What are your expectations of your comrades?

[Bobilar]

I had a teammate die in a PUG today. We were rumbling along well, when before I knew it he was taking damage and was dead in seconds.

I'm playing a Cleric/Artificer, and try to do my bit with healing if I see someone hurt, but I will admit I focus more on damage and keeping myself alive rather than watching my teammates bars.

Similarly I appreciate any help I get but consider keeping myself alive to be ultimately my responsibility.

The victim whispered me after he died, understandably annoyed 'you don't buff you don't heal what do you do'. At the time I was second on the kill count so I felt I was playing my part, but what do you guys think?

Are we responsible for keeping our comrades alive?

[archest]

He is himself and the choices he makes to even join the adventure not ensuring adequate healing or trapping skills ( Hard Core)

he should of had his own hire healer.

even if you were a cleric your not a heal bot .
let him her vent .
ignore it.

was it reaper mode? then if there weren't any hires who could heal then the group as a whole should be aware and moving together.
if there was a leadership zerging ahead and leaving folks behind spreading the party out so as to leave it vulnerable. its more of a wish I didn't join that group thing.
it takes time to target and cast spells it also take spell points for a cleric to do it and the use a rest shrine.
maybe he thinks you should be wearing a cloak of many heals which he only needs to walk by and he's healed telekinetically as he running all around and can't be targeted.

[LittleLexi]

Would need more details, such as what class/build the dead teammate was playing, what buffs you had available to cast, and how they actually died.

As for this statement though:

Are we responsible for keeping our comrades alive?

Absolutely yes. Even if you aren't on a class that can heal or buff– it is still a yes. There's a lot that you can do to ensure your party members' survival. Often that is just down to being mindful of where they are, what is aggroing on them, what their HP/SP is, and communication.

Maybe it's just the way I'm wired, and the fact that I've often played support roles in games('cause someone has to!) – but when I join a party– I'm doing it with cooperation and teamwork in mind from the get-go. Otherwise why even group to begin with? And there is much more to being a good, contributing, member of a party than just what your kill count indicates.

[voxson5]

Yeah, oh hardcore it does seem to work best when there is a group 1st mentality.

Unless a player is going out of their way to grief the group, more teammates alive normally means faster & safer completion times - if you can zergball through this even more so.

If that guy rushed ahead and tried to facetank traps & mobs, then that is on them. Otherwise, seems like you just didn't want to use the tools available.

[rabidfox]

My expectation is for someone in a pug to not kill me as a result of their actions (and yet some people do their best to fail this), anything beyond that is great but generally unexpected from a randomly put together group.

[Annex]

I always join a pick up group expecting the other people to act completely selfishly and make absolutely no effort to help me no matter what happens. This remains true on a Hardcore server. When I join a group, Hardcore server or not, I take on whatever role I feel will best help the group succeed. I presume no one wants to die and will act to preserve lives above anything else. I am not perfect and make mistakes but try my best.

You behaved like a very typical human being.

[Bobilar]

Would need more details, such as what class/build the dead teammate was playing, what buffs you had available to cast, and how they actually died.

I don't know his class or build, a warlock or bard maybe. Definitely not a tank, guide or trapper.

As to the circumstances, it was a chaotic fight in Danger at Dunwater, lots of lizardmen and people jumping around all over the place trying to stay alive and bring them down.

I don't know if he made a mistake or not, he could have been playing perfectly, but he was dead before I even noticed he was taking lots of damage.

[Bobilar]

Yeah, oh hardcore it does seem to work best when there is a group 1st mentality.

Unless a player is going out of their way to grief the group, more teammates alive normally means faster & safer completion times - if you can zergball through this even more so.

If that guy rushed ahead and tried to facetank traps & mobs, then that is on them. Otherwise, seems like you just didn't want to use the tools available.

I want to be clear that I didn't see he was in trouble and ignore it, I wasn't paying attention to how he was doing and he was dead before I noticed

[Bobilar]

I did notice he had about 100hp which seems low for a 5th level character on hardcore to me.

[LittleLexi]

I don't know his class or build, a warlock or bard maybe. Definitely not a tank, guide or trapper.

As to the circumstances, it was a chaotic fight in Danger at Dunwater, lots of lizardmen and people jumping around all over the place trying to stay alive and bring them down.

I don't know if he made a mistake or not, he could have been playing perfectly, but he was dead before I even noticed he was taking lots of damage.

If it was death by Dunwater Shaman's splinterbolt– then I'm willing to give you a bit of a pass. Not that nothing can be done to manage that encounter. But it does do a crazy amount of damage for its level– easily one-shotting most players– and has already claimed several lives this HC season.

But I do think going forward– it's a good idea to be cognizant about your party's positioning and hp at all times

[balvix]

Are we responsible for keeping our comrades alive?

