Oh, Ignore List, how I love you.

I've been running a lot of random heroics lately, between my 5 level 80s on Skullcrusher.  I try to get one a day on Kili and the healers, for the 2 frost badges as well as keeping a stock of triumphs for offspec upgrades on the healy girls and epic gems for the main.  My mage has been running as many as I can squeeze in, because there are actual upgrades from some of those instances, in addition to needing triumph badges out the wazoo for T9 and other items.

So I've seen a lot of PUGs - good, bad and indifferent.  Most of them I just let roll off my back, but the last few days I've been feeling quite a bit more intolerant of bad pugs - especially bad tanks.

Last night, for instance, on the mage... Heroic Utgarde Keep popped, and as per my usual routine, right after I ported in, I buffed AI, refreshed my Molten Armor, picked out my target for Focus Magic (the resto shaman this time, as the other DPS were a ret pally and feral druid), and start to drop a table.  The ret pally hung back with me to buff and then said he needed to run AFK really fast, and the feral druid tried to help me drop the table, but the tank, Mr. Impatient, ran ahead of us and pulled almost immediately, so the shaman followed, and the table didn't get dropped.

Instead, Mr. Impatient Tanky-pants started griping at the DPS who were all back at the entrance (either AFK or trying to set out the refreshments, thank you very much).  "Can someone other than me come DPS this stuff?"   I abandoned the ritual of refreshment cast, and ran up the steps to help with the first pull.  And then mildly chastised the tank by reminding him that some us had to buff, and I was trying to help the group by dropping a table.  He, not mollified in the least, then began bitching at the resto shaman for not healing him after the pull was over.

Now if I were the shaman, I'd have healed him before he asked.  But since he asked, and in such a nasty tone of voice, the shaman took offense to how badly the whole thing had started, and told him he could eat or bandage, as we were out of combat.  I actually bandaged the tank myself, since he was being such a prima donna about it.  And the tank, trying to prove something to someone, then ran off at 3/4 health and decided to pull ALL THE MOBS in the first hallway of Utgarde Keep.  Now, I've run this instance many times, on many characters.  I've run it as a healer with my guild's best geared bear tank - who was much better geared than Mr. Warrior Pants there - and when he tried to pull the entire room, he got positively owned.  Hardcore.  Armor reduction debuffs FTL.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Impatient Prima Donna Uber Tank died.  Quickly.  I know the shaman actually attempted to heal him, but couldn't keep up with the damage when Mr. I Wear Plate Hear Me Roar was fully sundered, and proceeded to die as well.  I backed up into a corner and hit Invisibility, so I was the only one alive when the tank began to positively berate the shaman, who gave back as good as he got, and the other DPS joined in.  The tank felt that he had done nothing wrong, and that clearly the shaman's attitude and lack of skill was at fault.  Riiiiight.

And of course, being the second pull of the instance, we were not yet able to vote kick Mr. Tank Wearing Pants on Head.  When he was informed of our desire to do so, he laughed at us, refused to either leave the party or continue to pull, and said "go ahead, you'll have to wait for another 20 minutes to find a new tank while I insta-queue into the next one."

After several minutes of him bragging about himself both in game (playing for 4 years, six level 80's) and out of game (married with a child, and therefore "mature" and not twelve years old as he was accused of being, WITH A GOOD JOB... as they all seem to have....), I finally reminded the rest of the party to put Mr. Asshat Tank on their ignore list so they wouldn't have to group with him ever again, and proceeded to set him straight.

You see, it may make our wait longer, Mr. "Ghettoboy" of Bloodhoof-US, but every single person in that party would rather have sat there for 30 minutes watching paint dry while waiting for a new tank instead of spending one minute more in that group with him.



But there have been groups where I didn't specifically take issue with the tank in party chat, but privately decided that I'd prefer not to group with them again and so quietly added them to /ignore.  Tonight's run, on my resto druid, with a DK tank, was just such a run.

Again, Heroic Utgarde Keep... The tank was overgeared for the instance, and had no problems holding aggro... just... as BBB would put it... he was a "Rockstar Tank". 

