Heroic Tip: The Oculus Cache

While I have had many reasons to be grumpy lately about things in WoW there have also been a few moments when no matter how I might try I just can not be grumpy.  I had one of these cases with my frost run using the looking for dungeon system Tuesday.

The run will full of horrible play. It ended with disappointment.  Yet it ended, a full day later, with a new found hope in the system.
(The tip is at the end of my story of the run if you want to just skip to that.)

I zoned into The Oculus and did what I usually do.  I waited about 10 seconds before even saying my customary "Hello all".  The reason being that often people drop from Oculus the moment they zone in.  I read all the time on the forums about people complaining about people dropping from it.  Oddly enough, the last three times I have gotten it as my daily random no one has dropped.  I am glad for that, it is not a hard run, just annoying sometimes and to wait for someone dropping is always more annoying then the run would have been in a worst case scenario

Well this time around it was a lame group, but that did not slow us down.  Had a tank that was a ret pally that seemed to query up as a tank just to get a quick query time.  There is nothing wrong with that, he was so far over geared for it that it was never a problem.  What made it lame was the way he did it.  He landed "on" the mobs.  To make it quicker I guess?  Then we all had to rush to catch up to him.  No, he never died, but that is really uncalled for.  You can wait 2.3 seconds for us to get there and dismount before you go aggroing the mobs.  As I said, not a hard run, but an annoying run.

The only time this really became an issue was on Ley-Guardian Eregos at the end.  He did the same thing, flew right into him.  The difference is, with the mobs he landed on we could come and dismount and join him.  With Eregos, once engaged everyone is considered in battle.  Which means if you are not already mounted you can't mount.  Not much of a big deal.  We only lost one person that was not mounted yet.  The healer, but in this run a healer is not really needed any more as the drakes scale to gear score and everyone was over geared.  People that know what they are doing can down it without anyone dying without a healer without even breaking a sweat.

There within lies the problem.  I was the only one that used time stop.  So of course we took a lot more damage then we should have.  People should realize that option is there for a reason.  You can go the whole battle with no one taking damage almost if people knew how to hit a freaking button.  Second problem is that it was only me and the tank there when we engaged.  No biggie, the other two would catch up while the healer watched from the distance.  We did okay, but because the others apparently have no clue how to hit the number 2 on their keyboard it took a little longer then it should and we took a lot more damage then we should. 

After the third phase shift the tank never picked up aggro and Eregos came straight for me.  I did my ride around in a circle thing while firing.  The tank just watched from a distance as did the other two.  He was at 10% or less, you know they could have joined in hitting him and it would have been over in no time.  I guess seeing him come for me was a little to much for them to adapt to.  So he was toasting me while I was waiting on my time stop to come off cool down.  After it came up.  I hit it and proceeded to hit him while making my way over to the tank.  If the tank will not come to the fight I will bring the fight to the tank.  I set myself up right behind him and when the time stop ends Eregos turns straight for us.  Of course the tank reacts and like on cue everyone else joins back in again. 

Somewhere in the dungeon rule book these people read, it must say "never attack anything unless the tank attacks first even if that thing is trying to kill you."  To some extent I wish others would read that rule book and live by the first part of it.  I hate when people are pulling everything all over the place when I am tanking with my bear.  Well, back on topic, Eregos killed the tank, now down to like 1%, killed me and was downed by the others.  I guess their personal rule book said that they were allowed to keep attacking if the tank died.  I am glad for that at least.

So the dungeon is done, I am dead and the tank is dead and the healer is yelling noob over and over again.  Mixing in a "you don't pull until everyone is ready" every once in while.  Not sure who revived the tank but someone did, I doubt it was the healer as he was really pissed at the tank.  I say in party, politely as I always am even when frustrated like this, "Would someone please be so kind as to revive me. I would be very grateful."  The pally tank just ignores me as if I were the one yelling noob over and over again.  Come to think of it, he never said anything in party, maybe he did not even read english?  He might have said something and I missed it.  Everyone goes and grabs their cache, we all roll on the dropped junk.  Still I lay dead.  The healer was nice enough to at least pretend to look for me.  He mounted at least so maybe he really did try.  He says he can not find me.  I say thank you anyway and tell him I will release and come right back.

I released and come back and he leaves, leaving just me in the instance alone.  I run through, grab a drake and fly up to get my cache.  It was like the soup nazi yelled at me... "No Cache for you!"  I opened and closed it a few times and nope, nothing was there.

I open a ticket while still in there.  Mind you, I am not angry at all.  I got my two frosts and that is all that matters to me.  I tell them about getting the dungeon as my random and finishing it and explain that I released and came back and there was no cache there.  Of course they never got back to me Tuesday night.  They are not that fast, never have been and never will be.  When I logged on last night I saw that they had replied and low and behold the GM said that he would give me the cache as a one time courtesy but to not expect it again if this happens once more.  That was mighty nice of them.  I did not mind if they gave it or not, I just wanted them to know the error occurred so they could fix it.  The GM explained to me why I did not receive the cache and with that come the tip of the day.

(The tip is here people, for those that skipped the story.)

The GM explained that you will not receive the cache if:
1) You are not on heroic mode.
2) You did not get it as a random dungeon.
3) You are out of the instance or too far away when Eregos is defeated.
4) You are the only person left in the instance.

That is what had happened to me.  Being they could not find me to revive me and I had to walk back I lost the cache as by the time I got back everyone had left the group. Being alone, I could not get the cache even though I met all other criteria.

So do not leave the group until everyone in the group has looted the cache or they will not get one.  Unless of course you are a total jerk, then you can leave fast on purpose to screw someone out of their cache.  Personally I hope you are not one of those people.  Those people suck.  In this case at least I ended up a surprised happy elf after what would be best referred to as a grumpy elf run.