all that I did not really even get angry. In reality I thought it was kinda funny, in a sad way.
I suppose thats why I did not come up with a proper rant over it. My heart just was not into bashing these poor souls.
Actually I kind of feel sorry for them.
It gets even worse the more you think about it.
You: A priest.
Them: 2 DK’s, a Rogue and a Paladin
Assuming you needed upgrades from HToC, what could you have possibly rolled on that they would need?
I can’t believe that Gnomeageddon is trying to steal you away from Sidhe Devils! Cold, man. Cold. At least invite me, ill come along too!
[…] see, and please read his more detailed story full of facts and screenshots on his blog, he joined a random pug, found the other four meembers were all from the same server, 3 were all […]
/ginvite BBBaggedob
Just playing devil’s advocate here. If you were letting people die in H ToC 5, then perhaps you were kicked for being a bad healer as opposed to being ninjaed. I know people who kick people from groups if they’ve afked an instance and basically been carried the whole time. Judging by your gear choices, your lag and your inexperience combined would have made for a fatal run. More likely than not, they were completely justified in kicking you.
Your comment does deserve a response, not much of one, but a response.
If the group had any issues with my performance, gear choices, or anything else they could simply have asked me to leave.
Kicking me, regardless of reason, after all the work is done was simply a chickenshit act of cowardice.
Now go troll someone else.
If they were repeatedly wiping, I might agree with that standpoint.
Considering that there wasn’t even one wipe, just two deaths (bad luck, bad timing, whatever… it happens), it’s pretty evident that they were just being douchebags.
Well, kicking someone that way wouldn’t be my personal choice, but I do think that there’s two sides to every story and was simply providing an alternate viewpoint. If you consider opinions that don’t agree with your own to be that of “trolls,” then by all means, feel free to continue branding me by that label.
Of course, I expected a hostile reply, since you’re clearly more concerned with your bruised ego than about fixing anything. Direct your complaints to Blizzard about their system, not the internet at large about individuals.
Oh, and a word of advice: don’t enchant your chest or boots for mp5. It makes it look like you don’t know what you’re doing, with your level of gear.
Wow! That’s horrible…
I’m glad you reported that to Blizz… maybe they can put a ban on not being vote kick someone after the final boss has been downed.
Heh.
>> I know people who kick people from groups if they’ve afked an instance and basically been carried the whole time.
In what universe can the _healer_ “afk an instance” in a 5-man, and be carried along?
>> Judging by your gear choices, your lag and your inexperience combined would have made for a fatal run.
Dech’s gear looks fine to me. He’s been healing heroic ToC since November 7 (about six weeks, if you have math difficulties).
He’s been fine on all the guild runs I’ve done with him. He has plenty of pug experience under his belt.
And a ‘fatal run’? Hardly. They won the fight; Dech got the badges. He just got ninja’d too.
>> More likely than not, they were completely justified in kicking you.
Yeah, right. ….
It doesn’t surprise me that this situation happened … Firstly, karma is a bitch and she will bite. Secondly, bullies like that are only insecure personalities that act this way because they are jealous about something that you may have or the type of personality you are. Dechion, if I were you, I would not worry about them because you are obviously better than them and will not sink down to their low low levels. All of us aren’t like these toons, keep smiling and enjoy your dungeoning. Peace.
I feel your pain Dechion, and while there might be 2 sides to every story; the likely story is probably that they were just being greedy mongrels – and you lucked out being teamed with them.
Chin up, and we’re all wiser for you sharing the story. 🙂 God I hate asshats.
(Skeptical’s comments were directed to Dech, not me)
>> Of course, I expected a hostile reply, since you’re clearly more concerned with your bruised ego than about fixing anything. Direct your complaints to Blizzard about their system, not the internet at large about individuals.
1. Dech complained to Blizzard, per screenshots above. You need to work on your reading comprehension.’
2. Making internet communities work – is difficult. Self-policing is essential, but can often degenerate into flame wars, trolling, and the kinds of tactics that you seem to be emulating.
Effective moderation (e.g. on blogs, or official forums) is key. Staying on topic also helps. This blog entry is about civil/uncivil behavior, and what is/is not appropriate in cross-server pugs. Saying anything at all about Dech’s gear only serves to undermine any actual arguments you might have – if you’re going to snipe at him, you clearly have no understanding of what civil behavior entails. If you attempt to dismiss his concerns as simply ‘bruised ego’ – well, that’s just an ad hominem attack, without merit. But then, per my earlier post, your logic has holes you could fly a Horde dirigible through.
Skeptical, you happen to play on dethecus by any chance?
First of all if ppl were continuously dying in h toc 5, I would’ve personally kicked the healer, if it was healer’s fault (coz we all know how many “smart” dps are out there), and wait for a new one rather than having numerous deaths – waiting till the death of the final boss to kick just seems to indicate that the healer was doing fine to me and he was kicked for no apparent reason…..
“Judging by your gear choices, your lag and your inexperience combined would have made for a fatal run. More likely than not, they were completely justified in kicking you.” – you already gear checked him based on ur rather snarky point at the end – would gear choice OR inexperience seem to be a problem here?
