A 25-man Arch run led by Satanface. Arch has seriously good PVP gear as well as Naxx Tier raiding gear.
Plum is my PVP character. A guildmate was asking for one final person for 25-man Arch, I said I'd be willing to take Plum.
Plum's dps is not great. I know this. She's toward the bottom of every list.
My question is -- if you can down the boss, do you still have the right to dump your lowest dps?
Situation
They pull before 1 person is there, so we're down a man.
Tank keeps tanking in the fog. This has been a problem in every Arch I've gone to except IVV-led ones.
Several people dead.
We wipe on the first try.
Raid leader wants his friend in the raid.
So they kick the lowest dps. Me.
Reaction
It's the first time I've been kicked from a pug and is the first time I've pugged in a long time. I don't pug anything but Arch, because of the PVP gear and because my guild gave up scheduled runs after being thwarted too many times by Alliance control.
My problem isn't that they kicked me for low dps. It's that I WASN'T the only reason we failed and shouldn't have been kicked at that point if we still could have done it.
Now, most people will argue "They did the right thing for the group. They shouldn't have had to carry you." I argue that they were carrying the dead more than carrying me. They were carrying the guy who wasn't there more than they carried me. I did my job and while my gear isn't the best, it was the only factor in my low dps. I did nothing else horrible except forget about my battle rez for too long.
So I guess my second question is . . . when is it justifiable to ruin a random pug's day? To actually make them feel so awful, they have to log and do something else?
See, what really gets me beyond all that is that I truly think those guys wouldn't even care if they knew I was a woman and they made me cry by kicking me out of the group. I think they'd laugh or make excuses about how I got kicked because of my gear or tell me to stop complaining and feeling sorry for myself (or, and this is my favorite, "tears are blackmail" so I should stop trying to make them feel guilty), because they just don't want to face the fact that they care more about gear than another person's feelings.
They might have had a reason that most people would consider perfectly justifiable. But it wasn't, not until we'd tried it a second time with a full group, a proper ready check, and then failed.
And, to be honest, they should have whispered me -- this one isn't even about being fair, it's about being a civil human being. "Hey, you were last on dps and I'm sorry but we've been wiping and dps is the problem. Nothing personal, we just think your gear is better suited to the 10-man version." And I'd be okay with that (if we had wiped more than the once). How can you argue if your dps is worse than, say, the people who died halfway through? And if it isn't . . . well, then, you had better dps than them whether or not your gear is crap. You stayed alive. *applause for u*
Anyway. I'm not QQing, I'm just ranting, trembling from reaction, and unable to focus on anything right now.
Yes, they made a girl cry. No, I don't think they'd care. No, I don't like being kicked from groups when I didn't do anything wrong. My gear might have been wrong. Yes, I know this stuff happens to everyone, every day. Yes, I know you can make reasonable arguments for their side. But, in the end, it's just another one of those events that justify why I consider Zuluhed to be filled with flaming jerks and people who don't care about each other.
It's why I'm glad I'm in IVV.
[edit] I'm also looking forward to the dual spec system because they never kick you out if you're healing.
[edit 2] I want to assure you I'm not just complaining because I got my feelings hurt. I afford random pugs the same courtesy that I wanted in this situation. I do not ever agree with kicking people from a group, even that one time we wiped until WG started again. I do not agree with the philosophy that "It's okay to kick people if they aren't putting out the numbers" ever (rude and disruptive . . . maybe). This is very different from most people, I know, and I've always said I shouldn't be a raid leader, but I consider it an ethical issue.
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Wow, that is harsh. How could Satanface know why the wipe occurred after a single try? I usually heal and sometimes I try to tank. I don't usually play dps . . . maybe those that do come with a different perspective . . . but I would look at all the dead people and think maybe the tanks and/or healers dropped the ball?
ReplyDeleteI don't suppose you know how they did in subsequent tries do you?
I feel your pain. I get pretty upset when kicked for no good reason too. Just cant be bothered fighting over it with some 12 year old know-it-all. That's why I keep NotesUNeed AddOn around. Every time I run into someone like this I just add a little note for myself about it.
ReplyDeleteThat way I can easily avoid going anywhere near them in the future and I save myself keeling over from a heart attack from the stress of trying to talk reason to the above mentioned 1334 Kidz....
*hugs for you*
ReplyDeleteJust take it as an internew &£%"wad proving exercise. Even if you do have a few low DPSers in there you can still do it, there's enough people doing 2k+ that you can have a few doing under the minimum for 25-man (which is only about 1500).
A similar thing happened to me... I was in a group that wiped because a bunch of people died. My friend happened to be unlucky enough to die twice because of the wonders of battle rez + shards and after the first wipe he got kicked from the group without a word. I left too, so they were down a healer.
I think what bothers me worst is you being kicked without a wisp. I agree that's an issue of common decency.
ReplyDeleteKicking someone from a group without wisping them first is like slamming the door in someone's face or slamming down the phone - and I think people do it for the same reason: it gives you no chance to respond. After all, you might have raised any of these points that you have in the blog, you might have objected, you might have been a voice beyond pixels, you might, in effect, have acted like a human being they had to account for and not a random bit of computer code they could just erase.
I'm sorry it happened to you. Just take heart that not every PUG/guild/group works that way, and part of the reason we are so dismayed when these things happen is because so many other times, people are NOT jerks. :)
Absolutely ridiculous. I can't believe some people I really can't.
