WoWGrrl's World

I'll freely admit, I'm weird.

I personally find that strange things bring me joy - that is, compared to what I seem to see others around me deriving joy (or pain) from.

One thing I derive a lot of joy out of in this "weird" category falls under the topic of "Bad PUGs".

Deriving Joy... From Bad Experiences??

I do have to say, first off, that I wouldn't enjoy bad PUGs anywhere near as much as I do these days, if I didn't have excellent guild runs to fulfill my need of quality playing experiences.

I am fortunate to have found a solid group of fellow adults to raid and heroic with, and the fact that I am part of a solid 25 man raiding team means that I can relax outside of official raid times. Part of the relaxing means I can go into groups that may end up being total disasters, and still enjoy playing the game, because I know I've got quality playing experiences waiting for me on every official raid night.

What's A Bad PUG?

First, if you're not familiar, a PUG is a "pick up group" - basically, a bunch of people who happened to be online at the same time and wanted to try the same content got together and attempted it. It's your typical non-guild based dungeon run or LFG-built raid scenario.

So then, a Bad PUG would be one where many things go wrong, and if ultimately the goal at the end is reached and conquered, it's a complete miracle and players are generally relieved to quickly leave the group and never think about it again.

Oh yes, and generally everyone who sticks around for any length of time has huge repair bills to pay after many, many, many deaths.

My Recent (Highly Entertaining) Bad PUG

I'll tell you the story, and every once in a while I'll put some information in brackets. The bracketed information will largely be about why I laughed at how bad this all was:

The most recent bad PUG I had was just a few days ago, and originally started out as a "guild run" with a couple outsiders to fill one tank and one heal spot.

It was planned in advance, and the leader communicated useful information to the raiders about the raid we were planning to take on, and folks agreed to attend. It started out "looking" great, but I knew better.

I personally showed up because, due to the leader of this raiding scenario and his goals, I knew it wasn't going to work out, but he seemed to have no idea, and it was like I was invited to have a front-row seat at watching a train wreck in action.

I couldn't pass that up, knowing that nobody was really going to get hurt or killed in the interaction, after all.

(I've known this "Raid Leader" guy for about 6 months on WoW - we've talked for many hours in that time and due to his energy and youth, I've been one of the few people who has truly been nice to him over the time he's been playing. He does things that invite abuse upon himself but doesn't understand why it happens. I try to help him when I can, and I'm truly helpful to him - and not abusive - which means I get front-row seats to some pretty funny human interactions... from a distance, anyway. I'm always honest with him, and amazed at how well he takes my honesty because sometimes it's pretty direct.)

The Raid Leader's Goal For The PUG

The raid goal was the primary reason I knew this was a train wreck in action.

The raid leader wanted to attempt Obsidian Sanctum 10 man Sartherion with three drakes up.

Having watched the video for the 25 man version of the fight and hearing the first line of the video saying "this is currently the hardest fight in the game and will test the coordination of your raiders", I had to laugh out loud at my friend.

(Note: I told him my concerns but told him I'd still be there to attempt however many attempts we could get off, just for the experience. I am supportive of his efforts in general and if he really wants to do something I'll tell him to go after it with all of his heart because only he knows what he's capable of. But I still do laugh.)

This was our first time raiding together as a group (so we haven't gelled at ALL), and he wants to try an encounter that, at Heroic level, is currently the hardest in the game. I'm sure the 10-man version isn't THAT much easier...

Why does he want to do this? Because if we were successful it would get a lot of attention to his new (and currently very small) raiding guild, and of course to himself as well.

It might even be a Realm First, possibly. I'm not sure how to look that up.

Raid Scheduled For 10 AM, Starts At...

I got into the raid party 25 minutes before the raid was scheduled to begin, and lazily flew up and down the Dragonspine Tributary in Dragonblight, finding and fishing out pools of Dragonfin Angelfish while I chatted on Vent with my friends.

By the time the raid actually got inside and started to kill its first mob, I had gained 20 fishing levels, going from 415 to 435. I probably could have caught a lot more, but as I said, I fished lazily.

The raid didn't kill its first mob until after 12.

What was the problem? Neither one of the tanks he had invited as part of the original group showed up on time, so the raid leader was left trying to pick up a tank for an incredibly difficult encounter.

All the friends I would dare check with were saved, so I couldn't even bring in another "weird" friend who didn't mind huge repair bills in exchange for watching a REALLY bad PUG in action...

Getting The Raid Together

Okay, so, as I said, I got into the raid 25 minutes before it was originally scheduled to begin. A few others were in the party, and we were up to 6 before scheduled raid start.

There's a Vent server, but after configuring it I return to my Social Vent server with my friends, and soon find out the Raid Leader doesn't have permission to be on that Vent server he just handed out, and he's looking for a different one. I chose not to share my friend's Vent server information when he asked.

But then, the tanks didn't log in. So we had 3 healers and a variety of DPS, but no tanks.

And of course, because it's Saturday, all of the "good tanks" that people have on their Friends or Guild lists have already completed 10 man OS from earlier in the week.

So the quest for a tank begins.

Tanks are picked up, DPS go AFK or disconnect and don't come back.

One healer leaves after 1.5 hours of no action, as he's working nights and has to get to bed.

The healer that was picked up to replace that one disconnected and didn't come back, and then the next healer went AFK immediately after we found the second tank, and we all stood around waiting for her for 15 minutes inside the instance.

