The weird people you meet in Group Finder.

[cxten]

Kuat drive yards has some strange people.

 

I'm on a level 15 juggernaut, and queue for KDY with tank and dps selected. It puts me as tank (I've since realized it seems to always put you as heals/tank if you check them along with dps) and we get 2 dps and a healer. Great, a real flashpoint run, I think!

 

If only. The "healer" is a merc who doesn't heal and has no cylinder selected. I die on the load lifter with 0 heals, and ask anyone to throw an occasional heal, and ask the "healer" merc to put on a cylinder. He puts on combat support cell (healing), but still only does dps, including never using rapid shots on a player in the entire run. The other two dps are mercs, and on the scenario boss and the next bonus boss the three of them still throw zero heals my way and I've now died three times in the first scenario and a half. I respec to dps and stop initiating fights. The "healer" merc does actually heal now --- himself if he gets low from taking aggro.

 

The group proceeds to pull an entire room, and we wipe. I get blamed for not tanking (would not have mattered in the slightest). I tell them I'll tank if I get some heals from anyone. The two dps mercs are unwilling: one of them says he can throw his kolto bomb --- he's unwilling to use his casted heals --- but that he saves it for the healer, not the tank. (None of them were getting low at all on these bosses where I was dying, but oh well.) The "healer" finally pipes up and says he'll heal, I respec back to tank, and we down some elites while I finally get a few heals.

 

All goes well until the final boss, when the "healer" again forgets this discussion and throws at most one heal every 30 seconds while dps'ing [and overheating] constantly. I stay up for quite a long while tanking and clicking the heal terminals (it's the jedi with the blue circles), but eventually die during his soft enrage. The group does down it, with the healer and one dps up at the end, healer again finally healing --- himself.

 

The third merc, the one not already mentioned here, was funny. She would make some self-depricating comment (or really something against all three of the mercs) whenever I would complain about not getting any heals, like "mercs, can't live with 'em and can't live with 'em." At the end, she piped up that I probably would've lived if any of them weren't just dps'ing. Of course, she didn't throw any heals either, but it did add some levity to the situation.

 

----------

 

Admittedly I shouldn't complain about a lack of heals in a flashpoint that doesn't require them, but it seemed silly for me to be tanking everything and dying when just one heal from any of them would've saved me on most of these mini-bosses (my health would slowly but steadily decline (though much slower during my 1 cooldown) and then I would die right at the end usually). Bursting them down with 4 dps has been sufficient in all my runs since then, though I do wonder if even that would've had problems with that particular group of mercs...

 

I've since stopped checking tank when I queue for KDY. Being dps makes it go faster anyway, and if it seems relevant I'll offer to respec tank on the final boss.

Edited March 13, 2014 by cxten

[Cox_The_Beast]

Atm I feel like adding one last story, at least for the moment. Hopefully more will come in the future.

This happened before my long break. My old guild on Imp Side, now disbanded, counted a fair amount of 50-55 at that time, and some of them wanted to try Ops. Now, I ran FP with most of them, and believe me if I say no matter the gear, they were not ready for Ops... Well, I have a little Ops leading experience, so I accept to let them try one, but I want the right to choose which one. They accepted, and considering the fact the main issue was TOTAL carelessness over mechanics, I decide to choose one that would force them to learn the need for them. The main problem was that 2 were lower than 55, so no higher tier ones. Given that, I opt for EV HM, an old favourite of mine. We gather, I take my Juggernaut tank, and get ready, but things get chaotic quite fast: ppl pulling the snow cats before we can gather after the pod launch, agroing the boss before I can even get there - I decided to help one of the 54- who agroed a lot of snow cats - and simply being quite in panic when adds spawned, not to mention the big droid... Well, I manage to maintank it even though the offtank was way better geared than me (66s vs 72s), and it gets smooth from that moment on. We down it with little trouble, and I ask them to let me lead as we proceed. From that moment on, I lead, pointing out notable intel on the adds. We get to the 2nd boss, and we manage it losing just the offtank, who panicked when the boss started jumping and sinking the platform into lava... Then we go on together, downing a couple adds I agroed by mistake with ease, but as soon as we get to the N pylon, one of the dps uses it activating the boss. Hell, it was quite fun having 4 run S - me, the most geared healer and the 2 dps I picked for my column at start - while others simply killed all adds that spawned... and clicked the pylon when I wrote them to. In the end we even managed to win it, even with that disastrous start. After that we get to the Council, but now they listen to my advice and focus the target I assign them, which is good: we down them with ease and go on. On Soa - I just love his introduction, it's AWESOME! - and after a few tryes, with ppl dying on platforms to fall dmg, or falling down the hole, we manage. I was glad we made it, but others were enthusiastic: after that they realized how hard Ops are, and started to join PUGs runs to practice, since even though our numbers were not that bad, there was no chance we could clear higher lvl content at the time. I'm just glad I was able to introduce them to Ops world.

