Answer the following questions honestly and add up the number of points next to your answers. Consult the table at the end to find out just how badly your pug rates compared to the worst possible case. Note that general pug failures like the tank being unable to hold aggro or unnecessary wipes are not included in this questionnaire, because these things can happen anywhere. This is about people showing a very specific kind of incompetence that can only be observed in Halls of Lightning.
The test
1. Is your tank trying to skip groups of trash mobs by hugging a wall very tightly and outmaneuvering patrols, and it inevitably backfires?
Yes 1 / No 0
2. Does this happen more than once?
Yes 1 / No 0
3. Are people running around like headless chickens whenever they get arc welded?
Yes 1 / No 0
4. Does anyone actually manage to kill themselves that way?
Yes 1 / No 0
5. Is anyone but the tank getting hit by General Bjarngrim's whirlwind?
Yes 1 / No 0
6. Are the ranged dps and/or the healer getting hit by General Bjarngrim's whirlwind?
Yes 1 / No 0
7. Are people attacking the slags the moment the tank aggroes them or is the healer spamming heals on the tank before the group has made it to the stairs?
Yes 1 / No 0
8. Are people standing in the slags' blast waves as you dps them down?
Yes 1 / No 0
9. Are the ranged dps and/or the healer standing in the slags' blast waves as you dps them down?
Yes 1 / No 0
10. Does anyone die due to this?
Yes 1 / No 0
11. Are people trying to kill Volkhan's adds instead of dpsing the boss?
Yes 1 / No 0
12. In the hallway with the statues that come to life, do people run ahead of the tank (being feared doesn't count)?
Yes 1 / No 0
13. Do you observe anyone using any sorts of anti-fear measures available to them in this hallway (warriors breaking it, will of the forsaken, tremor totem, fear ward etc.)?
Yes 0 / No 1
14. On Ionar, do people inexplicably hug the rest of the party when they get static overload?
Yes 1 / No 0
15. When Ionar disperses, do people run away from him?
Yes 0 / No 1
16. Does anyone run off to the side and aggro an extra group of mobs during the disperse?
Yes 1 / No 0
17. Is your whole party getting hit by forked lightning from Stormforged Constructs?
Yes 1 / No 0
18. Is anyone except a hunter repeatedly getting charged by Titanium Vanguards?
Yes 1 / No 0
19. Are poison tipped spears and/or sleeps getting dispelled?
Yes 0 / No 1
20. Are charged flurries getting interrupted?
Yes 0 / No 1
21. Does anyone die to a charged flurry and then express complete bewilderment about what happened to them?
Yes 1 / No 0
22. Are the ranged dps and/or the healer getting hit by the Stormforged Giants' thunderstorm?
Yes 1 / No 0
23. Is anyone taking any visible measures to decrease the damage they take from Loken's lightning nova (running out, ice block, nature resistance aura or totem, survival cooldowns)?
Yes 0 / No 1
24. Is Loken getting more than two lightning novas off?
Yes 1 / No 0
25. Did you not know how to answer several of these questions because you weren't actually paying attention yourself?
Yes 1 / No 0
How did your pug score?
0-5 points: Admit it, that wasn't actually a pug. Can I join your guild?
6-10: Eh, some people were slacking a little, but things weren't too bad overall.
11-19: Someone's going to be in for a harsh wake-up call come Cataclysm. There's still a good chance that you managed to complete the instance though, simply due to overgearing and/or someone compensating a lot for other people's failures. Unfortunately this is pretty average these days.
20-25: Holy crap, are you alright? That can't have been good for your sanity! Did you at least make a blog post about that run?
And in conclusion...
If so desired, this test can also be turned into a drinking game, where you simply take a shot every time someone does something that would score a point.
Interestingly enough, the pug that inspired this post "only" scored a 13... I guess it wasn't that bad after all.
Posts
Day Twenty-One - Nice
6 hours ago
Oh this is awesome, I'm still laughing ;)
ReplyDeleteSome of those questions are just spot on.
I think the drinking game could be extended to all PUGs. Anytime someone in your HC PUG does something stupid - have a drink. I think you'd be drunk by the end of your first run, maybe halfway through the second if you were lucky ;)
Hehe...but but, isn't that the whole beauty of pugs? you know that's how it's gonna be: you cringing at each of the tank's pulls and the headless, over-nuking DPS while you're trying to save the day healing your little heart out. it's like....a bitter-sweet constant and yet every now and then you can't resist the temptation.
ReplyDeletecall me cynical (or weird), but somehow there's comfort in the predictability of bad (pleonasm?) pugs - tells me WoW hasn't actually changed that much over the years lol. x)
I think I've gotten over 20 on many of these. And I think I was the culprit on a few high scores myself. I mean, uh, I would never be the cause of fail!
ReplyDelete@Saga: True, or you could also turn it into a bingo game. Not all heroics are equally suited to things like people taking completely avoidable damage though - HoL rocks for that.
ReplyDelete@Syl: Nah, I kind of agree I think - which is why I felt inspired to tackle this particular pug in a humorous fashion instead of ranting about it.
There's one question missing, a very important one:
ReplyDeleteIs the tank turning the Stormforged Constructs away from group to avoid the healer or ranged getting hit by Runic Focus?
My runs usually sum between 7 and 9 points, so looks like I'm lucky.
Eh, I don't consider that one a problem to be honest, because it's only a dot and it has to hit someone.
ReplyDeleteI've seen several people die to Runic Focus. I usually tell the tank to turn them away and seems most of them didn't know about this. I've also had problems when heling because I'm usually the target and also I have to keep up the rest (hello Forked Lightning)
ReplyDeleteAs a rule of thumb the tanked mobs should be turned away from the party (unless they have some special ability where damage is shared, like Auriaya), but very few seem to do this. When Cata comes they will be forced to relearn this rule.