Tonight, I decided to dust off my old Templar and give him a go around. It's been a while since I've healed a dungeon, so I popped on my healing gear and loaded into a random veteran. Thankfully, it was a relatively easy one, Dark Shade 2.

It was pretty obvious from the first 10 seconds that things were about to get interesting. As I open my menu to recharge my weapon and swap a skill, I notice that everyone has run ahead to the first engagement. A dps dies before I can get there.

We get to the first mini-boss, a lady with a big fiery AOE. It's about this time that I realize there is something funny about the tank. He has less health than me (the healer), has no shield equipped, and is wielding a two-hander. The two dps are 1-shot by the flame cone at the same time. We wipe twice before killing the miniboss.

We proceed through the dungeon, the tank holding aggro on 2 mobs at a time, as the rest ravage the dps. I ask him why he's not taunting, and he says something about only being able to taunt one add a time, and the taunts only lasting 3 seconds. I main as a tank, and I know this isn't true, but I decide it's not worth the effort and we push forward to the first real boss; a huge Kwama with a bad attitude. Suprisingly things go alright. The dps is a bit low, but no big deal. I've seen worse. The fight goes slow enough that I spend some time just watching the Tank as he spams the vampiric blood suck attack.

We get to the next mini-boss; 3 Alits that all need to die within 10 seconds of each other. The team can't seem to master this concept. The fight lasts about 15 minutes before we finally get them all down.

Then we hit a brick wall. Those of you who pug regularly or who know DarkShade 2 well, know exactly what happened next. The Netch boss requires a fair bit of coordination and/or some good DPS. At the very least, it requires the ability to avoid red zones and break free of stuns. Rare traits in your average pug.

Sadly, after our first wipe on this boss, we lose our amazing 2-hander tank. He is sorely missed. After we finish mourning, Tank 2 joins. We wipe again and he leaves. Tank 3 joins, sees that we have already killed the first boss (thus he cannot complete his daily) and leaves. DPS 1 leaves. Tank 4 and DPS 2 join. Tank 4 has 40k health and S&B, and I'm feeling pretty good about him. We wipe 6 more times because Tank 4 can't hold aggro on anything, and the netchlings keep overwhelming us because everyone on the team holds aggro better than the tank. He apparently has nothing equipped on his second bar and regularly switches to empty hands. I don't know why.

Eventually, we all decide that one of the original DPS just isn't pulling his weight. We vote to kick. I feel pretty bad about it because he seems like a nice guy, but we'd already been in this dungeon for an hour. DPS 3 joins. We begin the Netch fight in earnest once more, and DPS 3 dies almost instantly. I go to res him, but he doesn't get up. Thinking I had somehow got the bar to 99%, I go to res him again and get the "Resurrection pending..." message. DPS 3 disconnects. We kick him. DPS 2 leaves. I am now the only original member of the group left.

DPS 4 and 5 join. DPS 4 is a hot mess right off the bat. He can't get into the dungeon because of a bug. He can't teleport to us and has to walk, then gets endless loading screen. While we wait, Tank 4 tells us he is Brazilian. No one asked. DPS 4 is finally able to zone in. He dies walking into a group of mobs we skipped. DPS 5 seems to know what he's doing. He does about 75% of the damage during the Netch fight (he whispers me to tell me this, I don't know why). We defeat the immortal Netch boss. Tank 4 is dead when this happens.

We proceed to the next fight, a horde of Dwemer constructs which you have to burn through. I watch helplessly as DPS 4 stands in red for about 10 full seconds, eating cleave after cleave. I take a moment to tell him that he needs to move. My magicka bar is now empty and he dies. Thankfully, he gets the message that you can't just suck on cleaves while wearing light armor and expect things to go well. DPS 4 doesn't stand in red for the rest of this fight. But, Tank 4 is still failing to hold aggro, so DPS 4 spends the rest of the fight spamming heals on himself and running to the river nearby - which causes half the mobs to reset. After what feels like 100 years, we actually get through this group of mobs without a wipe.

As we proceed through the next door, DPS 5 whispers to me "This is going to suck." I agree with him, but I secretly can't wait to see how much more can go wrong. We begin the fight with a giant Dwarven Spider. Tank 4, still unable to hold aggro on anything, spends the next 10 minutes trying to tank an untankable boss. He chases around the giant spider, stabbing it with his mace, as hordes of adds tear through his teammates. Many. Many. Many deaths. We're overrun by adds again and again. DPS 4 apologizes for being weak (his words, not mine). We vote to kick DPS 4. We all feel bad.

DPS 6 joins. He is a skeleton. I sh*t you not. Every time he is hit (which is often, because adds are still running around unchecked), he makes this weird skeleton laugh. We wipe many more times. The whole time, DPS 5 is whispering me complaining about how the tank doesn't hold aggro on the adds. He's correct and we try to tell Tank 4 about this, but Tank 4 says to ignore the adds and focus the boss. It's about this time that hysteria begins to set in, as I find myself laughing uncontrollably. DPS 5 finally gets fed up with it, because his armor is destroyed, and quits. DPS 6 also leaves. I am now on my third 1-hour meal.

DPS 7 and 8 join. We take one more run at the boss. The tank still doesn't want to grab the adds and continues to stab the giant dwemer spider with his mace. He sometimes switches to bare hands. I still don't know why. As the boss' hp dwindles down to <100k, I stand in fire like a moron and die. The two dps die to adds soon after. Tank 4 resurrects DPS 7 and then dies himself. DPS 7, in a miraculous feat, runs away from all our corpses and manages to finish the boss off by herself.

The nightmare ends and I wake up in a cold sweat, safely back at my home in Malabal Tor.

I hope you all enjoyed this recounting. It was the most amazing pug I've ever had, and I would do it all over again. I only wish all 12 of my party members could've been there at the end.