Finally if it WAS lag that was causing the problems, then 1) group couldve asked healer to leave to get one that wasn’t having latency problems and 2) how can you blame someone when their ISP is stuffing up?
Skeptical, you’re still a troll. And don’t know wtf you’re talking about, without some bona fides.
And aren’t you presuming a helluva lot when you say “…you’re letting people die…”? What makes you think, despite all their gear, they could play worth a damn? Two sides, remember?
Whoops…sorry, Dech. Feel free to nuke my previous comment.
“I do think that there’s two sides to every story”
Well, you’re wrong. Some things are just plain bad.
“Direct your complaints to Blizzard about their system”
He did.
“don’t enchant your chest or boots for mp5”
Frankly that’s terribly picky.
@Myrx
DK tank and ret paladin on the group. There was enough off-healing to cover for a lousy healer. And yes, I’ve seen it happen before. Some groups can carry a healer through. Others can’t. It all depends on the group. The funny thing is that some of these healers don’t realize how much they’re being carried by solid dps and a tank that doesn’t need heals. But when they try to heal for a weaker group, it shows.
Yes, I see that he ALSO complained to Blizzard. My objection is that he QQed in public in addition to telling Blizz. I understood that perfectly. Perhaps it is you who needs to work on your reading comprehension. My original comment was to try and say “Hey, maybe they had taken pity on Dechion and got fed up at the end.” My commentary on his gear (and don’t get me started on his spec) was intended to point out that he is not an end game raider (at least, not on that character) and that he might not know how to truly heal that instance. Again, I’ve seen it happen to weak healers. From what I can see from here, it’s entirely possible that Dechion still has a bit to learn.
@Xeno
Did Dechion actually TELL them he was having lag issues? It sounded from his post that it was a very quiet run and that he hadn’t said anything to them and vice-versa. Perhaps the group didn’t feel like waiting for a better healer to log on or queue up. Maybe they thought he’d improve by the end.
And yes, based on his gear choices, I came to the above stated conclusion that Dechion may not truly know how to effectively heal H ToC 5 with a melee-heavy group and a bit of lag. These are things that need to be compensated for, and he may not have (or may not have been able to), hence the deaths.
@Kestrel
You can’t just faceroll into A Tribute to Insanity. You have to, as you said, be able to play worth a damn. Dechion hasn’t even set foot in ToC 10/25, which means he’s gotten his t9 solely from triumph badges. Looks to me as though he was getting carried.
@Stabs
Yes, some things are just plain bad. Carrying healers through H ToC 5 sucks, even with ICC gear out.
Dechion lost a chance at a couple of low ilevel purples and a frozen orb, none of which he needed. Big deal. It’s virtual pixels and it’s not like any of this stuff is hard to get at this point in the game. This sort of thing happens quite often, and not just with people from Dethecus. If you’re just now realizing this….well, I don’t know where you’ve been for the past five years, but it couldn’t’ve been in this battlegroup. Either suck it up, run with friends, or try a more Care Bearish sort of MMO than WoW. It just amuses me that something that allegedly doesn’t matter not only made a blog post, but with screenshots to boot. So much effort for something that will accomplish nothing. BTW, Dechion, I highly doubt Blizzard will do anything about your ticket. They’ll tell you to just ignore the offending players so you won’t be queued with them again. That’s it. Quite frankly, you’d be doing them a favor – I doubt they’d want to bother carrying you again.
Just stfu skeptical. You obviously think you are 1337, but really you are just a prick. It was a straight ninja job which is as obvious as your personality.
@Skeptical
I’m impressed. I do believe you have spent more words on attacking me than I spent on the original post.
You are very good at trying to get a rise out of a person, as evidenced by the other comments. That can come in quite handy when writing a blog.
Perhaps you should start up a site of your own, you do seem to enjoy writing.
If you spent half the time on writing a bog post that you have spent researching my priest you could do quite well.
If you do please send me a link, I would love to read it.
Seriously.
/hugs @ Dech
I still thinks you rock.
Hah! I like that comment “Maybe you sucked as a healer so they should kick you”… Um yeah, they should kick you. BEFORE YOU DOWN THE BOSS! Jesus. I mean if you did suck and I am not saying you did then they need to kick you before loot time. This was a total ninja job.
At least you gained a reader though! lol. I read this at BBB so I will add you to my wow reads for the day. heh.
Gee, ninja-kicked as a boss drops for no apparent reason? That’s Dethecus for you.
This makes me want to reactivate my account just to make a character on their realm and tell them they’re artards. What a bunch of jerks. I’m glad to submitted a ticket!
You need to add them to the WOW Jackass site and get their name out a little more. Maybe then enough people will blacklist them.
@Skeptikal – You’re a very good writer and I’d venture you are somewhat practiced at debate based on your writing style. However, you are missing one major point… Decion is making his story public for several reasons: a) Prevent this group of children from ruining everyone else’s fun; b) This is another article in a series of good & bad PUG experiences; and, c) It’s a free country – let’s be honest… Dechion has not bad-mouthed you nor deleted your post(s). He’s let you voice your opinion… so why isn’t he allowed to voice his?