Both yes, and no. On the hc server we should try to help keep our teammates alive if we can. It helps with grouping, survivability and overall gameplay. Groups this season are often difficult to fill, and I would much rather have a real person playing and helping complete quests than a npc hireling mucking things up unless parked at the entry.
In my personal opinion, healing goes like this: Me first, always, every time. If I'm ok and don't need a heal: Everyone else. That being said, I try really hard to be mindful of any teammates I might have at the time, where they are, what they are doing, and how their health pool is. You want to help keep them alive, boost their hp whenever you can, and buff them as much as possible without gimping yourself. You never know when you heal someone and have made them happy and appreciative then they are possibly the ones with healing power that might keep you alive when the hound has tripped you.
However, you are also not responsible for stupid people. Those that think they are invincible and have run off and found a situation that is currently disabusing them of their invincibility concept. Or those that think traps on hc are as negligible as they are on the live servers. Don't get yourself in to trouble over those types of players, heal them if you can, but remember your blue bar is not theirs to use.

[ananigma80]

I don't know if he made a mistake or not, he could have been playing perfectly, but he was dead before I even noticed he was taking lots of damage.

It depends on how fast their health bar went from 100 to 0. If they died in a second or 2 because they pulled alot of aggro, then you are not at fault. If they were low on health for a period of time, then I can understand their case. Even so, a common misunderstanding is to look at a party members icon and assume that because there is a cleric icon, that player is just there to look at health bars and heal people. It's hardcore so the #1 priority is to survive, and the person responsible for this is yourself.

If you are going to play a squishy character, the first thing you need to do is buy cure moderate potions and later when you have the plat buy a stack of cure serious potions (repair if WF or Bladeforged). Even if you have a dedicated healer in the group. If you take alot of damage quickly, you will be able to drink a potion before the healer can heal you and both combined will get your health back to a stable as opposed to hoping the healer can react quickly enough to keep your health above 0. There is only so much a healer can do and you can't fault them for your own recklessness.

[Enoach]

My opinion (based on being a PnP player since 1980s)

We are responsible to make sure we don't make bad decisions that put our party in harm's way. So, by that notion we are responsible for helping another party member. Be that assistance in healing, defensive buffs or offensive buffs.

Kill count is not relevant in party contribution when it is related to "Who got the last hit?"

Now with that, if a party member is ways away (the old example of running two rooms ahead and yelling 'Hjeal Me') there is a reason they are in trouble - they Choose Poorly - Don't risk yourself to fix their poor choice.

You mentioned playing Cleric and Artificer. Both have some healing and buffing capabilities. In Hard Core, at level 5, any defensive buff (Aid, resists, weapon/armor buffs) can be a big boon - Ounce of Prevention > Pound of Cure comes to mind.

It is poor form to blame another for your death, I'm saying this as someone that literally bleed out in HC 1 while the party stood over me in a level 2 quest from being at 0 hit points, not one of them had any form of healing for others. I imagine the completion was a bit rougher without a cleric . I don't blame them, I had 2 bad saves against poison. I blame myself; I joined the wrong group and didn't take the right precautions before running through the trap.

Learn from every experience, ask yourself - Is there something that I could have done differently? Be honest, learn and grow. It is easy after so many years to forget basic survival skills when we have been over buffed by Guild Ships and Tweak equipment for so long.

[marinersfan]

The victim whispered me after he died, understandably annoyed 'you don't buff you don't heal what do you do'. At the time I was second on the kill count so I felt I was playing my part, but what do you guys think?

Are we responsible for keeping our comrades alive?

I noticed more this year that almost everyone seems focused on self-healing, but most people toss heals as fast as possible when someone gets whacked hard, which I do think is the preferred play style. I remember one instance where I took a hard hit from a champ caster and got 3 lay on hands stacked on me at the same time because I dropped to like 50% health.

On HC I focused on clearing rooms, but also do pay more attention to red bars, especially if I get the sense it's a newer player ("share pls, where is quest" was code for me to try to babysit a little more). I take it as a point of pride to keep my team alive, and in past seasons kept a "RIP" section on my bio for lost teammates. If I had someone in group who couldn't self heal, or in a particularly difficult quest, I'd focus less on dps and more on healing, since my toon was able to heal. With all the nuking favored souls, my dps wasn't generally needed anyways. Often I was just there to buff the party and disarm traps, until one killed me lol.

HOWEVER, at its core my only expectation is that folks be kind and try their best. I don't go in assuming anyone is going to take it upon themselves to keep me alive, that's kind of my job IMO.

A /tell like that disqualifies this fellow from being a valued team member in my opinion. Getting that angry when only, what, level 5?...I'd hate to see the response if he was in the high teens when he died. That victim mentality has no place on a team. I ran into a similar player a couple seasons ago. We were duoing something in borderlands on R1, he was artificer and I was 1/1 rog/bard. He got whacked by a reaper, I healed, then he got whacked again and died. Then he started screaming at me over chat for not healing fast enough. I had 1 bard level and healed him then was on cooldown. I told him to grow up and asked him to avoid my LFM's with any new characters he built.

