Continuing the theme from my previous post

It's easy to guess that my last post was occasioned, at least in part, by forays into the RDF system. I've been playing my priest a lot, and that's meant a lot of pugging. I've had some mysterious, inexplicable experiences. I've had some poisonously bad experiences. And I've had some good experiences.

Although he didn't especially want to, I wheedled my BF into doing a random troll'roic with me last night. Our first tank dropped immediately after we'd completed the gauntlet to Akil'zon, providing no explanation. Our next tank dropped immediately after Akil'zon was dead due to need vs. greed drama over the bag of coins (it had an exorbitant 40 gold in it). The tank immediately after that lasted about two minutes before the hunter facepulled a group and wiped the party, at which time the hunter and the tank left. The tank after that lasted until Jan'alai, and literally everyone but my boyfriend and myself dropped group after him - I guess because they wanted something he did or didn't drop. Deflated, we gave up for the night.

Earlier today, I did a random troll heroic and it was ZA again. Nalorakk died pretty easily, we made it to Jan'alai and wiped, and the tank left.

Sigh.

I'm not sure where people get the impression that they ought to be able to clear one of those heroics with people they've never met and not wipe once or twice here and there. I don't understand how that patently silly idea gets lodged in their craniums. If you're RDFing the troll heroics, you're going to wipe sometimes. And that's ok.

A later random ZG had me fill in for a healer that had left or DCed or something on the first boss. I clarified that everyone felt familiar with the boss, because there is nothing I hate more than a group staring silently at a boss for 10 seconds then running in and having one or more people who clearly have no idea what's going on. Then I tried to let a heal finish casting on someone and was killed by a poison line. The torrent of venomous (and of course, homophobic) profanity was instant, and I guess they were especially mad because I had asked if everyone know the encounter.

Sigh again.

So I put that entire party on ignore and teleported back to SW. They'd used their votekick on someone else already, so at least I had the satisfaction of forcing them all to leave the group individually and wait out their dungeon cooldown in Stormwind, which was some consolation.

What are these people trying to prove with their ludicrous posturing in RDF groups? Do they think anyone's impressed? Do they think they get points they can spend on gear or companion pets by pissing in the RDF pool?

Perhaps the most utterly confusing part of this sort of stunted, embarrassing behavior is that it actively works against what I would assume is the person's goals. Most people want to clear, right? Get the satchels and the drops and the bonus VP, right? Does anyone really think that's likely to happen if every misstep and every wipe is heralded by a deluge of unthinking, reflexive bile?

Bitch, please.

You know what is likely to clear? Patience. The willingness to explain and wipe a couple times while everyone figures it out. And you know what? If you just want to have every run go flawlessly and wipelessly even though you're using the RDF tool, you know what you're hoping for? You're hoping for a guild group kitted out in raid gear that can carry your sorry ass through the content because you're too crap at the game to figure it out on your own.

Anyway, I've actually cleared more often than not with my groups. I had yet another group (it's been a wow-heavy weekend) that did, in fact, clear ZA. We wiped a few times on Jan'alai, and although the mage and the arms warrior got into a fight over who was killing which adds and who was bad and whatever else, the very nice tank and myself got them to calm down and kill the boss. Said mage rolled on the cloth spirit bracers that Halazzi dropped, and I could have pitched a fit about it, but I didn't. Everyone else kind of did, but you know what? Whatever. I'm sure I'll kill Halazzi again. It's not a big deal, and I let everyone know as much. Then when we killed Dakaara, I got a new mainhand and some nice tells from the tank. Much more satisfying than yelling at people would have been.