Too low to run PUGS?

[Farwann]

I had a peculiar PUG experience today.

Was in a H VH group, and we had a Holy Paladin healing the group. Before we started the run the pally asked if I had run H VH before, which I have, but not all of the bosses (on heroic) and I haven't technically finished H VH on my warrior, but have healed it on my druid a few times. I've also tanked it countless times on normal, and from what I've read, the bosses mechanics don't differ wildly from normal to heroic, just a couple of catches.

The pally's following comment was that my hp was a bit low, but we might be ok. I said to him that if we was looking for a faceroll through the instance, then this wasn't the run for him. We were running with lowish dps from my guild (we are a family casual guild, and so aren't the most experienced, but we get things done slowly but surely), but we had run H VH the night before with the same dps group and creamed through the first couple of bosses till I made a stupid mistake, we wiped and because it was 1am with work at 7 the next morning we decided to call it.

Now the pally was not overgeared or anything, was a mixture of heroic epics and blues. He had 1800 spell power so I thought he should be able to cruise through it, as the healer we had the night before was a shaman with a mix of quest, and heroic gear, and I've personally healed it on my druid with around 1200 spell power on a worse geared tank than myself (although I won't lie, it was a struggle).

The run went smoothly right through to the first boss, I maintained all the aggro, no dps pulled off me, no one died. DPS was a bit low I admit (all of them were hovering around 1500ish), but it wasn't like it would have been mega difficult to heal. This pally was freaking out about our dps being too low though. We got to the first boss with no hassles what so ever, and it was Zuramat. Not the easiest boss first up, but all the dps knew what the deal with the boss was, and are pretty good at following orders. Anyway I was the first to get chained, so the orbs were a bit slower to get down than if it was a dps class, but not too slow, anyway the paladin chose to not heal the AoE damage, and on the second chain, our rogue dies, and the third chain our hunter dies. So we are left with a tank, a mage, and the paladin. He declares that this 'isn't going to happen' and bails.

The question I have is... Is that typical behaviour when pugging someone, that they expect epically geared groups to faceroll them through stuff? It seemed to me that the second he might (heaven forbid) have to do a bit more than the odd flash of light he was out of his depth. Also (and the reason that I'm posting here) is my gear really not up to pugging heroics (I don't particularly go diving into the 'harder' heroics in a PUG, preferring to hang around the easier ones, like I say we are under experienced but get their eventually, albeit a bit slower).

Here is my armory for anyone interested. If anyone can see some glaringly obvious problems, I'd love to know. My gear isn't fully enchanted, but my stats by all accounts aren't terrible (bear in mind I don't try PUG the harder heroics).

Farwann - Jubei'Thos

-- Farwann

[nips]

Some healers prefer easy mode heroic's and some healers are only able to heal easy mode heroic's. Sounds like your healer was of the later and chose to blame everyone but himself. It's not uncommon in pugs... As for your gear and dps its all good, you are better geared then what i was when starting heroic's and 1500dps is more then enough. It's not a faceroll group like you say, but as long as everyone do their job.

The thing is that how geared/experienced the group is affects the healer alot more then the rest of the group. As a dps you notice stuff dies faster and as a tank you notice you get hit for a bit longer/harder. But for a healer it's like night and day. Some healers stick it out and some bail. Just make sure you dont invite the once who bail again.

[Bryenne]

Speaking from a healer's perspective, I think your gear and stats are fine for running heroics, even the mid to high level difficulty ones. What it comes down to, on a majority of the harder encounters, is can the dps burn down targets faster than they pile up on the tank or healer, and can the group position themselves to avoid taking big shots (think Pound or Dark Smash) to avoid wiping. You are over the def cap and have a solid hp pool, there is no reason you should be failing as a result of being undergeared. That only leaves a couple weak spots - low dps, poor healing, or poor positioning.

Go get em.

[Edgar]

Wow you're healer must've been really bad. You can run VH heroic easily, you got more avoidance than I do, less HP but you will be fine in VH runs. 25k is good.

[Zed]

yea you're more than geared for H vh, or any other heroic for that matter. and i *wish* i could get 1500dps out of everyone in a pug... really don't know what the healer's problem was. you say he was only doing flash of light?

lolz... i once ran with a paly that i guess was seriously afraid of any overhealing, so he never topped me off... ever. even in between pulls. i would say "hey, keep me at 100% hp please", and hed just say "you're ok, go ahead and pull." We didnt wipe, but i was never really secure about the heals, and I always had to pop last stand and shield wall when they were up.

but anyhow, i guess that paly wasnt going to be happy unless you were in nax25 gear.

[Goresaw]

I've run heroic VH every day since I hit 80 last sunday... its the fastest and probably one of the easiest heroics so I dont see any point in not running it every day. 3-5 badges in 20 minutes is ok with me. The first time I had just barely over 22k hp and went in with a healer with 1200 spell power. We didn't wipe at all, and had maybe 1 dps death where I wasnt able to hold aggro on a pack that spawned on the balcony and went down different ways (this was the night I dinged 80 and hadn't tanked since TBC)

now that I've gotten just a little more gear its a total breeze. the only thing in the place that is even remotely hard is the orb guy, and you were unlucky enough to get him, but he's not really that hard. everybody seems to be scared of the water elemental but the first time I got him I just hit the switch both times and got the achievement for killing him without the globules merging the first time.

now that I have gotten some gear this week its a total joke. here's my armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

you even have a little more hp and avoidance than the gear I have now. that healer was just a whiner

[Kalbitang]

Your gear looks fine for H VH. Maybe everyone was getting the healing debuff on that boss, and the healer kind of freaked out. I was originally going to ask about your DPS, but then re-read your post. 1500 from each DPS seems like it'd be more than enough.

