How far can you go?

This is to ask the question about how far you feel comfortable insulting/bashing/complaining/arguing with (either directly or indirectly) some you are playing WoW with.

The other day, I was DPSing H-CoS on my new to 80 DK, with me were a healer friend and a tanking friend, the healer well geared and the tank with even less gear than myself.

So this hunter joined our group, and about a pull or two in, he said that he need to go afk. CoS is on a timer, so the waves spawn automatically. He missed six or seven pulls coming back when we had a boss to down. Then, in the Inn, he also left, although the waves there also automatically spawn and you have to keep up with Arthas.

Then, during the gauntlet run, he asked if any of us would like to run any of the Icecrown five mans to help him gear up. At this point I said something along the lines of "I'm not going to work to get you gear while you afk."

He responded with a remark about how comparatively poor my gear was. I made a remark about how my DPS was twice his and my damage done several times higher. He responded with "I'm not trying."

It ended with a boot to the hunter after pulling the last boss.

In other scenarios, when there is someone who plays a more regular role in my playing I try much harder to be polite- mostly when there are people in my random from Ursin.

In those cases I am extra cautious so that I don't get a bad rep. I do my best to be polite, humorous and helpful.

However, sometimes I snap. Sometimes a DPS is really annoying me, and since we're early in, I can't kick him, so I ask him to step it up. I always look at their gear and talents before doing this just to make sure that my complaints are reasonable. However, because of my high level of gear, if they start yammering on about how well the dps/their important role and they link meters, I can counter link meters showing me (or someone else) at the top, or focusing on the correct target.

But the one group of people who I work to keep happy and never insulted are my guildies. My guild is a primarily social guild and the point of being in a group together is because it is fun. If I risk insulting another Ursinite, but to protect one of my guildies, I'll do it. Even if the other people have strong ties to TOC, I still feel that guildies are due utmost respect.