Prior to the pug system I admittedly would pull the network cord from my computer when a pug seemed that it would take double or more the time of a regular group or worse unlikely to make it.  Though there are times that people were assholes and really did not deserve what can some times be the saving grace of a mysterious d/c.

But the pug system offers an almost emotional detached experience.  Its not like pugging with people from the same server as you.   Especially since so far the pug system does not allow for cross server raids.  Rarely if ever do I meet a lot of the same people. It was not like the group system before where you would always bump into someone on your server, and perhaps they would like you. I tend to wonder if that could be a problem for the development in future raids.  As most of the leads to my raids  have come from grouping with people on my server.  The random pug system is great in getting groups for 5 man regular and heroic instances, but could be a problem in the future for raiding.

Yesterday Larus’s daily pug  the Nexus was one of those things where I was practically grinding the ends of my teeth down.  One of the worst parts was Anomalus, for some bizarre reason no one was killing the rifts.  Not exactly sure but I think that the tank can also work on taking outs those pesky rifts.   Upon running  finale killing the boss a hunter in the group ran off the edge and died.    This is a detail to keep in mind.  Finale after the hunter died twice from trying to get back to us, he finale listen to me and waited at Keristasza.   The biggest problem was the highest dps was 2.2 k (I run a mod called recount) everyone else was between 900 to 1400 dps.   Who was the highest dps?  The tank.  One of the dps was an enhance shammy, unfortunately seemed to do a lot of range attacks, though I guess that was better then she decided to melee(well she looked like a she but perhaps it was a he).   Because she would often not wait for the tank to get aggro and for some odd reason died in seconds.  From Anomalus to Ormorok the Tree-Shaper the hunter was not dpsing.  Sadly he has performed more damage then the shaman between this stretch where you would have figured that she would have caught up and exceeded the hunter in dps.  Clearly this was not the case as the hunter still had a long lead on her dps.
I am not sure why I stayed so long, especially since I could have re-queued for another instance quickly.  Only thing that gets a random instance faster is a tank.  But its certain I would have done with another instance or two if I had left an re-queued in the time it took this group to clear.  Perhaps I was not really aware how poorly things went til the 4th boss when I happen to look at the dps meter.  Clearly the tank had been looking at the dps meter as well as he pointed out that he was the highest in dps.. /facepalm.

Currently I am running Bankous at one random pug a day, unfortunately I started this at level 72, I wish I had waited because one of the very clear benefits of doing one random pug a day is the two triumph emblems.  I am hoping that the same system is available in the expansion.  Though clearly I am planning to try and get Verdin to 85 when the next expansion comes out in one sitting.  But  extra emblems to prepare for the next expansion raiding. I am half wondering if the 10% experience will work from level 80 – 85 on the heirloom gear.  I guess only way to find out other then to kill two mobs of the same level in the next exp.

Prior to the whole new pug system, I did a lot of pugs before. Its all part of gearing my small army of alts. Granted groups form faster, but assholes are all the same no matter what server you are on. But recently I have been encountering a sort of new trend where tanks want to chain pull everything. Depending on the gear and skill of the tank its not a bad thing. I have often done this with Bushidox, a tank that I have deemed a one of the best bear tanks on my server. Maybe its not true, but for the most part I don’t have to worry about pulling agro off him unless I do something really stupid. Not to mention Meriones, possible my weakest healing alt (I would rather be a moonkin and I really have not worked on a restore set), can keep Bushidox alive in most instances. There are other tanks that come to mind that are just as good, though most of them I know have been around since the beginning of wow. All of which are pretty good at keeping an eye on the mana users in their team.

Gear wise Rasbora is the best geared and as of today got the first piece of t10 of all my alts, Larus not far behind, soon I will be able to use triumph emblems towards ret. Sadly I used my frost emblems to replace my level 75 blue alchemy trinket. Asides for the lost of haste I am sure it will be as much or mana then I would get extra from the mana pots bonus of the trinket. Its my hope when the patch for Ruby Sanctum comes out I will be able to get triumph badges in heroics I hope either get a better shield from drops or they will have a better shield by trinkets. But hopefully not before I get 2 pieces of t9 ret set. I tend to think the patch will be released in July.