The hints they got from that run are:

- Never run away on your own, unless you want to die.

- Be wary of clickables, they're shiny, but they can hurt.

- If the tank can give hints, let him. It will likely be easier.

So, I had fun tanking the craziest EV I ever ran and my guild mates had fun learning how Ops work. Everyone was happy.

[Aryh]

The following isn't really a weird encounter, but still...

 

I just queued for KDY for the first time. No one said hi in the beginning, everyone just kept going. Oh well, at least we had two healers (I know that technically none are necessary, but my character is only level 15 (so he still lacks important skills) and I didn't really have much time to explore the area.)

Everything went fine until the last boss encounter. One of the healers asked whether everyone knew the boss. I and the other healer replied: no, but the other DPS jumped straight into the fight.

The first healer stated: then don't just jump in!

I said: Well, those who said no, didn't. He replied with whatever, it's your repair bill. That was a bit rude, considering we weren't at fault, yet I could understand his frustration.

Anyway, before the DPS initiated the fight the healer had pointed out the grenades.

While I soon figured out what he meant by that (or at least I think I did), I assumed only one had to activate the console and step into the circle... because while the grenades kept knocking me down, the instance bug prevented me from noticing my health dropping down (I didn't die after the initial death because the healer kept activating the group heal objects). I must have looked like an idiot not figuring out to step into the circle. Damn bug

 

 

Anyway, I would have prefered being able to explore the instance all by myself, but I couldn't be bothered to use my level 55 characters as there is nothing to be gained for them in a tactical fp.

Why can't I manually enter below level 55?

[toha]

*snip*

No talking during KDY seems to be the norm... Unfortunately.

As for trying to explain what little tactics there are in the "tactical" FP , well I'll give the short version if I see someone jump the gun so to speak... It'll come down to: "you see red dots on you, follow me" or "don't stand in circles","kill the adds".

What amazes me is that people ignore even that...

But running a Sorc was very fun:

*idiot stays in blue circle dpsing the boss for the third time*

*pull idiot towards me *

Doesn't work well with Mara's...

Edited March 14, 2014 by toha

[AdirahBerkovich]

I had a good-weird encounter on KDY last night-- dpsing commando to pick up a level or two before hitting Alderaan. Grouped with a 'slinger and a couple of Jedi. Stuff goes down pretty well, even though the two Jedi had never run it before. Got Modo for a boss, so relatively simple mechanics at that.

We finished, exited, and myself and the 'slinger queued up again. Had to wait a while because it was literally the middle of the night, but after several pop-and-decline-ers, we got in again. Same scenario.

 

What is it with Pubs and getting Prisoner/Asset Destruction/Sith for KDY anyway?

I get more variation Imp-side.

[Zephana]

Just got kicked from HM Mandolorian Raiders and here's why:

 

I join the LFG as a sorc healer and get a pop for HM MR. Group is a jugg tank, marauder dps, a sorc dps, and me. The marauder proceeds to initiate all pulls and keeps ripping aggro from the tank, over and over. So what do I do? I stop healing him. He almost dies once or twice, but the other sorc off heals him and keeps him alive (they were guildies). The marauder proceeds to harass me because I'm not healing him. I tell him that I'll start healing him when he stops pretending to be a tank. He laughs at me, asks "u mad bro?" and initiates a vote kick that of course his guildie seconds and I get booted.

