PUGs - the good, the bad, the not so pretty

Well, this may have been posted before. I had both one of the best and one of the worst pugs (pick up groups) yesterday in the same of a couple hours. I was doing slavers and decided to pug it since there were a bunch of groups going. The first group I was in, all humans, none of whom knew each other, worked like a well oiled machine. Everyone did their job, the 1 tank held aggro, monks healed, the rest of us did our thing and I can't even remember if anybody at all died. I had to jump off for dinner and afterwards picked up another pug for another part of slavers.

This one was terrible. Half of the group was in the same alliance and had joined as a set to the group I'd joined. Then, to run there, they just stood at the portal in the beginning and made no attempt to run or help in any way. That should have clued us all in. Then they complained about how long it was taking to run there. Once in, they were terrible at their jobs. They complained when people called a target, were more interested in picking up drops and opening chests than fighting, and couldn't work as a team at all. We wiped several times. The icing on the cake was after we killed the boss (selvetarm) and several enemies spawned (crypt wraiths or something) these guys had the nerve to run in, get their chest drop, and leave. The rest of the group was overwhelmed with enemies and had no chance to even get close to the chest. It was unbelievable. That has to be without a doubt the worst pug I've ever been in.

anyway, what's everyone else's experience? I know every is down on pugs, but I've met some pretty cool people in the few times I've decided not to hero/hench things. I can't decide if I should pug for slavers anymore or just hero/hench the dungeon from now on.

Best PuG - Hell's Precipice
About 2 in the morning and there was only one group forming in town. I decided I'd join. They picked up another monk (I was the first) and I asked him to ping, I wanted to see what he was running. I thought it was one of the most disturbing healing builds I'd ever seen... Heal Party, Heal Other, Signet of Devotion, all these long-casting, high-energy spells. I made a prediction before we left that were weren't going to get very far at all... yet, surprisingly, we functioned very well. Ended up completing mission, bonus, as well as my capping of Eviscerate and Hundred Blades (yeah, I was running two cap sigs).

Worst PuG - Ring of Fire
As soon as we started fighting the opening Mursaat I knew something was wrong. The Necro in our party was constantly dying within 2 seconds of having anything cast on him, so obviously something was wrong. When I was healing him I remarked that it felt like he had 3 sup runes on and his armor wasn't infused. Turns out I was right. He did in fact have 3 sup runes, and he was in fact not infused. After I, by some stroke of luck, guessed exactly what was wrong with me, I'm assuming my teammates felt I was some sort of god and began pestering me with questions, requesting that I predict what they were wearing as well. It was fairly tedious, and aside from that (bad) mancer dying, we still finished, but it was an unpleasant group.

Best: A long time ago getting my first character through Prophecies. Joined a PUG that went from Wilderness to Sanctum Cay without any difficulties.

Worst: Many and varied, and I try my best to forget those negative moments. It's usually just one person that makes the PUG terrible, like the guy in ROF that kept running off to open chests, bringing every mob back with him.

I really enjoyed PUGs. I did 7 Protector's titles over two campaigns with them and had reasonably little trouble and a lot of fun. Several of those characters also did many of the quests for Factions in PUGs too, though a good number were quicker just running through them myself. Did almost every mission in PUGs over the first two campaigns (some with guildies) though and loved it.

I use past tense because since Nightfall, PUG quality has dropped precipitously, with most experienced players no longer joining PUGs at all. It just has gotten pretty bad in PUGs. You could always watch groups form a bit on channel before joining, watch them form before you hit Accept if you are invited etc. Always made your PUG experience a bit better than simply joining whatever. Still can do that, but nowadays I very rarely find any decent PUGs developing in towns. Most people simply want to do things their way and not bother with people, and heroes make that attitude pretty efficient. If that is good or bad depends on your outlook.

My opinion is if you can H/H things and enjoy it, or better yet, have a friend with heroes who is on regularly, go about things that way. It is faster and more efficient. No doubts about it. Takes a little time to form a PUG and longer to find a decent one, most especially now, if you even can.

Still, PUGs were my favorite. Too many good times to relate. Had so much fun. Two of my worst are even memorable:

THK. We go in and there is some immediate confusion as to when to attack and if to go around the backside or down the front. Spelled trouble right away, but I never bail out and the screw ups are as much fun as success really anyway lol. So, after many arrows on the map we get the group around the bend there before the bridge but, rather than go over the bridge, even though he was warned, one of the warriors went and aggroed the Avicara way off the path, over to the right. No big deal, they are no threat, but that was all it took for several of the group to lay into the guy. Arguments ensued and a number rage quit and that left me, an ele, a warrior and a ranger. We continued on until we died, had a good lol and went back.

