“Pick up group” is phrase that can strike fear and terror into the heart of many a strong adventurer. I know people who swear they’ll never join a pick up group, preferring to solo, craft, or just stand around on a street corner singing for coins rather than risk the unknown. And then on the other side, there are people like me, who love them.

My play style is by preference and by necessity pretty casual - working full time and also working somewhat unpredictable hours at times, I don’t like to commit myself to any fixed play schedule. Before taking this job I used to raid once or twice a week, but now I’m in a different time zone I can’t raid with my old guild, and so I mainly solo and tradeskill and, of course, join the occasional pick up group! Pick up groups are, to me, almost always huge amounts of fun. Sometimes you get into a great group with good people and tear through a dungeon. Sometimes you end up with a bunch of people who are funny and make great conversation and you add lots of new friends to your friends list. And then, sometimes, there’s a group like the one I got into last week. The group that’s so bad, it’s funny. The group with the tank who can’t tank, the healer who can’t heal, or the warlock who can’t manage aggro. The group who provides fuel for hours of entertaining commentary to keep your guild laughing at your suffering. The group whose names will go into your friends list with notes to never, ever group with again … but who nonetheless keep you laughing and falling off your chair in amusement at their antics.

Last week it was a Halls of Fate group. I heard the call go out in channel and since I was just solo questing in Kunark, I decided a quick HoF run might be fun and a bit of XP. We ended up with a 77 shadow knight tank, a 69 berserker, a 66 fury, a 68 warlock, and me, a 72 dirge. They wanted another healer so I asked my guild if anyone was interested, and a guildmate’s 72 fury alt joined us. I wasn’t actually convinced we’d need a second healer with a 77 tank, but how wrong I was! He wiped the entire group 3 times on the first named, as he couldn’t seem to single pull — and on the rare occasions that he actually did single pull (by fluke, I assume) the berserker would get adds anyway by assisting too soon before the mob was safely back out of aggro range. He didn’t grasp the concept of turning the mobs. He didn’t grasp the concept of pulling back to the group, and would fight right in a doorway so it was impossible for me to get behind the mob to backstab without getting more aggro from inside. He couldn’t single-pull, and despite being 5 levels higher than the next closest group member, he couldn’t keep aggro even with my +35% hate song on him. He wiped the entire party by pulling the ritualists before killing all the blobs, despite my guildmate specifically telling him “don’t pull the ritualists, kill all the blobs first.” The poor lower level fury died so much that her equipment fell off and I had to give her a patch kit. He tanked the dragon (which has a knockback) with his back to the wide open cavern below. He wiped us on the last mob at the end.

I hadn’t been through HoF for probably a year or more; the last time I was there, 70 was still the level cap. But back when it was still a popular choice to do, I’ve been through it with a level 70 berserker tank, a paladin tank, a guardian tank, a shadow knight tank, even a bruiser tank, all at level 70, and all these groups completed the dungeon with fewer wipes than last week’s group with the level 77 tank. It was actually somewhat mind-boggling that a level 77 tank could actually tank that badly: at 77, in a level 70 dungeon from 2 expansion past and with two healers and a dirge, I would have thought it would actually take more skill TO wipe a group 5 times than not to. I was starting to get a little frustrated, and beginning to entertain wild thoughts about actually leveling up a tank myself just to have the satisfaction of tanking better than this guy. But then, about half way through the dungeon, after apologizing to my guildmate for getting him into this mess, I realized that I was actually having a fun time despite all this. It was, in fact, hilarious! The tank would pull multiples, and I’d be laughing out loud at the screen. The poor 66 fury would die yet again, and I’d be giggling. I’d throw off my emergency dirge heal onto the healers or the warlock, trying to keep them up long enough for a healer to save them, and chuckle to myself. My guildmate and I spent the last half of the dungeon exchanging commentary on his tactics in guild chat, to the great entertainment of the guild; and of course we reminded all our guild tanks just how much we appreciate them.

Sure, when the group finished and the berserker suggested continuing to Obelisk of Blight there was a moment of silence in group chat and then everybody but the tanks suddenly realized how late it was and how soon they had to sleep. And sure, I ended up with visible debt on my xp bar for the first time in months. But by the next time I have time to log in, that’ll be gone, and repair costs aren’t going to break the bank. I guess if I’d been looking for the maximum efficiency and fastest leveling per time spent, I would have been crankier. But this is a game, and I play games for fun, and watching this tank blunder through HoF like a bull in a china shop was slapstick entertainment on the same level as watching an old Laurel and Hardy film. If only I’d had Fraps installed, I could have converted it to black and white, set it to piano music, and made a smash hit on YouTube! So I remain a fan of the pick up group, even when it goes horribly wrong. At the very least you get quite a horror story with which to entertain your guild, and at the best, it’s hours of entertainment for all. =)

Anyone reading this far may be wondering what all of this actually has to do with tradeskills, and the answer is not much at all, it’s just what I happened to do last week when I wasn’t revamping crafted weapons and fixing bugs. However, it did start me speculating on whether the changes to weapon imbues that are coming up will have any effect on this type of terrible tank. Most likely not on this particular tank, of course, but would they have, if they’d been available back when he was still leveling up? For those who haven’t been following the weapon changes, as of Game Update 45 the imbue effect on weapons will be modified so that in addition to the direct damage component it’s always done, it now also adds a hate modifier. If you’re facing the mob, the weapon proc will add hate to you. If you’re beside or behind the mob, it will reduce hate. Ideally of course, perfect tanks in perfect worlds always pull the mob back to the group and then position it so that its back is to them and they don’t have to move at all to start attacking, and a good tank does this so smoothly that it looks effortless. There are many reasons to do this, the main ones being that if you attack from behind, you aren’t at risk of taking damage if the mob ripostes your attack, the mob can’t parry your hits so your damage will be higher, and you are protected from any frontal attacks it may have such as knockbacks or frontal AoEs. The new imbue effect on the crafted weapons will reward groups that do position themselves this way - and it now works on spell damage also, so that mages or priests casting damage spells can also get the same effect on their weapons even if they aren’t doing melee damage, and will be equally encouraged to position themselves correctly and have their tank do so as well.

Mastercrafted weapons are a reasonably popular choice at lower levels, and after this revamp improves their stats, they will probably be more so. If a reasonable proportion of people in lower level groups use weapons with this imbue effect (though there is an alternate choice available also) then tanks may get accustomed from a low level to having their group request that they pay more attention to proper positioning, and others in a group may get used to positioning themselves properly also. This was not the intention of changing the effect — we were just looking for ways to make it more useful, without being overpowered — but meeting tanks like this guy has made me wonder if it could work as a little gentle training as people level up using these effects. A halfling can hope, anyway!

Emily “Domino” Taylor

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