Battlemaster, originally uploaded by theuser.

I finally earned Battlemaster yesterday! My final achievement was Strand of
the Ancients Veteran. I’m pretty tired of SotA now!

Skornn-Blackrock, Worst PUG’d Tank Ever, originally uploaded by theuser.

Let me tell you a tale about how the worst PUG’d tank ever in a LFD group
turned our run into the most fun run ever! I queue with Amik and Mooglegem
for a random heroic. After a few minutes of waiting, we find a tank and
another dps, click accept, and find ourselves in Utgarde Keep! At this point
I’m excited, because I need a holiday drop off Prince Keleseth.
I begin doing some buffs but held off on my mass buffs because Mooglegem
hasn’t loaded. I’m very low on mana though, so I sit down to drink. Before I
am even at a third mana (and before Mooglegem loads), our tank, Skornn
from Blackrock pulls. This immediately makes me annoyed, but I
always try to tell myself, "well, we’re overgeared. I’ll just keep drinking
a bit and then catch up." Well, he runs into the next hallway and pulls a
few more mobs. He’s really close to dying before Mooglegem loads, and I just
barely keep us up. Our PUG’d DPSer drops the group. I don’t really blame
him, but I hope it isn’t because he thought I wasn’t good.
The tank pulls the next group. I’m still not near full mana, but I have
about half, and Mooglegem is with us. Then we enter the furnace room in
which you go counter-clockwise around (before the room with the drakes). He
pretty much pulls the full room. Our new DPSer joins the group but is still
loading. In the drake room, he again pulls the whole room just as the
paladin DPSer reaches the group. We almost wipe but manage to survive. Then
things are a little better approaching Prince Keleseth. The fight goes well,
and the Ebon Bouquet drops, which Mooglegem wins! Yay!
Then there’s a few bad pulls. We’re alive, but I’m very annoyed. In private,
Amik, Mooglegem, and I are angry. The paladin stops moving. We keep going. I
try to drink, but Skornn pulls again. I catch up and try to keep everyone
up, but I get killed. Then Amik dies. Now I’m hoping Skornn dies. And he
does! Sadly, Mooglegem dies too.
Okay. Now I’m expecting an argument, but no one says anything. We all run
back. Now I notice the paladin, Kimfar, is offline. I completely understand.
In fact, I’m kind of happy. Now it’s just us and Skornn. If I decide to let
him wipe for being stupid, I’m not hurting some innocent DPSer. As we make
our way to the next boss, Skornn suddenly stops. This is very odd for him.
Then I get a vote to kick Kimfar. We vote no and continue. He still doesn’t
say anything.
Eventually we find our way at the next boss. You can see this in the
screenshot. Amik says, "You gotta admire his resolve to never say a word"
right before Skornn says "kick this paly." As long as we’re talking about
the screenshot, note that Skornn’s gearscore is 5802. That’s very high! He’s
very overgeared for heroic UK. I know he just wants his Emblems of Frost.
Still, I find that overgeared tanks can sometimes be the worst tank. He
calls for a vote to kick Kimfar again, but we vote no. He says "…" and
pulls. We wonder in party chat why we’re not kicking Kimfar, pretending not
to know. I’m sure Skornn knows though.
Then we continue through the instance. Nothing exciting happens for a while.
He continues to be a horrible tank, never waiting for the group, never
waiting for mana, and losing aggro to the other group members. Nearing the
end, Amik suggests we kick Skornn before the final boss and says he can
tank. Great! After the last mob, we try to kick him. We can’t kick during
loot rolls. Fine! But Skornn is running for the boss. Now we can’t kick
right after combat! Skornn reaches the boss, and Ingvar the Plunderer begins
yelling. Finally the kick goes through! Skornn fades out, Ingvar resets, and
we rejoice as we wait for Ingvar the Plunderer to respawn. Then Amik
switches specs, we all make sure everyone else is ready, and we pull. It’s a
nice pull, and everything goes well. One tank, one healer, and one DPS, and
no arrogant idiots!
That was Skornn, S-k-o-r-n-n, of the guild Volatile from the Blackrock-US
realm.