Wow dechion, that’s a nasty situation. And that is a loophole blizzard needs to close up. to not allow votekicks when in combat with a boss encounter or for a time afterwards. that behavior on their part was childish, and greedy.
On the positive side, you did get the badges.
But, that sort of behavior/attitude is just intolerable.
@ Skeptical:
I must congratulate you on your mostly successful attempt to derail this thread through an ad hominem attack.
However, please address the following issue, which really is at the heart of the matter:
Is it appropriate to kick a person after a boss has gone down BUT BEFORE loot is shared? Furthermore, is it appropriate to kick a person after the final boss of the instance is killed (or whose death is inevitable) but before loot is shared?
It seems to me that you’re saying that it is.
Had the run gone flawlessly would you have supported this behaviour? Since you refer to “This sort of thing happens quite often, and not just with people from Dethecus. If you’re just now realizing this….well, I don’t know where you’ve been for the past five years, but it couldn’t’ve been in this battlegroup. Either suck it up, run with friends, or try a more Care Bearish sort of MMO than WoW. ” I will assume that you consider this to be part of the game. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had participated in this asshattery yourself.
I realise that I’m not going to be able to convince you in the error of your ways, but here are a couple of points:
Whether Dechion knows how to gear or whether he is a capable healer, the reality of it is that this post has NOTHING to do with that. It is merely the background to provide context to the discussion. By choosing to attack that background rather than address the issue at hand either shows you to be a relativist (there are no universal morals) or an asshat yourself. I’ll be the first person to say that if I have a crappy tank or a crappy healer, I’ll either leave the group or try to get them out of the group. But if that decision is reached, it will be AFTER the loot is shared on the current kill – after all, that person contributed (albeit badly) and as such deserves a decent shot at whatever dropped.
Before you go and try and point out that context is everything (that is my suspicion as to the direction that you’ll go), I would like to point to one thing – Dechion indicated that he was topping off the group when he was kicked. Please note that he wasn’t REZZING anyone. That suggests that the group got through killing the boss WITHOUT losing anyone. From personal experience (I’ve cleared the ICC content on 10 man, TotC on 25, etc, but no hardmodes) that fight is the hardest to heal in the instance. So take that into context – the run was successful, and the rewards of completing the instance will more than pay for the repairs cost that anyone would have sustained.
Have fun with this. I’m sure you’ll be back. Happy new year, troll.
My beartank had to run H PoS the other day with a … healer of uncertain merit.
Worse was the Ele Shaman from the same server who continually questioned my gear, intelligence, and knowledge rather than have anyone say a word against her buddy the Priest.
I haven’t yet cracked 40k hp, but I know I can tank H PoS, and I’ve been tanking long enough to know when I’m in over my head or when the healer’s got issues (she was apparently playing Vanilla WoW, since she seemed to be trying to maximize time outside of 5SR, even to the point of letting me die. Repeatedly. She had plenty of mana and never ran dry, her gear was fine, so I don’t quite understand the reasons for this).
This was not two deaths over the course of the run. This was enough wipes that my gear was all yellow by the end of it, and I always repair beforehand. I was dropping cooldowns on nearly every pull, using every means available to me to hold aggro and mitigate damage, and still getting the blame for wipes —in a particularly ugly, ad hominem way. Just from that Ele Shaman. Nobody else seemed to have an issue or a suggestion.
It was an exceptionally frustrating run, and I knew the asshat shaman and her clueless healer friend only stuck with it because they were gunning for the drops off the last boss—they said as much. Forty minuets later, Scourgelord falls. Trinkets drop. And me? Well, I certainly don’t vote them off the group.
In sum, I KNOW we carried this healer, and I KNOW her incompetence cost us more than a couple gold. I KNEW she was going for a drop off the final boss, and I probably had enough support from the group to get her offed. I had endured insult and injury from her friend’s attempts to redirect attention to me. And I STILL did not find it acceptable to kick anybody.
If someone sticks with you from the first pull to the last, he deserves a fair chance at all the loot. No exceptions.
As far as Dech’s story goes …
– Unless they were trying to ninja shards, they aren’t ninjas, since none of them could have used a spellpower or cloth drop anyway. So that reason for an early kick is gone.
– Perhaps they were a bit oversensitive about a few gold in repair bills, and wanted to screw Dech over as petty revenge.
– But I might suggest a third possibility here: if we have three people from the same guild, plus another well-geared and presumably competent individual from the same server, maybe they were running chain random heroics for the badges? And perhaps they were eager to queue for the next heroic, had found Dech’s healing capacities lacking, and didn’t want to bring him along? Maybe it wasn’t assholery at all, but rather snippy impatience?
Certainly that doesn’t make it acceptable, and if I was going to chain random heroics, I’d take a known healer with me, but the possibility exists.
@Elegantdeath
He’s completely entitled to his opinion and I do appreciate that he’s allowed me to express mine. He still doesn’t seem to be listening, which is his choice, but whatever. I didn’t really expect that Dechion would understand what I was talking about, based on my experiences with Kael’thas players and lousy healers in general.
