Leave it to a mage . . . to be a perfect pug!

Okay is there really such thing as a perfect pug? Eh, probably not. I mean, there is a reason our Perky Pugs run around and then drags their asses on the ground – you’ve never noticed? Watch your pug the next time you have it out.

Last night I had the pleasure of running with a mage and a warrior from my server who were both about as close as it gets to perfect pugs. We were running Ony10 followed by ToC10.  Our guild has only been raiding for about a month and are still working on gearing people up. We usually have just enough for a 10 man or just shy of 10. Last night we were just shy of 10 and needed a coupled DPS to help. We picked up our mage for Ony10 and I needed to find a dps replacement after Ony, that’s when our warrior joined us.

After Ony I had whispered the mage and invited him (or her, but let’s go with him for the sake of conversation and ease of typing over him/her). His response was “sure. I’ve never been before but I know how to play a mage and I know not to stand in stuff” WIN! If you can articulate “I know not to stand in stuff” you’re halfway there as far as I’m concerned. The other half is doing it.

I didn’t bother gear checking the mage or the warrior (OMGWUT – yes, you read correctly). The mage pulled great dps during Ony so I wasn’t worried. The warrior, I figured even if he didn’t do great dps as long as he was higher than the tanks I’d be happy.

As it turns out – they absolutely rocked. Even though I raid lead often, I usually don’t like talking in vent. Our warrior friend piped up and called out snobolds as well as Icehowl targets – yay for him! Neither stood in fire, neither ran like loons when they got paralytic toxin. Hell, both of them moved out of the way for Icehowl. This is where I note that if you run from Icehowl, make sure to run AROUND the stuff sticking out from the wall because you can’t run through it. That was my first time healing ToC10 and I ran to what I thought was out of the way. I was busy looking at the raid to see who needed heals and didn’t notice that while my toon was running, the screen wasn’t changing.  /fail  You’d think I’d have learned my lesson about raiding and healing, but I’m a sucker for punishment. Plus after I get a run or two under my belt I’ll be able to relax a bit more because  more relaxed = better play. This is why beer is such a good raiding beverage of choice.

We one shot every boss up to Anub’arak (yes, even the Faction Champs went down in quick order). The Twins didn’t start off looking like a one shot because they got their first two heals off. But kudos to the raid group, they pulled it off! We wiped once on Anub’arak, but that was due to a little confusion over ice duty resulting in some add craziness but we got him down to 27% ish regardless. Second time around though, not a problem to note at all. I did take the time to explain the fights and we didn’t rush through like we were on a speed run from hell. Overall it was a really great group.

Our two pugs were awesome. They were patient, they participated, they didn’t yell “go go go go go” before every pull. The mage actually thanked me for walking him through afterwards and both were promptly friend-listed. Unfortunately Armory is down for maintenance so I can’t pull them up though just from a quick WoW Heroes peek, they actually are both decently geared. Both have their fair share of achievements under their belt – even our mage friend who said they hadn’t been to ToC10 yet. (Maybe to lower our expectations? regardless. . .)

Thank you, thank you Jugganuts and Cinderstein for being such cool pugs.

And yes, it feels great to write a post about kick ass pugs.