Abaddon's Mouth. This is my favorite of all time. Amazing PUG group and its running well. We get Leah to where she has to go and while waiting on her we go to capture some mesmer skill I wanted. It was a useless skill really for a monk, so I was running 7 skills. Once Leah was set though, two people quit, followed by some moaning and complaining and one more quit - the other monk. The five of us decided we were going to finish anyway. The ele however had it in his head that he couldnt die. He had already somewhere along the way twice, but now with only me as a monk I was encouraging him not to mess around so much on the front line, but he dies a few times more over aggroing and then quit. Long story short, we finished anyway, but had to progress very, very slowly on the ether seals. We were a monk, a ranger, a necro and a warrior, but succeeded anyway.

I just havent got many stories with H/H. You know.. they just usually go as you predict, or you tweak and fix it. PUGs are where I get my fun usually or, even better, guild groups. Still, I must tip my hat to my friend with whom I did Legendary Guardian, ourselves and 6 heroes. Whole darn thing over a week and a half. One of the best players I have ever played with. Good times there, so, heroes can be fun too.

Ok since my original post was a quickie I will elaborate now that I have more time.

Best: My best pug experience happened to be the other day when I was on my survivor elementalist. Our leader had a great build and had 3 great hero builds. Our team was coordinated and worked well. Oh and btw this was at Tahnnakai Temple.

My worst pug experience was when I was doing Sunjiang District and I commented on this resto rits horrible build and suggested that he not use all weapon spells and that weapon spells didn't stack. But this resto rit wouldn't believe me and refused to heal me with his inferior build. But luckily for me the other monk was my friend and kept me alive.

@ Aera Lure.Likewise very and i liked Pugging on the Fire Islands the best more so than the desert.It is where players had to learn how to play well so much for the good ole days.I hope they make the missions in to one big quest after GW 2 comes out or ease up on them.

Yup. Fun stuff indeed. Heroes have their perks, but its a different game now. I still go to THK and RoF missions to PUG once and a while for no other reason than to try and recreate the good old times. You can, occasionally, but the current group of PUGgers usually wont so much as ping a build or agree on a path heh.

In the last PUG I was in we accidentaly aggroed 2 groups at once on the way to Ratt Sum. Only one person died, but he mapped out after insulting us.

A short time later we ran into a second case of bad luck and 3 more left. At this point none of those remaining had any dp but all decided to quit.

Not wanting to waste more time than I had to I took 3Heros/4Hench and was in Ratt Sum in no time.


I have had several good pugs, but they are becoming far and few inbetween.

I don't PUG very much. I usually don't have bad luck with them in PvE, however it just takes too long and I go slow enough as it is that I don't bother.

Best Pug Ive been in was during an Infusion Run. We were an odd group as we were a total of 7 Warriors (Whammo's) and I was the only Monk. Afterworlds we did THK as a team when THK was a hard mission and Monks were in short order. We stayed together since we were having fun and completed the fire island chain and thus beat Prophecies. Hard to believe 7 hard core Warrior players could tank just about anything and I was not even running a great monk build at the time. No one complained no one left everyone had fun, few deaths, even I the only monk had loads of fun. It proved to me that you don't always need a balanced party to have a great time. Furthermore PvE never needs a balanced party for a great experience.

What makes a great PUG is 80% attitude and 20% build.

On the opposite end....

The worst PUG I've been in was during a Fissure of Woe trip. I had brought my Pet and was running my own pet superiority build. The leader had a fit because I brought my Pet. I ignored him for the most part but after 1 hour of constant bickering about me bringing my pet I just sat back and watched them get killed over and over again. I then proceeded to clear a few groups on my own (away form the party) with just me and my Pet but for some reason that was good enough for them. I was still a noob in their eyes because I brought a stupid pet. Whereas I was soloing the same groups that killed them off, they still could not stop griefing me. That entire experience left a foul PUG taste in my mouth ever since.

What makes a bad PUG is 80% attitude 20% build.

Best PUG: Hell's Precipice, we worked out way through racking up DP as we went, reached (warrior boss, not going to spoil ending) and just barely managed to win, then nearly wiped at the final boss but incredibly we managed to res the team (which was in the middle of a huge group of enemies). Took a few hours but was an incredible feat of patience.

