The Reason Enrage Timers Exist
Saturday night, I was running some Alterac Valley with my guild when Wintergrasp was coming up. We finished our AV and got a group together for it. On Altar of Storms, we are heavily outnumbered by Horde. Double digit Tenacity in Wintergrasp is not unheard of. But one of my guildies had a plan. We went to a vehicle show and all got in the big siege engines. Then we went to a part of the keep away from the main battle and blasted our way in. It took a couple of tries, but we managed to win Wintergrasp.
Almost immediately General Chat started to fill up with people trying to form groups or get into groups for Vault of Archavon. I saw a name I recognized from my leveling days. It was a Rogue that had helped with a couple of group quests back in Dragonblight. She (the toon was female) was 3 levels higher than me, and just farming some Cobalt. Not only did she help me with the quest I was on, but also flew clear across the zone to help me with another quest.
So I know she’s a good person, and I whispered her to get in the group.
We sort out healing and tanking pretty quick when we notice a problem. While I jumped at first mention of tanking, no one wanted to offtank. We had a Warrior, two Death Knights, three other Paladins, and a couple of druids in the raid. The Paladins were Ret or Holy, the Druids were all trees. Yes, the DKs and Warriors had come to do mad deeps, but they still had Frost Presence and Defensive Stance.It blew my mind that no one wanted to be the offtank.
I had grabbed on of my guilds Shamans who was wanting to get some practice with Enhancement to come along. I saw one of the other tanks in our guild and invited him along. I knew he was a little undergeared, but I knew he was skilled from our time together during Burning Crusade. This is Vault. He’d need to hold Archavon for about of 6 seconds. We had good heals, I figured we could pull it off.
So we get together with the PuG and start clearing. Before you know it, we’re ready to fight Archavon. A couple of us from my guild were on vent together which allowed me to give my co-Tank a verbal cue to take Archavon when I got picked up.
The first two transitions were handled very well. My co-Tank taunted, got heals and I taunted back when Archavon released me. In what turned out to be a prophetic phrase, I told my guild mates over vent “We got the Tanks and Heals, it’s just on the DPS now.” He enraged at about 12%.
Someone in the raid suggests the tanks were tanking him in the clouds, and he was in the cloud from time to time. But when he’s casting Rock Shards, he channels it, which means he won’t move.
Then people started linking the DPS meters. What I look for on a DPS meter is who is below me because generally if you aren’t out DPSing the tank, something is amiss.
We saw a Mage with very low DPS. The raid leader questioned him and he said he got disconnected halfway through. We also saw both Death Knights were doing sub 1000 dps. The raid leader questioned it, mentioning both by name, but neither responded.
So in Raid Warning text, the raid leader states that if you are doing sub 1400 dps, you will be removed after the next attempt.
We pull again and again hit the enrage timer. Meters are posted again and the mage is up at 1600, but the two Death Knights are still sub 1k. I didn’t remember to armory them, or inspect them, so I have no clue what was up with there DPS.
Without a word or question, the Raid Leader boots them from the Raid.
I ask the Raid Leader to invite a Shadow Priest from my guild and another Shadow Priest from another guild is also invited.
We pull a third time and what do you know, he goes down like a sack of bricks, as we easily beat the enrage timer.
The only Plate item was Class:Warrior. We had two Warriors in the Raid, my co-Tank and a DPS Warrior. The DPS Warrior goes bananas in raid chat that the item MUST be awarded to him because he is DPS and the other Warrior is a Tank. I chuckled. My co-Tank rolled anyway, but lost the roll. The Raid Leader won the roll for the Rogue item that dropped, which I thought was pretty cool.
I whispered the Raid Leader to thank her for leading the raid. If I don't get a guild group next week for Heroic Archavon, I'll definately look for her.
Almost immediately General Chat started to fill up with people trying to form groups or get into groups for Vault of Archavon. I saw a name I recognized from my leveling days. It was a Rogue that had helped with a couple of group quests back in Dragonblight. She (the toon was female) was 3 levels higher than me, and just farming some Cobalt. Not only did she help me with the quest I was on, but also flew clear across the zone to help me with another quest.