 

*sigh*

I hate people sometimes.

[Halinalle]

But running a Sorc was very fun:

*idiot stays in blue circle dpsing the boss for the third time*

*pull idiot towards me *

Doesn't work well with Mara's...

 

If it's clear after the fight that they don't like it I usually let them die. It's after all something they want. On RP server you can't be sure if they are serious or not.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Halinalle

[Jedi_Knight_Jess]

These are some really awesome stories- really liked the "Butter" one- wish I knew what happened

 

I've played for a few weeks now, and I must admit, I've never actually used group finder- everyime a new toon hits the station, me and a few others usually do hammerpoint or something just for the exp

 

I gotta try this just to see what I end up with- I'll probably give it a whirl on my sage:cool:

[EranofArcadia]

Had a fun experience in KDY last night. (Since I spend almost all my time doing KDY, what do you expect?)

 

Anyways, my sin, 2 snipers, and an operative. Get through super easy. The final boss is Major Benes. 3 of us knew the fight, we explained it to the 1 who didn't. We have no problem with the grenades, but we end up wiping because we aren't paying enough attention to the adds. No big deal. So we start again.

 

The first time he throws the grenades, we all run to the machine exactly as we are supposed to. All 4 of us, right on schedule, right where we are supposed to be.

 

. . . then we all realize, a second too late, that no one had thought to actually turn ON the machine. Aaaand we wipe again.

 

The third time proved to be the charm, but that was one of the quickest, and definitely the most amusing, wipe I have ever had in Kuat.

Edited March 14, 2014 by EranofArcadia

[toha]

If it's clear after the fight that they don't like it I usually let them die. It's after all something they want. On RP server you can't be sure if they are serious or not.

 

Don't have that problem on a PvP server, if I get any reply at all it's generally positive.

Had one guy tell me no to do that again, blue circles from the KDY jedi hurt... a LOT 2 of them back to back.... well..he didn't last long;).

[Irongut]

Anyone else finding themselves in Tank Wars when running Kuat? As in you're on your tank, there's another tank in the group, and that other tank just HAS to get aggro on everything? Using taunts when you steal aggro, running ahead to pull mobs before the rest of the groups in the room, even when it kills them?

 

I see that in the CZ FPs a lot but what really annoys me is the dps who taunt the boss off me. Their class can tank but they queued as dps, were given the dps role and have less hps than my jugg yet every time I taunt a boss and hit saber reflect they proceed to taunt the boss off me. I have a new tactic for these people - let them. I can tank the bosses all day so what do I care if the fight lasts longer because a retarded dps died.

 

Not a group finder story but... My smuggler was messing around on Belsavis recently for some reason, I can't remember why she was there, and I ran into a Jedi Shadow. I liked the look of his armour so decided to inspect him, only to find he was using all strength mods, implants, earpiece, etc! No willpower at all! How anyone can play for that long without learning their primary stat is beyond me but I'm surprised he was able to run the content at all.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Irongut

[venomlash]

The first time he throws the grenades, we all run to the machine exactly as we are supposed to. All 4 of us, right on schedule, right where we are supposed to be.

 

. . . then we all realize, a second too late, that no one had thought to actually turn ON the machine. Aaaand we wipe again.

 

The third time proved to be the charm, but that was one of the quickest, and definitely the most amusing, wipe I have ever had in Kuat.

 

Lawl oops. The tech industry calls that particular failure mode PEBKAC: Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair.

[Screaming_Ziva]

I got kicked from my first GF group today.

 

Got into a KDY with my level 21 DPS Commando. There was a level 45 Gunslinger, a level 24 Gunslinger, and a level 19 Shadow. The Shadow was "tanking" in level 5 greens and empty orange shells and he was going down practically instantly during fights. Everyone wanted me to off-heal since I was the only one that could heal (you shouldn't need heals in KDY). I said I shouldn't have to since I queued as a DPS and voted to kick the Shadow who was pretty much looking for a free ride through the FP. The vote failed and then the Shadow instigated a vote to kick me for not being a "team player". Of course, that one went though and I was booted. Don't know what they were gonna do if another Shadow or Gunslinger joined their group.