@Niceas
I have never once said that I would have kicked him that way myself. Personally, I TALK to my pugs at the beginning of an instance, regardless of whether I’m part of a majority group or the odd one out. The entire original situation looks to be a failure in communication, at least from my end. And that’s on both halves of the party. All that I am saying is that there is a possibility that Dechion APPEARED TO BE a scrub healer who didn’t know what he was doing or was afking the instance. Some people choose to punish for that sort of thing, be it on the last boss or halfway through the instance. I’ve had the latter happen to me, even though I’d been carrying the group through the instance (it was an ICC instance, making it incredibly difficult). I had just wanted my daily done and was sticking it out, even though the group was terrible. But they were the ones to boot me after the second boss was down. All I had to show for my disproportionate repair bill were two useless triumph badges. Given, I should have just left after the first boss when I knew they were bad, but I chose to stay. In that situation, I would have been happy if they’d decided to kick me on the last boss, regardless of loot, just so I wouldn’t’ve had to do the daily twice over. This is why I do not understand why Dechion is THAT incensed by not getting loot he does’t need. It could have been worse.
As to the difficulty of ToC 5, the Black Knight used to be the hardest, when the fight went on longer, but I’d say now that the earlier fights are more difficult in the sense that there can be a lot of random burst damage on non-tank party members. So while I would have agreed with you in the past, I don’t think it’s the hardest of the fights anymore. When I run ToC 5 with a well-geared group like that (especially with two DKs), everyone finishes the fight at or near full…and I don’t run as holy, so it should be even easier to do so as such. That Dechion was casting Prayer of Healing at the end indicates to me that he had fallen behind on heals on the entire party (shouldn’t Circle have been enough?). I’m sure both DKs popped AotD, which would have meant that Dechion would have had very little to heal on that fight. So your point that no one died on the final boss doesn’t really mean anything. Sorry to burst your bubble, but my point still stands.
@Dechion
I don’t want a rise out of you. I’d like you to open your eyes to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you aren’t seeing the entire picture here.
I’ll pass on blogging. I don’t need to epeen on a blog to have others assure me that I know how to play. All you’re doing with your “counterarguments” is proving that you don’t have enough knowledge of your class to be able to respond intelligently. Luckily for you, you have a few readers who are carrying you on that front as well. 🙂
@Skeptical
Your point that it may have been unintentional is the one argument that you have made that I would be inclined to accept. I would still suggest that IF that was the case, they were still being stupid. Waiting two more seconds to resolve the loot isn’t a big deal.
Likewise, deciding to punish someone without an explanation is asshattery as well. Merely a different kind of asshattery than being a loot ninja. Saying nothing and kicking someone before loot is ascertained is merely another type of asshattery. Just because they felt that he was a sub-par healer is no reason to deny him a couple of gold from the boss and a crack at a piece of loot that may have been an upgrade.
The point that was originally made (that this could be a technique to ninja) still stands. Having thought a bit more about the situation I’m still inclined to believe that these four are asshats. Maybe not “I’m going to deliberately ninja loot from this healer” asshats, but more likely “lets kick this guy for a laugh” asshats.
To be honest, the mature thing for them to have done – or do – (as I am sure that they are likely aware of this fiasco by this point) is to have commented on the situation – either here or on one of the other blogs/forums that have popped up.
A run with two deaths isn’t IMO a failure. Things can go wrong in an instance – I lost a DPS pally in HPoS last night. He went from full, to 25%, to dead in the span of 2 seconds. Had I had riptide available to me when this occured, I might have been able to save him, but I had just used it to top off the warlock who had gotten nicked in the spinning axe on one of the drake trash pulls. As both a Healer and DPS I understand that sometimes DPS pulls aggro and if the DPS goes splat, usually they are at fault (generating too much aggro, standing in the BAD, etc).
Getting back to the original argument at hand, your point that it may not have been a deliberate attempt at ninja’ing is valid. But an asshat should be called an asshat. And no matter which way in which I look at this, I don’t believe that any blame for what happened should rest with Dechion.
I haven’t partied with Dechion personally. But given that BBB is apparently friends with him (and has likely tanked for him) leads me to believe that Dechion is probably competent at what he does. The only fights I consider remotely difficult in HToC are the Confessor and the Black Knight, and of the two, I find the BK to be harder. That may be because I play a Shammy healer (Purge and Tremor Totem FTW) – I’ve never played a priest past 50.
Anyways, I’m glad to hear you say that you’re not the type to perform this kind of action. I would suggest that in future you avoid attacking the person who has been wronged (even if only minorly), as all of your posts scream “I think your a noob and dont now how to play your class scrub” rather than what appears to be a much more reasonable “well, have you considered that they might not have thought about what consequences were going to result from their actions” argument that you have also presented.
Hope everyone has a happy new year.
There’s been a considerable amount of eloquent argument about how there might be multiple sides to this argument, everyone might be interpreting stuff through their own personal experiences, and how [unlikely circumstance a] might possibly provide a justification for [otherwise unsupportable behavior a].
It’s all a crock.
