Random of Reflections

Crusader Manners had a bad time of it last night using the random dungeon finder.

She ended up in a partially completed HoR (just the running away apart was left) and the first thing the tank demanded to know was how the DPS of the newcomers was. Crusader Manners should have known that this was going to be a problem if that's what he was focused on, rather than his own tanking skills.

He then proceeded to call names, vote to kick a party member for low dps, and totally failed to keep aggro from Crusader Manners and the warlock. Crusader Manners admits to quitting the group after the third wipe, which of course was not cool at all.

The moral of this story is that you've got to focus on doing your job to the best of your ability before you can critique how other people are doing theirs.

The second moral is that someone should tell Blizzard that it would be really nice to not to waste your 15 minutes if you decline to clean up someone else's mess.

Crusader Manners will be answering another reader question before the end of the evening.

Note: Crusader Manners realizes that this post sort of contradicts the rule of blame she posted previously. The rule of blame doesn't quite seem to apply in this case entirely - but I don't quite know how to fix it. If the tank can't hold the aggro and the dps pulls back, then Arthas catches up and kills the whole party. In this one, everybody's got to be holding up their own end, or the whole thing falls apart. I suppose that's why it's called teamwork.

Your Questions

Dear Crusader Manners,

I have two questions.

The first, perhaps is rhetorical, as I'm not sure there's an answer, but; How exactly does one keep an Oculus group together? I know that they put in the nifty loot bags with the extra badges, and that they nerfed the nose off the end boss, but I can't seem to keep a random instance group together either straight out of the gate, or following the first wipe due to someone not being able to use the green drake to heal as well as dps/find the timestop button on their bars/ fly a red dragon in a forward facing manner.

Second, Do you think that the vote to kick mechanic has instituted a sort of common manners mob justice? I've noticed PUGs for heroic quests being unusually full of kind and well mannered people lately, except for the one in an extremely long while, where someone will lose their mind and sense of common decency and start badmouthing the DPS about how he's topping the charts, when he's actually specced feral dps and can't seem to hold aggro, which is why you're finding out what the floor tastes like in places that you wouldn't normally voluntarily lick the flagstones.

Curious,
Dr Locktopus

Dear Dr. Locktopus

Crusader Manners spent a little time exploring your questions. It actually took me a while to get a random Oculus, and then I had to think about what made it work well and what had made it miserable in the past. Since Crusader Manners is also trying to learn how to tank (unholy if you were wondering), this made things pretty interesting.

As always, I have to remind you that there's very little that you can do to change the behavior of others. Instead, you have to behave wonderfully yourself, and hope that people will fall in with it. The first thing I did when I got to Oculus was to say, "Yay! I love this instance!" This is perhaps a bit of a stretch, but the group was convinced that I did not mean it sarcastically. Being enthusiastic should help some. The other thing that's important is to make sure that you know what you're doing in there, including what to do with all the different drakes, so that you can provide advice and help. Crusader Manners has a guild mate who she can simply auto-follow during the last fight, and she loves that guy.

Finally, one of the biggest stress-causing Oculus group break downs comes when someone insists on doing one of the color-shutout achievements. This is a big no-no for a random group. They require coordination and planning that can be better done with your guildmates in voice chat. So if someone insists on doing them, explain this, and respectfully decline.

As for your second question, I think that common manners mob justice can only apply when the mob has some idea of manners. Judging from trade chat, Crusader Manners is pretty sure we aren't there yet.

Yours Truly,
Crusader Manners

Have a question of your own? Email crusader_manners@incendiaeternus.net for answers.

General Guidelines for Understanding Death

Crusader Manners has noticed that when there is a death in the party, people are fond of assigning blame for that death. It is extremely rude to tell someone else they are at fault for your death when they are not, so keep the following helpful general rules of thumb in mind.

• If the tank dies, it is the healer's fault.
• If the healer dies, it is the tank's fault.
• If the DPS dies, it is their own fault.

Stay in range of the healer. Don't pull aggro off the tank, or before the tank is ready. And don't blame anyone else for your own mistakes.