[Khevar]

The Shadow was "tanking" in level 5 greens and empty orange shells

O.o

 

Wow, that's ... that's ... that's not something I've seen before. Bolster times empty gear == diddly / squat

[toha]

It's the double XP weekend.

The Bads are coming.

[midianlord]

It's the double XP weekend.

The Bads are coming.

 

Is it possible to put a whole guild on /ignore?

 

Or charge-back their guild-bank for my repair-bills because of their idiot Sent-tard breaking CCs at the...errrm..."best" possible time?

 

Yeah, I've had rather mixed results with guild-runs as the de rigeur PuG derps-er.

[Reallynotaknight]

Dear god the KDY run stories we are going to have, here is my first attempt.

We get the scenario where you have to get the grenades to blow up the three terminals, and it started off pretty interesting. I cc the wandering elite while we are engaging the strongs in the first area, and upon seeing this both tanks attacked it. Yay, going to be a fun run. People die left and right for attacking every thing at once, no one follows anyone. I try to off heal the two "tanks" a little on my merc, not really working I am just overheating.

Last terminal, and I see the defender we have to kill for the bonus, and call it out. One guy cc's it, the other goes after a large pull, and the last guy breaks the first guys cc. Death ensues and the dead shadow tank decided to pull the two strongs who guard the exit on his way back to us, for funzies I guess. I have been abusing my heals to stay alive, defender is at less then half health when everyone gets back. They run to blow up the last terminal, locking us out of the bonus and just watch me die.

Dropping group on KDY? During double xp weekend? Yeah, I will just wait till at least one guild member is on.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Reallynotaknight

[Xakthul]

This basically describes my opinion of the PUGs I find in my FPs

[PaxSithari]

Since we're telling KDY, 2 stories. I love KDY!

 

First story, I was the weird person. On my 27 Mara, that is only for solo play and occasional KDY. Group is 3 Maras and 1 DPS Sorc. The other 2 Maras and Sorc were in 50s, and in the same guild. I make a joke that I will embarrass myself in front of them, trying to make light of my lack of melee DPS experience. So off we go, to the hangar lockdown scenario. We enter that main room with a group and gold droid. It goes fine. The room has 2 hallways leading off it. So I follow Sorc to the right, not realizing that the rest of the party isn't there. Right before we pull a group, I see in chat "Dja, go left". I didn't notice who wrote it, so I take the mob on the left, assuming the Sorc would CC. I suddenly see the Sorc type "rofl" in chat. To my amazement, I didn't die right away, and managed to down most of that pack. Apparently, another Mara had typed "go left", meaning "Go to the Left hallway" - i.e. I went the wrong way. It wasn't a complete wipe, just me. So I apologized for the dippyness, and the rest was uneventful.

 

KDY story 2: Ran on my lowbie Sage healer. Get in, 2 decent level DPS, me healer, and a 19 Sentinel. Mr. Sentinel is being a troll the whole time. Only way to explain it. First, he had a trollish name - clue #1. Second, he was missing gear: all he had was a level 3 green Cunning shirt, white level 1 pants and boots, and one lightsaber. Get the scenario with the canons, and all those big rooms with packs of mobs. Our idiot friend is running around, grabbing all the groups he can in the room, just as we're finishing the first pack. Eventually we down them, and move on. In between fights he doesn't regen health, like everyone else in there does. At some point, he bites it as we're clearing. He's yelling for a rez in the middle of the fight. Tough, wait or release. So fight ends, someone is nice and rezzes him, which he takes his sweet time to accept. Before he's even healed up to full, because he doesn't regen remember, he storms in and pulls 2 groups. He goes down, and we clean up the mess. This time he releases, and the med bay is on the other side of the area. We start talking in /say as to what an idiot he is. I flippantly say "I bet when he comes he pulls a train with him". Well guess what? He ran through an area we didn't hit yet, grabbed adds, and brought them to us just as he dies. Did this the entire time, running around grabbing every mob he sees, not waiting for regens between pulls.

