Pugga Bugga

I'm gonna switch up the order on you here, because I wanted the negative toned posting to be first, so if you read these in chronological order, you'll hit the happy one last and hopefully leave with that taste in your mouth.

As I described, I was all gung-ho about running Hellfire Ramparts. On one level its a cool instance with only a few complicated pulls, and its pretty short, so its not a huge time committment like some other dungeons I've been in. On another level, I was obsessing about that pair of leggings. In summary, I wanted to run Ramparts as many times as I could.

I ended up doing 6 runs through Ramparts over the weekend. Each can technically be considered a PUG because no run had more than 3 guildies. And even those guildies, it was my first or second run with them, so practically a PUG. Along the way, I did work several times with a certain Resto Druid who I'll mention more about later. He and I got a decent rhythem, so that made it feel less PUG'ish.

But either way, this was really the first time I was ever getting into PUGs. My instancing previous to this had always been with my former guild, and was pretty limited. And in Azeroth, I've had 0 success at finding a group via the LFG thingie.

Luckily there's the voice chat system now. That totally makes things easier. Still doesnt fix bad attitudes, but it does cut down on the communiation problems, whether in a guild event or in a PUG.

On this one PUG run through Ramparts, we didn't have voice on for some reason. So all coordination is going by text. The group leader was a good druid tank, and he was good at target selection and icon assignment and stuff. He also was good at timing the pulls. So there's good potential.

But we've got this warlock who joins the group. You ever have one of those moments where you can tell in a split second, i mean, just a fraction of a nanosecond, you just get a vibe from someone? I don't remember exactly what he said to start things off, but you could just instantly tell he's not going to be someone you want around.

We head into the dungeon. Before first pull, group lead texts out "skull=kill, x=kill next, moon=freeze". Then he pops up the icons, and pulls. This all happened within about 2 seconds. I barely had time to drop my trap, let alone allow the cooldown to progress a bit. We make it through the first 2 guys and the patrol that jumps in on Ramparts, just to keep you on your toes and to ensure that all PUGs suffer immediately. I ask him to slow down a drop to allow my traps to work better, and he's a good group lead, so he listens to me and the next pull, waits for my signal that i'm ready.

Cool. So he pulls the skull, I then shoot the moon (I kept thinking of hearts on every pull), only to see the moon stop and start casting at me. Oh, man. Moon is a caster and has no intentions of running into my trap. Ok, we tap dance and off-tank with my pet, and the fight goes pretty well. I let the lead know that I'd prefer a melee mob for trapping until we're in a hallway where I can do a LoS pull on a caster to freeze him. Again, he's a good lead, so he listens to me and on next pull, moon is a nice melee mob.

Pull skull, I shoot the moon. Moon nicely changes direction and heads right to my trap and just when I expect to hear that "whomp" of the guy getting frozen, I instead hear myself getting smacked. Hmmm. Must have resisted the trap. Ok, since I had been playing the cooldowns properly, there was just a few seconds before my trap was ready again, so I scoot to the side and drop another trap. Again, no "whomp" and I'm getting hit. So I look and I see "Immune" across my screen? What? I didn't even know you could have that happen. I know traps can be resisted, but not total immunity. So for the rest of this fight, I have to off-tank with my pet. Luckily my Resto Druid friend is awesome, so he kept my pet alive, in addition to the rest of the party.

So after the fight, I let the party know for future reference, that particular mob is immune to traps, so we should select a different melee mob from that pack for the freezer.

With all this communication between me and the group leader, our little warlock buddy who joined the PUG is interpreting this as complaining and whining. So on the next pull, we get things totally right, skull and x are both dogs who pack big punch but burn down easy, moon is melee mob who, as far as we know, is not immune to my traps.

Pull skull, shoot moon. Moon gets to freezer and WHOMP, nice block of ice. So I switch targets over to skull and begin the DPS fun, while scooting over to where I'll drop the next trap. Next thing I know, warlock's minion runs from the skull, over to the moon, takes 1 swing, and then runs back to the skull.

So our little friend thinks its cute to purposely break the trap.

Trying to remind myself that its just a game, I give the friendly "pls dont hit moon until its the last mob left" remark.

Next pull, same thing.

Luckily, our healer is outstanding, and has some good awareness and was watching, so he says "do that on purpose again and no heals for you".

Next pull, same thing.

Now it erupts into big fight where this warlock guy is accusing everyone of being a ninja and complainer and whiner and on and on.

Just keeps going and going.

So we try 1 more pull, and the guy just sends his minion down the hall to aggro everything, says "have fun" and quits the group.

What a winner. I just don't get it.

Luckily, one of the other guys in the group knew a warrior who wanted in, so he joins and we one-shot the rest of the instance, in pretty good harmony and teamwork.

What a piece of work though. And before I remembered /ignore, I had already forgotten the exact spelling of his name, so too late for that.