"Giver of PuG Hope"...and Ups.

So there I was, covered head to toe in motor oil, wearing nothing but a lasso. Awkward, right? Well that is how I felt as I was standing around the entrance in Pit of Saron waiting for a tank. A guildie and I had used the LFD tool to specifically get into PoS (those initials always make me /snicker) for some badges and maybe even some ups. He was on his hunter alt and I was on my death knight alt. When we first zoned in, the warrior left immediately which I perceive as a slap in the face for somebody. Maybe even MEH! The only detail of that tank that I had time to notice was his unbuffed 40k health pool. I checked the gearscore of the other 3 members of my party and everybody was in good shape, assuming that each person knew how to play their class. I know, I know, that is one of the worst assumptions EVAR! The third dps was another huntard, no offense, and the healer was a priest with a gearscore over 5k and both seemed pretty friendly.

/digress on. Oculus has been patched with a bribe to keep people from insta-quitting but they still jump out all the time. (There is even an achievement for running through that instance quickly.) This was the first time I have seen a person immediately leave a group in any other Heroic. Let's take a moment and assume he didn't leave because he thought we were failpug and let's explore other possible reasons. He was a tank so we know that he got in as soon as he hit the button in the LFD interface. This rules out the possibility that he was in queue for 30 minutes and suddently realized that he needed to go do the dishes or his mom was going to ground him for a week. Maybe he was from the same server as the other hunter and they conspired to exploit the LFD tool and get in immediately. Maybe he saw me as competition for the handful of excellent plate dps drops and figured he didn't want to waste time or the lockout. Maybe I should face the truth and realize that he saw my 3700 gearscore... /digress off

Fortunately, it didn't take long for another tank to appear. We were graced with a death knight that almost outgeared the instance but not so great that he was going to snub us at first glance. Keywords being "at first glance." He mounted up and started galloping along the edge to the right, which is the equivalent of yelling "battered hilts be damned" from the stairs of the north bank. We followed. The minimal trash killing was pretty good with the small exception of my Omen "barking" at me everytime a crit floated across my screen. Nothing was hitting me so I didn't get too worried. We tip-toed up the steps to Forgemaster Garfrost and began the fight. Now there aren't a myriad of strategies for this boss: kill the adds first, break LoS behind the boulders when you get 10-ish stacks of the debuff and don't stand by the person with the skull over his/her head...which we were all doing to the best of our ability from what I could see. We perished. The tank chatted "Fail" and immediately left the group. I was initially very offended and jotted his name down to be the subject of this post. Then the other hunter said something that changed my mind. "Maybe he meant that he was fail and didn't want to subject us to anymore of his poor tanking..lol." I am sure he meant that with the utmost sarcasm but there might have been some truth there. Apparently, the two hunters were casting misdirection on every cooldown and the tank only accomplished 1k dps. This was indicative of a tank class trying to learn the tank role OR trying to learn a new tank spec. His dps was too low for his gear score which showed that he was either using a poor rotation or was panicked on every encounter to the point of not being sure which buttons to push. Heck, he may have been spamming his taunt button for all we know. So I took him off my ignore list and realized that his "Fail" comment was simply an ego defense mechanism. Out of pure curiousity, I honestly hope to run across him again some day.

Back to the drawing board, or entrance of PoS, as it were. Along comes tank #3, ßlaςkstar - Spinebreaker. He is a death knight that is overgeared for any heroic which we inspected with a sigh of relief. I think we all held our breath for a few seconds, waiting for him to leave the group. My guild mate welcomed him by saying "Yay, a non-fail tank!" Cleaverly, he wanted the new tank to realize that we had killed some stuff and needed a new tank because the old tank sucked rather than having #3 think the last tank left because we sucked. See what he did thar? The new tank responded by saying "Nope, I'm a fail tank". We knew he was kidding, you don't get the gear to rock a 44k health pool by sucking. Well, I guess that is not an absolute truth but its likelihood is rare.

We waited for the bell and began Round 2 against the Forgemaster. Without any explanation or clarification of the strategy, we jumped right in. Garfrost perished. We sauntered our way along the edge of the pit where Ick hangs out and gave his monkey boy a righteous beat down with no losses to the nova or pursuit. We then steadily worked our way up the hill and through the tunnel to the Scourgelord. One-shots all the way through without a single death, the way it should be done. And then it dropped, my personal bisi for the content that I expect to see on this alt. I got excited and clicked on the pair of dice while I jumped up and down like that lvl 3 orc in Orgrimmar that thinks he just beat World of Warcraft by discovering his bank. And then I saw somebody else chose need and my joy turned to anxiety while I waited for Lady RNG to shove her foot up my...well, you know.

Now here is the lesson for today: Some people are only going to serve themselves and some people are going to look out for others. In a PuG, the former is usually the case when it comes to loot. When I saw that #3 had won the item, I was initialy upset but quickly felt complacent. ßlaςkstar, as a death knight, had every right to roll need on that weapon, whether it be for tanking upgrade or offspec. I lost to random chance which has happened hundreds of times before and will happen a hundred more times more before I stop playing this game. However, in this particular instance (no pun intended), something happened that I have NEVER witnessed in a PuG.

What the french, toast? This guy rolled need because he thought one of the hunters rolled need as well. He didn't want to see a weapon that is clearly itemized for a plate-bearing dps go to a class that would be replacing it next week for Marrowstrike. But why? Why did he do that? He could have just left the group with it, pocketed 25g and never thought twice. And the other members of our group would not have known any better or cared, for that matter. Instead, he helped out some random person from another server. Some guy that he would likely never see again...helping me was absolutely no benefit to him. This is what we need more of in PuGs. I feel like it is now my burden to pay it forward. And I intend to, ßlaςk!

Thank you, ßlaςkstar of Spinebreaker. /salute. You shall henceforth be known as "Saint ßlaςkstar, Giver of PuG Hope".