/shrug

Wouldn't worry about it too much. Everyone has bad luck from time-to-time.

[Durnic]

Sounds like, as you pointed out earlier in your topic, he wanted to face-roll through the instance. When things got heard then we expected, though not unmanageable, he bailed.

Classic sign of a bad attitude.

[manatank]

As an aside, I find PuGing heroic violet hold is a great way to get rep. I can't even count the number of times I've gone in there to heal with my naxx25 gear and ended up wiping due to sub 800dps dpsers. The more you wipe, the more trash rep you get!

[Zed]

As an aside, I find PuGing heroic violet hold is a great way to get rep. I can't even count the number of times I've gone in there to heal with my naxx25 gear and ended up wiping due to sub 800dps dpsers. The more you wipe, the more trash rep you get!

hahaha! reminds me when i use to wipe on the last boss on H Ramps and not care as long as we got the first guy down since youd get 250 rep and the whole encounter would reset so you could get it again

[Muffin Man]

1800 SP is really good... some healers just I dunno.
1500 dps is really good too... some people just want to see bosses melt before their eyes.

For reference: I did a Gundrak pug with players wearing S4 and T6 shortly after the Arena reset (they were either alt raiders or hardcore arena players form what I could tell). *Every* drop was needed including by the healer, I don't remember his SP but it wasn't that high (he was in full blues).

The dps was: 1000, 1200, with the 3rd guy going from 1200 - 1400 dps just based on the drops on the way to Gal'darah. DPS-wise I was beating all of them while tanking with 23k hp.

We one-shot the entire place, didn't have a single death and picked up the Snakes and Eck achievements.

As a reminder this was a full PuG none of us knew each other before the run. Seriously, skill >>> gear. Your group was more than geared enough for H VH. Sounds like you got a bad healer, I wouldn't worry about. That won't be the last time that'll happen when you pug.

[Zartanchi]

There's a lot of jerks in the game, you just encountered one of them. Hard to put expectations on PUG's.

[kolben]

Preface my comments with the fact that our typical DPS is in the 2K ballpark, some people do a few hundred more, sometimes people do a little less.

On that boss every time he gets adds up, you have to burn them ASAP. I actually don't recall if we used the crystals to zap them or not.

As for your healer, they clearly wanted auto-win mode and to collect 3 badges and leave in the shortest possible time. Some people act this way in pickup groups, fortunately I don't get them very often. Do enough pickup groups and you'll find these terrible attitudes eventually. Best advice? Just don't run with them again.

[Farwann]

Ok thanks for the replies. I haven't had many bad pugs so far this expansion, so was just wondering if this was typical behaviour to expect from a pug (i've heard the horror stories, just never witnessed it).

The dps were all guildies, and while they don't do top DPS (we are actually a guild made of two familys plus a couple of extras we picked up along the way), they know how to follow orders, and don't do dumb things.

Guess after the healer was pointing at my gear not being good enough i started second guessing myself a bit.

Cheers for the confidence boosters guys

[Nale]

Ok thanks for the replies. I haven't had many bad pugs so far this expansion, so was just wondering if this was typical behaviour to expect from a pug (i've heard the horror stories, just never witnessed it).

The dps were all guildies, and while they don't do top DPS (we are actually a guild made of two familys plus a couple of extras we picked up along the way), they know how to follow orders, and don't do dumb things.

Guess after the healer was pointing at my gear not being good enough i started second guessing myself a bit.

Cheers for the confidence boosters guys

Speaking from experience when playing a pally healer (wife's char) it isn't exactly the easiest to keep up multiple people. It can be done but it puts a lot of stress out there and you really need great gear to do it when there is a ton of damage going out all over the place. In his defense though Violet Hold is one of the ones that if DPS is a little slow damage gets crazier and crazier. Just think of the guy that brings out the shadow orb thingies and the other that does the arcane orbs. Healing one person and maybe two people with beacon is ok but when you are healing all 5 people (including yourself) and having to pick who lives and dies it can get tedious. Than throw in the fact that if you wipe anywhere in there you start all over like Black Morass. I recall one time I bailed on a group when dps was pulling 1k - 1.2k dps and the healer was a blue geared pally who thought he was hot stuff. Barely killed the first boss and second boss killed us. Tried again and got to the same point and I just told them we couldn't do it with everyone doing subpar dps and heals not getting to everyone, cause the pally and I weren't going to be able to kill any bosses just the two of us. This was all in my gear sitting at about 31k hp unbuffed also.

Sometimes fault isn't on you, but the others around you. If you wipe on Kel'Thuzad because he went rampant killing other people, it isn't your fault, it is more likely the melee dps's fault that wasn't paying attention and got too close to you and made you an Ice Block.

[Daryus-Randomeyes]

I regret to tell you that this behaviour is entirely typical, most groups don't want to have any stress at any point and you will frequently be required to be in full tier 7 of some sort. The unusual bit is that the whining normally takes place on invitation, not during the pull.

Part of the issue is that there is a VERY great difference between heroics - Nexus and UK can be done with very weak groups, HoL on the other hand....

As a final note, this paladin seems to have been a bit of a clown. What he should have done IMO (incidentally, my healer's a priest so any pally who wants to correct me feel free) is to put beacon of light on you so that he could heal other raid members without worrying about not healing you.