So I know she’s a good person, and I whispered her to get in the group.
We sort out healing and tanking pretty quick when we notice a problem. While I jumped at first mention of tanking, no one wanted to offtank. We had a Warrior, two Death Knights, three other Paladins, and a couple of druids in the raid. The Paladins were Ret or Holy, the Druids were all trees. Yes, the DKs and Warriors had come to do mad deeps, but they still had Frost Presence and Defensive Stance.It blew my mind that no one wanted to be the offtank.
I had grabbed on of my guilds Shamans who was wanting to get some practice with Enhancement to come along. I saw one of the other tanks in our guild and invited him along. I knew he was a little undergeared, but I knew he was skilled from our time together during Burning Crusade. This is Vault. He’d need to hold Archavon for about of 6 seconds. We had good heals, I figured we could pull it off.
So we get together with the PuG and start clearing. Before you know it, we’re ready to fight Archavon. A couple of us from my guild were on vent together which allowed me to give my co-Tank a verbal cue to take Archavon when I got picked up.
The first two transitions were handled very well. My co-Tank taunted, got heals and I taunted back when Archavon released me. In what turned out to be a prophetic phrase, I told my guild mates over vent “We got the Tanks and Heals, it’s just on the DPS now.” He enraged at about 12%.
Someone in the raid suggests the tanks were tanking him in the clouds, and he was in the cloud from time to time. But when he’s casting Rock Shards, he channels it, which means he won’t move.
Then people started linking the DPS meters. What I look for on a DPS meter is who is below me because generally if you aren’t out DPSing the tank, something is amiss.
We saw a Mage with very low DPS. The raid leader questioned him and he said he got disconnected halfway through. We also saw both Death Knights were doing sub 1000 dps. The raid leader questioned it, mentioning both by name, but neither responded.
So in Raid Warning text, the raid leader states that if you are doing sub 1400 dps, you will be removed after the next attempt.
We pull again and again hit the enrage timer. Meters are posted again and the mage is up at 1600, but the two Death Knights are still sub 1k. I didn’t remember to armory them, or inspect them, so I have no clue what was up with there DPS.
Without a word or question, the Raid Leader boots them from the Raid.
I ask the Raid Leader to invite a Shadow Priest from my guild and another Shadow Priest from another guild is also invited.
We pull a third time and what do you know, he goes down like a sack of bricks, as we easily beat the enrage timer.
The only Plate item was Class:Warrior. We had two Warriors in the Raid, my co-Tank and a DPS Warrior. The DPS Warrior goes bananas in raid chat that the item MUST be awarded to him because he is DPS and the other Warrior is a Tank. I chuckled. My co-Tank rolled anyway, but lost the roll. The Raid Leader won the roll for the Rogue item that dropped, which I thought was pretty cool.
I whispered the Raid Leader to thank her for leading the raid. If I don't get a guild group next week for Heroic Archavon, I'll definately look for her.
Comments
You yourself have posted numerous stories of people in your guild who weren't tanking getting tanking gear that you "deserved" - the shield off of Gruul being one example that comes to mind immediately. I'm sure that posting those incidents only contributed to drama in your guilds, as well.
Why you would now chuckle at someone who is expecting something most people expect, including yourself, and who is going through something that you have complained about many times on your own blog? It's beyond me. And the answer is not "It's a PUG, who cares?" Right behavior is right behavior anywhere.
Before you rebut this, please consider the golden rule, and Who told you to follow it.
Fed
The Gruul shield was more of a Main versus Alt issue, and I'm sure any drama from that was long past when the problems with MK started up.
It was also something of a status symbol in those days. To have it on the back of a Paladin would have meant alot for Paladin tanks on my server, I believe. But in the end I wanted it, and I didn't get it and threw a fit. Not one of my best moments. But I hoped I've learned something from that experience.