If there was any *credible, ethical reason* why they didn’t want Dechion to stay until the end of the run, *they should have kicked before the end of the run*. Keeping Dechion until the end entitles him to roll on the loot. End of story. All else is self-serving attempts at justifying or rationalizing bad behavior.
Thank you Dechion for pointing out the bad behavior of these ‘tards. I’m sorry you had to cope with them. The anonymity of cross-realm pugging certainly has brought out new nadirs of behavior in some people.
@Niceas
I most certainly haven’t presented the argument of “well, have you considered that they might not have thought about what consequences were going to result from their actions,” as there really aren’t any consequences, which is why Blizzard should look into fixing the system. My argument is that Dechion is bitching to the internet at large about loot that doesn’t matter. “But it’s the principle of the thing!” you counter. Perhaps so, but this IS internet gaming whether you, I, Dechion, or anyone else likes it or not. Asshattery, deserved and undeserved, happens every day. Sure, you don’t have to like it or be a part of it, but you do need to understand that it’s going to be out there, especially in that battlegroup.
As you may have already noticed, I have healed ToC 5 on a priest in varying levels of gear and lag. I’ve run it in other roles with bad priest healers. Trust me on this one – if nothing else, Dechion was not playing up to par in that particular instance on that particular day. Instead of shrugging off the incident with a “well, those two pieces will cover the repair bills” and moving on, he decided to post about how wronged he’d been. I don’t believe, based on what I can tell about him as a healer, that he’s earned the right to the high ground here. And THAT is what I object to. If you truly know your shit as a player, then an incident like this wouldn’t mean a thing to you, let alone be blog-worthy. Congratulations on having nothing better to QQ about. 🙂
TL,DR: It’s not about the loot, it’s about the behavior. And behavior matters, or the game becomes far less fun to play.
@Skeptical
>> My argument is that Dechion is bitching to the internet at large about loot that doesn’t matter.
No. Wrong. He’s not bitching about loot. He’s pointing out bad behavior that _does_ matter.
It would be ok (sort of) if they had kicked Dech at the very start of the instance, based on a quick gear-check or inspection (I wouldn’t do that myself).
It would be fine if they had kicked him for poor performance after any given boss, _after_ the loot for that boss was distributed.
It’s _not_ fine to kick anybody after finishing a boss fight, but before loot is distributed. EVER.
It’s just not acceptable behavior. It’s being a ninja asshat.
Some have suggested they wanted to replace Dech before going to another random.
They certainly had the right to do so.
BUT – they were obligated to wait until after loot is distributed before doing that.
There is NO EXCUSE whatsoever for what they did.
Dech’s performance (good or bad) doesn’t change that.
The amount of loot involved (a dream shard or a Broken Hilt) doesn’t change that.
It’s just not acceptable behavior.
Asshattery may happen every day, but it needs to be challenged, and measures taken against it. Otherwise things go to shit quickly.
That seems to be the case on Dethecus; in fact, many there seem to glory in it. Fine – may they enjoy their cesspool.
Why does this matter now? Why are people upset about it?
Cross-server pugging changes a lot of things. Asshattery is easier to get away with (at least for now).
Standards for what’s acceptable and what’s not – have to be established ASAP, or pugging (for many of us) will become pretty unattractive.
The community (not just Blizzard) have to take an active role in deciding what’s good, what’s tolerable, and what’s asshattery.
As one small example – a couple weeks back, folks from some servers always rolled need on orbs, while others rolled greed.
This caused some drama, blogging, yada yada.
But now – every pug I’ve been in for a week – has rolled greed on orbs. Not need.
I don’t pug all that much, but it does seem to be a culture change (a good one).
We need to condemn bad behavior in no uncertain terms – for the sake of all of us.
It’s not about the loot – it’s about agreeing on rules for interacting with strangers in a decent way.
So the game continues to be mostly-fun for most of us.
And if people are too uber-leet to deign to play with more casual or unexperienced types – they have an easy out.
They can form their own 5-man groups and do randoms by themselves.
Or, they can kick people (or leave themselves) at the start of a run (or at least before a boss is engaged).
@Sneakydave
>> If there was any *credible, ethical reason* why they didn’t want Dechion to stay until the end of the run, *they should have kicked before the end of the run*. Keeping Dechion until the end entitles him to roll on the loot. End of story. All else is self-serving attempts at justifying or rationalizing bad behavior.
Yes. Exactly right!
@Myrx
My point is that getting carried in an instance is also considered bad behavior. It tends to be the people who get carried who don’t understand this, so I’m really not very surprised to see continued replies of this nature.
Sure, it’d be nice if everyone was civil to each other, but this is the internet. The online community at large has never agreed upon the “right way” to interact with strangers. If you play WoW expecting there to be a higher standard, then you are SADLY mistaken. Feel free to group with other casual players and struggle your way through instances some of us have found easy for a long time. Pug at your own risk and don’t bother crying about it afterwards if you run into people you don’t agree with. It’s a known risk of running with people you don’t know. If you can’t handle it, run with friends instead of pugs.
The WoW jackass url is http://wowjackass.com
@Skeptical
Carried is a relative term now.
