I hate pugs. (Hardly related to MB)

[HPB]

So yesterday I did something that I almost never do. I responded to a message in trade channel about a group 'looking for more'. I was bored, the guild was unusually quiet (busy crafting), and I had been impatient to get into Naxx. While the tons of heroics we'd been running and our successful VoA and Obsidian runs were nice, I was itching to try out Naxx.

My hunter is very well geared and would have no problem in there. My priest is a little light on gear (a few epics, but lots of blues). I had experienced the burn out of a year and a half healing in Kara, Mags, Gruuls and ZA for the guild. Being sick of healing, I had intentionally not geared her up much.

Anyhow, the group was looking for a healer. I had been reading up on Naxx and was bored, so I volunteered. I get an invite to the group, fly down there to help summon and recieve their vent info. To my horror and shock, the only thing they wanted to talk about on vent was how crappy my gear was and talked about my character as if I wasn't even on vent. It was frustrating, since I am a capable healer. My gear is so-so, but I've healed some heroics quite nicely. Since this Naxx group was supposidly so over geared, it shouldn't have been a huge issue. After listening to them go on and on like a bunch of elitist jerks for more than 5 minutes, I ended up just dropping group.

I realized that all of the abuse my poor priest had taken from pugs in Burning Crusades is the main reason that I started to MB in the first place. I'm glad to be in a guild of great people who work well together and treat each other decently. In the future, when I'm bored I should go do some more Multi-boxing (and be more patient about Naxx).

/end pointless whining.

[Clone]

The thing is that epics are so easy to get now that every retard who can push the forward arrow on his keyboard is in full naxx gear. Id be much happier if naxx had been blue gear and maybe have epics just from KT. Not defending their actions though, they are probably the retards im talking about. There are some horrible people in wow, I avoid pugs for the same reason.

[Dominian]

Last time i pugged was in nax 10 at patchwerk were i showed up in my pvp gear and got laughed off.. But apperently since it was very hard to find people on a late tuesday they had no choice.

In the end i was 200 dps over the second who was a mage in full heroic gear, not a big suprised that he enraged wtih 400k hp left. So i told them my feelings on theyr skills and left the group! :P

[HPB]

You are right about gear not being a valid way to measure someone's dps output. Several times we've been a dps short on a heroic and "pugged in" the last spot. I've seen some horridly skilled folks out there. Mages and rogues in full epics putting out only 500 dps. We usually get to just before the first boss and post the meters. "Sorry, bud your dps is just not sufficient. We're dropping you before you're saved." We've had some dpsers swear they can put out more, but it's not worth dragging someone through and letting them take gear and money for nothing in return. Many times we just ended up finishing up as a 4man team (or taking a completely undergeared guildee alt who can put out 800dps, so at least they get gear instead of some stranger who is an idiot and doesn't understand his character's class).

My big issue about the naxx run for my healer was that they wouldn't even let me go and prove myself on trash. I didn't even care if I got saved and they decided to remove me after a boss or two. Gear isn't everything. I've done so much healing on my priest and think I'm more than capable.

[Starbuck_Jones]

Reasons I multibox.

1. Not having to rely on other people to advance.
2. Wasting my time waiting for other people to get ready.
3. That's an upgrade for me, not a hand out to your twink/alt.

4. Helping others.

[valkry]

Reasons I multibox.

1. Not having to rely on other people to advance.
2. Wasting my time waiting for other people to get ready.
3. That's an upgrade for me, not a hand out to your twink/alt.

4. Helping others.
Those first two, right there!!

[Gadzooks]

Reasons I multibox.

1. Not having to rely on other people to advance.
2. Wasting my time waiting for other people to get ready.
3. That's an upgrade for me, not a hand out to your twink/alt.

4. Helping others.
Those first two, right there!!Yeah, that's my list, too.

The ONE thing I miss from the original game, was, back then pugging was'nt nearly as painful - yes, there were jerks and poor players, but the good players outnumbered the bad.

Now? The bad players outnumber the good - and they back each other up.

I simply refuse to jump through the hoops these asshats require - it's one thing for Heroics, but I had someone gear check me for Utgarde KEEP. The easiest dungeon in the freaking game, in normal mode.

*boggle*

So, I've been experimenting all weekend, I glyphed and gemmed up my team, and I hit it as a 3-man (Boomkin, mage, lock). I can clear to the first boss with no deaths, and I got the prince down to 10%- I can take him, with a little more work and effort. The twin bosses...not so sure, but what the hell.

I tried the Nexus, and those whelp packs kill my druid too fast, but AOE works...somewhat. I wiped on the 3rd pack. I need to work out my AOE tactics some more.

What the hell - I'll just wear the tabards of the rep I need, and just grind those two instances until I get the rep for better gear. It's going to take a while, yes, but that's one thing I have - time.

And I'm not pugging.

[Yamio]

PUG's.

You know what the results were going to be before you got into that pug. So rarely are they good that most of us simply stay away from them in the first place.

