A semi-regular pugging group for my server, Uther, has been raiding late into the night, or early you might even say. With limited evening time, I enjoy having some extra opportunities to raid during the week with them.. however, raiding late into the night has it’s disadvantages. And people who usually know better can do some pretty silly things Thus was my experience last night attempting obsidian sanctum.

You might think a group regularly running Ulduar 10s and 25s, would have no trouble with 1 drake up. Things were looking well, we had a decent group, we’d just finished on high spirits running Naxx 25, saving WG from capture – against the odds of numbers, time, and alliance screw-uppery, and a fairly easy go at 10 VoA.

But perhaps not..

It became clear that the raid leader was getting tired and bored, when he first strutted off after loot rolls and charged into a trash pull. Even more clear when, as he’s being wailed on, someone speaks up asking “Aren’t you going to assign the loot?” At that point the sensible thing may have been to ask, your resident DPS turned offtank druid to taunt, or simply finish trash and turn back. Instead of doing those things, the raid watches in horror as the tired paladin turned his back to the 2 mobs and fled, forcing the DPS, and most especially, the healers, to chase along, struggling to keep up. Being that he wasn’t the only tank affected, I watched in faint amusement, not thinking that perhaps it was a good time to switch to bear form until I realized.. shockingly, our over-geared paladin tank had succumbed to raid damage and quite probably range issues for the healers. Momentarily startled awake I finally rushed into action, losing a DPS before being able to bounce over and rescue the rest. But mistakes happen, and we were nearly done, or so we thought.

After a brief encounter with Archavon, a trivial fight for most, we discussed our options. Option 1: go to bed.. it was afterall around 5am on the server. Option 2: a final, and mostly trivial fight against Sartharion. Of course, expectations being high, we considered 1 and even 2 drakes up. The team was looking for short, however, and we were probably shy a tank anyhow, so we settled on 1. This probably would have been a good idea. Sure, great.. just a few minor problems. No healer, no 3rd tank. Sleepy and most likely overconfident tank/raid leader heading into the fray and convincing the rest along, to start trash pulls before our 2nd healer had arrived. The tree spoke up, once, twice, thrice.. explaining how he was new to healing, it was his offspec.. and perhaps they could wait for another healer to arrive. The ominous “we’ll be fine” in ventrilo was spoken, and we were pulling again. And the raid members were getting sloppy, and body pulling adds. I don’t think I’ve wiped so many times in that instance, ever. I’ve definitely not done it so much on trash. On Vesperon we struggled, our other healer still not being ready we of course went forward anyway. But.. we had a portal to take.. although I can’t remember how it happened, I was dead early in the fight and the raid was missing not only a healer, but a tank as well. The paladin bubbled and urged everyone to enter the portal, but with bubble not lasting so long as the portal, the tank finally fell. Everyone was shocked when they reappeared suddenly, adds, boss, and all despawned.

He did return, eventually, but our surviving members had time to return to their senses and get the hell out of there.  Our pally finally decided he’d been up long enough and asked a DK to take over. ooh boy! We also decided we’d need the 2nd healer before trying our mini-boss again. The tree, of course, rushed toward the stone. I followed. The Deathknight cockily spoke in ventrilo “So while we’re waiting for the priest to get here, I’m going to pull some trash! If you’re with me, come stand behind me..”

No one called for summoning said priest. No one noticed the ONLY 2 classes capable of healing said tank, were not inside at all. I flew over to the stone.. looked at the tree. He looked back. I swear he sighed. I turned to him and said “I wonder when he’ll notice he has no heals” He said “Soon.” I said “I wonder if anyone noticed you go” he said “Nope.” and we solemnly summoned our savior.. the priest.

We had many other screw ups. At one point, over an hour past when we had begun, after giving up on 1 drake up, I stated simply.. “this is sad.” everyone agreed. We all laughed about being tired and losing our senses. We killed the last drake, barely killed the boss, sorted out loot and finally, thankfully, went to bed. My thoughts probably echoed the rest, when I noticed it was 7am and I had only agreed to start the run because, of course, OS was so fast and simple. I mean, how could a solid group, that had easily pulled through Archavon and Emalon screw up? How.. indeed.

~ by lily on June 27, 2009.

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