You don’t need purples to complete ToC, or most of the raids in existence.. thus if you turn up and do what you can with that – you are not being carried, the others are just OP.
With the random instance finder, being carried is now just par for the course. If you don’t want to carry, get out of the randoms.
That said, I doubt Dechion was carried at all. I expect he put in what he could and only 1 or 2 deaths in ToC is a successful run.
However, once again the point is moot.
This post is about dickwad behaviour, not gearscores, achievements, gems or anything else.
When I get into an instance with a less geared toon, I encourage them to do better – they have to do the instances some how and this is Blizzards choice.
If I get into an instance with OP toons, then I give it my best shot. I don’t afk and get carried I get in and do what I can.
Kicking anyone after a boss kill, but before looting, whether the 1st or last boss in the instance is just bad form.
@Skeptical
>> “My point is that getting carried in an instance is also considered bad behavior”
I think that depends.
If the person is *choosing* to be lame – nothing but quest greens, no idea how to play at all — then yes, I’d agree.
However, if the person is doing the very best they can, and has decent heroics gear, but the others simply out-gear that person – then it’s NOT “bad behavior”, it’s just the luck of the draw that LFG has paired some ‘leet’ raiders with a more casual player.
To label this “bad behavior” is really wrong-headed.
By contrast, the asshats who kicked Dech are *choosing* to be asshats. They could easily behave better – it would hardly cost them anything. In this case, it would only have cost a few seconds, to wait until the loot was distributed.
It’s completely fair to call them out on their behavior.
The key difference is the element of *choice* involved.
Asshats are choosing to be asshats, while under-geared players are choosing to play the best they can, given their circumstances.
—-
Now, I’m not an end-game raider, and never frankly aspire to be one. I’m a casual.
As such, I’m sure that some of the people, in some of my pug groups feel like they’re carrying me.
Am I uber-leet? Hardly. Do I carry my weight? I do my best, but sometimes the group carries me.
Other times, I’ve felt like I’ve ‘carried’ some of the others in pug groups (e.g. brand new 80s).
That’s part of the ‘contract’ of joining a random pug.
If others don’t think I measure up, they can kick me (it’s happened, once). That’s fine.
Or, they can say (after the first pull) “Sorry guys, this isn’t working for me”, and leave. That’s fine too.
(Although, as many have pointed out, people who bail repeatedly on HoS, OK or Oculus cause the LFG system to select those instances a lot more often than would otherwise happen .. but that’s a different issue).
I try very hard to bring utility (as both a lock and an elem/resto shaman), and do what I can to help,
even though others in the pug may have way more gear or experience than I do. I always SS the healer and offer healthstones. If I get good drops, I pass on other rolls, so that others can get shards (My lock is an enchanter).
Pugging as a aff lock, I’m anywhere from 1st to 4th on Recount (including trash), depending on who’s in the group.
My DPS can top 3K in a good 5-man; it’s usually between 1900 and 2500, depending on the group.
In fact, I respec’d (demonology to affliction) because of threat problems with newish Pug tanks, and lifetap-induced anxieties from newish healers (Aff locks ramp damage more slowly, and self-replenish so as to reduce healer strain). That nerfed my personal DPS (especially on trash), but it’s better for the groups I often run with.
Pugging as an elem shammy, I pick totems based on who’s in the group, and what kinds of damage we face. This often nerfs my personal dps, but it’s better for the group. And I off-heal whenever it’s helpful; that’s one reason why we finished a timed CoS run yesterday and somebody else got their bronze drake (my shammy doesn’t have on yet: big deal 🙂
Pugging as a resto shammy, I offer to quit (and take the deserter buff) if the group seems too ‘leet’ or the instance seems too hard. I’m a pretty new healer, and that seems like “good behavior” to me. After healing a good normal ToC run yesterday, I was asked to pug normal FoS and PoS (first time healing them) and nobody died. Then – we tried HoR, wiped twice; I offered to leave, but the others wanted to keep trying; we did better the 3rd and 4th times, but still wiped – so I said “Sorry, I’m just not good enough to do this one yet”, and left. I’ll avoid HoR until I’m a fair bit better.
If people don’t want to play with me, that’s fine. Their choice. And I do “pug at my own risk”, and that’s fine too. If people kick me, or drop group, because I’m not uber – no problem. If I cried about that, I agree: that would be lame.
But calling out asshats for behaving like asshats is not “crying about it”
– it’s trying to promote better behavior, and a better game experience overall.
I think it’s the right and necessary thing to do. I’ve seen other internet forums degenerate when the community abdicated their responsibility to self-moderate, and enforce community standards. I think that’s a real problem on the Blizzard forums today. We need to fight back against the asshats, or they will win.
I don’t “expect” there to be a higher standard, but I will damned well do my best to to promote a higher standard.
—
Sigh. About 20 years back, David Dinkins was mayor of NYC, and the city was in a downward spiral.
Then Rudy Giuliani took over, and told the police to focus on “quality of life” crimes (graffiti, vandalism, similar things).
A lot of people thought he was wasting his time, or crying against the wind, and missing the big picture.