 

Our party had great levels of patience, let me tell you. We even went as far as the boss with the idiot. Of course it's droid boss, where you have to take down adds or else. Well guess what Mr. Sentinel does? If you guessed "focus on boss", you'd be half wrong. He did nothing for half the fight, just stood there. When people were dropping and coming back in, he stood there. We wipe it and start over. Round 2 involves him running to entrance after starting fight before we were ready, and again doing nothing. Eventually he goes to boss, and focuses on boss. Wipe 2. Everyone reassembles, and we do vote kick. It goes through just as he's about to engage boss, so we were saved. Get another DPS, we down boss, and that was that.

[venomlash]

Queued for a random 55 hardmode on my Shadow, got Czerka Core Meltdown. I'm slotted as the tank, naturally, alongside a somewhat undergeared (25k health) healmando, a Gunnery Commando, and a Guardian.

 

Now things got fun pretty much immediately. I look at the Guardian and see he's in Soresu form and has 36k health, so I figure he's specced for tanking and ask him if he wants to tank or if I should. He says he doesn't care. Well, I'm having weird lagspikes and I'm a DPS at heart, so I spec over to Balance and we start clearing out trash. First off, he's not holding aggro. He did the scrub-tank thing of just guarding the healer, so of course the adds are all over the (decently-geared) DPS. The Guardian's tunnelvisioning adds, other adds go after the gunnymando, and the big elite droids are usually on me until the Guardian comes by and peels them.

 

We get to the Duneclaw boss like this, at which point we wipe because it's hard for Guardians to get over to the generators in time and because the tank isn't holding aggro. I mean, not holding aggro at all. After the first sandstorm simulation the tank gets to the generator all right, but the boss goes after the gunnymando immediately after the rampage channel, gets him down to ~10% health, and I have to taunt the boss and tank him (still specced as Balance!) for about 20 seconds. But yeah, then we wipe.

I decide I'd rather take my chances with the lag than deal with bad tanking. I spec over to Kinetic Combat and tell the Guardian to switch to DPS. He says "I'll do what I can" but doesn't change his spec or stance. I examine him and see he's in a mix of tank and DPS purple 66s and 69s with some PvP armorings thrown in. Ah well.

 

I engage my spaghetti and we handle the boss properly, taking all four generators to down the son-of-a-gun but managing to kill him in time. I ask the Guardian if he has Field Respec, he says he doesn't. We go handle the Vrblther, again taking a while but without any deaths. Now we're killing the last few packs of trash, and I realize I'm seeing Force Rush and Keening buffs up on the Guardian! He's specced pretty much entirely for Vigilance! So I tell him to switch to Shien form, since it'll buff his damage. He says he doesn't have it, that he's running a weird Defense/Vigilance hybrid that is apparently good for soloing.

 

Of course on The Vigilant, the Guardian is merrily dragging circles over to where I'm standing and obliviously standing in the lightning, but we kill the boss on only the second try. Props to the healer, who did a very good job keeping us alive for someone as undergeared as he was. But that thing with the Guardian was just bizarre.

My question: if he's running a hybrid spec that's only any good for soloing and he doesn't have Field Respec available to switch to something more group-friendly, why in the world is he queueing for hardmodes?

[idnewton]

Ran five KDY today on my shadow. Maybe yall's luck just sucks

[Svevin]

Long time follower, first time poster. This one was too weird. Queued for Athiss on my 23 DPS sage, and got a 'slinger, Scoundrel healer and a Shadow Tank. Now, the first warning came after the first mob, when the Shadow tank neglected to recharge after the fight. I also noticed they were draining no Force. They were just using Saber Strike, over, and over, and over. After being asked to use their rest, they said...nothing. Not a thing. Others in my group called them "fail tank" and other lovely epithets. Well, they continued on in this manner, Saber Striking, not healing, charging on silently and getting us killed more than a couple times.

 

The final straw came when they pulled three temple guards. The Shadow, with stealth, and a glorious stealth stun, ran straight up to three temple guards, and got us all killed. At that point, we began discussing kicking the tanker. Personally, I didn't want to kick the tanker right before we got to the main boss; it's not fair to the tanker we get to replace them. So I came up with an admittedly low-blow plan, and explained it to the group. Keep in mind, the tanker remained silent the entire Athiss run, even while we planned (and executed) their demise.

