Some times sorry isn't enough...

This is an apology to the poor folks who had the misfortune to invite me to a Culling of Strathome run last night, where I performed like the worst kind of Huntard, because I forgot that the aim was for the group to succeed, rather than for me to do well. So what happened?

Well, after hanging around in Ironforge for an hour or so, levelling first aid whilst trying unsuccesfully to pug a UK heroic run, I was asked if I would help out on a normal run through CoS with some lower level players. It was getting late, I was bored, I had nothing better to do and hey - I like helping out. So I said yes.

The group took some time to get organised. The mage didn't portal to CoT to help summon, even though he said he would, which meant a twenty minute wait for him to get there by more traditional means. When he did get there he and the leader summoned everyone except me, so two of them had to run back out of the instance to summon me.

So finally we are assembled, me as a lvl 80 BM hunter, a level 79 Mage, a level 79 Pally, a level 78 priest to heal and a level 77 warrior as tank. Now in all fairness to the tank, he did question his suitability but we reassured him that it would be fine and off we went.

In we went and fairly easily made our way through the first waves of trash mobs and so to Meathook and wipe. What the hell? yep wipe. The tank immediately complained that he couldn't maintain aggro which was why Meathook got past him and into the healer, mage, me and pally. Ok no big deal. We rezzed and ran back in. Healed, buffed and tried again. Same result in no time flat. Again the tank bemoaned his inability to hold aggro and suggested we replace him but, because we were a team, we said no.

Third time round we decided to try a different tactic and went after Salramm the Fleshcrafter instead. Guess what? yep we wiped again.

At this point the tank apologised and left the group, the mage immediately did the same (without saying goodbye) and the rest of us decided to call it a night.

I'm guessing we all went away moaning about how bad each or all of the others were.

Driving home from work today it finally dawned on my thick huntard like brain what had gone wrong and I have to say that I think it was all my fault, and heres why.

I am level 80 with a good selection of pre-Naxx epics, a good trinket, with ap food and Saronite Razorheads. I'm using my heroic shot rotation and popping Bestial Wrath and Rapid Fire, add to that Blessings of Might and god knows what other buffs and me and my wolf are pumping out 1800 dps /pat on back.

But whilst I was patting myself on the back, was I remembering that the tank was only level 77? No. Had I remembered to 'downgrade' myself from my heroic set up? No. Was I watching my threat meter to make sure I didn't 'steal' aggro? No. And there we have it. Big, bad, Banturr burning up the meters but generating so much threat that the tank didn't stand a chance and wiping my group in the process. Not once but three times in the space of 15 minutes.

To my un-named colleagues who's only mistake was to invite me to help out I apologise unreservedly. You had a right to expect better and it was definitely /fail on my part.

The only plus side to this episode is that I will NEVER make that mistake again.