They were wrong.
Now, I disagree with Giuliani about many things (he had an amazing disregard for constitutional limits, and issued illegal directives on many occasions). But, his focus on “quality of life” crimes was absolutely the right move, and turned things around for New York. NYC became a good place to live again, and do business in. (This is all, obviously, pre 9-11).
This (asshattery) is also a quality-of-life issue. Virtual life, perhaps – but we seem to spend a lot of time here.
Things like this are important.
@Gnome
In this case, “carried” applies to a priest who is geared enough to heal the instance, but was underperforming. I don’t mind carrying newbies, but I do resent slackers. It has nothing to do with being outgeared; if you’re putting in a good effort, then it will show in proportion to your gear. I appreciate the new 80s who try and tell them so. I also appreciate the overgeared raiders who choose to put forth their all in an instance that they only need frost badges from rather than kicking back and afking. But the people who are simply not pulling their weight I have no respect for. I consider that to be incredibly rude. And as I said before, it’s quite likely that this was the impression Dechion left. I still maintain that he was fortunate enough to be able to finish the instance with the group, rather than get halfway through and get booted.
Depending on the exact nature of the deaths, one or two deaths in H ToC is not a clean run. Dechion might have been part of a string of lazy healers the group had encountered and taken the brunt of it. Once again, two sides to every story.
@Myrx:
Thank you for being the type of player who has the sense/ability to be able to call themselves out when they know they’re not ready for something. HoR is a complete pain in the ass, and I’ve seen a number of groups that couldn’t clear the trash from the first two bosses, not necessarily because of the healer or tank, but because dps wasn’t high enough or focused. Of course, that brings to mind a good HoR run with a couple of mages in blues. Because they knew how to play and my friend and I had enough gear to help cover what difference there would have been between the gaps in theirs, we were able to clear the instance. I have no idea if they were casual players or raiders on alts that hadn’t been geared yet, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that they understood what they were doing and I was more than happy to see them through. (In fact, the only reason I was there at all was because my friend was already in the group and I volunteered to fill in for someone who left.)
The big difference between your example of NYC and WoW (aside from the whole virtual community thing) is that you are not mayor of the World of Warcraft. You are a player, just like everyone else. Your words are not going to have a lasting impact on the WoW community. They might within your immediate community, but not the population at large. You do not have the authority to say “This bites, so we’re going to do things this way from now on” and have it carry any weight whatsoever. Feel free to try, but don’t expect people to listen.
Alrighty,
I take off for a couple hours and somehow this place turns into the official forums.
Well, enough already.
Since it has managed to get completely derailed into mudslinging I am simply locking the thread.
My house, my rules.
Don’t like it, go elsewhere.
I don’t think Skeptical gets the point anyway. If I have a lousy healer on my group, I votekick him right away. If he’s slacking I kick him asap. Same for any other class. I’m not going to drag anyone along for the ride and then votekick when everything is done. What would be the point of doing that?
Actually I think he gets the point quite well.
His issue was never with my performance as a healer. He was likely here for one of three things.
1. He likely is the kind of asshat that participates in this type of activity an felt some need to justify it in public to make himself feel better.
Or…
2. He was simply a troll, and by pushing peoples buttons here in the comments managed to get a lot of attention. People like that seem to crave attention.
Or…
3. He really is a phenomanally good healer, knows the priest class inside and out, and honestly can’t understand why others might not agree with him.
Either way it was never about me or any of the other commenters he argued with. It was about him.
For me, I have learned a lesson or two about comment moderation. I’ll be posting a policy on that sometime in the very near future, when I am slightly less hung over from last nights new years eve party. The quick version is this: I won’t let you come into my house and insult me or the other commentors. I will let people voice thier opinions, but outright insults will be considered spam and delt with as such.
The LD:DR version of this entire post can be boiled down to this.
There is an exploit that allows a group within a pug to vote kick a player before loot is rolled on, porting them from the instance and denying them thier fair share. Watch out for people doing this.
I am going to get a group of guildies together and find out how many votes it takes, I believe three, but I want to be sure. Once I know that I simply won’t pug without enough people I know in the group to prevent that.
The TL:DR for Skeptical’s commetary boils down to “you sucked as a healer, and deserved to get booted.” followed by many replies to the effect of “healer suckage was immaterial. the post was reporting a possible exploit. The exploit is there, regardless of Dech’s performance.”
I suggested that he blog about it himself. If he has half the knowledge and skills he is perporting to he could do a lot of good by putting it in print in such a way as to help others get better. I was dead serious about that.
Hell, if he wrote a proper guide, designed to help people properly set their characters up for healing heroics, without being condemning and insulting, I would host it here just to get it out. Actually I might even take the advice, if it was more concrete (“try this spec and this rotation, oh and enchant more SP and less Mp-5” as opposed to “ur dooin it rong, quit sukin, lulz”
Somehow I don’t see that finding it’s way into my inbox though.
I’ll go with option 4: a player who has played the priest class for quite some time and is pretty familiar with the workings of the class and the instance in question.