 

We got to the main boss' room, and proceeded to spank and tank. The tanker continued to only Saber Strike, no taunts, no shields, no defensive CDs. We managed to beat him, but it definitely took longer than it should have. Immediately after the boss died, and right before they could click the chest and collect the reward, we vote-kicked them. Just like we'd planned. In team-chat. They did not respond, they did not protest. They just...Saber Strike'd to victory, and got booted before the real reward. I said thanks to the group, reminded them to ignore this wonder of Shadow Tanking strategy, and went back to questing.

[AdirahBerkovich]

Picked up a KDY run on my Scoundrel, got three heals with me. Lemme tell ya, tanking as a Scoundrel is no fun. Poor girl was running the entire time, trying to release aggro without dropping damage output. Our healers were great, though, dealing damage and staying on top of the heals for the squishy little stealther. Had a lot of red laser blasts to avoid because not much damage output, but it was a really smooth run.

In fact, it wasn't until the last boss that we really even needed heals more than the occasional healing trance or HoT.

 

Pug into a Mando Raiders with the same scoundrel. Not sure how I was able to queue for it at 31, but there I am, killing stuff for no xp. Vanguard tank is doing her damnedest to keep aggro, but with the healer shielded, and the Sent jumping first, I'm pulling aggro right off her. Healer's nicely on top of things, so I never actually end up wiping. We get to Mavrix, and the Sent and Vanguard tunnel vision the sucker. Healer sticks with me for the first set of turrets, then takes off to take care of the two others. No problem, considering that I'm a bit overleveled for the flashpoint.

 

 

If you gotta flashpoint, late at night is best. All the bads are asleep in bed.

Edited March 15, 2014 by AdirahBerkovich

[Meshla_Naast]

I was in a KDY run. All four are qued as DPS. Sure, you don't *Need* a Healer, but it does help. We get to the Lifter bot - near that ship construction console, and someone mentions "Hey, let's kill the bot", so me as a Scoundrel DPS (who has been off-healing the whole FP) plants and gets ready to kill it. Except everyone else is halfway across the room. Next thing I know, I'm dead, and they are all "Why are you trying to kill it yourself..?" -_- There was zero communication the whole run, and they wouldn't stay together at all. I did my best o help heal, and to not pull mobs, but it's difficult to make progress when half your group is on the other side of the room doing their own thing. Needless to say, after wiping six times, I gave up.

 

I realize it's a role neutral FP, but it felt to me like the rest of the group didn't know what they were doing. Seemed like they were just killing whatever and not communicating at all with the group.

[countersource]

Hoped I would never be posting here, hate saying it was the group who sucked. Well, out of tons of KDY runs yesterday(lvl42-50), I only ran into 2 bad runs.

 

The first one was with me and a guildie, and then two random peoples who were a sorc and merc. Not very much to say about it except that the merc was really acting like KDY was all solo, while the rest of the group was clearing out the bottom area of one of the prisoner cell blocks, the merc decided to attack the elite defender alone, so we decided to go help him I guess. The rest of the run was pretty much the merc attacking random mobs without any help.

 

The next bad run that was really late last night, started with the sorc healer complaining about there being a merc healer in the group, and there being no tank. After assuring her that there was no need for a tank, and that it was okay to have 2 healers, we finally got moving. But, at the first group of mobs, they asked who was tanking again, no one answered so I assumed they were asking me to tank(dps assassin by the way). After that the run was going fast enough for me to decide to tell my guildies I would be ready for another run right after this one(at that point I was guessing ther was only 15min left, which I was right, we did clear the second level in about that amount of time).

 

But, the problems started again at the droid boss. I assumed that because at least the merc and sniper sounded like they had done KDY before, that they would know to kill the adds. I was run and the whole group was focusing on the boss, it took me telling them to kill the adds, and me running around killing the adds for around 10-20min for the sniper and sorc to start helping with the adds, but the merc was still just shooting at the boss. I gave up and just attacked the boss because it was already taking forever and my guildies were waiting for me. After the boss died I did thank them for the group, since it was kind of fun

 

Have a feeling I am going to run into a lot more groups like these today O_O