Pugging Hell

PuGs...God I hate them, don't you?. They're all full of obnoxious morons with the social graces of a cesspool, effing and blinding and hurling accusations of being a "fukin Nub" around left right and centre. The uberer-than-thou dps are too busy flooding /party with Recount scores to move out of a muddy puddle let alone fire, poison, lightning or deadly melted cheese; the tank, replete with with 19,000 health, 520 defence rating and at least 40% dps gear sticks to mobs like a well-lubed penguin sticks to an iceberg; and the regularity with which the manarexic healer hollers "mb plx!" is matched only by his earnest whisperings to the warrior/rogue/death knight asking "got any waters? Im out".

So reviled are these excercises in self-torment than at least half of my regular instancing amigos flatly refuse to enter anything with less than 80% of the group sporting guild tabards, and from their horror stories you can understand why. I, on the other hand, soldier doggedly on. It's fair to say that I learnt my tanking chops pugging northrend normals and heroics during a dark era of guild history when attendance plummeted and there was much talk of migration to greener pastures. Thankfully, there was light at the end of the tunnel and our motley crew are now trundling along better than ever. These days there is little need for anyone of us to enter the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Looking For Group. On the odd occasions when it's a quiet night in Dalaran, others I know will turn to alternate pursuits, often centred around the amassing of vast stockpiles of shiny crafting mats for our guild horde. For myself though, being pretty much able to heal any 5-man the game has to offer, I like to get drafted into a ragtag PuG from time to time and experience some of the 'colour' of the WoW community. Call it a masochistic streak I guess. Most of the time such runs range from 'competent but mind-numbingly dull' to 'dear lord how did these so-called 'people' ever learn to operate a computer'. It's a harmless passtime, and it keeps my therapist in business.

Once in a while though, you get a night like Friday.

Friday was one of those quiet evening. A few mute guildies were gently questing in outland, and gchat was slowly clogging itself up with all the tumbleweed blowing through it. After advertising myself suitably in LFG I was drafted into group heading for the Utgarde instances. This did not turn out to be a good start to the night's frivolity. Three of our party seemed to know each other or at least, were socially inept enough to consider 'Shit man ur dps is lame xD' a form of polite greeting, and somehow managed to combine suits of full epics and stellar dps numbers with a complete lack of that most important of player qualities...'knowing what the fuck to do'. Never before have I simultaneously experienced crushing boredom at having to pay no more attention to the tank than to keep the ES/RT double team ticking away gently, and nail-biting desk-pummeling rage-terror of waiting to see just how the terminally squishy dps (two rogues and a class-traitor of a shaman) were going to try and wipe the group next. Needless to say, as soon as Ingvar's reanimated head had fallen from his shoulders I bid my companions tormentors a hasty and ironic 'great run guys, cya around' and fled to Dalaran in search of a better group or failing that, a stiff drink.

As it turned out I got both (see footnote). Responding to a cryptic "LF1M Healer for VH hc" I figured it couldn't go much worse. If I was wrong and it turned out that it could get much worse I reasoned, I wouldn't be in there long and anyway could always feign a disconnect. I didn't notice anything special about the group until we got to our second boss, the big angry voidwalker with his semi-invisible minions (can't remember his name...look it up if you care more than I do i.e. at all). Now usually this fight is a race for the dps getting him down before I can no-longer heal the amount of damage from the adds. In guild we tend to approach complex and delicate game mechanics with a patented 'if you hit it hard enough it will probably die eventually' strategy. I settled down for a close run fight.

He went down after 32 seconds.

Cyanigosa took 46.

"Fast group" I thought.

"That went well" I said, "want to try CoS?"

I don't know exactly what it was about the group. We had an apparently inexperienced Paladin tank (he claimed to have just started this tanking lark...a fact I assume to be lies, since he barely, though only barely as you shall see, put a foot wrong all night), a kindly Warlock who filled my girlfriend's normal role of healer guard on the trash, a DK and I think a rogue as well, and of course yours truly in healer mode. Certainly, we all knew the tactics, and were decked out in pretty universally good gear. As one of the party commented, it's so nice to have a group where the dps all pull good consistend numbers (none of them dropped below 2.5k all night) and a tank/healer combo that know what they're doing (oh stop...). For some reason we just meshed or clicked or bonded or something else of a suitably copulatory bent. As it was, we reached the gauntlet with 10 minutes on the clock, running well and feeling confident.

As we entered the gauntlet, three things made me slightly nervous. Firstly, we had established at the beginning of the run that if the bronze drake mount dropped, I would be getting it. Secondly, I was at this point 2 Emblems of Conquest away from being able to afford my T7 shoulders. If we got to the boss, I would get them tonight. If we didn't, I wouldn't. Thirdly, as we leapt down the stairs towards the burning streets of Stratholme, the tank said this...

"I'm gonna pull loads here, make sure you keep up".

We wiped.

We rezzed.

We reached the gauntlet (again) with 4 minutes to go.

3 minutes later, still tailing the last ghoul who was resolutely chewing on the rogue's back, we emerged from the gauntlet at a dead run, and pelted towards the Infinite Corruptor. The game seemed to stutter briefly as 5 players popped all their cooldowns at once and BLASTED THE LIVING BEJESUS out of that dragon 'till there wasn't any bejesus left to blast. After our whooping and hollering party had moved on towards Mal'Ganis (pausing only to kill the ghoul who was still doggedly trailing us), an Infinite Dragonkin in blue overalls and a baseball cap shuffled out of the glowing time portal, and began to slowly mop up an Infinite Corruptor-sized greenish smear from the cobbles of Market Row.

As one of the group commented, "Now THAT's what I call heroic". Another, rather excited shaman was heard to hoot, "I didn't even know that was fucking possible!". It's true. I didn't.

PuGs: 99% Shite... 1% pure Gold. I hate 'em... but by God I love 'em.

P.S. Pedants among you will notice that I did not mention a stiff drink. "Clearly" you will think, already composing some indignant tirade as as your mouse strays towards the comments section, "Clearly so wrapped up is the author in the excitement and suspense, so concerned is he with putting in all those dynamic paragraph breaks, so distracted is he by his fairly unimpressive and probably grossly exaggerated achievement, that he has forgotten to tie up the one loose end that drew us into the thing and made us really engage with the story. What of the promised stiff drink in the fifth paragraph? What about that eh? We demand the truth God-dammit!". Well there's no need to be like that about it. I could tell you I got so high on the rush of the kill that no stimulation, virtual or physical could ever satisfy me again. I could tell you how I descended into depression and alcoholism, that the stiff drink was a forboding hint at the shame and degredation that was to follow. I could tell you how every night I drown my sorrows in a whiskey bottle, and how I drift into unconsciousness repeating the same words over and over, "Glad you could make it, Uther... Watch your tone with me boy, you may be the prince but I'm still your superior...There's something about the plague you should know...This entire city must be purged...I order you...I'm sorry...I can't watch you do this...".

Or I could say that I had a small celebratory snifter of port before bed. Whichever you think is more likely.

Orange out.