How about a ready check?

Just when I thought I was running out of little things that bug me...

I'm busy saving up my Frosts as there's some gear I've got my eye on.  Being as I don't raid much my main source is the first random daily heroic giving me a whopping two Frosts/day (wheee!).  So I que'd up Friday evening when things had settled down at the house and ended up with a Trial of Champions run.  We mounted up and took off.  Man, this first phase while mounted was taking forever.  We spent at least two to three times longer doing this than it should have.  At the end it became clear why.  It seems our tank's toon disconnected at some point, and with all the commotion of mounts running around I'd not noticed one of us standing in one place doing nothing.  I hate re-que'ing for a tank as you never know how long it'll take.  But after asking the other guys, they wanted the first tank dropped and then wanted us re-que'd.

As soon as I hit the que button, I typed "hey guys, that took forever and we don't know long this tank'll take... gonna take a two minute break and get my drink refreshed".   I came back in less time than that, to find everyone at less than 10% health, fighting on the other side of the ToC hall.  The tank's dyeing words were "dude, are you going to heal?".  My reply as all four of my teammates ghosted, and the remaining mobs charge across the hall at me, was "uhh, I'd said I was gonna be AFK".  His reply was that no one told him.  Great, a needless wipe, where I look bad.

Post mortem:  Everyone's seen a tank do this.  They join an instance already in progress, replacing a failed, disconnected or ejected previous tank.  They realize where they are, then charge ahead with a "lets go!".  Apparently this guy joined up within seconds of my leaving my chair.  No one in the group said "hey, the tree just afk'd" when he charged off.  That alone should have stopped the tank in his tracks.  But, whatever happened to the tried and true, simple "r?".  If you only get three replies then you investigate.

I must admit that I share some blame.  Unless you are an hour into trying to finish Occulus with a couple of people who have never run it before, you should be ready to finish a simple five man heroic at one sitting without getting up after you hit que.  I just wanted to stretch my legs real quick, freshening up my drink was my excuse to make an orbit around the kitchen.

"r?" would have prevented a wipe.