Best:
About 2 weeks ago, I accidentally had left my local chat on. I usually keep it off in out posts as to not have to read the mind numbing crap that people say. I was going in to do, the near empty, Vizunah Square COOP with heros and hench in hard mode. I read someone else saying they were sorry to a non level 20 that they where doing the mission in hard mode. So, against all of my best judgment, I whispered this person to see if they needed a minion master on either side. He replied back and said PLEASE JOIN OUR TEAM. I was like sure I ran over and they invited me they were 3 real people an assassin, An elementalist, and a ranger with heros. I thought," O NOES, WHAT HAVE I DONE". Then the assassin types into team chat that there are some real people on the other side, from his guild/alliance. We started the mission and Smoked it, AND I mean SMOKED IT. Then they asked if I was up for doing unwaking waters. Again we smoked the mission. The whole time, during both missions, chatting none the less. I started talking to them about an alliance and sure enough they wanted 1. We all talked for hours with my guild leader,they joined and now we are stronger than ever. 4 guild alliance with 25+ peps in each guild We also have become good friends.


Most Memorable:
I don't know if it was the worst but ill NEVER forget it. Before factions was released.I was in a FoW pug,When the Book trick still worked. We were a healer monk short and about to loose favor. The party leader was spamming glf healer to go, be rdy, invite self. A monk self invites, the leader pays and we spawn just in time to read that we no longer have favor. BTW I was playing a BIP necro with wells.
This monk was a M/R ok np, then we see he is holding a short bow and has a pet. The team was like what's the deal? HE said," follow me" and charged way into agro, shot his bow 1 time and dropped 1 nano second after his pet. We were like OMG what is wrong with you? His reply was why didn't you heal me, I'm a ranger? I was like you are the healer can't you read? Then very cleverly I whispered the tank and told him to stand on the corpse of the pet and our "ranger". War says lets try this goes in and stands right on the pet, I cast well of blood and start biping the rest of the team and it worked.We did do the whole forgemaster run in this fashion and the "ranger" was not very happy about it but we didn't care lol. I will never forget that monks name.....


Worst:
All the noob, leacher, leaver, sassy mouthed idiot players. In any "elite" area. Way to many to list just 1 occurance.

Some PuGs can be fun to play with and do what they need to do properly.

I was in a Slavers pug last night. It was horrible. Me and 2 guild members wanted to do Selvetarm, figured it might be faster joining a pug than taking heroes. We found a group of 5 who were doing it so we joined them.

They zoned out of the area before I even set my skills, the team chat basically went like this...

Me - Give me a sec to finish setting my skills since we only have one nec
Someone - everyone ready?
Me - one sec
Someone - yep
Someone - ya
Someone - ready
Me - wait
Someone - go
**PARTY ZONED**

Two monks in teh group, one was my guildie, the other was leader of the party, we'll call him "Shepard Book". Not only was he spamming LoD and Heal Party but he kept using that Vanguard summon Assassin skill which would, as a result made it a bit difficult to keep aggro on the tank.

And I remember the 2nd party member and ele, we'll call him, "Yell Hon Blanket", he must have thought that he had to stand behind the tank to not get hit because he was dying every 30 seconds and wasy almost right beside or right behind the tank when he died. This made it almost impossible to keep aggro on the tank at any time.

Needless to say, when we finally killed the boss the 3 of us ran in, grabbed our loot and zoned out as soon as possible. Considering how bad the group was doing with people dying left right and center, aggro'ing while res'ing, they shoudl have done the same thing as we did.

We left and went back into kill Duncan with heroes, not one death.

PUGs are horrible unless you know them in some way.

i was in a pug doing slavers last night and the exact same thing happened to me whilst doing Selvetarm. the monk who was the leader didnt seem to like healing and the ele's seemed more concerned killing spirits than the enemies around em, it was horrible. the group was wiping all the time due to aggro from 1 of the eles, so when i saw that chest spawn and the group dieing i did the same as you and ran for that chest as quickly as possible to not have to spend another second with that group

Probably back in proph days, a friend and I (both monking) started a FoW PuG and I pretty much just invited randomly, even taking a mesmer and a ranger, the fow/uw outcasts at the time. We lost one person early, but went on to clear out everything we attempted, including that flaming forest which most pugs avoided at the time. Anyway, everyone played well and it turned out to be a very enjoyable experience. It felt even better that our group of outcasts outperformed all of the traditional pugs I'd previously been with.

Worst PuG... well I can't even remember. I've done very little pve pugging since, especially since the introduction of heroes. Pretty much everything is doable with heroes, and I figure if it's one of the rare things which are too hard for heroes, finding a pug that competent would be asking a lot.

Best pug: Back at the beginning of Factions, on my assassin. Got a blind invite to a group in Nahpui Quarter, that already had 4 assassins, a rit and 2 healer henchies. Mission complete (with no deaths!) in 26 minutes.

