Heroic Pugs
Posted 01-27-2009 at 07:11 PM by PvtCaboose
The words are kinda ill fated in my mouth. I'll be quite honest with you... I despise pugs in their entirety. The dps who cant dps. The healers who cant heal. The tanks that should not be tanking. Call me an elitist. Call me prejudice against pugs. But I cant stand them and the less time I have to do anything with them the better, IMO.
I was reading old tankingtips provided by Vene when I read: Do pugs. Now, one as myself who cant stand spending more than an hour doing a heroic that takes pugs 3... ponder: If it's going to help my tanking then so be it I'll do it! I settle in LFG and set myself some ground rules: 1. NO OCCULUS! That place is the devil and there is no way I'm going to go in there with a pug. 2. Healer has to have some raiding experience. Yes, not all healers are good from raiding (But its a start). 3. DPS should be able to do well under any surcemstances (sp) Now the way I do this is I send a tell to someone in LFG. If they respond to me like "U need moar 4 H. <insert random heroic>" they wont be going. If they respond to me "I would like to go to H <random heroic>" They pass my first test. I then ask them what kinda dps they do and their spec they tell me and if its up to my standards (16-2k dps works well for me). Now I've got people who lie to me and tell me that they are good and such and just arent. This happend to me this past week when I took Vene's "advice" (quotes because it was like stabbing my hands with nails) and hopped into H. UK.
I got my group - it was the daily - and I was off. I tell the healer that I am a fast puller I will look at your mana before I pull if your above half we're going to keep pulling and he was fine with it. First few pulls were great. I usually mark a skull but everyone aoe's anyways so it doesnt matter. We got to the first boss and I didnt have recount showing and got to the first boss and told them we aren't going for the achivement and they were all fine with that, healer was at full and we were off to the races. The healer was standing behind me as per my request and the first person got iceblocked. I looked not a heal... health was still going down and everyone was still on the boss... I ran to the person IB'd and I had to do my best using CB and SW to help me. But I was too late they died. With the rest of the group shortly behind them. A couple more wipes and we downed him... Finally.
I dont like leaving groups there are some groups I do because we cant get something down after 4 hours of trying. But, that might be 3 keyboards later :P
We make it to the 2nd boss... I shoot up a star and say "Focus on the skull then burn down the unmarked" We do it and I was really surprised when I looked up recount and saw I was 2nd on damage. :x QQ x: The hunter in our group was well geared he could do what he was told. The rouge I kept BS up for was going 1350 dps on that boss and the mage was not much better at 1440. My jaw dropped no wonder it was taking so long. My shaman at level 70 is currently doing 1300 dps and these guys at level 80 are barely doing that. Oh well. I kept my mouth shut because I haven't had TOO much of a big deal about it. BUt I had specifically asked for a specific number and they havent been meeting it. It is frustrating.
We finally made it to the last boss and wiped on it for an hour before we finally killed him. I kinda felt bad for them it was mostly the dps but the healer was getting frustrated and started to do damage as well.. which well with me sitting at 30k hp unbuffed isnt that big of a deal but it makes it very frustrating for them and they miss key heals on me.
Overall my pug experience was bad and now I'm trying to avoid them like the plauge... Again! Thanks Vene (just kidding).
PS Yes my spelling isn't excellent but I dont type in the "leet speak" like lots of 12 year olds do.
I was reading old tankingtips provided by Vene when I read: Do pugs. Now, one as myself who cant stand spending more than an hour doing a heroic that takes pugs 3... ponder: If it's going to help my tanking then so be it I'll do it! I settle in LFG and set myself some ground rules: 1. NO OCCULUS! That place is the devil and there is no way I'm going to go in there with a pug. 2. Healer has to have some raiding experience. Yes, not all healers are good from raiding (But its a start). 3. DPS should be able to do well under any surcemstances (sp) Now the way I do this is I send a tell to someone in LFG. If they respond to me like "U need moar 4 H. <insert random heroic>" they wont be going. If they respond to me "I would like to go to H <random heroic>" They pass my first test. I then ask them what kinda dps they do and their spec they tell me and if its up to my standards (16-2k dps works well for me). Now I've got people who lie to me and tell me that they are good and such and just arent. This happend to me this past week when I took Vene's "advice" (quotes because it was like stabbing my hands with nails) and hopped into H. UK.
