I'm not fond of pugs, but sometimes that's the only way I can get some of the random raids in during any given week. And since it tends to be after Evan's bedtime, sometimes my pug choices are ... sad. But I do it, now and then.
So I'm in an Ony 10 pug tonight. One of the tanks is on our guild's no-pug list and the DK is so pleased with doing 3.5k on the trash, since he "just hit 80 yesterday". Still, I figure I'll give it a chance. We do fine until the whelps. Given that it's a pug, I wait. And wait. And wait. I wait a lot longer than I normally do to AE the whelps, but the boomkin with us already started and it was going okay. I start AE'ing the whelps. Then, the boomkin dies. Then rogue dies. Then I die. All fairly sudden.
Not all was lost though! The tree rezzes the boomkin and the boomkin rezzes me. We down the whelps, get through 1 deep breath and .... it falls apart. I have no idea what happened but we lost a healer and people started dying one by one, so a wipe is called and we stood in the next deep breath.
One our way back, the tree says "DPS needs to wait to AE a little bit and we'll be fine.". O_o When I waited as long as I did, I sort of wonder if it's really the DPS's fault there. Particularly the way three of us went down like dominoes.
I know, I know. DPS never say it's their fault. Healers never say it's their fault. And tanks sure as hell don't ever say it's their fault. At least, most don't.
I tend to own up my mistakes. Let's look at a few! A couple of weeks ago, I tossed a bomb on Kolo before we were ready. I body pulled Freya last weekend while picking an herb (our guild's first kill on that pull, by the way). Heck just tonight I think I got too many stacks at Hodir and died. Okay so that one was partially Evan's fault (naked baby wiener thrust in one's face IS a tad distracting), but I still admitted I was distracted and hence my death.
I would rather have a good laugh about it ("Oh, look at what Vani did THIS time!") than have people get pissed off and wonder what happened or who caused THAT wipe.
So, if I thought it was the "DPS's fault" I would be more than happy to say "Yep!". I hesitate in this instance. Sure, we could have probably waited longer. We could wait until the cows come home! But a decent tank SHOULD have gotten enough threat by the time we started. Both were pally tanks, too, which most seem to agree have a good amount of threat-generation going on these days.
I know that I may have topped the DPS AND damage charts that attempt. But after looking at the gear of the other (DPS) pugs, I definitely out-geared them all. Heck, that DK who just hit 80? He was wearing tank gear and only did 1k on Ony. >_> You'd have thought that if at least I was DPS'ing "too soon", then I would have been the first to eat dirt. But I wasn't!
After that, one healer bailed, a DPS threatened to leave if the DK wasn't kicked, and well the group drifted apart.
Can't say I'm too saddened by that.
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That is... unfortunate. If you've found yourself with a tank who can't generate enough threat, you wind up unable to accomplish much of anything because everyone else is going to get creamed.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, I wonder if the guy in question was even aware that he was the weak link, since the tree evidently wasn't.
I guess, in the end, if I had to lay blame then I'd put it on the raid leader's shoulders. It's the RL's responsibility to find the people who will at least make downing a boss *possible,* even if not easily so. It's very difficult to pug a tank or a healer, because they're more basically required than DPS is. If DPS dies, the group doesn't wipe until the boss enrages (or the RL calls for it).
I'd venture to say that pugging a tank is more dangerous than pugging a healer - even piss poor healers can find at least one heal spell to throw around. A tank who can't pick up threat quickly enough, on enough mobs, will doom his party to certain and repeated death. Only sheer bullheadedness gets certain 5 man pugs through dungeons, but that tends not to work well on raid bosses.
So. The Raid Leader gets my vote.
No pressure, next raid. :)
Hah!
ReplyDeleteWell, I do have to give the guy a bit of slack - he was upfront before we started and said this was only his second time every doing Ony (let alone leading it) and he needed to know that we knew what to do.
And hey - takes some balls to 1) put it together and 2) tell complete strangers you have no idea what you're doing. :)