Today one of these chain pulling tanks was in Larus’s random pugs. The heroic: The Nexus. Which is great I want to finish off my healing gear to start working on a ret set. Before you think I am whining the tanks is a warrior that has 27 k health, and what gear I had a time to get a glimpse of what is a level 70 badge shield or the rep shield, which I was sure, looked familiar. When we finale killed the last boss he disappeared before I could look at the rest of the gear. I got distracted as a tanking friend of mine was offering to queue friends for faster groups, and I jumped onto Vulpes. I meant to get a look at his profile but forgot to write his name down. Sure tanks can do heroics at that level, but usually not chain pulling. Granted I was able to keep him alive through most of it. However on the elemental boss mana boss I got distracted and he was killed in seconds, luckily a melee dps death knight took over tanking (and actually took a lot less damage). The whole way I was using endless mana pots and using divine plea to keep my mana reserves at maximum. But there were no breaks in these endless chain pulls except to rez his stupid ass.

Then there was Friday on Rasbora, a bear tank. He thought it was a good idea to chain pull all the way through Halls of Lighting. He did not bother to check with me to see if I could heal through 3 different groups of mobs, not to mention the first boss that has a wonderful aoe attack. He could not possible have known that the dps could keep up with all his pulls. Right as soon as we loaded into the instance he headed straight towards the mobs. Yes, I kept everyone alive. Mana did not become a big issue until the room after the 3^rd boss. I made it clear I needed an innervate, however it did not come from the bear tank, but the moonkin. Considering the moonkin really needed to keep the innervate for himself as his own mana levels were pretty low. The bear tank should have stop for a second to give me his as its not much use to a bear tank. After killing the last boss the tank had the nerve to wait around while I went around looting stuff, never mind he did not stop to loot.

I encounter these tanks all the time on alts lately. The problem is that most of the time it fails. One tank this Friday had the nerve to call Pandion’s group noobs prior to dropping group after one wipe. However the group was in agreement that he was a noob, and he should have advised us he was going to pull a bunch of groups, not to mention been prepared to pull the one group he missed that decided to yank the healer. I tried to pull to misdirect what I could to the tank and even try to get Hobbes to take the rest, ice trapping was out of the question with all the aoe going on. But the tree was soon kindling. Re-queuing we soon had a better geared and skilled tank, that actually asked if we were ready before boss pulls.

I am not an expert on tanks, but I know what makes me uncomfortable as a healer: Tanks with less then 35k health pre toc, usually 40 k or less for any tank toc and beyond. Though the health points are not always an indicator of skill, I have seen tanks in a hand full of epics out perform tanks that are full epics.

With the latest patch there is a drive to want to do the daily every day. At this point everyone of my characters have a t9 piece except for Meriones as I am not sure if I will go with gloves or shoulders. Mostly because the t7.5 sholders have a great deal of + hit.tranquility to try and bring everyone back up to full health. After which the healer seemed to be focusing on the tank again. So back to Moonkin mode. However I started receiving no heals, so I ended up supplementing the healing. It seemed almost like she wanted us to wipe, and she was willing to let me and the tank die to accomplish it. Now while there are those that can heal but choose a dps or tanking spec that would sooner die then heal themselves, I am not amongst them.

Yesterday was Violet Hold, any one who has wiped knows that the last thing you want to do is wipe on this instance. It does not matter if you went through the 17^th pull, it means you start back to the first pull. No loot, no badges. I went on Meriones with a pug. With the latest patch there seems to be a bug, which will not allow you to share the instance daily inside the instance. So you have to make sure to get it before going in. It was not til the 16^th pull that the healer realized that she did not have the daily. There was talk of me healing it (or as they called me “the other druid“). But I don’t think that mattered as this was a timed instance, and the door was locked. Not to mention we were now on the 17^th pull. By the 18^th portal which was the last boss, healing seemed to come to a stop on the tank. I did

I have no proof her plan was to wipe us so she could get the daily, but it seemed weird she had no problem healing through the etherem guy, but could not heal us through the last boss.

But Qixy only had 11k hp, and 13 k mp. With 1324 spell power. She has only had one heroic under her belt which is Utgarde Pinnacle.   No head or sholder enchants.  All gems were of green Burning Crusades quality.

Now I am not one to say that I have never gone under geared to an instance. After all the first 4 epics of Pandion’s non-crafted gear was because Fruit of Elune had a spot, and there was no hunter. They knew I was under geared, and did not want me to bring a caster that was better geared to roll on gear against their casters. . Even so Pandion was better geared then this priest. Plus I had flasks, scrolls, and food. Regardless these were friends, it was not a pug. In a pick up group there is an expectance of being prepared for the instance you are going to do. Clearly Qixy was expecting everyone else in the group to pick up her slack, or she was over confident in her gear.