Worst pug: Too many to list. I keep telling myself during handbook grinding that I should go with people because more PvE skills can make it easier, but every time I do, it makes the quest last three times longer/it doesn't get done period.

oh yeah I remember that. I don't know who zoned us but was it you or your guildie that called everyone f**ktards? I'm not going to get into a flaming fest with you guys. I can't remember anyone else in the pug but I won't get in one with you guys again. I think I only died twice, during the wipes that we had, whereas the tank couldn't hold aggro (not sure why the monk brought that summon assassin skill, I'm sure that didn't help) but yeah the tank died too much regardless.

Yeah... nice team effort. Oh, and got in a totally different pug for duncan and did it in just over a half hour. No wipes.

Edit - you were the necro I remember now, I just can't remember your name. sorry.

Yep that was us. And I as well am not looking to get into a flame fest either.

The point of my post, and the bost below it who was the Tank, was that sometimes the worst person in a pug can be the person who might think they are the best.

Now, I'm not saying you're the worst and I'm not saying you're the best. I'm just saying there was a lot of problems in that group due to lack of or no communication between anyone. Me and my two guildies were on vent, we were going to invite you all to join us but when everyone failed to read my asking to wait for a few more seconds to setup my build, we figured it would take 10 mins to get everone on vent, so we didn't bother.

Who was the worst in that group? Don't know but we had 5 main problems.

1 - Lack of communication
2 - The Monk barely healing, and using that stupid assassin summon skill which pulled aggro from tank
3 - We lost a person when we zoned back into Grotto, so a guildie put in Livia (Hero), the Monk kept calling targets and livia would run in dispite us asking people NOT to call targets.
4 - The #2 on the party list an ele kept running in to cast and was aggroing and pulling the enemy to us
5 - The eles wasting there energy nuking spirits

I've had some groups, in pve and pvp, where I'm tired or lagging or just not paying attention and I've caused hte group to wipe. It's happened to almost everyone at some time.

Almost every pug will fail. Sometimes you don't have to look far to find the source of the problem, or part of it.

As for my name, I don't put it on forums and what not. It's not that I go around flaming or causing shit. I just expect people to respect my privacy, as I do others. Which is why I didn't post the monks name.

And while I'm mention it, I do have a screenshot of the match which I just looked at, and I'm goign to edit my above post because you were NOT #2 on the party list, you were number #3. So you were NOT a problem, only thing I remember you doing was aoe'ing spirits, which was nothign compared to the monk and other ele.

My best PUG experience:

Doing THK with my Mesmer (I believe it was after the "book trick" fix). The party leader had everyone stop once we got all but the boss cleared from the keep - and everyone DID! Then PL directed one person to light each beacon, and then man the catapults and everyone else to camp the king once we got the boss dead. (We killed the first group of Giants on the west side first, of course) And when the boss died, and the cut scene played out, Everyone did exactly what they were told to do! We rocked that mission & bonus, TYVM! One guy invited me into his guild by saying "I don't know what you were doing, but I've never seen anyone spinning around casting spells as much as you were! Wanna join my guild?"

Worst PUG: Only one comes to mind right now, since I haven't PUG'd in a while - A friend asked my and another guildie to help their guildie with Dzagonur Bastion - No problem! glad to do it! My friend's Guildie decided try using her Assassin as a MM! The other pick-ups weren't any better, wouldn't listen, crappy builds, un-coordinated mess.

Best group was without doubt, the eight man team that got thrown together in War Camp for the Final Assault quest, finished it without wiping, it was one of the few times where every one gelled, i think five of that original team are still on my friends list and since then we have worked together a lot, especially helping each other get fissure armour etc.

The worst however, well there are several , but funnily enough i had to pug in Abbadons Mouth and this team took some beating for clusterf*ck of the year. The monk was ok he had some sense about him, the other ranger was ok , but the Wammo had on three healing skills plus sever artery, gash, and something like standing slash, and no elite. We picked up a smiting monk along the way despite fantic calls for him to change his build he wouldnt, and the elementist had to be seen to be beleived, he was an ele /warrior, with i think flare . firestorm, a few other fire skills, plus glads defence and bonettis defence.
So we set out and to be fair we didnt wipe immediatley, but after the wammo and the ele/w ran straight in and aggroed the biggest pod of dryders ever we went down ...quickly... my last vision of this ill fated group was the ele running around like a loony equipped with a fiery dragon sword screaming for the "noob monk to heal ffs"......
It was at this point the tears of laughter affected my vision completely, so i resigned and decided that perhaps heroes were not so bad after all.
That said though it did bring back memories from when you had to pug to get thorught the game and i had some great tiimes even with the pug teams from hell......