The Original Death Knight

I really thought I was hot stuff. I mean the healer was barely dipping below 90% mana, and I was constantly near full health. There were absolutely zero aggro issues, and any day that I don’t get mobs peeling out of the poo I’ve laid down to chase down a ranged dps or healer I call a good day. We were in the Culling of Stratholme, and we were rocking the place.

So, I’m feeling pretty much like Big Man Tank.

Then, reality smacks me.  Hard.

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Here’s my official request Blizzard: eliminate the 15 minute unkickable buff players receive when a random dungeon group forms.

Why?

Predominately, hunters.
Now, now… all you hunters don’t get all pissy on me. I know that just like Death Knight Tanks, not all of you are bad.  I’m a closet hunter, so I can feel the pain. Consider these upstanding examples of the puke green ranged dps class that I have encountered:

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Last night’s random: Trial of the Champion… ugh! The Horde grand champions used to school me in the art of fail… But wait! This is new-and-improved with the LFG tool!

Cheers to my random shammy healer! A good healer makes any tank, an average one like me especially, shine. Rest of the group — just slightly under geared or under skilled for the content. If Skada is to be trusted (and I remembered to reset it after jousting!), then I was top DPS with just shy of 2K for the run. Unholy DK, Arms Warrior and Marks Hunter (with a fuggin’ monkey pet!) were all around 1.7 to 1.9. So…. the fights just took a bit longer.

Tactics? We doan need no stinkin’ tactics!

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Long weekend… between business travel and family engagements, was away from the computer and didn’t get much WoW time in… Pop on quick last night for a quick random daily and pull Pit of Saron.

PoS is one of my favorites, so things are looking good. Then, I’m panning around my camera looking for the other members of the group, and they’re all up ahead… Not so good… last tank musta either bailed or been kicked. Things that make you go, “Hmmmmm.”

Apparently, there were a few wipes on the first boss, Forgemaster Garfrost. Well, my tactics for this boss are pretty basic. On the first pull, ensure I’ve got boss’s attention AND all the silly undeads wandering around beside him (sometimes, that gets a bit tricky with pathing because the adds will walk around my patch of Death and Decay and bounce over to a group mate — not good!).  Beat on Garfrost a bit till he bounces away to get a better weapon, look for the rock that got thrown at a group member, and hide behind it for a moment to clear Permafrost stacks…  While there, beat down remaining adds (if any).

Ding, round 2!

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Some times you smash faces, sometimes you get your face smashed.

Last nights daily, Old Kingdom, was simply pure fail. I made the mistake of testing out a dual-wield frost spec (while dual wielding, Artie looks like he’s in a ‘roid rage with all the animation and I just find that cool). However, he was getting hit like a brick truck. 38K health dropped instantly on trash pulls. WTF?? I’m down, group wipes on trash… Shammy heals was frustrated, I was frustrated, the DPS were grumbling….

Was I the only fail and deserving all of the blame? Nope! Arms warrior pulling 1.2K DPS. Destro warlock pulling 1.1K dps. Frost mage pulling… ready? … 800 DPS. I was topping DPS meters as tank with 1.8 DPS. How friggin sad is that?

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I log in last night, check my mail, run some dailies, validate my pre-fight checklist, and queue up for a random.  Ah, crap!  Halls of Reflection… my personal Brick Wall.

I’ve got a priest healer, and pally, hunter and rogue pulling DPS. I’m not ready to toss in the towel, so I inform my group…

• I’ve completed this on regular, but have not yet had success on Heroic. (letting any elitists know early
• I’d like to attempt it using the line of sight method to pull the mobs into the alcove.  (This helps keep their focus on me and keep the silly Tortured Riflemen from locking down our healer.)
• I’d appreciate aggro dumps from the rogue (Tricks of the Trade) and hunter (Misdirection).
• For CC, please lock up the Riflemen to help me keep healer free.

Nobody types anything for a few moments.  Finally, I see “CC?!? WTF is CC?“

/facepalm

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Artie earned his Perky Pug the other day, which made me reflect on the various instance runs that I’ve taken and some of the problems, challenges and successes.

This, my virgin post on Blade Barrier, shares these with the 2 or 3 people that will find this from Google. Welcome!

Problems

These are the out-and-out “bad things”.  A problem in a PuG is either preventing the group from reaching the goal (Emblems!) or at the very least severly hampering that goal.  The examples I’ve experienced boil down to players either simply not knowing how to play their class (or at least how their class abilities impact other players) or perhaps not caring.

• The Hunters (sadly, yes there have been more than one) who used a tenacity pet instead of a ferocity pet. Please, Hunters, put your gorillas, turtles and bears in the stable before you accept the queue summon.
• The Hunter that ran all of Violet Hold in Aspect of the Viper because “Dude, I run out of mana quick and that helps!”.
• Death Knights that continued to drop Death and Decay on the pulls.  I realize that this is the new sexy theory-crafted maximum DPS from Elitist Jerks, but don’t drop DnD on the pull? Be like an NBA star and spread some diseases around before you toss down the DnD.  This allows me the chance to slap a Howling Blast and a few Rune Strikes.  For you Frost and Blood specs, just don’t even bother with DnD.
• the Warlock that refused to summon an Imp and stuck with his Voidwalker because “it will add to my recount dps”.  Welcome to /ignore…
• the <insert any DPS here> that is not even cracking 1,000 Damage Per Second in a level 80 heroic. Seriously, if you can’t pull AT LEAST 1,500 DPS, get the hell out of the heroic queue. I get (and support) that heroics are where you get gear before you can raid. But, not pulling your own weight drags down the group. If it’s gear holding you back, run random regulars. If it’s skill, research your own class and do your best to improve your performance.

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