Lets also compare Bankous to Qixy

Bankous vs Qixy

By the time Bankous reaches 80 he will have more achievement points then she does.  Keep in mind Bankous is just a bank alt.  However in the process of leveling him I make it a point to keep him geared so when it comes time to level him I am not going to be dragging butt.  I make it a point to hit atleast every instance once and grab all the quests.  At this point almost ever guide out there can tell you where to obtain every quest.   So its not hard to get decently geared without making people hate you for being the weakest link in the group.  Not to mention there is Tournament which has a weapon upgrade and boots. 

Ideally you want to have the superior achievement before you start raiding or running heroics.

Cenarion Circle server is one of the more costly for auction house,  as we have been around since wow started.  However with that in mind Northrend green gems sell pretty cheaply.  Its worth investing in those.  Not to mention I have been in groups that have booted people for not getting themself enchanted.  There are alot of bind on equip level 78 – 80 blues that sell for rather cheap since they are rahter frequent drops.

My Advise to Qixy was too shop the auction house and to hit the non-heroic instance till she gets 1500 + spell power. Normally I would not suggest this, but your seriously under geared. 15000 hit points unbuffed has been my experience for raiding (10 man naxx / os) and heroics. Mana wise I am not sure but Rasbora was around 16k mana by the time I started raiding. Also get out there and do all the non-heroic instances. Make some of the craftable Northrend items to supplement your gear. There are a lot in tailoring

Work on the fractions that will give you gear enchants, for shoulders The Sons of Hodir, minimum honored rep. Head wise you could go Kirin Tor or The Wyrmrest Accord minimum revered. Not to mention a lot of the fractions have upgrades in gear.

Most importantly, get a guild.  Unless your a miser with a higher level alt that your not willing to take gold from, you don’t have every profession covered like I do.   I am not saying to expect a guild to give you everything.   Guilds are often put togather for the objective of raiding.  Each member ussually has something too contribute.  In your case your a tailor and enchanter.  Not to mention being a healer is a plus.   There are alot of guilds out there that will have well geared players, and they may assist you in getting the instances you need.    Even if not you  can be there when a group forms.   Even though I am in my own guild where I park my charcters I am in several channels ready to jump in a group when forms up.

Lastly you should not complain about the group if your are not prepared to do your part.  The wipes on this run were mostly your fault.  While mobs did attack you, you do need enough hit points to give the tank a chance to pull the mobs off you before you die.  Less hp makes it less likely the tank will be able to pull agro off you.

Here is yet another bitch session about pugs and their gear. So I got a little bored and not to mention the thought of getting Bankous to 70 and having a master transmuter comes to mind. So I decided to goto Ramparts. All seemed ok as the group formed rather fast. Come to find that the hunter came from another server, and claimed to have lost somewhere around a 600 gold, which somehow did not get transferred. Honestly I have to say that I find this hard to believe, and if I was missing that much gold I would be sure to put a ticket in with a GM.

Anyway I was asked to use my succubus for crowd control, I was not too happy about that as it’s a rather weak crowd control. It would work if the succy actually continued to seduce as opposed to me having to retarget and re-seduce. It gets rather annoying when it breaks early. I ended up switching back to felguard because the other players were breaking the seduce.

After the first 2 pulls the hunter decides that he needs to reboot twice to fix some issue. At one point the hunter had Aspect of the Cheetah on (I.E. solo aspect of the dumb ass), one wonders if he noticed he was getting dazed all the time. Afterwards ever thing seemed ok up til we got to a larger pull, this is where the lack of coordination became rather noticeable. Because of this we wiped twice. Certain targets were designated for cc (crowd control) and one was designated to be taken out first. However it seemed targets that were supposed to be cc, were being killed first. My felguard died a few times, because neither the druid or the shaman were willing to throw it a heal, can’t say I am disappointed by that (even though when I heal I try to get a heal in for pets).

Prior to even getting to the boss the hunter sees a chest, which is about 4 pulls away, and most good groups wait till they are actually to the chest to roll. Everyone ends up rolling on it, and it ended up going to the warrior. The hunter starts begging to let him have the chest, and he would offer him 10 gold for it. The warrior ended up letting him have the chest (because he beleived the hunter had lost his gold), but after actually looking at the chest we found it was locked, which made rolling for its meaningless. The Warrior ends up offering the next chest o.O.

So now we were one pull away from the boss when the hunter declares that “oh sorry its time for me to eat, can you give me 10 minutes”. Needless to say we gave it to him, and I was so very tempted to say that we should look for someone to take his place. After he got back he did a rather bad pull at a bad spot. I told them to drag them back, as I knew the boss would cycle back that way. But unfortunatly it was too late, and this lead to a 3rd wipe.