All the while, the Raid Leader is obviously distressed - he bitches about people who leave without a word and keeps re-inviting people who say something and then leave, stating with firm belief that we'd be starting soon because he shouldn't have a problem filling the last couple spots.

Adventures While Clearing Trash

Eventually the party is filled for the most part, and we agree to start on trash while waiting to find the final off-tank to round out the team.

Once the AFK Healer finally comes back and we get into the instance, we start on trash.

The first fight is with a pair of big guys, and it turns out that our Mage doesn't have Decursive and doesn't know their dispelling responsibilities in this early stage, and the Raid Leader doesn't know, either. One of our Rogues gets smacked around and hit with a debuff that transfers healing to the mobs we're fighting, and because he's low on health, he gets a lot of heals.... which heals the mobs we're trying to kill because the Mage and the Raid Leader both don't know about the dispells.

The fight is INCREDIBLY long.

The Pally tank finally says something, and after we get the pair down, the Mage logs out briefly to activate Decursive, and we move on.

After we finish rounding the place and clearing all the trash from around the Drakes and the final boss himself, we're still a group of 9, looking for one more tank to fill the final role for handling "three drakes up".

Reviewing The DPS

It didn't take long before players in the group started openly questioning or outright stating that our group didn't have what it took to do Three Drakes Up.

Only two of the DPS did more damage than the Pally main tank did. Only three DPS did more than 1500 DPS, regardless of overall damage done.

But the Raid Leader was firm on his commitment to trying to get Three Drakes Up done. He says: "We'll try three drakes up 10 times, then if it doesn't work, we'll try a different strategy".

(L O frickin L. Hi, I'm Shrimproll the NPC at your service...)

While we continue to look for the last person to fill the group, the top DPS continue to talk about whether we should or should not be bothering to attempt Three Drakes Up. It's clear the Raid Leader has no other option in his mind but to grind on Three Drakes Up until we all fall asleep at the keyboard or we get the encounter right.

The top two DPS - the only two who did more damage than the Main Tank - drop group. The Pally Main Tank drops group, wishing us luck.

And still the Raid Leader presses on.

(And he chatters about his frustration at people who give up too easily on the raid line)

One of the Raid Leader's new guild's tanks logged in 1.5 hours late with a hangover, and everyone in the raid then got to see the RL flip out at his raider's lateness.

Friends Join In For Fun

It's at this point that one of my "weird" friends asks if we need a Mage for our group, because it really sounds like this is a "winnar" group and he wants to see it for himself.

I get him an invite, and almost immediately, the Raid Leader announces without warning that he has to leave, and assigns leadership to one of his Guild Tanks, saying "here, find a healer replacement and lead the raid".

(My Mage friend and I are on Vent and are laughing in disbelief as the guy logs out and doesn't even leave the group, leaving his Tank now in charge)

The Tank is shocked as well, and asks rhetorically, "Is he coming back?"

At any rate, my friend finds a Healer to replace the Raid Leader, and the group decides to do something that makes sense - NO Drakes Up.

Attempting More Than Trash

We head in again, with a different Main Tank and some different DPS, but some of the old DPS was re-invited back as well.

(Those guys must like pain in some way as well... why did they come back?)

We get into the instance again and Trash has respawned. We start on the pair of big guys, and Mage #1 gets one-shot after pulling early-fight aggro, and Mage #2 gets one-shot after pulling aggro about 20 seconds later, so there's nobody alive to dispell the healing debuff.

We all run out of the instance to reset it because we're near the door, then come back in, resurrect the dead and try again.

Next attempt, Mage #1 holds off early in the fight, but I watch as he creeps up on Omen. Higher... higher... over the tank... higher...

Boom, one-shot.

I didn't even try to shield the guy, but I did ask him if he was watching Omen, and told him I watched him pull aggro and die.

Omen wasn't loaded. What a great raiding Mage, attempting some really hard content...

As I continued to watch throughout the fight, I saw that the tank was building more threat on the unmarked target than the one marked as a Skull, and Mage #2 (my friend) and I had a mid-battle conversation on Vent about how to compensate for this poor tank in a way that would keep him alive.

We progressed through the trash and faced the first Drake, Vesperon. There's only two healers now, but we're both strong, and I ask the other healer if she wants to go into the portals or stay out, and she chooses "out". That's fine, I'll go in.

We get started on the first mini-boss and when the first portal came up, the hilarity of the entire raid group came to the forefront - clearly half of the raid group didn't know the encounter, and therefore half the DPS stayed out of the portal and half went in.

I have no idea what happened outside of the portal, but inside the portal was an additional mob which everyone got damaged by at one time or another as he ping-ponged around.

When I came out of the second portal, the boss had despawned somehow... I wasn't dead, but the encounter was over. I thought for a moment that we had defeated him, but I guess he either bugged out, or everyone out there died and the remainders Vanished or Feigned Death.

The party broke up at that moment, when we all came out and realized what happened.

I wonder what next adventure this youthful and energetic friend of mine will present?

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Related posts:

1. Achievement: For The Horde! Off Night Raids
2. The Entertainment Of A FailPUG Adventure In Blood Furnace
3. How To Get Into PUG Raids Without An Achievement

Tagged as: bad pugs, obsidian sanctum, three drakes up