[GeneralDiomedes]

Sounds like this person is more just mad and trying to deflect responsibility to an outside force as a typical psychological defense mechanism.

I am playing an arti and I will try to throw heals to top up or if I notice someone is suddenly low on health. But it doesn’t always happen especially if I am being attacked and concentrating. But for hounds and champs I do attack second and keep an eye on health bars.

I will buff if there is a particularly tough known dangerous fight coming up like the magma brute in cerulean but I am not going to sit there and make sure you have buffs up at all times. You can buy some pots. Especially at low levels when there aren’t a lot of mass buffs available and there are pot equivalents. I am constantly shocked at he number of people who can’t buy something simple and life-saving like a protection from fire pot.

On my warlock I will constantly throw out bless to keep the temp HP up just because it’s easy. I suppose on a cleric I would throw out mass aids similarly because it’s easy.

Now start of adventure buffs when we are all gathered like deathward, FoM, mass protection from energy, holy aura .. of course. No brainer.

Also, don’t sweat too much over this .. deaths are going to happen in hardcore and you will just have to move on.

[Mindos]

Less talk. More death.

[Hobgoblin51]

my expectations?


To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women.

[Khimberlhyte]

tl;dr: squishies who suffer from Main Character Syndrome need to get over themselves.

My expectation is that everyone plays conservatively, especially when a group first forms. After a few quests, groups will often mesh and be able to rely on each other a bit to be more effective.

Most people play tankier self-healing builds on Hardcore, and there are a lot of artificers and divine casters for that reason. It is a deliberate and high risk choice to play something like a TWF rogue with dumped con, or any other glass cannon or flavor build.

Never allow other people's bad decisions to become your problem. I'll toss a cure when I have a moment, but anyone who needs a full time babysitter in hardcore is not going to see 5k unless they have a group of friends dedicated to keeping them alive.

Whenever I check kill counts, casters usually dominate, along with a few well-played barbarians, bears, etc. It's a lot faster and more fun to play a caster than a hjealbot. A fully meta'd AoE spellcast or two will wipe out entire packs on elite, and well-placed CC spells make it safer for everyone.

Context switching from offensive casting to healing also takes time, at least for me. I have to use different spells, and switch over to watching player HP bars and locations instead of mob types, HP and position. While I'll throw heals when I notice a problem, it sometimes takes me a few seconds. There have been a few melee characters who became my first priority whenever I was in a group with them, because they were very effective players and led to faster completions. But they never asked or demanded, and had decent defenses or were fairly self-sufficient anyways with blood tribute, etc.

I've been in a few groups with very badly played melees who only stayed alive because a few of us casters spent a lot of time and spell points keeping them up, at the cost of overall group DPS. I don't enjoy watching other characters die, even if they are a net drain on the party. But when the person has already made multiple trips to the Land of Lost Souls, it's usually pretty clear that their playstyle and build choices are the problem.

[Drecas]

I play a cleric, and since I am a healer at heart, I can't help but mommy everyone. I still feel bad for some guy who died, because I forgot to cast Reactive Heal on him.

I never get to play healers on live anymore, they aren't really needed, so that's why I play on HC, to scratch that healer itch. I make sure everyone has every buff that I can possibly cast, and constantly keep an eye on their hp bar as well, if someone is at 90% I immediately top them off.

I hope my teammates reciprocate should I somehow get in more trouble than I can handle, though so far I've been very good at not drawing too much aggro to myself.

Also, in spite of me playing a Radiant Servant, somehow I am usually at the top of the kill counts too, unless there is some crazy nuking caster in the party killing everything left and right.
I feel accomplished, and a credit to any party that I join

[Stimulus]

I'm the guy who died.

The server is slowing down, and you sometimes have to run with uh... special people. That's par for the course imo, but Homeskillet here has presented a fairly inaccurate recounting of events.

For context, he is one of those hang back, last to engage, semi-afk players that makes your shoulders ache. Also, I was playing a bard/rog with 137 hp with ship buffs only. You can cross-reference this info with his earlier claims and reach your own conclusions about how observant he is.

For my part, I try to buff whoever doesn't leeroy out of range at the start of every zone (blur, song, resists, bless clicky if your noncleric has an allergy to casting it), and I did the same in D@D.

Anyway, I was around the corner from the Obituary room, spot healing people while los-ing the shaman, and somehow ate a splinter bolt. I backed up a bit more trying to heal myself, and ended up beside the op who wasn't actually doing anything. Kept trying to heal myself and died. So, I sent him a much nicer tell than he deserved. It struck a chord, so he came here. Tbh, I already feel my work is done.

I'm not much for Final Thoughts, but I have 2 takeaways for the tl;dr crowd:

1. Lie effectively plz. People have screenshots and stuff.
2. If you get into a group with people who just hang back and don't do anything, or with sluggish tunnelvisioners, just leave.

Bye.