A Boarding Party Pug

With nearly an hour to go until ops time, I figured that I had time to run a quick tactical flashpoint on my DvL dps Juggernaut, who hit level 40 yesterday. I got an instant pop for a Boarding Party run in progress... sort of. They were only about three trash pulls in, which struck me as a rather odd place to abandon a group, though I soon noticed at least one possible reason for my predecessor's behaviour: At level 40, I was actually the powerhouse of the group, with everyone else clocking in at level 19, 22 and 27 respectively. Oh, and they were all melee dps like me, two warriors and an Assassin.

The Assassin, who was the lowest level and whom someone else in the party eventually dubbed Jar Jar, was forever determined to pull first... just to die a few seconds later of course. Neither of the two warriors ever seemed to remember to regenerate their health either, so we got caught in a seemingly endless cycle of pulling things, people dying, and then pulling more as soon as they came back and while they were still on half health. Well, except for me. I always kind of muddled through, mostly thanks to my recently acquired cooldowns and Jar Jar's insistence on doing all the pulling.

I suggested that maybe things might go better if people healed up between pulls. "Lol sorry," opined one of the warriors, to whom I shall refer as Oblivious for the rest of the post, and dutifully started channelling his hatred. "I CAN'T SEE MY HEALTH, STUPID BUG," explained the other warrior, of whom I soon started thinking as "Allcaps" for obvious reasons. I suggested that he could try resetting his UI, which didn't seem to help, and then explained that it would probably be best to spend some time regenerating after every pull even if he couldn't see his health, because it was pretty much bound to be needed under the circumstances. Next pull: "LOL I LEVELLED WHILE DEAD"

We got to the first boss, and by the time he died I was once again the last person standing. "GUYS, I CAN'T SEE MY HEALTH, STUPID BUG - WHAT'S MY HEALTH?" Allcaps queried, face firmly glued to the floor. "Reup," instructed Jar Jar. "What does that even mean?" asked Oblivious. "Reup, rez, revive?" While everyone else dutifully ran back over and over again, "reup" quickly turned into Jar Jar's catch phrase while he patiently hugged the floor waiting for someone else to revive him. We actually dutifully took turns to do so, but he died so often that this wasn't enough and he didn't seem to listen when I tried to explain to him that the ability had a cooldown. "GUYS. REUP." Writing in all caps seemed to get Allcaps' attention: "DUDE, THE REZ POINT IS RIGHT HERE, TRUST ME." Grumbling, Jar Jar revived about two steps behind us, that one time at least.

We got to the second boss and Jar Jar decided to pull while Oblivious was still running back from his latest death. That was the one time I died too, as it was such a mess that we simply wiped. On the second attempt, I was once again the last person standing, which clearly impressed at least some of my group mates. The great thing about playing with people who don't know what they're doing is that you come off as some kind of god-like being for simply knowing how to use your abilities.

We talked to Captain Yelto. "OMG MY FIRST GROUP CONVERSATION, THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN," exclaimed Allcaps. Well, that explained a lot - and I was happy for him. "THIS IS TAKING QUITE LONG," he offered up almost immediately after (apparently it wasn't that much fun after all). "ARE OPS EVEN LONGER?" He seemed somewhat put out when I answered yes. I tried to reassure him that there wasn't that much of the flashpoint left.

It was fifteen minutes to ops time by now, and my pet tank was telling me to hurry up. I told him and my party that we were almost there. "LOL, YOU SAID THAT EARLIER YET HERE WE ARE." I explained that we really were getting close to the end (we were on the final deck) and that the green triangle on the map was the final boss. "HALLELUJAH", Allcaps responded. "MY HEALTH IS BACK!"

In our haphazard manner, with people accidentally leaping into trash pulls off to the side and such, we had almost accidentally completed the various bonus objectives and I asked if people wanted to do the bonus boss. Usually I love doing bonus bosses, but considering that he's probably the hardest fight in the instance and how badly we'd been struggling with every single trash pull, I wasn't really too keen for once. Fortunately, neither was Allcaps. "NO! I JUST WANT MY GROUP FINDER REWARD."

We were moving on, but Jar Jar, who was probably behind again from yet another death, had something else in mind. Also resorting to all caps, he shouted at us to come back and kill the bonus boss, but nobody moved. "YOU GO KILL THE BONUS BOSS THEN," Allcaps taunted, and just like his namesake, Jar Jar continued to vastly overrate his own abilities and charged right into the first trash pull leading down to the bonus boss's room. He died within seconds of course, and I wondered whether the mobs he had aggroed would come all the way over to us, but thankfully they evaded quickly.

We continued clearing trash towards the bridge, and though he appeared to be sulking, Jar Jar eventually caught up with us again. I thought I'd be helpful and put a target on the medic's head to let everyone know that he should be killed first. However, the moment I charged in, Oblivious went "brb", and everyone else went on the boss himself. I've never seen that fight take so long as I slowly took down the medic by myself and did my best to interrupt his heals.

We finished off the final conversation with a "YAAAH LIGHT SIDE" from Allcaps and then said our goodbyes. Allcaps made a point of thanking me by name, calling me his "flashpoint mentor" and letting me know that he had added me to his friends list. I returned to the fleet and looked at his little portrait, quietly remembering the days when I was a noob myself. "Do you know how to get out of there?" "UMMM..." (I told him.)