[puppychow]

I have absolutely opposite experience -- this week I cleared naxx25 in a pug on my paladin (prot) and my resto shaman each under 3 hours, 2-shotted malygos25 on my ele shaman and 1-shotted malygos10 on my resto and other ele shaman. On my mage I we ALMOST had undying achievement in a naxx10 pug, 1 person died on KelThuzad and blew it for us, before that we didn't have a single death on any boss!

So imo its really just about doing homework. I'm pretty well geared on all my chars via multiboxing heroics, I did all that first before I even started pugging naxx. When I join a naxx pug, I do a quick gear/achieve check of people. If any of the tanks or healers have never done naxx, I'm out. If any of the DPSers are in greens, I'm out. If anyone is in mostly blues, I'm out. Yes, measuring gear isn't fair but they have at least the potential to be great -- I immediately start bitching if someone is not pulling their weight on bosses, I'm there to have a quick run and be out, not make new friends. You also learn which raid leaders are very strict and run ship-shape no-nonsense pugs, and I add them to my friends list with notes, and immediately join if I ever see them advertise. Conversely, I have a list of horrible raid leaders who have no clue what they are doing or ninja stuff.

Also lucky that I'm on a server that has pugged 3 drakes, has around 20 guilds that have the hardest titles done, has probably 4-6 naxx25 pugs a night (over 20 naxx10). I've rarely multiboxed any raids with my guys, since I just find it a lot easier to play with one person and have another character out farming herbs or ore or whatever during downtimes. I also got all 5 of my guys to exalted with Sons of Hodir, by simply farming everfrost shards while raiding :)

[HPB]

That's an interesting point. I've had several very nice and uneventful 25man pugs over the last couple of weeks. Obsidian Sanctum and VoA runs seem to go well on 25man mode even while pugging. Maybe I just need to avoid the 10-man variety.

[Ken]

I stopped 5-boxing a month or 2 ago. When I was pugging with my discipline priest, I never had any trouble to heal in heroics with 1300 spellpower. You only need more spellpower when 2 or more people in the PUG are retarded like: "ZOMG I have 3k attack power, look at me pulling aggro" or "Oh! shiny puddle on the floor, let's stand in it!" or "I know I wear cloth, but I bet I can pull those 4 elite mobs!"
DPS can be undergeared, but tanks cannot. Tanks come up with the strangest reasons to why they are able to run a heroic or OT in a raid with only 510 defense. Luckily I have a protection warrior, so I can easily refute them.
Also, people often lie about their specs. Unlucky for them, I always check their gear before inviting them to the group.

[5fingersofdoom]

The whole reason I boxed was PUG's,childish bickering over who got what and endless waiting around and and bad mannered,greedy players did it for me.
The OP points are true for 80% of my PUG experiences.

[Catamer]

I've done a few PUGs for OS and Vault.

I've only had one really bad 25x OS where we couldn't get a good tank that could hold aggro and it all dropped out leaving me tied to a failed instance.
I seem to have a better time of it when my friends are running the PUGs ( not so much a true PUG I guess )

I got tied to a failed 10x Naxx from my guild so I guess it happens there too.

I almost never PUG a 5x heroic... it's not worth it.

[elsegundo]

if i were to pug, i'd check the characters to see if they're from the same guild. usually, this helps out a lot as many guilds have great players and only need maybe one or two folks to fill in the gaps. however, if there was abuse like what you were getting, i'd drop group and work on something else. there's nothing you can do about idiots who measure your value based on your gear besides let them be.

what baffles me is that they'd be making fun of the healer... i mean even undergeared healing is much much better than no healing at all. which is also what i said to my other pug last night who wanted help with an outland instance. i got on my feral druid (80) and told them that hey, if they want heals, i can heal. but if they dont want me, good luck waiting another hour to find a healer (i was helping out a friend in the group). i ended up going and got annoyed at them (all DKs, would you believe it?). instead of dropping group like i could have, i told them to let me tank, w/o healing. we breezed through that no problem. i think it was sethikk halls. one guy kept dying, people got their gear, etc. but it was still rediculous to me how if somoene who can heal was willing to heal, why would they even ask for qualifications? some healing is better than no healing at all.

[Tonuss]

I've played WoW since... December 2004, I think. The total number of times I have been in a PuG is... two? Maybe three times.

I started playing WoW when my friends did, and we grew our own guild made up of RL friends and family and people we'd get to know in-game, and their friends and family, etc. I don't like PuGs, for me the fun of MMORPGs is from playing with a group of people I know and just having a good time no matter how things go. No worries about loot, no worries about who screwed up, just playing and having fun. My friends moved on to WAR and I don't play it, and so multiboxing is the only thing keeping me in WoW, in part because it's fun, in part because I don't have to worry about PuGs.

Some PuGs are awesome, but so many of them have one or two (or more) people who are just asshats. So I don't bother, and I don't miss it.

[Rin]

In my experience, PuG Raids (esp. OS and VoA) seem to be OK (no major issues).
PuG Groups = :cursing:

Cheers