I Will Buff You When I GET THERE!

I am completely stealing Big Bear Butt's latest blog post and sharing my own experience with "special" pugs.

I ran Heroic Halls of Reflection last night as shadow (you couldn't pay me enough to heal that thing), and well, it was "special" to say the least. It took us 3 tanks to get through the gauntlet (apparently the other two dps had not heard of kill order and the third tank hadn't heard of shackle undead for riflemen), and it was after our second wipe in the run that the following occurred. I was running back in (since the tree had died and because that's my default action upon party wipe) and I see...
tank: priest buffs
I keep running, and wonder briefly how the space goat tank got in before my NE.
tank: Priest Buffs!
tank: PRIEST BUFFS!
me: I'm not there yet.
I keep running, and just as everyone (apparently the tree was soulstoned and rez'd everyone else) comes into range...
warlock: priest buffs
me: underwater breathing!
me: *hit all three buffs*
I did not get underwater breathing, sadly.

Then, on the second wave of undead, as we're in combat...
warlock: druid buffs
me: *puzzled, continues to melt faces like mad and kinda wishes that skada was working so I could see if the warlock was actually attempting to dps and type*
warlock: druid buffs?
warlock: druid?
warlock: hey, the druid put me on ignore.
me: *snicker*

We did get through the place, but well, I feel that there should be a small set of common politeness rules for buffing/asking for buffs...
1. Do not ask during combat. Do your job. You can live without that buff for a bit. There is no automatic win buff.
2. After a wipe, make sure that the person you're badgering is in range and visible before pestering.
3. Allow for drinking after buffs. I have three party buffs and it takes a chunk of my mana to give all of them. You want all of them, I know you do.
4. If you want something specific (like might from a pally when he's just given kings to everyone) be willing to accept no as an answer. Do not pester. And while we're at it, asking politely "My dps improves significantly with might, could I have that instead of kings please?" will get you much farther than "MIGHT!"

There are good PUGs and bad PUGS...

I've been pugging up a storm on Lyllea, and I've discovered a pattern. The first heroic of the day will suck. The tank will let the mobs eat my face, dps will pull half the instance at once, and everyone will expect to be rezed after a wipe.

And then the rest of the pugs are good. Some are awesome. I had a Halls of Stone run where I never went below 80% mana (might have something to do with the 25k mana pool), and I was actually happy to have a warlock life tapping cause it gave me something to do. Plus, when I accidentally butt-pullled a pat, tank picked it up immediately and the mobs went squish.

I've also dipped my toe into the lower level pugging. I tried Ramparts twice on my pally, once as dps and once as heals. And what luck, I got to encounter that rare species Leetist Tankus Dickus, subspecies Mortus Militis. He called us all noobs repeatedly, tried to boot the lvl 57 shaman, couldn't hold aggro, and insulted the healer (the same shaman) repeatedly for dying so much. I left that group in a hurry, after telling the shaman that he was doing well (he was) and to pay no attention to the tank. Then I tried again, got Clueless Mortis Militis this time, and well, a new healer and a clueless tank do not make for any sort of a smooth run. I am now surprisingly motivated to figure out pally tanking just to save myself from newbie DK tanks.

Needless to say, I was rather expecting the worst when I tried pugging on the much neglected warlock, and was pleasantly surprised. Two runs of Scarlet Graveyard, everything went squish, and I was probably the worst one in both groups. Note to self, take some time to figure out what your spells are before going into queue, or you will have situations like the paladin asking you why you aren't using Rain of Fire (I forgot I had it).

I can't help wondering if the Outlands pugs are going to be this bad forever as people decide that the queues for dps are too long, take their much-neglected DKs, and decide to tank. I really hope not, but if they are, at least all my current toons at those levels can respec and tank.