My first LFD Pug :)

Hi all,
so last night I decided to do a PuG with my tank. I have not tanked with a normal group since BC and so this was a new experience :) . I selected PoS because I wanted the trinket from ICK and the sword from the last boss. I zoned in to find that a lot of the group was low to mid 4k GS and only an affliction lock was in the higher 4k GS bracket. Off we went and with 2 wipes in the run we cleared the whole instance (did not farm the hilts cause I wanted a fast run).
Observations on the run was that even though we got the bosses down, it took quite a while compared to my team. Also I got to experience how a human group dealt with ick and his mines which due to people running in all directions actually is a little more perilous with mines thrown out all over the area.
All in all it was actually a fun experience, after the first wipe the group commented that it was weird that people did not bounce out as it seems they have seen that quite a bit,
I got my trinket but still need my sword :D , Much less stressfull than multiboxing although I kept wanting to heal myself due to the priest in the group being the worst geared and so had me nervous more than once in the run lol.

Yeah i've pugging to gear up my healer and it's interesting. I'm not well geared, but can keep up on all but the newest 5-mans. For the most part groups are fine. I will occasionally get the jerk dpser that complains about my healing. From now, whenever someone says "wtb heals" I'm responding with "How much are you willing to pay?" Then open the trade window with them.

Well my healer in my MB group is one of the best geared in the group and so my tank is spoiled lol BUT I think my tank having decent gear helps lower specced healers due to not taking a ton of damage and allowing the healer to breath :)

I have been pugging with all my solo toons and I am just doing it to gear them up so I can go raiding with them. I am currently working on gearing up my tank with the kind assistance of Powerwar.

That being said, I dont pug with my pally healer these days... not worth the effort and the hassle.

I did something I never though I would do this weekend. I did some random PUGs with my tank to get better gear. I have tanked maybe one instance with human players, the rest with my own team.

I did a total of around 20+ instances this weekend with PUG's and only once did I meet a guy which annoyed me - ofcause playing DK. People was very fond of my tanking, and for me it was alot less stress than when I do the instances myself. Its SO easy to do the normal 5mans with PUG groups....

After gearing up my tank a bit, and getting the items I wanted, I did some PUGS with my healer as well... I had to put a lot of attention to many of the instances since the Tanks gear sucked so bad.... which in turn meant I had to really put some effort into the healing.

I wanted to try out a PUG with my DPS but a que of 21 mins had me ditching that idear. I learned alot from the PUGs over the weekend, and it is a nice way of gearing my tank fast, and learning the instances.

It was also the first time I began to notish the huge different in the groups I got. Some groups was imba with people doing 2000+ dps at lvl 76-77 and in one group my tank was actually the highest in dps with 1300 (omg?).

But I also had the occational dropout of one of the members and even ran into the following comments:

"Just a sec I have to take a shit" - wtf dude wait 5 min until we are done.
"I have to get my son out of the shower" - Hmm maybe you should consider doing this prior to signing up with a group.....

I'm definitely going to play one of my DPS boomkins in some PUGS to learn the class even better. Just playing my tank in a pug was really educational.

Ive been puging with my tank quite a bit. I can finish instances in a fraction of the time with a pug than I can by myself. Not sure why either as my 4x shaman all have 4x T9. and the 245 badge items etc. Even scrub groups with dps below 3k gear score ive finished AN and PoS before the 15min cool down timer is up. Even got the runing from the litch king achivements with a bunch of scrubs who were convinced they would fail the zone.

I pugged a lot on my paladin tank. It has been really good.

I don't judge people on their gear score, I don't even have the addon. As long as they do at least 3k dps, I'm happy. I have seen people doing less than 1500 dps, and it makes no sense how they manage to do that.

Usually every run I get at least one dps doing 900-1300 dps, and the other 2 around 3000. I very rarely get 3 competent dps. I have had no problems with healers.

I think Blizzard purposely puts mixed (DPS/gear) together or you would have some complete fail groups. Also, the better players can usually carry a lower player. Don't worry about the group, focus on on the mobs is my motto.

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Originally Posted by d0z3rr

I pugged a lot on my paladin tank. It has been really good.