He rushed from pull to pull, without waiting for everything to die, with no regard for the rest of the party being able to keep up.  He didn't wipe the group, but it was perilously close at times, and I ended up getting complimented by one of the DPS for my healing.  At the time, the warlock was lying dead and I was afraid he was being sarcastic.  But apparently he recognized the extra effort I was putting in to keep the group from going down in flames.

Case in point - first boss.  There was no discussion of whether or not anyone wanted to do the "On the Rocks" achievement, and usually an overgeared group can accomplish it without specifically trying so long as the tank and the healer are not the ones targeted for frost tombs.  Unfortunately, I was the first one targeted for a frost tomb, and not a single person made a move to break me out.  And the only person in the party who could heal, the ret pally, was tunnel visioned on killing the boss and couldn't be assed to notice what was happening and throw a heal.  I suppose I should have said something in party chat... like.. "HELP!"...  but I didn't expect them to be reading party chat anyway.  After I died, I reminded them "Situational awareness is a good thing."  and let it drop.

The ret pally rezzed me, and I proceeded to rebuff myself, heal up, and sit down to drink (which reminded me that the mage in our party never offered to drop a table), and before I'd even cast a single heal on myself, the tank was off and running down the hallway.   I cast Innervate so I wouldn't have to drink as long, but I refused to run to catch up with him until I could drink.  As I said, he was overgeared, and a blood DK, so he was still at around 2/3 health when I caught up to the party.

He continued his rockstar chain pulling ways after that.  The point at which I decided he was going on my ignore list was when he decided to skip a couple of trash pulls on the way to the second boss, and announced it in party chat - but the lock wasn't aware the groups could be skipped and managed to blunder too close to them and pulled two trash packs, dying around the corner of a stairway out of line of sight for my heals.  I had to frantically spam the tank to keep him up, as well as the ret pally who pulled a couple of mobs and probably was getting heavy damage from the Rune of Flame.

I had to find the lock's body, stop to rez him, rebuff and cast a heal, and by the time I started moving again, the tank was already up the stairs, at half health, fighting another trash pack.  If he'd been in the instance with a lesser healer, the group would have wiped several times from the way he was blazing ahead with no concern for the rest of the party.  There was no time to loot anything except bosses, when he paused long enough to click the "greed" button...  There was no time to skin the dragonkin and worg mobs... there was no time to look away from the computer screen to figure out why my cat was making that bizarre noise (pretty sure she was snoring)....  It was "run run run", "go go go", push as fast as possible, and I had several close calls trying to keep him up when he'd run too far ahead and pulled too much before I was in range to heal him.  When they pull the boss before making sure the healer is in range?  Just stupid.

At the end of the instance, after the last boss was dead, I'd already put him on ignore.  Working with tanks like that is stressful - you have to keep a finger on your emergency buttons and hope you can keep up, or you'll get lambasted for it.  But since my settings show chat bubbles and party chat bubbles, I saw him blandly state "I know I tank fast."

Yeah.  You do.  So, Draeneichic of Shattered Hand-US, you can stress out other healers from now on.  My three healing alts won't be subjected to your run-and-gun rockstar style.

One of my favorite guildies is a rockstar tank.  He's a great tank, mind you, but he does that whole chain pulling, keep up or be damned thing on both his warrior and his DK (who is a lot more squishy).  He doesn't care who's in range, he wants to get in, get things dead, collect his badges, and be gone.  He has no patience for anyone who may need to loot mobs for cloth to level tailoring, or want to skin or mine in an instance because they don't go out farming.  Apparently all of us who aren't swimming in gold to the point that the loot from instance mobs is completely unnecessary and we can afford to purchase all needed trade goods on the AH are complete and utter noobs.

Yeah, he's an elitist prick.  He knows it.  He doesn't like to tank runs where I'm healing anymore, because I called him out for it.  Well, that, and I let him die once on my shaman because I stopped to mine some cobalt and he didn't bother to notice that I wasn't in range before pulling a whole hallway of mobs.

I put up with it from my guildie, because he's a friend.  I refuse to subject myself to that kind of behavior from random PUGs.  I'd rather spend 5 more minutes in LFG waiting for a tank that doesn't make me want to shoot him in the face.  With a bazooka.