When I logged in after work, I figured I'd finish up grinding the badges I needed in order to finish up my DPS set, so that I could start working on my tanking gear. Well...it's as if the WoW Gods are mad at me or something...
I log in, check my mail and work on my blacksmithing a little and then queue up for my random daily heroic. Being DPS, it takes awhile to get in so I decided I'd go farm some saronite to finish maxing out my blacksmithing in Sholazar Basin.
It didn't take as long as I had expected to get into the instance...but when the load screen popped up...my heart sank a little.
It was Azjol-Nerub. *gag* The last 2 posts have been about Azjol Nerub and how miserable my last few runs have been in there...so I wasn't really looking forward to it. I took a look at our group. Three of the party members were from the same group: the pally tank, the resto druid and the boomkin...
I thought, "Surely this won't be a bad run. It's almost like a guild run for them." I started to relax a bit.
We took out the gauntlet and first boss with almost no issue. One of them even linked their completed achievement for "Watch Him Die". Phew! One wipe I don't have to worry about!
We headed down into Hadronox's lair...and then...the curse hit again like a freight train.
We took out all of the Anu'bar Crushers like normal. I assumed this was a normal run and not an achievement run...but...I was wrong...
Turns out, they were trying for "Hadronox Denied" but none of them bothered to mention this...
Instead, and to my horror, as Hadronox entered the room the tank raced down and instantly engaged this big, bad spider. Ugh...
As previously mentioned...
As he enters the room, he's being attacked by a bunch of Anu'bar. As they attack him, he puts leeching poison on them. Leeching poison heals the Hadronox. Another quick note: Once he enters the room, he webs the doors closed where these Anu'bar spawn from, thus preventing adds during the encounter.So, here's what happened...and why we wiped...
1. Tank engaged Hadronox before the doors are webbed.
2. Hadronox is surrounded by about 20 Anu'bar bug-guys that heal him via leeching poison.
3. Not only do these leeched bug guys heal Hadronox, but so does the leeching poison he casts on the rest of the party.
4. Some of the bugs take their frustration out on the tank, causing him/her to take an obnoxious amount of damage.
5. Adds continue to spawn.
6. Despite the best efforts of our dps getting Hadronox down to about 25% health, the leeching poison ultimately heals him to 100%.
7. An endless cycle of adds healing the boss begins. Since it's endless...
...The tree and boomkin both end up going oom a few moments into the fight
...the hunter's pet as well as my ghoul have died and can no longer tank or taunt adds that are now racing for the tree
...the tree has healer aggro through the roof on the newer adds, so my best attempts at picking them up to keep them off the tree ultimately fail
...the healer dies...
...the tank dies...
...the rest of us die...
...repair bills are generated.
Now, I realized that they were trying to do the achievement, and I know how I got it on my druid, so I offered up my strategy...and even offered to sacrifice my ghoul in order to get them their achievement. I don't care about the achievement, personally, but I know what it's like when you want to get an achievement and can't get a group that wants to help. I explain exactly how I got it on my druid...in detail...and offer my services...
But rather than heed my advice and listen to me when I explain why "this" strategy just won't work...the tank does EXACTLY the same thing again...it was like...deja'vu.
We wiped again. As we were running back, I said that unfortunately, I'm unwilling to try it their way again and if that was the intention to please let me know and I would just leave and find another random group...BUT...again offered to get them the achievement if they wanted it and told them how easy it would be.
They decided to skip the achievement...blaming "slow dps" for the failure.
Listen, 2.8k single target dps is not "slow dps". Maybe it isn't the most "letesauce" of DPS, but it's not bad...especially considering I've been 80 for only one week and this is my first and only melee DPS toon at level 80.
The reason for the failure was a lack of understanding of the mechanics, spells and abilities of the boss and the adds...It's a huge pet peeve of mine when people blame everyone else. My knowledge of the mechanics of the game and how to get things done is NOT clouded by the color or item level of my gear...or damage output. I could have been doing 500 dps and STILL could have gotten them the achievement had they just listened and allowed me to help.
Anyway, we fought the "normal" boss fight and moved on to kill Anub'Arak without any issues really after that.
It frustrates me a little though. Azjol-Nerub and I are just NOT getting along...not at all. It seems like every group I take in there is just ...I mean...ugh!
I queued as a healer on my druid a little later, after helping my husband's warlock get through Forge of Souls and part of Pit of Saron (normal), and of course, got plopped into H:AN for her first random heroic in almost two weeks...
Well, I guess it wouldn't have been terrible except that our tank pulled the first group of the gauntlet, then taunted the second before the last mob of the first group was even dead, and then pulled the third group in the gauntlet AND the Boss in the first room all at once...saying..."Oops" in party chat after doing it.
I managed to keep them all alive. But poisons, plus little boss bug friends nibbling on me while I'm trying to keep a tank alive that's taking a lot of damage, plus the dps taking damage trying to keep the little bugs off and mobs that no longer want to eat the tank off of me...it was exciting for sure...
I hate Azjol-Nerub again. It's sad.