I don't judge people on their gear score, I don't even have the addon. As long as they do at least 3k dps, I'm happy. I have seen people doing less than 1500 dps, and it makes no sense how they manage to do that.

Usually every run I get at least one dps doing 900-1300 dps, and the other 2 around 3000. I very rarely get 3 competent dps. I have had no problems with healers.

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A fresh to 80 with only Blues and greens will usually put out that kind of DPS (Some classes better then others) I have seen as low as 800 DPS which is just sad. But if people are pulling 1500 Im pretty ok with it (Of course if all the DPS are pulling it its a bit frustrating)

I look at GS to understand if someone is actually paying attention. If someone has a GS of ~2k and is pulling in 1800DPS I actually feel like they are new to 80 but working their tail off. I had some huntard that was doing a remarkable 600dps (with Pet added in...) and they had a GS of 4500. That person is just looking to get pulled through the instance. I am going to votekick them every time.

So get GS, it helps you understand a player's limits. And judge them on it - if they have a GS of 3000 and are doing 3k DPS ... ask them their secrets!

I have never kicked a player for a low gearscore. One thing I think Bliz got right - if you have the gear to get into the instance, you have the ability to clear it if you're a decent player. That doesn't mean 0 wipes, but who cares? I'm playing this game to have fun.


In the end, the new LFD actually revived my interest in MBoxing, because if there was content I couldn't work through I could PuG it to see how it worked a few times. Really helped me to improve my game. Heck, just learning to not try to CC helped a ton. Can't believe how many wipes I wasted on trying to resheep something - AoE FTW!

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Originally Posted by Ghallo

I look at GS to understand if someone is actually paying attention. If someone has a GS of ~2k and is pulling in 1800DPS I actually feel like they are new to 80 but working their tail off. I had some huntard that was doing a remarkable 600dps (with Pet added in...) and they had a GS of 4500. That person is just looking to get pulled through the instance. I am going to votekick them every time.

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Umm WTF were they doing? I would have thought autoshot+pet would pull more DPS then that. The only thing I could think of would be really low weapon skill if they had just switched bows/guns.

But yeah I agree votekick someone for doing that low DPS with that gearscore.

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Originally Posted by Gormand

Umm WTF were they doing? I would have thought autoshot+pet would pull more DPS then that. The only thing I could think of would be really low weapon skill if they had just switched bows/guns.

But yeah I agree votekick someone for doing that low DPS with that gearscore.

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Sounds like they have concentrated on a single type of ranged weapon and just had something really sexy drop for them.

If had been them, I would have brought up a bunch of white ammo, wandered out into an area where things cant really hurt you, put pet on passive and kite stuff around while you level up the skill until at least 300... by then you should be doing reasonable damage by then.

Ia m using the LFD tool as well to level my new shammi. As Elemental spec I had to wait loong time to find a group, so I dual specced to Restoration and I have a space within 20sec to 1 min :)

Some times the group sucks, like a DK who has never heared of tanking and getting aggro on multiple targets ... *sigh* or has such a low defence rating that I run oom very fast :(...

I also had once a super fast group (while elemental) and we decided to queue for a couple of more instances, which was fab.

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Originally Posted by Bloodcloud

Ia m using the LFD tool as well to level my new shammi. As Elemental spec I had to wait loong time to find a group, so I dual specced to Restoration and I have a space within 20sec to 1 min :)

Some times the group sucks, like a DK who has never heared of tanking and getting aggro on multiple targets ... *sigh* or has such a low defence rating that I run oom very fast :(...

I also had once a super fast group (while elemental) and we decided to queue for a couple of more instances, which was fab.

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If the group I am in is good, then I will always ask if they are interesting in going on with some more randoms... usually they are :D

I have been farming PoS over the weekend to get my tanking sword, still no drop but it has been so much faster running PuGs than running my full team. Half decent geared groups can clear PoS :) , last boss yesterday we had to 4 man due to one of the grp being one shotted at the very start of the fight, all it meant was that it took longer lol.
All in all though, PuGs are a great way to fill gear gaps and run dungeons to get familiar with them and work out strategies :)