My Very First PUG Story

Well it seems like everyone who has run a dungeon daily using the random dungeon LFG feature has found the terrible fail pick up group from time to time. And some of those transcend bad. They are so bad you tell all your friends about how awful this was, and how could this be? Well for those of us who PUG regularly, we get used to the normal bad that might send someone over the edge. However, there are still players out there who would top the incompetency charts if Recount kept track of that. I've probably even run into those before, but we've persevered in most cases and I've only ever been kicked from one group of spanish-speaking people who did not know how to do the fights in Pit of Saron and so blamed the english-speaking healer. Well I finally have a story, and it's only a week late for the contest my Horde guild ran to give away a Battered Hilt for the best fail PUG story. (Ok it's not THAT good, but it feels like it when it happens to you).

The other back note to the story is that after getting stuck with tons of Halls of Stone, my second hate hate hate instance is Nexus as it pops over 50% of the time for my daily LFG. It's ridiculous. I've never gotten Oculus at all, but Nexus, oh my all the time. Never thought I could grow to hate it, but sure enough, do it enough and you do. Going into this Sunday's LFG, I had done Nexus monday, dropped it Tuesday when tired, done it Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

So LFG pops and it is Pit of Saron in progress. Not a good sign. Well they were still on the trash leading up to the first boss, so I suppose it was a DC and not a fail group. We get up to Garfrost which requires basically one thing for your group. Stand behind saronite to get out of LOS so healers can keep up. If you do not and you are not a tank, you will die. Plain and simple. Well the first time the saronite fell in a bad place and the DPS never "found it" although the healer (me) was standing behind it. We tried again and same problem. I instructed the group of the strategy and the next pull, the saronite fell right beneath the boss. And the tank did not kite the boss away so we could get out of the AoE damage. Wipe wipe wipe. I had wanted to drop after the second wipe but I waited because my LFG timer was still high. At this point my timer was 2 minutes, so I dropped group.

After a requeue, the Nexus screen pops up. Somehow I'm not surprised. Karma bites me right in the tail. So we zone in and it's a beartank and some low-geared DPS. No big deal, I've had this group before plenty of times. Well despite the bear tank being nearly as well geared as me (which means likely ICC experience), this tank set a new record for failure of situational awareness. I don't think this bear could be nicknamed anything other than tunnel vision. Here's just a sample...

Scenario 1 - throughout the instance, there are patrolling packs of mobs around stationary ones. For some reason it seemed like every pack of patrolling mobs was completely ignored by the tank as he pulled a pack right as a pat approached. Hence, we had a ton of hard pulls. It did not matter because the tank and I were well geared, but still, it makes things a lot harder than it has to be.

Scenario 2 - a little later in the instance we are on the ramps and platforms in Anomalus's area. As every hunter knows or should know, jumping off the ramps is not what your pets do, so they always pull a pack of mobs behind the party if youd o not dismiss them. Over half the time we just deal with the mobs, but the hunter typically needs help if they are not overgeared. And we had a hunter who left his pet out. So while I trailed the group, I saw the hunter turn back to help his pet, I threw a couple heals and ran after the tank, who kept pulling. Then the hunter dies and the mobs come all the way up the platforms and catch up with us. Despite positioning myself on the other side of the platform, the tank somehow doesn't realize I've got aggro and runs up and pulls the boss. I end up having to fight off the mobs myself and we barely survive Anomalus.

Scenario 3 - After clearing Omorok, there is one big tree guy right at the doorway to Omorok's area that you can skip if you hug the wall. Well again the bear is charging ahead and the rest of us cleat except the hunter's pet. Well this time the hunter wises up and FEIGNS DEATH right next to me. So I get stunned and then pummeled to death. Meanwhile, the tank has engaged Keristraza the last boss.

As it turns out, one of the DPS saves the group because he was a paladin who knew how to use a healing spell. I ran back in and got to the boss just in time to cast 3 spells before she died, and the hunter DEMANDED A REZ. Needless to say, I dropped group having "earned" my frost emblems. How this tank ever gets through an instance with that level of tunnel vision I'll never know.

Protip #1 - If you feign death so a healer can die for your mistake, run back for goodness sake.
Protip #2 - If you are a tank and you don't understand the concept of situational awareness or keeping threat off the healer, you need to learn to play.