ReplyDeleteFirst point: Why didn't they kick the guy who wasn't even there? My first thoughts are that DPS (no offence) usually cannot see the full raid on their screen because they don't get all the bars up so therefore I bet this Rogue didn't even know you were a player down.
Second point: Don't feel bad about low dps :) The reason is thus: Choking cloud - 30 seconds, dealing 3,000 nature damage per second and reducing chance to hit by 50% to everyone standing in it. I believe Plum is a feral druid? If that is the case then due to the crappy tanks tanking in the cloud (for which they should be hung, drawn and quartered) you would have barely landed a hit if your gear, that you've admitted, wasn't the best to begin with. I would however in your defence hasten to add that many of the average ranged dps would have pulled the same or less DPS than yourself if they too had had to be forced to stay in the cloud. The reason for this is part of my third point.
Third Point: I never go to VoA with PuGs. The reason is linked to point two. Not a lot of players are geared for the PvE environment in that dungeon. A PvE raid dungeon, enterable via doing PvP, allowing you to access the high-end PvP gear? Yeh, that makes total sense... :S
What im trying to say is, a lot of PvP orientated characters (like Plum) go to VoA, but it just isn't designed to be done by PvP'ers. You need hit rating, you don't need resilience. So a lot of groups find that they hit the enrage timer because they just aren't pursuing the right form of gear. PvE raids should NEVR be how you access PvP gear. BG's/Arenas/Some new form of PvP should be the only ways, in my opinion, because the gear requirements in each are totally different. VoA is a sugar-rush shot dungeon for PvP'ers. Don't take it too much to heart Birdfall because these players don't care for other peoples feelings. Feelings? They have no time for feelings between BG after BG. Quickly grab Wintergrasp, form a group, callously kick anybody they don't know and then complain when they can't complete it because the majority of the group are PvP geared. It is a poor excuse for content from Blizzard, from a PvE standpoint an average geared PvE guild can do both normal and heroic with relaive ease, it poses no challenge. For this reason you will find total scrubs like this Rogue trying to lord it over the rest in PuGs. It doesn't work with me, and it shouldn't with you. Stick to guild runs :)
( Sorry for if I have come across strongly, I just feel very strongly about this issue because I've had it myself when my girlfriend got kicked for low DPS in 10-man. It was fairly late at night and they soon reinvited her when I said their best geared healer [me] would leave if they didn't stop being mean. I also hate the fact that healers and tanks get some form of 'special' status in groups. This is why I stick to guild runs also because I value every tank and dps who comes along, every role is key to doing well :) )
Jiriki - Wholeheartedly agree with your stance on obtaining PvP gear through PvE (and vice-versa). I'm pretty sick of seeing players decked out in 3/5 Deadly Glad gear with ratings in the 1100s.
ReplyDeleteBirdyfall - We've talked about this elsewhere, so you know that hearing about this infuriated me. Just wanted to let you know that if I'd been part of the run I would have thrown a fit... and, if nothing else, Hand of Protectioned the tank and bubblehearthed on the next pull.
Look up Vari and I after the reset (Tuesday) and we'll try to get a guild run together, eh?
This kind of thing is all, too common in pickup groups. While it is customary to whisper or let someone know what is going on, many times it depends on the person or group of people running the show.
ReplyDeleteObviously the ones you were with have no regard for others time, and while I whole-heartedly agree with you that it was quite a dastardly deed I must also recommend you refrain from playing with your heart in random groups.
In a PUG, they aren't your friend. It's a short-term collaboration toward an equal-minded goal. If the team can't work together, it falls short of that goal early. Sometimes if their combined skill or talent cannot overcome the dungeon, the group falls short of their goal yet again. But if a group of players can pull together, are willing to do what is necessary, and focus on the important issues then all is possible.
Of course, the more players you interject into this formula the trickier it is. On the other hand, the more players you have the less important each individual becomes in terms of generic contributions (a single low-DPS player would not ruin a concerted effort, even if he/she tried). Take comfort in knowing they were silly and don't give them a second chance to ruin your day again in the future.
Read back over this today and realized I'm glad the guildie who invited me to that pug has since stopped playing or gquit or something. He was one of the main ones saying people who weren't geared didn't belong in there and then after they kicked me, told me they shouldn't have. >.<
ReplyDeleteI was reading the first 14 paragraphs of this entry and thinking to myself how lousy and inconsequent the leadership of this pug was (and, for the record, I still think that). Then I got to the 15th paragraph and kind of stopped short. Did you actually suggest there, that you should have been treated differently, because you are a woman? That the prime reason they should not have just kicked you out was not that you were far from being the least efficient performer, nor it being too early to even assess that, nor judging people merely by their gear being plain stupid, nor simple human courtesy, but rather the consideration that it could have made you cry? Because you're a woman? That would be a surprising reasoning. And even more surprising to read it here, from you.
ReplyDelete"Did you actually suggest there, that you should have been treated differently, because you are a woman?"
ReplyDeleteI said they wouldn't have cared if they knew they'd made a girl cry. They should have kept me because "I did my job and while my gear isn't the best, it was the only factor in my low dps." I even called myself a "random pug" until that paragraph -- they didn't know my gender at all.
Starting in that paragraph, I'm just venting that they're probably like these guys. It's more a commentary on their character than my right to stay in the group.