OK, people, there are obviously a few things you need to know about grouping. I know this is preaching to the choir for most of you, but good grief, save everyone in the group trouble and don’t accept an invite if you’re going to do stupid stuff.
Last night I tried for 15 minutes to get into PuGs for Stockades to get going on the Defias questline after killing Van Cleef. I had to talk a hunter into letting me in. He was level 24 and had a level 25 rogue with him. I got one good mage I’d grouped with before into it at level 25, and we sent an invite for a 31 priest who was on her way.
There are standards to 5-man groups:
- If you are a n00b, at least let the leader know, if not the whole group. Then they can advise you on what happens in that instance. In most cases, the rest can even adjust and be ready for your n00bishness.
- If you might have to leave, say that up front. Nothing is worse than spending an hour going in and not being able to finish everyone’s quest because of one person. If there’s a real-life issue or emergency, those are understandable and the group will just be disappointed, not pissed.
- If you see a green drop, hit Greed unless you want to wear it then or within a level or so. In the case of equipping, select Need and let others know the first time to feel out the group. 99% of groups will tell you that’s fine and keep the extra info to yourself.
- No looting for friends or alts unless you ask the whole group before making your selection.
- Use people’s names or shortened versions of them. Don’t keep calling people warrior or healer.
- Don’t pull without people being at full mana!!
- Don’t pull too many mobs or be stupid with your positioning so you do a body pull from pats in the middle of the fight.
- Pull mobs off the squishies ASAP. Don’t make them cry for help.
- Don’t keep asking the healer for healing. Over and over again. Here is an example:
My leaving came after telling them 3 times that they don’t need to ask for heals. I told them that I’d either heal them or I was out of mana. All they have to do is look, not type an idiotic request for healing when that is impossible. In this case, Lorenna is the other priest, more than capable of fading, bubbling, or killing the 2 mobs she had on her, but the others were too busy working on one mob than come help her. This also came after my repeated requests to not pull until I was at full mana. Brenie could confirm I asked about 10 times in the course of 15 minutes. The last response I had in this hallway was, “priest, we ARE FINE.” Fine. Die then. Idiot. Hearth. /ignore.
It took 8 rooms for us to wipe. Now was that becuase we were fine, or they were just dang lucky they had someone to heal their numbskulls? I’m not saying I’m the best priest out there for my level, but no one dies when it’s even a moderately bad situation. All hell has to break loose before any group I’ve been in wipes. In 10 DM runs, I’ve been in 3 wipes and all were because of bad pulls. In those runs, how many have died? 16. All of us 3 times and a level 11 pet that had 2 mobs on it. I have the Lavishly Jeweled Ring, Cookie’s Stirring Rod, Corsair’s Overshirt, and the Emberstone Staff from Deadmines. That’s all the blue drops from all the bosses in DM. And someone thinks they need to tell me they need healing? Get out of my group. Oh, it’s not my group? C’ya.
My pet peave…when in a group that is in an even fight with a bunch of mobs and some idiot decides to loot while the battle is raging.
Another …. mages who think they can tank (directed to myself)
Amen brotha…Amen!
I’ve only been kicked from one group in my MMO experience, and it was in FF11, and just for the OPPOSITE reason.
Now I’m not saying that being a white mage in FF11 is harder than being a priest in WoW, but it’s more meticulous. You can’t just throw heals on whomever needs them. Keeping the tank’s HP meter full is an easy way to pull aggro from everything in sight, and an overzealous white mage can get himself killedn faster than just about any other class. My general practice was to throw Cure spells on off-tanks and people taking AoE damage, and then throw Cure II on the tank when he hit about 50% HP (using Cure III was unthinkable; nobody would be able to peel the aggro off me).
Anyway, our group was taking on MUCH more than it could chew, and I had to make the decision to either keep the tank alive and eat all the aggro myself, or save myself and let the tank die. Needless to say I did my job as best I could, keeping the tank hovering around 50-70% HP, but even that meant constant healing and before long I was nearly dead. After we managed to kill the mob I was scolded for healing too much. So I asked “Do you want me to stop healing?” And they answered “YES”.
I was kicked from the group after everyone wiped in the next pull. =)
That doesn’t sound like a fun game ๐ I was usually able to just use Renew on them, but when the leather-wearing hunter starts getting beaten on by 3 lvl 22 elites, he goes down FAST. Since he sucked and no one else was hitting 2 of them, as soon as I healed him, I had 2 lvl 22 elites hitting me. No one would come to peel them off, regardless of my “Would you come peel these things OFF me?!” warning that my healing mod puts out.
It was not fun.