I got my group - it was the daily - and I was off. I tell the healer that I am a fast puller I will look at your mana before I pull if your above half we're going to keep pulling and he was fine with it. First few pulls were great. I usually mark a skull but everyone aoe's anyways so it doesnt matter. We got to the first boss and I didnt have recount showing and got to the first boss and told them we aren't going for the achivement and they were all fine with that, healer was at full and we were off to the races. The healer was standing behind me as per my request and the first person got iceblocked. I looked not a heal... health was still going down and everyone was still on the boss... I ran to the person IB'd and I had to do my best using CB and SW to help me. But I was too late they died. With the rest of the group shortly behind them. A couple more wipes and we downed him... Finally.
I dont like leaving groups there are some groups I do because we cant get something down after 4 hours of trying. But, that might be 3 keyboards later :P
We make it to the 2nd boss... I shoot up a star and say "Focus on the skull then burn down the unmarked" We do it and I was really surprised when I looked up recount and saw I was 2nd on damage. :x QQ x: The hunter in our group was well geared he could do what he was told. The rouge I kept BS up for was going 1350 dps on that boss and the mage was not much better at 1440. My jaw dropped no wonder it was taking so long. My shaman at level 70 is currently doing 1300 dps and these guys at level 80 are barely doing that. Oh well. I kept my mouth shut because I haven't had TOO much of a big deal about it. BUt I had specifically asked for a specific number and they havent been meeting it. It is frustrating.
We finally made it to the last boss and wiped on it for an hour before we finally killed him. I kinda felt bad for them it was mostly the dps but the healer was getting frustrated and started to do damage as well.. which well with me sitting at 30k hp unbuffed isnt that big of a deal but it makes it very frustrating for them and they miss key heals on me.
Overall my pug experience was bad and now I'm trying to avoid them like the plauge... Again! Thanks Vene (just kidding).
PS Yes my spelling isn't excellent but I dont type in the "leet speak" like lots of 12 year olds do.
Total Comments 7
Comments
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Yeahp... Pugging heroics can be hell some times. It used to be my good habit to pug the daily hero at least a couple of times a week. Lately I simply lack the time/dedication to make that happen. It did however teach me a lot in the way of reflexes and gave me loads of funny anecdotes to share. The erratic or unexpected behaviour can be a real wake up call sometimes.
AethelasPosted 01-28-2009 at 01:13 AM by Aethelas 
- Pugs can be tricky and a lot of them might be bad, but honestly, I've never had that much trouble with any heroic. I've had heroics where I finished #1 on dps with 1400 and while slow, we still got through it all.
I think half the reason to do pugs in my opinion is to learn how to handle horrible mistakes made by people, how to react. Honestly when I go in with a great group, the only challenge is keeping threat. With a bad group, its threat/using cooldowns/saving people via intervene/etc. A lot more challenging. You can't get better without testing yourself like this.
I don't blame you for avoiding pugs though, 3 hour heroics are scary.Posted 01-28-2009 at 10:10 AM by dadricvertanis - You know what I'd do if I were in your shoes?
I'd start all my PUGs with this line:
"Guys, I gotta go to work in 2 hours so we might not get this done if we don't focus."
Then whether or not the PUG is hellish, you quit it after 2 hours top.
Just a thought.Posted 01-28-2009 at 11:33 AM by Mayoche - The mighty universal solution : WOWARMORY the folks you want to PUG up with =) Im doing that for every challenging HC (like Old Kingdom or HoL) and it works soooooo good.
For VH or UK you can pug up with almost anyone tho.Posted 01-28-2009 at 12:06 PM by Lustmord - ... and (as a tank) i find PUGs very fun. You never know what's gonna happen. Im sure PUGs are sharpening the players' skills.
Posted 01-28-2009 at 12:09 PM by Lustmord - Its true! I learned alot in the pugs I used to run. This was the first one I had run in probably 2 or 3 months, all the others were guild runs.
I much prefer to finish the instance than to leave a group high and dry.Posted 01-28-2009 at 02:46 PM by PvtCaboose - As a tank, I find I have the advantage in pugging because I can specifically choose which instances I want to pug. I can pick and choose what I do with a pug group and 98% of the time I have a successful and clean run. Any pug that tries to convince me to do an instance I don't want to usually gets a flat out, but polite no.
Posted 01-28-2009 at 05:51 PM by VEEN