I'm also starting to resent the LFG system...Also...I am REALLY missing the days when our guild would get together and run heroics at night. One of the sweetest of our guildies got on his pally tank last night to help us finish AN after our tank bailed on us just before the final boss...and then after...he offered to tank a few heroics for my DK to grab some emblems...
He is an amazing tank. Period. He pulls intelligently. He is geared well. He doesn't take much damage and if he does, he knows where his "holy shit" buttons are and will heal himself if he thinks I'm not going to get him healed in time. He knows what he's doing...and he's just incredibly sweet and helpful all the time. Actually, even his other level 80 toons...he's just a well-rounded and all around skilled player.
Healing him in H:AN last night made me miss the good old days where we'd all pick up the Daily Heroic quest in Dalaran and we'd fumble around trying to put a guild group together. A few of us would purposely wait until he logged in for the privilege of running the daily heroic with him- knowing that it would be a smooth, easy, fun run.
I suppose the LFG thing is good in a way...as it has DEFINITELY made me appreciate my guild a lot more. Maybe we're not all insanely well geared and we don't raid as much as others...but my Ascendants are all good at what they do- be it healing, DPS, or tanking. They're all usually quite friendly and helpful and just fun to be around. :) Love my guild!
From your post, I'm not sure that you understand that in order to get the extra 2 emblems, the important part is that the instance itself is random. The players with you do NOT have to be random -- you can enter as a complete or partial group, if you desire.
ReplyDelete-- Bentgrass (Eitrigg)
Very true- but difficult if you're the only one in a guild that is interested in hitting random dungeons at the time. We do guild runs as often as possible. It just happened to be that no one was available when I was wanting to run. /shrug
ReplyDeleteAfter the initial frustrations fade, it's actually pretty funny. Every time I queue for a random on my DK: the first heroic she gets randomed into is AN and every time we get to Hadronox- someone inevitably pulls him early. I mean...what are the odds? This exact situation has happened to her 4 times now. It never happens on my druid when I random into AN. The repair bills don't really bother me that much at all. Just thought it was interesting that my poor Desarra seems to either be a bad luck charm or is terribly cursed in this particular heroic.
Reminds me of when doing the timed run on H:CoS was still difficult- and all I wanted was the drake for my druid...and we'd always miss him somehow- either a wipe or slow dps or server lag spike...it took me forever to actually SEE the Infinite Corruptor- and then lost the roll a few times. Took me forever to get my drake from there. It just seemed like she was cursed for awhile.
you are thinking the same as me Des.
ReplyDeleteI hate the random dungeon finder.
let me just confirm....I HATE THE RANDOM DUNGEON FINDER.
And i've been saying it since the day after it came out :(
It has taken away a lot of the fun of the game. people no longer wait to grp up with guildies or friends.
The come online and straight into a random with who knows who. We have one guildie with multi 80's who comes online and before she has even said hi, which is not that often you will see she is in a heroic !
I did a heroic the other day with 1 guildie. The tank (DK) we got had zero idea on generating threat and we died twice in heroic Gun before even getting to the first Snake poison boss ! :o
Then another person went in the 'back' entrance and instead of coming to us just left the grp ! So we find a 5th again and carry on.
Another wipe or 2 before the next boss and suddenly without saying a thing the tank just leaves !
Still we then get another DK tank who at least knew how to generate threat.
And we did complete the run but it was painful and not fun.
Last night i did another random with the same sinlge guildie and the tank was great in that he had amazing gear and HP..over 50k (pally). But he just ran from one pack of mobs to the next without stopping ever. No mention of are people ready, do you have mana etc.
This was in UK. It was a fast run and no wipes but at the last boss he went charging straight up to it and pulled it alone with me just a bit behind him but it took the rest, including the healer 5 seconds or more to catch up with the grp !
dont get me wrong as the tank his dps was 2.6k ! better sadly than mine but that's another story about my issues with an oomkin spec in 'old' heroics where mobs have sadly way too little health to allow me to generate a decent dps rotation.
so to my mine the random finder has made the game less about being in a guild, less about the social side of the game which is the reason i play it and more about doing as many heroics with anyone in as short a time as possible.
/cry
Oh and yeah as is said above its only the dungeon that needs to be random which is good as i always try to get at least 4 people i know to come with me. You can ignore 1 random if they turn out to be a nub!!
Lol Des, it took me ages to run CoS cos everyone said it was so hard and then in all the runs i have done there since I have only failed to kill the Corrupter once and that was due to the tank d/cing for a couple of mins. The number of times we've just left the drake cos no one needs it.....
Oh and Des your last para strikes a chord. We maybe a small guild but we are to be quite frank and awesome grp of people.
The same guildie i mentioned above was in a random heroic with 4 randoms a couple days ago when someone in it /bow to him and said 'hey someone from The Mockers you guys are awesome'
How good is this when you can do randoms with hundreds of other people across various servers considering we have about 6-7 actual people in the guild !! although they total more like 20 or so lvl 80's cos most have 3-4 !!
K
I think I'm going to reply to your comment in a new post. I have a story that illustrates a major downfall in the dungeon finder situation. =)
ReplyDelete