Actually, my issue WAS with your performance, but you and everyone else who replied took my comments on a personal level. You seem like a nice enough guy, one who would listen to a priest who’s been through hard modes (when they were still hard). Some priests simply won’t listen to anyone else’s suggestions. I do think that under different circumstances, you might have been open to another, more experienced, viewpoint. That was not the case here (and is unlikely to be now, as I don’t expect that this wall of text will be read in full).
To clarify, I will say it again. Yes, the exploit sucks. Yes, it should be fixed. My major objection from the beginning, which still seems to be getting lost in translation, is that you assumed that you were ninjaed, which really didn’t appear to be the case. In this particular situation, the purples you missed out on would have compensated for repairs. It shouldn’t be a big deal.
Yes, I understand. That’s not the point you were trying to make. You just want the exploit fixed. We’re not on opposing sides on that subject. I just don’t see the point in libeling specific players in a case where their motivation was likely for a just cause, even if it was a rude way of doing it (and I’ll agree with you on that).
Unfortunately, in bringing attention to this exploit, especially on the Dethecus forum, it’s likely that this sort of thing will happen more often before the loophole is fixed. That’s if it even does get fixed; Blizzard is already looking to the next expansion and really isn’t likely to care about five man loot from the current one.
/end clarification
As for specifics on fixing up your spec/gear, I did mean what I said about mp5. Especially as a holy priest, you’re going to favor spirit over mp5. Otherwise, your gear is fine. It’s your spec that tips me off that you might be misprioritizing certain heals over others. Is there a particular reason you didn’t take Inner Focus? Inner Focus+Divine Hymn is one of my favorite ohshit buttons. Given, it doesn’t solve every problem, but it’s a nice ace in the hole, especially since DH ticks can crit. Desperate Prayer is one of my other favorites. It’s a big instant heal on yourself (which can also crit), which frees you to focus on keeping others up. I am guessing that you rely more on renew than Circle of Healing for quick spot heals, since you glyphed that instead. Even with the six second cooldown imposed on CoH, it’s still overall more valuable to use it and Prayer of Mending for quick spot heals than renew. I still like the Prayer of Healing glyph on principle, even though I haven’t used it in ages, but I have noticed a trend with priests who glyph PoH relying on it more often than they should. Even with Serendipity, your gear lacks the haste to be able to support a healing rotation that relies that heavily on PoH. So you could very well be giving it your all in an instance, but especially with lag issues, if you’re focusing on longer casts, you’re going to lose people who might not have died if you’d chosen to use a different spell or sequence of spells.
I don’t consider myself enough of an expert player to blog or maintain a website on the subject, but I can refer you to an excellent thread written by people who are: http://elitistjerks.com/f77/t83203-wotlk_healing_compendium_v3_3_arthas_downfall/ . Given, this is a link to an endgame raiding thread, so not everything will be applicable to what you’re healing. However, I’ve found that even partial knowledge of endgame healing has helped me understand healing better in general, so it may help you out as well.
That’s about all the advice I can offer without having actually seen you heal. Hopefully this helps in some way, even if it just gets you thinking about how you heal and other possible ways of healing.
My hat’s off to you if you actually made it through this massive wall of text. Seriously.
Not only did I make it through the wall of text but I appreciate the time it took to write it.
I am pretty well done with the original topic of the post, but more than interested in improving my healing.
There is a lot to talk about in that regards (I dropped the circle of healing glyph because I am never grouped with more that 5 people for instance, making it useless). There is a lot more than I am going to drop into a comment, it deserves a post of it’s own once I have researched it properly and tested a few things in game.
Also, you don’t have to be a healing expert to help others out. Nor do you have to maintain a blog or website.
If you would like to collaborate on a series of posts involving better healing in 5 man heroics (which are all the rage thanks to the new LFG) I would not mind working with you on them.
If so drop me a line through the about page, I’ll get that even on vacation (which is where I am now)
Dech,
Just wanted to know if a GM ever responded to your post with anything important to say (other than their standard “did you /ignore them?”). I appreciate your horror stories so mine don’t seem so bad by comparison.
I got the standard “we will look into it, and can’t tell you what we do.” response I have gotten from darn near any ticket I have ever put in.
Hi Dechion,
My girlfriend, who is highly geared, got booted from HoL upon killing the end boss today. She was the fifth wheel in a party of four people from the same guild, and their excuse for kicking her was “you’ve already won everything” (she had won the frozen orb and a dream shard)! Amazing.
I think she was more bewildered than anything. When all is said and done, it’s really just amusing, and kind of pathetic.
Anyway, best of luck to you in all of your endeavors!
Sorry this happened, it sucks. They had no right to kick you. I’ve had good PUG experiences and horrible violence incuding runs. Usually when I tank or heal its fine. When I DPS i tend to get caught up in asshole tank/healer mode, where group leadership or role is taken as a god given right to be a complete asshole. My comfort is that these kids are probably half or a third of my age, education, and income level. I won’t stoop to their level.
[…] did however find out a bit of useful information. Possibly as a fix for the exploit that happened to me (and many others) some time ago, you can no longer kick a player from the group […]