We killed the boss with some efficiently. When we killed the first boss Pauldrons of Arcane Rage ( http://www.thottbot.com/i24024 ) dropped. I made it clear that I could use them. The warrior and the shaman made claims for the shoulders for the druid since she was healing us. I am assuming my claim was missed because the hunter decided to make bandaids, and him asking for a ring that was greeded and I had won (to be sent to Rasbora and made into more enchanting mats). But I was at this point I was pretty much looking for a reason to leave as I was getting sick of this hunter asking for handouts and taking afks. Not to mention ill with a warrior that could not keep mobs off of the rest of the group, and decieding that cloth gear should goto a healer. This is how the conversation went:

I left group and hearthed.

As for gear I did not check the druid or shammy, but I did look at the warrior and the hunter. Just take a look at the range weapons on this hunter and warrior.

The tanks gear is so so, but a level 29 cross bow with no stats at all is a very bad choice, heck of the whale or of the boar would have been better this.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#char … p;n=Ribdot

The hunters gear is weak, and I am basing this all of the gun that he has, considering he could have gotten something better off a quest, or even the auction house.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#char … %C3%A0dley

This last group I was with has pretty much got me to a point where I don’t want to deal with fury warriors as a tank, as the fury warrior tank in this group could not keep the extra mobs off the group worth a dam.

*gasp* was Trouble 42 talking about me >.>

I was going to post names, but since I know people in this guild I will just name the guild and not post my screen shots.

Last night I made a vain attempt to get Rasbora the last 1200 rep to revered with Honor Hold. If you think about its not exactly to hard to get 1200, as you would not need to clear no further then prior to the second boss (perhaps less if your human) I grouped with 2 members of the guild Prophets of the Medhiv. A mage and a warlock who had some weird mod I am thinking because every line of text read like <their name>: (their name). I found it mildly annoying, and I am guessing they are strong role players. The run was pretty frustrating due to the lack of crowd control (or lack of use of crowd control abilities available). At one point I was asked if I was even healing the main tank, never mind the pally was taking hits from 8 elites, and my highest rank flash heal was not keeping up with the damage.

The thing I thought was annoying is one of them rolled need on dagger of the whale and insisted that they needed it (and won with a roll of 1 out 100). The staff he had on was better then the combination of a off hand, but they tried to insist I was wrong. I insisted that he equip it if he is really going to use it, so he did. After another wipe we lost a member due to a mysterious disconnect. I was now 600 rep way from revered so I was willing to stick it out till I got the last of that rep, and it seemed possible to clear the sewer while we waited for a 5th. After we cleared our way to the sewer to the second boss our tank mysteriously disconnected. At this point I am rather fed up after having 6 deaths already, and my gear was down to thirty percent durability. I had warned them that if we did not find some replacements soon I was going to call it a night, the warlock talked me into staying a little longer. After 10 minutes of waiting I got bored and decided to inspect the mage to get a chuckle at some of the gear he was still using that he could have replaced with better gear. To my surprise he did not have the dagger of the whale equipped, instead he had a much better rare dagger equipped. I had decided that was the last straw and I was going to call it a night. I got a whisper from the warlock thanking me for coming, I told her that she needs to tell her friend to roll need on things he will use, and that I inspected his inventory and see he has another dagger equipped. I repaired and restocked on regents, before exiting the game. I did not get a reply back in regards to my pearl of wisdom.

Its been my displeasure to group with Hamner and Mogulette from the guild Trojan, asides for being assholes they are also ninja looters.

I went on a trip to the Under Bog as Larus (as healer once again) with these two in hopes of getting some shoulders and Hibiscus for Sporeggar rep, unfortunately I did not get the drop I was hoping for. In general they would bitch about me using a macro that did a raid warning to let everyone know I was not able to heal at the moment (due to shield bash). At the second boss Hammer insisted that Mogulette got a 2 handed mace, I did not attempt to roll on it because in general I use a shield and a single handed weapon. But I think I should have atleast been given the option to roll. By the time we reached another chest a rogue won the roll but left mana pots in it to be picked up. Without even asking Hammer picked them all up (keep in mind I am the one who was healing and using my own supply of mana pots) By the time we reached the last boss a shoulder piece that dropped that would best benefit the warrior who was tanking for our group. The warrior made not attempt to claim rights to it, but did roll on it and rolled higher then Mogulette and Hamner. However Mogulette picked it up regardless and disconnected, Hammer followed shortly there after.